tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26710521461756671112024-03-13T02:24:16.466-04:00on the process ofnotes on the photo makingremediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.comBlogger134125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-27004307738416932922013-05-23T06:37:00.002-04:002013-05-23T06:40:36.482-04:00Note to self: Solarol does not lastThat's it really--all I wanted to say or note at this point: Solarol does not stand the test of time. We mixed up the can (the whole can, mind you) at the end of January and when I went to get some of the stock last weekend (mid-Mayish) it had turned a beer-piss brownish-yellow color. The chemicals were still able to impact the prints, but it took longer and the Mackie line effect wasn't nearly as rich or contrasty. So yeah. I ordered another can--mainly because this stuff is getting harder to find--but this time around, I won't prep the whole can but measure the two powders out and mix smaller, hopefully single-use, batches. remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-84373837749828527212013-01-28T10:43:00.002-05:002013-01-28T12:05:46.496-05:00Fun with Solarol<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN_cS17YkiMridfaZKvCMI9cwi4QhpDwu_lfrTV9yM4oKaRNjRYWpr7ecxDmDcyaRuvQ69omRX_RK_jLPn5DDl2Z_PSCn2mnXKySGMvNdPBD2P25jvqVCx9CulgB3m13pTWRrcrnwxzPga/s1600/gear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN_cS17YkiMridfaZKvCMI9cwi4QhpDwu_lfrTV9yM4oKaRNjRYWpr7ecxDmDcyaRuvQ69omRX_RK_jLPn5DDl2Z_PSCn2mnXKySGMvNdPBD2P25jvqVCx9CulgB3m13pTWRrcrnwxzPga/s1600/gear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN_cS17YkiMridfaZKvCMI9cwi4QhpDwu_lfrTV9yM4oKaRNjRYWpr7ecxDmDcyaRuvQ69omRX_RK_jLPn5DDl2Z_PSCn2mnXKySGMvNdPBD2P25jvqVCx9CulgB3m13pTWRrcrnwxzPga/s320/gear.jpg" width="179" /></a></div>
Thank goodness for getting-around-to-it kinds of weekends. Long story short, we've had the darkroom set up in the new place for months now, but there wasn't time (or, really, a good excuse) to test it out. And truth is, I tend to avoid change (or learning new things) and I was still used to working with the much smaller, far less high-tech enlarger we'd picked up two-plus years ago for 30 bucks at the junk shop in Maine.<br />
<br />
When Chris scored this Super Chromega D Dichroic II color 4x5 enlarger right before Valentines Day, 2011, I was too afraid to use it. He got the set up for a steal (about 200 bucks) and the owner thru in a bunch of extras (i.e., in addition to various sized negative carriers and a really excellent lens, he threw in four 50 sheet
11x14" boxes of expired Agfa-Gevaert Portriga-Rapid paper, one 50 sheet
11x14" box of expired Ilford Multigrade IV RC paper, one 100 sheet 8x10"
box of expired Ilford Multigrade IV RC paper, one 100 sheet 8x10" box
of expired Agfa-Gevaert Brovira, one 100 sheet 8x10" box of expired
Kodak Polycontrast Rapid RC paper, and one 100 sheet 8x10" box of
expired Kodak Panalure. As for the misc stuff, we got one 4x5 film holder, one stainless
steel 35mm reel, one box of farmer's Reducer, and a set of 12 6x6 Ilford
Multigrade filters.) Needless to say, Chris' Valentine gift made mine (I decided to surprise him by giving the dog a bath) seem far less thoughtful or romantic. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjARjEMTmfOTWaljJn0IZhBX1YS-4-lVFUgzVZxB1z5Xep3hqeD2BrUKBHpdegobwsPrLW5AP24GTIjGze0aPaCtmisDHA65mQvD-g6-MNpnH1iGCz9Jc6HhFWTYp4lDTWE4-DZ55t9TTPE/s1600/well+lit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjARjEMTmfOTWaljJn0IZhBX1YS-4-lVFUgzVZxB1z5Xep3hqeD2BrUKBHpdegobwsPrLW5AP24GTIjGze0aPaCtmisDHA65mQvD-g6-MNpnH1iGCz9Jc6HhFWTYp4lDTWE4-DZ55t9TTPE/s200/well+lit.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Fast forward almost two years: Having little (read: nothing, really) completed in prep for my CCCC presentation (and having become increasingly worried about being in that nothing-really kind of state) provided me with an excuse to get into the darkroom again and (more importantly, perhaps) to learn how to use the much bigger, much scarier, enlarger. Briefly stated, my presentation will center on the idea of giving voice and movement to (or making one's own) strangers' otherwise silent/static memory objects. Though I'm still not sure where I'm going, I had a sense of how I wanted the piece to begin. To this end, I spent most of the week going through a collection of found negatives, ultimately deciding that I'd work with this image--one of a father, his two daughters, and headless wife.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJGAiKzAd2UVzOyeYcF00AaknSQnIVECJxgUznATKTAWqh8WQ8ADfOosi8LdyCkgjMmjVxJQl4nzZipq2Abn70W6096dkeUKxGt7klZdfrjMS1YzsILSz8Ong2U9SWvSJsMBH0s50Vuzq/s1600/ordered.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJGAiKzAd2UVzOyeYcF00AaknSQnIVECJxgUznATKTAWqh8WQ8ADfOosi8LdyCkgjMmjVxJQl4nzZipq2Abn70W6096dkeUKxGt7klZdfrjMS1YzsILSz8Ong2U9SWvSJsMBH0s50Vuzq/s200/ordered.jpg" width="200" /></a>As a means of underscoring visually something of the difficulty, mystery and, indeed, frustration, of working with other people's memory objects, I wanted to make multiple copies of the image, using a selective development technique to reveal only portions of an image at a time. The argument here is basically that you get to see/recognize/put into a kind of order that makes sense only small portions of those faces, bodies, lives and experiences at a time. But the more you look--that is to say, what you think you know at a given point in time is often complicated when you try to factor in other items in the collection. In this way, things often seem to become clearer, only to then get all muddied up, confusing and obscured as other things as revealed. I want to suggest that working with still images, as I'm doing here, allows you to see different things in different ways and at different times but, of course (and here's one of the main points of the presentation), those things always remain still, always silent. Again, what I hope to do with these strangers' stills is to provide them movement, sound, juxtapose them with other stories.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Dealing with two things I'd been putting off for far too long (again, learning the enlarger, committing to an opening visual for my presentation) made it easier to take on a third--trying my hand at <a href="http://www.artic.edu/~fendsley/altProc_Sabattier.html" target="_blank">sabattier</a>. (too) Simply put, this technique involves exposing developing film (or paper) to a light source during the development process to achieve a psuedo-solarization effect. I had tried my hand at this once before, but I wasn't using the right kinds of chemicals and the prints ended up a muddy mess. I picked up some <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Shop-by-Brand-Solarol/ci/4/phd/4291215928/N/4294255798" target="_blank">Solarol</a> in a photo shop in St. Louis about a year ago--this is, in fact, the right kind of developer for this process--and decided to mix some up this weekend.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYK1dKvLxJjSen4HHxJjD_7BKvWvKIK0GJMoWFsbdDiOEJoU5yId82w5s7PkIgOlr9wdx58Gk2A9OzWgokDwX8zxhtZvranop95wGzle0YEKDxSe8-ODV4pmNPiBWaZyReRXZkHF9eJHX2/s1600/sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYK1dKvLxJjSen4HHxJjD_7BKvWvKIK0GJMoWFsbdDiOEJoU5yId82w5s7PkIgOlr9wdx58Gk2A9OzWgokDwX8zxhtZvranop95wGzle0YEKDxSe8-ODV4pmNPiBWaZyReRXZkHF9eJHX2/s200/sign.jpg" width="200" /></a>New processes, especially those that involve chemicals (or sharp objects and/or fire) are always scary business for me--I worried that I'd botch the mixing, that I'd poison myself (or Chris or the cats, or Dorothy). And then there is the business of mastering the mechanics of the process: Were we using the right filter? Were our exposure times off? Were we using the right development times? Was the light we'd use to flash the half-developed prints at the right height, the right wattage? etc. It bothered me too that we'd likely waste a lot of paper learning this new technique. [A somewhat silly concern since we've been hoarding paper like crazy for the past few years and probably have more than we'll ever have a reason to use. . .but still. I worried about the waste, but ultimately reasoned that wasting stuff is often part of the learning process.] It took us a couple (well, really, more than a couple) tries to get our
timing down, but we were happy with the results. Otherwise put, most of
the images didn't look like they'd been developed with regular
developer and we never dropped the secondary light source in the
developer tray. For our first few attempts we worked with b/w negatives--it's what we had handy (see images above, left). We then dug out and switched to infrared images as they tend to provide more interesting or extreme results (see two images below). </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-atcTzAlF29wlPY_x3S-ugiVMFslU0iOq6yBosKZu-APJF0FprtCmYamf3_yvi_UnMERQj2KOB_Z1Wq5m_8Hox-Wesus1wB1rWSAxVZ4XJKX2RpakJc7VNql-LbuSl167j13S5wCkieJ5/s1600/the+carnival.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-atcTzAlF29wlPY_x3S-ugiVMFslU0iOq6yBosKZu-APJF0FprtCmYamf3_yvi_UnMERQj2KOB_Z1Wq5m_8Hox-Wesus1wB1rWSAxVZ4XJKX2RpakJc7VNql-LbuSl167j13S5wCkieJ5/s320/the+carnival.jpg" width="249" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeSFqZmCGFn8ZJL6RZMxhmxnHP3AYtxO_bYisYvoXofVRvlmud2Z_ihG5WAYfQf7daStbFBxca1GHCXfWCkp0dJpKuecQHGYglBLDkHjOwIy7AHbpqS_Z9mnVyaXold3NP3GBI3FiGd0_V/s1600/car.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeSFqZmCGFn8ZJL6RZMxhmxnHP3AYtxO_bYisYvoXofVRvlmud2Z_ihG5WAYfQf7daStbFBxca1GHCXfWCkp0dJpKuecQHGYglBLDkHjOwIy7AHbpqS_Z9mnVyaXold3NP3GBI3FiGd0_V/s320/car.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkN_7PWi9OyDHeRDCcHyjA0IYaTFhcRvRB16usRKhcXhFCV9NN8SrqTrmHuaIxtqc302KHH1OwYwK-0jxqPoZe11jmZLOqWZqV8ON_Og4KiaokfmVtfwZUrSYQ2rt-B98D7H_3yNg4s-sn/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkN_7PWi9OyDHeRDCcHyjA0IYaTFhcRvRB16usRKhcXhFCV9NN8SrqTrmHuaIxtqc302KHH1OwYwK-0jxqPoZe11jmZLOqWZqV8ON_Og4KiaokfmVtfwZUrSYQ2rt-B98D7H_3yNg4s-sn/s200/10.jpg" width="200" /></a>I was curious to see what the developer would do as it became increasingly exhausted. (We'd developed at least 30 prints with the first batch of chemicals--most prints were 5x7 but a few were 8x10.) I'd read that the pseudo-solarization effect would become more extreme as the chemicals became more exhausted. With a mind to not wanting to waste more stuff than I had to, I was curious to see what exhausted AND day old Solarol might be capable of. Given that most mixed developers are only good for about eight hours (or so they say), I didn't expect that the day old chemicals would produce any kind of image. . .at least not in a timely fashion. I was surprised, however, to find that we were able to produce more images the next day and without having to alter our exposure or development times (see infrared image above, left). <span class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><br /></span></span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirw4HQ_0-_eElMhhVidtFHudNXYBu5mzl8aJ4N_x2FsLZIumKSuXTOaq7cWNNvl9qq6039LIKL6B2p8bj7Tkto0ZZMQ6edOb8x8CluAd7SgCDhodwDifJzGHbpAPLMh7ECZA1uHzPmqUv6/s1600/rail+trip.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirw4HQ_0-_eElMhhVidtFHudNXYBu5mzl8aJ4N_x2FsLZIumKSuXTOaq7cWNNvl9qq6039LIKL6B2p8bj7Tkto0ZZMQ6edOb8x8CluAd7SgCDhodwDifJzGHbpAPLMh7ECZA1uHzPmqUv6/s200/rail+trip.jpg" width="95" /></a><span class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption">It took some time (and even now, I'm not sure I have this all straight in my head) to figure out how longer vs. shorter exposure times impacted the sabattiered images. To this end, we thought it would prove helpful to experiment with different exposure/flash times. For this first <span class="text_exposed_show">test
strip, we used a b/w image I recently made on a trip to Boston. The top
image was exposed for 10 seconds, developed for 35 seconds, and then
flashed with a 25 watt bulb for 1.5 seconds. The middle image was
exposed for 7.5 seconds, developed for 35 seconds, and then flashed with
a 25 watt bulb for 2 seconds. The bottom image was exposed for 5
seconds, developed for 35 seconds, and then flashed with a 25 watt bulb
for 2 seconds.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK4c11-TQvV4KevNYjDXe45QMWeuMCEzo7xJoEvwipkSATq0h-KUMBbzyVky_7E2w-sh6UoAjwvCT6VX1XZ95rI-3O1_UAMBcWbSMwWtK7DWIXsznXiaVRb9Vi0UejFXlL-Eye0IXcGfjf/s1600/sign+trip.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK4c11-TQvV4KevNYjDXe45QMWeuMCEzo7xJoEvwipkSATq0h-KUMBbzyVky_7E2w-sh6UoAjwvCT6VX1XZ95rI-3O1_UAMBcWbSMwWtK7DWIXsznXiaVRb9Vi0UejFXlL-Eye0IXcGfjf/s200/sign+trip.jpg" width="95" /></a></div>
<span class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption"><span class="text_exposed_show">For the second test strip, we used a b/w image I made this summer in Baltimore. The top image was exposed for 15 seconds, developed for 35 seconds, and
