Davidson Gallery Group Photo
This year I had the pleasure of shooting Sam and the rest of the Davidson Gallery employees for the Christmas Card. Shaun and Emily are leaving before the new year and Cara is expecting her first child soon so there are many changes ahead for Davidson Gallery. I rarely shoot outside due to our unpredictable weather but I got really lucky on the day of the shoot and the sun was shining. I used the bathroom at Davidson as a darkroom and fortunately, they have a really big old sink there and a shower with good ventilation so I set up my silver bath and fixer inside the shower stall. Shaun helped me get set up and he kept an eye on the camera outside while I was in the bathroom getting a plate ready. I set up the camera outside right in front of Davidson Gallery and proceeded to shoot a test shot of Shaun in front of the gallery window.
The lens I used was the 16 inch Bausch and Lomb Tessar f4.5 and I shot the thing wide open at about 1/3 to 1/4 second. Outside exposures get a little tricky because the shutter is a very primitive pnuematic mechanism called a packard shutter. There is a small piston that opens the shuter with a rubber hose attached that leads to a rubber bulb. The bulb has the hose on one end and a hole on the other. To trip the shutter, just put your thumb over the hole on the bulb and squeeze. The sqeeze opens the shutter and when you let go the suction closes the shutter. The hole is there for when you want to leave the shutter open for a timed exposures. Just squeeze to open the shutter and then take your finger off the hole and the shutter stays open. The reverse procedure closes the shutter when the time is up.
The shot was very a bit under exposed so I figured a full second was in order. The gallery facade was also extremely dark so I decided to shoot facing south down to Occidental square. There were two rows of trees down either side of the shot and they were completely out of focus because I was shooting wide open. The first shot was at one second and was very well exposed. Standing shots longer that a second are troublesome and it can be difficult to get everyone without some motion blur. For shits and giggles, I shot another one but the light was fading so this one came out a little dark and Emily had a bit of motion blur but I like the shot.
The second shot was my favorite but Shaun used the first exposure for the card.