Gathering Winter’s Light – On the topic of Winter’s Light, be they hyggily candles (Google Hyyge -Denmark), a fireplace, or Xmas lights, there is place that I go to as a pilgrimage every winter – It’s called Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. It was, at one time, the private greenhouse of Pierre DuPont, who was kind of like the Elon Musk or maybe Jeff Bezos of his time.
I like to go there, especially in the Winter, because I love the light and I can recharge from the Seasonal Blues. Making this photo was important for me because I’ll be taking this camera and lens with me on a trip next month and I rarely shoot wide-angle, medium-format film, so I wasn’t sure how this was going to go. I like the immediate feedback of digital, but I really have to up my game to get this photo and have it work out, first shot, out-of-camera. And of course, this lighting is kind of tricky, even with digital cameras – so much is backlit and in shadow.
Having spent the past year assisting in a darkroom, I feel that, with this exercise, I should only be allowed to dodge and burn, and tweak contrast if I want to stay true to my film discipline and get ready for the trip. I know that ‘should’ is a dirty word from a creative standpoint, and we have so many new tools in our artistic kit since the days of Ansel Adams, but I also think that should is a magic word when practicing the discipline of photo purism and trying to hone one’s abilities, in camera.
About This Photo:
Camera: Mamiya 6 Rangefinder, Lens: Mamiya 50mm f/3.5 (24mm full-frame equivalent)
Film: Kodak TriX 400 ISO