Ogre

Now here's a mountain portrait. It's one of the satellites of the Baintha Brakk, nicknamed "The Ogre", a forbidding 7000+ mountain climbed only twice (and not from this side). The picture was taken on our way into the Ogre sanctuary, a fairly narrow cul-de-sac that is lined back to front with imposing 2000m high walls.

It's a weird image. It looks like I used a deep red filter to blacken the sky and enhance the contrast, but I didn't. The negative is fairly thin and shows a very limited tonal range. Normally I eschew this kind of drama in my mountain portraits. I'd rather go for washed out skies and lush mid-tone palettes. This is very much in the classic Sella (or Shirahata) vein. 

What surprises me most is the texture of the image. It does not have the fine microstructure of a medium format negative. The grain is fairly coarse and the acutance is low. At places it looks smudgy, like somebody drew it with a crayon. 

Printed on A3+ it does have an impact. It might work well on a larger format. But it's not exactly what I'm after and I wonder how it will fit in the rest of the portfolio and whether it will match with the other mountain portraits.