on the process of

Remaking Master Hands, Part III: On projection and the anxiety over proportion

2011-11-02T16:44:00.002-04:00

Having decided that one of the main ideas behind the Master Hands project would be projection—projecting the found texts and movie clips so that others could view them, as well as projecting myself into those lives, traveling to the various places those texts might allow me to go—I had to begin deciding which pieces of the collection made the most sense to use and how, specifically, I wanted to use them.

I began re-viewing the home movies I had purchased with a mind toward capturing and cataloging any and all instances of movement or travel—travel by car, certainly, but also boat, plane, whatever. My initial thought was to watch all the movies I had and then, after deciding which clips I wanted to use, go back and re-run those films, recording only what I actually planned on using. After more than a few close calls with misbehaving projectors, willful reels, and lengths of film that jammed and started to burn, Chris and I decided it was probably wisest just to record everything as it ran, deciding later what I wanted to use. We did most of the projecting and re-recording in the living room, using various projectors and a moldy old screen we had purchased at Good Will for three dollars. Chris ran the projector while I recorded what was being projected on the screen using my digital camera, my ipod and some Flip video recorders.

I had a vague sense of wanting to do a video with four sections—a nod to the fact that Master Hands had been divided up into four sections or parts. I knew that I wanted one section to deal explicitly with travel, with being projected or transported from one place to another, and this would likely be the section of the piece that would feature the most of the original source video. To better determine what the other sections would deal with, I began editing and cataloging the re-recorded (i.e., now digitized) home movies according to the different themes or trends I noticed in that footage: travel/vacation sequences, parties or holiday celebrations, people avoiding the camera, people unwrapping presents, people waving hello (or goodbye), footage shot in cemeteries, and so on. At that point, all I knew is that one section of the piece would deal with the idea of projection/transportation (again, working with the idea of tracing the car’s movement or lifespan after it left the factory), that another would deal with resistance or avoidance, and that the final section of the video would feature the Walker Evan’s quote--“Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long”--followed by a montage of people waving hello—or depending on how you looked at it—goodbye. I wanted, in other words, for the piece to get to questions of projection, preservation as well as mortality, to get viewers to question who was watching who, whose life was on display, who, in point of fact, would not be here long, whose lives would not be viewed or remembered.

Throughout the process of developing ideas for the piece and then while actually piecing it all together, I continually questioned whether or not I was doing this all correctly. It bothered me a great deal that I couldn’t see or learn what other people were doing, to understand how they were approaching the task. Despite this being labeled as an experiment, and despite being told that I was to use Master Hands plus anything else I wanted, I continually fixated on matters of proportion. Had I been able to see drafts of other people’s work and/or to discuss my plans with others, I could have made sure that I was using approximately as much of the source text as others were. Then again, that said, I had a pretty strong sense of what I wanted to accomplish and a fairly good sense of how I might use Master Hands to help me get there, so it’s quite likely that even if I had learned early on that others were composing pieces that were comprised, say, 75% of Master Hands footage, I wouldn’t have done much differently. On the other hand, had I known from the get-go that my piece would feature much less of Master Hands than other pieces did (provided that this was, in fact, the case), this would, I think, have resulted in less time and stress spent second-guessing my work, wondering if others were using more of the source material than I was, etc.

Throughout the time I spent working on this piece, I continually drew comparisons between this experiment and the show Chopped. For those not familiar with the program, the show requires chef-testants to create a meal (appetizer, entrée and, finally, a desert) using the items found in the mystery basket. Importantly, while the chef-testants must use all of the items in the mystery basket in some way, they are also free to use any of the items found in the Chopped pantry. My sense of this experiment—and the idea of producing mash-ups more generally--was that it was kinda like being on Chopped, only in this case there was only one item—Master Hands—in our mystery basket. That said, there was a particular episode of Chopped that came most often to mind while I worked on this project, serving, I suppose, as a kind of cautionary tale. I don’t remember all the specifics of the episode, but one of the ingredients the contestants had to use was candy cane. If I recall correctly, one of the chef-testants was criticized for offering the candy cane as something of an after-thought, an accessory, or quite literally, a garnish. The item wasn’t, in other words, integrated fully or well enough into the dish. As I thought about what portions (and how much) of Master Hands I’d use in my piece, I remember thinking, “it can’t be like the candy cane episode—it can’t just be added or thrown in for the sake of my being required to use it in some shape or fashion. My use of it must be more integrated, or at least more purposeful than that.”

While I knew that I’d be using some of the source footage in the travel/transport sequence, I noticed fairly early on how much the factory machines looked like huge projectors. My goal in the first section then became one of combining—as seamlessly as I could—some of the factory footage with images of projectors, and of course, hands. In terms of using Master Hands in my own work, I also attempted to mimic or pay homage to some of the visual moves or effects featured in Master Hands. Visually speaking, I was quite taken with the bas relief or solarization effect used in the opening of the film, when the men are entering the factory. I attempted to copy this effect in the opening of my piece. I refer now to the first time the image of Chris’s arms and (on) the projector appears. I also tracked and attempted to use in my work some of the more overt/visible transitions used in Master Hands—the diagonal wipe and the iris, in particular, though I ended up jettisoning the iris in one of the latter revisions. [I originally used the iris transition in the sequence where I feature or project footage of my collection of found texts through the screen of the portable 1956 GE television.]

Concerned that I still wasn't using enough of Master Hands in my work, I also created a sequence (one that never made it into any draft of the piece) where the family featured at the end of my piece was watching Master Hands, but there seemed little point to this, narratively speaking. It would have seemed to me a case of using Master Hands just because I needed to. I remain on the fence about the purposefulness (or lack thereof) of the still images from Master Hands contained in the Polaroid frames at the start of the section entitled “On reception, transformation and the complexities of projection.” When I set this shot up, I was mainly just curious about how it would look. And while I knew that I wanted to project something through one of the Polaroid frames, it made little sense to just assign random pictures to the other frames when I set up the test shot. Instead, I selected and used stills from Master Hands, hoping that viewers would make the connection between what I was receiving and subsequently working to transform, namely, the source footage from Master Hands.

Remaking Master Hands, Part II: First thoughts, ideas, and impressions

2011-11-02T09:55:00.003-04:00

From the start, I approached the Master Hands project not in terms of what I could make or do with Master Hands, but in terms of what Master Hands could help me make or do--I'll have more to say about this in a later post, particularly as it relates to the use or proportion of source material to "other materials", as well as implicit understandings and/or definitions of what a mash-up is, should be, or do, etc. In an earlier post, however, I touched on some of the things I believed participating in this experiment could help me do: Learn a new computer and new software while providing me with something new and interesting to do during my first post-tenure summer, etc.

In terms of content or focus, I was particularly interested in the lifespan, journey or process of the automobile once it had left the factory. An initial thought was to pick up on the final segment of Master Hands (where the car drives off the factory floor and down the road) and to ask: What happens next? Where does it go? Who or what does it come into contact with? What processes, activities, or assemblages did the automobile help facilitate, alter, transform, thwart?

Another early thought was to fast-forward to the end of the auto’s lifespan and focus on junkyards, on various forms of destruction. This, in turn, brought to mind the potential of using Master Hands to compose a piece on photographers’ rights—an issue I felt was important, something I wanted to learn more about, something, in fact, I felt strongly that I very much needed to learn more about at the time. Some months prior to receiving the Master Hands invite, I had visited a junkyard on a photo shoot, and—long story short—I ended up having all my cameras confiscated before I left. Hence the connection between new cars, junk yards, and photographer’s rights.

I scrapped (no pun intended) the junkyard idea pretty early in the process, but remained interested in questions having to do with what happened once the auto left the factory. I still wanted, in other words, to pick up on that part of the story or process—to think about what the now-assembled automobile allowed users to go on to do, to see, to make, piece together, assemble, etc.

Meanwhile. . . .

When I wasn’t visiting junkyards and having my equipment confiscated, I was spending a good deal of time at yard sales, and in flea markets and antique stores in hopes of finding (and purchasing for cheap) other people’s memories—old negatives, photos (loose as well as those already-arranged in albums), slides, scrapbooks, travel diaries, and home movies. For me, the experience of interacting with these texts—these complex traces of other people’s lives—was always bound up with the idea of travel, with getting away, with projection and escape. I remember vividly the months I spent scanning the first collection of negatives I purchased at a local yard sale--there were some 700 negatives in all, so I had plenty of scanning to do that summer. I’d sit down with a day’s worth of negatives, and ask: “All right—where are we headed today? Where will you take me? What will you show me?” [Though it would be a year or more before I happened upon the wonderful 1963 Polaroid ad, the soundtrack for which I would feature in the mashup, it's hard for me to think about this time without hearing the lyrics, "I can't help but wonder where I'm bound, where I'm bound. . ."]

In this way, the experience of collecting other people’s memories was always for me chiefly about transportation, travel and the various material processes involved with re-assembling these lives, and with this, of projecting myself into other spaces, times, and lives lived. Another perk associated with using these materials was that I didn’t have to worry about copyright infringement and wouldn’t have to limit myself to using materials from the Prelinger Archives. What’s more, I finally had the incentive, occasion or excuse to do something I’d been meaning to do for a while: To find ways of projecting, in hopes of better preserving and making available to others, some of the 8mm and 16mm home movies in the collection. I knew that I wanted to focus primarily on the still and moving images in the collection that featured cars and various modes of transportation/travel, but there was one home movie in particular, portions of which where shot from inside the car with the steering wheel in view, that I felt strongly would make for a wonderful transition between the end of Master Hands (i.e., when the driver places his hands on the wheel and drives the car off the factory floor) and some of the travel footage I had to offer. Having decided on the general point and direction of the piece, I began (with Chris’ assistance) the time consuming and often times frustrating process of projecting, viewing and attempting to successfully capture/translate/digitize the portions of those home movies I thought I’d like to feature in the piece.

Remaking Master Hands, Part I: The set up and (almost) break down

2011-10-27T13:53:00.005-04:00

In June, I received an invitation to participate in Enculturation’s first Video Mashup Roundtable. As was explained in the original email invite, Richard Marback had recently completed a video mashup based on Master Hands, a 1936 film available for viewing and download at the Prelinger Archives. Yet rather that publishing Richard’s piece by itself, Richard and Jim Brown, the managing editor of Enculturation, decided to invite others to create their own mashups using the Master Hands footage. Those signing on to participate in this experiment would agree to the following four constraints:

Master Hands must serve as the common as shared source material amongst mashups, but participants were allowed to mix that footage with anything else they wanted
The mashup would function as the thing, the argument. There would not, in other words, be a supplementary or explanatory text published with the video
The mashup should be no longer than 10 minutes
(and finally) we were not told who the other participants would be and we were not allowed to view the other videos until all of them were published. The rationale offered here was that Richard and Jim “would like each author to bring their own perspective to the source material.”

The email concluded with a brief timeline for the project: Final versions of videos would be due September 30. On October 17, 2011 the mashups would go live. At that time a select group of respondents would be allowed to ask questions and post comments about the mashups. Importantly, while it was not listed as a fifth constraint, there was this too: Those who created mashups would not be allowed to comment. We would, of course, be able to see the comments--as would others not directly involved with the experiment--but we would not have the opportunity to respond to questions or comments made by the select group of respondents. On October 23, the comments would close and this (the mashups and the respondents’ questions and comments) would serve as the publication proper.

The (almost) break down:

Upon receiving the invite, my initial reaction was “Heck, yeah! That’s really cool! I wonder who else was invited! I can’t wait to see how this turns out.” And it was (is) a cool idea—to see how 4-5 people might take up, enact, transform, extend, etc. the same source footage.

But did I want to participate? Heck, heck, heck, no! (well, kinda maybe. . .) But then again, mostly nonononono. Absolutely not.

That said, the similarity between this particular task/challenge and the kinds of tasks I routinely give my students with was not lost on me. All the more reason, I reasoned, to force myself to do this—to put myself in a more vulnerable position than I'm usual in, to risk failing in a real big and really public way, to wonder if I'll end up looking like the stupid one, the one who missed the boat and got it all wrong, so on. and so on.

That said (and in my defense), a salient difference between the kinds of tasks and contexts my students typically negotiate and this particular task is that my students are provided with opportunities for various kinds of feedback throughout the process of accomplishing a particular task. That is to say, they have a number of ways to try to determine or gauge whether they are on the right track. Or not. They not only get to see what former students did—how others negotiated the task in past semester—they also get to see what their peers are doing, or maybe only thinking of doing. In this way, students can adjust their work, their thinking, their goals and arguments according to what they see others doing.

I ended up agreeing to participate in the experiment, in part, because my mom said I had to. (Seriously.) I also knew myself well enough to know that—as scared as I was to actually sign on for this—I’d probably regret not doing it. In terms of other motives, other timely factors that suggested to me that I might as well do it, there was this: 1.) I had just finished my book and been awarded tenure, so I felt I could justify (or maybe felt like I actually deserved?) spending a couple months on something new and exciting, on something that would allow me to think, work, and communicate in multiple modes 2.) A week or so before I received the invite, my new office computer was delivered. Signing on to this project would provide me with the opportunity (read: it would force me to) learn how the Mac and the new video/photo software worked. It wouldn’t, in other words, just sit there unopened and unused until the start of the Fall semester, and 3.) It was summer, after all, and my understanding was that my summer class couldn't possibly make (it did), so I figured I'd have oodles of time to work my shit out.

Throughout the time I spent working on my mashup, my concerns or fears (i.e., "my shit")—again, the feeling that I was, in fact, doing this all wrong, that I wasn’t using enough of Master Hands, that my mashup would be the laughable one (and not in a good way), that it would be clear I didn’t know what I was doing—never really lessened or got worked out. As I reflect on the overall process now, it seems the only time I wasn’t worrying about the reception of the piece is when I was worrying about the production or, quite literally, the projection of the piece.

I have to admit, nothing quite says failure (or potential failure) like the smell, sound and sight of a length of 16mm film that has jammed in the projector and is beginning to jump and buck and melt.

No 2A Brownie 35mm modification

2011-07-04T11:19:00.005-04:00

This easy-peasy modification can be used on almost any 116, 616, 127, 120, 620, etc. camera provided that the supply side of the camera will hold a canister of 35mm film. [I have a 127 camera with a supply chamber that is too narrow to hold the 35mm canister.] It's also helpful to have the correct size spool for the take-up size. For instance, I always use a 620 spool for take-up when shooting 35mm in my flipped lens Brownie Hawkeye Flash. If you happen to be working with a 116 camera (like the No 2A Brownie) and don't have the original spool, here is a great way to make a 120 spool fit a 116/616 camera.

For this modification you'll need the camera you are choosing to use, a canister of 35mm film with the leader cut off (flat edge), tape (clear as well as electric), scissors, the empty take-up spool, and a pink sponge roller. Packs of 10-12 sponge rollers can be bought at the dollar store for, you guessed it, a buck.

Step one: Cut the foam roller to size. Size will depend on the width of the supply side of the camera, but you want to make sure that the roller pieces hold the canister snugly in place while still allowing the camera to close properly. [See image above, far left.]

Step two: Tape the film leader to the empty take-up spool and place spool in proper position. NOTE: It's helpful to do this in the darkroom, so you don't waste (expose more film than you need to).

Step three: Place film take-up/supply insert into camera or (if you are working with Holga, Diana or BHF--the foam rollers work splendidly in all these cameras!) put the camera back back on.

Importantly, you'll want to make sure that you have placed a couple layers of electric tape over the front and back of camera's red counter window so that you don't inadvertently expose the film.

The trickiest part is figuring out how to properly advance the film so that you don't get frame overlap or waste too much film. To this end, it's helpful to have a test roll of 35mm on hand. Once I have the supply and take-up sides loaded, I use a sharpie to indicate the top of the film plane. I then figure out how many turns it takes until the sharpie line moves to the bottom of the film plane. With the No 2A Brownie, it takes approximately 5 half-turns of the film advance knob to ensure that the frames will not overlap. [NOTE: As you work through the roll of film, you'll need to advance the film slightly less with each exposure to avoid frame overlap. I tend not to mind the extra space between frames, but if this bothers you, you can use the test roll of film to figure out how the exact turn count for each frame on the roll.]

The negatives from this 116 camera are about 5 inches long. With a 36 exposure roll of film, I can make approximately 9-10 images. [I load the camera in the darkroom as I want to expose as little of the film as I can.] Here is a sampling of some of the other the images made with this camera.

On Play

2011-07-02T06:02:00.001-04:00

There is a new project that I’m really excited to be working on:

Composing with Images Press (CWiP) seeks photographs taken with toy cameras for a forthcoming photo book that explores, complicates, and represents in compelling ways the concept of Play. All proceeds from the sales of this book will be donated to the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation to benefit children in the areas ravaged by tornadoes in 2011. For full call: http://j.mp/cwip-play

If you make photographs with toy analog cameras (or know someone who does) please consider submitting something for this edited collection!

Postcard design by Jackie Yaeger

seized up--a cautionary tale

2011-04-29T11:44:00.001-04:00

The four cameras and leather bag pictured here were taken from me and "held" for almost a week. I've alluded to this in another post on another blog. Now that things have been resolved, I wanted to share some details about the incident with others, especially with those who routinely enter and exit spaces having cameras or other recording devices on their person. Here's how it all began:

Early last Friday morning, my friend and I went out on a photo shoot. While I'm not comfortable naming the location of the shoot at this time, rest assured that we had researched the location online and saw nothing at all to suggest that cameras (or taking photos, more generally) were disallowed. What's more, the location seemed pretty art/photo-friendly and I certainly saw other photos taken at the same location posted in various places online. Upon arriving at the location, my bag was not searched (nor did I necessarily expect it to be). Upon leaving, however, I was asked to hand over my bag to be searched. I did so. The bag was given back to me and I was asked (and not kindly) to unzip it. I did. Upon seeing the cameras, the individual who insisted on searching my bag asked what "these" were and why I had so many of them. I told her they were "cameras." [I didn't know quite how to respond to the second question: i.e., "Technically speaking, this really isn't that many, I usually bring 9-10 on a shoot." But I figured this wouldn't be a helpful response in this context.]

At this point, I received a lecture (or maybe a "chastisement" is a more accurate way of naming what I received) about their "no cameras or recording devices" policy. I apologized, explaining that I had researched the place online and didn't see mention of that policy there. At this point I was informed that there was a sign to this effect where I entered the location. I apologized again, explaining that I hadn't seen it. [My friend went through again to look and there was, in fact, a sign, but there was a lot of signage there and it could be easy to overlook this one.]

