Just found a roll of film in my car from earlier this year. Good times (for these places happened decades in the past.)

Sarah and I went on a fantastic five-mile hike around Multnomah Falls yesterday. I’m sure feeling it today in the thighs! I was in the mood to try some mad scientist stuff, so I taped a green filter over the Sprocket Rocket. This should have brought a little extra definition to the green vegetation on a grey rainy day when using black and white film — Arista Premium four-hundred, as it happens. One does not change settings on the Rocket, so the way to compensate for the loss of two-plus stops of light through a filter is to push the developing. I decided to go with stand development with Rodinal at a lean one-to-one-hundred dilution. Stand developing means I don’t really care about how far I’m pushing. Sixteen-hundred, thirty-two hundred. It’s all the same to stand. See? Like I said, some mad scientist shit.

At one point on my walk through Oaks Bottom, I encountered an older couple who had stopped to rest. “Does this trail loop around?” the man wanted to know. “That’s what I aim to find out,” I told him. I hope they made it back all right.

This is a panorama of ten digital frames, merged and cropped to evoke the spirit of having an old 8×10 large format camera on my trek. The fullsized file is quite detailed. I look forward to a digital print, perhaps on metallic paper?

I was freezing when I took this. As I bided my time, waiting for a clear moment to move out into the road I greeted every passing car with a storm of silent obscenity. I’d passed this spot countless times and now was the moment to get this shot.

Here’s a taste of downtown Jtown on a cold day in November. I didn’t really set out to make it look like a ghost town, but that’s certainly a valid interpretation of this set. The Gould’s department store hasn’t existed for many, many years, but I’m glad the sign on the rear of the building is preserved.

Looks like I have some additions to the “Reflections in Shop Windows” project here! And tell me what direction I will find the front door?

This was a roll of proper Tri-X developed in HC-110, with my usual dilution B. Leica M2 was the camera.

Happy Wednesday! Here are three recent black & whites that have something to say about horizontality.

“Bridges to Nowhere”

Camera: iPhone 4

I find myself drawn to detail and space in Gloversville far more than neighboring Johnstown, at least of late. Here are some more Gloversville structures. I particularly like the faded sign on the wall behind the Gloversville Diner for “The Morning Herald.” That paper is long-since gone, folded into the current “Leader-Herald.” Soon that sign will only be a memory.

Rollei Rolleiflex Automat K4A
Rollei Retro 400 film
HC-110 Dilution B

 

Walking around Gloversville, NY with some black and white film. (Arista Premium 400)

My Dad worked in a Loblaws warehouse when I was just a kidlet. I’m not sure how many of them are still running, This one in Gloversville on Fulton St sure isn’t. Looks like a great zombie headquarters. G-Ville has been a fertile environment for my kind of photography, so there is more to come from this area.

This is a tone-mapped digital HDR photo with some lens distortion correction done in Lightroom. I really love the Sigma 12-24mm lens.