Large Format Photography Australia

Rock Mills, Tea Tree Bay
Gelatin-silver photograph on Agfa Classic MCC 111VC FB, image area 24.7cm X 19.6cm, from a Tri-x Pan Professional negative exposed in a Plaubel 8x10 monorail view camera with a 300mm Schneider Symmar lens.
These hard quartzite rock mills are in the surf zone at Tea Tree Bay, Noosa.
The largest one is about a metre across and about 1.5 metres deep.

Oooh, Maris, that is picture perfect.

Curves and reflections complimented perfectly by the tight cropping, add to that the small (ish) f/stop range means everything just jumps out at you.

I do realise you contact print, but one can still burn and dodge, was it hard to print?

Mick.

Thanks Mick. A decent 8x10 negative, contacted out on good paper, almost prints itself. The amount of dodging and burning required is much less than in projection printing; or so it seems to me.

Rock Mills incorporates all the usual tricks:
Wait for a big cloud to cover the sun...smoother light.
Every hole in the ground has a bright side and a dark side. Burn the bright side slightly so both sides match.
Keep tone in the bright mill-stone; don't let it block up.
Don't have the camera reflected in the bottom pool.
Move slowly and carefully. This is a precarious spot to stand let alone set up a large monorail view camera.

Thank you for that.

(Don't have the camera reflected in the bottom pool.)

I did wonder about that, but figured you were probably just far enough away with a 300mm lens.

(Move slowly and carefully. This is a precarious spot to stand let alone set up a large monorail view camera.)

Yep, been there done that, but only with 4x5" with my Toyo 45G monorail, must be a very good tripod as 8x10" really is a huge in comparison.

Mick.

It is special to me that of the stones trapped, one is submersed and the other not quite submersed — a bit like nature's 'on/off' push-buttons' activating some great subterranean machinery or function.