While we yawn over the digital camera megapixel horse race, we get excited over how black and white films behave with red filtration. Even films with similar spectral response curves can produce striking differences with red filtration. Above is such an example (using a Wratten 25A red filter in both cases), barring slightly different atmospheric conditions when the shots were taken. We're testing Ilford's Delta 100 Pro film as a possible replacement for our FP4 Plus which, while grainless in 8x10, is a bit too grainy for our tastes in medium format. Delta looks promising.







Ahem. A delay in the start date of our new job sees us adding pictures to the website instead of doing something slightly more productive. A new gallery is launched today with a grand total of 3 new images: we call it Transmigrations.







Mark Lyndersay has made our Christmas with a gift of his developing equipment, which includes a Jobo processing unit and a tonne of other stuff that we'll need a warehouse to store. Thank you so much, Mark!











You may or may not know that Polaroid ceased production of Polaroid film last year. CNN has a nice article on Polaroid film that we liked. And so, another 'Kleenex moment' for us; what is the world coming to?











We have done all we can to bring a dreamscape to reality, but there is much more to be done. It is now up to you to find Trinidad's dreamscapes, and to record them for the rest of us.







Our gift for the season to you before we leave: 5 new pictures of an abandoned house here.











It's hiatus time for the website again and, as usual, we don't know for how long. Thoughts of a >gasp< static website notwithstanding, we'd like to wish everyone a happy Christmas, and a great new year in spite of your despair that there won't be new pictures for awhile! 8-)








We have added 2 pictures of the sugar processing factory at Brechin Castle, or what's left of it. You can see the pictures under the heading 'Brechin Castle - 2008' here.








We would like to offer congratulations to the people of the United States of America on their recent Presidential elections which led to Senator, now President-elect, Barack Obama being elected to the White House. "Yes you can", and you did.








Yeah, we deserve a medal: a new gallery. The pictures are nothing more than a bunch of snapshots, but we figure that's better than nothing! You can see the gallery labelled 'Manzanilla Update - 2008' here.








As you have probably noticed, owing to a variety of factors, we can't do our typical landscape pictures with any degree of regularity anymore. Instead, we hope to pad up a bit by announcing our photographer's 'Photoblog'. It will be updated with pictures of things encountered in Trinidad, at least to start with. It's nothing grand, just a personal view of the mundane. The pictures will be captured on film unless otherwise stated. The 'photoblog' will have its own RSS feed. Find Things Encountered here. You can also access the blog by hovering your mouse over 'WHAT'S NEW' on the menu bar (a sub-menu will drop down). We've got one image to start things off.











No lie. Sure, we like certain cameras and lenses better than others, but even our worst cameras or lenses can take pictures that are indistinguishable from those of their more expensive photographic counterparts. One of the nicer Tobago galleries on Digital Trinidad was taken with a 3 megapixel point and shoot, for instance. The hard truth is that if your pictures look bad with a digital point and shoot, no DSLR is going to miraculously turn you into a Salgado. In fact sometimes we believe that people here are more concerned with the implied elitist status symbol of owning a fancy DSLR rather than being concerned about taking good photographs. If you need more convincing, read about Alex Majoli, a Magnum photographer who uses cheap digital point and shoots. So, ya, that's our take, not that anybody is going to listen to what we have to say anyway!








Matt, an apparent internet sensation, dances for all of us. We are not in the habit of embedding video on our website, but we think that Trinidad could use some of this (turn up the volume!):










Mark reminds us about the importance of a good lens in his latest installment on photography. We would, of course, take his past Hasselblad lenses over any Canon L ('L' for 'Life Savings') glass any day.











There is an interesting discussion going on at Photo.net about the fact that image quality from Nikon's top-of-the-line DSLRs don't match film yet. Also, Ken Rockwell, embarrasses the Nikon D3 with nothing less than a 50 year old Kodak Retina IIIc. Additionally, Ken relates elsewhere that Nikon D1x cameras, which cost over $5000. USD in 2001, are now selling for $75. USD used. By comparison, our large format cameras have risen in price more than $1000. USD since we bought them 3 years ago.











Moving up to bigger film, or to a bigger digital sensor, is one way of running away from the dreaded grain, or from digital noise. Sometimes though, you just have to embrace the grain.








