Wednesday, February 12, 2014

The Grottos


This abstract image is of the grottos ice cave located in Colorado just west of Independence Pass on Highway 82.  I was there for the first time in 1990 and made this image. While the image looks very abstract, it is closer to the actual representation of how the cave environment appears.  In making this image I knew that it would require a long exposure on Tri-x film as well as a fairly small aperture to insure a sharp plane of focus.  I used a Zone Vl view camera with a 90 mm lens.  I visited this cave in the fall time when there was very little water to deal with.  I would have to assume that other times of the year this location could be filled with water or ice.  I enjoy finding these locations where the light dances off the walls and is reflected back into the shadows giving a complete range of tones revealing detail in the highlights and shadows.  To handle this contrast range of the scene, I overexposed the negative and then under developed it to reduce the overall contrast range.  This image was scanned from a darkroom print and does not represent the true quality and luminance of the actual print.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5186868.pdf

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