[pure-silver] Re: fence row project negatives

"Shannon Stoney" <shannonstoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
I was working on a project this summer where I photographed every fence post along a fence row on my road in TN. ... the leaves and branches and vines in the foreground are all the same value. 

Er, if they are all the same value then it's a uniform sea of grey with
no detail where the leaves, branches and vines are supposed to be...

I take it you mean the fence and vegetation are flat and boring.

Could you post a link to the images?  It would help a lot to see
what you are talking about.
I sort of knew it wasn't a great idea to meter the leaves and then meter the sky and not meter anything in between but I did it anyway. 

So you had two readings.  Which did you use?


In fact there wasn't anything in between those two values usually.


So the pictures are an accurate representation of what was there?

What sort of image did you have in mind when you took the pictures?
where all the values "on the ground" are compressed and look flat, and the sky is perfect, but so what? 

Stick to skies? http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/stgp/ho_49.55.29.htm
What do other people do in this situation? Go out earlier in the day? Ignore the sky and let it blow out? 

1) Expose and develop for the foreground.

2) If the foreground is flat then underexpose and overdevelop
3) Use a green or magenta filter to get the vegetation to stand out. I use Rosco filter sample books and a gel holder and peer 
  through the filters until I find the one giving the best contrast.

4) Fix the sky in the darkroom by burning it in.

5) Use a grad filter on the sky so not so much burning is required.

If the negatives are a fait acompli then try using a high contrast
grade paper to get the foreground to look right, forget the sky for
the moment.

When you get the foreground the way you want, work on the sky by burning
it in.  If the sky looks too weird you may want to burn in the sky with
a lower (or higher) contrast filter.

--
Nicholas O. Lindan
Cleveland Engineering Design, LLC
Cleveland, Ohio 44121

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