Sometimes you work on a project and you think there’s a goal in sight. And suddenly … without warning … you’re taking a different route. Robert Frost points to the other road and say, “Take this one, it’s less traveled.”
I shall explain.
Last month, during my Hamilton College 40th reunion, I took some of my cameras on the trip, including my Pentacon Six TL medium format film shooter and a couple of the lenses. And yes, one of those lenses was the Meyer Optik Görlitz Orestegor 500mm f/5.6 telephoto I’ve colloquially nicknamed “Johnny Wadd.”
I took a few shots of the Hamilton College Chapel’s spire with this setup, sent it off for processing, and thought no more about it. The photos came back, and I realized that my experiment produced a four-image collage with the Chapel spire in decent detail.
And I blogged about this. Because … yeah … I did.
Specifically … this little collage.
Okay … well now …
I’ve got an idea.
Sunday morning. I drove back up to campus – only about a two-hour jaunt on the Thruway … and yes, crack of morning, here I am on campus again.
I’ve got a pack of Chinese Lucky B&W film in the Pentacon Six TL, and Johnny Wadd is bolted onto the chassis. Here’s the plan. I can’t get the Chapel in one photo with this lens setup … but what if I took a series of photos … and then stitched them together afterward?
See, this is where the hamster in Chuck Miller’s brain discovers the wire running wheel.
Deep breath. Shoot. Advance the film. Shoot. Advance the film. The Pentacon Six TL senses I’ve reached twelve frames. I press a lever to let it know there’s a 24-frame roll of film inside. The Pentacon Six keeps shooting.
I go home. Film goes in a mailing bag, off for processing.
And when the film came back … well now. I think I can work with this. I just have to crop this photo here, adjust the contrast on THIS photo here, deal with the creeping “sticky shutter” situation that’s popping up on my camera again …
Okay. Sixteen images that capture the Chapel, its spire, and some nearby foliage.
Jigsaw puzzle time. I load the photos into my copy of PhotoShop … ask it to align everything … and PhotoShop barfs. It takes a wild guess at angles and alignments, and the final product looks like a demented carnival funhouse. Yecch. You don’t get to see that.
May as well do this myself. Sixteen images. One by one. Aligning them here and there and everywhere. Put photo #6 in front of photo #5. Put Photo #11 in front of Photo #9.
And when we’re done …
Oh, you want to see this?
Oh, boy, you should see this.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Are you thinking “last minute short pile entry for Competition Season 2025” like I’m thinking “last minute short pile entry for Competition Season 2025”?
Yeah. Let’s put this in and give it a run or three.
Remember what I said about taking a different route?
With a photo assemblage like this …
This is country roads rather than highway.
Which will work wonders. For sure. 😀
Chuck The Writer 
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