Doronicum Orientali in the garden

[Shaun Haselden]

Back in the 1970's I spent a great deal of my time photographing flowers and such like. Much later in years I started photographing wild flowers such as Arum Maculatum using medium format, winning numerous awards and trophies at local photographic society level. Here is a shot taken during the boredom of lockdown using a cheap Tamron zoom for it's low contrast imaging. I have toned it as in those early days I printed heavily onto Agfa Record Rapid for it's beautiful chlorobromide warmness. Medium/large format printed onto those old papers produced amazing photographic prints of incredible depth and tone the like of which I think we shall not see again.

 

[Shaun Haselden]

Another shot of poppy buds early in the year. This one was shot using a Samyang 85mm f1.4 lens but with the camera in DX mode. For me, this is just too sharp.

 

[Pete Askew]

A agree, the softer tones of the first work so much better.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Oh, that first one is just perfection.

 

[Shaun Haselden]

Thank you guys. Rob all I try to do is to mimic a collection of photographic images I saw back in the 80's taken by Blakemore. He had a few on show that he had taken in New Zealand using 5X4 sheet film with low contrast and that is where I found it; low contrast with delicate tones using cheap lenses. I could well be wrong but I find that modern lenses (most but not all) have the most ridiculously high contrast and sharpness especially for certain types of shooting.