Seven years ago my wife and I had taken our granddaughters to an annual Hot Air Balloon launch about a half-hour from home, we arrived @ 5:30 in the morning in anticipation of a dawn launch.  See attached photos, then and now.  Driving down the streets of Plainville CT. in the wee hours of the morning we passed this diner with all the lights off and it did not even catch my eye. 

    The balloon launch did not take too long and we were back on the road looking for a breakfast stop when we passed the Main Street Diner, or as it was that morning the Ma n Street Diner, the letter I was not lit and I thought to myself that would make a terrific photograph with a title of the Man Street Diner, a play on words in the alpha male world.  We didn’t stop there that morning but the location was etched in my mind to return soon for a photograph.

  I returned on a Sunday morning some weeks later and unfortunately for my preconceived image of a Man Street Diner, the letters of the sign were lit on this particular morning.   Nevertheless, I was there well before sunrise and the texture and ominous feel in the sky, which was going to occupy a significant portion of the final image I decided this was the morning to make my image.

    I gave ample exposure with reduced development to capture as much interior detail as I could, I still wished I’d given more exposure, as there is still considerable manipulation on the interior to carry off the tonalities that are in my final image.  Very basically with high contrast situations such as this, giving generous exposure helps to build density in the very deep and dark shadows.   At the same time, the brightest parts of the scene received much too much exposure to be able to print on Silver Gelatin papers.    The remedy for this type of extreme contrast is to give ample exposure in conjunction with significantly reducing the amount of agitation and development time when the film is processed.   This technique with Black and White films can reduce tremendous amounts of contrast and preserve important darker details, which can then be reproduced on Silver Gelatin papers.

    During a critique session, a good friend and noted photographer Large Format photographer himself asked me if I chose to keep the dark light pole in the composition on purpose.   I did as I felt it added a sense of depth and dimension to the composition, which is something I strive for right from the being of setting up a photograph.  A famous illustration photographer once told me “we photographers are charged with capturing a 3-dimensional world and presenting it in a 2-dimensional photograph”.   Dean Collins.

    This accompanying photo was taken just a few days ago on the drive home.  While the American Flag isn’t glowing in my B & W image, the illuminated Main Street Diner is much more captivating, at least for me !!

 5×7 Deardorff  210mm Computar lens @ f 22 @ 3 minutes  N-3 PyroCat HD  Extreme Minimal Agitation