Alberton Type Piece

I had been thinking about using the image of the clouds hanging gently in the mountains for a couple of months. My friends, Ian and Kara, had gotten married the day before, and I was camping with friends in a nearby area down the road from the venue after the celebration. The following morning was misty, with clouds sunk low. It gave me the chance to switch out some kit from my normal 40mm lens.

Several months earlier, I purchased an M mount Minolta Rokkor 90mm f4.0 lens from a Japanese seller on eBay. While its construction is solid, made completely of metal and glass, it is relatively light and compact. This is one of the benefits of shooting a rangefinder system. I take this lens with me everywhere I go, just in case I want to compose in a tighter focal length, or simply bring a scene closer to me. In this case, the river precluded me from getting nearer to the mountains.

Upon developing the roll and scanning the images, I was taken by the moody nature of this image. It is different from what I normally shoot, though I tend to simply observe and shoot what interests me; documenting my day-to-day and weekend adventures. I shot the scene vertically as well, but for this type piece, I thought that a landscape orientation lent itself better. It also includes the added element of the bird flying over.

I used to make pieces like this often, but have since focused more on simply shooting. I have regularly intended to use my photography as a background to pair with typography, but I just don’t sit down and work on them as often as I might like. The Alberton piece is a step in the right direction, and I plan to continue with these types of pieces from time to time.

- F. T. Eidum