I'll look for it tonight. I at least have the cover, which I could
scan. But I might have the transparancy as well. All my transparencies
from those days are buried in a box in the basement, but I at least
know where to look :-).
Paul
On Aug 23, 2005, at 11:39 PM, Tom C wrote:
Paul Stenquist wrote:
I'm game. I've shot a lot of weird things and attempted some rather
difficult shots, but one comes to mind immediately. It was almost 25
years ago, and I was working for Hearst Magazines in New York. We
were running an article about Ford's propane engine cars in Motor
Magazine, and the editor decided we had to have a picture of a
propane flame for the cover. I bought a propane torch and various
tips. I found that the paint scraper tip gave me a nice looking,
broad flame. To record the flame on film, I obviously had to
eliminate all other light, so I set the torch up in my garage after
dark. I tried to shoot all our covers on 4x5 in those days, so I set
up my Speed Graphic and loaded ten film holders with ektachrome 64.
To get the flame large in frame, I had to extend the bellows beyond
the 1:1 position, so that increased exposure considerably. My meter
reading and teh macro correction indicated a very long exposure, so I
had a reciprocity failure to factor in as well. My calculations with
the Kodak Photoguide wheels indicated an exposure of about 10
minutes. To bracket in half stops, I'd half to do 2.5 minutes, 5
minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and 20 minutes. Unfortunately, my
cable release had no lock mechanism, so I had to hold the shutter
open, while standing in the pitch dark garage. I did exactly that for
over ah hour. The 20 minute exposure was best: a nice blue flame
above a glowing red metal nozzle. A difficult and tedious job, but
well worth the effort.
Got a scannable transparenciy of that? I'd like to see it!
Tom C.
