Off the Grid

I started the year shooting commercial work for electrical transmission line crews in Georgia and North Carolina working in the dead of winter at 60 feet above the ground in a crane bucket. Conversely, this is the last picture of the year (unless we get a snowfall).

I had posted the 35mm DSLR versions of this shoot earlier this week, but finally got the 8x10 film yesterday. I thought instead of posting the 8x10 versions of those same shots, I'd post this one instead.

I'm more partial to the other shot from this area, but when I was actually in the middle of shooting the couple of hours I was there, it seemed this picture would be the more powerful, and I know why I had that impression.

When you're looking at that little LCD screen on your 35, big things like these tree trunks seem to make for a more dramatic image. But when you get the image home and look at it on a big monitor, the subtleness of other images takes over. But, in the field, this seemed like the comp to go for, so I spent the rest of my ($300 worth, with film and processing) film sheets, in the rain, on this comp, fooling with tilts to get the right lineup of the trees.

Tachihara 8x10, Nikon 470mm, Velvia 50, 60 seconds at f-128.