The chief concern expressed to me was that I might be leaving the location with content of that location. Fair enough. There was a brief discussion about whether I'd have to expose the film in the cameras--something I was more than willing to do. As an aside: I was cognizant at that point that I had violated (though not intentionally so) one of their rules and didn't think it unfair of them to request that I expose the film. At this point, however, things felt to me to get a bit out of hand. The idea of my exposing the film (again, something that would have resulted in allaying the chief concern represented to me--that I had taken photos of/at the location) was no longer on the table. "For all we know," I was then told, "you might have taken these cameras from the location." In less than a moment's time the accusation shifted from my violating the "no camera" policy (something I admitted to) to my stealing property from this location. [Though I've not named the location, suffice it to say that my finding these particular cameras, in the condition they were in and fully loaded, at that, would be a long, long shot at best. . .]

The majority of people with whom I've shared this story thus far usually interject at this point, asking why I didn't call the police right then and there. And all I can say is this: As one who tends to be a rule-follower, who hates the thought of causing and/or getting into trouble, and who was just almost-accused of theft, well, calling the police seemed (at least at the time) a potentially foolish move. What if they too thought I had stolen these cameras? Wouldn't I then be risking hastening my arrest and/or at least increasing the odds I'd be detained till I proved the equipment was mind. If I had it to do over again (and I hope I do not have to do this over again, ever) I'd have called the police. But as they say, hindsight is. . .well, you know how that goes.

And here's where things get just a little bit worse in terms of my making decisions (or, as it certainly felt at the time, letting things happen) that look really, really stupid in hindsight. After being told that they would have to hold my property till someone else (i.e., "someone in charge") could make a decision of what should be done. To be clear, as I understood those options, perhaps nothing would need to be done, or maybe I'd have to expose or hand over the film, or maybe they'd decide whether or not to press charges for theft. Yikes. Not the way I wanted to start the weekend.

But wait. There's more. Because it was a holiday weekend, it was likely that the person making the decision wouldn't even be in till Monday. And here's the extremely-regrettable-in-hindsight-part: I left the location without my bag or cameras and without a receipt for my property. All I had was a flier for the location, upon which the person who took my shit wrote her first name next to the phone number of the location.

I spent most of that day (it was only about 9:30 am when we left the location, camera-less) and the rest of the weekend in shock and disbelief at what had happened. When I was crying, I was raging. We tried calling the location a number of times that weekend but without the best results. Once when we asked for the owner, we were put on hold and then hung up on. We felt strongly that we were being given the run around. And shoot, with no receipt for my stuff, it felt to me that it would be their word against ours as to whether or not this had even gone down: "Cameras? What cameras?"

Over the weekend, we consulted with a lawyer friend and with other non-lawyer friends to get a sense of how they thought we should proceed, what options, if any, we had, etc. And we both did lots and lots and lots of research on the company, on instances when photos were taken there and we even figured out (since that info apparently couldn't or wouldn't be divulged by the woman who took my shit) who the owner was. Even got his personal email address and cell phone number. Thanks to Facebook I even found out the last name of the woman who took my shit. [A research-related aside: Perhaps not surprisingly we received varied info/opinions about the place and people with whom we were dealing with. In one case, we were advised to check ebay to see if they had listed my shit online for sale. Yikes. In other instances, like I said to start, our inquiries suggested that the place was (or could be) supportive of the arts and concerned about maintaining a somewhat positive public image.]

Bottom line: Not knowing who we were dealing with (again, my fear is that the people who had my stuff would eventually wind up saying: "Cameras? What cameras?"), and not wanting to make the situation worse than it already felt like it was, we called again on Monday, as instructed, and learned that the woman we were supposed to talk to wasn't in.

It was at that point, we decided to file a police report. And why didn't we do it sooner? In part, because my understanding that there was nothing, really, the police could do to help with the matter at this point. That said, they were more than willing to have an officer meet me at the location to help me peaceably mediate a discussion about getting my stuff back. Thus, while the majority of people we talked to about the matter tended to agree that keeping my stuff was, well, theft (especially since I had been more than willing to hand over [or expose] the film and everyone knew it was more than unlikely that I'd find four cameras in this condition at that particular location), the fact that the place had a no photo policy meant--whether fair or not--they had a right to determine how to handle things, namely, the consequences I would face. By filing a police report, however, I'd have something on record, something to refer to for a civil suit, which would have been the next step if we kept getting the run-around.

[Note to self: Take less artsy/abstract photos of any or all items you have that you might need to prove ownership of someday. The image above contains a copy of my written statement and the images I brought to the police station with me to demonstrate ownership of the cameras.]

Coincidentally or not, the morning after filing the police report, we were able to make contact with the woman who confiscated my stuff. She said that "a decision still hadn't been made" and again refused to give us the name of the person who was making the decision. She said she'd call us by the end of the day. That didn't happen. We called before the place closed and were told we'd receive a call before the place closed. We didn't.

Feeling like we'd run out of options (and I was well beyond having run out of patience at that point), we decided that we'd take the police up on the option of meeting us at the location--give it one last try before pursuing a civil suit.

The woman called the next morning and said that we could pick up the items. No other info or explanation was given at the time. My friend went back to the location and was given my bag. Again, no other info or explanation given. [As yet another aside: I was thankful that I didn't have to go back to the location as I am still experiencing, to varying degrees, feelings of anger, shame and sadness over what happened, at the way it was handled, and at the thought of having potentially lost those particular cameras over something that might well have been avoided.]

So there it is. While I can understand and fully accept the consequence of exposing or surrendering my film as a result of violating the "no camera" policy, I remain deeply resentful that the equipment itself had to be confiscated.

By the by, I got the cameras AND the exposed film back--it appears that no one even looked at the cameras--the tape on cameras (put there to gaurd against light leaks) hadn't been disturbed.

The experience has gotten me thinking or wondering about this, however. Say I go back to that place (or say anyone goes to that place) with a cell phone. [I don't have one, but say I did.] Say that the cell phone is capable of taking still images or recording video. Say I'm (or they are) searched on the way out. What's to keep that property from being confiscated as well?

Oh, yes. And of course this question remains: What were they so concerned about my having gotten photos of?

And at the risk of stating the obvious, this question also remains: If I had, in fact, been trying to "get away" with taking images at the location, why on earth would I have brought those cameras and/or so many cameras? Why not bring one camera and/or a much smaller one--one that would have been incredibly easy to conceal?

tis' the season. . .

2011-04-02T17:30:00.010-04:00

for yard sales, that is. Chris and I attended our first yard sales of the season this morning, and boy howdy, did we score big at the second house we stopped at! Apparently, one of the local historical societies couldn't (or wouldn't) take these six boxes of historic goodness, so guess who did? I've not gotten through everything yet, but the lot seems to contain approximately 35 scrapbooks and photo albums (photos date from approximately 1915-1979), 2 framed pictures, 10 small detailed trip diaries, various expense books, two boxes of misc. photos/negatives/personal papers, as well as death certificates for the husband and wife whose lives, trips, relationships, etc. the items in these boxes represent. A sampling of a few of the photo album pages appears below. The first image below contains six photographs (all of which were taken in the 1950s) that struck me as very Diana-esque. Otherwise put: Soft and just lovely! The photo album pages that appear beneath the 1950 photos may well date back to 1915-1920.

spring break flea deals

2011-03-28T09:13:00.004-04:00

The moral of this post is this, simply put, in a nutshell: Some deals are just too good to pass up. Despite routinely hearing myself say [i.e., when entering a flea market, rummage sale, antique store], "I don't need another camera--Lord knows, the last thing I need is another camera," I often manage to leave with one more. Or two. Or three.

But like I said to start, some deals are just too good to pass up. Other times it just strikes me as really wrong to leave certain cameras in certain places where they won't be appreciated or even taken out for a test-drive. Case in point: We stopped into a really flea-bitten shop while in Delaware last week and I noticed immediately that the owner's prices on cameras were really (and I mean really) reasonable. Most of the cameras on display were still in decent condition but they were ones I already had. And since they weren't cameras that I loved so much that I felt the need to have spares or back-ups for (unlike, for instance, the Ultronic Panoramic, Diana 151 or anything made by the Herbert George Co), I decided to follow Chris around the crowded shop. As usual, there came the point in the visit when Chris asked about oddball film, other cameras and/or darkroom supplies. The shop owner said he had some darkroom stuff (if I recall, he described an old wooden enlarger. . .yum) but he said that it sold really quickly. He then added that he still had a Speed Graphic stored back in the closet. Bingo. And be still my heart. I had just gotten a Crown Graphic and I really wanted a Speed Graphic too, primarily because, well, as I reasoned, you just can't have too many of those.

A short while later, the owner brings out the case shown above. The case though in really, really shabby condition, was packed with stuff--mainly lightbulbs and misc projector bulbs. Both top compartments of the case were filled with Sylvania blue dot bulbs (I have to admit, I had hoped there would be film stuffed in these compartments), maybe 20 or so. The case also contained a Crown (not Speed) Graphic that was more or less in excellent condition save for a sticky-ish shutter and lens that was in need of cleaning. The bellows looked to be in mint condition. It came with the flash attachment as well the Kalart Rangefinder and Focuspot. I noted the original price on the case, but had a strong sense that this was not the best price. Sure enough. The seller was willing to let it all go for 80 bucks. Sold.

Another of my favorite spring break finds was this old 1897 No. 2 Bulls-eye Kodak box camera. The outside is in pretty rough shape but the shutter, bulb setting and aperture pull-up lever are all in working order. The camera takes 101 film, but I think I can achieve some kind of work-around using custom-cut photo paper or 120 film. The camera is missing the film wind/advance lever on top, so we'll have to find a work-around for that too. Needless to say, I'm really eager to take this one for a test-spin.

As I mentioned to start, there are certain cameras I just can't pass up--like anything made by Herbert George. We found (in the same shop we found the 1897 camera) an Imperial Six-Twenty (see image left). The price on this was reasonable (6 bucks), so this one came home with us as well.

Old expired b/w film (especially Kodak Verichrome Pan) is also almost always a "must-buy" for us, provided the prices aren't outrageous. Using old film can be a really crap shoot since you often have no way of knowing how it has been stored, where it's been, etc. We found the three rolls pictured above (with expiration dates of 1949, 1956 and 1957) in a shop in Cambridge, MD. I think we paid 8 bucks for the lot. It would have been great to pay 3, but what can you do? At least they weren't asking 10 bucks a roll, as is often the case when shopping/searching online.

Bratzseline: Too much of a good thing?

2011-03-14T12:07:00.011-04:00

I love Bratz cameras. I love them so much, I own three of them. The first one came bundled with a Bratz doll--as I understand it, the 35mm trashcam came with some Bratz dolls as a promo for the Bratz movie. Problem was, I had to buy and then find something to do with the Bratz doll. I didn't want that. Just the camera. I got lucky with the other two cameras as I found them in the toy aisle at a local thrift store and paid 80 cents each for them. Two of my Bratz are unmodified (and imho take fantastic photos--see image above). The other one I modified by flipping the lens. Depending on the subject matter, the flipped lens version can also make some pretty cool images. [As an aside: The wind-on process with the Bratz is kinda funky and if I don't use them for some time, it takes me awhile to remember how to do it correctly. In contrast to a traditional 35mm loading process (where the film is inserted in the left/supply chamber and is brought to the right/take-up side of the camera and wound on, this particular camera requires you to place the film cartridge in the right side of the camera and then, using the film rewind, you must wind all the film into the left side of the camera. --You do this with the camera closed, of course. What this means that that when you advance each shot, you are pulling the film back into the cartridge. With the last shot, well, there's no need to rewind the film as you'd need to with a traditional load.]

Anyhoot. Having established how much I love this camera, my thought is that I could only love the Bratz more if I could make it do something it's not necessarily designed to do--like taking Lensbaby-esque shots. Vaseline smeared on the fake plastic lens mounted in front of the camera's "real" plastic lens seemed to me the best way of achieving this effect. Problem was, I didn't think to research this and/or to experiment with different amounts, distributions or thicknesses of Vaseline. What I got was, well, kind of a mess.

Case in point: Here is one of the better shots. And by this I mean that I could figure out where it was taken and what it was an image of. For the sake of comparison I've placed the color "Bratzseline" version of The Grace & Hope Mission sign next to a b/w version of it. Hmmm. No bueno.

A sampling of other recognizable shots (i.e., I only took pictures of one red thing that day--a boat) appear below:

Dupont Superior 2: Take 2

2011-03-14T08:28:00.015-04:00

I decided to load up the Asahi Pentax K1000 (one of my fav 35mm cameras) with some Dupont Superior 2 film and give it another go-round this weekend. And I have to say, once I lost the fisheye lens, changed cameras and made better metering decisions (i.e., metering at 64 as opposed to 100), I'm left with the impression that this film, despite having expired in 1966 and not (I suspect) being stored all these years under optimal conditions is more than capable of taking pretty neato images.

Chris and I headed to the Inner Harbor yesterday but on Saturday, I took a few test shots around the house. Pretty grainy and a tad underexposed, but still much better than my first attempt.

The results were better and a bit more consistent with the Inner Harbor shots. It was a beautiful sunny day. I still had problems with what appears to be uneven development (or light leaks?) That is to say, the Inner Harbor images tended to be lighter toward the right side of the frame and I also had some sprocket ghosting (see above), but was much, much happier with the results. In fact, there is something Diana-y about these shots. I'd love, in fact, to run some of this through the Diana 151 but am afraid that unless I shoot the roll on the bulb setting, they will all end up terrifically underexposed. A sampling of some of the other shots taken during this second test round appear below:

Dupont Superior 2 test

2011-03-12T09:44:00.011-05:00

Chris spotted this canister of film--Dupont Superior 2--online last week and since the price was right, I had to try it. It's been hard to find much online about this film. What intrigued us from the get-go was the military expiration date on the film--June, 1966. That and the fact that it was made by Dupont--not a name I've been accustomed to associating with film.

The canister arrived Wednesday. Since the film is packaged on a motion picture reel, I couldn't just put the whole thing in the bulk loader as I normally would. Rather, I cut off a portion of film--enough for 30 exposures or so--and loaded that into the film loader and spooled up one test cartridge.

The film has an asa of 125, but since it was long expired, I decided to meter the first test roll at 100. Turns out, I might have gone 64 or so instead. As luck would have it, the weather on Thursday and Friday was pretty drab and rainy, so I had to do most of the test roll indoors which meant I had to contend with pretty low-light conditions. Not a good choice for this film. The good news, however, is that the film can still take/make an image.

Besides having to contend with low-light conditions, I made the less-than-brilliant choice to couple the Holga fisheye lens with the regular wide-angle lens I had on the Canon AE-1 Program. I'm guessing this messed up the metering while making the job of focusing a real challenge. Most of the shots on the test roll were out of focus and unexposed and the negatives were very thick or dense--lacking in contrast.
The best shots on the test roll were those that I didn't use the extra fisheye lens with and/or those that I took outdoors. This office shot, for example, and the one below of my brand new (to me) bun steamer!

Since the weather is looking much better for this weekend, I've decided to run another test roll--this time using one of my Pentax Spotmatics, and taking shots outdoors. I've lost the fisheye lens and will meter the next roll at 64 and just hope for the best--or at least hope for better results than I had the first go-round. Speaking of which, I did a Diafine dev with the first test roll, but might try something else--HC-110 or a Rodinal stand.

A sampling of some of the other test shots appears below:

something I just can't resist. . .

2011-03-12T09:42:00.002-05:00

The End not yet

2011-03-09T11:51:00.007-05:00

My love-hate relationship with the digital (i.e., using a digital camera to take photos) has intensified. Case in point: A couple of months ago, I noticed that my favorite infrared film [Efke IR820] suddenly increased $2.00 a roll. [For this, and for everything analog photo-related that increases in price, becomes harder to find and buy, gets discontinued, etc. I, of course, hold digital cameras responsible.]

What stunned me most was that the film didn't even inch up month-by-month but BAM! One day it was $9.99 and the next time I looked it was $11.99. . . .Although truth be told, even if I had seen this coming, I'm guessing I wouldn't have stocked up when it was $9.99. Even for a 36 exposure roll of 35mm, 10 bucks a roll is just too steep for me. That said, I did place a fairly large order for the Rollei IR, just in case that film shoots up in price as well.

And now this most recent development: Last week I was looking at B & H's website, trying to remember what my favorite C41 kit cost. I didn't need another 5 liter box right then and there, but I knew I'd need one soon and wanted to plan that into the budget. Yipes! Discontinued? Yep. Not "out of stock" or "back-ordered," just gone. In this case, I know Freestyle's got my back with their Arista, Unicolor and Rollei/Compard Digibase kits but I gotta wonder: for how long?

One of my favorite Quackenbos subjects is #283 The End not yet. This is how I feel about analog photography. How I've felt about it for some time. No, it's not the end. . .not yet. But likely soon. And by this I'm not suggesting that nothing will be around to be had, only that things will become more and more scarce and more and more costly. At what point, I wonder, will costs and/or the scarcity of product ensure that I won't be able to work with film--whether at all or as much as I'd like to, as I currently do?

At times like these it can be useful to play the "well, what if I only had digital as an option?" game. Some days I think, "screw it--I'll get another hobby." Other times I think that if that were my only option, I'd likely get a real DSLR (Pentax, for sure), hone my Photoshop skills and spend increasing amounts of time post-processing my images.

In digital's defense, I can say that when working with my Canon Powershot, I spend more time (i.e., then I do when shooting analog) messing with exposure and I'm probably a little more mindful of the composition as a whole, particularly the role light plays in the composition, since I have a kind of instant visual [i.e., on-screen] feedback that is lacking with my other cameras. And I can make 50 (or even 400) exposures of the same [more or less] scene given the size of the memory cards and how easy it is to delete the images I don't want.

But I have to say, comparatively speaking, and as much as I love my Canon Powershot S5, working with digital cameras bores me to no end. Most often, I'm only using the Canon as a light meter or to fill the function Polaroids used to: As a way of testing a shot. With the image above, for instance, this was one of several test shots I made while deciding what kind of image I wanted to make with the Crown Graphic 4x5. And then there's this: If digital were my only option, I would miss terrifically, the spooling of film on reels, the chemical processing and all that's involved with making prints in the darkroom. I don't want to say that working with digital cameras feels like cheating, or that it necessarily need be easier or quicker than working with film. Rather, for me, it just feels incomplete--like it forces the elimination of many of the materials, processes and strategies that I mostly closely associate with, and love about, photography are missing.

And I do stand behind my contention that anyone with a digital camera [and a little and a decent-enough sense of composition, light, contrast, etc.] can take a decent photo. In this way, working with film cameras and processing strikes me as the more compelling, challenging option.

things for which one pays way too much

2011-02-26T14:49:00.013-05:00

Boy, do I love a bargain. Case in point: This well-used yet still functioning GraLab timer. I've not much use for it since the new enlarger arrived, but it was a sweet deal--one that was really hard to pass up, in fact. I got it, along with an old Polaroid Land Camera for 3 bucks (yup) at a yard sale last spring. This is definitely not a thing for which one paid too much.

