Just before sunset tonight I drove just north of town to an old farmstead
that I spotted earlier in the day. I've been photographing old houses and
barns for a year or two now and had instantly recognized a place worth
spending a couple rolls of film on. I polished off the roll of TRI-X in
the OM-1 on a windmill and also exhausted the Provia in my OM-2S on the
windmill and a couple shots of the house. Since it was starting to get
dark and I knew that OTF auto mode was going to be usable, I loaded a roll
of Ilford HP-5 in the OM-2S and mounted it on my trusty Bogan
tripod--unfortunately, the one without the foam insulation. I had to
switch gloves as the neoprene ones pritner killed me.
I took several pictures, but with the long time exposures (F16, 30
seconds), the batteries quickly died in the OM-2S. I trotted back to the
warmth of the Jeep to change batteries as I was afraid of dropping them in
the snow. Back out and trudging through the snow, I almost exclusively
shot with the 100/2.8 but also included a few shots with the Tokina 35-70
as I needed a slightly shorter lens for a couple of angles.
It was getting pretty dark now, and even though I was shooting ISO 400
film, my exposures were getting around a minute. The sky was almost
completely clear from horizon to horizon and the moonrise was terrific (no
shots of it, though). The even, full-dome lighting proved to be absolutely
amazing around this dilapidated structure that looked like it had been hit
by a tornado 50 years ago. I shot a picture through an open door of a wall
that leaned about 30 degrees inward of the "interior" which was a few
plaster-slats with rafters fallen down into the frame. Since there was no
roof (or second story, for that matter) the sky lighting illuminated the
"inside" of the house. The tonalities will be great fun to print. It got
dark enough that I could no longer focus. I eyeballed the distance and set
the lens to it. Since I was shooting at F22-16 I had plenty of DOF to work
with. But, boy were the exposures getting LONG!
I've probably been influenced to a great extent by Andrew Wyeth's paintings
of the Olson House and this site, with all of its outbuildings, had such
depth and emotion that I feel that I can really stretch myself with it.
Best of all, it was about six miles from my house so I can get to it
regularily. Unlike the Olson House, this one wouldn't even be classified
as a "shell" but more like skeletal remains.
Central Iowa has few old abandoned farmhouses standing. Farmland is so
valuable and productive that any old buildings are quickly removed and the
land converted to crop. Northern Missouri has proved to be a terrific
place for old houses as the farmland is worthless (in comparison). There
are several old places near my inlaws' farm down in southern Iowa which I
photograph every chance I get.
This house today was just outside of a "town" that no longer exists. Three
houses, a church and the Grange hall (1914) are all that are left.
Wittemburg doesn't even show on my highly detailed map, but I suspect that
it was on the old stagecoach route. Most of those stagecoach towns
disappeared after the railroad went through. Unfortunately the railroad
didn't always follow the old road and towns would spring up just a few
miles (or less) from existing ones. Today, if you can find a cemetary you
are lucky. There are a couple non-existant stagecoach towns within a few
minutes of where I live. I will visit with the curator of the museum to
find out more about the old route, railroad and these ghost towns.
Coming back home, I made the mistake of opening the camera bag and was
greeted with fog in the camera bag. The camera equipment was so cold and
our house humidity is maintained at 55o when the moist air settled into
the bag it condensed on the equipment and also turned to mist in the bag.
Really cool--never seen that happen before.
I wasn't overly concerned with reciprocity failure as HP-5 has plenty of
latitude and the grain is less pronounced when you underexpose a little
anyway. Even so, I just might push this roll in development to 800 or 1600
to accentuate the grain and really make this roll moody. There were no
highlights to block up and the highs/lows seemed to be within 4 stops when
spotmetered. I can see Grade 5 as a starting point on this project. <g>
Ken Norton
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