Photographer's Equinox, 2011.

Photographer's Equinox today: tap water at 68 degrees out of the cold side. Time to get in the lab. Just for the hell of it I put a pretty good print up on ebay at a dirt cheap price.

Photographers Equinox.

Been taking the late class out to look at the late light every afternoon. The moon has been cranking over and seems like the light is very dramatic. Just checked the cold side of the tap water at the lab: 82 degrees. When it gets under 80F I can print. That will be fun!

Today was the first day that has had any kind of interesting clouds in the sky. Overcast all day with a front rolling up. Rain turned the dog and I around on a trip to the lake to check deercams but it hasn't shown up in town yet. Usually this time of year is marked by great foliage displays. Not going to be one of those years.

Weather and Temperature Changes.

Every season is different but seems like the light and the temperature have really taken a turn for the better the last month. The Photographers Equinox- when tap water runs 68 degrees, must be getting close.

Ordered a big old view camera box. Hard sided. Of Ebay today for next to nothing. Even cashed in some Ebay bucks to make it cheaper. I'm using a box older than I am for my 5X7 Deardorff now. This one older than that. Probably use it for 8X10 lenses and film holders.

Spent three days shooting the Texas State Rifle Association Service rifle Championship with digital and video....and an AR15. (Came out second by three points in an 800 point match with 100+ competitors). OK shooting. Now much work to be done on digital files.

Running deercams more frequently as the season gets closer. Those images over at Blackfork.

Film using spy satelite from the cold war.

Quite a story. No idea how they got the images down but the thing evidently used film. Might have been jettisoning packets that were then recovered. For a long time the Air Force had a system of snatching parachuting items out of the air.

Now everything is digital. Much easier to get data back.

Doesn't happen every day.

And shouldn't!

Tap Water 99 degrees.

Out of the COLD side. Having to use every old indian trick in the book, like using the hot water side but leaving the water heater off, (so you have a tank of 76 degree water), frozen ice gallons in milk cartons, et.
Be happy when the air conditioners fall silent in October.

Three photos.

What is the subject of this photo? John's smile. Notice how it sits on an X drawn from corner to corner. The photographer saw something and lazered in on it but disregarded everything else. John is chopped at the elbows, (framing), the background is floating, the viewpoint useless, only the lighting and the moment called forth are helping the image.

What's the subject of this photo? The trees across the street have as much importance as the men at the table though they are in the background. Cropping closer would help a mediocre image. It almost begins to work with the foreground/middle ground/background set-up.

All background, no subject. What was it the photographer thought he saw that made him reach for his camera?

Three visually illiterate photos. Sent by a friend who shot them on the Camp Perry trip. I'll come back and talk about why these photos don't work after a bit.

Go straight to Blurb and buy my book: The Blackfork Guide. It will steer you out of all the above problems.

Photography is like anything else- fixable and subject to education!

Lake Erie and the National Matches.

Since we were driving I included my 5X7. Just got it out three times, Once a a huge wreck of a barn full of barn swallows and Poison Ivy, once for a white arc of a barn where there was no photo, (due to uninteresting light), and once for a miraculous piece of last-gasp sunlight on a Big Cottonwood alongside Lake Erie.

My real job at the National Matches was to shoot for the Texas Team. Just had a couple of afternoons off. Great to have my 5X7 along, but very different experience. In the meantime I burned about 1000 files on the Nikon, all of rifle team stuff.

Made the President's 100 (21st out of 1900 shooters), and won the National Vintage Rifle Trophy.

Nice barn but the light was just illumination.

Just like the 60s: Hard to get high enough.

Great light and background for a nice Cottonwood on the bluff over the beach near Marblehead. Katie's image making is getting much better.

Thinning the brush at Yosemite.

A VERY good idea. The indians used to burn the whole valley floor off every few years. You can hardly see a thing as the valley floor has sealed up with trees just in my life time. Get out the saws!

Flattening and spotting prints.

Delivering the Greenbriar Lake portfolio today. All 20X24s. I forget how large that is for some folks. 20X24 is a small piece of art but a large photograph. (I've got a roomy sink and plenty of big trays.) Takes several bites of my dry mount press and then some spotting. Not much dust but there are always some trees to paint shut and little white leaves to make disappear. Painting trees shut means making treelines and tops appear even and smooth by taking out the white spots where the sky shows through. Then I look for any white spot that catches my eye. By the time you get finished the whole thing looks even and settles down quite a bit.

The Blackfork Guide. Six things that happen in your photograph whether you want them to or not.

The Blackfork ...

Six things that hap...

By Robert Langham III

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