But bargains aren't always there for the having. Some junk sellers just don't want to part with their old stuff. Case in point: We paid roughly 15 bucks too much for this assortment of photo stuff yesterday. Put otherwise, for 15 bucks we got an old Kodak handbook, 5 film clips, a cut film holder (might be for 2.25 x 3.25" film), a cool-looking shutter release grip, and two glass measuring cups. Not pictured here were a handful of old graduation negatives in a Kodak sleeve and three rolls of expired film.

Okay. So maybe this stuff shouldn't have been free. These, after all, were what I really had my eye on--the glass measuring cups, especially the one marked "Kodak." But 15 bucks? C'mon. 7 bucks might have been fair.

But like I said, some junk sellers are just really tough to bargain with. Truth be told, the only reason we went back to this seller is because we happened to be in the area and because last time we were in, he had a couple boxes of photo stuff that he'd yet to unpack or price. We hoped that in the 5 months or so since we last visited, he might have had time to unpack and price. Nope. The boxes were more or less in the same place we left them months ago.

The seller invited us to offer a price for the boxes and/or to combine items from both boxes into one and offer something for that. Sounds good, but most of the stuff was, well, junk. Broken plastic measuring cups, used paintbrushes, gummed-up funnels, a 4x5 film holder that was rusty and missing one of the dark slides. You get the picture. He had a lot of old photo books that he seemed really keen on selling, but I explained that I had plenty of books and really didn't want to bring more stuff into the house.

Interestingly enough, he had a couple of old GraLab timers that he said he'd be willing to part with for 80-90 bucks each. I explained I already had one, but he kept on, reminding me that new, the timers go for 140-150 bucks. I explained that I paid about a buck for mine, thinking that this would give him a sense of what I like to spend on used stuff in good condition. He seemed not to hear me, or chose not to believe me. I went about looking through the boxes, compiling a few items that I might want, but only if the price was right. [It wasn't, as I said to start, but Chris popped for the stuff anyway--perhaps in hopes of making some kind of connection with the man in case he came across more photo stuff, stuff we actually were eager to own.]

The most interesting aspect of this particular bargaining session (and it pretty much went like this: Chris suggested a price and the man said that "that wasn't going to happen") was that the man seemed to assume that the stuff he had on hand was not only more valuable than it was, but that it was also in better condition than it was. He was also operating from the stand point that we were necessarily going to flip the items, selling them for a much higher price online. Huh? I explained that I don't purchase anything with the intent of reselling, but with the intent of testing or re-using them.

And we probably would have paid a bit more for the misc photo stuff had we not bundled that stuff with the item in the shop that I really, really wanted: This old wonderfully bizarre, wonderfully ugly carnival toy. It's not in much better shape than a lot of the stuff in the photo boxes and it kind of gets to the condition of most of the stuff in this particular junk shop (overly-worn, grimy, badly in need of cleaning). My general rule of thumb is that if I'm in a place and can't find things to take or develop photographs with, I try and find something cool to photograph. And I love this thing. Last night I had it pose for the oatmeal pinhole cam and today it's posing for the Zero Image 45 and the newly-made Paintcan pinhole.

testing papers

2011-02-16T14:36:00.014-05:00

Beginning with the winter break Michigan/Illinois trip (it was at this time Chris and I scored three sealed 500-sheet boxes of Kodabromide F2D postcard fiber paper and two sealed boxes of 11x 14" Kodak Polycontrast paper), we've continued to have good luck with acquiring reasonably-priced (at times they've even been free!!) boxes of expired photo paper. One of the best scores to date involved getting three sealed boxes of 500-foot rolls of Ilford Multigrade paper. Not only was it had for a song (25 bucks a box), but it's an AMAZING everyday paper. Sure, sure, there's a little extra effort involved with cutting the paper to size, but it has been well worth it. [Or so says the person who hasn't had to do any of the cutting thus far!]

At the time we got the Ilford, we also got (for free) some leftover Panalure paper. Otherwise put, the box and packet of Panalure we were given weren't full nor were they sealed. More on the box of Panalure later. . .

One of my most favorite recent finds--and by this I mean a "holy-sh**!-pinch-me-as-I-must-be-dreaming" kinda find--resulted in our acquiring: one sealed box of expired Panalure (8x10", 100 sheets); one sealed box of expired Kodak Polycontrast Rapid RC paper (8x10", 100 sheets); two questionably-sealed boxes of expired Agfa-Gevaert Portriga-Rapid paper (11x14", 50 sheets); two questionably-sealed boxes of expired Agfa-Gevaert Brovira paper (11x14", 50 sheets), and one definitely-not-sealed box of expired Agfa-Gevaert Brovira paper (8x10", 100 sheets). I've not yet tested the sealed boxes we got from (and this is the pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming part) the flipping local thrift store(!!!!), but I did have the opportunity to test the definitely-not-sealed box of Brovira and one of the questionably-sealed boxes of Brovira. The image below features an inverted scan of a paper negative made with a sheet from the questionably-sealed box on the left. On the right side appears an inverted scan of a paper negative made with a sheet from the not-sealed box. Go figure. The opened box of paper was still okay.

And it wasn't simply that the 8x10" box of Brovira wasn't sealed--it also didn't have any paper or plastic protecting the paper. Again, simply amazing that the paper was able to produce any kind of image at all. A true photo miracle. The first questionably-sealed box of Brovira that I tested was one that Chris and I actually opened (albeit very, very, very carefully) in the thrift store. [I know, I know, a huge no-no.] We felt fairly confident that the thick paper wrapped around the film hadn't been messed with, and so, with the box itself being in pretty good shape despite having been opened (i.e., the tape seals on three sides of the had, in fact, been broken before we even picked the box up), we decided it was a $4.92 risk we were willing to take. Again, the results--though not as great as those obtained from the not-sealed box--were ones we were happy with. We were simply thankful that the paper didn't turn black when it went into the Dektol developer.

During that same testing session, we made some paper negatives with one of the questionably-sealed boxes of Portriga-Rapid paper
(see image left). In this case, "questionably-sealed" means that we weren't sure if the orange tape that appeared on three sides of the box was part of the original sealing job or added after the fact. Clearly, the tape appears to be part of the original factory sealing job. The image here is a bit under-exposed, but again, we were just thankful that the paper hadn't been exposed to light and, thus, ruined.

The final paper tested during that session was some of the expired Panalure (see image left) that Chris obtained for free when he bought the rolls of Ilford paper. Ironically, I hadn't at all been concerned about this paper. Unlike the Agfa-Gevaert thrift store finds, these boxes came from a photo store and had been refrigerated. I felt confident that we'd get pretty good results from this paper. hmmm. Wasn't the case at all. I mean, since I tend to like less-than-perfect photo results (and since I still really miss being able to smoke), the messed-up, smokey look of the image itself has begun to grow on me. That said, I am cognizant that other people achieve much better results from expired Panalure. It's not typical, in other words, for the paper to go almost to black within seconds of being put into the developer.

To be fair, my results might have had less to do with the paper itself (i.e., being compromised in some major way) and more to do with my general confusion over Panalure and safelight conditions. I thought I had read somewhere that you needed to use a red safe-light with Panalure (which we did) but in other instances, I've learned that the safe-light must be dark amber. [As an aside, we took the Panalure from the box and protective sleeve in total darkness, but it was cut and later developed with the red safety-light on.] In an attempt to determine if the problem with the Panalure had to do with that particular box of paper (versus, say, having to do with the safe-light conditions or other variables we've not yet thought of), I had Chris cut (or prepare for testing) a sheet of Panalure from the sealed box we got at the thrift store as well a sheet from the other free package of Panalure he got when he purchased the Ilford rolls. I also asked him to cut up a sheet of paper from the other 11x14" box of Brovira. This was one that we didn't open in the thrift store--one that appeared to have all the original factory seals. I'm eager to learn if the results from this box will be a bit better than the results from the other 11x14" box.

I'm hoping to test both kinds of paper this weekend. In terms of the Panalure, I have the highest hopes, of course, for the sealed box we got at the thrift store. But if either sample's results mirrors those found in the image above, we'll definitely have to work on alternative safe-light conditions.

a bad case of G.A.S.?

2011-02-16T08:46:00.013-05:00

I was just getting comfortable with but a fraction of what the Omega B22 enlarger (an incredible 30$ flea market find, by the by) could do, when Chris met a man who made him an offer he [Chris] apparently just couldn't refuse. Long story short, as of Sunday night, the B22 was moved out to the front room (where it now functions largely as a ready-made objet d’art) and the study/darkroom was revamped (yet again) to make room for the [new-to-us] Super Chromega D Dichroic II color 4x5 enlarger. Most happily, the room actually looks bigger since the revamp--my fear had been that the study/darkroom would end up being a space in which we'd be forevermore sentenced to bump into things as we sideways-walked through the space.

But here's the real deal: One of the many Flickr groups to which I belong asks the following of current and potential group members: "Are you addicted to cameras? Do you have the dreaded "GAS" [gear acquisition] syndrome?" Hmm. Provided that the category of "gear" can be extended to darkroom gear, as well as to acquiring and testing various kinds of film, paper, and chemicals, then yeah. I guess we have a really bad case of G.A.S.

Case in point: I was just kinda-sorted getting comfortable with what my (not-so-newly-acquired) Zero Image 45 pinhole was able to do when this puppy arrived late last week. [Needless to say, I was just kinda sorta getting used to what this camera could do when the new enlarger arrived and directed my attention away from photo-taking/making and toward study/darkroom redesign.

. . .oh yes. and this too. I was just kinda-sorta getting comfortable with the potentials of the revamped oatmeal pinhole cam when I decided that I needed one that was capable of making 8x10" paper negatives. [It may well be worth mentioning that this decision was, in fact made, just hours before we began the study/darkroom redesign.]

A busy couple of days? Indeed. And, again, I ask: Am I suffering from a bad case of G.A.S.? Indeed, I most certainly am.

At times like these, I think it helps to prioritize--to start cobbling together a to-do list of things I want, need or simply hope to do sometime in the near future. The trick is trying to stick to that list while resisting the urge to acquire still more stuff--especially stuff that I've little idea how to use. So, in no particular order, here is part of my [too much] to-do list:

1. finish the 8x10 pinhole. [I spray painted the insides of the box flat black last night. All that's left to do is to cut the hole for the pinhole, make the pinhole, affix photo corners to the inside of the box (this will help the photo paper stay in place during the exposure) and work out the exposure times.]
2. learn how to make contact prints (or positives) from the paper negatives I've been making
3. mix more Dektol [I've been going through this pretty quickly with all the paper negatives I've been making]
4. experiment with various techniques for toning prints [I've acquired but not yet found time to work with different kinds of toning chemicals]
5. experiment with making lith prints
6. experiment with various techniques for successfully achieving the sabattier effect [I've experimented a bit with the chromoskedasic chemicals but my results weren't at all consistent or, for that matter, very good. To this end, I'll need to add to my list mixing up some Solarol or something like Select Soft to facilitate the process]
7. familiarize myself with the new enlarger [the most daunting prospect on the list]
8. familiarize myself further with the Crown Graphic and making 4x5 film negatives [I've admittedly been in paper-negative-making mode]
9. familiarize myself further with developing 4x5 film negatives [I kinda sorta scratched the first batch of negatives while pulling them out of the new tank]
10. familiarize myself further with the new 4x5 developing tank
11. test the rest of the expired photo paper we recently acquired [realistically speaking, this will probably be the only item on the list I'll actually accomplish in the near future]

the learning curve

2011-02-07T10:13:00.015-05:00

It occurred to me recently that I might as well have titled this blog "the learning curve" since nearly every entry is tagged as such and since the blog has largely to do with what I don't yet get, what I don't yet know how to do, about where I'm stuck, what's gone horribly wrong, etc. Then again, even if I had titled the blog "the learning curve," I'm guessing the tag I'd use most frequently instead would be "on the process of" since that's really what I'm trying to illustrate here--whether or not things go swimmingly, predictably or no.

I developed my first 4x5 negatives last night and I was surprised by how strange, awkward and unfamiliar this process proved to be. Or maybe I should say, instead, that I was "surprised by how strange, awkward and unfamiliar this process proved to feel."

To explain. Just recently I had been talking with one of my classes about antecedent genres and practices and what came first to my mind was how, having had experience working with, modifying, testing, working with, and developing film taken in 100+ 35mm and 120 cameras, it's fairly rare that I run across one that completely confounds me. Sure, sure, they all have their differences but I can, for the most part, figure out what's what or where's where and determine rather quickly if they work. That said, I did run across a Yashica TRL last fall (one that I eventually bought) that required an opposite advance of the film crank to set the shutter. That took me a good while to figure that out and I figured it out pretty much by accident.

All this said, I was really ill-prepared for how clumsy and clueless I felt while working with the 4x5 film. Aside from knowing that I'd still have to use developer, stop, fixer and to do a final wash, little else felt like it really translated from one format to the next.

Certainly, I had had a lot of guidance, and with this, practice loading the film holders, thanks to visual/verbal resources such as this and the time I've spent working with paper negatives. Still, my hands were all shaky and I felt sick to my stomach as I loaded the film holders with the 4x5 film. Part of this was fear of dropping the film, not being able to find it in the dark, loading the wrong side of the film, forgetting to close the box again before I turned the light back on, etc. But part of it was that I was reminded again of how my bodily memory for this particular practice was lacking or at least greatly limited. For instance, I can inspect and practice loading film holders (i.e., with scrap paper or imaginary film) with the lights on. I can practice loading film holders with photo paper with the help of a safelight. But with film, well, it felt like a pretty different game.

But this much I knew. I had to go through the same kind of bodily memory learning curve when I began spooling up and developing 35mm and 120 film. And to be fair, sliding the rectangular-shaped, single-exposure 4x5 film into the holder is much easier and goes much more quickly than reeling up 12 or 36 exposure strips.

The element of the overall process that was hardest to master, or hardest to get a feel for, had to do with loading and then working with this bad boy:

Yipes. In this instance, I simply wasn't prepared for the difference involved between working with a circular, reel-based vs. square, single sheet developing tank. I can't bitch too much here though, given that the tank is in mint condition and was practically free. That is to say, it came as part of the large box lot of odds and ends I bought for 25 bucks last Spring along with all those wonderful negatives of Carl and Nancy. Thus, when I pulled this out of storage and gave it a washing, I was thankful that I didn't have to devote funds to a sheet film daylight tank.

But back to the learning curve: It was surprisingly difficult to think about working with this tank. That I wasn't going through the motion of winding film around a spool and then agitating the film in a circular fashion seemed really bizarre--like part of the process was left unaccomplished. [It reminded me a bit of how I felt when moving from working with vhs or cassette tapes to dvds or cds--not having to rewind the movie or music also seemed to violate my notion of what a proper completed process should both feel and sound like.]

I had also grown very reliant upon seeing my liquid levels with the circular tank. I knew that I needed 500 ml to develop a roll of 120 but I could also see when I was getting there. Not the case at all for this new square Bakelite beast. I really only knew it was full when it began overflowing. Zoinks. Admittedly, I might have actually practiced filling the tank, measuring out chemicals, getting a feel for the agitation process, and pouring chemicals back out of the tank before my first real run.

And now if I may, a word about the scratches. Holy cow. I have a new appreciation for what they mean when they talk about the softness of emulsion. I'm not sure if I scratched a good number of these negatives while loading or unloading them from the tank (or maybe it was that something evil was stuck in my squeegee?), but I definitely need to take more care next time. The tank does come with a plastic guide for inserting the sheets (again, hard to see what you're doing in the dark!) and everything felt like it went swimmingly with that. My sense is that when the process was done, I pulled the sheets out of the tank backwards or against the curved plastic rails that keep the film sheets from touching each other in the tank.

So I've begun to build a bodily memory for this process, for working with this tank. I wonder how many times I'll have to load, go through the development process, and unload the films for it to feel as familiar as working with the circular tank does? I'm guessing seven? Well, provided that I do this more than once a year.

oatmeal redux

2011-02-07T08:28:00.018-05:00

Ahhh. What a difference a little patience, a bit of reflective thinking, a few minutes and a whole lot of electrical tape makes! Ta-da: Meet the new, far-less-attractive oatmeal pinhole cam. In fact, I begin this entry with its before and after shots.

From my perspective, the real miracle is that I actually took the time to tweak the oatmeal cam--this, as opposed to just pitching it, as I had planned to do after seeing my first results. [In point of fact, shortly after seeing those results, I pulled out of storage a large, circular chipboard box I bought some time ago and started making myself a new pinhole cam.]

Since I had some time to kill while waiting for the spray paint on the new chipboard pinhole camera to dry, I decided to see what I could do with the oatmeal cam to see if I could actually get the results my pinhole camera making book suggested I would. And guess what? I may well have to rethink my top five cameras!

As a reminder, here were some of my first results. [no bueno]

But like I said to start, after a few minutes, a little tweaking and a whole lot of black electrical tape, here is what yesterday's session brought--the negative is on the left, the positive on the right.

Not bad. In fact, I really, really like the results. To tell the truth, I was beside myself when I saw the negative start to reveal itself in the developer. "Well, flipping finally!" I thought.

Too bad the process of loading and unloading is so complicated and slow-going. Or maybe I should say instead, "Too my black bag isn't bigger." Anyhoot. If the process of loading and unloading this camera worked like the AE1 Program (36 shots before reloading), the Diana 151 (16 before reloading) or even the Holga (12 shots), I'd seriously have a new go-to cam--never mind my worrying about it getting squished in the camera bag.

I especially love working with the curved film plane. The Zero Image 45 also results in some kick-butt distortion (at least when using the single 25mm frame), but that's a flat film plane. This oatmeal cam provides something different. Still cool, but different, and to my way of thinking, muy bueno!

By way of example, here is a sampling of some of yesterday's shots. All images were taken on 5x7 sheets of Ilford Multigrade RC Express paper (what I've come to term simply "the gift that keeps on giving) and developed in Dektol for about 90 seconds. The outdoor (landscapes) images were all about 45 second exposures whereas what I'll call the close-up, still-life images (those featuring close-ups of cameras, phone, keys, lenses, etc.) were 6-7 minute long exposures. I think I like the timing for the wide/landscape shots, but I might increase slightly the times for the still life images, especially when I'm shooting subjects that are dark. I'm thinking that I'll boost things to 8-9 minutes and see what's what.

while you were out. . .

2011-02-05T06:41:00.008-05:00

I have to say, the Zero Image 45 is finally starting to grow on me. As is the idea of doing paper negatives. Admittedly, I had gotten off to a rough start with both. Part of my difficulty with the Zero Image, was, I think, the fact that I had been using a 120 rollback with it. I was having frame overlap issues when I'd use the 6x6 mask and there were also light-leak issues when I was using the rollback with the single [25mm] frame. A bit of adhesive-backed felt placed on the metal of the roll back and used as sealer helped this a bit.

