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Ridges and Tree Steve Dixon
Technical and Purchase Information
Camera/Lens: Arca Swiss view 210mm Nikkor
Format: 6x9
Film: 120 TMAX 100
Print Sizes Available:8x10, 11x14, 16x20
All prints are on double-weight fiber-based paper, archivally processed, selenium
toned, signed, and dry-mounted. Mats are archival quality and acid free. Actual
print sizes may vary slightly.
Camera/Lens: Arca Swiss view 210mm Nikkor
Format: 6x9
Film: 120 TMAX 100
Print Sizes Available:8x10, 11x14, 16x20
All prints are on double-weight fiber-based paper, archivally processed, selenium
toned, signed, and dry-mounted. Mats are archival quality and acid free. Actual
print sizes may vary slightly.
Catalog Numbers:
8x10 - 10119
11x14 - 14119 Order Prints
16x20 - 20119
8x10 - 10119
11x14 - 14119 Order Prints
16x20 - 20119
This photo is the result of luck and persistence (or stubbornness). Up early one morning, I rode the Parkway
toward Mt. Pisgah, looking for the sunrise (have I written this before?). Sunrises and sunsets are always challenging
to me in black and white, as it's often the color that makes them interesting. In black and white, there has to be
something else there.
I've driven that section of the Parkway scores, if not hundreds, of times and had never before noticed this
particular tree, standing alone just below the roadbed. I set up the camera quickly, excited by what I saw on the
ground glass, and quickly made the exposure. The range of brightness between the tree and the sky was too great
for N-1 development, so made one exposure for the sky, covered the top half of the lens with the dark slide, and
gave the bottom half another exposure. In my excitement, I didn't let the camera settle after pulling the dark slide,
and the first exposure was blurred from the motion of the camera. I did this not once, but three times. I went home
and developed the film, and practically peeled the paint from the darkroom walls with strong language when I saw the
ruined negatives.
The next morning I went back. In the meantime, a large woods fire in Tennessee had sent smoke into western
North Carolina, and it lay in the space between the ridges, which gives the photo an ethereal look it wouldn't
otherwise have had. So, if I hadn't messed up the first batch, I would never have gotten the much superior photo the
second day. There should be some deep meaning in that, but I don't know. Never give up?
toward Mt. Pisgah, looking for the sunrise (have I written this before?). Sunrises and sunsets are always challenging
to me in black and white, as it's often the color that makes them interesting. In black and white, there has to be
something else there.
I've driven that section of the Parkway scores, if not hundreds, of times and had never before noticed this
particular tree, standing alone just below the roadbed. I set up the camera quickly, excited by what I saw on the
ground glass, and quickly made the exposure. The range of brightness between the tree and the sky was too great
for N-1 development, so made one exposure for the sky, covered the top half of the lens with the dark slide, and
gave the bottom half another exposure. In my excitement, I didn't let the camera settle after pulling the dark slide,
and the first exposure was blurred from the motion of the camera. I did this not once, but three times. I went home
and developed the film, and practically peeled the paint from the darkroom walls with strong language when I saw the
ruined negatives.
The next morning I went back. In the meantime, a large woods fire in Tennessee had sent smoke into western
North Carolina, and it lay in the space between the ridges, which gives the photo an ethereal look it wouldn't
otherwise have had. So, if I hadn't messed up the first batch, I would never have gotten the much superior photo the
second day. There should be some deep meaning in that, but I don't know. Never give up?