then flashed with a 25 watt bulb for 2 seconds. The middle image was
exposed for 10 seconds, developed for 35 seconds, and then flashed with a
25 watt bulb for 2 seconds. The bottom image was exposed for 7.5
seconds, developed for 35 seconds, and then flashed with a 25 watt bulb
for 2 seconds.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
Exposure times are, of course, predicated upon paper speed and negative thinness or density, but what we seemed to be finding is that the shorter exposure times resulted in the more extreme (solarized/reversed) images. Also, with a mind toward using chemicals past suggested times, I'd note here that after 24 hours the mixed Solarol was turning a bit dingy, but still was mostly clear. After 36 hours it had become very dark--purplish. I expect it has been pushed far past its use and I doubt that I could get an image from it today. <br />
<br />
Next up on the experimental front: Fun with <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/45028-REG/Rockland_LLE8_Liquid_Light_Photo_Emulsion.html" target="_blank">Liquid Light.</a> remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-88111489832407712892012-08-29T10:00:00.002-04:002012-08-29T13:12:43.551-04:00An easy-peasy Holga macro mod<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDFp6KV1km93rWNT1jbZDULZl2Hg8EMC4gSTIPN8-plaukDMqwkAcpchsxyygAsZuTLjl9yxmpvm1rnDfAMxkHo-GkOZ5dkX5r3p-ANb2MCo_QGOWyih0kY0RULDfbnuThbH_qku8AscfO/s1600/holga+gold.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDFp6KV1km93rWNT1jbZDULZl2Hg8EMC4gSTIPN8-plaukDMqwkAcpchsxyygAsZuTLjl9yxmpvm1rnDfAMxkHo-GkOZ5dkX5r3p-ANb2MCo_QGOWyih0kY0RULDfbnuThbH_qku8AscfO/s200/holga+gold.jpg" width="170" /></a>I set out to do some macro work with the Holga yesterday and was really pleased with <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/sets/72157631295308456/" target="_blank">the results</a>. All images were taken with the bulb setting, on Kodak Ektar 120 film and developed with Arista C-41 chemicals. While this particular post focuses on how to do this <i>really easy</i> macro modification and to determine the point of focus for the modified lens, I'm (perhaps deliberately?) not offering much concrete advice on determining the specific length of exposure one needs to use in order to achieve good results. I consider myself to have gotten lucky when it came to exposure times, since this was all guess work on my part. What worked for me--what worked for the conditions I was working with/in--was an exposure time of approximately 3-5 seconds. The images were a bit over-exposed, but they scanned well, and I didn't need to do much adjusting of levels. Note: I took all the images inside, in front of a sliding glass door on a sunny day. For some shots, I got a little extra help from a diffused external light (an old Movie Light, model G100), but I didn't find this made a huge difference in terms of exposure times.<br />
<br />
For those unfamiliar with the kind of images an unmodified Holga is capable of making, I offer the following visual comparison below. The image left was taken with the Holga's regular (plastic) lens, the image right is an image made with the x10 filter attached. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC4A-swszc6uwEo1geL0b5TmkchExtQQ8e8EhHlm-zIZ79fwYGOpXyu3xbnSaF93HXZq8KytQUxz0BVYk_sFAcQKFlP-ZkuYgGlJcU6NCrEqbbL_PviJMG2cqjC014O8m84RATRRp5bMep/s1600/comparison.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC4A-swszc6uwEo1geL0b5TmkchExtQQ8e8EhHlm-zIZ79fwYGOpXyu3xbnSaF93HXZq8KytQUxz0BVYk_sFAcQKFlP-ZkuYgGlJcU6NCrEqbbL_PviJMG2cqjC014O8m84RATRRp5bMep/s400/comparison.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
As for the details of the macro mod:<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>Step 1</b>: Affix (with electrical tape) a macro lens to the front of the Holga lens (see images above and below). I find that 52mm filters work really well, size-wise. In this case, I used the x10 magnifying filter, but I've <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/7887042200/in/photostream" target="_blank">also worked with</a> the x4 filter. Note: It's helpful to use plenty of tape here, especially when using the thicker lenses and/or when shooting outdoors. I did all these shots on the tripod, so I knew the lens was pretty secure, as is.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNG7Lizm5OjsKnR-ZZkonfJX6XNeAH9CguvfzE0_Z-4wWSTtVnmay7okhK2tRmpxre6N5_dbdiOUpKssIIFcz6T9vRHlIN_lY9xlPziyTEbvpwNFJkJKFfj_dbbIecEd3Rjq8mPi6yWMZ9/s1600/macro+view.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNG7Lizm5OjsKnR-ZZkonfJX6XNeAH9CguvfzE0_Z-4wWSTtVnmay7okhK2tRmpxre6N5_dbdiOUpKssIIFcz6T9vRHlIN_lY9xlPziyTEbvpwNFJkJKFfj_dbbIecEd3Rjq8mPi6yWMZ9/s400/macro+view.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>Step 2</b>: Determine point of focus for the modified lens. To do this, I
taped a piece of wax paper to the inside of the Holga (see image below). With the camera
set on bulb, I opened the shutter, while focusing on something I'd be
able to see through the wax paper. It's helpful to choose something
with definition, and something well-lit. In this case, I focused on the
knob of my Letertron system. Note: You can produce really compelling images using <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/sets/72157623180314030/" target="_blank">wax paper</a> or <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/sets/72157623036604661/" target="_blank">vellum</a> as an alt film plane. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf610fV8PawvFkLZ9ps9JBOrLUA8qXQaKRsVkyGSisMota-F25v_tldbpPZfrAOCWWaNxfcf18wVP-9G6vv6j2UDjCX0lT-yNBQ6bJKegxBLrOBaHY4VdtKZRqqT8ZbtrGpfcDAIGLgrKG/s1600/six+view.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf610fV8PawvFkLZ9ps9JBOrLUA8qXQaKRsVkyGSisMota-F25v_tldbpPZfrAOCWWaNxfcf18wVP-9G6vv6j2UDjCX0lT-yNBQ6bJKegxBLrOBaHY4VdtKZRqqT8ZbtrGpfcDAIGLgrKG/s400/six+view.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
After much hard math and difficult calculations, I determined that the point of focus was approximately the
distance of a leopard butter knife (aka 6 inches). Note: I measured
the distance from the body of the camera to the object (or part of
object) I wanted in focus and not from the lens barrel itself (see image below). <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE_gt8_EP-ufLVwcXdoZz0B3cYbETp2XRFjjnjjlOn_9kjQooTqo37juqPRnx0S3ttYf9_7dRbT-dK0Uc7-Pph8Fv5EY1LmdQvV6yw0ff31pAukjNgBB3SgUBexpAWVN0VDQpWylnketXf/s1600/meaure.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE_gt8_EP-ufLVwcXdoZz0B3cYbETp2XRFjjnjjlOn_9kjQooTqo37juqPRnx0S3ttYf9_7dRbT-dK0Uc7-Pph8Fv5EY1LmdQvV6yw0ff31pAukjNgBB3SgUBexpAWVN0VDQpWylnketXf/s400/meaure.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjZth2wYDvnFgIdTFUq5QgY_1Z7H76-5BdvQJ25t6jvOwyIVlB8OWn-3ibxMKhoOjOVv9VOrh-wbFV1hURquvKQwV5AuwgFDDZ_XjshuKhyb5EpbZw-g66tie8Mw4BpTXA0JMeFmYTKKHh/s1600/letters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjZth2wYDvnFgIdTFUq5QgY_1Z7H76-5BdvQJ25t6jvOwyIVlB8OWn-3ibxMKhoOjOVv9VOrh-wbFV1hURquvKQwV5AuwgFDDZ_XjshuKhyb5EpbZw-g66tie8Mw4BpTXA0JMeFmYTKKHh/s200/letters.jpg" width="200" /></a>This image (right) resulted from the set-up depicted above.<br />
<br />
And this lastly: I
offer this (perhaps too-obvious) word of caution when it comes to
framing compositions with the close-up lens attached. Working with a six-inch lens to object distance means that Holga's viewfinder will
not be accurate--far from it. With these images I had to wing things
when it came to framing the composition--I just aimed the taking lens at
what I wanted to get in the frame and hoped for the best. Final tip:
If (or I should say <i>when</i>) I do this again, I'll definitely think more carefully about
the kind and quality of arrangements I choose to photograph with the
x10 filter. The depth of field here is, not surprisingly, extremely
shallow--I didn't give this enough thought while I creating my mixed/media object
compositions. Given the (relatively thoughtless) way I staggered some of
the objects in the composition, some of those objects were really
fuzzy/distorted and got in the way, so to speak, of my ability to make a decent image. In the
case of the image above, I wanted the farm girl figure and gramophone in
the shot, but they ended up being so fuzzy and blown out, they really compromise the
overall quality of the image. In hindsight, I wish I'd have left them out or positioned them closer to the lens. The object relations in the image below, by contrast, make for a much more compelling image. The horse head, clock, tv, and running man are all, more or less, in focus. The figure in the maroon dress, while out of focus, is large enough and of a strong enough color that it doesn't necessarily take away from the overall quality of the image. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiraiw1O9xDQw_d92S86v1ggYlEmzX9GIA190WnHkm4rTYP-deg94T1SSOZUubjUkpPf_57xvQYDNOqwQtf0XDoqfCAZfqgWQgziXBV4olfNdD8Ik0WxfHxSmTdx6k3sDDn6tO5KnIC3VZd/s1600/running.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiraiw1O9xDQw_d92S86v1ggYlEmzX9GIA190WnHkm4rTYP-deg94T1SSOZUubjUkpPf_57xvQYDNOqwQtf0XDoqfCAZfqgWQgziXBV4olfNdD8Ik0WxfHxSmTdx6k3sDDn6tO5KnIC3VZd/s320/running.jpg" width="319" /></a></div>
remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-67334145704710654752011-11-02T16:44:00.002-04:002011-11-02T16:49:27.713-04:00Remaking Master Hands, Part III: On projection and the anxiety over proportion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsXE9EyU68nuXtvzN776Tk1nKu_Oy__RV3zPmqPI0C3otjOJKZLMTi5OptZ1wipW9SJZutwrvKHvthpqtr2CV1-RvUn4PfV5qHV0Qmui_fqeh6VgMIENiAbDfP7c8uOfnPQdEO0EL5FpHT/s1600/white+screen-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsXE9EyU68nuXtvzN776Tk1nKu_Oy__RV3zPmqPI0C3otjOJKZLMTi5OptZ1wipW9SJZutwrvKHvthpqtr2CV1-RvUn4PfV5qHV0Qmui_fqeh6VgMIENiAbDfP7c8uOfnPQdEO0EL5FpHT/s200/white+screen-1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Having decided that one of the main ideas behind the <i>Master Hands </i>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. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">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. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I had a vague sense of wanting to do a video with four sections—a nod to the fact that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i> 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. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i> plus <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anything else I wanted</i>, 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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i> 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 <i>Master Hands</i> 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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i> 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.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Throughout the time I spent working on this piece, I continually drew comparisons between this experiment and the show <a href="http://www.foodnetwork.com/chopped/index.html"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chopped</i></a>. 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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chopped</i> pantry. My sense of this experiment—and the idea of producing mash-ups more generally--was that it was kinda like being on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chopped</i>, only in this case there was only one item—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i>—in our mystery basket. That said, there was a particular episode of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chopped</i> 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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i> 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.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">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 <i>Master Hands</i> in my own work, I also attempted to mimic or pay homage to some of the visual moves or effects featured in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i>. 