A THOUSAND WORDS - Alex Waterhouse-Hayward's blog on pictures, plants, politics and whatever else is on his mind.




 

Don't Tell A Woman What To Wear
Monday, November 26, 2007


If you happen to see yesterday's blog you might note the picture of rebecca that I repeat here (left). It almost didn't happen.

On Friday afternoon I asked Rosemary to call Hilary to ask Rebecca to wear black for our Ballet BC date that evening. She was to tell Hilary that I was dressing in black. When Rebecca goes to her Wednesday ballet class she wears a black leotard, a little dark purple (almost black) short skirt, a black top and she wears her hair up. I love her like that and that was what I wanted her to wear. That was not to be.

When I picked her up she was wearing a new dress given to her by her Nana (her other grandmother). Holding on to Lilly the cat she looked lovely. Because her digital camera was not working I was not able to take her picture with Simone Orlando back stage after the ballet. I decided I was going to photograph her in my studio the next day.



When a photographer uses more than one speed film at the same time, mistakes happen. I shot a roll (above) using the beautiful capabilities of the now discontinued Kodak Technical Pan in 120 which has a speed of 25 ISO. After I exposed the 10 shots (that's a complete roll with my Mamiya RB) I noticed that the roll was not Technical Pan but my usual Plus-X Pan with an ISO of 100. This meant that I had overexposed it by two stops. I took some pictures again with Technical Pan and tried to repeat the same poses. After that I shot a second roll of Plus-X (correctly exposed) of Rebecca doing other poses with Lilly and without.



I worsened the problem by putting all three rolls into my bag so that when I realized what I had done I could not tell which was the bad roll. Last night I played it safe and processed one roll of Plus-X. It was perfectly exposed. This meant that the second one was the one.

That roll I underdeveloped with a much diluted developer (HC-110) and the results were excellent, that's the second picture above.

Taking photographs of Rebecca, who is a veteran, is a pleasure. She must be older than her age when she asked me if she had beautiful feet. I had indicated to her to take off her shoes for the full-length shots. I told her that yes, and that both my mother and I had beautiful feet and that she had inherited from us.



I was charmed when she talked to Lilly, "I want some pictures without you so I hope you don't mind." Rebecca put Lilly on a table and posed for me. And from now on I will not tell Rebecca what to wear. I will let her surprise me.



     

Previous Posts
Aldous Huxley, Simone Orlando & Lilly The Cat

Sarah Strange Starlet - Not

Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Pico Iyer & Me

Simone Orlando, Time Out For Ballet BC's Queen Of ...

The Boeing 727, Home - Straight Up

Tim Bray - Father Of XML - Uncle Of Search Engines...

VanDusen Botanical Garden On A Sunny Sunday Aftern...

Byron Chief-Moon, Devo, J.J. Johnson & A Baroque V...

A Mate, An Ostrich Egg - Argentine Nostalgia In Va...

The Many Cultural Pleasures Of Vancouver



Archives
January 2006

February 2006

March 2006

April 2006

May 2006

June 2006

July 2006

August 2006

September 2006

October 2006

November 2006

December 2006

January 2007

February 2007

March 2007

April 2007

May 2007

June 2007

July 2007

August 2007

September 2007

October 2007

November 2007

December 2007

January 2008

February 2008

March 2008

April 2008

May 2008

June 2008

July 2008

August 2008

September 2008

October 2008

November 2008

December 2008

January 2009

February 2009

March 2009

April 2009

May 2009

June 2009

July 2009

August 2009

September 2009

October 2009

November 2009

December 2009

January 2010

February 2010

March 2010