Join me for a fascinating visit to an old stone quarry, not only a geologist’s playground but also any large format shooter.
I had the pleasure of visiting a stone quarry “Steinbruch Michelnau” in Nidda, about an hour north of Frankfurt in the state of Hessen, Germany a few weeks ago. I was part of an unofficial annual large format (and some medium format allowed also) visit to unsual sites.
Luckily one of my large format friends is very well connected; and this is not the first time he finds excellent shooting locations, check out this old post. This old stone quarry is run as a charity, providing school and general public visits. We were luckily enough to have the place to ourselves pretty much for the full day. I don’t think the guys volunteering there have ever seen so many large format cameras. Prior to being “let loose” we enjoyed a classroom style overview of the geological history of this site, it reminded me of being back in college.
Pretty accurate description of a large format shooting. We all arrive at the same time and then go off and do our own thing! (phone shot).
a bit more about the quarry
Below is a short history of the site - text compiled and translated from the original German site here.
The Michelnau quarry was first mentioned in a Nidda newspaper in 1846. At the very beginning, the stone was broken out of the wall with an axe, pickaxe and iron wedge. Later, the quarrying was carried out with a compressor hammer and, most recently, with a cutting machine (similar to a chainsaw with a 2m chain blade). When mining slowly came to a standstill around 1990, nature reclaimed the quarry.
Over 150 years of mining history have left their mark. In the middle of the 19th century, the stone was broken out of the wall using an axe, pickaxe, hammer and iron wedges. In the 1920s, the so-called air chisel was used for mining. After the Second World War – around 1947 – the first cutting machine, which was mainly used in coal and salt mining, rattled in the Michelnau quarry. It was quickly discovered that such large chainsaws with a cutting blade up to 2 m long were ideal for mining tuff rock. Since then, large blocks of stone could be sawn out of the wall and, as a result, the area of application and the associated sales of Michelnauer stone increased. At the end of the 1980s, the quarry was closed due to a lack of demand for Michelnauer stone.
Michelnauer stone was known for use as a brick, in house building, as a decorative stone for door and window frames, as a facing brick for cladding bridge structures and cut into slabs for cladding natural stone facades. Not to be forgotten is the wide use of Michelnau stone by sculptors and stonemasons, who have additional requirements for the quality of a stone.
about the shots
All shots taken on my Linhof Master Technika 4x5 camera with all 3 lenses (90mm, 150mm, and 270mm). 8 shots taken on Fomapan 100 and 4 taken on Fomapan 400. All photos clickable for full screen viewing, do yourself a favour and click on the large format images if you are using a laptop or tablet, the detail is insane!
Getting ready for development aka my bathroom.
My first shot. Actually not bad considering it has been a break of about a year since I last used my large format camera. I prefer the negative to the final shot though, a bit busy and no clear subject.
My blog post cover shot and surprisingly I do not have a setup shot. That is some crazy sharpness shot I think at f8 (I tend to shoot large format big scenes at f22 or f32 so basically everything is in focus).
I am really glad with how this came out as I was not sure given it was darker than the phone shot shows. I light the strong contrast in different areas of shadows and highlights. Cool equipment too!
My second favourite shot and nearly had it as my blog cover post but I figured the stone cutting machine was more emblematic of the location. Great negative and final scan!
A scene in the same room just off to the side. I like it but find it a tad busy, I should have focused on one smaller subject area for a better composition.
I took ages trying to get the right composition for this shot as the very large crane was behind this scene on the right and I kept changing my mind on whether to include it or not and switch to my wide angle 90mm lens. In the end I opted for a close up shot and I am glad I did - I love the details in this image.
I kept the 90mm lens for this shot - it demanded such a wide lens. The second setup image is under the dark cloth and shows the ground glass for critical focusing and composition - upside down and backwards, the life of a large format photographer can be tedious!
I like the final shot but in fact it may have been too wide, luckily there is so much detail in a 4x5 negative you can easily crop and still retain all the details.
p.s. the other photographers are there just inside I think!
A cropped picture - just gotta love the details in large format negatives!
A 35mm shot.
I opted for a vertical 4x5 shot for this one, which reminds me I rarely take vertical portrait shots and that I should do so more often.
A different angle shot of another stone cutter.
Getting setup for the shot and measuring the light. I spent quite a long time on this scene but somehow couldn’t really find a good relationship with it (other large format shooters will understand) and as such the final image is not really how I would have liked it. It was quite hard to compose for given the high dynamic range and the fact you are looking through a ground glass that has the image upside down and back to front!
Cool subject though!
I like how the first shot came out (directly looking at the quarry wall). You can see a good shot of the viewfinder too. I love the contrast in this shot, this could be a good candidate for printing. The second shot is less interesting in my view and had a view of a light leak so I had to crop it a bit.
35mm shots
I had started a roll of Harman Phoenix 200 in my small but mighty Olympus XA2 so I decided to bring it along. Actually I though the red quarry stone would work well with a film that is inherently red. Well, that with red safety hard hats made it a bit too my red in my opinion, but I did snap a few I thought worth of sharing.
overall observations
Well, we had a great time, there is no doubt about it! This is the first time I have taken 12 shots in one large format outing. In fact I only had 4 film sheet holders (they hold two negatives each) but luckily one of my friend’s loaned me 2 additional ones, albeit with Fomapan 400 film loaded instead of my regular Fomapan 100.
It was a real privilege to spend most of a Saturday in this quarry and we were very well taken care of by one of the guides, especially with all the introduction and small history lesson. I would really recommend a visit if someone happens to be in the area and is a fan of history and/or geology, it really is a fascinating place!
I have plenty of other blog posts in the work so will be posting more often in the coming days and weeks so see you soon!
Cheers,
Neil
For once I am in the shot! (thanks to Volker for this great shot!)
