northern light

the printing of the danish snaps are taking a bit more time than i had expected. it has to do with this phenomenon that i still have to conquer. northern light. it seems that i am constantly underexposing when i am in it.

i was made aware of this when one winter in the duke, buddy from port kirwan mentioned that light up here was different. yeah yeah yeah i know it is softer, more penetrating - when it is out - beautiful light. he was saying how lightmeters were constantly confused as if the rock the light version of places that send compasses crazy.

it is f:16 at 250 one stop dimmer in newfoundland. i am overly aware of this i am constantly second guessing the lightmeters in the lads. in truth it does seem to give a reading that thinks there is more light than it is. overcast day and i am getting the “sunny 16” reading. i couldn’t remember however if the kirwanian was saying that my guessing would be wrong or that i couldn’t trust the lightmeter. needless to say that i bracket constantly. the odd thing incident meters seem to be spot on.

so here i was roughly the latitude of nain and glasgow experiencing the same thing. when out on the wanders i noticed that readings didn’t seem correct. there with the constant greyness i had no point of reference. i bracketed tried to remember through the fog of the duke as what to do and soldiered on.

i wonder when my facility with light in the north was lost. when on the course at goldsmiths’, i had no trouble with light in britain - it couldn’t be the constant greyness which left no room for variation because it seemed worse there. i knew that while the eyes wouldn’t register it, light readings would fall off quickly when duckish. i can only attribute the ease there with my laziness. not having a camera with a built in lightmeter, i would look and guess before i would actually take the reading. after a while hating being bothered, and seeing that my guesses held up. i stopped pulling it out.

with the pyro development which makes negs seem thinner than they are there was a mild panic when i went to print them. the shadow detail is there but the printing resembles those negs that one used to have at a school that would under-develop their negs in microdol-x - expose incorrectly and all is lost. breathing deeply i am making many more tests than usual quietly celebrating when there is a print.