winter recliner on Flickr.

Mamiya 645 1000s | Mamiya Sekor-C 80mm f/1.9 | Kodak Tri-x 400 | Red 25 Filter | Xtol (1:1)

This is off of my third roll shot on the ‘Mami. The first roll was nice, but boring. The second was exciting, but over-exposed (I’m thinking it was a combination of warming the developer next to the oven by accident and over-compensating my center-weighted meter), and now the third turned out better, only with a slight rolling malfunction (need to make sure the counter is all the way over before I load, otherwise the first 2 shots are on paper!). I also added a red filter into the mix to try and keep a nice depth of field using 400 film. I like this shot, but the others are too contrasty. I suppose red filters are useful when you have really dramatic skies and a light foreground, but if I’m shooting a bright background with a darker foreground, the foreground just gets murky. I don’t like murky, but I do like shooting Tri-x close to wide-open, so a 3-stop ND filter is on its way! I think I can also probably get away with shooting Tri-x at 1-stop over (ISO 200). The film should be able to handle the slight over-exposure and with portraits, that’s not a bad thing, right? The other big piece of news is that I’m about ready to start my project of street portraits around Minneapolis. Stay tuned as I work up the courage/skill….

P.S. These are sleds awaiting users at Hyland Park Reserve in Bloomington, near by childhood home. Problem with this winter is that it’s been too cold to be comfortable, too warm to keep much snow, and too undecided to get us nice ice on the lakes. I suspect that these sleds have not been used too much in 2012!