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 <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5182652892/">portable 1956 GE television</a>.] </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Concerned that I still wasn't using enough of <i>Master Hands</i> in my work, I also created <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/6253277675/in/photostream">a sequence</a> (one that never made it into any draft of the piece) where the family featured at the end of my piece was watching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i>, but there seemed little point to this, narratively speaking. It would have seemed to me a case of using <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i> just because I needed to. I remain on the fence about the purposefulness (or lack thereof) of the still images from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i> 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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i>, hoping that viewers would make the connection between what I was receiving and subsequently working to transform, namely, the source footage from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i>. </div>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-64373768784352000372011-11-02T09:55:00.003-04:002011-11-02T10:09:16.420-04:00Remaking Master Hands, Part II: First thoughts, ideas, and impressions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE8ex4h7hXrsDJ-yhg5VvksathNlRrsyn50XxGqU6Hr2Fl9fbwVuH7nBkQuiPLsORX1P6Xr3ogPrebgegK9CJQi2wAdebw85wFBbwBKQDuJEXJvLPnQHxkPetabe6GtLPip2IPxzfOy3_x/s1600/junk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE8ex4h7hXrsDJ-yhg5VvksathNlRrsyn50XxGqU6Hr2Fl9fbwVuH7nBkQuiPLsORX1P6Xr3ogPrebgegK9CJQi2wAdebw85wFBbwBKQDuJEXJvLPnQHxkPetabe6GtLPip2IPxzfOy3_x/s200/junk.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>From the start, I approached the <i>Master Hands</i> project not in terms of what I could make or do with <i>Master Hands</i>, but in terms of what <i>Master Hand</i>s 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. <a href="http://ontheprocess.blogspot.com/2011/10/remaking-master-hands-set-up-and-almost.html">In an earlier post</a>, 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. <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">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 <i>Master Hands</i> (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? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">needed</i> 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—<a href="http://ontheprocess.blogspot.com/2011/04/seized-up-cautionary-tale.html">long story short</a>—I ended up having all my cameras confiscated before I left. Hence the connection between new cars, junk yards, and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5669540837/">photographer’s rights</a>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">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. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile. . . .</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">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 <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/sets/72157623907405375/">first collection of negatives</a> 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. . ."] </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">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 <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/prelinger">Prelinger Archives</a>. 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. </div>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-84556656290577689012011-10-27T13:53:00.005-04:002011-10-27T16:54:52.514-04:00Remaking Master Hands, Part I: The set up and (almost) break down<div class="MsoNormal"><b><i></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><i></i></b><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMAyw6_-TKltc1Q5TxA7L9umkopuCYrJ7347maCsvEXoT358OgloFPmlcNE9eefyCTOb17mj3WzUhtqGKWo5UbDpvHozFN-Ku-iJeGfMTO08QQnkGQXrArAOgkv9wmocG9HAtSQLRw4w1n/s1600/masterhands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="98" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMAyw6_-TKltc1Q5TxA7L9umkopuCYrJ7347maCsvEXoT358OgloFPmlcNE9eefyCTOb17mj3WzUhtqGKWo5UbDpvHozFN-Ku-iJeGfMTO08QQnkGQXrArAOgkv9wmocG9HAtSQLRw4w1n/s200/masterhands.jpg" width="200" /></a><b><i> </i></b>In June, I received an invitation to participate in <a href="http://enculturation.net/"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Enculturation’s</i></a> first Video Mashup Roundtable. As was explained in the original email invite, Richard Marback had recently completed a video mashup based on <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/MasterHa1936"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i></a>, a 1936 film available for viewing and download at the <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/prelinger">Prelinger Archives</a>. 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 <i>Master Hands</i> footage. Those signing on to participate in this experiment would agree to the following four constraints: </div><ul><li><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i> must serve as the common as shared source material amongst mashups, but participants were allowed to mix that footage with anything else they wanted</li>
<li>The mashup would function as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i> thing, the argument. There would not, in other words, be a supplementary or explanatory text published with the video</li>
<li>The mashup should be no longer than 10 minutes</li>
<li>(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.” </li>
</ul><div class="MsoNormal">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 <a href="http://enculturation.gmu.edu/">publication proper</a>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><i>The (almost) break down:</i></b><i><b> </b></i><br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
But did <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I </i>want to participate? Heck, heck, heck, no! (well, kinda maybe. . .) But then again, mostly nonononono. Absolutely not. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">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. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">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. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> 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 <i>deserved</i>?) 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. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Master Hands</i>, 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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">projection</i> of the piece. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">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. </div>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-8646327403747296402011-07-04T11:19:00.005-04:002011-07-04T13:04:03.808-04:00No 2A Brownie 35mm modification<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSZOyqK9aQBe7ESHG29ITniWS0U0gk5ffUQpDWMHkr3TLXQ-jWi-ehMCUzi8lCyvy-Q__PPmwf9Amj_gojNU2XhjeIR3A4_t_On9XoqSBqu9SyiTtUtcMddlYJArSy3fPxjHZiZ9QY7dSu/s1600/35mm+mod.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSZOyqK9aQBe7ESHG29ITniWS0U0gk5ffUQpDWMHkr3TLXQ-jWi-ehMCUzi8lCyvy-Q__PPmwf9Amj_gojNU2XhjeIR3A4_t_On9XoqSBqu9SyiTtUtcMddlYJArSy3fPxjHZiZ9QY7dSu/s200/35mm+mod.jpg" width="200" /></a>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 <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/2755544422/in/set-72157606681032125">shooting 35mm</a> 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, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/radioripster/3968400219/in/faves-remediatethis/">here</a> is a great way to make a 120 spool fit a 116/616 camera. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">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. </div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnO_we2nYTrUyKGZLuAV1Z7OKEfpTN5HqTLLh-cgLqXNCsYBpjg0AlQR-fmirQDU99XRuJZr4LfodIeuEzOrQ6pikHnhcqLOGXmC_SskSY49xWGSI5JMiEaOtAYMz5GdmybxUHA3ozXc6Y/s1600/7+4+2011+003+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="121" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnO_we2nYTrUyKGZLuAV1Z7OKEfpTN5HqTLLh-cgLqXNCsYBpjg0AlQR-fmirQDU99XRuJZr4LfodIeuEzOrQ6pikHnhcqLOGXmC_SskSY49xWGSI5JMiEaOtAYMz5GdmybxUHA3ozXc6Y/s320/7+4+2011+003+copy.jpg" width="320" /></a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">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.] </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: 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). </div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Step three: Place film take-up/supply insert into camera or (if you are working with <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/2708101356/in/set-72157605581799125">Holga</a>, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5859334491/in/set-72157627020604496">Diana</a> or <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/2751503682/">BHF</a>--the foam rollers work splendidly in all these cameras!) put the camera back back on. </div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">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. </div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">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.]</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8KxjsthWC1E96Hhfr8rIPJ2lHB8GPsMXqr1qiJZQRTP56BF669-Rn0Xk6InK3cCxhrOqdYWqgWWxnm3I_4NH8ej03QvhaTD0_nTwWQdA5LGaZ2pvvyGt2VHHASVNoZa_T_7reJnIITOBQ/s1600/benches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="92" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8KxjsthWC1E96Hhfr8rIPJ2lHB8GPsMXqr1qiJZQRTP56BF669-Rn0Xk6InK3cCxhrOqdYWqgWWxnm3I_4NH8ej03QvhaTD0_nTwWQdA5LGaZ2pvvyGt2VHHASVNoZa_T_7reJnIITOBQ/s320/benches.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">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 href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/sets/72157626984135457/with/5898940156/">a sampling</a> of some of the other the images made with this camera.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-57068677143621638782011-07-02T06:02:00.001-04:002011-07-02T06:05:44.285-04:00On Play<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzUpP3dhOURKxdIPdZNuEnLNwbsc2R5UGq7UB9yKCBaDflN3tfnU8Gj6Up3xAXzWfhnmNtt6r8ITRloPiZ4BWB9Q2-cHcmA8-F3gjrA7Ss9kNVJdLvMDH8lMhr4QKoH8hp4HpMbz1_K9zm/s1600/cwip-playbook-cfe-postcard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzUpP3dhOURKxdIPdZNuEnLNwbsc2R5UGq7UB9yKCBaDflN3tfnU8Gj6Up3xAXzWfhnmNtt6r8ITRloPiZ4BWB9Q2-cHcmA8-F3gjrA7Ss9kNVJdLvMDH8lMhr4QKoH8hp4HpMbz1_K9zm/s200/cwip-playbook-cfe-postcard.jpg" width="140" /></a></div><h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1}" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}">There is a new project that I’m really excited to be working on: <br />
<br />
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: <a href="http://j.mp/cwip-play" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://j.mp/cwip-play</a><br />
<br />
If you make photographs with toy analog cameras (or know someone who does) please consider submitting something for this edited collection!</span></span></h6><h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1}" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}"> </span><span class="fbPhotoCaptionText">Postcard design by Jackie Yaeger</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></h6>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-50392085398276930582011-04-29T11:44:00.001-04:002011-04-29T11:49:22.695-04:00seized up--a cautionary tale<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7IISqcvXL2_38xejju4sRtnLENWWvqYqsesbKZhQGv-8Mg-5Cbt7-kzACibnC80ealO9Xl7QXyBm7HQDJ7jGuWJ3Y1-RSxYfPODigl6_LxtRMFKzRPmWKjz1DAx3pjszUNeW2zDdDxa4O/s1600/seized+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7IISqcvXL2_38xejju4sRtnLENWWvqYqsesbKZhQGv-8Mg-5Cbt7-kzACibnC80ealO9Xl7QXyBm7HQDJ7jGuWJ3Y1-RSxYfPODigl6_LxtRMFKzRPmWKjz1DAx3pjszUNeW2zDdDxa4O/s200/seized+1.jpg" width="150" /></a>The four cameras and leather bag pictured here were taken from me and "held" for almost a week. I've alluded to this in <a href="http://insixboxes.blogspot.com/2011/04/women-with-and-currently-without.html">another post on another blog</a>. 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:<br />
<br />
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 <i>that </i>many, I usually bring 9-10 on a shoot." But I figured this wouldn't be a helpful response in this context.]<br />
<br />
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.]<br />
<br />
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. . .]<br />
<br />
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, <i>ever</i>) I'd have called the police. But as they say, hindsight is. . .well, you know how that goes.<br />
<br />
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, l<i>etting things happen</i>) 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. <br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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?"<br />
<br />
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.] <br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLM1tVfosDUfQNocxPqeTc8_JzlVFtOTxbteiUbztCuuX39PKULPpuib72IOnhnZCXRAlHUVXhRDczl6q3wjdiBn9gphTZpda3aMCxekJhbGmJIpuzaTrqQmjy7-jH0fpaji5qxauMm1Cn/s1600/file.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLM1tVfosDUfQNocxPqeTc8_JzlVFtOTxbteiUbztCuuX39PKULPpuib72IOnhnZCXRAlHUVXhRDczl6q3wjdiBn9gphTZpda3aMCxekJhbGmJIpuzaTrqQmjy7-jH0fpaji5qxauMm1Cn/s200/file.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>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. <br />
