[LargeFormat] Autumn (Fall) Colours

[Pete Caluori]

Greetings,

I haven’t been very active on the list, but I have been reading most of the 
posts.  This year has been “interesting” and my time to read e-mail limited. 
  Fall color on this side of the pond varies from locale to locale - at 
least that’s what I’ve been hearing.  Here in the Rockies it was good though 
my attempts to capture it failed miserably, but I’ll get back to that later.

On July 3rd while descending from 12,000 feet in the Rockies of Wyoming, I 
slid down a 60 degree snow covered slope.  Not having my ice axe, the slide 
was uncontrolled and covered about 350 feet.  After hitting some boulders at 
the bottom, I needed about 60 stitched in my head, a few in my arm and a 
broken rib.  Luckily no camera equipment was injured and I’m still healing 
more than 3 months later.  Actually, I’m very lucky to be here!

Back to the Fall color.  A few weeks ago, I spent a week traveling through 
NM, AZ, UT and CO and managed to shoot about 90 sheets of film; many were of 
some spectacular color in the Colorado high country.  Over the years I’ve 
gotten into the habit of using Post-it notes on my dark slides to identify 
the film.  After the shot, I record exposure info, processing, etc.  The 
note stays with the film from the time it’s loaded in the holder ‘till it’s 
entered in my database.  This system has worked excellently for well over 
1,000 shots – until a few weeks ago!

While shooting under some quickly changing light, I forgot to remove the 
Post-it and yanked the dark slide.  The slide came out, but ripped the 
Post-it.  Not wanting to miss the shot, I looked inside the back (without 
removing it – big mistake) and didn’t see the rest of the Post-it.  I 
assumed it was stuck inside the holder’s light trap and continued shooting.  
This happened on the first day of my trip.

On the last day, I was checking the cut corners of the ground glass for 
coverage and noticed a small bug on my lens.  I looked at the front element, 
but the bug wasn’t there, so I pulled the lens and the bug wasn’t on the 
inside either.  I next looked inside the bellows and nestled inside one of 
the pleats was a tiny piece of Post-it paper!  So far 62 sheets have ended 
up in the garbage because of a huge flare mark right through the center of 
each shot!  I have about 20 more sheets to process and figure most of those 
are also ruined.  So far this year has not been very good for me.

So Clive to answer your question about Fall color, yes here in the Colorado 
Rockies it’s was very good, just don’t ask me to prove it.  Next month I’m 
going back to Utah, but this time you can bet I’ll be checking the bellows 
regularly.  I hope everyone else has been having better luck than me this 
year!

Regards,  Pete


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