A few more for my Silos series...

[Nathan Everett]

I'm slowly adding a few more images to my silos series from the Lockhart Shire in the NSW Riverina...


Milbrulong
Tmax 100 on Shen Hao 4x5 with Caltar II-N 75/4.5 and red + linear polarising filters


Lockhart
Tmax 100 on Shen Hao 4x5 with Nikkor 135/5.6


Arajoel
Tmax 100 on Shen Hao 4x5 with Caltar II-N 75/4.5 and red + linear polarising filters

It truly is a beautiful part of the world!

[Maris]

That's grand architecture made grander by the flat landscape and dramatised by a bold filter selection. The combination of a red filter and a polariser can lead to density wedging in a very dark sky but here it's done perfectly. Perfectly!

[Nathan Everett]

For me the filter combination is really important in this series; without the drama the silos just seem to lose their impact and monument feel within the landscape. I guess they've always fascinated me, and I find them slightly ironic in that they are such an integral part of the landscape, yet at the same time appear completely alien within it. How better to emphasis all of this than by exaggerating their shape and massiveness?!?

[RoganJosh]

Love the first one especially, Nathan. I've never considered the red + pol. combo, probably not so good on windy days I'm assuming.

[alex gard]

Wow. Not much else I can say about these images. Absolutely stunning, clean contrast and those silos just pop out of the landscape so powerfully. Fantastic work all round, I did see many of these on my travels up through there alas the weather was not favourable for such dramatic shots. Hats off to you. Well done!

[alex gard]

I mist ask, what time of day are you shooting? The shadows suggest to me late morning or mid afternoon... I've never had too much luck with my red filters that time of day, the polariser seems to set it off perfectly!

[Nathan Everett]

Love the first one especially, Nathan. I've never considered the red + pol. combo, probably not so good on windy days I'm assuming.

Thanks, you're not wrong - especially when there's trees/grass which show the movement. With around 4.5 stops of filtration I typically end up with exposures around 1-2s @ f/32-45, long enough to turn the foreground into a blurred mess!

I mist ask, what time of day are you shooting? The shadows suggest to me late morning or mid afternoon... I've never had too much luck with my red filters that time of day, the polariser seems to set it off perfectly!

Thanks Alex, waiting for conditions to be right is half the effort in my opinion. Goodness knows how many times I've gone out when conditions weren't ideal and returned with results that I wasn't happy with, I guess a positive of LF is that the costs are such that you only trip the shutter when you've convinced it's worthwhile! Spot on about the time of day, for this series I'll shoot mid-morning and mid/late afternoon, at these times the shadows are long enough to create the depth and shapes I'm after within the image, but not so long as to all end up blending together and losing contrast etc. I think it was Max Dupain who was famous for shooting in bright and direct sunlight, with his philosophy being that the typically harsh light we have is a 'signature' of our country and should be embraced, and that attempting to emulate the more European conditions/softer light did not fit our landscape. Made sense to me anyway. If this is wrong I'm sure someone will correct me!

[alex gard]

I must admit I am very jealous and in admiration of the clean tonal range you have in the lower half of your negatives in the grass, etc.

For me, if I were to shoot the same kind of condition my ground/grass would be this horribly 'darker' shade of grey that just kind of muddies up the image quite some. I like how you've kept it very clean and bright with excellent separation of tones and sharpness throughout. May I ask your secret? I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong and it's really driving me crazy.

I've tried sticking to shooting at the same time, mid-late morning and afternoon and avoid shooting mid day unless I can find something where the light is hitting it in just the right way, but for me the ground is forever ruined, and even use of the red 25 filter is bad because with the wrong kind of cloud cover, the sky that is closer to the horizon comes out a weird whitish gray that looks blown out, but isn't (not like yours, where you have managed an awesome range from black to grey across the whole sky)

anyway, nice images!