missing this day

given the extreme cold and the dearth of new, cool, and colorful
things to photograph, i was thinking i was experiencing spring fever. that i keep thinking about this day suggests what i'm really experiencing is a late summer kind of fever.

but i loved this particular day and am missing it now: august 16th, 2008. the semester was just weeks away from beginning and having had the spring term off, i was eager to get back to business as usual but sad to see the summer (and all the time i had for photo play) end. i learned about the car show on campus earlier that morning. never having attended one, i came home, checked it out online--mainly to see if there was an entrance fee (i think at the time, i had nine dollars and change on my person), and then headed up to campus around noon.

the weather was amazing and the sky was crazy blue and white. just perfect. and the music was loud and good. for my first trip up to campus, i brought with me the smena (loaded with color film), and the bhf, holga and agfa ansco plenax, each of which was loaded with b/w film. at the time, i had just begun developing my own b/w at home and was beginning to experiment with coffee developing. it would be some time (a month and a day, in fact) before i started doing my own color developing at home, so the images i took with the smena (see first two images below) would sit on the shelf for a while.

for my second trip up, i brought with me my canon powershot s5 (see image above). it occured to me that what i'd coffee develop later that day wouldn't do justice to the mad colors of the cars and sky and who knew when or if i'd get the roll from the smena developed. (at this time, with the semester about to start, it hadn't really occured to me to get into color diy developing right away.)

i recall feeling kind of silly walking around shooting images with the folder (see images below with the sprocket holes). i wasn't used to taking photos with people around (. . .i'm still not). i recall passing--a number of times, actually--a guy taking pictures with a really hooked up digital camera. and here i am with the folder and my bhf feeling pretty foolish. at one point, another guy stops me to ask if the folder is really old or if it was a new (i.e., perhaps digital?) camera made to look old. good question.

my favorite shot of the day (perhaps ironically) didn't contain evidence that it was taken at the car show. in fact, it might have been taken (almost) anywhere. i was sitting on the side of the hill, preparing to go home to get the canon when i saw this hatted woman standing there with her back to me. i knew i had another shot or two left in the folder and figured that if she didn't see me, well, it would be okay to take the shot. right before i was about to take it, she turned around and saw me seeing her. as soon as i took the shot, i recall thinking, "please, please let this turn out--don't let the film break, don't let me find that the camera has crazy light leaks--don't let me mess up the processing or fixing. i really need to see this one--i really need it to turn out." the first (and only other) time i've felt that way about an image was when i took this one. the way the vendor was positioned, the way the light was falling on her--just amazing, to the eye anyway. in that case, i hadn't begun developing at home and the wait to see if or how the image came out was really long and difficult. added to that, my luck with shooting 35mm in the holga hadn't been that great.

in retrospect

i'm feeling a little guilty about crabbing so much about my lack of access to new and exciting content. it's not that campus is a bad place to take photos (same goes for my yard, the woods, stuff inside the house, etc.). it's more a matter of wanting to add more variety to the mix.

and actually, the vistaquest shot of the sondheim statue (above) is still one of my favorites. and i've actually been pretty surprised by how. . .i don't know, surreal or fairy-tale some of the shots i've taken on/around campus can look, especially those taken around the library pond area. at this point, i guess i'm also given the occasion to rethink the comments i've made about the lomo x-film, since the first shot below (taken with the smena) was taken with that film. the one below that--of the walking path leading to the library--was taken with the holga and that stretch of path is one of my favorite places on campus to take photos.
































two more recent campus holgas:








































and then there were these double (maybe even triple?) exposures taken on/around campus this summer with the non-spidered praktica mtl3:

fast-forward

I’m currently suffering from photographer’s block so it seemed as good a time as any to write about what I’m currently unable to do. I kind of anticipated that I’d end up abandoning the blog (didn’t imagine it would be for four months though) when I began developing my own b/w film at the start of August. Then came the caffenol experiments, and then trying my hand at developing color film in b/w chemicals as well as in coffee. By early September, I was feeling brave enough to try my hand at developing color film (both negative and slide film) at home. And I have to say, I’m not sure that I would ever send film out for development again. It’s not that my results are better, more even or more consistent than the lab’s. I know, for instance, I’m a really poor agitator and the way I treat/handle negatives would probably horrify people at the lab.

That said, I love the process. All of them. While it’s great not having to wait the week or so to have the lab mail the developed negatives back to me (and while I’ve saved a boat-load of money developing film at home), what I enjoy most is my ability to participate in (note that I didn’t say control) the overall process. From film to reel, reel to tank, to the heating (or cooling) of water, chemicals, homebrews, etc.—I get to participate. And, yes, (however inconsistent or sloppy my methods may be), I also get to agitate. That said, I was overjoyed to learn about stand development and Rodinal—spool it, tank it, mix it, leave it for an hour or two. . .minimal agitation.

As for the cost. I figured out my savings a couple of times while I was standing there over-agitating some film. When I’d send b/w to the lab, it was 10 bucks per roll (i.e., of 120 film) plus tax and shipping. 120 color was 5 bucks a roll, plus tax, shipping and handling. The 5 liter Tetenal C41 kit cost me 80-90 bucks, including shipping. Each liter develops 16-20 rolls of color film. At roughly 18 bucks a liter, my cost per roll is about a buck. The savings with b/w is ridiculous whether I’m using coffee or a chemical developer. There’s the cost of the fix in either case but that’s also ridiculously low. Of course being able to develop at home means that I’m buying, shooting, and developing more film than I would if I were still sending things to the lab, but I’m still guessing my costs are much lower than they were when, mid-June or so, I started experimenting with film.

But back to photographer’s block. It’s not that I don’t have the desire to shoot and develop more film—it’s more a matter of not having much of anything I want to photograph. When I was in the camera testing/test roll phase, it made sense to shoot the same stuff again and again so that I could compare cameras as well as development techniques. This was also true as I would test out different films. But it’s been awhile since I’ve purchased any vintage (i.e., new to me) cameras, so it makes little sense to keep shooting the same subject matter as a kind of point of comparison.

To this end, I’ve thought about (and am still thinking about) what I might do to make the familiar strange or to make the same-ole, same-ole look somewhat new/different. Last week I shot a couple rolls of film on/around campus, trying to find ways to make myself see the surroundings (or the potential of those surroundings) in new ways. One set was taken with the Smena (see first four photos below) and the other with the Smena 8m (see last five photos below) as both cameras allow me to double, triple or even quadruple expose the film. Nothing terrifically exciting here. I’m decidedly in a content/location rut, looking forward to my next opportunity to travel—to photograph something besides what’s found at home, in the yard/woods or on campus.