I’ve been wanting to make this image for several months. I’ve hiked to it five or six times. It’s a climb to get it and I wasn’t sure I could get my tripod set up or even get to it with all of my gear. It was not an easy photograph to make.
It sits about 9,000 (2.745m) feet above sea level. When Jeanne and I hiked up there today, there was a Rocky Mountain Chipmunk sitting in the dish. I wished I could have captured that, but we just enjoyed it before getting closer to make the image.
This is on our property. There are also CMTs (Culturally Modified Trees) here too. This “Stone Water Dish” was so unique that I had to get a plate made of it. Every time I hiked to it, I wondered if it would still be there.
The light was beautiful this morning. We got up to the “dish” at about 9:20 AM and there were some wispy clouds covering the sun. I used a collodion dry plate, of course, and made a 2:30 exposure. I processed the negative for about 8 minutes and made this Platinum Palladium print with my Ryonet at 5:30.
It’s Plate #7 of my project, “In the Shadow of Sun Mountain” (Tava-Kaavh). Take a really close look and see what’s happening in this image. It’s an entire story.
Dry collodion negative - Plate #7 - “In the Shadow of Sun Mountain”.
My iPhone rendering of the scene. Nothing like my collodion dry plate - the magic of 19th century photography!!