Events Contrive

Often one small happening or event sparks several others that quickly fall into place. It's like seizing an opportunity which has taken so long to come into fruition and then so many others things fall into place with not much effort involved at all. When all events coincide with a change in seasons from winter to spring, it is especially..... well..... special I suppose. Good things are happening in my life at the moment. My creative juices are flowing again in more ways than one.

Take yesterday for instance. Due to the commencement of my next assignment being put back till after the Easter holiday, I took the opportunity to do some printing in the darkroom in St Pauls. I had a burning desire to print some of the photographs that I took in Little Venice last week. The negative of the barge emerging from the canal bridge spurred me on; I had high hopes for that one.

My tastes in images are slowly evolving and maturing. Recently I find that I'm preferring extremely contrasty images. To the point that most of the grey shades have been converted to black or white depending on their density. This makes the image very stark and graphic. It's a technique that works on some pictures and not others. I thought the photograph of the barge would benefit from the extra contrast as it is a very graphic composition anyway.

In the darkroom, I printed from the negative at grade 2.5 for 7 seconds and this produced a very good image indeed. It was nicely toned, perfectly composed with no need to crop and the right amount of depth of field to show enough detail in the distance.

For my second attempt, I ramped up the filter to grade 4.5 and used a 10 second interval. This produced just the kind of image I prefer. My friend Paul, who was with me for the session, had a preference for the first 'Straight' version and I could see his point. It is a very precise, almost perfect, print of the scene as it unravelled. It has all the ingredients that a good black and white image should have using shape, line, tone and light to full effect.

Compositionally, the picture is excellent even if I say so myself. The timing is perfect and shows how it pays to have patience and be in the right place at the right time. I like the way the main elements are separated from each other which demonstrates how important it is to choose the correct vantage point from which to shoot. The dark oppressive overpass streaks, snake-like, across the sky, dominating the scene; the dark structure contrasting with the white sky and the hard edges of the modern glass building next to it.

In the middle ground, there are a couple of cyclists fixing signs to the wall of the bridge and a man walks behind them in full stride. Behind him stand the 2 large male statues facing each other as if they are about to shout "Draw!"

Then in the foreground we have, what I consider to be, the main subject of the picture: the canal barge "Fridiswid", with its two pilots in the rear cockpit. These men stand out perfectly against the black wall of the tunnel from which they have just emerged. The canal boat's white wake reflects against the black water beneath, and the smoke emerging from the chimney, situated midships, floats by, helping to isolate the striding man walking past the cyclists.

I like this photograph very much but I'm still unsure as to which version of the image is better and worthy of being framed and hanged on my wall.