Seven prints from California

I am revisiting negatives from a Californian trip that I took in May 2024 with my girlfriend, visiting San Francsico, Yosemite, Monterey and Carmel.

I brought two Minolta SLRs on the trip with some of my favorite lenses like the 50mm f1.4, 28mm f2.8, 58mm f1.4 and a new-to-me 35-70mm f3.5 zoom (of Leitz partnership fame).

We started the trip in San Francisco before hitting the road and driving first to Lake Tahoe, Mono Lake and then Yosemite National Park where we spent three full days hiking the trails that Ansel walked. Most film I used during this time was Kodak color stock (200 or 400), but I managed the odd B&W roll in between, mostly Ilford Delta 100 / 400 or Kentmere, using a red filter on the lens if I felt the situation called for it, such as this mountain shot that I think I took using the 35-70 zoom with the filter attached.

Printing this shot led me to all sorts of experiments. I recently pulled a home scan of the negative to check it against the print. I did little to enhance the scan and I consider it to be as flat as can be. To my surprise I noticed that no detail shows up on the mountain highlights (in the middle-right of the frame, the two rocky ridges). But printing revealed some level of detail in those highlights. The negative also shows vignetting in the top corners which I think comes from the red filter.

If memory serves, I first tried printing this at grade 2.5 but felt the print lacked something. I was not satisfied with the contrast level in the rocky mountain middle third of the frame. A one-grade bump to 3.5 helped but messed up the dark forest foreground somehow. I decided to experiment with split grading and managed to strike a balance where the dark foreground and the mountain showed enough detail, and the sky showed the white plume enough, without having to burn it in. I was using Fomabrom 112 paper for the first time; it took some time getting used to the matte finish and the drydown.

After living with the print for some time I think I could improve it by lowering the grade 5 exposure to a grade 4 / 4.5 and try to get less light on the trees. There is still more detail available on the negative that shows up on the scan. Maybe a challenge to keep in mind when inspiration is low!

We took every opportunity we could to explore the park during our 3 night stay. I took this picture of a tree stump (or is it a termite mound?) while getting ready to climb the Mist Trail. The negative is badly overexposed, shot in harsh sunlight, and I had to burn the center portion of the stump +2.5 stops with the 0 filter to bring up the wood texture, while keeping some shadow details in the lower part of the stump. Again, split grading worked well for this print; I tried some tests at grades 1.5 and 2 but could not get the texture to pop without turning everything else grey, or losing too much detail in the shadows.

I remember shooting these two views of El Capitan while on our last day in the park. Again, the lighting conditions seem to have confused the light meter of my Minolta camera (as well as my eyes). I think I shot the frames with a red filter, the contrast looks a bit over the top to my eyes. And again I had to burn the highlights for about 3 stops with a 0 filter to pull details from the sun-bathed rock. As for the shadows, I tried saving some details but I feel that I could do a better job in a future print.

That evening rock climbers in bright jackets were slowly climbing the wall. We stayed in the grass for some time trying to find the climbers and debating whether what we saw were actual climbers, tents, bags … Just before leaving we witnessed a climbing party going over the top. It was time to say our goodbyes to this magical place.

We stayed for a couple of days in Monterey and took the opportunity to visit Carmel by the Sea and drive the 17-mile road. The weather turned misty and all kinds of gray; again the red filter (that I had bought in New York upon arrival) proved useful to punch through the mist.

The coastal rocks look just like some parts of Britanny in France. It reminded me of the coastline paradox: French people often like to joke that the coast of Britanny is so fractured and torn apart that its length is fractal and inifite. The granite formations are almost identical to Britanny's more savage coasts, the likes of which you can find in the Finistère around Perros-Guirrec or Quimper. The print itself was straightforward enough, except some light masking on the dark rock on the center of the frame to bring up some shadow detail. Annoingly I can't recall whether I used the 35-70 zoom or the 28mm f2.8 lens for this shot (it's probably the zoom though). The lens distortion at the top of the frame also makes me think I should try cropping in a little bit.

The weather did not clear for the end of our drive and when we arrived at the Lone Cypress the fog was getting heavy. I could only snap a couple of frames at the end of the roll before getting back to San Francisco for the journey home.