<br />
[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.] <br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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.]<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
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? <br />
<br />
Oh, yes. And of course this question remains: What were they so concerned about my having gotten photos of? <br />
<br />
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? remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-38237449193612063072011-04-02T17:30:00.010-04:002011-04-02T18:12:26.592-04:00tis' the season. . .<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixDcTYzQ5R65lsIVjLisTAgfh4XGV38pWCJUKUZE9TWV6wCjtWhk6iiBsqi8FB3UkKy3a0wiOQdod4FvAAyfotzdaFbkBBbxlmaqydO9QQj-bQBoXCqUEFG7dwIdDSAcD_x0h7t8Cg5Twe/s1600/april+2011+box+lot+copy+small.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 156px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixDcTYzQ5R65lsIVjLisTAgfh4XGV38pWCJUKUZE9TWV6wCjtWhk6iiBsqi8FB3UkKy3a0wiOQdod4FvAAyfotzdaFbkBBbxlmaqydO9QQj-bQBoXCqUEFG7dwIdDSAcD_x0h7t8Cg5Twe/s200/april+2011+box+lot+copy+small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591102505694893858" border="0" /></a>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. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLtv-voBf4fND5KhgJ211PTR0PI1GaCsh4eHp1ElRxqd3B9YAMzpUh_kObkceU6Ew1oRrxwYpnxuvMbFMz0OkOT2uSBn84RKAGf7DnHfQT8LTsvf9LSXCYfJwDAq4Qb6vX0EFutmDervHt/s1600/pages+copy.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 254px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLtv-voBf4fND5KhgJ211PTR0PI1GaCsh4eHp1ElRxqd3B9YAMzpUh_kObkceU6Ew1oRrxwYpnxuvMbFMz0OkOT2uSBn84RKAGf7DnHfQT8LTsvf9LSXCYfJwDAq4Qb6vX0EFutmDervHt/s320/pages+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591102242817939282" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYj-qdrcyOnF83L9yiXCEsMCg8GjNkhwrszAj0QhclzrKLUqW4Q3jl8iIyrdiiLzZvvW-WO9f-78qBhDIUaLX4p1I9poqoTEB8AF9vdF-E1FGPSK8ue9ANDnFutpwBku7Vcgk3t5Zl5wwr/s1600/1.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 180px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYj-qdrcyOnF83L9yiXCEsMCg8GjNkhwrszAj0QhclzrKLUqW4Q3jl8iIyrdiiLzZvvW-WO9f-78qBhDIUaLX4p1I9poqoTEB8AF9vdF-E1FGPSK8ue9ANDnFutpwBku7Vcgk3t5Zl5wwr/s320/1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591102123031041586" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHsX_JFIsXo8P_sQD1Oc-CqURNFtFsunvggmZmde5HWlh9KzEuC_FfaWLN7QGcUuLCFW-b0op0QjGubqon0JbTbcXNH35afbMheS3RbbtX_HuLcJqRuctw-rzP5My2CV8FT5pU4opjSX_G/s1600/3.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHsX_JFIsXo8P_sQD1Oc-CqURNFtFsunvggmZmde5HWlh9KzEuC_FfaWLN7QGcUuLCFW-b0op0QjGubqon0JbTbcXNH35afbMheS3RbbtX_HuLcJqRuctw-rzP5My2CV8FT5pU4opjSX_G/s320/3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591102056822260386" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMsx0xninKlLUQ8UZYCRo3zwaFuE9ijauNJnStnYZ36cvkD6b2kaaAKs8ew99nFE7mb5GtLAuVoTS_luUTX99nOBG1EvYqT-MSx3DhdEPkLioJkOVuPEoWk_mhvW3jZFXBToPX9iRN69gz/s1600/4.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 180px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMsx0xninKlLUQ8UZYCRo3zwaFuE9ijauNJnStnYZ36cvkD6b2kaaAKs8ew99nFE7mb5GtLAuVoTS_luUTX99nOBG1EvYqT-MSx3DhdEPkLioJkOVuPEoWk_mhvW3jZFXBToPX9iRN69gz/s320/4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591101976995110162" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8af83kU2B60HVSBzBs1hlHIecfaxDRVj7dDSRYdulZeRuC05bJsv-dFRGimk3faQAGB6Zu3gevrrL3hgR_XyfdBdfGd2M-BvArWBreH5hbCJ1iOd_c-wVp0Rlpxblwwd2SLt96oou4WIU/s1600/2.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8af83kU2B60HVSBzBs1hlHIecfaxDRVj7dDSRYdulZeRuC05bJsv-dFRGimk3faQAGB6Zu3gevrrL3hgR_XyfdBdfGd2M-BvArWBreH5hbCJ1iOd_c-wVp0Rlpxblwwd2SLt96oou4WIU/s320/2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591101859769179170" border="0" /></a>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-75149995478083439232011-03-28T09:13:00.004-04:002011-03-28T09:45:26.855-04:00spring break flea deals<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfBnvbjPEO6qIm1wUvGllT7akK4gFtRRZbJILrpRy15Hihi-kL-05GDEXT9qbArkQ6OM7lHHsmC5yEC7fnGkOG8lswM5W26JokN_dI09nEuAVodc48QqyYTu4fJt4sUqr5yehTvs51S6Z/s1600/new+graphic.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 142px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfBnvbjPEO6qIm1wUvGllT7akK4gFtRRZbJILrpRy15Hihi-kL-05GDEXT9qbArkQ6OM7lHHsmC5yEC7fnGkOG8lswM5W26JokN_dI09nEuAVodc48QqyYTu4fJt4sUqr5yehTvs51S6Z/s200/new+graphic.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5589118747592303362" border="0" /></a>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 <span style="font-style: italic;">another </span>camera," I often manage to leave with one more. Or two. Or three. <br /><br />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 (<span style="font-style: italic;">and I mean really</span>) 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. <br /><br />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. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSksmjvTeRBEiRYfP53DhnLnEKOWvjA0MEVBBBnpO9Zk8PIwaoXqbw2fdWpJ-M3jmQbPbFYMhjRWD9TXZ2tyN3u9M4nYKD-0dqKU0GjzRdklUQLPfP2efm28HCKDKwGOX22d4P2wiVjtw0/s1600/1897+bullseye.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 192px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSksmjvTeRBEiRYfP53DhnLnEKOWvjA0MEVBBBnpO9Zk8PIwaoXqbw2fdWpJ-M3jmQbPbFYMhjRWD9TXZ2tyN3u9M4nYKD-0dqKU0GjzRdklUQLPfP2efm28HCKDKwGOX22d4P2wiVjtw0/s200/1897+bullseye.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5589118672210810002" border="0" /></a><br />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.<br /> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEDVJ9nCzoJmsKBh0ZzoRfjR9MzNNQhqu8SZh8Uq2GpyvG2LphCAVcvU1bEutyPQKfhNKAPLJks9YEt7LZwR-SMBQJW4FpwUK3NIJIMiVBeOidhoYPNEhyEuBSEePS9pHyOwq3Qm-5TRbO/s1600/easton+finds.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 118px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEDVJ9nCzoJmsKBh0ZzoRfjR9MzNNQhqu8SZh8Uq2GpyvG2LphCAVcvU1bEutyPQKfhNKAPLJks9YEt7LZwR-SMBQJW4FpwUK3NIJIMiVBeOidhoYPNEhyEuBSEePS9pHyOwq3Qm-5TRbO/s200/easton+finds.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5589118616638820290" border="0" /></a>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. <br /><br />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.remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-1210910323712107382011-03-14T12:07:00.011-04:002011-03-14T12:38:56.057-04:00Bratzseline: Too much of a good thing?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcYzrg5-Ar5RAdgcFgsorxfU0UwbCxPPWTX54a3iOoRPnlRQbnOlkh1l7V_l3ahpTFx18-qCP_YDypUfTndTY6vcy-Hn4-nzc7uUhYATwbHm9BiLK-RzOoyGJAMpOvTH953fJP4XeVe3ky/s1600/inner+harbor.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 128px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcYzrg5-Ar5RAdgcFgsorxfU0UwbCxPPWTX54a3iOoRPnlRQbnOlkh1l7V_l3ahpTFx18-qCP_YDypUfTndTY6vcy-Hn4-nzc7uUhYATwbHm9BiLK-RzOoyGJAMpOvTH953fJP4XeVe3ky/s200/inner+harbor.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583969143351479026" border="0" /></a>I love <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/2989886409/in/set-72157608546728891/">Bratz</a> 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 <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/3012983656/">some pretty cool images</a>. [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.]<br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.lensbaby.com/gallery-photo.php">Lensbaby</a>-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. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2UjtcF9ZHjrBew_-VMOk1-yTrX3o1pXu0kb7PgG5EwoS8x9GsU_6LuSUwx2WimWMQyI0Vip2ZZH0uSsmbVQmEMddPR7yGIDSqg9b2quDzGoIvO2eeKs8SRTVd1KJ-fMB6U2vhDZ7z_Smg/s1600/the+block+copy.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 155px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2UjtcF9ZHjrBew_-VMOk1-yTrX3o1pXu0kb7PgG5EwoS8x9GsU_6LuSUwx2WimWMQyI0Vip2ZZH0uSsmbVQmEMddPR7yGIDSqg9b2quDzGoIvO2eeKs8SRTVd1KJ-fMB6U2vhDZ7z_Smg/s200/the+block+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583969050954486210" border="0" /></a><br /><br />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.<br /><br />A sampling of other recognizable shots (i.e., I only took pictures of one red thing that day--a boat) appear below: <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoy6n9pmNIFAxczKx_gE4xDSJdeS8ejtEBFVWDwMFcMitbr86_H6FFiEFpwmDdyKN-uRfWQiedpoOmwoT8YhtJWFWVq-Kb_0FtvsB-YG5rPSA_zp6jAc1cO3G1Ayo6CgO5tsgZGdk4ptPs/s1600/boat+3.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 198px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoy6n9pmNIFAxczKx_gE4xDSJdeS8ejtEBFVWDwMFcMitbr86_H6FFiEFpwmDdyKN-uRfWQiedpoOmwoT8YhtJWFWVq-Kb_0FtvsB-YG5rPSA_zp6jAc1cO3G1Ayo6CgO5tsgZGdk4ptPs/s320/boat+3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583968814597980130" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZpWak9QkxV4ns7uH644mm5S6z2Q9eZ1ifA-M-224eqCKvCR3iSWUsQo_eNC_l9uJiPbGyngrngU0F-UhQHuInFQAJ6b8xb1DSJKxR_JPlkjbKx4L-ci1WjqH3n3gUBAsKEyrxOJKbCEKE/s1600/boat+5.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 204px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZpWak9QkxV4ns7uH644mm5S6z2Q9eZ1ifA-M-224eqCKvCR3iSWUsQo_eNC_l9uJiPbGyngrngU0F-UhQHuInFQAJ6b8xb1DSJKxR_JPlkjbKx4L-ci1WjqH3n3gUBAsKEyrxOJKbCEKE/s320/boat+5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583968703097829058" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHQO7AX2hoyO1LNeUlXtGGxjsb5d2xbjfAZXiPcwQdff_n5bBmPhHlasnxuIqQ6KkboXRgtXIXvSRkmBdEFaZ1mFHVrUfhOW9LTJqvIlUKdbjFlDislLziJfRJaZGLU5OfACsV5-4kHgtQ/s1600/boat+4.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 192px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHQO7AX2hoyO1LNeUlXtGGxjsb5d2xbjfAZXiPcwQdff_n5bBmPhHlasnxuIqQ6KkboXRgtXIXvSRkmBdEFaZ1mFHVrUfhOW9LTJqvIlUKdbjFlDislLziJfRJaZGLU5OfACsV5-4kHgtQ/s320/boat+4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583968568982028098" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyPtWwzVTwCXC6KMKnSLrECQJnl4B-_lqtxwJBJbFuC_Xz6cWlc1G0LBeu40t8KjUddEwJwL6nQ2ONEBBZlhXzUMY0Mh_yEodSJuyFUhE49GNu1imskYdV-QEIZSDrTNLVA_vh94zxWTY5/s1600/boat+6.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyPtWwzVTwCXC6KMKnSLrECQJnl4B-_lqtxwJBJbFuC_Xz6cWlc1G0LBeu40t8KjUddEwJwL6nQ2ONEBBZlhXzUMY0Mh_yEodSJuyFUhE49GNu1imskYdV-QEIZSDrTNLVA_vh94zxWTY5/s320/boat+6.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583968463892302498" border="0" /></a>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-78322698516488464822011-03-14T08:28:00.015-04:002011-03-14T08:45:28.197-04:00Dupont Superior 2: Take 2<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi94AyuDE1dq6RESoNVPabc6XtAyt-S3lVB7gTgwzWGVzaK1wv21OJgD9xdplJTV1_aK3J3JbodQYTIrnkf9Hd_G2yTrFVCdx2oDCeM3gag3zrSmrYoQjsp8Y-3GZEQDgUrqCHQMcWBi70D/s1600/on+the+block.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 124px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi94AyuDE1dq6RESoNVPabc6XtAyt-S3lVB7gTgwzWGVzaK1wv21OJgD9xdplJTV1_aK3J3JbodQYTIrnkf9Hd_G2yTrFVCdx2oDCeM3gag3zrSmrYoQjsp8Y-3GZEQDgUrqCHQMcWBi70D/s200/on+the+block.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583913120695605426" border="0" /></a><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeFK61akBRp-bkR6eRo-sMsYamd8aYh9Xj_j-_CcEdhRZanTALzY9yZ6Vl9jjXgYpkWWy2tdZJnprg8XKbE3EAEKMqPxefs-Ng7n5_gfL545dTe_D-bE2yx97U23FW1yjeG0r4jtCOg0ax/s1600/chris+and+graflex+crop.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 106px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeFK61akBRp-bkR6eRo-sMsYamd8aYh9Xj_j-_CcEdhRZanTALzY9yZ6Vl9jjXgYpkWWy2tdZJnprg8XKbE3EAEKMqPxefs-Ng7n5_gfL545dTe_D-bE2yx97U23FW1yjeG0r4jtCOg0ax/s200/chris+and+graflex+crop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583913027722742738" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKeIMx3-k3xLhIQtTY6cpUOlELCuTVZdpfdCwG6h4ZK5ryfxjWB_RogJkTvGFwoqrqJJlMvn6WUvzRUBzhj801X_m1ee14SQhNwPYvgQLcUtLLiZdY-KITpzg5EGgQIUFRynPSJfRt4eSk/s1600/graflex+2.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 188px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKeIMx3-k3xLhIQtTY6cpUOlELCuTVZdpfdCwG6h4ZK5ryfxjWB_RogJkTvGFwoqrqJJlMvn6WUvzRUBzhj801X_m1ee14SQhNwPYvgQLcUtLLiZdY-KITpzg5EGgQIUFRynPSJfRt4eSk/s320/graflex+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583912674736205730" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3buc0MfMW5kZD24hfvJO5kMgQC0nsyN3vQQTcce5qQ79zMRfKJy8O4Zw3eJtjMypy-PY3RXTSND9apA43xigXAjZQW37C5Uvcw8YtwDs4AjBnFxhPGRIeljbDm-qLT57fFMus4OLA5onT/s1600/dark+and+light.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 192px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3buc0MfMW5kZD24hfvJO5kMgQC0nsyN3vQQTcce5qQ79zMRfKJy8O4Zw3eJtjMypy-PY3RXTSND9apA43xigXAjZQW37C5Uvcw8YtwDs4AjBnFxhPGRIeljbDm-qLT57fFMus4OLA5onT/s320/dark+and+light.