Trinidad & Tobago is noted by the 'Fund For Peace' as in potential danger of becoming a failed state. Gosh, you think? On another, but potentially related, note is that we haven't taken a picture of any scenes in Trinidad for almost 1 year now: we just upload old stuff. The fact is that we really don't want our heads blown off by marauding bandits while we're in the act of performing a voluntary civic duty! We're sure you can understand. 8-)











As we prepare to send off our first roll of Kodachrome film for processing at Dwayne's Photo, the last lab that can process this film left in the world, we hear rumours that Kodak may not produce further batches of Kodachrome due to low consumer interest. Kodachrome is not merely a film, it is an era. The timeless pictures of our past are recorded on this film with an eerie presence, and a 'looking through an open doorway' tangibleness, that may fool one into believing that pictures taken 50 years ago look like they may have been taken just yesterday. You want pictures of your family to last for over 200 years? This is the film for you. The film is still available from Amazon.com, so buy now. Digital capture is a joke compared to the greatness of Kodachrome which has been faithfully recording who we are, and who we were, since 1935.








We've uploaded an experimental picture. On occasion we try out new things, and this time we tried a high-key landscape along with some deliberate swing on our large format camera. The picture is kind of ordinary, but we thought you'd might like a look at it here.










Yeah, nostalgia for a lens: we definitely need to get out more often. Anyway, after much obsessive behaviour directed towards eBay, we now have that lens back after selling it six years ago during an episode of inexplicable 'brain fade'. Too bad we'll be using it to take pictures of places outside of Trinidad for the most part.








We've uploaded an oldish picture that we recently unearthed. It has been added to the 'Relics' gallery here.








One courageous citizen's website is back up after a hiatus. The updated website has some very informative articles for all of us. See the Wake Up Trinbago website here.








We've added 4 pictures to the Coastal Snapshots gallery. You can find them at the bottom of the page here.








Just in case you thought we were 'making joke' about the longevity of film, here are recent scans of 4x5 Kodachrome slides from the 1940s (that's almost 70 years ago folks). These slides reside in the United States Library of Congress. They are in perfect condition. The beauty of these slides gives credence to the opinion that Kodachrome (25/64) was possibly the greatest film ever made. Any one of these high resolution scans of 70 year old slides will humiliate any digital file available today. It is haunting to see these scenes depicted in colour instead of the de facto black and white. Will our country preserve the photographs of, say, Noel Norton - recorder of our history, with the same avidity? When pigs fly. On a side note, we'll be getting some 35mm kodachrome 64 to try out. There is only one lab left in the world that can develop it. No larger format sizes of Kodachrome remain.








We thought it could use some expansion, so we've added 4 pictures to the Relics gallery. You can find them under '2008 Update' here.








We just found out that Noel Norton is using a digital camera, and we freak out accordingly here.








Happy Independence Day. We've uploaded 6 pictures taken on Mayaro Beach. You can find them under 'UPDATE - 2008' here.








We have an extra Sena Bay 8x10 LF photograph uploaded here. Also, we think we've mostly sorted out a bug in our RSS feed; we apologise if you haven't been getting updates recently.








We're nice: we link to, and inform you of, new Trinidad photography talent. Our most recent find is that of photographer Kenrick Rampial's 'Silvercastinc' website. We're most interested in his landscape gallery, which doesn't seem to work too well right now with the Firefox browser on Mac OS X, BTW. He has abundant HDR-like, and Photoshop edited landscapes which range from the bizarre to the 'really cool'. He has taken a few pictures from places we have visited previously, and subscribes to the long exposure technique we do often. See his take on seascapes, digital-style (link above).

**UPDATE** 12/09/08 - Aha, looks like Mr. Rampial has fixed the Firefox problem and he has uploaded more pictures.

**UPDATE** 10/11/08 - The link no longer works, so everyone disregard this post.








Noel Norton, Trinidad & Tobago's quintessential photographer has recently established his online presence with a well designed website. Included on the website is a fascinating biography of Norton Studios. We empathise with Norton who has undertaken the arduous task of scanning his slides for digital output: we know what a nightmare that can be! Some of his scans fare worse than others, but keep in mind that many of those negatives/transparencies are almost 50 years old! The biography section mentioned that Norton now uses a Nikon D300 camera, so we must assume that that signals the end to any quality in his work :-). Ha ha, just kidding! We have added a link to his website on our links page.

***UPDATE*** Mark Lyndersay has a great piece about the importance of Noel Norton to Trinidad and Tobago's history. You can find the essay on Mark's website.









