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I’ve been winnowing multiple pages from old film-based “photoshoots” down to single slide file pages, scanning two to a few, and doing so roughly, and posting the same here and Flickr (for a while).

Three observations (and I have been here before):

— The women disappear into new lives with new names.  “Heidi Blair” will have an easier time finding the photographer from that long ago autumn day than the photographer (and viewers) will have finding her;

— I see had a “commercial look” back then and doubtless would have enjoyed shooting catalogs, which ambition, of course, compelled the “time-for-prints” shooting.

— Despite the wonders of old “Digital ICE”, Nikon’s dust-and-scratch removing algorithm (coupled with Hamrick’s VueScan software), film remains a little less convenient a medium than digital.  Both of the above were worked using Adobe’s Lightroom 3 and then ported to PhotoShop to clone out the rough edges of the slides.

–Lessons learned since way back then: watch the hands!   Also, leave some margin for cropping down to the subject (and that in addition to what the viewfinder leaves out of the presentation to the photographer).

–One may do a lot without “fill flash”, but in the most sun struck moments, we need either it or scrims.  Related to that: the larger the production — the more one has to carry! — the less the wandering about alleys, church fronts, gardens, and side streets.

Perhaps I am reorienting, taking a break from politics online and reading offline, and recalling what all that stuff in the closet — I get in there and say to myself, “oh yeah, I remember this gadget!” — was about.  Everything has been kept in good condition, including the battery pack and the main camera, a now old D2x, but my inclination, whatever opportunity comes next, is to keep things very simple for a start: one really may do quite a bit with camera, lens, flash, and reflector.

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