Climate
Change I
Glacier
slideshow I
Taking
your own glacier pictures
- Tips and hints
on reproducing old pictures of glaciers
If possible, choose "Old" photos that have a recognizable mountain silhouette in the background or a distinctive slope, large boulder, or pronounced outcrop in the line of sight. Study the shadows and figure out the aspect-is the photographer facing north or south, east or west? Find a topographic map at the national geologic survey institution at a scale of 1:50000 and try to determine the spot from where the photo was originally taken. This may require some quick research on how to read a topographic map.
To reproduce a "New" shot, look for your mountain-silhouetted horizon. Try and get the same angle (same height, same direction) from the same distance (same position).
Look at the edges of the "Old" photo and decide how far back the original was taken. Try to get the same proportion of sky in the "New" shot as well as the same ground features at the bottom. If you take the shot a bit farther back or closer up you can zoom and crop afterwards but the same would be best.
Then you have to plan for getting the same weather and time of day for exposure and shadow control. You may have to wait for the right conditions to recur. Take a number of shots from the right spot but vary the depth of field and the exposure. There is no sure way of predicting exactly what kind of reflection or absorption of natural light will occur.
Use a lot of film and don't be afraid of experimenting with all the variables except the position. If you can include a person in the distance, perhaps at the place the glacier reached in the "Old" photo-unless they are too small to stand out-you have established 'scale'. Be careful about having people, trees, or other familiar-sized things too close to the camera- -they can distort the sense of perspective and suggest a false scale.
One way of getting around the problems of communicating the immense scale of the glacier and its retreat is to take an additional 'close up' shot of a particularly distinctive boulder or outcrop with a person or other suggestion of scale nearby. What may look like a pebble next to a pile of snow could be revealed as a boulder the size of a wide bodied airplane.
If you have good images you can send them to us at:
vze342qk@verizon.net
Good Luck!
