Image of the Week: Barns III, Middlebury, Vermont

Previsualization.

As an image maker, knowing your tools and anticipating the capabilities and output of those tools is critical to your success. Photography comes with a lot of variables -- exposure, lens choice, raw file processing, film development, post processing -- and you've got to have a mental grip on all of them if you want to consistently create outstanding photographs.

The key is practice.

Look through the viewfinder. Compare what you saw with the resulting photograph. Lather, rinse, and repeat thousands of times. Pretty soon, you'll anticipate what the final photo will look like before you trip the shutter. This is called previsualization.

With this week's image, I wanted a sharp, high-contrast image to faithfully render the texture of the wood and subtle afternoon shadows falling across the barn's facade. I knew that Tri-X Pan 320 in D-76 1:1 would produce the contrast range and sharpness I envisioned.

And that's exactly what I got.

Have questions or comments? Send me an email.

Technical Data

Barns III, Middlebury, Vermont was photographed with a Mamiya RZ67 and a 127mm ƒ/3.8 Mamiya-Sekor Z lens. The exposure was 1/30 sec at ƒ/22 on Kodak Tri-X Pan 320 Professional Film. The film was processed in Kodak D-76 1:1.

Other Images of the Week