What makes a lens great? Is the sharpest lens always the 'best lens'? Sadly, many of the subtle characteristics inherent in different lenses do not show up in digital pictures. Lens characteristics, in times past, typically shone through in wet silver halide prints; each lens offering up a view into its unique personality. Digital sapped the fun out of lens collecting, and tempered the acquisition of specific lenses to provide a preferred 'look'. There's no magic to digital. Sure, there are issues of chromatic aberration, sharpness, and micro-contrast which occupy the minds of some digital shooters, but all that stuff bores us to death. In fact, we hate how a good measure of Nikon lenses render scenes with increased shadow contrast, but Nikon primes are really sharp! Canon lenses can be very sharp, but they don't really give us what we want. Zeiss Contax lenses render scenes with cool tones, which we don't cotton to. We like Olympus Zuiko lenses better even though many of them could hardly be called 'sharp'. Pentax limited edition 35mm lenses are the only ones we like from that company. In fact, in more than twenty small format, medium format, and large format systems that we have used our favourite lens isn't the sharpest, or the most contrasty. Our favourite lens is the Rollei 80mm HFT PQS Planar lens manufactured by Zeiss under licence from Rollei. From mid-tone tonality, to colour rendition, to 3-dimensionality, this lens hits our sweet-spot. The sad part is that many digital shooters have no idea what we are talking about. Their loss. You can see a few more pictures taken with this lens in our Rollei 6008i camera review page.










It is said that familiarity breeds contempt, and we've been on the receiving end of that, on occasion. When we look at the pictures taken by Trinidadians living abroad we see reflected in those pictures the awe of the photographer for all the wonders which Trinidad & Tobago can never have. Viewers instinctively deduce why those citizens left; the allure of being part of a first world experience is too great a magnet for many of us to resist. That, and a contempt of what is familiar. We must be getting old, as we choose to seek out the familiar in new places. This permeates our photography as well. The picture above wasn't taken in Trinidad, but it could very well have been: there are elements of similarity. Distant shores are not necessarily all that different from our contempt-inspiring close proximity offerings.








A new Tobago gallery is now up at Digital Trinidad. You can see the gallery here.










A new Tobago gallery will be coming to Digital Trinidad photographed using an odd combination of 10+ megapixel Canon DSLR coupled to Olympus Zuiko lenses.








We are happy to announce that Trinidad Dreamscape celebrates its 250,000th unique visitor today, a little over 2 years after its start. We crossed our 2 millionth hit a week ago. The top 5 countries of origin of our visitors are, in descending order of magnitude, The United States of America, Italy, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, and Great Britain. We would especially like to thank our visitors from the United States for their support, and for their emails. Since we started up we have received over 900 emails, all of which received our personal attention. Our most popular page turns out to be the "Waterfall" series, followed closely by our "Copying Ansel Adams" article, weirdly enough.








We have updated our views about using Apple's Aperture for film scans, and we vent some pent-up frustrations with Apple Computer Inc. Yes, that Apple. Read here.








A new black and white picture of the Rio Seco waterfall in the Mora forest has just been posted here. UPDATE - replaced the original picture with a sharpened version; sorry, we forgot to sharpen it originally. As a bonus, we've included a zoomed view on the same page. On a side note, the contact print of this picture looks unbelievable.










A Rio Seco waterfall picture is coming up shortly: that's the negative being washed off in a tray after fixing. It's a picture from a long past hike, and we have just unearthed the negative. Sadly, the colour picture has to wait until we have the time to develop it (don't hold your breath). This is probably the first (and the last) time the Rio Seco waterfall has been photographed using an 8x10 view camera.










We indicated some months ago that a slowdown in updates would occur, and that time has now arrived. New pictures may still come, but they will now likely be interspersed by months of inactivity on the website. Not that we wish to sound too pessimistic, but we hope you have enjoyed the journey thus far with us. Best wishes to everyone.








We are pleased to bring you a new gallery of digital snapshots from Tobago. Pictures were taken using a humble 3 megapixel Minolta Dimage camera. *2009 Update* - Unfortunately, I have deleted this gallery.










Coming soon......








You know our mantra: 'Trinidad Dreamscape' does not enhance colour photographs with the use of digital post-processing techniques, or any other technique for that matter. Pictures you see here match our original slides. The same guarantee is, however, not true of our sister website, Digital Trinidad. All the pictures featured in 'Digital Trinidad' are processed in 'Photoshop' to some degree, some more than others. Although digital photographers argue that they have a creative license to manipulate photographs to 'Wow' audiences, or to facilitate their 'vision' we still have a nagging feeling that there is a fine line between creative license and dishonesty. 'Digital Trinidad' would therefore like to be up-front about its post-processing. More importantly, if you would like to see what any particular picture looks like straight from the camera, email 'Digital Trinidad', and we'll be happy to send a small jpeg of the original file to you.








