Thursday, October 22, 2020

The colors of photosynthesis

The Rolleiflex SL66 is certainly not the first camera I would chose to take with me on a long hike, but it's totally fine for short forays from the car as was the case on this particular shoot. I'd been wanting to photograph this scene for quite some time and jumped at the chance to get out of the house for an hour or so one evening and do some photography. The magenta hue of these greenhouses comes from the blue and red LEDs -- the colors of photosynthesis. Here, I used the 80mm f/2.8 lens set to a medium aperture which gave exposures of a few seconds (I bracketed). 

As far as the Cinestill 50D is concerned, it is a terrific film in general and worked very well here, too. Funny, sometimes shooting this emulsion handheld in a 35mm camera can be a pain in the neck due to it's slow speed. For night shooting this was of no concern since I knew I'd be on a tripod no matter what film I used. The second shot here is Lewis Baltz inspired and has a nice mix of lighting that the film handled with aplomb.