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Lars

Active member
I just spent a month on the island of Gotland, got my 8x10 out of storage to shoot a portfolio of old fishing boats.

Gotland is a fairly large island (about 150 x 45 km) in the Baltic Sea. As such, it has a long tradition of fishing. The coast used to be littered with little fishing harbors and camps - some still remain. Small open wooden boats were used - some still are. At one camp is a still used boat that was rowed across the Baltic by refugees from Estonina during the war.

The tradition on Gotland is that when an old boat is retired, it is to be left on the shore to decay over the years. This is different from for example Åland, where old boats are to be burned.

This means that the coastline has many old boats in different stages of decay. In addition, the soft lighting and the limestone background makes for some good photo opportunities.

This year I attempted to capture details of the decaying wood. I used E100G for a soft look, shot most exposures after sunset, often with the Cooke XVa wide open for a decidedly LF look. I'm not developing until I get to California late November, so I haven't yet seen any results. Crossing my thumbs for another month (ouch!), here are meanwhile some snapshots from a few locations.

(All edited with the upcoming beta version of Monochrome.)
 

tjv

Active member
Looks like fun! What camera are you shooting? I've never handled an 8x10" but one day hope to. I love shooting 4x5" so can only imagine seeing and image on an 8x10" GG!
 

Lars

Active member
Looks like fun! What camera are you shooting? I've never handled an 8x10" but one day hope to. I love shooting 4x5" so can only imagine seeing and image on an 8x10" GG!
It's a Toyo 810G monorail - essentially a studio camera although it's modular so it packs well. Shooting with this camera means carrying a lot of weight, the camera is about 9 kgs alone, full backpack with tripods is 25-30 kgs. Compared to even 4x5, it's a slow, deliberate process. Using a car is a must, which at times can be a bit limiting. Image on GG is stunning, very alive. Getting focus plane right is extremely important and, especially for closeups, can be tricky.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Lars,

That is VERY cool! What a treasure for a photographer to find, and what a bunch of fun shooting it with ULF would be! Okay, let's plan a workshop LOLOLOLOL!!!!
 

Lars

Active member
Lars,

That is VERY cool! What a treasure for a photographer to find, and what a bunch of fun shooting it with ULF would be! Okay, let's plan a workshop LOLOLOLOL!!!!
Yeah not a bad place for a workshop if you ever wanted to do one in Europe. Visby - the main city - is a world heritage site with a beautiful 13th century ring wall, many cathedral ruins and cute alleys, and in late June the flower season peaks massively together with the light summer nights. In fact Per Volquartz wanted us to plan a workshop there together next year but with Per passing away earlier this year that idea obviously never materialized. Either way I think it's a summer destination to consider for any American landscape photographer.
 
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Lars

Active member
I finally got the 8x10's developed, at Light Waves in San Francisco. Processing was flawless and reasonably priced. Here are some quick and dirty flatbed scans - drum scanner is still sitting in a crate in the garage.
 
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