Atheist Poncho

OK so I was in detroit this weekend getting used to the new 4×5 camera. There is a bit of a learning curve. Composing images upside down is something to get used to.

I was in detroit checking out this project I might do some lighting design for these guys so I thought I would go down and see what they’re project is all about and take some pictures. On my way there I saw a nice factory and then when I got there 20/20 was there following mitch and gina around. So I have some shots of the 20/20 film crew. Anyhow those guys were awesome and Corine (Mitch and Ginas friend and new neighbour) showed me some of the foreclosed houses in the neighbourhood. You can just walk into them, most have fire damage and have been stripped of any valuables. Copper pipes, wires, porcelain toilets, flooring, light fixtures. Anyhow it was an interesting weekend.

These shots are from 4×5. I didn’t want to rent the imacon scanner at imageworks so Patrick and I rigged up a set up with his medium format digital phase one back, a strobe with a softbox as a backlight and a macro lens. The results are actually pretty incredible. It took some tweaking of the raw images but we managed to get some pretty good colour/exposure latitude and the resolution/sharpness is better than you can get from any flatbed. I just left these in the sleeves because tonight was more of an experiment than anything else so there is some dust on the negs. But I’m going to build a negative carrier for our set up, one for 6×4.5 and 6×9 as well!

ok

rm