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583912560646189234" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />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:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgISWEGVqNbAgkdTQqfEoRrHZg8lFUPYAJGpz26jse8QKHGgycOoh99v0k-9-4jpARzfn6vMjMzUbue4a08Tib0HkChyRs4r7cf3HdWYl9ydY1l6cZFwD5JX9FwOKF-0bbV6Lj6TtRXQAkR/s1600/crane.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 219px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgISWEGVqNbAgkdTQqfEoRrHZg8lFUPYAJGpz26jse8QKHGgycOoh99v0k-9-4jpARzfn6vMjMzUbue4a08Tib0HkChyRs4r7cf3HdWYl9ydY1l6cZFwD5JX9FwOKF-0bbV6Lj6TtRXQAkR/s320/crane.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583912494411656290" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHtt1REdcoMD0vTDGCqkKYFLCiZIaCqzs1YgeSG5duxIiUs1i0b2Zt69PdS4-hVkbWPTWR48ahDIb2ylqT7hPNivysphpsBUJvs2Q4d95l31zv3Ri7gkAAwKNYN6by666Z1ppHI4SiEiK0/s1600/converge.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 186px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHtt1REdcoMD0vTDGCqkKYFLCiZIaCqzs1YgeSG5duxIiUs1i0b2Zt69PdS4-hVkbWPTWR48ahDIb2ylqT7hPNivysphpsBUJvs2Q4d95l31zv3Ri7gkAAwKNYN6by666Z1ppHI4SiEiK0/s320/converge.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583912275979182098" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpmsvowtAo3yHBxJwtdB3vfOXDZ30yNa0FJfFcap7pLafDGcA0aTj0VDc24wDz-r5zKqQpNcxoEwKfJa00N45JG_7zDhLqlI2qdUdLKXq0EiiI30yWfPY0R0h_P0iH5I3evwG7ZJsGR1Dj/s1600/converge+2.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 189px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpmsvowtAo3yHBxJwtdB3vfOXDZ30yNa0FJfFcap7pLafDGcA0aTj0VDc24wDz-r5zKqQpNcxoEwKfJa00N45JG_7zDhLqlI2qdUdLKXq0EiiI30yWfPY0R0h_P0iH5I3evwG7ZJsGR1Dj/s320/converge+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583912225272966770" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEOZ5O34RvkjJ8E_ZxAnheIsYMgxWUXWyMag23jU7lncWjdWdH4xjs-p1gKUgDXD2UX6nhdbiYdNta2GHIygihtbrqUUjO-p7gqGHP05MPHPtj0z1mpvuPmPoC8IgkLLfDgaAqNADBgCvu/s1600/anchored+crop.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 192px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEOZ5O34RvkjJ8E_ZxAnheIsYMgxWUXWyMag23jU7lncWjdWdH4xjs-p1gKUgDXD2UX6nhdbiYdNta2GHIygihtbrqUUjO-p7gqGHP05MPHPtj0z1mpvuPmPoC8IgkLLfDgaAqNADBgCvu/s320/anchored+crop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583912150899392978" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwkkrppKy2LGYvD4tFH5-Xgkr2vuCA0NXo8VR3vPJLwWFNapE-7UjOVOredWHCiruBWDV4JprjmYQUwY53zVOUXpccrvyTk1HG4zPqq9zuiqA8CucW7PZidfEcONvDoRND2s6GUmtTBZJA/s1600/anchored+2.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 203px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwkkrppKy2LGYvD4tFH5-Xgkr2vuCA0NXo8VR3vPJLwWFNapE-7UjOVOredWHCiruBWDV4JprjmYQUwY53zVOUXpccrvyTk1HG4zPqq9zuiqA8CucW7PZidfEcONvDoRND2s6GUmtTBZJA/s320/anchored+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583912094004886194" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJz_Q32E0eLm5wk02iK9DEnkMNi6v-oeEpretIa9lbscnIOOoi3oS2mWgy1ct08fxeLLKx6ethZF3SFC57jomZPbKpElGupO3MV3JBcZX_pmv480mU1j1QL-f9alUY8Cx90oLHYqHpBEjC/s1600/shadow.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 209px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJz_Q32E0eLm5wk02iK9DEnkMNi6v-oeEpretIa9lbscnIOOoi3oS2mWgy1ct08fxeLLKx6ethZF3SFC57jomZPbKpElGupO3MV3JBcZX_pmv480mU1j1QL-f9alUY8Cx90oLHYqHpBEjC/s320/shadow.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583912022105240210" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigSlVPqzm1hgapcYbtpOeSmrvSeBEcXaUBM9GsFDLtflG5Dq8iNKyCAU4GSe3CHeeeiEPqUBYoqyuUaqwGBmF45VrYgPasnfeTvYGLYt4rfleyCDn8_m5MW80Zusf6Lb1qXXVR95lBHcO1/s1600/the+grace+and+hope+mission.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigSlVPqzm1hgapcYbtpOeSmrvSeBEcXaUBM9GsFDLtflG5Dq8iNKyCAU4GSe3CHeeeiEPqUBYoqyuUaqwGBmF45VrYgPasnfeTvYGLYt4rfleyCDn8_m5MW80Zusf6Lb1qXXVR95lBHcO1/s320/the+grace+and+hope+mission.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583911972674025730" border="0" /></a>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-52039309159869124402011-03-12T09:44:00.011-05:002011-03-12T10:08:51.076-05:00Dupont Superior 2 test<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6X2GaL3udDcxUFjnxMY6U1vSKps7t6X0OGVRYVMlwJ5Mte3d2qwF2OYIwBT6mmu7pgzerL_iV1CIm4RpYgZppim5RnmfsJXJxO6Yflhixzjsg_CSolnuYZTTDPKMzcbr0ecZMFsHLIWvR/s1600/superior+2.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 112px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6X2GaL3udDcxUFjnxMY6U1vSKps7t6X0OGVRYVMlwJ5Mte3d2qwF2OYIwBT6mmu7pgzerL_iV1CIm4RpYgZppim5RnmfsJXJxO6Yflhixzjsg_CSolnuYZTTDPKMzcbr0ecZMFsHLIWvR/s200/superior+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583205842383199730" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7V1dh8FLw3PT80PU-CrBe545OpAU0L_OQpITk8dFe2GkSwSkLPK6C_aqDp90HI3Kx5ZLtQci4Yr_EBHxuF7ddLRU6nUYexbmxsMxIvRWUCWuzYsv7-iENj1DU0fCKXIVXeAPAMcHu1bcr/s1600/tripod.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 155px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7V1dh8FLw3PT80PU-CrBe545OpAU0L_OQpITk8dFe2GkSwSkLPK6C_aqDp90HI3Kx5ZLtQci4Yr_EBHxuF7ddLRU6nUYexbmxsMxIvRWUCWuzYsv7-iENj1DU0fCKXIVXeAPAMcHu1bcr/s200/tripod.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583205624511342386" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7gJNY-ekDwAPHXVt6ISNq3vNhQQuhZ6t9WgNiGIl4PHae-KZendoB_UVxFOUbao3y4TqnYIf0f2ErrqmvoH6jWmqMh_p-mGTVBchDjsKYEXvzj6zTiPgIFzb7tayeE5c8TohV4LSrlITU/s1600/805.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 137px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7gJNY-ekDwAPHXVt6ISNq3vNhQQuhZ6t9WgNiGIl4PHae-KZendoB_UVxFOUbao3y4TqnYIf0f2ErrqmvoH6jWmqMh_p-mGTVBchDjsKYEXvzj6zTiPgIFzb7tayeE5c8TohV4LSrlITU/s200/805.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583205546999550450" border="0" /></a>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!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSPvS3iV8QCcwtdHztcsGKojNKlUH1fPDrOMOdCb6-TLOkvW2bctucW65os-d8peMxmD5CW21gotOE30G3hKD_Ak-SjepPQR9GkI8aZ0PYhgH9ax_HhhD0o3000ZYdeQIqPapylHio-W3j/s1600/bunwarmer.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 286px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSPvS3iV8QCcwtdHztcsGKojNKlUH1fPDrOMOdCb6-TLOkvW2bctucW65os-d8peMxmD5CW21gotOE30G3hKD_Ak-SjepPQR9GkI8aZ0PYhgH9ax_HhhD0o3000ZYdeQIqPapylHio-W3j/s320/bunwarmer.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583205362257346738" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />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.<br /><br />A sampling of some of the other test shots appears below:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhunxpuv9DrCrk1UpCwBd2zKBlAiCeVilN4v_D_llsjmV42HUOsFISszbFel-oSaIKL_pRqhWl0e9ODNTheiYImxtFyvqntHkGESl82M8Ru259dBA3vDEFjlmTUvSFhxrzkl8oO_70rulZH/s1600/willy.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 249px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhunxpuv9DrCrk1UpCwBd2zKBlAiCeVilN4v_D_llsjmV42HUOsFISszbFel-oSaIKL_pRqhWl0e9ODNTheiYImxtFyvqntHkGESl82M8Ru259dBA3vDEFjlmTUvSFhxrzkl8oO_70rulZH/s320/willy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583205180808737250" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiotsjAbPIARJONAjrkoTqMjEJUsJz8rtD6husm8-0cP2FiiTMTDOrBQJwNsryO6HZ4FbY8pxzvArKkeMB8v-qn_zZ6JGptmgxumHqQEsoAPhEQ3XbjRp9vub6v1cPCCvHBZum_T_KPtykx/s1600/out+front.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 281px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiotsjAbPIARJONAjrkoTqMjEJUsJz8rtD6husm8-0cP2FiiTMTDOrBQJwNsryO6HZ4FbY8pxzvArKkeMB8v-qn_zZ6JGptmgxumHqQEsoAPhEQ3XbjRp9vub6v1cPCCvHBZum_T_KPtykx/s320/out+front.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583205084984107906" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdY-6ZMvgThV20U5G4Oslpdq0MuaDEVUc__dfabqhQ29Mz8N3WyrRV_dvRg7s3iHBuoNjiTsy4j2r3D-Xe6cBDEUslYJzlqqpDFTd-zn1B5nY-T7tn0BmAWPQ47UcvBLugmd2MknkBUWTL/s1600/io+in+the+house.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdY-6ZMvgThV20U5G4Oslpdq0MuaDEVUc__dfabqhQ29Mz8N3WyrRV_dvRg7s3iHBuoNjiTsy4j2r3D-Xe6cBDEUslYJzlqqpDFTd-zn1B5nY-T7tn0BmAWPQ47UcvBLugmd2MknkBUWTL/s320/io+in+the+house.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583205034521262562" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_O5n3PHiq70WjD_sAQMDIQa-ZLFvEexvl_YxnZfsWFqJCxWI20JpXBwwWezO9N0J3GyLAOXV-DrxujODSwkXkQLnubPryx_uViHRtrVwOljjfq_yJ2ehnSCThUI_9nhaEw2yfd_daM2aP/s1600/shutter+release.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 277px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_O5n3PHiq70WjD_sAQMDIQa-ZLFvEexvl_YxnZfsWFqJCxWI20JpXBwwWezO9N0J3GyLAOXV-DrxujODSwkXkQLnubPryx_uViHRtrVwOljjfq_yJ2ehnSCThUI_9nhaEw2yfd_daM2aP/s320/shutter+release.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583204955748931778" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLApE14vlTNJr-EdmJuWtkbhUPc5yEWGdPoiCOPf6k6dV9-VwJ55yj69E0wLxc7-hygW5TqOtXO2zhr7R2tjeH7B7BhfQsySpvvn6IiTPTBZH3SnAE4V-lh1uzrknXM_obf48uWVVYXZUd/s1600/chalk.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 262px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLApE14vlTNJr-EdmJuWtkbhUPc5yEWGdPoiCOPf6k6dV9-VwJ55yj69E0wLxc7-hygW5TqOtXO2zhr7R2tjeH7B7BhfQsySpvvn6IiTPTBZH3SnAE4V-lh1uzrknXM_obf48uWVVYXZUd/s320/chalk.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583204865552955154" border="0" /></a>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-23778029312222542082011-03-12T09:42:00.002-05:002011-03-12T09:44:18.882-05:00something I just can't resist. . .<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZmCqON-gPqHf9G3qpCdfUd5KaSKeeQ6NBTvA0mnN2mnITaXU3kmLpyXgxriLQ0rlgd5M3xnxwXjtbms-_1FEsdP7wqqazTQaSsUzUJyXoC3EPBK46tm_M0TRSmWi2YlD9PWz35-L3r3FM/s1600/infrared.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 399px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZmCqON-gPqHf9G3qpCdfUd5KaSKeeQ6NBTvA0mnN2mnITaXU3kmLpyXgxriLQ0rlgd5M3xnxwXjtbms-_1FEsdP7wqqazTQaSsUzUJyXoC3EPBK46tm_M0TRSmWi2YlD9PWz35-L3r3FM/s400/infrared.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583204305067939554" border="0" /></a>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-63155077292909607472011-03-09T11:51:00.007-05:002011-03-09T12:36:26.987-05:00The End not yet<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Z7aD4TLoEG09kwm4WPehb5EoedzYWXOkyyJ31EivYMjamhIEWCl79TiXiip6OH3EX055UI3iXQKHVnfriq-KPFieiIppn0zaXGSdtOGUdXDqbpIyCw1amDTa-0jw1NDmkiuphguYOej3/s1600/these+three.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 127px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Z7aD4TLoEG09kwm4WPehb5EoedzYWXOkyyJ31EivYMjamhIEWCl79TiXiip6OH3EX055UI3iXQKHVnfriq-KPFieiIppn0zaXGSdtOGUdXDqbpIyCw1amDTa-0jw1NDmkiuphguYOej3/s200/these+three.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582125072935404674" border="0" /></a>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.]<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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?<br /><br />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? <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-65861311103405578942011-02-26T14:49:00.013-05:002011-02-26T17:56:58.062-05:00things for which one pays way too much<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrTdsBJK5dtMwEpOGgo08OoYHxZj3r2zodV02QlqgofzOnEb_ZDhGOZbh57x8_144_y2mRlHQYRRmPVCQ7VdqchNxo1Luy9Ms1Xzt5aPyK6mpF1ALNxyeohBpHUNjKZ8jKTCcHahsQuV-q/s1600/gralab.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrTdsBJK5dtMwEpOGgo08OoYHxZj3r2zodV02QlqgofzOnEb_ZDhGOZbh57x8_144_y2mRlHQYRRmPVCQ7VdqchNxo1Luy9Ms1Xzt5aPyK6mpF1ALNxyeohBpHUNjKZ8jKTCcHahsQuV-q/s200/gralab.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578090384572509570" border="0" /></a><br />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.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYo9kQ5K5Ad6K9YE-QQvr5HNHOliomfV18oDVy-Lh6xuYkyKkGmJZ607qItSNiRZn-iOt_rMZ0utFYbuApBAKq4W_mqelVvCXXrdwVmekTj7x0RD8LIMaOe1zsa_enw4tGJIG-K9RwF5dI/s1600/too+much.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYo9kQ5K5Ad6K9YE-QQvr5HNHOliomfV18oDVy-Lh6xuYkyKkGmJZ607qItSNiRZn-iOt_rMZ0utFYbuApBAKq4W_mqelVvCXXrdwVmekTj7x0RD8LIMaOe1zsa_enw4tGJIG-K9RwF5dI/s200/too+much.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578090245801202610" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRJuL8Xm_3qlY5SvLt5SSmsNChJ33v1l90imzEYPJaF1jvcLpAse42jSaVE7UsR06Lt_EKMhnKeStx6vDfG_m4j_a0LoloWKnxqLHYJTiwV8ZdnqN9QSmvX28xC5WJtTqtOSVLGNUZfn1K/s1600/measured.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 126px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRJuL8Xm_3qlY5SvLt5SSmsNChJ33v1l90imzEYPJaF1jvcLpAse42jSaVE7UsR06Lt_EKMhnKeStx6vDfG_m4j_a0LoloWKnxqLHYJTiwV8ZdnqN9QSmvX28xC5WJtTqtOSVLGNUZfn1K/s200/measured.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578090133389153410" border="0" /></a>Okay. So maybe this stuff shouldn't have been <span style="font-style: italic;">free</span>. 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.]<br /><br />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 "<span style="font-style: italic;">that </span>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.