Dampness Continued...

These pics are from the F90x and Rollei Retro 100 but I've cropped them to my favourite square format. The 3:2 35mm format always seems a little too rectangular to me in landscape orientation and even more so in portrait format. That's why I always look for a square composition whenever possible. Far from being restrictive, I find the square format quite liberating and easily usable for a very high percentage of compositions.

The images in this post could possibly have been shot on the 3:2 format but I think they're stronger the way I've cropped them here. Maybe that's just me - I've always been a "square" kind of guy! Looking back at  the pics I've posted on the blog, I'm a bit surprised by the number which have this misty/damp/dreich theme. Perhaps I should send the scans off to be made into a photo book.

The middle pic of the three above is very similar to one I posted at the end of October. It's a different field entirely, though. There are so many scenes like this to be found in the countryside around my home that I could go out every day and shoot something pretty much the same. I prefer the image in this post because of the faint outline of trees beyond the bushes in the middle distance.

All three pics share the same compositional theme: strong foreground lines with eye-catching highlights leading to a misty background. Printing them isn't too difficult but it does present a dilemma. The actual scenes are much greyer than they are here. I've tried recreating that atmosphere but the prints always come out looking too flat and boring. I've had to move up to a higher contrast grade to overcome this and do a little dodging of the watery highlights to give them a bit of sparkle.

The middle pic shows one of the inconsistencies associated with printing the foreground highlights quite light but burning in the sky: the highlights are brighter than the actual light source! Hopefully no one will notice...

I've been taking photographs of pretty much nothing else but dampness for a few weeks now. I'll probably keep going for another fortnight before getting completely fed-up and looking for some other subject matter as an antidote. Maybe by that time the snow will be here.