At the weekend I was out enjoying the sun in Somerset, and collecting more churches for my Somerset Towers project. I wasn’t specifically looking for other photo opportunities but when I saw this scene in Compton Martin I thought it was worthy of a picture.
Picture was taken with Horseman 45HD using a Schneider-Kreuznach Symmar-S 150mm f/5.6 lens and Ilford FP4+ film rated at EI 50. Exposure was 1/8″ at f/16 with plenty of front tilt down to keep the flowers in focus. This image was scanned directly from the negative and fake-toned in selenium digitally. Next time I’m in the darkroom there will be real selenium prints!
I’m still getting the hang of using my large format camera. Mostly I’m annoyed at myself for not noticing the massive pentagonal lens flare in the middle of the photo while I was setting up. This could easily have been avoided by shading the lens from the sun with my hand.
I’m also not 100% convinced about the composition. Ideally I would have liked the cottages to be more prominent by using a longer focal length, but 150mm is the longest I currently have. Maybe I’ll pick up a 210mm lens one of these days. Suppose I could always crop it!
Jonathan Gazeley 