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2jW-N-ta9lpQiHKUyoK-QABhugHTnLgnsyzg88wEptyqKfuWIo8f1c8bXgPkVbdQ6SEq__l0wvSxoJa0LeZBvOB8VSM_GQU0djvjvwld6fm_0_dZkyTCMhFPgcbVfrws90FR22pg_FYi5/s1600/carnival.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 126px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2jW-N-ta9lpQiHKUyoK-QABhugHTnLgnsyzg88wEptyqKfuWIo8f1c8bXgPkVbdQ6SEq__l0wvSxoJa0LeZBvOB8VSM_GQU0djvjvwld6fm_0_dZkyTCMhFPgcbVfrws90FR22pg_FYi5/s200/carnival.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578090020376148306" border="0" /></a>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.remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-59664542534186023262011-02-16T14:36:00.014-05:002011-02-16T15:50:11.137-05:00testing papers<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEKVXGqIFv9eD7Fr4dSYeAc8vjTqfl952tV447xZORFa08GAP2C4rRcGO2FxdOqQRfQ4ffIqg2GP4dbykNL6OhuEin4_wVvAZdnZgUq616RIYFMlVk-0JCkkZe1Yo1njkqXVBEuNfd1GUE/s1600/new+paper+2.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 112px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEKVXGqIFv9eD7Fr4dSYeAc8vjTqfl952tV447xZORFa08GAP2C4rRcGO2FxdOqQRfQ4ffIqg2GP4dbykNL6OhuEin4_wVvAZdnZgUq616RIYFMlVk-0JCkkZe1Yo1njkqXVBEuNfd1GUE/s200/new+paper+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574376035210720738" border="0" /></a>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!]<br /><br />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. . . <br /><br />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 <span style="font-style: italic;">questionably-sealed</span> boxes of expired Agfa-Gevaert Portriga-Rapid paper (11x14", 50 sheets); two <span style="font-style: italic;">questionably-sealed</span> boxes of expired Agfa-Gevaert Brovira paper (11x14", 50 sheets), and one <span style="font-style: italic;">definitely-not-sealed</span> 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) <span style="font-style: italic;">the flipping local thrift store</span>(!!!!), 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.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJgzrjNxaJ6A2lUJ0idpco1TakAlPPFTP5vVHmBLU6p_o2b520w4mVFWmfDmP0X8ME4AiEPgjXdurv-teXHHtZ5CbusYuAEe0-sFmEillcQMQyMwgiwLe7oWXY_CvpdMjA19VUfGBkAHPN/s1600/brovira+batch+double+single+copy.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 127px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJgzrjNxaJ6A2lUJ0idpco1TakAlPPFTP5vVHmBLU6p_o2b520w4mVFWmfDmP0X8ME4AiEPgjXdurv-teXHHtZ5CbusYuAEe0-sFmEillcQMQyMwgiwLe7oWXY_CvpdMjA19VUfGBkAHPN/s320/brovira+batch+double+single+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574375555211032786" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />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.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaDudFcHo66dGp5ajz9rB_9zSW-gstroXOz2yJvN7DEa7Doq9u1dJ1Ezvea74qRLX9t-D6SAgMpmbBERtT7Xj1RdYsCzri0zq94fNbUVZ3Jt3lXIQV8E4I-tN-twwVeEL99fANjyVNuIfy/s1600/Portriga-Rapid.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 157px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaDudFcHo66dGp5ajz9rB_9zSW-gstroXOz2yJvN7DEa7Doq9u1dJ1Ezvea74qRLX9t-D6SAgMpmbBERtT7Xj1RdYsCzri0zq94fNbUVZ3Jt3lXIQV8E4I-tN-twwVeEL99fANjyVNuIfy/s200/Portriga-Rapid.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574375052767653170" border="0" /></a>During that same testing session, we made some paper negatives with one of the questionably-sealed boxes of Portriga-Rapid paper<br />(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.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGzt4hMdSoocR8K_T2BS8Lpw65uX813gASQUj7DJrGQOR53kgc4ySGN0W_3jLmGl2oV6AfnUWXz31qJAaK1sZrpUHMYZdYzAGLza1D9nfe3CSiMDejvIxFc7znpZhJvqqAnvBzPmZBuB5w/s1600/panalure+dave.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 162px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGzt4hMdSoocR8K_T2BS8Lpw65uX813gASQUj7DJrGQOR53kgc4ySGN0W_3jLmGl2oV6AfnUWXz31qJAaK1sZrpUHMYZdYzAGLza1D9nfe3CSiMDejvIxFc7znpZhJvqqAnvBzPmZBuB5w/s200/panalure+dave.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574374926611989746" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-46843450309948765752011-02-16T08:46:00.013-05:002011-02-16T10:07:07.153-05:00a bad case of G.A.S.?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcoE97VQal1VAdh20wurdjwtkr4_T3zn1Cb0CKI73sC9fTZXb6jgqgJy0B8KygWdWgYKSMPYWz-tFhOHQluLHG6yHIayYDU6xKONsDKX8yV-d4EDgtD-nM2PeHnxxs58kYFBA-tCiWjiSD/s1600/new+enlarger+2.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 112px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcoE97VQal1VAdh20wurdjwtkr4_T3zn1Cb0CKI73sC9fTZXb6jgqgJy0B8KygWdWgYKSMPYWz-tFhOHQluLHG6yHIayYDU6xKONsDKX8yV-d4EDgtD-nM2PeHnxxs58kYFBA-tCiWjiSD/s200/new+enlarger+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574286152736883858" border="0" /></a>I was just getting comfortable with <span style="font-style: italic;">but a fraction</span> of what the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5345545103/in/set-72157606058308254/">Omega B22 enlarger</a> (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 <i>objet d’art</i>) 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.<br /><br />But here's the real deal: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/camerajunkie/">One of the many</a> 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.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivrrZfVPkjKW0PF3mvcFLMvGvs-NTDVqA7CNWCukL6oWK5Xz0QWysYTCf8rpAabfP_ZlFPfClmEdgQ2_B-OcBd4olyNmp1uEscrP4YlRxSCj6j7aRo0jfyFT-ViHEb7sU9WBBS4ksAJDB7/s1600/crown+graphic+copy.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 172px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivrrZfVPkjKW0PF3mvcFLMvGvs-NTDVqA7CNWCukL6oWK5Xz0QWysYTCf8rpAabfP_ZlFPfClmEdgQ2_B-OcBd4olyNmp1uEscrP4YlRxSCj6j7aRo0jfyFT-ViHEb7sU9WBBS4ksAJDB7/s200/crown+graphic+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574285641348898402" border="0" /></a>Case in point: I was just kinda-sorted getting comfortable with what my (not-so-newly-acquired) <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5437432508/">Zero Image 45 pinhole</a> 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.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu69WXgudRVRFkwB4B7pMMPFR9sqXId1ZeVKC-nCOE6hMhUi_sv2rlqx9H82niT2Lc04GoTByYntXzW7pGUg7adhbVmHAR4zCO9XpQho0S1uJlANS26NHtwXC1xp8rOr9gmYmPn8TMPLfo/s1600/8x10+pinhole.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 140px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu69WXgudRVRFkwB4B7pMMPFR9sqXId1ZeVKC-nCOE6hMhUi_sv2rlqx9H82niT2Lc04GoTByYntXzW7pGUg7adhbVmHAR4zCO9XpQho0S1uJlANS26NHtwXC1xp8rOr9gmYmPn8TMPLfo/s200/8x10+pinhole.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5574285161409145026" border="0" /></a>. . .oh yes. and this too. I was just kinda-sorta getting comfortable with the potentials of the <a href="http://ontheprocess.blogspot.com/2011/02/oatmeal-redux.html">revamped oatmeal pinhole cam</a> 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.]<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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:<br /><br />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.]<br />2. learn how to make contact prints (or positives) from the paper negatives I've been making<br />3. mix more Dektol [I've been going through this pretty quickly with all the paper negatives I've been making]<br />4. experiment with various techniques for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_print_toning">toning prints</a> [I've acquired but not yet found time to work with different kinds of toning chemicals]<br />5. experiment with making <a href="http://www.lithprint.com/">lith prints</a><br />6. experiment with various techniques for <span style="font-style: italic;">successfully</span> achieving the <a href="http://pworkshop.tripod.com/sabattier.htm">sabattier effect</a> [I've <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5364066320/">experimented a bit</a> 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]<br />7. familiarize myself with the new enlarger [the most daunting prospect on the list]<br />8. familiarize myself further with the Crown Graphic and making 4x5 film negatives [I've admittedly been in <a href="http://ontheprocess.blogspot.com/2011/01/on-making-paper-negatives-pt-1.html">paper-negative-making mode</a>]<br />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]<br />10. familiarize myself further with the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5399659814/in/set-72157606058308254/">new 4x5 developing tank</a><br />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]remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-44431663746765939492011-02-07T10:13:00.015-05:002011-02-07T11:17:14.593-05:00the learning curve<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVJX6TVmJcReS1pCE17Pc2C233NiA7IrWQKKSnrwqaQN7FxIJ6lVWwS6GHUHPG4lYnU6RoMTFw4bnHvMRx4FQozK7HQsXYE5G8UdHW_KEB5METf9M3E0ruyNIis8Nem4TfhiNHxQiv3-j5/s1600/1st+negs.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 112px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVJX6TVmJcReS1pCE17Pc2C233NiA7IrWQKKSnrwqaQN7FxIJ6lVWwS6GHUHPG4lYnU6RoMTFw4bnHvMRx4FQozK7HQsXYE5G8UdHW_KEB5METf9M3E0ruyNIis8Nem4TfhiNHxQiv3-j5/s200/1st+negs.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570967370563543714" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><br />I developed <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5424564031/">my first 4x5 negatives</a> 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 <span style="font-style: italic;">feel</span>."<br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/2729100997/">developing film</a> taken in <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/sets/72157606058308254/">100+ 35mm and 120 cameras</a>, 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Certainly, I had had a lot of guidance, and with this, practice loading the film holders, thanks to visual/verbal resources <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikOI1XLBxqA">such as this</a> and the time I've spent working with <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5422895457/">paper negatives</a>. 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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: <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv5nBjsi5dbB27t9n9hIilPK-jkz6co88EGXCsS1WTR8zZts6mGOth6pHsdsmOD9rV-bsYJbB1kFuSxI-uz_XNvG_IuxIaeAuWWlvgXws6mJ5pMXZJJFSevke70NDtzpqEIt3GrH9nSfIz/s1600/tank.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 112px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv5nBjsi5dbB27t9n9hIilPK-jkz6co88EGXCsS1WTR8zZts6mGOth6pHsdsmOD9rV-bsYJbB1kFuSxI-uz_XNvG_IuxIaeAuWWlvgXws6mJ5pMXZJJFSevke70NDtzpqEIt3GrH9nSfIz/s200/tank.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570966862598844674" border="0" /></a><br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/sets/72157623907405375/">all those wonderful negatives of Carl and Nancy</a>. 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.<br /><br />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.]<br /><br />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 <span style="font-style: italic;">actually practiced</span> filling the tank, measuring out chemicals, getting a feel for the agitation process, <span style="font-style: italic;">and </span>pouring chemicals back out of the tank before my first real run.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-2110207573693964222011-02-07T08:28:00.018-05:002011-02-07T09:01:47.307-05:00oatmeal redux<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEo4WZkkGPesdzAF17iNqq36WmiRH6C_EYqFYUuYDCp93qtzJAxjk76hn4Lp60HFHCJ90Dmtwn8rN8iphpHQmFzm_VCb5CTKcRbSz4mUMJ9Gqf3DTsjmMITUJChi0e3U6vJdLBUOZKmCSr/s1600/oatmeal+before+and+after+copy.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 148px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEo4WZkkGPesdzAF17iNqq36WmiRH6C_EYqFYUuYDCp93qtzJAxjk76hn4Lp60HFHCJ90Dmtwn8rN8iphpHQmFzm_VCb5CTKcRbSz4mUMJ9Gqf3DTsjmMITUJChi0e3U6vJdLBUOZKmCSr/s200/oatmeal+before+and+after+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570940812519998274" border="0" /></a>Ahhh. What a difference a little patience, a bit of reflective thinking, a few minutes and a <span style="font-style: italic;">whole lot</span> 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.<br /><br />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.]<br /><br />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!<br /><br />As a reminder, here were some of my first results. [<a href="http://ontheprocess.blogspot.com/2011/01/oatmeal-pinhole-test-no-bueno.html">no bueno</a>] <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJKN7Ox73ouno3IMAmP9lGFwGwm8UtdoA-TptZ-ErgoJtf2C4Hrsh_pd74cKdWt2QJSnxZuJTQJXqELM32peZtG87uRQprBKnzuOTPKJ1yhc_FsEbd9GBhs3fNqJLrQOjjyGWE9rHEdBvH/s1600/post+fix+5+min+2.