The Machinery of Night

Posted 9:23 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday in Black and White

I have shot precisely one roll of black and white film -- as an experiment, back in 1995. I finally got around to scanning some things, and decided to do this roll. The results were less than exciting when printed, and they're not any better on the computer screen.

Lick Observatory, June 1995

I took several photos of Lick Observatory, and then went on to Yosemite and finished off the roll. When I went to the lab to pick up the photos, I said something to the clerk about how, gosh, I took these in black and white, and they still don't look like Ansel Adams. Huh.

This provoked an angry response from the other clerk. Adams was a genius! How dare you...! Amateurs! Sputter! Sputter! The clerk I was talking to, who knew a joke when he heard it, stared at him. I hope he switched to decaf and felt better.

This was the Adams photo I was thinking about when I took it. That was taken to the northeast of wherever I was standing when I took this one. I think he had to climb a fire tower to get that angle.

Of course, Adams could make nice pictures because he had fancy cameras and special filters and stuff. Plus, he knew what he was doing.

So, it isn't exactly Ansel Adams, but it does have a sort of 50s-scifi-movie look to it, and I guess that'll have to do.

The Lick Observatory site is supposed to have a gallery of Lick images, but there aren't really very many there. There is a set of pictures taken during the big snowfall of 2001. I particularly like this one, which looks like a scale model of something.

This site is supposed to have a bunch of Lick photos, but they aren't up yet. The one it does have is a doozy, though. It rarely storms in Northern California, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to be gadding about in one like that. I'm willing to go pretty far in pursuit of a good shot, but carbonization is too far.

Labels: California, Foto Friday