As for the paper negative process, my problem was largely figuring out how to meter the paper. I've decided to go with 6-10 ISO until I find I need to adjust that. In terms of what this means for the Zero Image exposure, I've tended to go with 60 seconds when I'm outdoors and the sky is bright but without direct sun.

Times for indoors exposures have proven to be trickier to figure out. But I decided to set the camera up in my office the other day and just let it run while I was out teaching. The first exposure I took in/of the office (see first image in the sampling below) was started at 8:10 am and ended at 11:30. The second office exposure (above) was started at 11:30 and ended at about 2:08. Pretty cool to think (as I was teaching, in fact) that I was simultaneously teaching and taking photos and doing so in two completely different locations.

Speaking of things happening while one is out and about: Chris and I decided to go to hit the snowy, snowy park again yesterday--partly so that we could walk D, and partly to enable me to finish off the 4x5 paper (see images below) that had been loaded in the holders before the order of 4x5 film arrived. We ended up crossing paths [quite literally] with someone with a Contax rangefinder (and as it turns out, lots of darkroom and photography experience) so we ended up talking to him (asking him questions, really) for quite some time. A very, very cool connection to have made!

oatmeal pinhole test (no bueno)

2011-01-31T08:38:00.015-05:00

I decided to dig out of storage the oatmeal pinhole camera that I made in 2008 and test it out yesterday. I begin by saying that I was really eager to test this camera--not only because I finally could (i.e., having acquired paper developer, trays, tongs, a safelight and wee bit of darkroom experience), but also because I'd yet to work with a camera that offered a curved film plane. But holy-no-good! I'm just confounded by the results. I actually opted to begin this post with what I consider to be the only decent image of the bunch and this hasn't yet been inverted or made into a positive. Things looked pretty promising with this one, in fact, when I pulled it out of the fixer. Problem was that it looked really, well, problematic, when I inverted it in Photoshop.

From what I could tell, the canister didn't have any major light leaks or other problems. I had painted the whole inside of the oatmeal container flat black when I made it and save for needing to apply a bit more black tape to the inside--I wanted to make sure that the pinhole was still securely attached to the inside of the camera--I didn't see any major issues. But my results seem to want to beg to differ. Holy yuck.

I began the test by taking a few outdoor shots. The sky was bright, but there wasn't any direct sun to contend with. My sense was that it was perfect pinhole-testing weather. I used 5x7 sheets of paper and since I knew that I wouldn't be developing them one-by-one, I just began bracketing shots--my first exposure was 30 seconds, then 45, then a minute. For the camera close-ups and indoor shots, I went a bit longer, anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. On the bright side, I can say this: There weren't any blank sheets of paper post-exposure. In this way, I knew my exposure times were at least in the ball park. On the less-than-sunny-side-of-things, the images all had major problems in the form of weird dots and squiggles and light leaks (see sampling of images at the end of this post). One way of accounting for the oddness is that I didn't mask well or completely enough the backside of the aluminum can I was using for the pinhole. I also appear to have light leaking in around the bottom of the canister. At this point, I think I'd rather cut my losses with this pinhole and build another rather than monkey with this one.

I did think to take set-up shots during yesterday's session--this is something I've been meaning to do. . .or to do more of. It's one thing, I think, to talk about process and/or show results of a certain process but I think it can be much more helpful to actually see aspects of the process. Perhaps it was a good thing that I waited to develop most of the negatives--that I didn't shoot one, develop one, etc. Still otherwise put, had I seen the earlier results, I don't think I would have taken as many shots. And I definitely wouldn't have bothered with set-up/process shots for this session.

With the two images below, I try to provide a view of what the set-up or process looked like and I contrast this with the final result(s). I thought that perhaps camera shake/movement was to blame for some of the funkiness in the first images I created, so I used an slr to weigh down the oatmeal container. Also, instead of trying to vertically center the 5x7 paper in the canister, I pushed the paper to the bottom of the container, hoping this would make a difference. The jury is still out on that.

I did have more success and much happier results working with the 3-a folding brownie. This is, I must say, an amazing camera. I just need to get a better handle on the exposure times for this one. The image below again shows the set-up for the shot contrasted with the final shot. This was a 60 second exposure at f/16.

A sampling of the oatmeal pinholes appears below. Listed beneath each image is the length of the exposure:

10 minute exposure (indoors)

45 second exposure

60 second exposure

on making paper negatives (pt. 2)

2011-01-29T11:46:00.017-05:00

Part of the fun (and, indeed, challenge) associated with making paper negatives is finding cameras with which one can actually create decently-sized paper negatives. Pinholes are certainly one way to go--if you make the camera yourself, you can go extremely ginormous, in fact. All right, so Cameratruck isn't technically a lens-less camera, but this is what I mean by big. . .

Given the turtle-like speed of most photo papers, it's helpful, if not entirely necessary, to work with a regular (and by "regular" I mean non-pinhole) camera that has a bulb or time setting. I think it's also important is to work with a camera whose film plane is large enough to result in a good-sized paper negative. Put otherwise, one could conceivably use a 110, 126, or 35mm camera for paper negatives, but the negative would be extremely tiny. Since I don't yet have a "regular" 4x5 camera to work with (boo), Chris and I decided to experiment with two of the old Polaroid roll film cameras I have sitting around. If memory serves, I picked up the first Polaroid 80 at a yard sale for 5-10 bucks. My plan at that time was to purchase a dremel (I actually got around to that) and then modify the camera to take 120 film (still on the to-do list).

The second Polaroid 80 was for all intents and purposes a freebie. Chris and I had been antiquing over the Christmas break and the owner of one shop had an old Polaroid filter I'd been looking for. When I asked how much he wanted for the filter, the owner offered to sell us the filter, a bunch of miscellaneous items and four or five old camera cases for 10 bucks. The Polaroid (along with another 127 camera) was part of that package.

Anyhoot. Both of the Polaroid 80s are in wonderful condition. Perhaps more importantly, and unlike the majority of the other Polaroids I own, they feature bulb settings making them perfect for making paper negatives. --As an aside, I'd mention here that what these cameras lack, however, is the capacity to take a cable release. Though they do feature tripod mounts--and this helps tremendously to guard against motion blur--pressing and releasing the shutter level can introduce movement--something at least to be mindful of.

But back to the good stuff: The film planes on these cameras--while not as big as those on my other Land Cameras--are still generously enough sized to create decent negatives. As a matter of fact, Chris has found that if he cuts in half the Kodabromide post-card photo paper we recently acquired, it fits more or less perfectly inside the Polaroid 80. Yeah! No wasted paper!

For ease of loading, and perhaps more importantly, to ensure that the photo paper stays in place, Chris modify the film plates of the Polaroids using photo corners and some of my snazzy leopard duct tape. Cool! Both functional and fashionable.

Loading and unloading the Polaroids is a bit tricky (especially if we are out and about taking pictures) and certainly more cumbersome than it is with the Zero Image. With the pinhole, I can load up all five film holders and just swap them in and out. I can, in other words, get ten images before I need to worry about unloading and reloading. Unloading and reloading the Polaroids, by contrast, requires us to bring with us a black bag and something light tight that we can store the exposed negatives in. While I was trying to get a sense of the best (or simply doable) exposure times for creating paper negatives made with the Zero Image 45, Chris tried to get a sense of what exposure times and aperture settings work best for the Polaroids.

A sampling of some of Chris' images appears below--most were approximately 3 second exposures with an EV of anywhere between 6-14.

on making paper negatives (pt. 1)

2011-01-29T10:40:00.024-05:00

If I've learned nothing else in the past 40-something years, I have learned that the majority of things I hope to have happen (i.e., earning a Ph.D., publishing a book, finding a hobby, dealing with my driving phobias) will, in fact, happen. Problem is, most of those things I hope to have happen will not happen when, where, or in the precise way I hope they will happen and/or as I had been envision them happening.

Case in point: I made this pinhole camera out of an oatmeal container back in December 2008. At this time I also ordered some really cheap 5x7 photo paper that I hoped to use to make paper negatives. . . .but then my plans for creating paper negatives kind of stalled out. In fact, about 4 months ago I finally gave up and packed up the oatmeal cam and put it into storage.

Part of the problem back in 2008 was that I didn't have a darkroom (read: I didn't have an enlarger or safelight, trays, tongs, etc.) Not that I really needed all that stuff and that was kind of the point for my wanting to do paper negatives in the first place. This was something I could do without an enlarger. Flash forward almost 3 years. I finally had an enlarger, trays, tongs, a couple of safelights. And, of course, I still had the photo paper I bought in 2008. Since the oatmeal cam had been packed away, I decided to experiment making paper negatives with other cameras, namely, an old 3A folding Brownie camera and my Zero Image 45.

The first couple of test shots I took with the Zero Image (a pinhole camera) were incredibly, incredibly underexposed, as demonstrated by the image to the left. I clearly need to do more research in this area but I'm completely confounded by the difference and/or similarities between stated ISO's for photo paper vs. film. Put otherwise, I had metered for the paper just as I'd meter for film. If a paper was reported to be 200, I'd meter at 100, figuring it would be better to overexpose an image than to underexpose it. This has proven to be a pretty bad plan. Most of the indoor images I've taken with the pinhole (and the majority of these have been 10 minute exposures) have been unusable and, frankly, hardly worth developing or saving. The image above was one of the better ones, in fact. My plan B was to assume an ISO of 4 or 6 for the paper (regardless of what the datasheets said) and figure exposure times as best as I could from there.

My results improved a bit when I moved things outdoors and greatly increased my exposure times. The first image featured in this entry, in fact, represents for me my first successful pinhole paper negative. It's not a particularly wonderful image, but when I placed the paper in the Dektol, something actually happened!

I decided then to go with a 40-90 second exposure testing time for any outdoor shots, figuring that I could further tweak things once I saw those results. I loaded up 5 film holders with 10 custom cut sheets of the most excellent Ilford Multigrade RC Express paper Chris recently acquired and we went to a nearby train station and then to the Thomas Viaduct (one of my favorite things to photograph in this area!) For the image above, I was able to set the tripod up and start the 60 second exposure just as a train came down the tracks. The ghosty triangular shape in the image is the train passing by. A sampling of some of the other images created that day appears below:

chromoskedasic sabattier [take 2]

2011-01-17T09:24:00.014-05:00

After thinking more about things I might have done differently during my first try with the chromoskedasic sabattier process, I decided to attempt it again. This time around, however, I made sure to choose images with "appreciable areas of white." I also decided to change up the method a bit, following a process originally outlined by William L. Jolly.

With my first attempt, I was applying the stabilizer and activator separately and exposing the image to room light after the initial development and before applying the stabilizer. Jolly's method had me mixing the two chemicals (whew! more on this later) and holding off turning on the room lights until the image was in the stop bath.

Jolly's method (or one of them, anyway) in a nutshell is as follows: A sheet of paper is exposed under the enlarger for about the same time one would expose it for the straight-up b/w dev. One could go with a little less exposure, but I didn't. Two of the three main images I worked with during this session were exposed for 12 seconds. The images were then developed in Dektol, diluted 1:2. Jolly recommends developing the image for 2/3 of the time required for normal development. In my case, I let the images develop for about 45 seconds to a minute. The developed image is then moved from the b/w developer into a "color developer." This is not a regular color developer (i.e., C41), but a mix made up of water, Dektol and both chemicals needed for the chromo effect. Jolly actually provides a number of recipes for the color developer, depending on the colors or tones one hopes to achieve (i.e., for red/olive; for magenta; magenta-brown/gray; orange/gray-green; slightly brown/gray), but I used what appeared to be the basic one, figuring that I could alter things if need be during my next attempt.

So to recap: After I pulled the image out of the b/w developer, I put it into a color developing solution comprised of 30 parts Dektol stock, 120 parts water, 24 parts stabilizer and 70 parts activator. [NOTE: I doubled the recipe as I knew there was no way that I could submerge the images in that amount of solution and the directions didn't indicate that the solution should be painted on or applied sparingly.]

Once the image was placed in the color developer, I agitated it for about 10 seconds and then let it sit there submerged in the chemicals for about 90 seconds. As an aside: Holy cow. I had been warned but the smell of the color dev was incredible. And not in a good way, but in an ammonia way. Holy cow. I made every effort to keep the container covered as much as possible; I also had the ceiling fan going throughout the session.

Thought the color dev process, Jolly advises people to check the image and pull it when the amount of color is satisfactory, but in all truth, it's really hard to see the developing image. Bracketing off the difficultly of really accurately seeing anything aided only by a 15 watt amber safelight, there was also the "black sludge of finely-divided silver that forms on the print" to contend with. I decided to pull the first image after 90 seconds and pretty much stuck with that for the remainder of the session.

Since the warmtone paper hadn't yet arrived, I decided to continue experimenting with the expired kodabromide postcard paper. It helps that this paper is so cheap. I didn't worry as much about messing things up.

I did vary up the process a bit. To start, I was submerging images in the color developer but then I decided to supply the stinky mixture more selectively. Here, for instance, is a triptych of Carl that features the original b/w image (note the "appreciable areas of white" here), an image where the color dev was selectively applied and, finally, an image that was completely submerged in the color dev for 90 seconds:

It's been really difficult to create scans of these prints that accurately convey what I'm seeing with these prints but, in person, the images look a bit like tintypes or sepia-toned images--a lot of metallic silver and gold-bronzey colors happening here. With that, I was fairly pleased.

But then came this discovery: When I pulled the images out of the water bath and began arranging them to dry on my makeshift blotter, I noticed that I could scratch them. What's more, I could take a paper towel and easily wipe portions of the color developer away. With the image left, for example, I removed some of the gold/bronze color from Nancy's body and tried providing other parts of the image with a bit of paper towel texture. Once the images dried, things became a lot more stable. I can no longer, for instance, use my finger to wipe color away or add texture. I'm assuming I could still scratch into it though, say with a pin or paper clip.

A sampling of some of the other images I processed during this session appear below--next time around, I think I'll experiment with a different color developer recipe--maybe the one that promised to result in reds/olives?

chromo-no-no!

2011-01-12T16:15:00.009-05:00

As I happened to have in my possession the proper chemicals along with a handout titled "Quick and Easy Chromoskedasic Sabbattier," I decided this morning to try my hand at this rather daunting process. Yipes. Okay. To be fair, it wasn't that the process was even that daunting. It had more to do with me. Specifically so, with my resistance to following some of the key tips offered throughout the very short handout, such as: 1.) For best results, use warmtone paper [I didn't have any but it is on order]; 2.) For best results use an image with "appreciable areas of white" as the colors "will only appear where there is white in the print" [I was Sir Speedy this morning and just grabbed whatever negatives I could find], and finally, 3.) "Don't rush the process." [Again, I was Sir Speedy and rushed everything, including, apparently, carefully reading the whole handout.]

What I liked about the handout was this--the way it began: "Chromoskedasic is a unique darkroom process that provides fun darkroom experimentation for these who like to put 'play' back into the darkroom" (emphasis added). A few lines down, there was this: "Saying the word 'chromoskedasic' is more complex than doing the process, ultimately. It is a perfect one to teach to students to loosen them up in the darkroom." Yes! Loose, easy and playful! I really liked these lines and they were, I think, largely to blame for my thinking that I could stop attending carefully to the handout from that point forward. Indeed.

Yet had I kept reading, I would have encountered this next cautionary line: "However, as with any experimental darkroom process, matching the correct image to meld well with the process is key." Like I almost said to start: "Ooops."

Having had time to revisit the handout, what I can say by way of the process proper is this:

The quick and easy version of the process involves the use of two chemicals, a stabilizer and activator. Both chemicals are mixed 1:4 in separate containers. A negative with "appreciable areas of white" is exposed on photo paper and developed as usual. [Note to self: This does not mean that it is selectively developed, even if this is one's usual way of doing things.] The image is then drained and rinsed in a water bath for half a minute. At this point, the normal room lights can be turned on and the print is placed in a flat-bottomed tray. Warning: At this point, the unfixed image will begin to change color--mine became bluish-purple. The stabilizer is then painted selectively across the image. At this point, the darker colors should have turned yellow. I got a little of this at times, but I was definitely expecting more yellow. After a minute or two [Note to self: You should have actually waited a minute or two] the activator is selectively applied in places one "desires a dark brown shift. " Sigh.

Now this image of the staircase at the psychiatric hospital up the street could have been really good. Really. This was the first image I experimented with. Everything was going swimmingly as I was actually getting some browns and purples and reds in the image. Thinking that more is necessarily always better [as I'm learning though, where the darkroom is concerned the opposite seems to be true], I decided that I desired "silvering out" and began selectively spraying the image with dektol developer. [Note to self: Find out what "silvering out" is before deciding you desire it.] I repeat: Ooops. The image just smeared. And kept smearing. Perhaps the directions should have read instead: "If smearing the entire image is desired, spray it with non-diluted dektol."

Feeling fairly confident that I had messed this up, but not wanting to appear to be a quitter and spoil-sport, I finished off the process as recommended by rinsing, fixing and washing the image.

I tried another image of the stairs at the hospital. There was a wee bit of color shifting happening here. I was hoping things were moving in the right direction.

. . .I was hoping. But things never quite took off. There were some interesting effects/textures happening here, but not the pronounced color shifts I had been expecting. By the by, this is kinda what hoping for.

Reasoning that a warmtone paper or a better set of negatives might, in fact, have made an "appreciable" difference in my work, but not wanting to waste the chemicals, I grabbed one of my favorite "found" negatives, deciding to finish out the session by testing the different papers I did have on hand. A sampling appears below:

expired kodabromide fiber paper developed with dektol

expired kodak polycontrast rapid II RC paper developed with dektol

arista VC paper developed with dektol

on chemical painting and texturing prints

2011-01-10T08:30:00.013-05:00

During my second and third sessions in the darkroom, I wanted to experiment with chemical painting techniques and with using common household items as a way to add texture to the image. While I was somewhat familiar with the technique of adding textures to images, selective development or chemical painting represented new territory for me. I learned about chemical painting in Tom Grimm's most excellent text, The Basic Darkroom Book. With this technique, developer is added to a print selectively, by hand (or by brush, sponge, sprayer, etc.), as opposed to placing the exposed print into a tray of developer. With the first image featured here, I used a large paint brush, brushing (as well as splattering) developer across the center of the image. I then lifted the image by its corners, allowing it to drip one way and then the other. Once I was more or less satisfied with the results I moved the print into the stop bath, fixer and then wash.

In terms of experimenting with texture, I chose bubble wrap and a used dryer sheet. This particular image was created with bubble wrap and selective development. I exposed a 5x7 sheet of fortespeed RC grade 3 paper under the enlarger for three seconds and then I placed bubble wrap over the image and exposed it for another 3 seconds.

