Preview – Landsford Canal

im Hoyle and I recently went to Landsford Canal in South Carolina. The canal was a bit of a boondoggle in that, before it was finished, it had been replaced by newer technology – the train. Aside from being a metaphor for the contemporary world and the way in which technology often reshapes our world before we can even wrap our heads around the technology we have, the remaining stone work of the canal was breathtaking. As I stood there, between the walls of stone that rose almost endlessly over my head, it was difficult to imagine how, without modern technology, the stone masons could have made the stones that line the walls of the canal fit so perfectly.
I am attached to my Pentax 645D, and these images were all created with that camera. Medium format isn’t an ideal “in the woods camera,” but the quality of the images dwarf what you can get from a DSLR, so, I will put up with the extra weight and some of the other limitations associated with using medium format.
The images in this post were “finished” – post processed using a look and feel that would have been common in the era when the canal was built. These are complex images – seven layers in total – if you are familiar with the concept – each tailored to achieve a specific visual and emotional experience. Yes, that makes post processing time consuming – it took almost three hours to finish just two images from that shoot. Yes, I know, in the Instagram world, you point your phone at something, add an Instagram filter, and then, done. No. Not here. A photo is much more than an Instagram filter….
In that article, we will also talk about the role post processing plays in unlocking the visual and emotional experience.

Read the rest of this article in Volume 7 #2 of NyghtVision, coming June 15.