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Matinee: 'Wild Cherry Blossoms'
12 October 2024
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 573rd in our series of Saturday matinees today: Wild Cherry Blossoms.
In this 4:28 piece, Canadian photographer Ron Smid talks about his photograph Wild Cherry Blossoms. Smid uses medium and large format wood field cameras with both color and black-and-white film.
In 2012, he gave up color work to concentrate on black-and-white. "I found that monochrome imparted a more elemental expression to my work than I had been able to capture before," he says. "Certain images that had eluded me on color film no matter how many times I returned to them, translated their essence seamlessly into complete works in black and white.’
In the video he tells where he found his cherry tree and how it exhibits the passing of the years. The reflect that, he made a high contrast image, he continues, explaining the traditional dodging-and-burning darkroom techniques he used.
But he went beyond that to dissolve the highlights with bleach on a paintbrush.
Then he talks about the 30x40 paper and a 20x24 size he made as selenium tone prints that should last 200 years.
Despite his traditional method, the problems he address are common to any approach. There are certainly digital equivalents to doding and burning as well as lifting highlights. And one advantage to the digital method is you only do it once so each print will be exactly the same.