A sampling of other images appears below:

dryer sheet texture and selective development--fortespeed 3 RC paper developed with dektol

dryer sheet texture--expired kodabromide fiber paper developed regularly (i.e., not selectively) with dektol

selective development--expired kodabromide fiber paper developed with dektol

bubble wrap texture--fortespeed 3 paper developed with dektol

setting up a darkroom on a dime

2011-01-08T08:09:00.009-05:00

I've been developing my own 35mm and 120 film (both color and b/w) for a little over two years now. About a year and a half ago, I began thinking seriously (however briefly) about setting up a darkroom. Problem was, I could always come up with plenty of good reasons why I couldn't (or shouldn't) continue thinking seriously about setting up a darkroom: I didn't have the space; start up costs were extremely daunting (especially so with no COLA in sight and all these furloughs!); the learning curve would be way too steep; I wouldn't have the time or patience to learn something new and do well at it; I should really be working on my book and worrying about getting tenure, and so on and so on.

And I have to say, of all the reasons I came up with, the lack of space and lack of start-up funds were the most compelling. Before I moved into this apartment, I was living in the attic of this house and that apartment was so small, even tank development could be tough. Never mind that it was hard to find (or create) a truly light-tight space up there. The first time I attempted to reel film in the closet, I locked myself in. [Lesson learned: test doors with really old locks and knobs before closing yourself inside a closet.]

With the book done and tenure materials submitted, and having moved into a much larger place, I began to reconsider setting up a darkroom. Really, all that stood in my way were the start-up costs (did I mention the lack of COLA and furloughs? arghh!) and my fear of looking stupid, not knowing what I'm doing and/or being incredibly overwhelmed with new information.

About three months ago, I began researching and reading about enlargers. I learned pretty quickly that there was no way I would be able to purchase a new one. Ebay seemed the logical choice for used enlargers but the shipping for something that heavy often times was (and understandably so) outrageous. I figured that short of someone peddling enlargers door-to-door, the darkroom dream would have to wait.

In the meantime, in the hopes of making myself feel better, I tried to come up with reasons why setting up a darkroom would be a waste of time, money, brain-power and space. The best reason I could come up with was this: Photoshop. Certainly, I could continue to scan in, print, and/or upload my developed negatives as I'd been doing since August 2008. Plus, working with layers, filters and textures would allow me to more or less approximate the kind of stuff I was interested in doing in the darkroom. Then again, I'd be missing out on having the darkroom experience. Unlike those I've met who have recently turned away from digital and returned to film and to the darkroom, I'd never taken a photography class, never had access to a darkroom. Even if it proved to be a tremendous hassle, I wanted to be able to say that I too had had some darkroom experience.

And perhaps the most compelling reason to continue the darkroom dream was this: Christina Z. Anderson's most excellent Experimental Photography Workbook. There were (and I guess at this point, I should say "there are") so many techniques I read about here that I wanted to try. While the text includes some experiments and techniques that don't require an enlarger, the majority of those I really wanted to try did require access to an enlarger--chromoskedasic sabattier, liquid emulsions, lith printing, toning, selective development, bleaching, bleach-etch/mordançage, and so on.

Flash forward to fall of 2010. The book had been completed and all my tenure materials had been submitted and Chris and I took a weekend trip to Pennsylvania. We were in the most flea-bitten of shops when we came across a student starter enlarger kit that appeared to be 50 bucks. Not wanting to pay full price for the kit, we asked that the seller be contacted for his/her best price. Before leaving PA, we stopped back in the store (seems their phone had been disconnected) and learned that the "1" had fallen off the price tag and that the actual price for the kit was 150 bucks. The seller said we could have it for 85 bucks but this was 50 bucks more than I was hoping to spend. As luck would have it, we found in another corner of the shop an old Omega B22. Save for its plastic cover, the piece was in very good condition. Better yet, it was something the seller was willing to let us have for 30 bucks.

The next step involved converting the study to a darkroom. It was important to me that the room continue to serve a dual-function (i.e., as a study and a sometimes darkroom), so Chris hung curtains on two of the three doors of the study. With the curtains drawn, the space was light tight. When I'm not needing the light-tightness, I can pull the curtains to the side, open the doors and the study pretty much looks as it always had. Total cost for making the room light-tight was about 30 bucks. 20 bucks for the curtain and about 10 bucks for the tension rods and extra hardware needed to hang the curtains. Not bad. 60 bucks and I was more or less ready to go.

Well, almost. I still needed a safety light, trays and tongs. Technically speaking, I also needed photo paper and paper developer, but I happened to have some of that on hand from the brief time during which I thought seriously about doing pinhole paper negatives.

I purchased a safelight, a three-pack of 8x10" trays and tongs from B&H, bringing my total cost for the darkroom set up to 104 bucks. [Note: My goal was to have a darkroom up and running for 100 bucks and I might have managed this had I opted to forgo the tongs. . .as it is, I tend to use my fingers more often than the tongs.]

Since setting up and testing out the darkroom, I've decided to invest in the materials that I'll need in order to work with 6x6 negatives. To this end, I've needed to purchase a 75mm lens, a 6x6 holder, a 39mm lensboard and retaining ring. Compared to the cost of the enlarger (the enlarger only came with all the materials needed to work with 35mm negatives), these items seem costly. To get everything I needed (on ebay, as usual) it cost me another 70 dollars.

All in all though, not bad. We got the darkroom up and running for 174 dollars. Where the real expense will begin kicking in, I'm afraid, is with the different papers and chemicals I'm eager to try.

a reason to rethink my top five?

2010-10-31T10:02:00.018-04:00

For some time now, I've not wavered on my list of top five favorite cameras. This said, having finally gotten around to testing the Bratz camera I got for 80 cents last March, it may be time for me to rethink that list.

I'd worked with this particular camera before--well, kinda. The 35mm mini Bratz cam a quirky little thing--a small, plastic promo/give away camera that came packaged with Bratz dolls. NOTE: The thing is a real pain in the ass to load, and frankly, each time I load the camera I worry that it may well be the last time I'm able to use the camera. To explain: A new film cartridge must be placed upside down in the right side of the camera. The film is then wound (by way of a very, very fragile plastic winder on the bottom of the camera) to the other side (i.e., the supply side) of the camera. This is done, of course, with the back of the camera closed. There is no need to rewind the roll when finished since cranking the film advance wheel between shots essentially winds the exposed film back into the 35mm cartridge.

When I got my first Bratz camera, I immediately took it apart and flipped the lens. In order, however, to keep the lens in place, I needed to glue it in place which meant that I wasn't able to reverse the lens and see what the camera could do--or might have done--before I flipped the lens. But then, back in March, I found another Bratz mini cam. I'm not sure why I put off testing the new Bratz for so long. I guess I hadn't really expected much of the unflipped version and with so many other cameras still left to test, well, this one just kinda got lost in the shuffle.

Long story short, I finally got around to testing the camera this fall and I think I've taken it on every shoot since. Like I said to start, this is a serious contender for the top five fav list. Problem is, I'm not quite sure which camera it might knock out of its top position. Featured below is a sampling of the different images I've taken with the regular (non-flipped lens) Bratz. The image above depicts the same farm scene taken with the regular and flipped lens Bratz cams.

Subject # 183. The Pleasures of Travelling

2010-10-28T05:57:00.005-04:00

Subject # 211. The Invisible World

2010-10-28T05:56:00.000-04:00

Subject # 254. The Revival of Learning

2010-10-28T05:55:00.001-04:00

Subject # 370. A Soft Answer turneth away Wrath

2010-10-25T15:50:00.001-04:00

Subject # 365. The First Stroke is Half the Battle

2010-10-25T15:49:00.001-04:00

Subject # 315. The Uses of Biography

2010-10-25T15:48:00.000-04:00

Subject # 279. The Power of Association

2010-10-25T15:47:00.001-04:00

Subject #272. The Spirit of Song

2010-10-25T15:46:00.000-04:00

Subject #346. Eden

2010-10-23T17:17:00.006-04:00

for more on The Quackenbos 566 Project

Subject #199. Egyptian Pyramids

2010-10-23T17:16:00.003-04:00

for more on The Quackenbos 566 Project

Subject #203. The Influence of Woman

2010-10-23T14:51:00.013-04:00

for more on The Quackenbos 566 Project

The Quackenbos 566 Project

2010-10-23T14:47:00.000-04:00

In 1854 George Payn Quackenbos published his Advanced Course of Composition and Rhetoric: A Series of Practical Lessons. Offered as something of a more advanced follow-up to his First Lessons in Composition, a chief aim or goal of this text has to do with offering the “pupil” a “comprehensive and practical view of our language in all its relations” while providing him “with the most philosophical method of digesting and arranging his thoughts, as well as the most correct and effective mode of expressing them” (5). Of particular interest to me is the extensive “List of Subjects” Quakenbos offers at the end of the text. The 566 subjects offered are grouped into six categories: Parallels; Historical Narratives; Biographical Sketches; Fiction; Essays, and Argumentative Discourses. While Quackenbos’ subject list was clearly intended to be the basis of, or inspiration behind, written (alphabetic) compositions, the list re-presents for me another kind of potential or challenge. To this end, my goal with The Quackenbos 566 Project is to try to work through Quackenbos’ extensive list of subjects, taking a photograph (or choosing from among those I have already taken) that responds to each item contained in his subject list.

zero image 135 modification

2010-10-23T09:33:00.004-04:00

We recently ordered the cable release kit with plans to put it the 135 I had purchased some time ago, but didn't realize the instruction included with the kit and online did not apply to the 135. The (very time consuming) installation process continued and we noted that the fixed round body of the mount contacted the movable shutter when mounted and the post head (that is on the end of the release mechanism) did not seat very deeply into the movable shutter when you added washers behind the mount.

We used our Dremel tool to grind some of the round barrel to allow access for the shutter mechanism. Things seem to work well (with a minimum number of new holes), we used the one hole already there to attach the movable shutter. We did not notice the offset mount of the cable release on the deluxe 135 (and the instructions did not refer to it either). Ours looks nicer and works well,
without seeing the holes (from the old mounting location).

and yet other useful links

2010-09-27T07:55:00.003-04:00

i first learned about caffenol development here.

since i tend to learn best by watching people engage in whatever practice or procedure i'm trying to learn, i've found this video to be really helpful to start. once i got the hang of things and saw what i was supposed to do, i've found it helpful to have on hand the pdf instructions for the process--a link to the file can be found below the video.

while I'm thinking of it. . .

2010-09-27T06:13:00.005-04:00

and because it took me a bit of time to re-discover (read: search and find) this link yesterday.

this most excellent set of instructions for diy b/w developing was what first convinced me that i, too, could actually manage to do this!

well, that's more like it!

2010-08-29T06:27:00.013-04:00

Meet the new Kowa. In light (no pun intended) of the problems I had been having with the first Kowa I bought--the Kowa/Six--I decided to return that one for a refund and purchased the Kowa Super 66 instead. It wasn't that I necessarily preferred the Super 66 over the Six or SixMM, it was more a matter of price, availability, and whether or not the seller had a return option.

As soon as the new Kowa arrived, I did a black and white test roll and I tried, best as I could, to switch up the lighting conditions. The test roll looked pretty good. I'm thinking this is a keeper. I still need to do a color test roll with the 85mm lens--the sampling below was taken with a 55 mm wide angle lens.

when it was good, it happened to be very good. . .

2010-08-24T05:36:00.018-04:00

. . .problem is, my recently acquired Kowa/Six was not always (or at least not consistently enough) good. Later today I will be sending it back to the seller.

To be sure, I'm bumming about having to return the camera, but after running two test rolls through it, what I was seeing is that the camera worked fine, quite wonderfully, in fact, so long as I was using it indoors or outdoors in low-light or shady areas. Problem was taking it outdoors. More specifically so, taking it outdoors and using it when the sun was out.

In those instances, this tended to happen. Blah. What a hot, hot mess.

But I suppose I should backtrack a bit. I bought the Kowa/Six after learning about it and its potentials from a flickr contact. I was drawn to this particular camera because it had a Model II exposure finder. (This meant that I didn't receive the regular hood with the item, but that's fine--I'd rather have the meter.) My first problem with the camera had to do with the fact that while the meter was, indeed, sensitive to light, its readings were wildly off. Holy cow. For instance, if a correct-ish reading was f2.8 @ 1/60, this was coming up f22 at 500. Just nuts. I even tried swapping out the battery it came with and trying a new one. The readings were still wildly off. I was bummed about having to find other ways of metering the shots, but I was--at least at that point--determined to make it work with the camera. I shot my first test roll and, as I said to start, the indoor shots and/or shots taken in indirect/low light--a sampling of which appear below--were okay, pretty good, in fact. What I noticed, however, with the first roll was a kind of banded light-leak formation that appeared toward the center and top of each image taken outside, in direct sunlight. I did a little research on Kowa light leaks (and, while I was at it, on exposure finders) and learned that in cases where the seals on backs aren't well maintained there can be light leaks. As far as the meter situation went, I read of at least one other person whose readings were as wildly off as mine were. Yet by that time, I had pretty much decided to write off (or work around) the exposure finder's quirks.

But back to the light leaks. My sense was that my problem had less to do with light seeping in through the sides, top and bottom of the back than with perhaps a shutter issue (i.e., that was the only way I could account for the center banding marks--side/top/bottom light leaks would leave a different kind of mark on the negs), but I went ahead and taped up the top and sides of the camera anyway and took it out again. Could taping the camera have intensified the light leaks? Of course not, but that's how I felt. The banding problem was much worse this time around. To be fair, the day I headed out to test the taped-up camera was a pretty sunny day.

My sense was that this would make for a really great indoor or low-light camera. Problem was, I want a camera that I can use both indoors and out. Between the banding problem (something that's clearly beyond my knowledge, talent and patience to remedy) and the wacky-ass meter, well, it just wasn't, I didn't think, a camera worth hanging onto. So it will be heading back to the seller later today. To be clear: I am not at all suggesting that the seller mis-represented anything about the camera--everything seems to look and sound like it's working as it should be. The only way you would know that things are off would be to shoot a test roll or two of film.

In the meantime, I've found a listing for another Kowa (this one is a Super 66) and I think I'll give that a go, keeping my fingers crossed that this one will respond to the outdoors and to sunlight better than the last one did. Thank goodness for return policies, huh?

a tale of two films

2010-08-21T09:55:00.027-04:00

I guess I've been on something of an infrared kick. This all began because I was bound and determined to shoot a roll of IR in the Holga before the semester began. That said, there's something highly (and I mean highly) addictive about infrared--about what it reveals, what it allows one to see. I didn't want to use up another roll of 120, so I loaded the Canon AE1 Program with a roll of Ilford SFX 200, setting my camera's iso at 25. I was eager to see what difference, if any, it would make to shoot infrared indoors. This worked out fairly well as the first day of shooting was an overcast, rainy-ish day--not the best day for shooting outdoors. I was also eager to see what impact (if any) infrared film would have on skin.

I was really pretty pleased with the flower shots and the soft, almost retro look I was able to achieve here.

I think I shot about half of the roll indoors. The next day was a much better weather day, so I took things outdoors. My primary goal with the outdoor shots was to compare the Ilford SFX 200 (which, according to one poster on flickr is not a "true IR film, but a film with extended red sensitivity [meaning that] the IR effect will be less than 'real' infrared films") with Rollei 400 IR. What appears left and below is a sampling of the outdoor shots I took with the SFX 200.

Here, by way of a visual comparison then, is a sampling of the images shot on Rollei 400 IR film, beginning with the image left, titled "Ruin," which is one of my favorite images from this shoot. It may be important to note that the day got increasingly nice (i.e., clear and sunny) as it went on. In this way, there were far more opportunities to shoot in direct sunlight later in the day (after I had loaded the camera with the Rollei film) than when I first headed out with the SFX still in the camera. This being the case, I can't offer as accurate a comparison as I'd like to have offered. Perhaps the fact that I was shooting indoors combined with the fact that many of the outdoor shots I took with the SFX were not taken in direct sunlight makes SFX seem, indeed, less infrared-y than the Rollei 400 film. I'd also note that I kept the camera set at an iso of 25 while working with the Rollei 400 film. Both rolls were developed with Diafine. For both rolls, I used my Visico 720 IR filter.

infra-ready (already!)

2010-08-18T15:14:00.016-04:00

Finally. After spending the whole summer prepping for this event (perhaps I exaggerate? could it have only been 1/2 of the summer?), I finally got to take some Holga infrared shots! My plans were delayed by my inability to find and successfully purchase a Holga camera that was compatible with the cable/shutter release I had. [Long story short, I ended up buying a new Holga and a new cable release attachment.]

So yesterday, I reviewed my print out of this handy Holga/IR guide once again, loaded up the Holga with a roll of Efke IR 820 (non-aura version), my Visico IR 720 filter and headed to the park. As an aside: I am deeply bummed to learn that B & H has discontinued this film. They still carry the aura at 10 bucks a roll, but I liked the regular 820--it could be had when it could be had for about 6-7 bucks a roll if I recall. I had been tempted to develop these images with PMK Pyro but decided that I'd rather not confuse things. In other words, as this would be my first time using this film, using the Holga for infrared shots, etc. I wanted a kind of base-line for things. (Of course this was all before I realized that the film had been discontinued.) Instead, I used Diafine, using these guidelines for developing infrared--see entry to posting from eye of wally. The last (or first or only other) time I shot infrared, I did a Rodinal stand.

I was pretty pleased with the results--a sampling of which appears below. [I was super-duper pleased that the trip resulted in my finding a portion of the park I'd not visited before--yeah!]

As anyone will tell you, determining exposure times for infrared can be tough, so for most of these I went about 4 seconds, 2 seconds if the sun happened to be directly shining on the scene. (In so doing, I counted "1-2-3-4" and not "1-one thousand, 2-one thousand," etc. so my exposures might not have been true 4 second ones.) Generally speaking, the sky was bright with direct sun appearing only occasionally. Again, overall, I was pretty pleased with the results. I was very, very pleased, on the other hand, that I was finally able to get out and take IR images with the Holga before the summer ended. The only kinda quirky-annoying thing that happened--and it happened with most of the images on the roll--was that a light band appeared at the top left of each image. This band of lightness can be seen in the first image below. In some cases, the band didn't bother me, in other cases (as with the second image below), I felt the image was much improved when the section of the image was cropped out. Not sure what caused this, but it doesn't strike me as a typical Holga light leak--the banding seems to consistent and uniform for that. I had the camera taped pretty well but forgot to remove the 6x6 mask inside. I mention the mask, not because I think it played a role in this, but because I prefer to use the Holga without the mask--I like the rougher edges.

I've currently got the Canon AE1 Program loaded with Ilford SFX 200 film (I'm metering it at 25--might be too high?) and after seeing these results on flickr, I'm thinking that maybe I'll try a PMK Pyro dev on the Ilford. I'm eager to see what the fall light has in store for my new, infrared-dedicated Holga. I'm also eager to try the efke aura film. I just can't decide whether I want to try that first in a 35mm camera or buy some 120 to test in the Holga.

pyr-rific?

