No Kings Day

It was a cloudy day in Philadelphia……deemed perfect for outside BW photography; well….at least the way I shoot. But really, no color needed although contrast would be nice. But I would sooner take a cloudy day over a sunny one and today, June 14th in Philadelphia proved to suit my needs. Misty….cloudy…..no wind.

The streets were not in that glistening mood though. A touch of mist doesn’t get you the reflective quality of a true ‘all and out’ rain. But I’ll take it as out the door I went with my Olympus OM2sp and 400 Fomapan. I had 8 rolls with me, plus the one in the camera. I also went in with one lens; my 55mm Zuiko. If you come in with ‘one only’ option, your eyes are trained for one focal perspective. I never get the people who use zooms as mentally, they are all over the place and in my thinking, taken as a complete body of work, their photographs miss a unity….a smoothness. One can’t always place their finger on this artistic flair, but something just misses with multiple focal points.

My selective approach for taking shots means ‘less shots’…..more keepers. I also knew I didn’t want the kind of shots that almost everyone else is looking for. While I did take shots of the crowd; for I feel they are needed to capture the ‘complete unfolding of events’…..I strived for more. I wanted a personal touch. I wanted the feeling of humanity as opposed to masses of humanity.

Take a look at this shot for instance. You can feel his tiredness by looking at his face….his aching feet, as he spent an entire day holding and walking with his sign.

Or this image below…..again capture with 400 film. I love the emotion of the lady holding up the flag in the middle. Feel it…..sense it. Look over the older lady beside here and see how she is just trudging along….her voice taking a momentarily reprieve.

This shot below also is emotional but in another sense. An older chap….eyes looking over the flag as it drapes in front of him. Lost democracy…lost hope. Lost America. Then the photograph below that shows a blur but a ‘nice blue’ as the overall read of the crowd is one of passion.

And at times…you just need no face…no emotion…but the image still oozes it.

I’ll end this blog with a couple…One is just of the front of the protest with 80,000—100,000 strong following behind. While the other, might just state what many of us are thinking privately to ourselves. The first, and last of a photo series.

Redirection

The other day I went out with my Olympus OM2sp + 50mm F1.4 Zuiko and Fomapan 400….but prior to leaving I ‘redirected’ a few things. It helps to think, experiment….try things out and see what comes of it.

The first thing I did was to adjust how I might shoot….I purposely over-exposed by a few stops as I shot BW film. I did this to make sure that I didn’t lose the shadows and sometimes I feel my shadows get a bit lost, as in ‘faces’ etc…. Although I ‘spot meter’….and expose for a particular area, as opposed to center metering or having the entire image metered; by hitting my light exposure in the middle….just wasn’t what I wanted here.

The middle exposure setting is just that; the middle….and all told, and in theory it works…..and I could always lighten up in software after the fact; it was something I didn’t want to do. I wanted to get exposure ‘right’ the first time around. Thus, I overexposed on purpose but certainly not ‘blown out’.

The second thing I did was on the opposite end. The image was already taken and now I am in the dark room developing my film. My plan was to expose in the developer an extra 30%….so my regular 12 minutes with Fomapan turned into 15-16 minutes in the tank.

You see…the first half of development, or even the first 5 minutes is for the shadows and the second part is for the highlights. By keeping my negatives in the tank an extra 30%, my highlights will be that much whiter.

Then….when I get into my scanning process, I can expose with additional contrast; bringing in the shadows to make them deep where I want to,….OR…..I can just scan regularly and while in some software I can lasso different aspects and layer in additional contrast where I want. Either way, I think it worked. See the image below….. thoughts? Some might think I am ‘overexposed’ in the face…but. to me, this was the look I was going for. Highlighted and not dark and certainly not perfect.