Harbor Springs

A Northern Michigan field, off Ely Road near Pellston Airport—the darkening sky was middle gray, and so was the field, and so were the posts—if I print this the way it really was, it looks all wrong, so I have to goose the contrast shamelessly just to make it seem reasonable in a photograph. Although the grasses did look all shimmery like that, if my memory is correct. The picture below is of the town of Harbor Springs, taken from the hillside overlooking the town, toward the harbor and Harbor Point (where all the exclusive houses are—"The Point" is private, not accessible to the public, or to photographers). Beyond the point you can see Little Traverse Bay and the old power plant west of Petoskey, which was demolished in spectacular fashion some years back.

This little diagram is very approximate—I think the camera position is much closer to the water than that, but the "X" wouldn't fit. It's just to give you a general idea of what you're looking at, across a small body of water and then across a larger one.

I scanned these much closer to web resolution, and the second negative, which is quite thin, resulted in some rather astonishing scanner artifacts in the darker trees. I hope they don't show up well enough that you can see them.

_____________________

Mike

Featured Comment by Scott Hill: "I've taken a lot of long bike rides down the roads these Michigan shots show, Mike.

"But from my recollection, there are not that many fence-posts as I see in the image here—did you add, remove, or move some posts before you took this picture? I've been trying to read the shadows to see what time of day it was, but that's getting me nowhere.

"Maybe I've been reading too much about cannonballs lately."

Comments

[PleasureSean]

Ahh - nice to see your getting some good use out of the new scanner. I find there's often a nicer 3D quality you get out of scanning negatives - it's probably a bit too laborious for most people these days, but it does produce a different look. And bringing back shots that have been collecting dust for a long time can be a real fun process of rediscovery, so thanks for sharing these pictures.

[Ken]

Aw Mike, your photos (and map) take me back to my last visit to that area nearly 20 years ago. It was a good time for me. Now I long to go back.

But I'm digressing into personal stories.

The core concept of this piece is that a photograph isn't finished when the shutter closes, eh? In chemical-only days the rest of the magic took place in darkrooms with strangely shaped wands. Today it takes place at computers with...well...strangely shaped wands and tablets.

But activity's purpose hasn't changed; Show me what I MEANT, not what I recorded!

[Player]

I really like those photographs Mike, especially the first one. Very expressive!

The scans are coming out great for the net, at the very least.

[bob wong]

Mike,

I've been watching the comments section of your postings regarding your scanning tribulations waiting for someone to post possible solutions for improving your V700 scans.

But so far none has specifically recommended changing the height of your negatives above the glass surface of the flat bed.

I've lost the link but I think it was some British lad that first clued me in.

On the bottom side of the negative holders that Epson supplies with the V700 there are a colletion of removable tabs that are used to adjust the height of the negative above the glass. Adjusting the height moves the negative around with respect to the focus plane of the scanner lens. The various options of positioning the tabs allow three different heights. The British lad found that he needed to use the option that moved the negative furthest from the glass.

On my own V700 I found that the highest position also gave the best focus. In my messing around I found that using the image on the negative for determining best focus height was quite difficult. Instead I found what worked the best was to get an old slide that had embedded biological growth and use these growths as the focus target (The growths were much sharper and clearer, almost like using a microscope). Dirt on the negative also works quite well as the focus target.

The Epson V700 manual does mention these height adjustment tabs but does not place sufficient emphasis on the point. My V700 shipped with the tabs in the wrong position.

So try messing around with the height and see what you get. Note: You can't place the negative directly on the glass, or at least I haven't figured out how to do it.

Regards

Bob