2010-08-18T10:40:00.022-04:00

I finally purchased and tried some PMK Pyro. Not sure where or when I first read about pyro developers, but I had promised myself (along with buying and mixing up a new batch of Diafine) that once I moved, I would purchase some pyro as well. Not sure why I decided on the PMK--it was between that or the WD2D+. Based on what I had read about the nastiness of this stuff (toxic-city), I had hoped to get the liquid version and avoid inhaling more of the stuff than I had to. And, of course, rubber gloves were a must. I've not done a whole lot of research on pyro--just enough to know: 1. that the stuff is pretty toxic; 2. that the solution stains the negatives--kinda like a caffenol dev, and 3. that there is debate over whether or not the pyro look is all that different from the look/s that can be had using other b/w developers.

I ordered the liquid pmk pyro from freestyle photo. For 32.49 I got enough of the A and B solutions for 50 liters. Importantly, with this one shot developer, you mix it when you need it and only as much as you need. Though the directions say that you should mix at least 500 ml of solution. Like Rodinal (or more specifically, like doing stand developing with Rodinal), you don't use much of the solutions at a time. It's 1 part A, 2 parts B for every 100 parts water. Unless, as I understand it, you are developing infrared film--in that case, it's 2:4:100. Still, it's easy to see that the solutions will last a good long time.

To be fair, it's a fairly time consuming and high-maintenance process. Especially when compared with Rodinal stands (low maintenance to the max) or color developing with Tetenal C41 (a fairly speedy dev process). Never mind that you're wearing (or should be wearing) gloves and a face mask and glasses or googles during the dev process. I couldn't find an exact dev time for the expired efke kb 400 film I was developing, so I went with 15 minutes, averaging out the times given for Ilford HP5+ and Agfa APX 400. The tricky part is that you have to do vigorous inversion agitation every 15 seconds (yikes) for the whole development time. Took some getting used to. . .though that said, I never invert. Too messy/leaky. My tank came with an agitator wand, so I use that instead. After the film has had its water stop bath and fixer, you put it back into the spent developer for another 2 minutes, agitating every 30 seconds. After that it's a 20-30 minute wash. It is, as I understand it, during the wash that the stain increases. So in addition to being a toxic process (at least to start. . .as I understand it, the chemicals weaken throughout the process, hence the reason why you mix only as much as you need when when you need it), it's not a process that is given to conserving water.

The jury (well, my jury, anyway) is still out on the results I've gotten from pmk pyro. I love the look of these images, the richness of the blacks, the grays, etc. but I'm not sure that I notice a huge, huge, difference here. Or maybe I just like the images themselves, the subject matter, etc. By the by, all the images featured here were taken with the Canon AE1 Program. Of late, it's really been my go-to camera--especially for all the "interiors" shots I've been doing lately.

I would really like to try infrared with pmk pyro. From what little I've read and seen, it's said to decrease a bit of the infrared effect but deepens shadows. Or something like that. In the end, I'm glad that I tried this, and will likely try it again. It definitely won't be my go-to process in that way Diafine or Rodinal stands are, but I think I like the results. Maybe even a lot.

a small, good quirky thing

2010-08-18T07:37:00.019-04:00

What a quirky little camera. It's been a while since a newly acquired camera has given me pause--made me think, "hmmm. what have we here?" Maybe it's because it has been a while since I've tested a new camera and the whole testing process seems somewhat new and novel again--like there's something to appreciate with each and every new acquisition. (and believe me, this has not always been the case. . .far from it!) Or maybe it is the case that the Wirgin Junior folding camera is actually pretty cool, pretty quirky.

A bit of background: I saw this item listed on ebay when I was searching for exposed film. It was about the time when I told myself that I wouldn't be buying any new (new to me, anyway) cameras unless they were tlr's. I should have known that once I made this commitment, I'd find a way to break it. Anyhoot. I was intrigued with the camera cause I could find so little specifically on or about this camera--not even on flickr. There is some info there on Wirgin cameras generally, but not really much of anything on the Wirgin Junior. What little I found seems to be incorrect. This fixed focused camera has two shutter settings, 1/50 and B. And it takes 12 6x6 shots, not, as indicated elsewhere, 6x9 shots. The camera itself is in great shape. I got it [the camera] along with the box, manual (both in minty condition) and the exposed roll of film for 20 bucks. [As an aside: The exposed roll of film was pretty much a bust--only three or four exposures had been made, and none of these were particularly interesting. . .didn't really do much by way of making me eager to test this one.]

The camera had been loaded (with artista edu 100 speed film) and ready to test for the past month or so. I just never got around to testing it. Till yesterday, that is.

Images like this make me think the Wirgin might actually out-Holga the Holga. . .or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it might out-Diana the Diana. Well, almost. I was a little surprised that the images came out as underexposed (or dark) as they did. I worried that even 100 speed film might be too fast for the 1/50 shutter setting. I'm thinking next time around, I definitely want to go with 400 if not something higher. The images of the Thomas Viaduct below where also among my favorites on the test roll. They don't suggest Holga to me in the way the guard rail image here does, but I'm pretty fond of them.

Here's my main complaint: The lens appears to be way too soft to handle distance combined with lots of detail very well. Things get fuzzy, bunchy, blurry. Contrast, for instance, the image of Lost Lake left with the one below. The rail and cattails in the foreground of the image below help me make sense of the composition as a whole--gives me something(s) upon which to focus/anchor my understanding of the scene. I still have to do some more experimenting with distance here but I'm thinking that this camera might work best at greater distances with simple/singular subjects (like the viaduct) but will likely do the best job when I'm about 5 feet from whatever I'm attempting to photograph. Another complaint, albeit a minor one, is that it's hard to tell--based on the sound the shutter makes, how it feels when I depress the shutter button, etc.--if the shutter has actually fired. Although I had made sure it worked before loading the camera with film, I had this worrisome feeling while working with the camera that all my shots would be blank. They weren't of course. A small, good quirk: When I began scanning these negatives, I realized that it appears as though I have created my own jagged mask for the film plane. I haven't. I realized that I cropped the jagged parts out of most of the shots here, but you can see a little of what I'm talking about at the bottom of the guard rail image above.

I've included a number of other images from the test roll here as well. As I try to do with every new camera I acquire and test, I had to get the Wirgin Junior's take on the bend as well as the swinging bridge. I was, on this same outing, taking infrared images with my Twilight Zone Holga, so the second to last image below depicts the moments before I took some Holga infrared shots of the bend. [Note: Images were developed with Diafine]

a (somewhat scratched) sampling

2010-08-15T10:22:00.004-04:00

In my previous post, I referred to a problem I'd been having with scratches on the film I recently ran through my Zero Image 135 camera. Here's a sampling. In some instances I've attempted to lessen the impact/visibility of the scratches using the cloning tool in Photoshop. In other cases (i.e., with the lighter/overexposed images) the lines are not as apparent or visible. Once again, I'm a bit frustrated by my attempts to find online people experiencing similar problems.

settling in

2010-08-15T08:48:00.011-04:00

I've spent the past couple weeks moving from one space to another, considerably larger, space. As a housewarming present to myself, I decided to purchase a small, dedicated film fridge. I had grown really tired of not being able to fit groceries in my fridge and vowed that if/when I moved to a bigger space, this would be among the first purchases I would make for the new place.

The other nice thing about the new space is that even though it lacks most of the storage/closet space the old place had (yes, the living space proper was quite tiny but it had three 4x5 storage closets and a larger attic space), it has a fairly good-sized pantry. Given that this place has much, much higher ceilings than my old attic apartment did, I can get more stuff in the pantry than I could in either of the other old 4x5 storage spaces. At this point, I've dedicated the whole of the middle shelf to photo stuff: chemicals, reels, clips, etc. Everything but film and cameras. I might adjust things a bit as time goes on--only 1/2 the space of the top shelf is taken up, but I wanted to make sure that I could reach the things I need. As it is, the middle shelf might prove a little trying in this respect. Unless things are located at the front of the shelf, I need a footstool to reach them.

I have to say, the desire to develop a roll of film--never mind being able to do so, to work out my new process in a new place--has become quite pronounced over the past few days. Prior to beginning to move stuff from one place to another I had loaded up my zero image 135 pinhole and shot half a roll of tmax 3200 film. My plan was to finish up the rest of the roll once the new place was set up and good to go. I ended up finishing up the roll last Thursday. Cognizant that this would be the first roll of film I'd be developing in the new place (this, was/is, for some reason, a big deal to me) I thought long and hard about which chemicals/process I'd use for this roll of film. Problem was, I guess with all the long and hard thinking I did, I forgot to think sensibly about things. I had ruled out using the pyro pmk I bought right before the move, reasoning that I didn't want to try something brand new and risk messing it up. I still hadn't had time to mix up a new batch of Diafine, so I decided to go with a Rodinal stand. This would allow me to continue moving stuff in, cleaning stuff up, organizing it, etc. while the film developed. So far, so good. Where the plan began to fall apart was in my thinking that it made sense to use the last of a small bottle of Rodinal. My first sign that maybe something wasn't right was when I rinsed the film after the development--the color was strange. The second sign had to do with realizing that the fixer had become quite pink when I poured it back in the container. I checked the film and it was blank, clear. It looked just like the films did back a couple months ago when I used (and for some reason continued to use) the expired Diafine. I was frustrated, in part, because the pinhole shots take much longer to set up and take. I had also tried a new exposure technique--one that I hoped would make up for not having sprung for the accessory shutter release on the 135. What bummed me out the most, however, was that this was the first roll of film I'd be developing in my new space. That it turned out so horribly seemed to me to be a really bad sign. I briefly thought about springing for the snazzy red Pentax K-x I've had my eye on lately and just shooting mainly/only digital, doing film now and again, as a special treat. This thought (i.e., shooting only/mainly digital), in turn, made me feel really sad (and somewhat hostile) so I rejected it fairly quickly.

I ended up deciding to run another roll of film through the zero 135, but it seems that I wasn't finished with my run of less-than-fortunate photo luck in this new place. At a certain point, the film refused to advance in the camera, leading me to believe that there were no more exposures left to make on the roll. I ended up with 16 exposures on the roll. Not sure what the deal was with the film advance but it once again brought to mind the similarities between my experiences with Diana cameras and my Zero Image cameras. I've had similar problems with the film advance mechanism on the Diana mini--my sense in both instances is that I'm surely not finished with the roll of film but I worry about breaking the film or the camera by forcing the advance. Another irksome similarity between the Zero 135 and the Diana+ is the tendency for both cameras to scratch the film plane. With the Diana+, the problem seems to have to do with the tension and position of the film during the initial wind-on. Not sure what the deal is with the Zero 135. In most instances where scratching is (or might be) involved (i.e., when I'm using a Holga without the mask inserts), I've put electric tape along the sides of the camera where the film passes from one spool/cartridge to the other. This is especially helpful if the plastic of the camera seems rough. Problem is, the inside of the Zero seems pretty smooth.

Despite the advancing/scratching problems, I was relieved to see that the 16 exposures I had made all came out. This time around, I decided to use the newer bottle of Rodinal for the stand and I had also mixed up some new fixer after the last batch went all pink. I had been tempted to try out the new batch of Diafine I had (finally) gotten around to mixing the day after the failed Rodinal stand but since I'd not been having the best photo luck in the new place, I decided not to tempt fate. While on the subject of teh new place and my less-than-great photo luck, get this: I open the new box of Diafine and see that each can is marked with a paper tag. Fine. Nothing new or surprising here. Each tag has a letter and series of numbers. The letter on each paper tag identifies whether the can is the powder for the A solution or the B solution. (It's crucial that none of the B solution mixes with, or gets into, the A solution.) Where things get confusing for me is that I happen to notice that the can with the paper tag marked B has two A's embossed in the metal of the can. The can with the paper tag marked A has (you guessed it) two B's on the can. Sigh. Noting that one can is much heavier than the other, I attempt an online search to determine whether the A or B can of Diafine is typically heavier. I find nothing. So I call freestyle and try to explain the problem. The woman I spoke to there was extremely helpful. She pulled some Diafine from the shelf there and said that the product she was looking at was, in fact, properly marked. That is to say, the can embossed with the A's had the A sticker and the B can had the B sticker. She also confirmed for me that the B can was the heavier of the two. In the end, I decided to trust the paper tags. I mixed the new batch but, still not convinced that my run of less-than-great photo luck has run its course, I have not yet tested it.

Here's to hoping that things that begin in such a wacky way actually end up working out really well. I'd really hate to have to move again.

resolved. (holga puzzler cont'd)

2010-07-28T18:23:00.004-04:00

The new shutter release kit for the Holga arrived today and it seems the mystery of incompatibility has been solved. It seems the shutter releases they are selling now have an oblong- shaped cut out (as opposed to a circular one) at the bottom of the attachment which should, I believe, be able to accommodate both kinds of Holga tripod mounts! Yeah! That said, I can finally start thinking about and planning for doing some Holga infrared.

at issue (holga puzzler cont'd)

2010-07-27T12:24:00.005-04:00

My Holga ("Twilight Zone" version) arrived yesterday and unlike the picture of the item featured on the website (and unlike the last yellow Holgawood Holga I purchased), this one has its tripod mount positioned directly beneath the middle of the lens barrel. ARGH! This means that my old shutter release adapter, made for Holgas with decentered tripod mounts, will not work on this new camera. Having grown tired of trying to find a camera with a decentered tripod mount, I decided last night to spring for a new shutter release. Here's hoping that they've redesigned that for Holgas with the centered tripod mount. If this is, in fact, the case, good luck to anyone with an older Holga (or one with the decentered tripod mount) as it doesn't seem that issues of compatibility (or redesign) are foregrounded with these cameras. It would be immensely helpful, for instance, if the ones with the centered tripod mount were named Holga 120NR or something to indicate the redesigned tripod mount. [Perhaps images of items for sale online could also be updated to reflect more accurately which version one is buying.]

Or perhaps more simply, the online descriptions for the cameras and shutter releases might be described specficially as having (or fitting) the centered vs. decentered tripod mount. Holgas aren't expensive, per se, but they ain't cheap. Ditto for the shutter release adapter. Add to the costs, the frustration of receiving an incompatible item and the wait time (and perhaps extra costs for return shipping for items). Blah. Really frustrating. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting to experiment with infrared film in the Holga. To think that I placed the order for the first Holga on July 12th. And I'm still waiting for the issue to be resolved. Maybe my goal should be to shoot Holga infrared in fall?

Anyhoot--the images below more concretely illustrate (or illustrate visually) the incompatibility of the new tripod mount and the old shutter release:

looks like diana+ may have a little competition

2010-07-26T17:44:00.009-04:00

Looks like there is another camera vying for my love/hate attention--the Zero Image 4x5. Yipes. When things are good between us, the images are really pretty good but most of the time, well, we just don't seem to be getting along and the images confound me. Actually, I was fine with the 50mm b/w pinhole images I took the other morning with the 6x9 roll-back mask, but when I switched to the 6x6 mask, took off the extension frame and switched to the zone plate, well, I wasn't crazy about the results. I'm still getting image overlap on some frames, so I'm not sure what the deal is with that. Next time I think I'll try the 6x4.5 mask though to see if the problem is with the smaller masks or with the 6x6 specifically. There were a couple images on this roll that I didn't even bother scanning. Part of the problem with them was that I was taking images with the sun behind the scene and it just made everything appear foggy. The coneflower image below is pretty typical of the latest batch of images: blah. (Seems I still need to get used to the wideness/wide angle of this camera--hello tripod, hello foot.)

There were actually only two images that I liked and those appear beneath the coneflower image. On the bright side, the exposures were okay--that's always a concern with the long exposures--that they'll be terrifically under-exposed. I used fuji 800 color film metered at 400 on my digital cam and then doubled most of the exposure times. Between the 800 speed film and a f/43.5 for the zone plate, exposure times were considerably shorter than they were with the last roll. The coneflower image was a 3 sec exposure and the two basement shots were each about 8 seconds if I recall correctly. It's frustrating not feeling in command of what I'm shooting (or not being able to better anticipate results) but it provides me with a challenge. If nothing else, these almost-failures leave me wanting to try something else to see if I can get this camera to do what I want it to do, what I've seen others do with it.

look ma, no crutches

2010-07-25T15:33:00.014-04:00

. . .but i'm still clearly hung-up on the basement. There's just something about the dramatic lighting and the depth, direction, texture and dimensionality that that light affords. It's that, I think, that keeps me going back there (with a camera, of course) again and again.

It had been some time since I ran color film through the Canon AE1 Program so after doing the b/w interior shots, I decided to run some color through. I'm absolutely loving the basement shot featured first here and entitled "blue litter box" but I'm less wild about the shot below, entitled "Blend." To be fair, I would have probably liked "Blend" a lot a few months ago, it's just that with me currently being about seeing all things with (or through) basement lighting, "Blend" strikes me as flat. Then again, to be fair, the purpose or objective behind my taking this image was to see what I could do by way of getting foreground, middle ground and background to blend.

On other fronts: Since I prefer, whenever possible, to develop two rolls of 35mm film at once, I decided to finish up the remaining shots on the roll of film inside the Nikon L35 AF my friend brought to me last month so that I could develop that roll at the same time I was doing the roll from the Canon. I'd read good things about the Nikon, but wasn't expecting anything much from this roll of film since I had no way of knowing if someone had, whether inadvertently or purposefully, exposed the film. This was one of several resale or thriftstore cameras my friend brought to me last month. And it was one of two or three that still had partially exposed film left inside. (As an aside: After insisting that the Nikon was not hers, that she'd not ever used it, but definitely bought it resale, I develop the film only to find that the camera was, in fact, hers. As soon as I pull the negatives out of the soup, I see my friend and other members of her family in the negative strip.)

The images below were taken with the Nikon L35 AF. Not bad, really, for throw-away, hurry-up-and-take-whatever-since-the-film-was-probably-already-exposed shots. The camera seems to respond really well to low-light conditions or poorly lit situations. Hmmm. I wonder how it might respond if I took it to a place I know of where the light is simply super-duper dramatically amazing. . .

this just in: pinhole results

2010-07-24T13:29:00.024-04:00

I finished and then developed this morning a test roll with the Zero Image 4x5 pinhole camera. Well, strictly speaking this was not the first roll I'd put through the camera nor was it the second, but it was the first roll of Ilford Delta 3200 speed film I put through the camera while using two extension frames, making for a 50mm focal length and f/176. It was also the first time I tried shooting with the 6x9 frame on the roll back. My initial test rolls with this camera (I did a test with the 25mm pinhole and with the 25mm zone plate) did not result in images I was at all happy with. Part of the problem with those tests was that I had selected, in one case, the wrong type of film (color with the zone plate), and in the other case, the wrong speed of film (100--not good for the b/w indoor shots). The other problem I experienced had, perhaps, to do with the 6x6 mask for the roll back. My sense was that pictures often overlapped or at the very least there were odd light leak-looking overlaps frame to frame. To ensure that I didn't experience that again, I switched to the bigger, 6x9 mask and took care to replace the roll back's metal film shield between exposures. Oh yeah--and this: I also just crossed my fingers.

