Today, I was supposed to be shooting film. Today, I was supposed to be shooting my Bronica.
But on my way here, on my way to my destination, I came across this beautiful scene.
I had to stop the car
I took the Bronica out and just to find out that it had ran out of batteries
It's funny
I can only say that it's funny, because I've had spare batteries in my backpack forever and I never ever
needed them
I never had to change batteries in the field before, but of course if that was going to happen
It was going to happen on a day like today when I don't have spare batteries. The good thing, the good news is that
last minute I decided to bring my digital camera with me, so I was still able to make that image
I hope it turned out good. But yeah, so I'm here at the Sil River Canyon or Gorge
This is a beautiful place. I've been here a couple times before, I've shown you this place
In previous videos, but this is a new spot for me. I have never been here before
It's just another amazing view of an amazing place
Today's a rather boring day as you can see there are no low hanging clouds or fog or anything like that
We do have reflections though. The river is very calm here. There is a dam right there
So that's why
and I've been using my telephoto lens to capture those reflections and close-ups of the shore and the dam itself and
Some of those images might work. We will see.
Now I'm gonna play a little video showing you the images that I've made so far and
A little bit of footage of how I got here because as I said, this place is beautiful
Oh man, this one is the best view of this river
I've seen so far. But right now is the wrong time, I have the Sun in front of me
So yeah, I can't really make any images right now. But this is a location I will be revisiting in the future for sure
Okay, I'm heading down now. I'm gonna try to go to another location
but let's talk about photography a little bit
somehow I managed to mess up the audio in the video and I was not explaining myself really
well anyway, so I'm here just trying another take. What I wanted to say
Is that as I said at the beginning of the video I was supposed to be shooting the bronica in this video
But I ended up shooting digital because I didn't have batteries for the bronica and at the end
I think that the video is not as compelling as it would've been if I was shooting the bronica. In general,
I feel like the videos where I shoot with the Bronica are better than the ones where I shoot
digital, and I think it's because they tell a little bit more of a story
You see, film is more challenging than digital in many ways, and that I believe it helps
creating that story behind the images
I believe that sometimes the story behind the images is as important if not more important than the image itself
Take for example, Ansel Adams
He knew very well about this. One of his most famous images is "Moon rover Hernandez", and that's a great image by itself
Don't get me wrong
but the story that he used to tell about how he told the driver to stop the car after seeing
the scene from the car and how they had to rush the whole setup of the camera because the whole system that he was using
At that time it was like cumbersome
I believe that he only had two sheets of film and he didn't have a light meter at the time. So he had to improvise
And all the things that he had to go through to get that image
I think that creates a
whole story behind that image that makes it even better, even more compelling or
you perceive it as a viewer in a different way, a different way than
if Ansel Adams had a Canon 5DmIV and he was driving and stopped the car got out of the car
Just put the camera to his eye and shot the image because you know the Canon would have a light meter
you have a memory card you can shoot that a hundred times until you get the
Right light and whatever. The story wouldn't have been the same and I believe that the way he shot that image
contributes to make it better
And I said that he knew that very well because that story changed over time and he got more and more dramatic
So he was aware of that that is not just the image
But also the story behind the image that can make it a little bit better or you can look at it in a different way
I've experienced this too when I'm showing my work in an exhibition, people have come to me to ask about the story behind the image
They want to know how cold it was, how hot, how I took it, if I used film or if I used digital
And how the whole image was made
because people love stories, humans love stories and
having an interesting one behind the image, I think that can only help the photograph itself
So yeah, shooting film is not gonna make your image any better
But it will or it might give you a story to go with those images making them better that way
Of course, his is just my opinion, but I would love to hear what you think
But for now, back to the video!
And now, I'm gonna go down there to where those boats are
Hope you can see them. I don't know if that's open to the public now.
I really doubt it but if it is, I might be able to make some long exposures from down there. So let's try
Okay, so I'm trying this composition here
It's gonna be a 30-second-long exposure, that should be enough to smooth out all the water, and I don't know, it might work
I'm taking this
line on the ground that the water is making and I'm gonna have the cliffs of the canyon in the background
So I don't know, hopefully that works
Alright, I'm not focus stacking or anything like that, this wide-angle lens at f/11
should have most of it in focus anyway, and I don't mind
I'm actually looking for something of the immediate foreground out-of-focus
I said this many times already, but I like to do that, to have something out of focus in the foreground
So it kind of leads you to the actual
You know, image. I like that.
Oh man, that looks beautiful. I like it. I like it a lot
So I'm gonna take another shot just to make sure that I got it
You might remember my video from Arcachon Bay in France, I wished I had boots to get in the water. Well!
I got them, and I'm gonna try them here just for the sake of it
I don't know if there is an image there but I really, really want to try them
Okay, I'm ready
Very nice. I'm mostly dry
You may have noticed the new lens and the new tripod, and of course the boots. Yes. Santa was very generous this year
I will be talking about this in a different video. Now I have to go because I'm late for lunch already
Thank you so much for watching. See you in the next one