“It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.”
-Bertrand Russell

Just got this film off eBay. I’m eager to investigate it.

I found a stray roll of unused Kodak Gold a few weeks ago. It was bouncing around loose junk in this crazy house. I know it wasn’t mine, so my best guess puts it circa 2004, but who knows. I went out and shot it, and despite some patches of grainy fog, I love the results. Some of these skies are ridiculous.

I am completely in love with the ultrawide 15mm. A warm revelation washes over me when I get so much room to move with it. (Thanks Scar!)

I went back and found my post right after I got my Sigma 12-24. What a dork!

I developed these myself in a Unicolor C-41 kit from Freestyle. That’s always an adventure, but I’m happy to save the cash.

I’m still struggling with how to get into long-form photo projects. I’m wrestling with confidence. By just dumping these photos here, I know I’m shortchanging myself, but I’m out of ideas right now. And since Photophlow died, I’m missing the interactions and stimulations of a rich community. So, I just keep shooting and experiencing. That’s good enough for the moment.

I just finished a marathon session developing some C-41 that has been piling up. Here I was driving on Route 9W north from Poughkeepsie when I spotted this firetruck off the road in a field. I slammed on the brakes and wheeled off the road. Maybe it was near Esopus? I had 3 shots left on the roll of expire Portra 160NC in the Mamiya C330.

As I grew up in Syracuse, New York, the chain of drugstores known as Fay’s was a ubiquitous part of my childhood. They’re mostly gone now, the name is owned by JCPenney. Organizing some family stuff, I came across a Fay’s photo envelope. First, it’s cool to see that there was Fay’s branded film. Second, there was one single negative in the envelope — a very early photo of my brother and his dog, probably taken by my Mom. Good thing it wasn’t on a 5-inch floppy disk!

I’ve been very disappointed in my inside snapshots lately. With my old eyes, I’m not sure I can adequately focus a rangefinder in anything but bright light anymore. I try to push my film to 1600 to give me a couple stops of aperture forgiveness on focus, but the grain is insanely huge with the push processing and my cheapo developer, HC-110 (dilution B). I think I need to switch to something more expensive like Ilfotec DDX to bring this grain back under control. Even so, I just went through four rolls of holiday snaps and the number of frames lost to crap focus was horrifying. I should have started with a rangefinder in my teens, maybe I’d be adequate at it now.

This dude on Flickr gets great results pushing Tri-X to 1600 with Dilution B… so I don’t know. I’m just depressed with all this.

Family snaps:

I’ve been tidying up my 70,000-photo archive in Lightroom, and spend a few minutes gazing at the vast pile of rejects. Here are five old scans from early 2009 that have aged well with time.

Jonas Åkerlund‘s new video for “Girl Panic” by Duran Duran features supermodels acting as the band members. It’s a really lavish and entertaining mini-movie, and it was apparently banned by MTV for girl-girl sexuality and excessive product placement. But, I was delighted to find that much of the “placement” was for some classic cameras! I love that Åkerlund used vintage cams from the 1980s even though the video is ostensibly set in the modern day — a nice little detail. A couple of them are really interesting pieces as well!

Check out a vintage 1982 Polaroid SLR 680 wielded by Helena Christensen. The 680 was basically a version of the legendary SX-70 that took the newer 600-type film. That would be nice to have these days, since 600 is easier to come by.

(more…)

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