Liberty Park Winter
December 25, 2020
Al talks about how to capture the perfect winter scene. He breaks down how he captured this winter scene in Salt Lake City, Utah on a bitter cold winter morning and he gives advice on how to make sure you capture your best photos in the snow.
I'm going to talk about a photograph that I took in 1973, with my Hasselblad after a snowstorm that kind of snowed all night long and in the morning, and when we got up, it really was it. When you've seen one of those Winter Wonderland, it's awesome because the snow sticks to everything. Now, if there is sunshine in the forecast, then that snow melts really fast. These were pretty cold days, and it was in January. And so there was no sun and no snow was melting very fast at all. I called up a friend. And his name was Dwayne and I asked Dwayne, I said, Do you want to go down and photograph Liberty Park, it'd be really cool. I was snowed in. But he got out, the main roads were open. But all the streets and the side streets were all pretty much closed. So I met him on a main street that was about a block away from my house. And we drove down to this huge big park in the middle of Salt Lake City called Liberty Park. And no one was there. It was really bitter cold. So we had to park the car outside the park basically hike in. And we were going into areas where everybody Park, as you can see is filled with lots and lots and lots of trees. Underneath that is just a lawn. So it's beautiful in the summertime. And in the wintertime. Since it was no one out there. We had no tracks, nobody's footprints. And normally in a park. Yes, you'd have footprints everywhere dog footprints, everybody's footprints because you want to go out and play in the snow and be there. But being It was so cold. And it was early in the morning. It was probably about 830 in the morning. So even more cold. Why would you go out at 830 in the morning, kind of want to make sure that we beat the traffic, which we realized nobody was dumb enough to go out there and photograph trees in this Nope. That early in the morning at Liberty Park and nobody really cared.
So we were the only ones in the park, walking around and photographing. But as you can see, from looking at the photograph, that it was lovely, it was beautiful. And we could not take pictures fast enough. Now, there is a trick to taking pictures on film. I know that when we have our digital cameras, we can look in the back and go, Hmm, I need to take and stop this down as an extra stop because it looks too light. But then we had only two things to think about as a trick about photographing in snow and in sand. And that trick is that whenever you photographed white like that, you always stop down one to two stops. And then when you've got it, you would be able to see the details. In this note, as you look at the picture, you'll see the shadows, which can casting shadows, but there's no sun. The shadows are the depth and kind of a great part of the snow. And even the white white is not white, white. If you wanted white, white, yes, you could put that in there. But snow is not pure white. It has that grayish look to it. And he can remember that when you're looking at a scale. White is basically kind of like an 18% gray. That's what kind of is there. So when I printed them in the darkroom, this is what I printed for. So you're looking at a print that I did print and then I scanned it later on. If you can see the shadows, you can see the snow as at 18% gray. Now the other trick that you use, and I still use that today, even when I am shooting digital is to bracket bracketing is where you take and go one step above. And one stop below.
For example, if the shot that you're looking at is an F 16 and you go one step up, f 22. One step below f 11. So that means that you know are taking three pictures of that same shot. Now it's best to do this on a tripod, but you don't have to. I've done many without tripods. But this particular day, we actually did haul around our tripods as we trudge through the snow. That way, when you get it, it's like maybe we need it a little bit darker. Maybe we need it a little bit lighter. And when you look at those three prints, In the darkroom, on the negative, you look at it and go, Hmm, I like this contrast better, or I like this non-contrast a little bit better. So that's what you print from. And so you have those three negatives. So what happens when you're shooting a 12 exposure rule with a Hasselblad camera, therefore, you only got four different shots up the 12 exposure role, because there's three of each one. So it used up a lot more film, but trust me, it saves your bacon in a long run. And again, I still do this and in the HD mode that you want to do some of the HD things in digital, you can bracket as high as five stops to above and two below and it does that for you. And then you can take those and sandwich them all together. You have to do this on a tripod, but you can sandwich them all together and get these beautiful ranges that you have.
Now. That's something you get with digital, but this was film and it's my true love. When you look at this photograph and you see the beauty of the blacks, grays and the whites that are there. It is just magnificent. at this particular time. It was the first time I had shot snow with my Hasselblad camera. I was so excited to be able to do this. I had purchased the camera the fall before well partition I think I bought a camera then as the day the truth now you those of you who know what also blinds cost, my Hasselblad cost me $600 I had put it on time payments, because it was a lot to pay for a camera at that time. So I was making payments on my cameras crazy part was that I did not have a darkroom. I could go down to my mentor, a man by the name of Borg Anderson. And I could use his darkroom and studio and way wanted to. He was my instructor at the University of Utah. He was a very generous instructor, very generous man. And he let some of the students come down and use his darkroom to process and print our photographs. I wanted to do this at my own home, I had found an old 1945 and larger with a little bell top on which was really kind of cool. still had that enlarge it to this day, I didn't have the developing tanks for the film, I didn't have the trays to develop the papers in I didn't have the chemicals, they didn't have anything for processing, film, or printing film.
