In a previous post I talked about issues that seem to crop up when shooting sheet film. When I refer to issues, I am talking about things you can do unintentionally that may or may not ruin a particular negative. See my previous post “WHAT CAN GO WRONG?” for a better idea of the issues.
We spent the entire month of December 2008 in Utah. This was one of our typical photo trips and we were there to make photographs. This trip we brought back 276 sheets of film in four formats ranging from 4×10 to 11×14.
Mistakes? Who makes mistakes? Issues? What Issues? Of the film that I exposed, I had 136 sheets in two sizes. Of those sheets, there were three sheets that I ruined, due to just plain dumb mistakes.
At lot of my mistakes come near the end of the day, when I am tired. Lugging 40-50 pounds all day in the snow will wear you down. I do make mistakes. No matter how hard I try, I seem to always screw up a few sheets of film. The biggest one this trip you ask? I double exposed an absolutely great photo of glowing cottonwood trees. I now have this strange 8×10 negative with two large trees. . . at right angles! Yes, the first exposure was a horizontal, the second was vertical. Oh well. I did make several other negatives of the same tree, so not all is lost. And as I said in my previous post, I had a few choice words!