ALUMINUM PATIO AWNINGS

It's funny how sometimes photographs, like songs, can draw you back to an exact moment in time. I have been going through one of my external harddrives this morning. There are certain pictures that just bring me back to the exact moment when I shot them. I remember the smells, the energy in the air, the feeling of the landscape and even the exact thought process that was going through my head at the time the pictures were taken.

The story behind this picture is pretty rememberable for me. Though the photograph isn't the best, it's the memory of it that I like so much.

It was the end of winter, the lakes and the rivers were beginning to thaw out. I had horrible cabin fever that year. I woke up one morning, and had an urge to leave. I had too. I spoke with my husband and told him we were going on a road trip. He asked me "Where are we heading too?" And of course, I didn't know where I wanted to go, so I just told him that we would let the road guide us. So he agreed and we jumped in the car.

I remember getting onto the highway and just driving.....not knowing where we'd end up was the best part of it. Whenever I felt the urge to make a turn I would. We traveled north west....heading to parts of Wisconsin that we'd never seen or heard much about before. There wasn't anything overly remarkable as for landscapes.... no rolling mountains of course, this is the midwest, no canyons, not much more than trees and barns and rivers and lakes. That's basically what the more rural parts of Wisconsin consists of. And I was not hoping for much more.. I just knew that we would end up wherever we needed to be.

I remember making a weird turn down a dirt road. I must have been following some sign that said something interesting, but what it said or the names of the places escape me right now. My husband, who never really 100% trusts me driving around with no map, was kind of nervous and kept telling me to go back and find the highway. But of course, I was in the driver's seat....and I didn't feel like turning around so I just followed a series of winding dirt roads to only God knows where. I made another turn, and was brought to this little remote country neighborhood. There was a river flowing beside it and I parked on the side of the road to go see if there was anything interesting by the river to photograph. There was a small wooden foot bridge that connected walkers to the other side of the river. I wasn't too impressed by it though. A bridge is a bridge ya know?

So as I'm walking down the snowy bank of the river, it starts to rain..... I love the rain. The fresh smell in the air, the energy that's always present as the drops start to fall...pretty much everything about rain I love. So I was happy. It was kind of chilly outside...and the rain was cold... most people would have probably walked back to their car but I was enjoying it so I kept walking. I watched the patterns that the drops were making in the river water. It was beautiful....almost hypnotic. I sat there for a while and just watched the droplets dance in the waves that they fell into. So I took out my camera and took a couple of pictures.... I know most people would have drug out the shutter and smoothed out the water but that's not what I wanted to capture here. I wanted to capture the beautiful mess that the droplets were making of the reflections. So that's what I did. I got the pictures that I wanted, and I was happy.... so I headed back to my car, told my husband that I found what I was looking for, and we headed home.

It wasn't the best road trip that we've ever had, not even close..... but it was still inspiring.... letting the road lead you to wherever it wants. Not knowing where you'll end up or what you'll find. And when you finally find what you think you're looking for, sometimes its just as simple as a messy reflection in the water.

I had this urge to get a long lens for my 4x5 wooden field view camera. Well; boys need their toys. So for a while I looked at a Nikkor-M 300-f9 nice, popular and pricey. Well; my toys are only reasonably priced :-) :-).
And then I came across a Symmar convertible 180/315mm on a sale for much, much less than ? the price of the Nikkor, I could not give that-up, so I purchase it without thinking much about it.
This is not an horror story; when the lens came, it was perfect and Schneider do make good stuff. However, some thinking on how to use it was due, since neither the field 4x5 or the CG. had the bellow extension needed for a proper use of a 315mm focal length.
Other challenges had to be considered too:
1. Even with the front element removed the lens was heavy for a wooden frame, sagging and wobbling are not good attributes after all.
The CG. provided the rigidity and most of the movements that I could possibly do with a long photo lens
2. With the front element removed the shutter is exposed, with my thumbs dexterity it was imperative to find a good solution. I decided to find a UV-Haze filter that would fit the inside threat of the Synchro-Compur shutter, that turned out to be not possible . I had to settle for a filter that fits snug in the cavity glued with a drop of Locktite. I do have other lens for the 150mm range.
3. Unable to change the bellow length, the only alternative was to extend the lens board.
Of course if I had a machine shop it would be easier, but I had to do with what I could make in my basement hand held wood working tools. I finished with a design of a square extended tube 75 mm long made with 6mm thick plywood fixed at one end to an existing CG. lens board; the other end it holds the rear element and the shutter assembly. It is rigid, and light; well suited to the CG frame.
4. I missed a proper focusing scale on the CG, so I made a suitable one glued to the rail
I tested the affair on my last trip, not that many shots but…. I am happy with it, pictures of the camera to follow :-)

It’s St. Helene’s Island in Montreal on a very rainy, gray day. Exps. 1sec; f32; Adox25CHS; R09 1+40 for 13 min. I cropped it to a 6x12 frame, too much useless sky and sharp foreground.