Petzval lens

I recently got a Petzval lens through a Lomography Kickstarter project and this is an example of a film test I ran. I used the lens on my Nikon FE2, a film camera. I originally tried to meter through my camera but wound up with extremely underexposed negs (basically I developed blank film). Finally, I broke out my handheld light meter and was able to get some good exposures. The film I used for this roll expired in 2007 but I guess refrigerating it all those years helped keep it usable. It was one of my last rolls of Agfa 400 (sadly, the film division of Agfa went bankrupt a few years ago so I was forced to find a different film brand to rely on).

This is a photo of a stuffed quail, nicknamed "Papa Quail." A number of years ago, this quail and his brood of adolescent chicks walked through our front door thinking it was part of their habitat. When they tried to fly out the windows, all hell broke loose. By the time we heard the commotion coming from the living room, Papa Quail was in his last death throws. We managed to get all but one of the chicks out of the house before there was more death (they were EVERYWHERE - in baskets, behind the couch, above the closet). We froze Papa until quail hunting season was open (I should state, I would NEVER shoot a quail...I love them too much and shooting them seems to be pretty stupid and wasteful) so we could get a license and get the taxidermist to stuff him. The license was about $125 and then there was the taxidermy costs so it wasn't cheap. The taxidermist did a pretty lousy job. He managed to mess up the top knot on Papa's head so he made some wanker-looking top knot with an extra couple feathers. Oh well, what can you do? At least I can look at Papa and think about the crazy circumstances that brought him to my living room to sit in the same spot on a piece of wood for eternity.

Bad film and a dark night

I had some expired Kodak film (I think it was from 2003) lying around that I decided to abuse before actually using it. I stuck it on the deck to bake in the sun for a couple days and then put it in the Ansco cheapie camera and left it there for at least a month before finishing the roll. Well, most of the shots were crap...though the grain of the film turned into what looked like astro turf. Here is an example of the astro turf look. This is a photo of my friend, Carla in the woods. Rather than look like her usual lovely self, she appears to be being eaten alive by grass.

Anyhow, I did get one shot that I kind of like. It's a shot of the ferris wheel at the Puyallup Fair with a smear of lightness across it. With a little tweaking in Lightroom, it looks a little better.