Giant Saguaro

[Mike Buckley]

The giant saguaro is a cactus that takes about 75 years to grow its first branch (also called an arm). Some live about 150 years.

I captured these images on color slide film in Arizona in 2001 and recently converted them. These first attempts at photographing them are reasonably straightforward, as I had little time to be creative. I'll be returning in six months to the same area and will have more time, so I appreciate any helpful C&C that you can provide.

[HMW12]

I really like these in B&W. It seems to emphasize the harshness of the environment. Really like the lighting on the second one, the way the tops of the arms and the 'armpits' are highlighted but I do find the truncation of the main stalk abit distracting though. Not sure what you could do about it - maybe crop even more from the top so that some other stalks are also go at least to the top of the frame? Just a thought - no idea if it would work

[Mike Buckley]

I understand your issue about the second one, Helen. I think the only reasonable choice is to look for similar lighting and better compositions when I return next year.

[redrew]

Converting color to B&W in the digital medium (even with a lot of button pushing in Photoshop) is always difficult and to me never seems quite as contrasty[sic] as film. You have achieved a beautiful example of how B & W photography should look. I particularly like the composition of the third image. What scanning equipment were you using? I may run out and buy some film, which I have not done in years.

[Mike Buckley]

Glad you like them, Rollin! I'm also partial to the third one.

All of my scans were done by ScanCafe.com at 3000 dpi using Nikon Coolscan scanners saved to JPEG. I think it was the Coolscan 9000 but I could be wrong about the exact model.