Every now and then I like to introduce constraints in my photographing. Constraints make me get out of my normal habits and learn to see things from a different perspective. For a trip to Utah in the spring, I decided to take two unusual camera setups: 1. a camera that only shoots a super wide format 2.35:1 aspect ratio (like an anamorphic movie frame) and 2. a fairly normal film camera with black and white infrared film. The former is a constraint on perspective as I normally shoot square or almost square formats. The latter is a constraint of color because the infrared sensitivity substantially distorts how colors are rendered when compared to normal black and white film.
Some shots of the scenic drive to Moab are below. Rather than taking westbound I-70 the whole way to the Moab exit, we exited early and took Highway 128 for a drive along the Colorado River. On the drive, we listened to some acoustic music in the American primitive style - "Old Hwy D" by Phil Cook and "Modern Country" by William Tyler.
The destination for my trip was Castle Valley. The road into the valley breaks away from Colorado River Rd. several miles outside of Moab. After climbing a small hill surrounded by badland-like features, you enter the valley and are immediately greeted by epic views of cliffs and mountains.
Castle Valley is prominently featured in western cinema. Because of the panoramic format I was working with, I tried to keep thoughts of the cinema in my mind. It turns out that leading lines are very hard to manage with such a wide format, but I tried my best. After returning we watched "Rio Grande" and "Taza, Son of Cochise". Although neither film stood the test of time regarding ethics or cinematography, it is neat to see how an iconic location can help define the aesthetic of a whole genre.
Recently, I've been shooting infrared film for a long term project. I thought the red-hued rock of Utah would be an interesting testing location for this film as I was unsure of how the rock would render. The rock behaved as most red objects, rendering as very light shades, so the resulting images are high contrast with light rock and the black skies infrared film is famous for.
Unfortunately, photography was not the main purpose of my trip, so this trip report is brief. We stopped in Grand Junction and Hanging Lake (both in CO) on the way home, mostly to stretch our legs and go for short hikes.
Panoramic and infrared formats are both exciting. People have a lot of experience viewing movies but rarely practice viewing and photographing scenes in wide format. Regarding the panoramas, I was initially inclined to only use my wide angle lens, but detail shots work well too, especially with telephoto focal lengths. Regarding infrared photography, this medium is very powerful and great for creating high contrast images. I am happy to be working on a long term infrared project, and this test in the already high contrast desert was a great learning experience. I did lose a number of shots on the infrared film when compared to my normal success rate on standard films. Some lost shots were too high contrast and others had odd exposures. I need to work on my metering for this setup. I metered exclusively with the built-in light meter for my Fuji camera (set to ISO 12) but now realize that setting should be set to ISO 12 +/- 1 stop depending on how much direct sunlight is in the scene.
Gear: Bronica ETRSi and panoramic adapter with Kodak Ektar, Fuji GF670 with Rollei Infrared.
© 2010 - Andrew Reineberg