December 25th. Time to wake up. Rise and shine.
I glimpse out the window. Snow. First Christmas snow. The snow’s loose and powdery – enough to coat my car, but not enough to build a snowman or a snow fort. But there’s enough white powder on the ground to convince me to get out of bed, grab some of my cameras, and go out for an early morning Christmas Day shoot.
Three cameras for the journey – the Nikon D700 camera with my ultra-wide Vivitar 19mm f/3.8 lens for my digital shots. My Kowa Super 66 camera with the 85mm lens, with one of my remaining packs of efke 25 film inside. And I took the Agfa Chief off the shelf, and loaded it with a pack of 55-year-old Ansco film that I got as a gift for assisting in a Kickstarter project.
Let’s go shooting.
There’s a hiking and biking trail near my home, it runs along Second Avenue in Watervliet and is tucked beside the Hudson River and the I-787 highway. A small creek runs alongside the trail, and it just looked peaceful on Christmas morning.
Gotta get some shots.
Although I can’t share the film pictures until McGreevy Pro Lab develops the rolls – which, by the way, I’m dropping off this morning – I can at least share some of the digital shots with you.
There’s a small wooden fence along the Schuyler Flatts walkway; it protects people from stumbling from the path and falling into the creek below.
Of course, I found an opening in the fence, carefully climbed down to the creekbed, and got this picture of the water as it continued flowing along the snowy bank.
As the trail moved forward, I wanted to get a shot of the walkway and how the tree branches created a cathedral-like arch along the path.
And since this was Christmas snow, there weren’t any human travelers that morning. There were, however, animal tracks along the path. Took a picture. I have no idea what type of animal made these tracks – a dog, a squirrel, one of my Facebook friends said it might have been a wolf.
Some of the pine trees had tufts of snow in their needle-like branches. Had to get a photo. Unlike the previous four photos, which I converted to black and white, I left this one as a color image if for no other reason than to show off the green pine needles.
Then it was back to the car and off to my Christmas get-togethers. At some point, I’ll get the film developed from my Kowa and from the Agfa Chief; if I achieved good shots from those analog cameras, I’ll post them in a future blog entry.
But for now, enjoy the snow and enjoy the day.
Chuck The Writer 
Well worth jumping out of bed! Could that last shot be done in b & w with just the boughs tinted green?
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Pat – I know there are shots with “selective coloring” – i.e., a b&w photo of a model’s face with her red lips. I just felt in that instance that it was okay to leave the browns of the ground in the picture if it meant capturing the green pine needles.
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One of those B&Ws reminds me of my stash of Agfa Scala sitting just as frozen as this scene in my freezer. I emailed the last processor about 10 days ago and have heard nothing in response. What a magical transparency film, probably gone forever now.
I have a simliar pathway on my side of the Hudson where I walk the dogs twice daily. You can see some views here: http://photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=784963
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OCULUS – are you using the dr5 guys in Aurora CO for your Agfa Scala processing? I’ve used them when I’ve had Agfa Scala, they did a decent job of processing the film, and from what I understand they can also turn other B&W film into B&W slide film.
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Thx Chuck for that referral on dr5; I’ll now start the Scala thaw (may even be some 120 there too)! I have some of that eastern European B&W film (P-U!) McGreevy’s doesn’t like to process it until the end of a batch. I also have some Rollei branded 25 (in a wood case, no less) that I suspect was made up by them. I think I’ll get out the Clack and take the dogs for a snow run.
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OCULUS – DR5 can develop Agfa Scala in both 35mm slide and 120 slide formats, and they have a process where they can convert other B&W films (Kodak Tri-X, efke, Ilford, etc.) into slide film as well. Seems like alchemy to me, but they did a good job on my Scala shots that I took in 2010. So you’re shooting with an Agfa Clack? Nice. Gotta love those Agfa / Ansco cameras, especially the old ones that were built like tanks.
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