We get lots of emails. 99% of our emails are from visitors and Trinidadians resident abroad, and they are wonderful. Such emails encourage us to keep on going. The other 1% of emails come from residents of Trinidad. Sadly, all of the abusive, and condescending mail that we get, as well as pranks, come from the latter group. Sometimes, however, admixed with the colourful language of an irate Trinidadian writer is a valid point. We received an email recently from a fellow Trinidadian who was absolutely beside himself that we had nothing good to say, and no pictures to show, of the Maracas Falls as described in the beginning of our Waterfalls page. He certainly let us have it: here's what he had to say:

"hahahahahahahaha........... ur all a big joke. wanna go lookin for waterfalls and cant even take a little hike..... piss off. and you cant even comprehend the majesty of maracas falls until you truly experience it (or you probably aren't any good at photo take outing) true photograhers would find beauty in anything.... the 2hr+ hike to the top, the thrill of settin up to abseil/ rapel the first drop (alot more gushing water i'll have you know) abseiling the second drop the sheer 220m,i'll show you true photography. bloo basin boo hoo........ thas for pussies, i'm sure you went along with those fools to smoke some herbs too. ha jokers."

In fairness to us, we do try our best. 'Trinidad Dreamscape' is not some big, funded government organisation, but instead consists, largely, of one individual taking pictures for the benefit of Trinidadians, Tobagonians, and visitors. We use old film cameras, and our main camera, packed, weighs 40 pounds which unfortunately precludes some of the places we can visit. We can't produce the volume of pictures that digital shooters churn out, as our film is very expensive, and we have to develop it all ourselves. Finally, sometimes a scene just cannot be captured with the old cameras we use; we don't have zooms, and super-wide-angle lenses etc. Again, we try our best within the constraints imposed on us by our equipment.

Foregoing caveats and rants aside, we concede that our friend has a point in that we indeed have no pictures of Maracas Falls. So, just for our friend, we present our introduction to the Maracas Waterfall, lower level.










'Trinidad Dreamscape' is one of a handful of users of large format cameras left in the world today. One group of users of these pioneering photographic devices decided to put together a book of images taken using these old cameras. There were many problems to overcome, not the least of which were many master photographers and printers who could not fathom the intricacies of converting their negatives into a printable computer format. The first edition of the book was rolled out to the dismay of many, including us: there were printing errors, colour-cast problems, fuzzy scans, burned-out highlights. We were adamant to try again, but others were too jaded by the whole process to give it another go. We are not certain if the second edition of the book will go to print. It is with this in mind that we are presenting the link to the first edition copy which is available for purchase, or can be downloaded for free (it's a 200MB pdf file). Despite its imperfections, the book still illustrates the charm of a medium fast being pushed aside by modern technologies. We are pleased to have two of our images included in the book. You can find the book, 'A Larger View - size does matter' here.








Trust us to never lose an opportunity to stick it to the digital crowd: we take a look at digital's problem with dynamic range during an eclipse of the moon here.








An amateur astronomer has been kind enough to allow 'Digital Trinidad' to use his series of exposures documenting the recent lunar eclipse as viewed from Trinidad. You can find the series here.








A lone man looks out to sea under a threatening sky here.








The long dormant 'Digital Trinidad' website rumbles to life with a few pictures from the marina at Chaguaramas. You can find them here.








On a roll today! We've finally developed the last bit of film from our visit to the Wild Fowl Trust. We have added 2 new pictures. They are the last 2 pictures at the bottom of the page here.








Take a look at the new 2008 Carnival Pictures over at the Mayaro Beach website!








Mark Lyndersay has a great new series on the making of Mas in Trinidad found on his website here.








Yes, it's a miracle: two more 8x10 transparencies posted. You can find them at the bottom of the Northeast Coast gallery, under 'Update - 2007' here.








We've finally started the task we hate: developing those 8x10 slides. The first one out of the chemicals has been scanned and uploaded. You can find it here. The second photograph can be found here.








The Wild Fowl Trust page has been updated with some new black and white pictures. You can find the updates here.










We never scanned this old photograph taken near Toco. It seems like we took this picture eons ago. Just like the changing patterns of clouds scudding across the sky, Trinidad changes. We have seven 8x10" transparencies patiently waiting (for about six months now) to be developed, and hopefully we will get a chance to do that soon. We hope that some of them will be good enough to post on the website. The picture above was taken at night using a 4x5 large format camera loaded with Kodak Ektachrome film.