Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: RSL on May 16, 2013, 09:20:03 pm
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Here's a picture of the Colorado prairie in winter. It's from about 1968. I don't have a picture of a prairie schooner, but I have a bunch of pictures of the prairie. Anybody else with prairie pictures? Let's see 'em.
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Here's another -- from about forty years later -- in the springtime. This is Kansas.
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Anybody else with prairie pictures? Let's see 'em.
Across the road from my house.
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I'll see what I can find from southern Saskatchewan. All film, but I must have scanned some... Really like the B&W, BTW.
Mike.
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Love to see them, Mike.
In the late fifties and early sixties I was stationed at Beausejour, Manitoba for about 2 1/2 years. Beausejour is east of Winnipeg and along the line where the prairies end and the forests begin. For some reason, though I did a lot of rifle shooting, I didn't do much camera shooting while I was at Beausejour, but here's one that shows the radar site and the prairies stretching out beyond it. We used to bring an L-20, the USAF version of the Beaver, up to the dirt strip at the radar site and we'd fly it around the area for a few days so people on flight status could get their flying time before I'd take it back to Grand Forks, North Dakota. In this picture I'm shooting out of the right seat.
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Great DOF; what were you probably shooting and with what?
Do you miss flying? I'd imagine it must be very hard to say goodbye to it all - not the combat part, but the thrill of going up there.
Only small 'planes I was ever in were in Kenya; sitting up there in front beside the pilot, it felt it would be so easy to fly... oddly, I felt no fear at all, even though commercial flights are not my favourite experiences, especially long-haul, which make me feel I'm about to explode. I had a chat with an airforce pilot once who told me that commercial flights scared him stiff: in his mnd, sitting there, there didn't ever seem to be enough power to lift.
Rob C
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It's not as good a scan as I'd like it to be, Rob, but I'd guess I was shooting with a Rollei. Seems to be square format, and that's the square format camera I had at the time. Haven't the foggiest what the setting might have been, but I'd imagine aperture must have been pretty small. It was a bright day.
Yes, I miss flying. Missed it since the day my (temporary) inner-ear problem ended my flying career. The joy of flying was the main thing that made me stick with the Air Force instead of going back to school to become a professor of English literature. Seeing what goes on nowadays in English lit departments makes me exceedingly happy I decided to keep on flying instead of going back to the alternative. By sticking with the Air Force I'm sure I missed a lot of fistfights in the hallways.
I don't like riding in a commercial airplane either. I need to see what's going on in the cockpit.
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Here are a couple more prairie shots from back in the sixties.
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In the late fifties and early sixties I was stationed at Beausejour, Manitoba for about 2 1/2 years.
I lived there from about 1961-1967. Went back through there in 2003 en route to my niece's wedding in Edmonton. Hadn't changed much!
Mike.
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I don't remember exactly when I left Beausejour, Mike, but it was either late 61 or early 62. I could look it up. Our paths probably crossed.
I'm not surprised that things haven't changed much.
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One warm line.
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"The land where you can watch your dog run away for three days". Except in fog, of course. I remember it well!
Mike.
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Here are a couple more prairie shots from back in the sixties.
If ever it was needed: proof of the superiority of film grain as artistic factor.
On another level, the dead commercial signs (I hope they were dead and not just neglected!) are the sorts of things that few in Britain saw connected to the States: there really was a belief in the Dream and the land of milk and honey; that everybody drove big cars, had the house, the immaculately painted white picket fence with a bunch of roses to boot...
I love those sorts of brooding images; its a 'landscape' format I can appreciate deeply.
How grim is reality, everywhere.
Rob C
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When I was working in southern Saskatchewan in 1981/82 I saw: a) a lot of waterfowl of all sorts, and b) much abandoned farm machinery/cars/houses... left where they died, or so it seemed. Unfortunately, traveling through MN and SD on the interstate, almost all one can see are billboards.
Mike.
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Right Mike, That's why when my wife and I are traveling between Colorado and Florida we stay off the freeways as much as possible. It's not just the billboards, it's the repetition of the same old stuff. Old Route 66 used to have its problems, like the guy in the gas station who, after you'd been inside to the restroom, would tell you that your shocks were leaking (having squirted some oil on them while you were inside), and the dime you'd have to deposit in the stall's lock to get inside the john. But Route 66 was infinitely more interesting than the freeways.
A few years ago I took off and spent several days cruising the back roads and shooting abandoned stuff in Kansas, the Texas panhandle, and New Mexico. Only problem with that kind of shoot is that unless you get lucky with the clouds, most of the time you're shooting when the sun's high and the light's not all that interesting. Still, you can find stuff like this abandoned church in Grenville, New Mexico from 2006. I went through Grenville again year before last and found that the church has suffered a little more decline, but it's still pretty much like this. I think the reason is that since it's a long way from a freeway, nobody goes there. Well, Grenville's pretty much a ghost town now anyway.
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I like that sort of image - the old kirk - but I still think that film does it best: the feeling is so different.
In fact, what with Walter having got himself another Swedish 6x6 filmie, I am very tempted to find another developing tank and revert to the F3, which has slept for several years, poor thing. How happy am I that all my lenses fit! And even as I write the thought, reality butts in and reminds me that with the closure of my supplier, there's nowhere here I can buy chemicals anymore. Deep breath. Maybe if I can sell the place and move back to...
Anyway, to be specific about the church: digital, pour moi, makes it look far too sweet; smooth and velvet in place of heart and grit. I'm sure you know this yourself, but I don't blame you for leaving the processes behind. Necessary evils, I admit, but the rewards, the rewards!
