Miami

My photo class had a field trip Saturday to the mining town of Miami, Arizona, where they have very nice light. These are shot with a 24-120vr lens. The film was developed 6 minutes in HC110 dilution b. These are scanned from a contact sheet.

 

Wow! Thanks for all the comments!

Thanks Joesef! Nobody lives there now, it was empty and for sale.

Cool Ed, thanks. I used HC110 because that's what I have at home, and I used dilution B because it gets the full film speed without extending the development time too much. But the contrast is from the filtration - I put a #25 filter over the lens for most of the shots where the sky showed.

Thank you Paul! The light in the Globe/Miami area (about 75 miles east of me) is really nice, and it always has been. It's outside the dust-bowl of the Phoenix Valley and the sky is very blue an the rocks are almost golden. That combination adds up to some mighty fine shooting!

Thanks Gale - that one is my favorite too! I have a thing for water stuff.

Thanks Malf. Yes, film, even (moderately) fast film can hold a lot of detail. Of course the fantastic 24-120 VR lens helps in that regard! While I like that lens on digital, it really shines on film! At first I considered taking my F5 and 4 primes, but then decided that I'd rather travel light so I took the N80 and the zoom. At the end of the day, I was glad!

Oh yeah, the squirlies in the sky... These are not proper scans, I just scanned the sheet of negatives to make a 'contact scan'. The plastic presses against the shiny side of the negative and makes these 'Newton ring' patterns. I was in a hurry and pressed for time (I shot, developed and scanned 8 rolls!) so I didn't put the negatives in the carrier for a real high rez scan. This is the actual size of the scan I made. A real scan would be 8 or 10 times bigger, and not have those artifacts.

 

Thanks Gav!

Thank you Anthony!

Thanks Ray! I will probably print these negatives in the darkroom, then scan the prints. I'd like to try fiber based paper for them, because it can hold a lot of tonal range in very nice shades of black.

Thank you Ned. I got the 67mm filter in the morning, because the sky looked especially blue when I went outside.

Thanks Biggs. It's a passenger rail car that has been taken off the rail chassis and stuccoed. It did some time as a diner - it's for sale now and they have a little sign with some history. It was made in 1867 and carried President Grant between Chicago and St. Louis one time.

Thanks Rodney - the tank just jumped out at me too. The building was indeed a rail car - there are many tracks in Miami and neighboring Globe, Claypool and Superior. Those towns ring a huge, open-pit, still operating copper mine.

Thanks Bear! I often strive for creepy.

Thanks John. It was about an hour from sunset, and the light was perfect, but it had been particularly good all afternoon. It makes me want to spend more time out of the city.