Just a photo

I'm feeling thoroughly wiped out from a long ten days of work but don't want to end today without a little creativity (there's got to be more to life than endless hours trying to justify your paycheck). Here's a Woca picture I took last summer in Sandspit in the Queen Charlotte Islands/Haida Gwaii off the coast of British Columbia. What a place and what incredible light. Notice the light leak that imprinted on the negative. Shot number 7, eh?

Ball field - Sandspit, BC

Strange realization

Oddly enough, after years and years of wanting to go to Prague and the Czech Republic (I originally wanted to go when it was still Czechoslovakia), I took just a small number of photos while there. I found myself much more shutterbuggy in the countryside and outside of Prague. I'm not sure why that is. Prague has got tons of stuff to shoot. Could've been because of the frightening number of tourists. Or perhaps I didn't feel like I could shoot much that hasn't been shot before. Lots of people go to Prague. Less go to Podmoli.

That being said, I've posted a small collection of Prague shots on my SmugMug site. Enjoy.

Color film image - Mamiya C220

Today I was able to swing by the photo shop to pick up some of the color film I had shot with the Mamiya C220. I'm definitely having issues with the exposure. Could be because I'm using a light meter - perhaps too high-end for me (when I shoot with my Lubitel, I just use a little cheat sheet that covers the basics by film speed: cloudy, bright, snow.) I have to do a test and actually take notes based on meter readings and the settings. I have some film still in the camera that I need to finish shooting so I'll shoot my tests with that.

Here is a color photo I shot of Levi. I posted the black and white film image of the same shoot a couple postings ago. I obviously can get good shots with the camera and available light since this one looks pretty good. I just need to get my pea-brain around shooting settings.

Mamiya C220 shot in color

Tight on time

I've committed to writing on this blog about three times a week. Unfortunately, this week is extremely busy. Hopefully I'll have a bit of time to post on Sunday or Monday evenings. I'm heading to the Washington coast with a group of students tomorrow. I've brought both the Lubitel and my G9 so I'm expecting to snap something worth looking at. Still haven't had a chance to pick up the color Mamiya C220 shots. Should have them in my hot little hand by the middle of next week.

A long weekend

What a great weekend! First off, the weather was absolutely spectacular. Finally, tons of sun and some solid heat (Northwestern heat is very mild compared to the rest of the country's concept of heat). Today, we went for a bike ride in the middle of the day when it was the hottest. Good ride, though I'm still a little pooped from it.

On Friday night, we drove up to Smoke Farm in Arlington for an event called Symposium. I went two years ago to the inaugural Symposium but unfortunately, missed last year's. There is a general Symposium theme that each of the presenters builds a talk around. This year's theme was "All that is solid melts into air." Here is the program so you can take a peek at each of the talks.

Although the presentations are always interesting, the real joy of the event is the peripheral conversations that occur between talks, over meals and during walks around the property. I joke about needing to bring my "big brain" to Smoke Farm - there are always thoughtful and engaging conversations happening. The people that attend events at Smoke Farm are also high-caliber. I had interesting conversations with a number of people who are doing interesting things in their fields including a Seattle ceramic artist named Kathleen Skeels and a writer named Pete Brook. Pete writes about and runs a website dedicated to prison photography - I visited the site today and was amazed at the amount of articles he's written and the research he's done. I also spent some quality-time talking and drinking coffee with Scott Schuldt, who is the resident artist at Smoke Farm this year.

I spoke with many more people than those I named and was able to take some photos of quite a lot of the attendees. Hopefully, the Mamiya will come through for me (though really, it's not the equipment, it's the photographer, right?). I'll be dropping off this round of film when I pick up the other rolls from the lab this week (hopefully).

In addition to all the humans, there were quite a few dogs attending the event. Here is Bunny. She's one of my favs since I had a dream about her trying to move into my tent during the night. Plus, she was just so cute.

Southern Moravia Gallery

I've posted my gallery for Southern Moravia at my website. I will also change the rotating gallery link on the right side of the blog to be my France 2011 gallery (in case you were getting tired of Iceland). Enjoy!

First images with the Mamiya

I'm not super-pleased with the first results I've gotten with the Mamiya C220. I don't think I'm being self-effacing when I say that the problem appears to reside with the photographer rather than the equipment. The images are too dark and the negs too flat to get an image I'm entirely happy with at first try. Here is an example of a B&W image I took with the camera:

First, let me say that this is a neg that I've scanned on my flatbed scanner using a piece of glass to hold it in place. Not ideal, but I don't have time to actually get in the darkroom today to make contact sheets and prints. The other problem with it is the fixer with hardener may be too old and appears to have left little "crystals" on the negative - some can be brushed off, some appear permanent (I spent a little time retouching in Photoshop but didn't want to do too much since I wouldn't print this from the computer anyhow). I used Rodinal developer with TMAX 400 film at a dilution of 1:50 for 10 mins. If I had a time base for TMAX 400 at 1:100, I would give that a shot since it might produce a better overall tonal range. I also need to get a better idea of exposure values using the Gossen light meter (something I'm not used to doing since I'm used to TTL metering).

It's not an awful shot, but I've got a long way to go to get a true understanding of the Mamiya. I'm hoping my color negs are more promising than this B&W roll. Lots more work to do.