;-(
Rob C
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Thank you for sharing these pictures. I've just promised to my wife that we will make a trip without any schedule from Boston to L.A. by car as soon I get retired. Meantime I dream of prairies and abandoned farms. On a related note: Is this prairie?
(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8355/8333203026_e41581c1c2_b.jpg)
Arizona Rainbow
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Sure looks like it Harlem, but I don't know. Technically a prairie is a temperate grassland, and I'm not sure southern AZ falls into the category. On the other hand, it looks like it, so go with it.
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Anyway, to be specific about the church: digital, pour moi, makes it look far too sweet; smooth and velvet in place of heart and grit. I'm sure you know this yourself, but I don't blame you for leaving the processes behind. Necessary evils, I admit, but the rewards, the rewards!
You know I don't agree, Rob, but just so you can compare, here it is again, converted in Sliver Efex as Tri-X, with enhanced grain. I overdid it, but if you use Silver Efex carefully and conservatively you can get any silver effect you want and simulate all sorts of B&W emulsions.
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I am very tempted to find another developing tank and revert to the F3, which has slept for several years, poor thing.
Rob: This is getting a bit OT, but last November our local photo group did a B&W film shoot. It was a lot of fun, partly explaining to people that you actually have to hold the little eyepiece up to your eye (no LCD), and partly explaining that you have to wind the film after each shot. But people made some interesting images.
Harlem, technically a desert is defined by the amount of rainfall, and a prairie is, as Russ mentioned, a temperate grassland, but rather than getting too worked up about where the border is, just accept that it's a lovely rainbow!
This is 'sort of' prairie: It was quite a surprise to find this in southern Nebraska.
(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3209/3027262864_83edaa0b55_o.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfnowl/3027262864/)
Triptych (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfnowl/3027262864/) by wolfnowl (http://www.flickr.com/people/wolfnowl/), on Flickr
Mike.
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Love it, Mike. Looks like part of Garden of the Gods.
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November, southern Saskatchewan.
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Reminds me of 'Swift Current Park', Scott. That was a local joke so I wouldn't expect anyone to get it, but when I was working in Swift Current, SK in 1982 there was one tree at the edge of a farmer's field north of town. It was the only tree around for miles, known by locals as 'Swift Current Park'. When I was there the government was paying the farmers to plant windrows of trees to reduce wind-blown topsoil erosion; when I drove through SK twenty years later I was amazed at the transformation.
Russ, as my grandmother would have said, most of Nebraska is flatter than piss on a plate - so when you get to the southern end of the state and this old volcano is staring down at you it seems rather incongruous!
Mike.
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@Scott (#21) : This is just awesome good. +1
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Rob: This is getting a bit OT, but last November our local photo group did a B&W film shoot. It was a lot of fun, partly explaining to people that you actually have to hold the little eyepiece up to your eye (no LCD), and partly explaining that you have to wind the film after each shot. But people made some interesting images.
Harlem, technically a desert is defined by the amount of rainfall, and a prairie is, as Russ mentioned, a temperate grassland, but rather than getting too worked up about where the border is, just accept that it's a lovely rainbow!
This is 'sort of' prairie: It was quite a surprise to find this in southern Nebraska.
(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3209/3027262864_83edaa0b55_o.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfnowl/3027262864/)
Triptych (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfnowl/3027262864/) by wolfnowl (http://www.flickr.com/people/wolfnowl/), on Flickr
Mike.
Hi, Mike -
That triptych really works for me - not many of those things do.
Rob C
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You know I don't agree, Rob, but just so you can compare, here it is again, converted in Sliver Efex as Tri-X, with enhanced grain. I overdid it, but if you use Silver Efex carefully and conservatively you can get any silver effect you want and simulate all sorts of B&W emulsions.
Doesn't work for me, Russ. The 'grain' looks like no grain I ever saw in reality and the tonality of the building still doesn't look filmic to me. It's hard to explain, but it's as if every tone shown has been applied separately, with no blending of them together. It's like a continuation of the problems you get with sun behind thin cloud (with digi capture) where it just is or is not recorded - no long shoulder of curve where one tone blends seamlessly with another.
In the original file shown, instead of that effect there's an opposite 'look' where it feels velvety and unreally tactile at the same time. I find much the same with my own stuff from the digital cameras, so I guess it's just par for the course. I think it's a pity because it ruins otherwise great subjects.
Rob C
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Russ, do you recognize that the first picture here is very much the same picture as your Gone photograph? There are too many points of similarity to be an accident -- you love this picture, and have made it at least twice!
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Reminds me of 'Swift Current Park'
This is about an hour west of Speedy Creek, Mike. On an all-day, all-snow drive from Canmore to Regina after a happy three days in the Rockies (http://www.flickr.com/photos/59795859@N00/sets/72157630041896025/).
Nice tryptych. Are your badlands really associated with a volcano?
Thanks, Harlem22. It's nice to get a little rhythm into the flat prairie.
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Hi Scott. Came across this by accident on the way from SD to WY. Don't even know its official name (I presume it has one), but it looks to me like the plug of a very old volcano. Might not be. There are old volcanos further southwest in WY, and there is a fossil-filled ash field in southwest NB, but of this one I really don't know.
Mike.
P.S. Thanks for the comment, Rob!
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Russ, do you recognize that the first picture here is very much the same picture as your Gone photograph? There are too many points of similarity to be an accident -- you love this picture, and have made it at least twice!
Hi Andrew, There certainly are similarities. I shot an lot of abandoned prairie houses back in the sixties, and another bunch of them in 2006. They're mostly gone now.
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Here's another one I love, though it gives me the creeps every time I look at it. It's on the prairie, but right at the edge of the foothills. I was about eighty miles south of home shooting winter shots of abandoned ranch houses when this storm came rolling over the mountains. Getting home took several hours.