First Negatives... Fall Photo Weekend

Most people familiar with my working habits realize and understand that it often takes me months or even years to get around to processing my film.  With the recent cold snap I spent most of last weekend down in the darkroom processing film.  This included two batches [40 sheets] of Efke PL25M 4"x5", some of which dated back to 2012.  To round out the batches and fill up my tanks I needed to pull a few sheets from the recent Fall Photo Weekend in Jasper.  

This included two images of an Aspen Grove up along the Pyramid Lake Road.  These were taken on the late afternoon of Saturday November 8th, before we were subjected to the dump of snow and plummeting tempertares...  The light was rather flat, and the breeze fairly brisk.  I shot two versions of the same set-up.  One was shot with the lens stopped right down to a small aperture of F51.0 to provide maximum depth of field.  The shutter speed for this shot was long... at 1 minute, and I thought this might show the swaying motion in the upper trunks as a result of the wind...

It did not as apparently the exposure was long enough that for most of it the trunks were in a typical position, and the motiion did not register.  The second image of the same set up was shot with the lens... a Fuji 400mm telephoto... almost wide open at F9.0.  This provided limited depth of field and allowed the background trunks to fall off out of focus.  The shutter speed was considerably shorter at 1 second, but even this did not record the swaying motion of the upper trunks in the wind.

I am undecided as to which of the two I like better.

There are also two shots that were taken up along Portal Creek.  These were taken on the morning of Monday November 10th, after the big dump of snow and once the temperature had dropped off. Conditions were spectacular as we witnessed the ice starting to form on the rocks and on the overhaning branches.  I quite like both of these and may consider making a fine print of at least one of them...

I would appreciate any critique and feedback that anyone is willing and able to offer...

The rest of the film that I processed in conjuction with these two batches will be scanned and some of the better images posted in the coming days.