American Southwest Day 2

Still

I woke up at 4:30, long before my alarm was set to go off. Unlike previous trips, I didn't have to wake up and go find something to shoot or figure out composition or worry about camera set up, so I didn't set my alarm as early as usual. It would take me about 15 minutes to get to my location, I knew exactly where my tripod would be set up, I knew my aperture, I knew my focal length. The only variable I had left was shutter speed. No I only had to count on mother nature to provide the weather I was counting on. The shot would still be good if it was windy or if there was clouds, but I had something in mind....

I find myself drawn to certain images lately, and have a desire to emulate, but differentiate, from my current inspiration, Michael Kenna. He works with a Hasselblad (square format) using monochrome film and long exposures for a lot of his work. I find, however, that I am not yet good enough for monochrome. It is hard to pre visualize luminosity and I'm not there yet. But I can see color and the other aspect of his photography I can work with. A short description might be "simple and strong". There are a lot of "me-too" photos using very long exposure times and digital monochrome conversions, but almost all of them fall far short of Kenna's work. I think it is because the don't take the time in the darkroom that Kenna does. Of course, Kenna is working in a real darkroom and most others are working in a digital darkroom, but the effects could be duplicated. Like other great landscape photographers, Kenna's work has only just begun when he clicks the shutter. The images Kenna displays on line are reproductions of his prints, not his negatives. That means what we see is the culmination of a 3 part process, shooting with the camera, developing the negative, and printing on paper. That is why, for now, I am going to concentrate on shooting color. It takes away most of the thinking other than shooting. Of course I will shoot B&W and share the results, but I don't really expect anything good until after a lot more learning.

I got to the shore about an hour early, and it was cold. It was also dead calm and the stars were very bright, even though a full moon was hanging low on the horizon. Whoops, that wasn't there the night before. I started to doubt my picture choice. Would the moon be in my composition? If it was, that might be good, but I was going for wide angle so it would be small in my planned shot. It also might be a distraction with my planned simple composition. If it wasn't in, should I change my shot to get it? 

I set up my camera and looked through the view finder. The moon wasn't in the shot, and I was pretty confident it wouldn't be in a hour so I decided to stick with the shot I had planned. Then I waited. Waited and froze. As the sky lightened, a small breeze came up with the approaching dawn. I was a little apprehensive as the sun just kissed the mountains to the west, this is the shot I had planned, but with the breeze, I wash't getting the reflection off the water I was looking for, so I waited. About 2-3 minutes later, the wind completely disappeared and I had my shot. I didn't see the result for about 3 weeks, but when I looked at the slides on the light table, I knew I had got the shot I was hoping for.

Still

 Nikon F100 28mm AI-S lens. Fuji Velvia 100. 1/4 second at f/8