After dodging Methow Valley hunters all day, and leaving behind aspens on Lester Road and fall color on the Chewuch River, I turned the rig off the road next to Boulder Creek less than a half hour before sunset.

      What had caught my eye were some trees sporting fall color in a gorge just off the road. That was enough to get me out of the car. But the viewing of the trees above a small waterfall got the camera gear out.

      Accompaning me on the trip was Pat Morrissey, who got his 8x10 camera set up faster than most can set up a 35 mm camera. I set up a couple feet to one side.

      Pat has yet to develop his negatives, so I can't say how different our images turned out.

      Of note on my developing my negatives, I found several major areas of emulsion missing from my four exposures. So I went back to the river a couple days later and re-took the picture. Some leaves were missing on the tops of the trees but it was close to the same beautiful area I visited a few days earlier. This time I went down the slope a little bit further to get a different perspective. Of the four images I took, I eventually found this one to have the least amount of scratches. I suspect during Pyro development the negative is very soft. As the negatives might move or overlap during early development in a drum I use, I suspect they are scratching. I am taking extra, extra precautions now. Luckily, with such large negatives, you can fairly easy retouch the negative (non-emulsion side, of course).