John Austin Photography

This black and white photograph of Waychinicup Inlet, where the Waychinicup River drops to the coast east of Albany in Western Australia, September 2014, was made in the morning.  There was the gift of a soft sky from what I thought was a weak cold front.

Waychinicup Inlet, Western Australia, 2014

Waychinicup Inlet

When the spirits welcome you Waychinicup is one of the utterly magical places on this planet, but somtimes they get a bit hostile.

We had set camp the previous afternoon, and as usual I worked in the morning.  But a gathering cold front troubled me, so in the afternoon we went to Cheynes Beach for a weather report, which was dire.  Then the weather started and the weak cold front was not weak.  We returned to strike our Waychinicup camp.  On the way the Waychinicup River crossing in the gully with the narrow plank bridge was filling fast, the weather getting worse.  We struck camp in record time and drove to a motel in Albany for two nights, getting over the plank bridge just in time.  But back the next day for more pictures at Waychinicup after the water had subsided.  This was the day the Waychinicup River stole Rae's walking stick

Waychinicup Inlet is a morning light subject, afternoon gives shadow on the north western facing wooded slope, left in picture, making afternoon photographs too dark to print.

Waychinicup River

Waychinicup River is quite short at seventeen kilometers, but its water comes from Mt Manypeaks and it can flow very strongly at times due to the huge drop in height over a very short distance.

Technobabble

Camera, Linhof Super Technika V 360mm Tele-Xenar lens, red filter, lots of Scheimpflug back tilt.  Film was Ilford Delta 100 film developed in replinished D76d

Printing is fairly straight forward, apart from a sky-dust spot in the sky.  These happen at the end of rough roads where dust gets loosened and settles in the sky areas of the film.  They are removed by a tiny drop of concentrated Potassium ferricyanide solution on the dry print.  The print is then quickly flooded with water to wash the ferricyanide away without leaving a bleach trace.  This is followed by a brief bath in 20% Sodium thiosulphate (hypo) solution.  The print is rewashed and finally selenium toned, hypo cleared and washed as normal.  Sky dust spots are a total pain in the arse, and a reason to avoid sky in pix made at the end of dirt roads

Pix are of first print on darkroom splash board and printing notes

It was intended to print it for the BRAG show, 2017, but stuff got in the way.  This is a little 16 x 20" print before the normal 20x 24" print was made later that week