Holywell Pond Panorama Print Creation:Composition and Printing

Background

On the back of my previous panoramic print (We Are So Small in the Eye of God) I am encouraged to take another image through to completion. I have selected one I mentioned in a previous blog post. This image was taken at Holywell Pond in the RSPB reserve at Fen Drayton. It is a classic early spring scene at the refuge which consists of a series of abandoned gravel pits that are now tree-lined lakes for waterfowl. Holywell Pond is used by fishermen (as are most of the lakes in the reserve) and so has a few small wooden platforms dotted around the edge.

I took this photo mid-morning in early spring trying to capture the look of the trees perched on the edge of the water. I cycle past this on my commute to work and the image had grown on me. I photographed it with my Fuji G617 panoramic camera with a 90mm lens. The negative is about three times long as it is high. The scanned negative of the image is as follows.

Composition Thoughts

As before, my challenge with these wide images is that my 6x6 workhorse enlarger can only handle about a third of the entire negative. ‘The Beast’ my 4x5 enlarger cannot even take the entire width of the negative either. I alleviate this by dividing an image in to a Tritych or Quadriptych. This also allows a larger overall image as the maximum paper I can print and develop is 16 x 20”. My previous project got me to about 44” overall width.

For this image I first want to mock up the composition. I do this using my iPad and a presentation program called Keynote. It is a simple way to import images and move and crop them to explore composition options.

Here I will outline the process I went through to get to my desire composition to finally print the image. First I started with a Quadriptych. Why? I suppose because this is where I landed before. Here it is

This represents the whole image and so works on that level. However I don’t like the split tree in the middle and the gap between the tree in the third panel.

Next I go for a Triptych.

This works better however there are two small problems. The first division in the image on the left cuts the tree branches and there is the large gap at the second division between the images. It also reveals the inherent division by three of the image. So I shift the division slightly to the left.

This fixes the first problem but emphasizes the gap between the trees in the division on the right. Another attempt. This time I cheat . I shrink the gap between the trees on the left by removing this from the image. I am unsure how I feel about this.

I normally consider that I should make images that are true to their subject matter. However after trying this I find the image balances better so my inclination is to let the aesthetic override the integrity with respect to the subject matter. You can judge for yourself if the sacrifice is justified.

Now as to printing and the size of the final image. I first imagined the Quadritypch printed on 8x10” paper so somewhat smaller than the previous image as this would give about 32” overall image width. A division by four neatly fits each image into a 4x5 aspect ratio as well. I can retain the same image length by printing on 12x16” paper again which would get me to about 34”. Alternatively sticking with 8x10” paper makes a more modest 24” image width.

Printing Plan

Again I must find the one portion of the image that represents the greatest range of tones and use this image to build my print plan. I will still need to follow a simple burn scheme so that each image can be treated the same and there will be no detectable exposure or brightness differences between the three images once it is mounted and framed. It then becomes a simple matter to duplicate the print plan for the other two images.

Finally the talk about 16x20" paper made me think about splitting the image in half for a 40" total image width. This is the composition in that case. Actually pretty boring!

Ilford Warm-tone Fiber Paper

I ended up printing this scene twice. Once on 8 x 10" Ilford Warm-tone Fiber based paper. This paper has a matte finish and this presented a challenge as it suffers a lot from dry-down. The difference in contrast between wet and dry with this paper is significant. Most paper I don't see that great a difference but I tend to go for gloss or pearl finish. For these prints I used a #0 filter at 8 seconds and #5 filter at 13 seconds.

Ilford MG ART 300 Paper

Next I tried Ilford MG ART 300 paper. This is a premium paper made with 300 GSM, 100% cotton rag, acid free paper. I had never tried it before and had bought a box of 9 1/2" x 12" to try. I decided to print this scene. The reviews on this paper are mixed. It has a heavy texture much like water color paper and has a very flat matte finish. Some love it and others are not impressed. It seems to work better for some subjects than others.

Having experienced the dry-down on the warm-tone paper I was extra cautious and blotted the paper and microwaved it as I made my test prints. I ended up with a #0 filter at 16 seconds and a #5 filter at 76 seconds to bring the contrast up.

Looking at these prints I am not as enamored with them as a triptych. The reason is the left hand image looks out of place. It is a muddled tangle of branches and darkness. It also lack the foreground reflect in the pond. My impulse is to only frame and hang the right two photos as a set.

Mounting and framing.

I opted to mount these on white foam core with the photo borders in tact (1/4" white) and the foam core cut to allows 1" border around the edges. I plan to hang them as separate images adjacently on the wall.