A Sliver Of Forest Light
One of the most difficult situations I find myself in on a regular basis from a technical perspective is making photographs in a thick forest on a sunny day. There is a wide degree of exposure values to contend with in a single frame. Bright highlights. Deep shadows. Every single shade of gray in-between. You can imagine living in the Pacific Northwest it isn’t exactly uncommon for me to find myself facing this challenge.
A few weeks ago I was out near Rooster Rock in the Columbia River Gorge just east of Portland and there was no mistaking the weather for a nice summer day. Even though the model and I got and early start, the sun was already incredibly warm and bright by the time we got on location. It was a beautiful place to be, but the light was very tricky. Bright patches of light intermixed with heavy shadows no matter where we looked. This wasn’t going to be an easy day…
I find in these types of situations it is essential to work slowly. Between every single frame take the time to stop, meter the situation, and find the middle tonal value to base your exposure off of. There is no reason in the world to work quickly. It helps of course when you have a patient model to work with. Every few minutes the light was changing wildly, with the sun dipping in and out from behind thick trees. Nature was in a hurry to change, and I had to do the opposite and make it a point to slow down. These are the times when I’m happy that I use a handheld meter for sure.
When I finished each roll I made sure to mark each roll with the word “cold” on the outside. This is basically my note to self to develop each roll a tad bit colder than my usual 68 degrees. Every darkroom jockey knows that the temperature of your chemistry determines contrast. Developing your film a couple of degrees on the cold side and increasing your time just slightly to compensate will result in negatives with less contrast than usual. This makes printing and scanning a contrasty scene a heck of a lot easier in the long run.
I’m really happy with the resulting images I’ve developed so far from this session, but I’ll fully admit I had a lot of doubts when I was exposing the frames on location. I was incredibly worries the light was going to be too intense and the final images would be too contrasty and not at all pleasing to the eye. Not only is it nice to be wrong sometimes, but it also goes to show sometimes you just have to take a risk and try working with a scene even when you aren’t completely confident it is going to work.
Camera: Hasselblad 500c/m
Film: Kodak Tmax 400 in medium format. Developed in Rodinal.
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