Thursday, September 16, 2010

Chaco Bound

We are making plans for another trip to Chaco Canyon. We were last there six years ago. Some of the pictures I liked best from that trip were made with the Dolly Super-Sport. I also shot film with the Pentax and the Yashicamat.





I also shot quite a bit with my Nikon Coolpix digital camera. It did a nice job with many of the scenic compositions, but was totally bamboozled by the red sandstone cliff faces that form a background for the rock art images. I think my current digital, a Canon A650, would likely handle the challenges of the site better, but I may leave it at home. Digital seems to push me toward a careless approach that I think is particularly inappropriate to this subject which really demands thoughtfulness.

2 comments:

Julio F said...

Quite a scenic area, beautiful compositions (my favorite is the second one, nice tonal gradation in that wall). I like the B&W shots better than the color digital, although it is not really fair to compare digital with medium-format T-max developed in Rodinal.

Mike said...

I no longer have the Dolly or the Yashicamat for the return to Chaco. I do have the same Pentax still, and it will go back along with a good selection of lenses. For B&W work, I'll likely rely on the Ikonta 520 and the Kodak No.1 Special, both of which sport the classic Tessar lens.

In previous visits, we managed to see all the major Big House ruin sites. I can no longer easily hike five to ten miles through the desert in a day, so this time I expect to concentrate on the more easily-reached locations.