So the 1972 Christmas, I asked for all of that materials, those different parts of the darkroom equipment from different members of my family to give to me, luckily, I got it. So it was in that January after I shot this shot, I actually set up my darkroom, which was rather small. It was a one person walk in closet was not very big. I sat on a stool, and I could use the enlarger to my right, can take the print, move it over to my left and across my left side was the trays for everything to be developed the developer the stop bad the fix, and then it was a little tray there full of water, and I put the prints into that. And then once I had a bunch of prints in that, then I would take them out, head into my bathroom, which was not too far away, and put the prints in to a big bat in the tub and wash them in the tub. When I was developing film, I had to do the exact same thing. I would roll the film onto the reel, put it into the canister, take it and then I would go out into the bathtub, and I would sit in the bath......
So we were the only ones in the park, walking around and photographing. But as you can see, from looking at the photograph, that it was lovely, it was beautiful. And we could not take pictures fast enough. Now, there is a trick to taking pictures on film. I know that when we have our digital cameras, we can look in the back and go, Hmm, I need to take and stop this down as an extra stop because it looks too light. But then we had only two things to think about as a trick about photographing in snow and in sand. And that trick is that whenever you photographed white like that, you always stop down one to two stops. And then when you've got it, you would be able to see the details. In this note, as you look at the picture, you'll see the shadows, which can casting shadows, but there's no sun. The shadows are the depth and kind of a great part of the snow. And even the white white is not white, white. If you wanted white, white, yes, you could put that in there. But snow is not pure white. It has that grayish look to it. And he can remember that when you're looking at a scale. White is basically kind of like an 18% gray. That's what kind of is there. So when I printed them in the darkroom, this is what I printed for. So you're looking at a print that I did print and then I scanned it later on. If you can see the shadows, you can see the snow as at 18% gray. Now the other trick that you use, and I still use that today, even when I am shooting digital is to bracket bracketing is where you take and go one step above. And one stop below.
For example, if the shot that you're looking at is an F 16 and you go one step up, f 22. One step below f 11. So that means that you know are taking three pictures of that same shot. Now it's best to do this on a tripod, but you don't have to. I've done many without tripods. But this particular day, we actually did haul around our tripods as we trudge through the snow. That way, when you get it, it's like maybe we need it a little bit darker. Maybe we need it a little bit lighter. And when you look at those three prints, In the darkroom, on the negative, you look at it and go, Hmm, I like this contrast better, or I like this non-contrast a little bit better. So that's what you print from. And so you have those three negatives. So what happens when you're shooting a 12 exposure rule with a Hasselblad camera, therefore, you only got four different shots up the 12 exposure role, because there's three of each one. So it used up a lot more film, but trust me, it saves your bacon in a long run. And again, I still do this and in the HD mode that you want to do some of the HD things in digital, you can bracket as high as five stops to above and two below and it does that for you. And then you can take those and sandwich them all together. You have to do this on a tripod, but you can sandwich them all together and get these beautiful ranges that you have.
Now. That's something you get with digital, but this was film and it's my true love. When you look at this photograph and you see the beauty of the blacks, grays and the whites that are there. It is just magnificent. at this particular time. It was the first time I had shot snow with my Hasselblad camera. I was so excited to be able to do this. I had purchased the camera the fall before well partition I think I bought a camera then as the day the truth now you those of you who know what also blinds cost, my Hasselblad cost me $600 I had put it on time payments, because it was a lot to pay for a camera at that time. So I was making payments on my cameras crazy part was that I did not have a darkroom. I could go down to my mentor, a man by the name of Borg Anderson. And I could use his darkroom and studio and way wanted to. He was my instructor at the University of Utah. He was a very generous instructor, very generous man. And he let some of the students come down and use his darkroom to process and print our photographs. I wanted to do this at my own home, I had found an old 1945 and larger with a little bell top on which was really kind of cool. still had that enlarge it to this day, I didn't have the developing tanks for the film, I didn't have the trays to develop the papers in I didn't have the chemicals, they didn't have anything for processing, film, or printing film.
So the 1972 Christmas, I asked for all of that materials, those different parts of the darkroom equipment from different members of my family to give to me, luckily, I got it. So it was in that January after I shot this shot, I actually set up my darkroom, which was rather small. It was a one person walk in closet was not very big. I sat on a stool, and I could use the enlarger to my right, can take the print, move it over to my left and across my left side was the trays for everything to be developed the developer the stop bad the fix, and then it was a little tray there full of water, and I put the prints into that. And then once I had a bunch of prints in that, then I would take them out, head into my bathroom, which was not too far away, and put the prints in to a big bat in the tub and wash them in the tub. When I was developing film, I had to do the exact same thing. I would roll the film onto the reel, put it into the canister, take it and then I would go out into the bathtub, and I would sit in the bath......