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 218px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJKN7Ox73ouno3IMAmP9lGFwGwm8UtdoA-TptZ-ErgoJtf2C4Hrsh_pd74cKdWt2QJSnxZuJTQJXqELM32peZtG87uRQprBKnzuOTPKJ1yhc_FsEbd9GBhs3fNqJLrQOjjyGWE9rHEdBvH/s320/post+fix+5+min+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570940657115701458" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRljV4DIpEABj9PMZfxbjRiKwEHRSvmoM126av7Syr0tMqbDZBPDVlVNG1ld_SEYiWvga4yIBgLR-qgpzw1HF-X_mNvhRNgGWMCld3abezQL0aCGK-o5jEhptL1G-UyoTmBmXiOQ8WWSF9/s1600/chris+and+d+45+sec.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRljV4DIpEABj9PMZfxbjRiKwEHRSvmoM126av7Syr0tMqbDZBPDVlVNG1ld_SEYiWvga4yIBgLR-qgpzw1HF-X_mNvhRNgGWMCld3abezQL0aCGK-o5jEhptL1G-UyoTmBmXiOQ8WWSF9/s320/chris+and+d+45+sec.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570940422985856306" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />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.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQLdn4QjFMa6K28MPliKt-oz_rtyDT7ZY6WVT5GFW3qtx3KU7nBu-tNASh9HCNVtoDmSj1ts-up8QDc9myrN2ZcedxaKI2nBcjC13apjoopK40RUIcGMSlDb_yM_T5W8DRAr5x-4oD9ryw/s1600/viaduct+side+by+side+copy.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 113px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQLdn4QjFMa6K28MPliKt-oz_rtyDT7ZY6WVT5GFW3qtx3KU7nBu-tNASh9HCNVtoDmSj1ts-up8QDc9myrN2ZcedxaKI2nBcjC13apjoopK40RUIcGMSlDb_yM_T5W8DRAr5x-4oD9ryw/s320/viaduct+side+by+side+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570939827182325170" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I especially love working with the curved film plane. The Zero Image 45 also <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5396730080/">results</a> 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!<br /><br />By way of example, here is a sampling of some of yesterday's shots. All images were taken on 5x7 sheets of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5388006785/in/set-72157606058308254/">Ilford Multigrade RC Express paper</a> (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.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOrKxELcqeUZ-nNEz90G_6Zi_fYrWt5yIY_aH9Ic5_6eTrmH8r3oY-nvBA4VWfZLTKPsxKXn6oFqJ9wgdDc-11LbyIn94PaEC8XHR5LKzVgF91uuHB-tUs0T5N7q1eCAWkNB-OI-3IuSKf/s1600/viaduct.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 230px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOrKxELcqeUZ-nNEz90G_6Zi_fYrWt5yIY_aH9Ic5_6eTrmH8r3oY-nvBA4VWfZLTKPsxKXn6oFqJ9wgdDc-11LbyIn94PaEC8XHR5LKzVgF91uuHB-tUs0T5N7q1eCAWkNB-OI-3IuSKf/s320/viaduct.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570939690129847570" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyAdB8QQ0xQMqqAgSdr9xJJnX-3HuBTQ_Vm_UHReh9U5Ufebn6-O222mCW7Rb5td0HiMQN4JGnfe8SBxnm9I5GjZOJU3AuB3ulVgBtPmGWX6sv8fqDnuN5mu_S_pwogoSHrZydBxd5Qg46/s1600/cameras+and+keys.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 227px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyAdB8QQ0xQMqqAgSdr9xJJnX-3HuBTQ_Vm_UHReh9U5Ufebn6-O222mCW7Rb5td0HiMQN4JGnfe8SBxnm9I5GjZOJU3AuB3ulVgBtPmGWX6sv8fqDnuN5mu_S_pwogoSHrZydBxd5Qg46/s320/cameras+and+keys.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570939606846398418" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV3nyTGQKX1NuwnpTiWAPzBn4AqVXVEoaGtocbCXoaJKGH4MRbSMtxaHtSmjCQAwqAz_dVFpQpBPNthAVUSXabIfineO8VSE4doEwwoAjyjskpn7uJqUgA-ZG5msLZswVL9WSf9fmix8kH/s1600/tunnel+positive.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV3nyTGQKX1NuwnpTiWAPzBn4AqVXVEoaGtocbCXoaJKGH4MRbSMtxaHtSmjCQAwqAz_dVFpQpBPNthAVUSXabIfineO8VSE4doEwwoAjyjskpn7uJqUgA-ZG5msLZswVL9WSf9fmix8kH/s320/tunnel+positive.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570939548580321282" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQCzXpX818DNWcfvVGwI4EOgtaEftJftVH9364pPRQn1rzFVoFzZnBdXIFodl1Ut67cNJZrNdtsWX7LfzDfLWeA1cuE3LeSwTlVgiC_h74Gdu9g5WOUYDrOokrQ_Q35rSzquFlWUBtOaKw/s1600/phone+positive.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQCzXpX818DNWcfvVGwI4EOgtaEftJftVH9364pPRQn1rzFVoFzZnBdXIFodl1Ut67cNJZrNdtsWX7LfzDfLWeA1cuE3LeSwTlVgiC_h74Gdu9g5WOUYDrOokrQ_Q35rSzquFlWUBtOaKw/s320/phone+positive.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570939478250502786" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy4Cs7xIRsuYDeXuBrEghZsRizA3SmUiGJ98p7YzkWQFgO6TFJ9WFXYCDiUdzBGH15QROcXhbfMSKaeC5pf96vbwze0vLIt4-zEmzKwiF2sKLOpLyaq7wxSzOIWBDP0HVFR08T-B8HdbIL/s1600/chris+and+d+positive.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy4Cs7xIRsuYDeXuBrEghZsRizA3SmUiGJ98p7YzkWQFgO6TFJ9WFXYCDiUdzBGH15QROcXhbfMSKaeC5pf96vbwze0vLIt4-zEmzKwiF2sKLOpLyaq7wxSzOIWBDP0HVFR08T-B8HdbIL/s320/chris+and+d+positive.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570939402397711730" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgIWFu8dSfGj3CeC6t_Ud6E9Zftr7ipr6ZGmdgZcNPBqyU6iabiOzWhLljayBqUxGu20VRNa9Cb-mK_DEG61ZzWvQQE-eQ57yY_zmP68SBFazrprWNvqQhzgUOLYlxMdl543lfjLvA3jte/s1600/lenses.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 226px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgIWFu8dSfGj3CeC6t_Ud6E9Zftr7ipr6ZGmdgZcNPBqyU6iabiOzWhLljayBqUxGu20VRNa9Cb-mK_DEG61ZzWvQQE-eQ57yY_zmP68SBFazrprWNvqQhzgUOLYlxMdl543lfjLvA3jte/s320/lenses.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570939348442486498" border="0" /></a>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-640204428409791332011-02-05T06:41:00.008-05:002011-02-05T06:58:57.210-05:00while you were out. . .<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPUBtqukotFXUXWjiRExbQrgg-QQOXafPa01ZVrxF7NSvJyPn8OQSeh69uKxXY2M3_rDkK-NBgvdo-CWT9Dc4tcj0vGf6ojLlKTYHT_esJNC4wNOgJBsPKWkiKHqieClnpJHJJopGtVWFT/s1600/office+2+crop.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 166px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPUBtqukotFXUXWjiRExbQrgg-QQOXafPa01ZVrxF7NSvJyPn8OQSeh69uKxXY2M3_rDkK-NBgvdo-CWT9Dc4tcj0vGf6ojLlKTYHT_esJNC4wNOgJBsPKWkiKHqieClnpJHJJopGtVWFT/s200/office+2+crop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570170109365116802" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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! <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia22Hurpr-tA9cuVliSOvrWPDkLJCbV17BL7yx-wcb-L4bctRSW0BB-rT4kWeJoU900lJ5z2RPGTUrGYJZmqmp1xtzL-SfO0M_1qkoPFJ3h4k0M4vATC70tnGMf0JjS9iLPon26pCSlKgd/s1600/office+1+3+20+crop.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 306px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia22Hurpr-tA9cuVliSOvrWPDkLJCbV17BL7yx-wcb-L4bctRSW0BB-rT4kWeJoU900lJ5z2RPGTUrGYJZmqmp1xtzL-SfO0M_1qkoPFJ3h4k0M4vATC70tnGMf0JjS9iLPon26pCSlKgd/s320/office+1+3+20+crop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570170041819369762" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiev3sylJAl_XXXCFmP44W1eBHwytR18dD16rUIsfGT52TDhA3J7Fr65uqbR86o8dS0j6ln1Y3KxJowqKx2eDuoy6immlxzPSA22QfOTiki_tY2aHvpBI5Od-6ExbeHgz13GZXrqICTx_6z/s1600/where+you+lead+crop.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 298px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiev3sylJAl_XXXCFmP44W1eBHwytR18dD16rUIsfGT52TDhA3J7Fr65uqbR86o8dS0j6ln1Y3KxJowqKx2eDuoy6immlxzPSA22QfOTiki_tY2aHvpBI5Od-6ExbeHgz13GZXrqICTx_6z/s320/where+you+lead+crop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570169917354740834" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ4lbi_1t5Wo2y9eTLvzldQc6DKeAoS_6LDBkc1xzul4JIJ-J-kv-ULkmT8zxnvPxxQTqmmEwD23PWXhiGlwx03YV29FDMMV5GRxADYX-8zTwHUy52JQzlecI1w1tTQBfiOYP86wE6NV9N/s1600/tunnel+2+crop.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 260px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ4lbi_1t5Wo2y9eTLvzldQc6DKeAoS_6LDBkc1xzul4JIJ-J-kv-ULkmT8zxnvPxxQTqmmEwD23PWXhiGlwx03YV29FDMMV5GRxADYX-8zTwHUy52JQzlecI1w1tTQBfiOYP86wE6NV9N/s320/tunnel+2+crop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570169797886832002" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK13TbrDLS8LvUYtF_Kk1a-Kzhmo5TbfT2RV2PDT2tCfRYE_e3vDd0XtfEh3sD7JGNaoNsKOW8Kn4bCwajpjtgfV1NydsfaRIpZ5RZoWQ2aB3tnDam1VSulJdtidmmsr2wow2aAaVrvCiR/s1600/fav+place.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 255px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK13TbrDLS8LvUYtF_Kk1a-Kzhmo5TbfT2RV2PDT2tCfRYE_e3vDd0XtfEh3sD7JGNaoNsKOW8Kn4bCwajpjtgfV1NydsfaRIpZ5RZoWQ2aB3tnDam1VSulJdtidmmsr2wow2aAaVrvCiR/s320/fav+place.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570169687104207474" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6s3K5Un4C3aFuGs4PjmgvuwW3oy97EpxBQge-vlhnitNg_wgFOFVFsvxBSX0T25DzF-5qaaJ8vlOpTJ9u8aDUrQKcWZroPWXuiPBSQ3bdQQJ2-LiUsoagehyphenhyphenY0qpKXO-SsaqZawxi3xdR/s1600/inside.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 248px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6s3K5Un4C3aFuGs4PjmgvuwW3oy97EpxBQge-vlhnitNg_wgFOFVFsvxBSX0T25DzF-5qaaJ8vlOpTJ9u8aDUrQKcWZroPWXuiPBSQ3bdQQJ2-LiUsoagehyphenhyphenY0qpKXO-SsaqZawxi3xdR/s320/inside.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570169611714087234" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3MjRsF5Fg17atz9n_NfrbHdUbLMKcPSbpxDrKkI0Z3OgnJiuPO_982EqJbjyCDEG0muemHHFgGYuVQG5BjcoxAkt-9k3DB_Cebnf_O1PBfY21hXDKJK1wYw8-MpI-DQDcpVF9v6e7d8Ri/s1600/fence.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 308px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3MjRsF5Fg17atz9n_NfrbHdUbLMKcPSbpxDrKkI0Z3OgnJiuPO_982EqJbjyCDEG0muemHHFgGYuVQG5BjcoxAkt-9k3DB_Cebnf_O1PBfY21hXDKJK1wYw8-MpI-DQDcpVF9v6e7d8Ri/s320/fence.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570169513730843122" border="0" /></a>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-32443610450976717992011-01-31T08:38:00.015-05:002011-01-31T09:40:05.057-05:00oatmeal pinhole test (no bueno)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZtVLYWgQo8PE9tUa9fqEuztFso54IqPNWfMMt3hpWdqf1mgPK9EeeOW-8xousK44jdPbyKlYw1tagCD6lgKpESCxUFpDAtO73VrsaAmh2663K1nPTIiRWrti6bNwf7EY2TFZXNaNAkezv/s1600/post+fix+neg+5+min.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 136px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZtVLYWgQo8PE9tUa9fqEuztFso54IqPNWfMMt3hpWdqf1mgPK9EeeOW-8xousK44jdPbyKlYw1tagCD6lgKpESCxUFpDAtO73VrsaAmh2663K1nPTIiRWrti6bNwf7EY2TFZXNaNAkezv/s200/post+fix+neg+5+min.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568345672695931058" border="0" /></a>I decided to dig out of storage the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/3124481599/">oatmeal pinhole camera</a> that I made in 2008 and test it out yesterday. I begin by saying that I was <span style="font-style: italic;">really </span>eager to test this camera--not only because I <span style="font-style: italic;">finally</span> 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE8FcwfB7Jjp9uJsnKbW6xyZUSHAU0wxRdUu9mTIvnEwxvpZnadCQg7yBzsmT_Stmz_b6ENUNpFMecnK85utIpfGO_x0oeb2pxq_Dcz-bfrBPzi0Pedrdhra0zYj5XzcBxsjrt-WBWrsVS/s1600/5+min+set+up+copy.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 111px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE8FcwfB7Jjp9uJsnKbW6xyZUSHAU0wxRdUu9mTIvnEwxvpZnadCQg7yBzsmT_Stmz_b6ENUNpFMecnK85utIpfGO_x0oeb2pxq_Dcz-bfrBPzi0Pedrdhra0zYj5XzcBxsjrt-WBWrsVS/s320/5+min+set+up+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568345508178115074" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvxrsGXkv2SdnqaEQ4Bpu2G-tz9A78RUA9cjd9nXe7syFcoAbhQ5ORp2VJVHYNofyEt0sahrfEDDpm9QWu0KdLQCvK7EThCB66HHe-vh9gGGX6prHpYNR5_lCZAtuYvptC9xnf_8YgWTa5/s1600/2nd+5+min+set+up+copy.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 82px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvxrsGXkv2SdnqaEQ4Bpu2G-tz9A78RUA9cjd9nXe7syFcoAbhQ5ORp2VJVHYNofyEt0sahrfEDDpm9QWu0KdLQCvK7EThCB66HHe-vh9gGGX6prHpYNR5_lCZAtuYvptC9xnf_8YgWTa5/s320/2nd+5+min+set+up+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568345294923115938" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I did have more success and much happier results working with the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5388006731/in/set-72157623195147364/">3-a folding brownie</a>. 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.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgddzoRf76Vkx-A2wyRijzcaBTmXIsS43DV-PrKnqpNI_DvnvUN7a0httc9pOdqpb_q3HNaX3LqYf_pgm9eFQQXi5CndFjbrY5FFSsL1pcnKoPz6PAOQlvwrnZE3y5vEwAxc5MJETkFlO_b/s1600/brownie+3a+1+min+f16+copy.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 154px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgddzoRf76Vkx-A2wyRijzcaBTmXIsS43DV-PrKnqpNI_DvnvUN7a0httc9pOdqpb_q3HNaX3LqYf_pgm9eFQQXi5CndFjbrY5FFSsL1pcnKoPz6PAOQlvwrnZE3y5vEwAxc5MJETkFlO_b/s320/brownie+3a+1+min+f16+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568345063712539554" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />A sampling of the oatmeal pinholes appears below. Listed beneath each image is the length of the exposure:<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZshlaaslJ057tEn3Al-fvT17BWIJrPCZo6gZfFn4QpZxtUl5wfGA3im5EvZsSqshZ987hRaDU0Y1Q_Cc5fi8yyZrcnliCmZCZkoDOGOORLxnkEXalMduvVo0T4_ejHMVLo6NxA6nIV5z/s1600/10+min.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 224px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZshlaaslJ057tEn3Al-fvT17BWIJrPCZo6gZfFn4QpZxtUl5wfGA3im5EvZsSqshZ987hRaDU0Y1Q_Cc5fi8yyZrcnliCmZCZkoDOGOORLxnkEXalMduvVo0T4_ejHMVLo6NxA6nIV5z/s320/10+min.