Africa project - Blyde River Canyon

[Mike Shimwell]

I've managed to work through a couple more of my Africa chromes - these are from Blyde Riveiers Poort - the Blyde River Canyon. Blyde River is (I'm told) the river of joy, and we took a 4 day hike through the canyon staying at huts overnight. The huts were only rented to one party at a time, so we two were the only company we had for this time. We had a great time, and there is a sporting chance that I'll add a couple more pics to this thread later - but first the sweeping views (with clouds again!)

Mike

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Michael,

In both these pictures the blanket of clouds contributes to the presence in the images. I like being taken to both valleys where at some time long ago the water must have been massively wide and fast to have cut the rocks like that.

My Africa Chromes are pretty faded, I'm sure. These are still rich so I gather they are quite recent. I wonder how you are processing the images in terms of sharpening and dealing with the already rich colors. I almost have a feeling of HDR in these two pictures. The foreground trees in the first image and the rock ridge line meeting the sky in the second.

That might be because of high contrast transitions. It's difficult to prepare for a large print and then to down res that for putting online. So the edges of the trees may not look at all has sharp as we are seeing.

 

[fahim mohammed]

Mike, gives me a fair view of the terrain. How have you managed to keep them from fading?

 

[Rachel Foster]

Now why can't I shoot scenics like these?

Nice images.

 

[Mike Shimwell]

Hi Asher,

Thanks. In both these images I burned (can we still say that?) the sky in a bit to give some shape to the foreground. Neither is HDR(!) but you are right that I think there is some artifacting from the blur, downsize, sharpen process. My prints are not as crispy.

I have kept my slides very badly, I am ashamed to say, since shooting them in 1995. Basically they have spent the last 8 years in a big box in the loft getting heat cycled by the sun on a daily basis. The only saving grace is that the space is pretty dry. They have actually faded towards blue to varying degrees (some quite badly) but the ROC (colour restoration function) in Nikon Scan combined with lightroom and CS4 has made getting back to something like I remember easier than I expected. I've tried to retain some of the richness of the originals in the process. The hardest part with Kodachrome and Black and White film is getting the sharpening right - lightrooms masked sharpening is useful, but I am still using photoshop and sharpening on blurred masked luminosity layers for some images to avoid over emphasising the grain.

Really this project is a labour of love, and I keep going back and doing abit more. Eventually I will have scanned all that I think are worthwhile and made prints, but I'm trying to keep a balance and make some new work wjhilst I'm at it!

Mike

 

[Mike Shimwell]

Now why can't I shoot scenics like these?

Nice images.

Rachel,

Thanks, but a big part of these pictures is just being there to be honest. I'm sure that you would come away with some nice pictures too.

We cooked over an open fire each night on the hike, and one night I boilled up a big bucket of water as the stream was not very palatable. Here is one of the fires

Mike

 

[Asher Kelman]

We cooked over an open fire each night on the hike, and one night I boilled up a big bucket of water as the stream was not very palatable. Here is one of the fires

Fire is a difficult thing to photograph well This will make a good new theme! Could you post more and larger so we can choose one to start a new theme.

Asher