Chaco Architecture

 I finished a roll of color on our walk through the great houses of Chetro Ketl and Pueblo Bonito.  Then we got back in the car and drove to the end of the loop road to visit the Kin Kletso and Pueblo del Arroyo sites.  For that part of our tour I shot Fomapan 200 in my Leica IIIa with the Elmar 3.5/50.  

While there are similarities in the layouts, there is an obvious difference in the architectural styles of these two great houses from the larger ones to the east.   The source of the stone walls at these western sites was the talus slope rubble at the base of the great cliffs, while the two large sites to the east used a lot of thin, tablet-like masonry mined from higher up in the cliffs.

Archaeologists in the past sorted the dozen Chaco sites into three different phases, but I think subsequent dendrochronological analysis determined that the building styles were actually contemporaneous.  In addition to the stonework, all of the sites made extensive use of wood for door and window lintels,  floors, ceilings and platforms.

While I was walking through the Pueblo del Arroyo site a couple passed by and I heard the man comment that it seemed unlikely the many wood beams in evidence were original to the site given the thousand years since the great house was built.  While it is true that there has been some reconstruction and stabilization, there are still a lot of wooden elements that have been preserved by burial in a dry climate.  In fact, thousands of timbers have been cataloged and examined to determine species, age and origins.

Near Pueblo del Arroyo is a stone stairway which leads up over the cliffs to the beginning of one of the ancient roads which radiate out from Chaco Canyon.  In Great Pueblo Architecture of Chaco Canyon,  Stephen H. Lekson mentions that one important use of the roads was the transportation of timber from forty or more kilometers from the Chaco sites.  In browsing around on the net for further information about those roadways I came across the interesting thesis that the big logs were probably rolled down the roads rather than being carried as is often asserted.  That certainly fits with the width and smoothness of the roads and the fact that the Ancestral Puebloans had no beasts of burden or wheeled vehicles to assist with transport.

Time and the elements have sculpted the walls of the great houses into shapes which invite photographic interpretation while also obscuring the original forms and surface appearances of the structures.  I'm thinking it would be rewarding to print out the pdf of Lekson's book and take it along on the next trip to Chaco to help in achieving a more coherent understanding of this extraordinary place.

Some Illustrations from Lekson (National Park Service, Dept. of the Interior - 1984):

Greyhounds

I am always thrilled to come across greyhounds anywhere.  On Sunday, I went to Hyder Park in Albuquerque to see a gathering of greyhounds sponsored by The New Mexico Chapter of the Greyhound Adoption League of Texas.  Most are former track dogs rescued by the organization.

When I encounter greyhounds in the city, there is always a touch of sadness to the occasion for me.  Most of the adoptive owners I come across treat their dogs like porcelain dolls; they seem afraid they will break their pets if they don't handle them just right.  So, the dogs never get off a leash when outside and they never have a chance to run full out.

Now, to be honest, the dogs never complain about such treatment.  Greyhounds always seem perfectly content to lounge around the house, and to walk sedately beside their owners in city parks.  They are almost never belligerent  toward other dogs or people when in public places.  My guess is that a lot of adoptive owners interpret this gentle and compliant behavior to a sense of gratitude for being rescued from desperate and sometimes cruel circumstances.

What gets overlooked in the well-intentioned rescue process is the real history of the breed, a tradition of selecting traits of stamina, agility, sharp vision and group compatibility that goes back thousands of years.  Over that vast span of time the greyhound was molded to the purpose of chasing down small to medium-sized game animals.  Since the dogs were hunted at least in pairs and often in large packs their aggression had to be finely tuned to focus on the prey and not on their fellow hunters.  So, the sociable character of the greyhound which makes them so appealing today as pets is really the result of rather ruthless culling to eliminate any behavior which would interfere with a perfect hunting strategy adapted to coursing across the deserts and steppes of Asia and the Middle East.

The physical, mental and character traits of greyhounds which made them perfect hunters also made them perfectly suited to competition racing, and the breeding and training techniques for the track are essentially identical to the ancient customs.  The racing industry has come to be held in low regard in recent times; it is seen as exploitative and callously cruel in many cases.  While there is no denying that dark side of dog racing, it is also seems important to acknowledge that it did keep the breed viable to the present day.

FOMAPAN 200

I am going to like Fomapan 200 once I get its peculiarities figured out.  One of the attractions of the film is the ISO200 rating which potentially provides more flexibility in responding to lighting levels than the Kentmere 100 that I have been using lately.  I started off this first roll at our favorite local craft brewery.

I shot the Fomapan 200 at a stop less than the box speed with the idea that I would be processing it in PMK Pyro which with Kentmere requires a shooting speed reduction of around a stop.  I did not find any very good guidance on line for the Fomapan/PMK combination, so I took a stab at it with 9 minutes at 23C in PMK 1+2+100.

I was very pleased with the Fomapan's fine grain which compares favorably with the slower Kentmere film.  However, most of the outdoor sunny day shots did not achieve my goal regarding tonal depth.  Sorting out the many influences on that quality involves many elements including the camera, lens, exposure and processing.

• The Nikon EM appears to be operating well, but there is a faint flare spot appearing intermittently in the images which indicates a probable need for a light seal replacement.
• The 28mm Rokunar lens has good resolution, but the wide-angle often captures a bit too much of the bright sky.
• Giving the film a full extra stop of exposure may have been a bit too much to retain good detail in both shadows and highlights on a bright day.
• My guessed-at time and temperature for the PMK processing may have significantly  missed the mark.

I am encouraged to experiment a bit with this film because of the many good results I have seen posted on line in the Fomapan 200 Creative Flickr Group.  The film seems to respond well to processing with a great variety of developers including a couple of my favorites, Rodinal and HC-110.  There are also poor to awful results posted in the same place and some naysayers.  My feeling is that the people who denigrate the film have just not taken the time to work through issues of exposure and processing.  It is instructive to examine recommendations for processing times and temps suggested by the Massive Dev Chart site for a variety of films using HC-110B:

Film	Devel	Dil	ASA/ISO	35mm	120	Sheet	Temp

Fomapan 200

HC-110

B

200

3.5

3.5

3.5

20C

Ilford SFX 200

HC-110

B

200

9

9

20C

Kodak TMax 100

HC-110

B

200

7

7

7.5

20C

So, the very short time recommended for Fomapan clearly shows a significant difference in the film's chemistry.  Most people including me would be reluctant to use times under 5 minutes, but the option to use HC-110 dilution H at twice the B dilution gets around that issue.