Having learned the hard way that the higher speed films aren't quite as high as one might think (and with it still being the case that the whole pushing/pulling film thing still has me confounded), I metered everything at 1600 with my digital camera and doubled most times to account for reciprocity error/correction. The images appear below in the order in which I took the shots--the first 5 were taken yesterday mid-afternoon and the last three were taken this morning at about 8:45. Again, since I've not yet gotten around to mixing up a new batch of Diafine and since I really don't trust the (very old) liter of Microphen I have here, I decided to do a Rodinal stand. This allowed me to write while the film cooked. Below each image appears the time of the exposure along with the f-stop and shutter speed taken from the digital camera. Again, exposure times were at least doubled in most cases.

. . .oh yeah. and clearly, my obsession with the crutches rages on.

f 2.7, 1/200 = 30 second exposure

f 2.7, 1/20 = 7 minute exposure

f 2.7, 1/10 = 15 minute exposure

f 2.7, 1/125 = 1 minute exposure

f 2.7, 1/125 = 1 minute exposure

f 2.7, 1/1600 = 7 second exposure

f 2.7, 1/1600 = 7 second exposure

f 2.7, 1/1600 = 7 second exposure

and now for something much more labor intensive. . .

2010-07-24T05:09:00.007-04:00

In an earlier post, I talked about how the urge to take images with the Polaroid comes upon me sometimes. Well, I've definitely been in an infrared mood of late. Actually, ever since I found the main entrance to Patapsco Valley State Park (read: the side with plenty of parking), I've been eager to go back there with my tripod and a camera (or two) loaded with infrared film. The recent Holga hang-up has delayed my plans with this. And, to be fair, the heat too has been a contributing factor--it's been soooo hot here for the past couple week. The thought of tromping around the park with all that gear, well, not particularly inviting.

Still, having done a lot of fast work lately (i.e., digital, point and shoot, polaroids), I was kinda in the mood to do some images that require more prep time, exposure time and/or patience. To my mind, infrared requires the most time and patience--at least in terms of metering, focusing, setting up the shot, making sure the i/r filter is back in place, etc. Second to that--taking images with the pinhole.

Since writing wasn't going all that swimmingly yesterday, I decided to stop that before I got too frustrated. I loaded the zero image 4x5 with ilford delta 3200 speed film and headed to the basement. (I'm seriously worried that someone will be taking the crutches so I want to make sure I get as many images as I can in the meantime.) I'm still basically winging it with this camera. I decided to use the 6x9 frame this time and I metered each shot at 1600, doubling the length of each exposure with a mind toward reciprocity error/correction. We'll see. I took 5 interior shots yesterday which leaves me with 3 frames for today. I definitely wanted to get one (or two) of the basement door in the morning light (at this point in the season, the light is best between 8-9 am). I've still not mixed a new batch of Diafine. Being so close to the move date, well, it just doesn't make sense to mix anything I'll have to move. I'm not sure then if I'll do a Rodinal stand with this film or if I'll use some HC-110. I guess it all depends on how well the writing is going. I prefer doing stand developing on writing days because I can sit here and write while the film is doing its thing. Too bad I'm so afraid of my reels getting too gummed up--I am actually kinda sorta increasingly in the mood to do some caffenol development. Hmmmm. Nah. Probably not a wise choice when I'm trying to get a handle on working with this camera and gauging proper exposure times.

revisiting "Panda Woes"

2010-07-23T10:28:00.011-04:00

The documentary on Alfred Stieglitz (titled The Eloquent Eye) should arrive later today. I'm eager to see it and especially hoping that this documentary will mention something I heard in another documentary. If I recall, Stieglitz had expressed something along the lines of how he would be content if he was only known for (or if all of his work that survived) was one particular image. I believe that image was "The Steerage" but I am hoping to double-check or confirm that later today when I view The Eloquent Eye. The idea (or question) of being known or remembered for one image--especially when one has amassed a sizable body of work--is a compelling one and I wish that every photographer (famous or no) had to answer this question: If you could only be remembered or survived by a single image, what would that one be? I imagine this would be kind of like asking someone what their favorite song is--or, as a variation on this: If you were going to a deserted island and could only bring with one album (or cd) which would it be? Otherwise put, I'm guessing the response from many would be "it all depends."

And, certainly, for me, for a photo hobbyist, it seems silly to think about being remembered for one image. The idea of being remembered, is I think, a question for professional photographers or hobbyists whose work gets a lot of play--whose work has been widely viewed, known and subsequently re-viewed.

A variation on this question--a question for the hobbyist whose work has not gotten a lot of play then might be: Considering all the images you have taken, which one most often comes to mind? This is not necessarily a question about personal favorites--meaning that an image comes to mind because it was a favorite or represented some kind of milestone, but it certainly could be interpreted and responded to in this way. In many respects, I think this is a much easier question to answer for (or on behalf of) other people. For instance, there are a number of photos I've made favorites on flickr and that I revisit quite often. (As an aside, I think this is the greatest compliment you can offer someone--to share with them the fact that you first saw their photo a month or year or whatever ago and that you still feel the need to go back and view it again and again--another way of saying that just seeing the image once is never enough.) When I revisit these favorite photos on flickr, my first response is often (and selfishly), "wow, I'm so glad that I didn't take that image because I think I'd always be worried that I'd never be able to top myself and take another that is as or more amazing."

When I think about my own work, the "Panda woes" image below almost always comes to mind. I'm not sure why though I can always invent reasons or justifications, I suppose. I could say that it means a lot to me because it was taken with the Diana+ and we can't ever count on working (or playing) well together. Or I could say that I often feel like this panda. Or whatever.

And just to be clear: I'm not suggesting that this my favorite image of those I've taken. If I were, I would have phrased the initial question differently. I'm just saying that of all the pictures I have taken, I tend to think about this one the most. Or, put otherwise, I tend to think about this one the most consistently. Meaning that while I may go through phases when I'm thinking about or dwelling on other images for x-amount of time, I always come back to this one at some point to this one. Again, not really sure why. Maybe because it upsets me? Makes me sad? Maybe because I like how the black and white of the panda's body contrasts with the grays of the environment? I don't know. Usually when I really like an image it is because it does, in fact, represent some kind of milestone for me--trying a new idea or technique or camera and being surprised (whether happily or not) with the results. The other kind of photo/experience/moment I have a real fondness for has to do with the times when you see a picture, take the picture and get this feeling inside that it will turn out really great. The times when what you see with your eye and through the viewfinder (or on lcd screen) ends up being just as wonderful when you view the final product. This was not the case with the panda shot. I remember this day clearly--there was a long line of people shuffling through the exhibit. I think I had with me 3-4 cameras and I just grabbed whatever and took as many pictures as I could. I didn't think "oh--the panda looks so sad, let me get my diana since it's loaded with b/w film." I really didn't think anything other than (perhaps) how I'm not really a fan of taking pictures at a zoo.

openings (another interior)

2010-07-22T16:50:00.003-04:00

Seriously. If someone takes (or worse yet, throws away) these crutches, I'll be heartbroken. This is the positive of the latest interior shot and featured below is a triptych of the positive image and two gooped versions (a b/w scan and a color scan) of the negative.

holga puzzler

2010-07-22T16:12:00.006-04:00

After waiting (get this) ten frigging days for my new Holga 120N to arrive (from NY, I might add--wtf?), I see that the shutter release adapter I ordered with my first Holga will not fit on this camera. My plan was (and still is) to have a Holga that I will only use for shooting infrared film, hence the reason I was counting on the shutter release adapter to fit this new camera.

The problem seems to be with the Holga's newly repositioned tripod mount. Two of my Holgas ( a yellow 120N and a black CFN) have a tripod mount that is NOT centered beneath the lens barrel, making them compatible with the shutter release adapter I bought a few years ago. The camera that arrived today (again the 120N) has a tripod mount that is centered directly under the lens barrel, so the adapter will not fit. (My purple Holga TLR also has the centered tripod mount.)

I just got off the phone with B&H (by the by, this was not the NY place from which I ordered the Holga that just arrived--B&H's delivery rocks) to find out if the 120N they have for sale there has the centered tripod mount and/or to find out if the shutter release they are currently selling there is compatible with the centered tripod mount. Unfortunately, the call didn't result in a clear answer either way and the description for the adapter didn't help much. (although based on what I could glean from the image of the shutter release adapter housed there, it appears to be like the one I already have--one that fits over the non-centered tripod mount.)

so yeah: sigh.

So here's my work around. Not wanting to spend the 16 bucks to see if the shutter release adapter has been redesigned (i.e., if it has not been and I want to return the piece, I have to pay for the return shipping), I decided to return the 120N that arrived today (I don't have to pay return shipping for this) and ordered another Holgawood version of the 120N as the Holgawoods all appear (again, based on the online images there) to have the decentered tripod mount. I know my yellow one does anyway. So fingers crossed that the images don't lie.

As an aside, I did try, however briefly, researching this incompatibility problem online. I did a google search and then searched within flickr specifically. Nothing. Which is odd. Normally if I'm experiencing some photo oddity, there are at least 2-3 others experiencing the same or something very similar. I mean, I think back now to my problem with the dead spider in the practika viewfinder. Though it didn't help resolve my problem (the dead spider is still there), I felt less alone when another person reported having the same problem.

So Holga-people, what gives?

rutting around (and getting to interiors)

2010-07-21T15:50:00.022-04:00

i blame the incredible Sally Mann for forcing me into my latest photo rut. to be fair, i also credit her for helping me out of it.

to explain: way back when, when i began writing fiction, a very wise man told me to read everything i could get my hands on. and i did. i read a lot. actually, i read like there was no tomorrow. as for my production and my willingness to experiment, to take risks, to make it up as i went along? it seems all of this and more tanked. "why bother?" i thought. so many wonderful things have already been done, why not just experience (and by way of this, celebrate) all that greatness? in short, playing around, discovering what might be possible just seemed a heck of a lot less fun after reading so many greats.

i should have learned my lesson then.

but i didn't. and so, having become increasingly bothered (and i say "bothered" because to say that i felt "ashamed" is too strong a statement) by my lack of knowledge about other photographers and/or famous photos, i recently began reading books and renting documentaries about photography in general and famous photographers/photographs in particular.

everything was going along swimmingly until the dvd entitled What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann arrived. [for a taste.]

holy smokes! wowsa. all i can say is about the experience of watching the documentary and seeing a sampling of her work is this: there are times when i'm glad to have eyes and there are times when i am really, really, really glad to have eyes. again. holy smokes! after i finished viewing the documentary (and admittedly, there were portions of the documentary that while i could still listen to them, i definitely couldn't watch them. . . not, anyway, after learning of one of the ways the title term "remains" was being used in the film--if you are squeamish about death, corpses and decay, beware!)--but i digress. anyhoot. after i finished viewing the documentary, i remember thinking, once again, "why bother?" i would just as soon look at and think about her work (well most of it, anyway) for the rest of my life. and don't even get me started on her camera and her process. wowsa. the rut began.

but then. as i thought more about her work and its potential for both teaching and inspiring photo hobbyists like myself, what i was most drawn to was her use of (dare i say "command of"?) light. i've always been drawn to well-lit scenes but what she is able to capture, her sense of light play--it's just amazing. i recall at one point in the documentary, she talks about the importance of just getting out there, setting up the camera and just taking another picture. how this is crucial in terms of getting her going again after finishing a series or show. this i think is another incredible lesson she has to share with photo hobbyists. to not let the last success or other people's success keep you from getting out there, setting things up and seeing where it goes.

since i'm readying to move to a new place that has much better light play (or light potential) than my place currently does, i decided to play around a bit with the lighting (as well as the light fixtures) in those spaces. shooting b/w for this seemed to make the most sense (especially after experiencing Mann's work) so i got out my polaroid 220 and my canon ae1 program and started a series of interiors, a sampling of which appears above and below. i don't normally think about taking photos in terms of themes or series (usually, for me, what the photos all have to do with is testing a new camera or documenting a vacation, trip or outing), but this too was something Mann's work reminded me was certainly possible to do, to think about, to play around with.

no contest

2010-07-15T10:51:00.006-04:00

I finally got around to finishing up the test roll in the Kalimar Spirit SP pano trashcam the other day. I was definitely not impressed. Then again, a pano trashcam has a lot to live up to given my experience (and satisfaction with) what is to my mind one of the best cameras (whether pano, trashcam or no) ever made--the ultronic panoramic. What follows could be viewed as an unfair comparison given the type of image chosen to represent each camera.
Here is a diptych featured an ultronic image to the left, and one taken by the Kalimar to the right. The image left, by the by, is one of my favorite all time images. What may seem unfair here is that the ultronic image is taken from a much closer distance than the other. I guess the best evidence I have of the ultronic's greatness has to do with the fact that of the 24 or so images taken on the Kalimar, only six were worth scanning in. This is never the case with the ultronic.

With this pairing the Kalimar image is positioned above the one taken with the ultronic. This was perhaps my favorite Kalimar image. The ultronic image featured here is okay--not one of my favorites.

My main problem with the Kalimar has to do with the way the images looked once developed. With the exception of the boat pic above, the colors were all blah--something that is represented moreso in the first image featured here. The colors from the ultronic have always been incredible. I don't know if this has to do with the camera, the developer or something else. [Note: I used fuji 400 in the Kalimar--a film and speed I often use in the ultronic.] I will say that when I developed the Kalimar images, the developer was very new. This is not to say that the developer wasn't compromised though by the c-22 debacle from last week. I refer now to trying to develop film meant for c-22 processing in c-41 chemicals. If the developer has been compromised to any degree, it's clearly not ruined. The colors are still okay, accurate enough, etc. I guess I'll try developing another not-so-important roll of film and see what's what before deciding to dump this liter.

I did do a number of close-up shots with the Kalimar, but they were hardly worth scanning or saving. What I find particularly remarkable about the ultronic is the depth of field--how everything, whether close-up or at a distance, is in focus. My sense was that the Kalimar was not as capable of doing this. It lacked a certain sharpness, attention to detail.

I'm not ruling the Kalimar out all together. All I'm saying at this point, is that it won't displace or even threaten the ultronic's position as my number one pano go-to camera. Perhaps I will do another test roll when I change out the chemicals. I think it would be most helpful, in terms of comparing the cameras, to take both cameras out on the same day and shoot the same subjects or scenes with each camera. That way, I will not be comparing images shot on a dreary day with ones shot on a better day.

the importance of inventory

2010-07-13T16:31:00.003-04:00

As researcher, I should know this: Keep track of your stuff, know where stuff is, know what you do and do not have, what's yet to be done, etc.

And yet.

I end up spending a week or so working with a Polaroid that I assume is the 220. In fact, I've put images into sets and tagged things on flickr based on that understanding. I'm in the middle of packing to move and as I was going through a cabinet of cameras, I come across another Land Camera. I'm puzzled because I know I have a broken 225 that I began modify to be a wax paper film plane camera, but I know this isn't it. The modified 225 looks much different and I know that's in another closet. So I open up the recently found camera and it's the 220. Turns out I had been working with the 100. Hmmm. The kicker is that I don't remember buying this. I vaguely remember waiting for a second battery to arrive, but I thought maybe I was just ordering a spare to carrying with me for when I'm at antique or resale stores.

Moving has been a really good excuse (or incentive) to start an inventory of what I have. I'm not at the point (not yet anyway) where I've accidentally purchased a camera that I already have but I can see things going that way at some point. Of course, I've often purposely bought a second (or third or fourth) camera that I already own because I've wanted to make sure that if anything happens to the first one, I'm covered.

on photo assignments

2010-07-11T13:44:00.011-04:00

Lately, I've been fortunate enough to have been given some fun photo assignments courtesy of a facebook friend. The first challenge or assignment (represented by the image left called "max fill") was called "jody was here" and entailed me finding ways to get something (a finger, a foot, a shoe, a braid) into an image of something else. This was much harder that I thought it would be as it was difficult not to let the body part dominate or become the main focus of the photo.

Yesterday's assignment or challenge--one I've named "opposing views" was one that I didn't know that I'd really get into. By contrast, I thought the first challenge would be one for which and with which I'd come up with many things to do. Wasn't the case. Anyhoot. This time the assignment was to take pictures of what my cameras might see at various times throughout the day--specifically so, the cameras that are sitting on shelves, tables or left hanging on chairs or doorknobs. In the diptychs featured here, the image to the left depicts the camera and where it is positioned while the image right depicts what that camera might see. This first image is what the ansco anscoflex sees and as you will soon see, Dorothy figures prominently is a good number of shots.

. . .and here what the brownie hawkeye flash (modified as a wax film plane camera) sees.

. . .and what the polaroid i-zone sees

. . .and what the honeywell pentax sp1000 sees

. . .and, finally, what the six-20 brownie special sees

found film (still more woe)

2010-07-10T15:34:00.019-04:00

The Wirgin Junior folding camera arrived today. By the by, there's not a heck of a lot out there on this camera, though one site incorrectly refers to it as a 6x9 120 camera. It's not. It takes 6x6 shots.

But back to the woe: Compared with my experience with the Diana 151 that arrived the other day, in this case, I knew that the camera would arrive with an exposed roll of film inside. Still bummed about yesterday's mistakes, I took the time to re-research the best way to develop this film. Otherwise put, although I had developed old, long expired verichrome pan in the past--successfully so, I might add--I didn't want to leave anything to chance. An added complication (and additional motive for conducting re-research) was that I was out of Diafine, my usual go-to developer for old b/w films. Following the advice found here (. . .though I have to admit I was conflicted, thinking that maybe I should follow instead the advice found here?) I developed the film in a 1:14 solution of HC-110 for 8 minutes, agitating for the first 30 seconds and then twice every 30 seconds for the remainder of the development. After the fix and before the rinse I took a peek at the end of the film and was delighted to see that I hadn't botched the development. The truth is, the past couple months have been really sad (or as I'd like to think of them, unlucky) for me where found film has been considered. And by "found film" I mean specifically film shot by another, later found and developed by me. . .this as opposed to finding other people's developed negatives. I call that "just plain lucky." I trashed two rolls as a result of using what turned out to be way-exhausted Diafine. Argh. And then there was the C-41/C-22 debacle yesterday. So with this film, I really needed a win. Or, if not a win, I just needed not to %$&!# this one up too. So, the good news is that I ended up with this image:

. . .a portion of which I'm really quite fond.

and this too. definitely a more abstract-y version of the snow and tree line above. and then there was one other image on the roll--a really uninteresting image of a squirrel sitting in snow. Problem was, the squirrel was so small and the snowy landscape so ginormous you had to magnify the image a lot to figure out the speck on the snow is, in fact, a squirrel.

