Abandoned Farm, South Dakota, 1999

I’ve been scanning some film from 20+ years ago, images which I never printed or did anything with. I’ve been looking specifically for ones that make good black and white conversions. This picture was taken in color on Agfa Ultra 50, a film that had an unusual contrast and palette which I only shot two or three times. That film was medium format so you’re looking at the uncropped full-frame image. I’m pretty sure I used my Hasselblad 903 SWC for this, a wide view camera that came with a fixed 38mm lens and a detachable viewfinder.  There were no electronic parts. You relied on a hand-held meter (or a good guess) to take your picture.

There’s a new feature in Photoshop’s neural filters suite which removes dust commendably. That’s a job that used to take many hours, especially if you intended to make prints from digital film scans. I scanned this one yesterday with my Epson V700, which is still running after twenty years. I did leave the remaining dust visible up there in the sky. Maybe it will give the image some provenance. 😏