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568344656248783346" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />10 minute exposure (indoors)<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZLs4BAr8Ejm7MqS85WgkmE_Z1s3o7NZC7Y5CeguqIA5FyZlYBqZdHvw5dEQtWgD3YRmISG0fxd1o26H_r-8GA5dogAlORUZbZTiGOUJ_lwyL0MmHW-zhKoBmsQJ95dMkba7I8ijmnm32V/s1600/chris+and+d+45+sec.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZLs4BAr8Ejm7MqS85WgkmE_Z1s3o7NZC7Y5CeguqIA5FyZlYBqZdHvw5dEQtWgD3YRmISG0fxd1o26H_r-8GA5dogAlORUZbZTiGOUJ_lwyL0MmHW-zhKoBmsQJ95dMkba7I8ijmnm32V/s320/chris+and+d+45+sec.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568344454388300194" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />45 second exposure<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYt1uKv8AP2Xnu60aaOptgaKs4Z_MSW2PIj9Agt_-WwZ6NPop30Gn9xFKzgEg_jW4dEdOBai4HpmXW7m86KBNzRBWkR6nEtsROLFtGLJwVDbWTWO5uKc31lHmgYnmb30lnkZLkAPKmNyHn/s1600/1+min.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 221px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYt1uKv8AP2Xnu60aaOptgaKs4Z_MSW2PIj9Agt_-WwZ6NPop30Gn9xFKzgEg_jW4dEdOBai4HpmXW7m86KBNzRBWkR6nEtsROLFtGLJwVDbWTWO5uKc31lHmgYnmb30lnkZLkAPKmNyHn/s320/1+min.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568344334879736434" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />60 second exposureremediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-40639074019567712392011-01-29T11:46:00.017-05:002011-01-29T13:27:02.215-05:00on making paper negatives (pt. 2)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYYzm5iXUQMtm60VzQ2mrtMrEr2UYuR9B-JZ9gafyNWuMO_LlEPhUD6-wAMTN72UHxsQhyphenhyphenM8Pa5ONk3l2YIZEivdOVCje1h6BooP37WidPcZsjMCaz3DUWjOCtZoBQKy856In4hCS9Bia-/s1600/polaroid+80s.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYYzm5iXUQMtm60VzQ2mrtMrEr2UYuR9B-JZ9gafyNWuMO_LlEPhUD6-wAMTN72UHxsQhyphenhyphenM8Pa5ONk3l2YIZEivdOVCje1h6BooP37WidPcZsjMCaz3DUWjOCtZoBQKy856In4hCS9Bia-/s200/polaroid+80s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567651718741027234" border="0" /></a>Part of the fun (and, indeed, <span style="font-style: italic;">challenge</span>) 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, <a href="http://www.cameratruck.net/Site/Landing.html">you can go extremely ginormous</a>, in fact. All right, so Cameratruck isn't technically a lens-less camera, but this is what I mean by big. . .<br /><br />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).<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxaSymnnskCY1aXxVz9BARe2KJ0gEkAsQP7LwEZsAAsFJL8We-QQsCE6QnuOEV7-xkm0joeHQppfZpY0METF_Fpn76tav6KfuoPk_Y2gCMlRfhkidPEeon1Eallpb9p5qJ9-euFa_DvOht/s1600/bulb.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 112px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxaSymnnskCY1aXxVz9BARe2KJ0gEkAsQP7LwEZsAAsFJL8We-QQsCE6QnuOEV7-xkm0joeHQppfZpY0METF_Fpn76tav6KfuoPk_Y2gCMlRfhkidPEeon1Eallpb9p5qJ9-euFa_DvOht/s200/bulb.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567651577339833890" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><br />But back to the good stuff: The film planes on these cameras--while not as big as those on my other <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/4299662687/in/set-72157606058308254/">Land Cameras</a>--are still generously enough sized to create decent negatives. As a matter of fact, Chris has found that if he cuts in half the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5398009267/">Kodabromide post-card photo paper</a> we recently acquired, it fits more or less perfectly inside the Polaroid 80. Yeah! No wasted paper!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfzWRz45sHzz4etzQs9BxdsC0DPApbappvLn8OGjMAayXhOGigZz4Jvgqvtm3fXXdRJSFGpi8uY1GfeyuUF1QEJU-hvHes43onOLKfoHN5M27SdXyl2_MrRXnZSbK8qggr4zskPAGJ5rpc/s1600/modify.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 112px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfzWRz45sHzz4etzQs9BxdsC0DPApbappvLn8OGjMAayXhOGigZz4Jvgqvtm3fXXdRJSFGpi8uY1GfeyuUF1QEJU-hvHes43onOLKfoHN5M27SdXyl2_MrRXnZSbK8qggr4zskPAGJ5rpc/s200/modify.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567651444886078482" border="0" /></a>For ease of loading, and <span style="font-style: italic;">perhaps more importantly</span>, 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.<br /><br />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 (<span style="font-style: italic;">or simply doable</span>) exposure times for creating <a href="http://ontheprocess.blogspot.com/2011/01/on-making-paper-negatives-pt-1.html">paper negatives made with the Zero Image 45</a>, Chris tried to get a sense of what exposure times and aperture settings work best for the Polaroids. <br /><br />A sampling of some of Chris' images appears below--most were approximately 3 second exposures with an EV of anywhere between 6-14.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8KKfz-_S6JUsM3yyi6U9IkFAwQQz6GhBJHi-PNfMnSb8uVffe-lY9dL5CT9ZOgkZdhC_lx6tj6z48A_63vnKVo2_sNnMmdAgHLo5f0tHnbuuWNW0mJNd0feN4GWHMOUTJhr7ZC501xok8/s1600/img383.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 234px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8KKfz-_S6JUsM3yyi6U9IkFAwQQz6GhBJHi-PNfMnSb8uVffe-lY9dL5CT9ZOgkZdhC_lx6tj6z48A_63vnKVo2_sNnMmdAgHLo5f0tHnbuuWNW0mJNd0feN4GWHMOUTJhr7ZC501xok8/s320/img383.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567651162218822706" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ6Lpi7175EjqMDnZYbUJ2hcX8864zaNpvXz38TaPJ-kQALRpp7MLDJNaMJtTEr_i6ngMG1cfawHG8FEeyfsWM_MqfY1dLLi3JZYxAdzH6_sHOexQhnfVdhmeDLT5nVFUlke3uBcZP-L4s/s1600/img380.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 226px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ6Lpi7175EjqMDnZYbUJ2hcX8864zaNpvXz38TaPJ-kQALRpp7MLDJNaMJtTEr_i6ngMG1cfawHG8FEeyfsWM_MqfY1dLLi3JZYxAdzH6_sHOexQhnfVdhmeDLT5nVFUlke3uBcZP-L4s/s320/img380.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567651101413694562" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidA2giQErQIEDME4YGq3JS2z0QTUUMJpjbE2kFBrAGOg_cplK2d7CvRHhDt7eNfkQ11A-6im_xNbtCFWS_02ckgagheuWrh1ZTjZB-FKvtt3yDGbJ95SPd2yy1GgdFZKcYaeoA_7Pu7Cqx/s1600/img374.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 234px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidA2giQErQIEDME4YGq3JS2z0QTUUMJpjbE2kFBrAGOg_cplK2d7CvRHhDt7eNfkQ11A-6im_xNbtCFWS_02ckgagheuWrh1ZTjZB-FKvtt3yDGbJ95SPd2yy1GgdFZKcYaeoA_7Pu7Cqx/s320/img374.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567650868053332978" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOwdWKrGEh7OQzXtnU8MP2gofpBkz4gmnTlvTGc2Uu94rqpLvot7yQX4RBG8wS5-PzYFrFhGDwYG5gIdSWhAniHcxtu56V_4WXNe7OmgHKDf5x3ykZh3VnQjd1iSTG2GAfRnA5OALH_nV/s1600/img376.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 226px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOwdWKrGEh7OQzXtnU8MP2gofpBkz4gmnTlvTGc2Uu94rqpLvot7yQX4RBG8wS5-PzYFrFhGDwYG5gIdSWhAniHcxtu56V_4WXNe7OmgHKDf5x3ykZh3VnQjd1iSTG2GAfRnA5OALH_nV/s320/img376.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567650787648848642" border="0" /></a>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2671052146175667111.post-68645035787549744112011-01-29T10:40:00.024-05:002011-01-30T07:17:35.115-05:00on making paper negatives (pt. 1)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyyPGdIki3V75rHOEQNld7suc8F5opZ63fCWNH97I2Txa4-n6lA4JsZCzXyCAcLwpx0myyxGZkTIzOcz69MyFfGw4wjDnMglRjZy9fIcButybD4WupvXRkUmja5LFYe1bvfz96jz-wEIIy/s1600/backyard.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 146px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyyPGdIki3V75rHOEQNld7suc8F5opZ63fCWNH97I2Txa4-n6lA4JsZCzXyCAcLwpx0myyxGZkTIzOcz69MyFfGw4wjDnMglRjZy9fIcButybD4WupvXRkUmja5LFYe1bvfz96jz-wEIIy/s200/backyard.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567638100169804002" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio84ft5fhFIPoAO1kLIqhEcV0-ErAJ-fZsvNIER7vueTJSLqcKNxLuVmLcZ-LxMPGEQ6gtietzgDI2xgGqY8BUPa5yAuUt2ZL4Ofv-nEIPRPdgKnFleWf_nmTsJfMbwUm8YTSWQxPLh6h2/s1600/oatmeal+pinhole.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 153px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio84ft5fhFIPoAO1kLIqhEcV0-ErAJ-fZsvNIER7vueTJSLqcKNxLuVmLcZ-LxMPGEQ6gtietzgDI2xgGqY8BUPa5yAuUt2ZL4Ofv-nEIPRPdgKnFleWf_nmTsJfMbwUm8YTSWQxPLh6h2/s200/oatmeal+pinhole.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567637912387584690" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><br />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 <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">needed </span>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 <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5388006731/in/set-72157623195147364/">3A folding Brownie camera</a> and my <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/4822261172/">Zero Image 45</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoLLTTYsJDzW9YTTbP34Z09hPS9rPi-0dL4WFcqgt5W_gLZOzMB6JYo1Un-Ajv0UF2Hbrf4oCCHYXdOkODSeAjMQs6rhcppxmchFn7YYv0AyXeF4n2mPKk9gLOdY2hXQ2v6azwum0H1GGS/s1600/img157.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 146px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoLLTTYsJDzW9YTTbP34Z09hPS9rPi-0dL4WFcqgt5W_gLZOzMB6JYo1Un-Ajv0UF2Hbrf4oCCHYXdOkODSeAjMQs6rhcppxmchFn7YYv0AyXeF4n2mPKk9gLOdY2hXQ2v6azwum0H1GGS/s200/img157.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567637742235791138" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2IL2NR27q-XerZUskKqS4DQBdGR9erQsXVDh1Y587xFZpgKl1ik2XZ5zGHzovYYkAfNLJYsGGKYx95v7_-dV4ZnZ1zWmPXFD6oYZfW15PCayjG3uRiV9BuFPSUx0QiDLcPrIdtgbp_ZN4/s1600/train+crop.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 168px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2IL2NR27q-XerZUskKqS4DQBdGR9erQsXVDh1Y587xFZpgKl1ik2XZ5zGHzovYYkAfNLJYsGGKYx95v7_-dV4ZnZ1zWmPXFD6oYZfW15PCayjG3uRiV9BuFPSUx0QiDLcPrIdtgbp_ZN4/s200/train+crop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567637272282748770" border="0" /></a>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!<br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/remediatethis/5388006785/">Ilford Multigrade RC Express paper</a> Chris recently acquired and we went to a nearby train station and then to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Viaduct">Thomas Viaduct</a> (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:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE3LIIWHHC6OfptT-ooPuTNMY5zUui84dE-T_sjUuPGZomE2W6V5EaH4ZmmPUO92x0_KZ4ZwJLedU0J8ha4u9pYQekI-tnDxp7tPEAdRuvSTtfpul49uiretoMn6Z_GYSveNwfbVEHmbXz/s1600/viaduct.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE3LIIWHHC6OfptT-ooPuTNMY5zUui84dE-T_sjUuPGZomE2W6V5EaH4ZmmPUO92x0_KZ4ZwJLedU0J8ha4u9pYQekI-tnDxp7tPEAdRuvSTtfpul49uiretoMn6Z_GYSveNwfbVEHmbXz/s320/viaduct.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567636908551336162" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDaJBquLsKSXgEUu3EQy6ELSXrFv8Bben3FUtJQmZZJDEBw-125DyFDSub-AbJSrqifldMgYM2bHrqmk1OTEl8JMhJR5kGZUatqbN5xYkQd0VE4RP0Jg4_2nGa9wf0g3nVzrX0Cz4_CDlq/s1600/bike+lock.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 254px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDaJBquLsKSXgEUu3EQy6ELSXrFv8Bben3FUtJQmZZJDEBw-125DyFDSub-AbJSrqifldMgYM2bHrqmk1OTEl8JMhJR5kGZUatqbN5xYkQd0VE4RP0Jg4_2nGa9wf0g3nVzrX0Cz4_CDlq/s320/bike+lock.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567636833553859954" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWxrOdI5pad_AH4AYxgB4J5POgoilTt2way6foHNUqqr99Yq5CDXYOMxHgf9BVwYh4wr5kSaOEbOkBOXh1hMqi21-YZMIRvZWMFgISXAGkAhrBh40BPUUSjB7ZZa2cgwdcUK_ICiVsZTNU/s1600/viaduct+3.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 260px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWxrOdI5pad_AH4AYxgB4J5POgoilTt2way6foHNUqqr99Yq5CDXYOMxHgf9BVwYh4wr5kSaOEbOkBOXh1hMqi21-YZMIRvZWMFgISXAGkAhrBh40BPUUSjB7ZZa2cgwdcUK_ICiVsZTNU/s320/viaduct+3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567636736170987650" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS2hK22PzceglBErR4LIyZF6Pa3ItFrqkTceY9iNZFNrPF84SPu0SiUXBdyn1X900G2nB2LY_hsnVculxwPzobYqKkgQz3mzIFfrODJRmCAiaVwjGrBYc2H6NNlYKQBORmQi_qVyqmy-ue/s1600/viaduct+2.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS2hK22PzceglBErR4LIyZF6Pa3ItFrqkTceY9iNZFNrPF84SPu0SiUXBdyn1X900G2nB2LY_hsnVculxwPzobYqKkgQz3mzIFfrODJRmCAiaVwjGrBYc2H6NNlYKQBORmQi_qVyqmy-ue/s320/viaduct+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567636634519859698" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoo7I-TOv0xvzqGkAwdiZFCAjZDIcViMtGxD2QygYn3qFObU-gGywOUHhi74jMtp6QuZNmi603_UiM53qViw-hwzWyxBOZQWoYNgY2_xCGbV60CwZ3Shp03xc7ODUXBuXvTKxrWbOGjXXw/s1600/along+the+tracks.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 262px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoo7I-TOv0xvzqGkAwdiZFCAjZDIcViMtGxD2QygYn3qFObU-gGywOUHhi74jMtp6QuZNmi603_UiM53qViw-hwzWyxBOZQWoYNgY2_xCGbV60CwZ3Shp03xc7ODUXBuXvTKxrWbOGjXXw/s320/along+the+tracks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5567636528099495938" border="0" /></a>remediate thishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01252993271242857347noreply@blogger.com0