Printing the Image - Madeira Color
As i mentioned during the last post, I printed both black and white and color images last weekend. I’m starting to really evaluate the images I made during our Madeira trip (flopping back and forth between “these suck” and “ok, this isn’t so bad” . . . maybe I haven’t been away from them long enough), and decided to sit down and work with one of the images that I suspect is a real keeper. It’s an image I return to again and again when looking at my Madeira photographs, which usually means something.
One of the things I enjoy the most about this image is the precision of it. I had photographed this tree several times during our Madeira trip, and did so from this or very similar angles. This was the culmination of all of those efforts, all of the downloads only to discover that there was something fundamentally flawed with the image (usually due to camera placement). Perhaps it was that I was finally getting my photographic legs back, or that the fog (and general lack of people around) allowed me to focus and be meticulous with my camera placement in a way that a more distracting background would have made more difficult. Even then it took me a long while to get the proper camera position, moving the tripod a bit forward or back, or left or right, or down a bit, to get everything just right, but I think this image has it. The process and the image itself give me the feeling I used to have when working with my 4x5 camera, where I could adjust things millimeter by millimeter to get the composition just right.
While I can say I think the recording of the image is spot on, I still need to work on the development. I took my time developing the image, but I gave myself some liberties and . . . probably pushed things a bit too far. There are some adjustments I think I need to pull back a bit with, and other things I need to bring out. But what I can say is that the print turned out beautiful, even with the shortcomings I see and know I need to correct. Which means that when I do get it to be finely polished, it should be a gem.
The other color image I decided to print was one I hadn’t really thought of printing. Still, something came over me when I saw it and I thought, “I wonder how that would look printed.” To be honest, I did very little additional work beyond what I did for the original blog posting of the image - I must have been in a groove that evening. Anyway, my curiosity lay with whether the birds I so patiently waited for would turn out was apparently justified.
The day after our printing session, Ann went downstairs to look at the images again. When she came back she said, “Wow, those birds really jump out in the print.” Exactly what I was hoping for!