Rangefinder Magazine
January 2005
Click Here for printable version of this article.
Luck Favors Tenacity by Bernhard J. Suess
Centre Square, Easton, PA
 Things rarely turn out the way you expect when you’re making photographs. Part of the attraction of photography is how different every situation can be. It seems each time I make a photograph I learn something new. The ability to adapt to the flow of photography is critical.
As photographers become more advanced, they learn to interpret their subjects. Photography is about communicating, which means knowing what you are showing and why you are showing it. Often this involves seeing light and understanding how it affects a subject. Certainly knowing that a hard, directional light brings out texture will help you to bring that out in an appropriate subject. If that’s not the effect you want, you’ll have to find another angle or a way to change the light.
Advanced aesthetics is all about making the appropriate choices before you take the photograph. It’s knowing how to show what you want the viewer to see.
Sometimes you have to be tenacious to get the photograph you want. Other times you have to be lucky. Once in a while it takes a combination of both to get a photograph that satisfies you. So it was when I had an idea for a photograph of the city square in downtown Easton, Pennsylvania. I’d photographed the square a number of times previously, but I felt that shooting from a higher angle would give me a better perspective.
Through the city’s official channels, I made arrangements to get onto the roof of one of the buildings, a bank just off the square. My plan was to photograph the square during the evening rush hour. With luck there would be a lot of cars moving around the circle with their lights on, which a long exposure would blur. Since it was a single shot that I was after and I planned to have the camera on a tripod for the long exposure, I decided to use a large-format camera. There would be the added benefit of perspective control, necessary since I was shooting down at my architectural subjects. My 4x5 would also lend itself to the contemplative nature of the image I had in mind.
My first attempt was at the end of March. I got to the bank building early in the evening. I had been told I needed to arrive while the maintenance people were cleaning the building. Arriving about 4:30 in the afternoon, I put enough money in the parking meter for two hours, which was the maximum. I thought two hours would be plenty of time to set up and take the photograph I wanted.
Entering the building, I was told I could stay as late as I wanted. The roof was accessed from an office building adjoining the bank. The maintenance workers would be leaving soon, and upon my leaving the building entrance would lock behind me.
I was shown up to the roof, where I set up my view camera. Although the afternoon had been warm, it began to get chilly as the sun went down. Without a jacket, I tried to get warm by wrapping the dark cloth around myself.
The angle from the roof was a good one. The sky was cloudy but that wouldn’t matter since I was going to shoot after dark. With a 90mm lens on the camera, I was very pleased with what I saw on the ground glass. But after waiting nearly an hour, I realized it was going to be too light to get the picture I wanted. I realized, too, I couldn’t leave to move the car or put more money in the meter. I would be locked out of the building and there was nobody to let me back in. All I could do was wait and hope.
While I waited, I tried a few shots, hoping something would turn out. Making a series of exposures from 1⁄8 second at f/22 to 5 seconds at f/45, I hoped for the blurred movement of traffic to add to the interesting angle. But I knew I didn’t have the shot I wanted. The sky was too bright, and the scene contrast on the ground was flat.
I waited until 6:20 that evening, but it was still much too light. It wasn’t getting dark anytime soon, either. I wished I could wait until 8:00 p.m. or later. I knew the switch to daylight savings time would be in a few days. Then I’d have to wait much later for darkness. It seemed that I should have done this shot a few months earlier. I hoped I could return and spend plenty of time in a couple of weeks.
After developing the film I shot that night, I was more determined than ever to return. The angle was just what I wanted, but the light was terrible. The cloudy sky—two stops brighter than anything else in the scene—overpowered the rest of the photograph (Fig. 1).
The film exposure for this photograph was 1⁄8 second at f/22, and there was no filter on the camera. A filter would not have helped, as the neutral gray sky would remain excessively bright no matter what filter was used. The irregular shape of the horizon line (especially the flagpole) precluded the use of a graduated neutral density filter. Although the negative is technically good, the image lacks punch. It is certainly proof that having enough light doesn’t mean you can make a good photograph. It’s the difference between quantity and quality. Even burning in the sky (Fig. 2) doesn’t help this image.
I made phone calls to arrange another session, explaining that the light wasn’t right—something that is difficult to explain to non-photographers.
It was about two-and-a-half weeks later when I returned, and daylight saving time was in effect. I knew it was going to make my job harder. I arrived about 5:00 p.m. and put the car in a public garage about a block away so I wouldn’t have to worry about parking meters. The people in the bank building told me I could stay as late as I wanted. There was another problem, however. It was raining and had been for several days. The forecast was for rain throughout the night, but I knew this might be my last chance.
The wet roads would help my photograph. Rain wouldn’t. I was prepared for a long wait. I brought some magazines to pass the time, but found myself getting up every few minutes to check the weather. Each time I peeked through the windows I became more disheartened. Rather than letting up, the rain was worsening.
I tried to figure my options. I was shooting with a view camera. That meant it would take several minutes just to set up the camera. This was not going to be a shot from the hip. I also knew I’d have to climb over several ventilation shafts to get to the edge of the roof. I couldn’t just run to the edge, shoot my picture, and run back to cover. It was going to be slow moving, and I was going to get soaked. My main concern was my camera, which could be ruined by that much water.
Finally, after three hours, it was dark enough to shoot the photograph I wanted. Looking out the window, I could see it was still raining. However, after waiting so long, I decided that I would have to try it. Even if I just scrambled to the edge of the roof and took a quick shot from under an umbrella, it would be better than not trying at all.
I was amazed when I opened the doors to the roof. It wasn’t raining. In fact, when I got out on the roof it was barely drizzling. I took this as a sign of providence. The roof was wet, however, which made it difficult to work. There was nowhere to set down my equipment, except on my rain jacket, which I set on the wet roof. But there was time to shoot quite a few photos, all with the 90mm wide-angle Schneider lens. I even tried some variations on the original composition. Finally, I chose to include a church steeple on the right-hand side of the image. The illuminated steeple was a nice visual element that repeated the shape and tone of the monument and, to a lesser extent, the billowing flag. Although there were not as many cars moving around the circle as I might have liked, the road was glistening. It made the shot more effective, even with only a few cars. I was able to shoot for 45 minutes, even taking time to write my exposures in a log.
With a spot meter, I took several readings of shadow areas before settling on a bench on the far side of the monument. The meter reading there was 15 seconds at f/5.6. To retain detail, I’d have to make an exposure of 15 seconds at f/11 (placing the important shadow detail on Zone III). However, any exposure over one second requires correction for reciprocity failure. For the final shot I made an exposure of 60 seconds at f/16 (Fig. 3). Although that was only a one-stop correction, the results were appropriate. As it was, the highlights of the negative were a bit dense, and the final print required some dodging and burning, especially on the fronts of the building facing the brightly lit square.
If I hadn’t waited out the storm, I’d probably never have gone back. Or if I’d succumbed to my first temptation, I wouldn’t have opened the doors to the roof to find the rain was ending. Certainly, if I hadn’t pushed myself to re-shoot the photo, I would have settled for that first image. The rain, which I lamented for several hours, had, in fact, made the photo special.
Bernhard J. Suess has been a photographer since the late 1970s. His book, Mastering Black-and-White Photography: From Camera to Darkroom (Allworth Press) is available through the Rangefinder Marketplace at www.rangefindermag.com/marketplace/. See page 99 for more Marketplace information. You may contact the author at bjsuess@suessweb.com/.
|