But that was it. Nothing else on the film. Boo. Not the best couple of weeks (or has it been months?) for me where making pictures has been concerned.

on process: the worst-case scenario

2010-07-09T17:47:00.005-04:00

So the second Diana 151 arrives the other day (I highly recommend bidding on items during holidays) and the surprise bonus is that there is a roll of film inside. The roll is on exposure #2 and I'm a little bummed because it would have been great to get the mint diana, the box (in what I'd call good condition as there is a small tear starting in one corner of the box) AND a fully exposed roll of film for 19.95.

Here's where I messed things up and why I'm ultra-bummed today: While I've researched how to go about developing old b/w films, it never occurred to me to do the same with color films. Maybe part of this is that my experience using the Tetenal C-41 kit has me on auto-pilot in that I develop every color film for the same amount of time, no matter what. Another (more embarrassing) part of the problem is my not even stopping to think that anything preceded C-41 development. Blast! Double-duh! The roll of film inside was Kodacolor-X, a film that used C-22 processing. I read on one forum that a b/w developer like Diafine or Rodinal can work, but obviously, it's too late to try that with this roll. It was, needless to say, fried after its bout in C41 chemicals. Seriously, yellow stuff was dripping off the roll. So sad. Such a learning opportunity missed. Of course, this is not to diminish the much harder lesson learned today: Research everything first--don't assume! That said, I would have rather learned more about what this particular film could do. The one thing I give thanks for is that they were all (save for the first frame) all images I took. And having no idea if the camera back had been off or if the film had been exposed to light, I didn't shoot anything that couldn't be shot again. Still, the sky today was amazing. Blah. I guess I always know when it's time to get back to the job I'm paid to do and leave the hobby aside for a bit. . .between this gaff and the polaroid woes, I feel like someone or something is telling me to get back to work.

wtf? (on the Pentax "food mode"?)

2010-07-09T16:10:00.009-04:00

Once upon a time I took a picture of a garbage can on campus. Of interest to me was the fact that whomever attempted to use the can prior to my walking past it had failed to hit the mark. On the top of the can, inches away from the hole into which trash is normally thrown was a half-melted ice cream cone. I suppose I was attempting to capture the carelessness of the user or maybe I was interested in capturing something that was not quite completely in its liquid state. I would have posted the picture here but I don't know that I considered it worth keeping, so I've subbed this other one in for it since this photo (taken with the Yashica D, the image was part of a project documenting a student project that involved them doing a parody of a cooking show) gets to the topic I want to address here: photographing food.

So I understand taking photographs of food for recipe books, online recipes or for covers of cooking magazines. I understand too the instructive/illustrative value of seeing an image of what one is trying to make, cook, bake, etc. What I don't get are all those pictures (many of which are really crappy and often times flash-assisted) of things people are about to it, want to eat, have partly eaten, can't finish. Don't get me wrong, I love food and I don't mind looking at it, thinking about it, writing about, etc. In fact, long, long ago I had plans to write a dissertation on cookbooks. I just don't understand the practice of photographing what you are about to it--diary-style, with a cell-phone. But maybe, in the end, it's mainly the quality, composition and color of most of the photos that I object to. I mean, it seems like a lot of meat eaters like to take pics of their meals and everything just seems like lumpy, brown gravy on a plate.

What's got me thinking about the food issue lately is that I've been researching the Pentax K-x, trying to come up with reasons why I don't want to buy this camera. The researching and review-reading has been fun and easy. Trying to talk myself out of wanting this camera has been the tough part. The best reason I can come up with for not buying the camera ultimately feels to me like a reason to buy the camera. I begin by acknowledging that the last thing I need is another camera. I go on to reason, however, that I certainly don't need a new film camera and that if I ended up getting another camera, I would need a new digital camera more than I'd need another new film camera. In the end, all I'm really saying here (I think) is that I don't need another film camera--any discussion about needing or not needing another digital camera kind of falls by the way side. This said, I'm assuming that if I were, once again, back to flirting with the idea of purchasing my all-time dream camera, the Kiev 88, what I'd be saying about types of cameras would be reversed.

But I digress. So I'm reading yet another review of the Pentax K-x and I learn that one of it's featured scene modes is for food. sigh. Maybe having a dedicated mode for it will make the pictures look better? I just don't get it. The photographing food thing, I mean. The jury is still out on whether I'll ultimately end up just getting the K-x.

pola woes

2010-07-08T17:29:00.013-04:00

Before getting to the pola woes, I'd like to say something about pola desire. More specifically, the desire to take polaroids. For me, the desire to work with polaroid cameras--though I don't have the urge that often--is much like the desire to develop film. When I'm wanting to develop film, I don't care if the pictures are good, I don't care if there is anything I necessarily want to photograph and maybe I'm not even in the mood to take pictures, but I want (it actually feels more like a need) to go through the development process. I want to measure, agitate--I want to smell the fixer, wait through the long rinse process and then clip and hang the negatives to dry.

So I was having the pola urge earlier this week and since I really wanted to document the back stair case before I move, well, it seemed like the perfect time (and given the dramatic lighting at the bottom of the stairs, the perfect camera with which) to do so.

So I take a few shots with the One Step Close-Up using expired 600 integral film (see first image above) and then I decide to take out the Polaroid 220 and take a few more images using Fuji b/w 3000 pull-apart film (see triptych directly above). No question: I'm definitely having a goop ole' time so much so that I decide to try and sustain the pola fun through today. No bueno. Shoulda' quit while I was feeling ahead.

And now for the pola woes part. As it happens, both cameras started misfiring with two exposures left in each camera. The 220 seemed to jam after (or while) taking this picture of the chair with the diana cameras strung over it. More specifically, when I pulled this image out of the camera, it came out followed by 1/2 of the final exposure left in the camera. This--the overlap--I'm guessing is responsible for the white line running through the image.

But there there was this: The two final exposures in the One Step came out like this. Blech. I believe I read something sometime ago about others having problems like this with both types of film--if I recall correctly, the problems occurred with the last shots in the film packs. Problem is, I don't recall exactly where I found those discussions. Mmmm. Guess tomorrow will involve some re-research.

gear: cold storage and expired film

2010-07-08T08:28:00.015-04:00

Too bad refrigerator space doesn't increase as frequently as computer hard drive space does cause my fridge is really starting to fill up and I can't really afford another one. Well, not a full-size one anyway, but maybe something like this would be doable. Cute too.

I remember being warned years ago that photos (and songs) eat up valuable hard drive space, so it's best to take care about much you try and put on (or in) your computer. I wish someone had warned me about how much fridge space film eats up. And based on some of the pics I've seen on Flickr, the amount of film I have is nothing compared to what others gots!

On the left side of the fridge door (in what is intended to serve as the butter drawer), I've stored some of the expired film I've found (mostly online). What doesn't fit there is kept in baggies and help in a storage basket on the bottom shelf along with new rolls of 120/220, infrared and other specialty films. Beneath the butter hutch, I store most of my Polaroid film. I've only allowed film to take up 1/2 the shelf space there so, again, what doesn't fit there, goes in the storage basket on the bottom shelf. The left bin at the bottom of the fridge (not pictured here) is marked, I think, for fruits and vegetables. That bin is filled mainly with 35mm film. It contains canisters of film I've purchased as well as cartridges that I've reeled/filled myself here at home.

Finding expired film at reasonable prices online has been a hit or miss thing. I, for one, have never found expired film at an antique store or resale shop unless it's film that is already loaded in the camera. The first couple times I ran across cameras with film still in them, I thought, "wow--how could someone not finish this and/or not remember to have this developed?" Six months later, I'm sitting here with 8-9 cameras loaded with film and I've got nowhere to go (i.e., nowhere, that is, that would allow me to take interesting photographs) and I suddenly "get" how this could happen.
My best online find was a lot of 5 rolls of expired kodak verichrome pan film--120 and 620. The image left was taken with a Diana+ camera with film that expired Dec 8, 1962. I can't recall now what I paid for the lot--I think it was about 12 bucks.

Whenever possible (by this I mean, when it's available and the prices aren't crazy), I'd rather purchase and take images with expired b/w negative film. I bought 5 rolls of Tungsten slide 120 film (expired 3/2000) a few months back and I've really not been crazy about the results. Then again, part of the problem is that my tastes tend toward images that are yellow/orange/red (what I tend to refer to in conversations with myself as "burnt" rather than hot images)--I have to say I care less for cool images--those with a lot of blue in them. In cases like these (i.e., when the final product looks the boat image above), I know I'll likely end up grayscaling the image in post. If nothing else, it helps to disguise the light leaks--something I'm not always a fan of.

I have the same b/w over color preference when it comes to found film--film that's been exposed by someone else and then developed at home by me. Though I admit that I have less control over this--if I see a camera with a partially (or better yet, mostly) exposed roll of film in there, I'll buy it regardless of whether it has color or b/w film inside. It's just that I feel happier or luckier when it happens to be, say, verichrome pan! The "snow tree" image above was found on a partially exposed roll of verichrome pan that came inside the first Windsor (Diana clone) I purchased. The cool thing is that the seller didn't mention that the camera still had film inside. I was lucky I noticed this before opening the back to test the shutter.

Contrast the b/w found image above with this one that I've titled "yellow chairs." Bleeeck. Grainy and wacky-ass color results. And it wasn't a matter of my color dev kit going off. But I guess grain and crazy-colors is fine if your tastes run this way. . .and I guess I did say earlier that I like the yellow/orange/red images more than the blue ones. Still. I was disappointed by the quality and color of the images found on a partially exposed roll of 120 film housed inside a Kodak Duaflex II camera I bought this spring.

gear: junk collectin' while gathering spools

2010-07-07T15:51:00.010-04:00

Earlier today, I was on the phone with a friend and we were talking about the (extremely high) prices of Leica and Hasselblad cameras. Provided one could afford either of the particular cameras we were looking at (the Leica M9 50mm/0.95 Noctilux ASPH listed new at $10, 500 or the H4D 60 kit at $42,000) would the experience and/or results be that much more. . .I don't know, wonderful? worthwhile? amazing? Otherwise put, how, specifically, would the experience and/or results associated with working with either of those cameras compare with the experience and/or results associated with working with, say, a 25 dollar or, better yet, a 5 dollar camera? Bracketing off any considerations of lens quality and whatnot, I'm guessing one difference would have to do with the cool factor--seeing others see you working with a camera few people have the opportunity to work with. For my part, I know I'd spend most of my time worrying about breaking, losing or having stolen a camera that few people will ever have the opportunity to work with. Which is why I am perfectly fine, most happy, in fact, with being a junk collector. Provided you have (or can easily find) duplicates of the same junk camera (and I use the term "junk" with deep respect and affectionate here), there's less time spent worrying about something happening to it. They are easily replaced. Replaceable. And, more often than not, they are capable of taking really good, and oftentimes even quirky-good, pictures. Case in point, I am continually amazed at the results afforded by this inexpensive pano trash cam. If I'm not mistaken this camera was given out as a freebie with magazine subscriptions in the 1980s. This image in particular, taken of an old rusted-out piece of farm equipment, just floored me. To think something that cost a dollar could take images like this, well, wow.

As I began devising strategies for packing things up in advance of my upcoming move, I came across my baggie of film spools, most of which are from rolls of 620 film. A perk of buying old 620 cameras is that they can often be had cheaply (unless it's a model most often used for ttv work). More importantly, perhaps, unless the seller thinks to take it out and sell it separately, there is usually a 620 spool left inside the camera. In some cases, the 620 spool is worth more (in terms of resale value, anyway) than the camera itself is. In fact, I remember how, when I first started working with film but before I was developing it on my myself, I was strongly advised to make sure that I could trust that whoever was doing the processing for me would send the spools back--especially the 620 spools as these are difficult to come by. This turned me into something of a spool-hoarder. I tend now to dispose of the plastic 120 spools, but I keep close tabs on the 620 and 127 spools.

process: on wax/on vellum

2010-07-07T12:22:00.013-04:00

Inspired by this most excellent visual/verbal guide, I tried my hand at making a number of alternative film plane cameras starting in January 2010. For the first one, I pretty much tried to follow the online instructions, hacking apart a 110 camera that they I got as a freebie when I bought a Woca (a Holga camera with a glass, instead of plastic, lens) online. I used a piece of vellum for the first go-round (see "red bells" image above), but then began experimenting with wax paper. The problem with the wax paper is that it caused a hotspot or bright sunspot to appear toward the center of the images. I tried crinkling the wax paper to add more texture, but couldn't get rid of the bright spot. Putting layers of tape over the wax paper seemed to help some, but introduced other textures to the image that, given the graininess of the images to begin with, didn't always work well, visually-speaking.
By the time I took this image (called "fav five") I was using wax paper more often than vellum. I had also wanted to experiment with a larger film plane, so for my second attempt, I used one of the brownie hawkeye flash (120) cameras I had sitting around. Obviously, the tennis ball container I used for the 110 camera's film plane was too narrow for the bhf, so I used a small sized coffee container instead. [I also modified an old polaroid land camera to do these kinds of shots, but it's really cumbersome to handle and I have found it difficult to find or construct something that serves the function the tennis ball container and/or coffee can serves. In this way, too much light hits the surface of the vellum (or wax paper) preventing me from getting a decent exposure--especially if I'm trying to work outside.]

Whether one sees this as a perk (or, as I tend to do, a disadvantage) of this method, the images I took with the bhf, particularly when I was using unwrinkled vellum as the film plane, tend to look almost like regular film-based images. When I took this image of the place I call "the bend" in Patapsco Valley State Park, I remember thinking, "well, that could have been taken the old-fashioned (and I think much easier) way." The toughest thing about making images this way is that you definitely need two hands and all your wits about you. Not that I often operate a camera with one hand (though I do tend to do things rather mindlessly, or less pejoratively stated, "from the hip"), but it's tough to work the digital camera with one hand while using the other to keep the tennis ball container or coffee can steady and aligned correctly for the shot.

gear: Yankee film squeegee and Paterson tank

2010-07-07T09:52:00.009-04:00

Best purchase ever--this Yankee brand film squeegee that I recently ordered from B&H for (get this) 4.95. It's not that I was unaware that such a thing existed back in August, 2008 when I first began developing black and white film at home. (I started with at-home color dev a couple of weeks later.) It was that I was trying to cut corners (and costs) wherever I could. Not a wise decision where the squeegee is concerned. In fact, I highly recommend that anyone interested in setting up an in-home lab spring for one of these right away. Back in 2008, I think I was thinking that god gave me fingers for a good reason and that I could make a make-shift (not to mention free) squeegee by using them. Fast forward almost two years and all I can say is that I've photoshopped out more water streaks and spots than I care to remember. Of course, many times I just let them be, reasoning that it was all in service of making the process--warts and all--more visible. But all that has changed since the Yankee arrived--streak-free film for me!

Doing b/w film developing at home is really satisfying, fun, easy and, of course, really inexpensive, especially when compared with the cost of sending b/w film out to be developed. Developing color film at home is also satisfying, fun, relatively inexpensive (on average, it costs me about 80 cents a roll to do at home) and, I think, color dev is much easier (and quicker) than doing b/w film at home, mainly because the dev, fix and rinse times are shorter and because there's no need to consult the massive dev chart since all color films, all speeds, cook for the same time. Yeah!

Getting set up to do home developing (whether color or b/w) can, on the other hand, be costly. In this post, I focus on the costs for b/w film since that's what I started doing first, leaving the costs related to color developing for another post.

As I said to start, I started with b/w home-dev as modestly (read: cheaply!) as I could. The Paterson tank (plus an extra reel) cost me about 28 bucks, film clips were another 5 bucks per set, and I also needed a set of mix-up cups. I also had to add to the mix things that I didn't necessarily need to (and, indeed, did not) purchase from Adorama, Freestyle or B&H--a timer, thermometer, scissor, and funnel. Add to this the cost of the chemicals--a developer, fixer and wetting agent (to reduce streaks). I was using (and still use) plain water for the stop bath. Oh yeah. Did I mention the film scanner? That also needed to be factored into the start-up costs. So why I didn't add the squeegee to the mix is beyond me. Like I said to start, I knew they were available, inexpensive and I was well aware of the function they served. I guess I was thinking then any little bit of money saved was a good thing. So while the initial output for starting up can be significant (in my case, about 300-350 dollars, with the greater portion of that going to the film scanner) day-to-day developing is really inexpensive, especially if one does stand developing--a process that involves little agitation, very small amounts of developer and longer-than-usual development times. (look here for more on stand developing.)

For example, say I want to do a stand development on a roll of 120 film. A 17 oz (or 500 ml) bottle of Agfa Rodinal (the developer most often used for stand development) costs about 17 bucks. For the stand process, I use 1 part Rodinal and 100 parts water. (To complete the stand, I'd pour the chemicals in the tank and then let the film stand for about an hour, rinse, fix and then do a final 10 minute rinse.) But back to the mixing: Since 500 ml of liquid is needed to adequately cover the film in the tank, I will need to mix 5ml of Rodinal with 500 ml of water. One bottle of Rodinal will allow me to stand develop 100 rolls of 120 film, bringing the cost per roll to 17 cents (minus the cost of fixer which is also really inexpensive).

While on the subject of expense, perhaps one of the more costly b/w development processes involves developing film in coffee (but it must be instant coffee), vitamin C and washing soda. Caffenol development is, hands-down, better for the environment but depending on the price of instant coffee and the availability of powdered vitamin C (vitamin C crystals) and washing soda (in my case, I had to order the washing soda online and it took me forever and a trip to CA to find vitamin C crystals/powder-that said, one box of washing soda and jar of vitamin C powder will last you forever!) it can be a more costly way to go. Certainly so when compared with Rodinal stand development--the cheapest development process I've found. There is a lot on the web about Caffenol development, but this is my favorite resource--I've downloaded and saved the pdf directions, the link to which is available beneath the video.

A final note: I mentioned above and provided links to three of the places from which I most often order film and developing supplies. Of the three, I think B&H prices are definitely the best (and given my proximity to NY, I usually receive orders within two days with standard shipping), but they can't always send the stuff I want to buy (i.e., most b/w developers I want are only available for purchase in their store), so I often purchase b/w chemicals from Freestyle. Freestyle has tons of great stuff--products as well as learning/teaching resources--but they do have a 25 dollar minimum order there. I used Adorama a lot when I first got into photography, but tend now only to use B&H and Freestyle.

One other final note: There is a way to keep start up costs down and that's by forgoing the scanner. There are indeed, Flickr groups out there, members of which insist they don't need no stinkin' scanner and I also have a set on Flickr that contains images I've scanned using my kitchen window.