Last week, the winter snow coated the ground, a blanket of white fluffy chillness.
And I wanted to capture it.
Of late, my Kodak Medalist II camera has become my “go-to” film shooter for 120 and 620 film. And with that in mind, I wanted to test out the camera with one of my remaining rolls of black and white efke film. Efke film – which was manufactured in Croatia until a couple of years ago – produces a beautiful high-contrast black and white product. One of my most successful pictures, Midnight at the Palace Theater, was produced with efke product.
When the Fotokemika plant in Croatia stopped manufacturing efke, I purchased as much as I could before the prices rose to obscene speculation levels. I still have some 35mm and 120 efke in my holdings – mostly ISO 100 and ISO 25 – and I want to use that film only in the most special of moments.
Last Saturday… the snow still blanketed the Adirondacks. I had rerolled a pack of ISO 100 efke film onto a 620 spool… and if I was ever going to use the Kodak Medalist II for shooting B&W film that wasn’t 40-year-old Verichrome Pan, this was the best time to test out my product.
Chilly, chilly cold. But I went to my Adirondack photographic honey hole.
And straight out of the camera… I got this.
And it works. I should tweak the highlights to get more details in the snow – maybe I should have used a yellow filter. Next time I will do that. But for now, I’ve achieved success.
Somewhere in my dreams, I have a concept. A concept of snow and leaves, of brilliant sunshine and warm stars. The concept appears in my slumber, and even when I try to remember it as I wake, I can only remember a tiny fragment. It’s as if my mind is creating something in my dreamtime, and then hiding all the notes and results before I wake up.
But one day that concept will reveal itself. Certainly in the moment when I least expect it to reveal.
And for now… I have this picture. A step forward in the chill.
To wait for the thaw.
Chuck The Writer 