Stone Bench

All images copyright (c) by Greg Fisch

This is one of my earliest image with the 4x5.  This was the first trip that we took to Yosemite with a large format camera.  Although the urge was there to go to the same spots where other famous photographs had been taken, I tried to find something "different".  I did take images of the valley, falls, and Half Dome, but spent most of my time looking for thing a bit out of the ordinary for Yosemite.

Well, I found "different".  I ended up in a small grave yard, not too far from Yosemite Village.  There were many interesting grave stones from the early settles of the valley.  This bench was right in the center.

It was very close to noon, with the sun directly overhead.  I wanted a very dramatic difference between the shadow areas and the brightly lit stone.  I place the shadow of the back of the bench on zone II.  The other shadows where around Zone I and II.  The bright areas fell on Zone VII.  I gave the negative N+2 development to really enhance the drama.  This image requires only minimal burning and dodging on Number 2 paper.

Camera: Cambo SCII

Lens: Schneider Symmar-S 210mm f5.6

 Film: Tr-X 4x5

Development: Normal+2