Summer Heat in Prescott, Arizona

There is a heat wave in the Southwest. At noon, temperatures are around 105 degree Fahrenheit (41 Celsius) in the small cowboy town where I live. So everyone walks their dogs around sunrise and then slow down in the afternoon. The desert is always cool at night so people and dogs come out again under unbelievably vast and starred skies.

Downtown Prescott has tall trees from the past century.  The shade they provide makes the square perfect for concerts or just to bring a folding chair and a book to beat the heat.

So I brought my 1954 Canon rangefinder along to capture a few moments. People, shades and unexpected moments make a street photographer happy. But most of the fun is in the darkroom. I exchanged my enlarger lens for a 1950s Ukrainian camera lens –a 1.5 aperture Jupiter 3. Back in the golden age of B&W photography (1940s), it was common to use Leica 39 mm lenses both on the camera and then on the enlarger. But camera lenses are not plat-field as enlarger lenses are – that means light from the enlarger light will pass through the camera lens unevenly, and edges can be distorted.

But for me, such unpredictable outcomes make the darkroom work even more delightful.

I chose two frames from my trip downtown to describe the day. The first is about a woman and her parrot. She was in deep shade and I used an f4 aperture with 1/125 speed (ASA 100 film). The Jupiter lens on my enlarger made the moment even more fluid with its random exposure. The result is a photo that reflects what I had in mind –a suave moment in the heat of the day. I can almost feel the heat even if the tree gave plenty of shade for comfort. Perhaps it is the "Lemonade" stand that connotes summer best?

The second one is less focused and captures a general mood. I wanted to blur the background and focus on the guitar player. So used a 5.6 aperture and 1/125 shutter speed. In the darkroom the blurring became more pronounced and that is even more pleasing.

… After 50 years of photography, I have not changed my tools or attitude to capturing a moment – it all comes down to intuition and lack of total control. In that sense, I often think about darkroom work with an enlarger that is older than I am, as watercolour painting: the joy of the final product is in letting the colours run and surprise you with forms and ranges you did not anticipate.

June 25, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017