Clouds, Shakespeare, 1997. Shakespeare, New Mexico
I returned to the southern New Mexico ghost town of Shakespeare several years after first photographing it for the book Ghost Towns of the Old West (Mallard Press). After photographing several interiors in the interesting buildings, the clouds began to change with the threat of an approaching storm. Using a 121mm Schneider Super Angulon lens on my 4x5 view camera, I photographed this vertical composition placing an emphasis on the repetitive cloud patterns emanating from the ghostly structures. I used an orange filter with Kodak Tri-X film in hopes of maximizing the separation between the sky and clouds. The resulting negative still did not show as much separation in the sky as I wanted, so I used a type 2 fog mask to enhance the spray of clouds by selectively darkening the sky, without affecting the brightness of the clouds, to just the right degree. I could not have gotten this kind of contrast control with standard means. Even resorting to a much higher contrast grade of paper didn't even approach the beautiful control I was able to get with the type 2 fog mask.
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