A photographic negative is a powerful artifact. It carries a magic more than it’s small size and thin aspect would suggest.

It seems crazy that I’ve only been shooting film for about a year. It feels like a lifetime already. It’s been even less that I’ve been doing my own developing, and this far I’ve been just keeping my negatives in pages on a shelf. But, they’re getting up there so it was time to start putting them into binders.

Collecting all my negatives into one collection is a powerful experience. There is something so visceral, so magical, and so humbling about an image on a piece of film. All the information about a moment of time is recorded there without ones and zeroes, but with chemical compounds frozen in place. Just to think about how it was created, light bounced off a subject, through a lens to hit a small piece of plastic with chemicals on it. Then the plastic was put in more chemicals so that the area that light hit would fog up in a certain way. Everything that affected the scene is recorded in the way the chemistry reacted – including the information about how the film was developed.

And, each negative is unique. Unlike a binary file, the negative can not be perfectly duplicated. In the entire universe, there can be no exact copy of it. Even the Bible can be theoretically transcribed more exactly than a tiny thirty-five millimeter negative.

Kendra tried to cheer me up by asking me to list five things that make me happy. I think it worked.

First-) Two dollar used books

Second-) Sportstalk radio

Third-) A massive tiki tumbler of iced tea that’s more ice than tea.

Fourth-) Strangers who let me take their picture

Fifth-) “Root Down” by the Beastie Boys. (Get well MCA, beat that thing!)

More fun with the ImageTech 3D camera. Here’s Melanie with her new M5

A few trusted friends have pointed out that some recent work of mine has been plagued with a lot of crud on my digital sensor. I’ve huffed and puffed and rocket-blown the heck out of it. Alas, the gloop persists. I have all the materials to clean the sensor on my Canon 5D on my own. However, since I have been having spotty luck with cameras lately, and knowing I’m down to my bottom dollar, I just didn’t want to risk it. The possibility of damaging it during the tricky business with no means to replace it was something I’m not ready to risk at the moment. So, I wheeled it into the Canon Service Center down in Irvine, CA. They said I should also get the mirror adjusted — free — so it’s gonna be a week. They’re also gonna replace my worn-down serial number plate. Unexpected bonus!

Fingers crossed. Can’t wait to get it back.

From: michael <emayoh@xxxxx.com>
Date: Tuesday, July 7, 2009 11:50:36 AM
To: Eric F <erock_f@xxxxx.com>
——————

Greetings my friend,

What a time trial this morning, eh? Astana were viciously professional. Contador told me you texted him last night with some advice, but he wouldn’t tell me what you said. I’m dying to know.

I still remember you in ’77 with the maillot jaune. I thought I’d catch you in the very same fourth stage, but you had that magic. To this day, I wonder if you did it just to impress the Contessa. You both disappeared for the rest of the summer.

Well, to memories. Sip some armagnac for me this evening.

Yours,

M

Music permeates North Hollywood Arts District on the first Thursday of every month with Hear NoHo, a nascent showcase of local musicians performing in community venues spanning the community. I’d written about the series debut a few months ago. I even took photos then. My work makes up the bottom banner at HearNoHo.com. But, I hadn’t been back until July’s summery set. This time out, organizers decided to focus on women in local music. I decided to focus on them with some black and white film. I wanted to try the Rollei in a musical setting. It has a slow f/3.5 lens, but I had a roll of medium-format Ilford Delta 3200 in the fridge. If there was ever a time to use ASA 3200, this was it. I also brought along the M2 with some Arista Premium 400 that I’d push to 1600.

Taking pictures with film is a much different than taking pictures with a digital camera. But, taking pictures of people in action with film, especially older non-motorized manual focus cameras, is yet another level of difficulty entirely.

In concert photography the keys are light, eyes, mikes, movement, and backgrounds. The photographer must keep all of these in mind, and in sight. But, when you shoot one frame at a time with no instant review, you need to have a strong reservoir of faith. And, practice helps so I was going for it.

Results? I struggled with the roll in the Rollei. Even at 3200, with the 3.5 lens there was not enough light to get what I wanted. I struggled to see the images that were there for me.
But, with the Leica, it was a happier story. I found a couple images I am really proud of, and the 50mm Serenar f/1.8 lens helped me get them.

The first Hear NoHo was free. But, the organizers were upfront about the inability to keep it that way. This time around it was a ten-dollar wristband. Access to ten artists at five venues, a couple NoHo Commons lofts, the Cella art gallery, the NoHo Arts Center theater, and even the loading dock for How’s Grocery Store.

I went in expecting a mixed bag of music, but everyone I saw put on a good show. Happily, my favorite artist of the night also gave me my best photo of the night. Adjoa Skinner (above) played to about twelve people in a loft. She kicked off her sandals and walked around while playing her guitar and singing, she was such a comfortable player.

I saw the names “Frank and Derol” on the schedule of a female-only lineup and thought: “Oh God, probably a lesbian folk act!” But, when I got to the theater it was a trio of perky young girls with a backing band playing brisk, sunny indie pop. They, too, impressed me. Billy Ray Cyrus’ daughter – no, not Miley. A different one – is in this unsigned band. I saw Beck’s sister, too: Alyssa Suede is her name and she captivated the crowd at Cella Gallery. Paris Carney packed the Arts Center: It was standing room only for that show! So, no good photos for that set. So much for needing to keep it free. I underestimated the support of the local community.

In developing the 3200, the book calls for fourteen and a half minutes when using HC-110. It’s a warm summer, so I probably should have backed off a few minutes. The fact that the film actually expired six years ago, though, caused me to go the full time. I figured it would just even out. The resulting grain was huge. Probably a mix of high ASA mixed with overdeveloping with an industrial developer. Nothing really came out impressive, but it was fun. I should try it with a smoother developer.

 

Pushing the brand new Arista Premium to 1600 was much more effective. The book on that is sixteen minutes with HC-110, but since I was developing at roughly twenty-five degrees, I backed it down to thirteen. I was very, very pleased with how Frank and Derol came out.

I resolve to go to more Hear NoHo events. It’s a fertile ground for my photographic adventures. And, the music isn’t bad either.

Bonus: Here’s an Adjoa Skinner video clip:

The serious Scottish doctor is working hard to create a smarter IBM-powered world.

But, I wonder if he runs around the laboratory smacking fellow docs with a dipstick?

I ordered a kit to build a sound trigger with variable delay from HiViz.com. It comes as a bag filled with loose electronic capacitors, resistors, and wires. Fun! But, I fired up the detailed instructions and got after it.

The instructions are very clear. But, the kit assumes you have an extra PC sync cord to cut up in order to connect it to your flash. I didn’t feel like snipping a ten dollar connector. Luckily, the LumoPro flash I have has a 1/8-inch miniphone jack. So I cut up one of the two hundred pairs of cheapo earbuds I have, just to get the plug. I wired it up and it didn’t work. So, I did some reading and discovered that stereo plugs never work well.

I’d always wanted an excuse to go to Electronic City and browse the aisles of geek heaven. A mono miniplug was a buck sixty. I also picked up a black plastic project box.

An hour later I was covered in black plastic shavings as I used a Dremel to cut a perfect hole in the black case that holds the piezoelectric listening device. But, the whole thing fits pretty well.

And, as you can almost see from the video, it works.

I will need to continue to tweak it. It triggers the flash on every sharp noise, so if I use it on a dropped item, the flash will fire on the drop, and every bounce. That probably won’t work — but there are ways in the electronics to mitigate that. But, the basic device is operational.

Stay tuned for more.