Reticulation
Reticulation.
“H’mmm, Bob what the heck are you talking about?”
If you asked the question above you probably were not a black and white film photographer from past days. We usually learned about the reticulation effects when we treated our film badly by either getting it too hot, processing it at the wrong temperature or some other variable I can’t remember now.
But, after seeing the effects, I remember trying to screw up the film for art purposes. I came across the look when I was messing about (read that playing) in Photoshop.
Photographed around sunrise with haze in the distance. Straight out of camera (SOOC) Lumix GX8 with Lumix G Vario 100-300mm f4.0-5.6 lens @ f5.6 1/1250 sec ISO 800 @ 300mm (600mm equivalent)
I choose this lens to compress the scene.
After processing.
I had made a set of images one morning near dawn, and I was feeling a bit of a ‘Japanese aesthetic’ in what I saw through the viewfinder. Things like that can happen when you are out shooting thinking you are getting one thing then, being a bit disappointed upon return to the studio process the files. I still felt I had something worth which to work. I liked the distance imparted by the haze that we don’t usually see in the high desert due to the dry air. This particular haze was thanks to some forest fires sharing some smoke with us.
After trying various filters, I stumbled on a look that reminded me of the reticulation of old. I pushed for it some more, and you see what I got above.
Not sure I’m where I want to be with this set of images. I’m going to put them away for a little while then revisit at a future time. Sometimes you need to try something out and come back later to see how you feel about it. There are a lot of compositions involving this same scene. Who knows? These files may be a treasure trove with this processing or some other treatment.
Or, it could just be a pile of… We’ll find out later.
Something old could be new again. Reticulation anyone??
Yours in creative Photography, Bob
