Cany143 wrote:
Thanks for your comment, cab....How about you?
Appreciate your time, and all the history, Cany!
I simply assumed--I should know better by now--that it was a recent image, and was therefore curious why you'd "gone back," as it were, to film. I have a couple of on-line friends who still shoot film from time to time, typically b&w, and apart from the "cool" factor, I've never divined what was better about spending all that time and effort, especially if most folks will only ever see a digitized version. Was thinking you might shed some light. I could never do direct comparisons myself because I abandoned darkroom work with the advent of digital.
I was a train freak as a kid, and taught myself photography by trial and error at trackside, starting some 55 years ago. Eventually I set up a b&w darkroom, which immediately taught me about negative density, contrast, blown highlights, and lousy shadow detail (which I seemed to be good at...). While once in a while by chance I'd take a decent photo, 99.9% of this was documentary. I don't think that back then I was ever at the point where, as you describe, I would have appreciated the subtleties of different developing for individual film sheets, although a friend and I shared a medium format Mamiya, and the differences in those prints over 35mm, just in detail and tone, was, as you say, legion.
I also took a lot of Kodachrome, and at some point found a color enlarger head and tried Cibachrome. Wow, was THAT frustrating. The reflected-light prints, of course, never looked so good as the projected slides, but I kept trying anyway. It took a while, but gradually I realized that the contrasty, sunny-day scenes I preferred would just pick up more contrast in Cibachrome prints. (As an aside, I'm having many of those slides scanned--the outfit uses a high-res Canon rather than an actual scanner--and am having fun enhancing them, finally, in Lightroom.)
But I digress; back to Yaki point. It took me many years to begin to see as a photographer rather than a historian, although whether I'm "there yet" will always be an open question. Since going digital, I've also begun doing more different kinds of photos (I especially like working with the local high school drama group who let me get in for tight portraits during their rehearsals). I rarely even do trains any more, as landscapes have become predominant. Going back to your terrific scene, I think at times I "see" in black and white, but more often it's a function of looking over my images and choosing the ones to convert after the fact.
Don't know if this will encourage or discourage further discussion, but thanks for giving it a shot! As one more aside, your color work inspires me, too!