Waking up that frigid December morning, in 1978, in Bodie was really exciting. I was totally alone in one of the best ghost towns in America! I quickly set-up my single burner stove making some scrambled eggs and sausage. It was just as well that I could only cook one thing at a time because as soon as I removed my eggs from the pan onto a plate they were cold. I guess I was just lucky it was just super cold—being early December, at 8400 ft altitude, I was fortunate that I wasn’t snowed-in!
Fortified, I removed my camera—pre loaded with Kodachrome 64 film—from my insulated bags and noted they were cool to the touch, but not frigid. On a previous late November trip to the Grand Canyon one of my 35mm SLR camera’s shutter stopped working and the film advance levers were stiff because the extreme cold made the film less fixable. I’ve heard tell of other extreme cold weather photographer’s tales of the film getting so brittle that it would break inside their cameras. So, I figured that pre-loading my film in warm cameras plus the camera bag’s insulation would make my camera’s last longer outside in the deep cold. Today I just have to wear my batteries so the cold does not drain them as fast.
In Part 1, I started with my main target subject—that marvelous leaning outhouse and how I exposed that image and now, 40 years later, did a digitally enhanced version.
In the background you’ll notice another leaning building—that’s where I went next…
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| ACR Enhanced Version |
Believe it or not I took this image 7-years later (1985, Dec.) and I just happened to be there at the same time of day! Look at the shadows on the buildings! (see Part 1)
That directional light, creating those marvelous shadows, is what makes this image work. In fact what attracted me to this scene was the shadow of that smoke stack being cast on the front of that sway-backed building.
Here’s the original Kodachrome 64 slide…
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Original Kodachrome
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Looking back on this image I think I had too much of a good thing! Now I think there’s a bit too much negative space being created by the entire foreground structure being in shadow—it’s pretty much solid-black without any detail.
Here’s my How and Why Precessing this one:
- Created RAW files by photographing my slides using my Canon 5D MKII with a Canon 100mm Macro Lens. (Note: see link to my video on how I did these copies at the end of this Blog.)
- Open in Photoshop’s ACR (Adobe Camera Raw).
- Used: a lot of Positive Clarity and Positive Shadow to open up shadow detail and enhance texture in wood.
- Used: Negative Highlights to tone down wood highlights.
- Used: Negative Saturation to make the wood its natural grey.
- Brought back the blue sky with Plus Vibrance
- Sharpened, applied Noise Reduction and Cropped.
Then I moved-in on the sway-back building….
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ACR Enhanced Version
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I used the same technique here as in the previous image except I did not de-saturate the color.
Here’s the original Kodachrome…
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Original Kodachrome
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The main problem with the original Kodachrome is that the highlights were too bright for my taste. While the exposure of the mid-tones was fine that old grey wood had curled and those edges acted like reflectors catching too much light. Back when I took this image there was nothing I could do about that, but now with the highlight control in ACR plus the other adjustments this image is finally complete.
Oh, and finishing the story of my first treck to Body in 1978…
When my car hit the rock on its underside it fortunately missed the engine (or the oil pan!) and instead hit my tranny’s bell housing causing a piece of the aluminum to bend inward thus contacting the ring gear—making the horrible racket I mentioned. I and my car survived a very memorable trip.
Note: check out the link to my video on how I copied my slides using my DSLR…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3CyAq84vzw
’Til next week…don’t hesitate to ask question…
Author: Jerry W. Venz, PPA Master Photographer, Craftsman
Training site: http://www.LightAtTheEdge.com
Client site: http://www.TheStorytellersUsa.com
