Terry
Obviously the experience in a church with Richard Ingle has formed a strong
impression on you. Perhaps too much incense? Or maybe something to do with
extreme intensity of light and tiredness after a long day photographing or
other unusual mental state that you were sharing with Richard? However, for
whatever reason, I think you are just going to have to accept that your
experience on this occasion does not appear to accord with the way that the
rest of us see the world - or indeed with the literature on the subject.
Whether this was a peculiarity of this one particular situation or your
perceptions is surely of little consequence.
Without particularly wishing to continue this exchange can I ask one small
question.
Are you saying that you were able on the spot to develop the neg and produce
the platinum print so you could compare it with the scene under the exact
lighting conditions (or went back with it under the same lighting conditions
- it would be nice if you had recorded the spot readings too!) or are you
relying on your memory of the scene?
If the latter, you must surely agree how fallible memory is on such things
and perhaps at last bow out gracefully?
Another factor that effects the photographic result in such situations as you
describe is the large amount of non-image forming light which will have found
its way to the focal plane, considerably reducing the contrast of the scene.
Flare, it has been said, is what makes photography possible.
Peter Marshall
Fixing Shadows and elsewhere:
http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/cgi-uva/cgiwrap/~ds8s/Niepce/peter-m.cgi