Film Juan Diego Falls at El Yunque Rain Forest, Río Grande, Puerto Rico.

ajramirez

Hall of Famer
Location
Caguas, Puerto Rico
Name
Antonio
El Yunque National Forest is the only tropical rain forest in the United States National Forest System. It is located in northeastern Puerto Rico, on the slopes of the Sierra de Luquillo mountains. Because of the abundant rainfall it gets, it is home to numerous rivers and waterfalls.

I had not visited El Yunque since 1992. On Saturday, my good friend Eduardo Romero Flickr: e_romero's Photostream a wonderful landscape photographer and analog photography buff, invited me to the Juan Diego trail for a photo hike. It was a challenging hike, particularly with tripod and Hasselblad in hand, but it was a fun outing. Here are some shots of the Falls, all shot with a tripod mounted Hasselblad 500C/M and 50mm 4.0 Distagon or 80mm 2.8 Planar, on Ilford Delta 100 developed in D76 1:1.

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Juan Diego by ramirezaponte, on Flickr

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El Yunque by ramirezaponte, on Flickr

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Juan Diego by ramirezaponte, on Flickr

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Juan Diego by ramirezaponte, on Flickr

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Juan Diego by ramirezaponte, on Flickr

Cheers,

Antonio
 
Beautiful and inspirational. It must have been spectacular views with vivid colors.
Thanks for sharing, Peter
 
Nice work Antonio. I don't know that I'd have been willing to work that hard for it, but then I probably wouldn't have gotten such incredible results either!

-Ray

To be quite frank, I think the next time I may just bring the Leica and leave the Hasselblad at home. The setting was quite dark, which made focusing the Hasselblad quite challenging. However, the "you've got to be kidding me" moment was when Eduardo reminded me that because of the long exposure times, I needed to compensate for reciprocity failure of the film. He then proceeded to pull a reciprocity failure compensation chart for all popular B&W films. Had he not reminded me (and brought the chart), all of my shots would have been significantly underexposed.

In addition to using his Bronica, Eduardo took some shots with his NEX-5 which, to my eye, are every bit as good as our analog shots.

ReD - The stones were stacked by a Mr. José Hudo, who was also with us that day. He has a thing for stone sculptures... I did not notice them until after I processed the shot.

Thank you everybody for your very kind comments! If you are ever in Puerto Rico, El Yunque is definitely worth a visit. Bring comfortable shoes, though, and prepare to get a little wet.

Cheers,

Antonio
 
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