Spring @ Reed Bingham

I hiked around the southern part of Reed Bingham on Saturday. It was really hot and the first mosquitoes of the season were out in force, but it was still pretty fun. The whole area near the old railroad path was flooded out the last few times I've been to the park but it was back down to normal. I made a bunch of images under the bridge that goes over the Little River and near the railroad with my 4x5.

I was also testing something new - a couple of Grafmatics. I never really thought I would use them, but I ended up getting one for free. After trying it out I actually liked it and decided I might look for some more, especially for travel. Not even a day later I found three of them for really cheap so I scooped them up. It turns out they had some film already loaded so I gambled it was in decent condition and shot these b&w images with the Delta 100 film that was loaded:

 

These turned out well but I screwed up most of the sheets in the other holder because when I got them, I opened them up to test and the film was exposed. I took out the first sheet but that was a mistake since it exposed the top of the rest of the sheets. Oh well. But at least I got some free shots still. Now I have to reload them...

I also shot a half dozen sheets of Kodak EPP 100:

 

I also threw my little Bessa II in my bag to finish up a roll of Plus-X I had been shooting. I shot this image that I had been trying to get for a while. Occasionally you'll find these huge masses of gnats flying in a big ball (reminds me of bird flocks flying in unison). If the light is just right it glints off of them and is a very interesting sight. In this instance if I moved even a few feet either direction to get the tree out of my shot you couldn't see them (they also need to be in front of a dark background). This isn't a perfect representation but it's close. It was really hard to focus with an RF. They move very fast so a fast shutter speed is essential:

Overall it was a pretty nice day to be outside.