Blue and yellow squares

Reciprocity failure is a characteristic of photographic film where the several color layers of film emulsion respond to their respective wavelengths of light at differing rates. As exposure time increases, blue is absorbed faster than red, giving long exposure images a distinct blue cast.

This "failure" is revealed as color distortion when the film is developed. However the apparent discoloration is largely a function of human vision, in both the eye and the brain, relative to our expectations of color.

Thus the "failure" of reciprocity is merely a technical description of one aspect of photographic color; bright, cool skylight is another major component of the colors here.

Looking south, I found this intimate scene a minute or two after the sun slipped below the horizon to my right. Shadows are gone and hues are muted. Red paint shows shyly through lichens' yellow glow, hinting at vivid colors now retiring with the sun.

© 2009 Duncan Dwelle

Sunset blues

Half an hour earlier, this old chicken house was the typical mottled dull red which aging wood acquires after many casual coats of used motor oil as poor farmer's paint .

When the sun fell below tall trees to the west and low evening fog swept in, my eyes saw only gathering gloom. Yet cool scattered light drew over the scene a veil of blue, exaggerated by my long exposure now required.

Together these color shifts, unseen by me, transformed my film with an unreal cerulean enamel. Contrasting dark knots now pop off the page as if the screeching peacocks of dusk had nailed their tail feathers to the wall.

Is this "manipulation" of the image? Not mine; not planned; not to deceive or invent. Photography is literally painting with light and sometimes the paint looks different when dry.

© 2007 Duncan Dwelle

Tamba's web

Brilliant midday light, tinged with coastal fog, was flooding the steel-blue sky this day. Tall eucalyptus trees screened the old farm shed where, on its shadowed north end, I found Tamba's web entangled in a rusty hinge.

This image, from about fifteen inches, reveals a range of color and depth of detail I first noticed on the ground glass view of my 4x5 camera.

Only later, with film on the light table under my loupe, did I see the startling clarity of nail heads and spiders' homes; the lichen colors of sea-foam green, tide-pool blue, and Crayola yellow; the ghostly owl staring unblinkingly from a large knot.

Serendipity is a significant component of photography - second only to patience. Technical knowledge and experience, although not to be dismissed, count far less.

I've been back to visit these webs but not again caught this strong, indirect light telling such a complex story on such a simple wall.

© 2007 Duncan Dwelle

Little cabbage in blue

The azure shift of summer evening light dominates this image, which an hour before would have been dull as an old tractor belly.

While subdued undertones of simple farm red remain, the vibrant yellow of lichen has acquired an evening palette of chartreuse and mossy green.

Nail heads retain their clarity of texture and form but in this late light their rusty color is nearly indistinguishable from that of the surrounding wood.

See the little cabbage yearn for light, stretching two inches outward to snare the cool intensity of summer sky.

How many years does it take the symbiosis of algae and fungus to grow this tall? How little effort it would take for one careless movement to undo nature's work of a decade.

© 2009 Duncan Dwelle

Spider hole engrained

How long sat the spider, half in her hole and half out, to stencil herself so clearly onto the wood?

How thick was her web to leave its encircling filaments embossed so deeply over the grain behind?

Is that the pale blue print of racoon's paw, grasping for the spider as she sat staring, starving for a careless fly?

Where leads her hole, and who dares follow past the yellow guardian lichen into the inky innards of the barn?

Before the twilight blue we knew that this tableau is naught but a knot in a dull red board. Nature bored the hole, and that's the whole story.

But now night approaches, and on her wings the bewitching tricks of failing light on film. Twenty seconds through my lens lead Alice to a wonderland of discovered forms and colors.

Had I only looked yet never seen, I'd have never known!

© 2009 Duncan Dwelle