Provia Roadside Colors

[Laurence]

I was merging with traffic on a ramp to the freeway, when I
caught this color out of the corner of my eye. I drove 2
miles to the next exit, came back to the ramp and parked
off the road just before the ramp. There was luckily a guardrail
that I would walk behind, as the cars seemed to be really
zooming along!

Although the traffic was disconcerting, I still
felt that the colors were worth the shot. I think some of the
traffic was slowing down to look at this "crazy guy with some
ancient boxy-looking camera and a tripod"!

So, even though in suburbia, and not in the wild backcountry,
the scene was still reminiscent of a river valley with all the
greens and yellows. The lower leaves on the right were more
of an orange color, and added some snap to the scene, I think.

I tried to place the tree trunk where it wouldn't kill the
composition, because there was no way to keep it out of the
scene. Followed the 1/3 "rule", and so I think it works okay.
There is some distortion because I was shooting downward
at a pretty severe angle.

Roadside Attraction
Yashica Mat 124
Provia

[cooltouch]

I truly love the Yashica Mat 124, and wish I never would have sold my "G" model. After selling my 124G, I owned several different Rollie TLRs and a few Zeiss folders, but as I was recently going through my old slides and negatives to scan and digitize them, almost without fail the very best were those I took with my 124G. I kid you not.

Yes, your photo shows a mild bit of distortion, but it's slight enough that, if you weren't to draw attention to it, most people, and probably even most photographers, wouldn't notice. Love the colors. If it weren't for a few hints of horizontal lines in the background, it would look like it was taken in the middle of a robust forest.

Very nice! I gotta get another one of these cameras.

[Laurence]

I feel the same about the Yashica Mat line of cameras. That good
old Yashinon lens just seems to produce a lot of fine images. I
have quite a few I've posted on this forum over the past few years.
I can't say that any of them are anywhere near as nice as some of
the beautiful images I see from others, but the Yashica Mat still
shows it's nice ability to present a colorful image. And the square
format is a big plus in my opinion.

[Orio]

Very nice shot, and the Yashica Mat never fails one take as usual.
The colours are excellent to my eye.

BTW Where's the road?

[tobbsman]

beautiful colors ! the down-angle of shooting gives something special.

Cheers
Tobias

[Laurence]

Thanks all you guys. I thought it was nice to have that small copse of color in the middle of the rat race of cars and concrete.

Orio asked the location, here is a map:

[Katastrofo]

Gawd, what an awesome (and colorful!) shot, Laurence!

[Andreas]

Good colours. Photographers see things where others passes by without seeing it.
Andreas

[kds315*]

Wonderful catch Larry! I'm happy to see you blessed
with such an eye for beauty!!

[Laurence]

Thanks to all of you!

Did you see the map? What a MESS! Concrete, concrete, and
more concrete! Freeways clogged EVERY day for HOURS!

These flatlands of part of Puget Sound were COVERED with
huge masses of Douglas Firs, Western Cedars, and Western
Hemlocks. Some of the biomes are shown on early Darius Kinsey photographs.

Hard to believe, but true: In this area alone, there were millions
of trees, ALL of them what we could call "giants" now. There is
a photograph at the University of Washington that shows an
aerial perspective of a 5 square mile section completely covered
with trees approximately 300 feet high and 10 feet in diameter.

In fact, that early aerial photograph covers part of right where I took
this image on the off-ramp.

Times have changed.... They are now getting ready to cut the 5th
generation of trees, most of them about .5 meters (1 1/2 feet) in diameter.

The image below is from Darius Kinsey in the early 20th century.
This is the base of a typical larger Western Red Cedar tree. It yielded FIVE
32-foot-long logs. Diameter at cut was 16 feet. Total scale was rated
at 69,110 board feet, enough to completely build more than 8 homes
of 1500 square feet of typical living space.

(Taken from public database, University of Washington - no permission needed unless using for production or profit)

[marty]

Nice colors and composition as usual from you. Good eye for spotting it in the middle of heavy traffic and concrete jungle.

Cheers, Marty.

[patrickh]

Laurence

Your usual stunning capture of mother nature at her best. The extent of civilization is all relative - try anywhere in the NorthEast for concrete and freeways.


patrickh