Creswick Uniting Church

Mick Fagan
Posts: 412
Joined: 24 Sep 2015, 21:20
Location: Melbourne

Creswick Uniting Church

Postby Mick Fagan » 18 Aug 2018, 20:18

This was taken approximately 45 minutes before the Clunes Town Hall exposure, my notes tell me it was 1035hrs; how the weather changed 45 minutes later and about 20km away.

We headed into Creswick and wished for a place to have a coffee/tea break, I remembered the church grounds would have plenty of room for us to park and hop into the camper on the rear and have that break. However when we arrived and drove up the drive into the grounds, all thoughts of tea or coffee went away. The light was perfect; or at least what I describe as perfect.

I stood down the drive, really down as that drive in is quite steep and tilted the camera bed up, but only needed 27mm front rise for this one, as opposed to 34mm rise for the Clunes one. Nethertheless this was a work of fast action, clouds were looming in a weather wall in the form of a cold front with accompanying clouds. When the shutter was tripped, clouds were directly overhead and by the time I had the film holder out, the church was in partial shade.

Shen Hao HZX-IIA 4x5" wooden folder, Fujinon 150 f/22 at 1/8, orange filter Ilford FP4+

Mick.

110002_Creswick_Uniting_Church_FP4_150_Orange_Filter_1-8_f22_003_web_.jpg

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Maris
Posts: 882
Joined: 27 Jul 2012, 16:02
Location: Noosa

Re: Creswick Uniting Church

Postby Maris » 22 Aug 2018, 14:35

Wow! I reckon this is one of those pictures that is 2/3 lucky. Lucky the light was right and held steady long enough. Lucky that a beautiful subject appeared when best presented. What isn't lucky is the eye sharp enough to grasp the possibilities and the control of camera, lens, and film to culminate the opportunity in a beautiful photograph. Good one Mick.

Look at the architecture. No point or ridge is left plain. They are all decorated with some sort of finial or device. They don't build them like that now.

Mick Fagan
Posts: 412
Joined: 24 Sep 2015, 21:20
Location: Melbourne

Re: Creswick Uniting Church

Postby Mick Fagan » 22 Aug 2018, 18:37

Thank you Maris.

It was quite lucky that we arrived when we did. I remember going through the motions quite quickly, making a couple of executive decisions. As my camera is always folded with a 150mm lens, 150mm was the go. As I mostly have an orange filter fitted, I left the filter on.

Quick distance framing to fit the structure in, whack the bed to a slight upwards tilt, get the standards vertical move the front board up and down to frame, then focus. Incident metering, plus 1 stop extra for the highlights. Place the film holder in, adjust the aperture and shutter, run the shutter a couple of times to make sure it is running smoothly, then take the exposure.

Probably about 5 minutes from getting out of the car; one of the fastest set-ups I have done. I'm usually far more relaxed and dithering, but I didn't have that luxury. I was very surprised at how well it came out.

Cropped on the left to get rid of the entrance, foreground to remove excess driveway, top and right is to the edge of the film.

Mick.

Walter Glover
Posts: 1270
Joined: 31 Jul 2012, 22:31
Location: Leichhardt, NSW

Re: Creswick Uniting Church

Postby Walter Glover » 29 Aug 2018, 10:10

A respectful shot of a powerful structure. The magnified view and detail in the masonry reveals that the darkroom skills are equally spectacular.
Walter Glover

"We see things not as they are. We see them as we are."
Emanuel Kant

Mick Fagan
Posts: 412
Joined: 24 Sep 2015, 21:20
Location: Melbourne

Re: Creswick Uniting Church

Postby Mick Fagan » 29 Aug 2018, 17:09

Walter Glover wrote:A respectful shot of a powerful structure. The magnified view and detail in the masonry reveals that the darkroom skills are equally spectacular.


Thank you Walter, however the darkroom skills were in this instance a negative scan. I have made a print, on 30x40cm paper some time ago, but I cannot scan that. The scan shown here is different than the print, mainly because it is transmitted light as opposed to reflected; they always look different.

The negative was processed in a Jobo processor using D76 1:1, I happen to know that the developer was around 3 months old, which makes a positive difference over fresh developer. Exactly what is different between fresh D76 and older D76 is a subjective point; but one that I happened upon maybe 25-30 years ago. It is the closest thing to D76 that is in a replenished dip and dunk tank that I used at my work all those years ago.

I really was lucky that everything came together, when it could so easily have gone wrong. Being rushed is normally not a good thing with view cameras, but when in the groove; so to speak, one can sometimes win.

By the way, that negative just screamed, "look at me", even when it was still hanging up to dry. Apart from spotting, it was a dead straight print. All I had to do was, crop, adjust contrast, get correct density, then hit the timer button.

Mick.


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