As part of this blog I’m planning to comment on selected images. Of course – a photo has to speak for itself and it has to do that talking visually. Explanations about what a photo was intended to mean are pretty pointless. But there is still something to be gained by telling the story behind the photo, especially with ones like this that are less than completely self explanatory. The image that is (hopefully) to the left is exactly what the title says – a glimpse out of my west window. Click on it for a larger version. I like this shot because it captures the mood and feeling of a short, dark, and gloomy Michigan winter day – which is usually just the most recent of a long series of short, dark, and gloomy days. And to be honest, mornings are seldom bright times for me even when the sun is shining. This window happens to be in the bathroom and during the winter months is perpetually coated with condensation or frost, and the view of it here may not be objectively accurate, but it does capture the sense of heaviness I feel when looking out of the window. On an intellectual level, I like how the most obvious elements of the photograph are the least revealed - the tree is blurred, no detail to be seen. But the more subtle aspects of the image - the moisture and textures on the window - are the most clearly rendered. Lost in these tiny web images are the fine droplets of water hanging on the glass, the snakey imperfections in the dew formations, and cryptic characters Cali wrote in the steam just before snapping the image (all with one sweep of her tail at that.) At A3 of Super B print sizes, those artifacts start to glimmer in the image, adding a little more interest. And all the cars and their good people, sitting in the parking lot behind the little tree, are lost in this image, even though most of the light was bouncing up off them, so in some respect they are represented here… This will wind up in the “Around the House” subcategory in the miscellaneous images section of the main site. The photo itself was taken with a Canon T90 on Kodak 35mm Plus-x film developed in Rodinal. After scanning, the B&W image was ‘toned’ through channel adjustments in Photoshop. Rodinal was chosen in part because I wanted a bit of punch to the grain, and in part because it produces virtually no fog in somewhat stale Plus-X (unlike HC110 or D76.)