SAD059

SAD059 :: Found photo from a disposable camera :: Summer, 1999

106.5 FM's End-of-Summer Weenie Roast. Charlotte, NC. An all-day affair at what was then Blockbuster Pavillion.

I was in a mosh pit that erupted in the crowd watching a terrible band called Collapsis. This was on a side stage, outdoors, on gravel. I went down, and there in the dirt was a disposable camera. I grabbed it before the other moshers could pull me back up.

It had already been shot. So I stuck it in my pocket. The next day, I took it to the lunch ladies and boy, did they give me a weird look when I came to pick up the prints.

Years later, I printed the image for my Photo II final in college. If I ever made a list of the Top Ten Photos I wish I'd Taken, this would be near the top.

The Third Roll of Ektar

SAD058

SAD058 :: Pentax ZX50 :: Pentax SMC 28-80/f3.5-4.5 :: HP5 :: Summer, 2000

My Photoflo Technique

Because I know you've been wondering.

Actually, I'm posting this because I so rarely develop film that I can't remember what works. For years I just used what was in the darkroom, and it always worked, but lately I've had some streaking problems. Especially when The Bard is around. But I've had scum on my negatives, too. So here it is.

So: Develop film, wash for 20 minutes, then soak for 5 minutes in . . .

1 liter distilled water
7 drops isopropyl alcohol
2 drops photoflo

Shake water off reel, hang to dry, NO SQUEEGEE!

Now I know some of you out there are thinking I'm a complete and utter nerd for blogging about my photoflo technique, especially after posting a film speed test and vintage camera porn. So, let me put things in perspective for you:



Case dismissed.

SAD057

SAD057 :: Pentax ZX50 :: Pentax SMC 28-80/f3.5-4.5 :: HP5 :: Summer, 2000

At this point, Erin Brandy and I had built a very primitive darkroom in my basement. We had an Opemus Meopta enlarger set up on a card table, with foamcore board for an easel. It was less than ideal.

These photos were meant to be rough drafts of a much more polished series that never happened. Back then, all my off-camera lighting was done by Maglite. My buddy Shane and I were envisioning Edgerton mixed with Stephen Gammell's illustrations from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.



The light in the first picture's sky was from a huge, dry electrical storm that was drifting over from Tennessee. The pictures look hokey, but the actual experience was exactly what we wanted.

The Second Roll of Ektar

SAD056

SAD056 :: Pentax ZX50 :: Pentax SMC 28-80/f3.5-4.5 :: Dirt Cheap Color Film:: Winter, 2000

Slow news week. Assignment: Go shoot pictures of snow. So I went to the Bard's workplace, where he was clearing the parking lot of slush, and posed him on top of the gigantic mountain of snow piled up by the plows.

Just for the record.

When I posted the Ektar 100 test, somebody responded by pointing out that film is better than digital, and if I hadn't used a digital camera to shoot this photo two years ago, I'd have kept detail in the bride's dress.

So, just for the record:

SAD055

SAD055 :: Pentax ZX50 :: Pentax SMC 28-80/f3.5-4.5 :: Dirt Cheap Color Film:: Summer, 2000 (?)

After swimming in the Cane river, we'd climb back up to the highway and sit by our cars until the early morning. Here again, I was after an Edgertonian sort of image, mixed with a rural creepiness and desolation.

SAD Project Update

Today is the 54th day of the S.A.D. Project. I started out thinking I'd have about enough to fill up the whole year, as long as I kept shooting film every now and then. So I went through my binders page by page, and I scanned everything that was even remotely interesting. I did this for about three weeks without really stopping. Then I stopped to count.

Negatives scanned to date: 845

This doesn't count the negatives I've actually shot this year. The project is a retrospective of stuff I shot and never printed/posted, so I'm ignoring all the film stuff since December or so. Even if I never scan the rest of my stash, I have enough to post a negative every day for the next 27 months.

And here's the crazy part--

Done been scanned:



Ain't done been scanned:



That's Optimus Prime in the background. He's my project coordinator.

If those other three binders hold as many keepers as the last five, I'll have a total of 1352 negatives by the end of all this. That's like four years' worth. Do you guys really want to see that many photos?

SAD054

SAD054 :: Pentax ZX50 :: Pentax SMC 28-80/f3.5-4.5 :: Dirt Cheap Color Film:: Summer, 2000 (?)

SAD053

SAD053 :: Pentax ZX50 :: Pentax SMC 28-80/f3.5-4.5 :: Dirt Cheap Color Film:: Summer, 2000 (?)

A call came over the scanner that there was a wreck one rainy day down Highway 80. I had driven this same section of road a thousand times at incredible speeds, and, by the grace of God, lived through it. So did both drivers in this wreck. They both walked away.

The light was as amazing as the luck.

Shells @ f1.4

My dad's camera came to visit. Every time this happens, I get the bokeh crazies, and end up lurking around the house, imagining how things would look with shallow depth of field.





I love my Nikons, by I don't have a 50mm/f1.4 for the F mount. So every now and then my dad lends me his Pentax K10d and a couple of portrait lenses. I clear off the table and use J's curtains as a softbox.

SAD052

SAD052 :: Pentax ZX50 :: Pentax SMC 28-80/f3.5-4.5 :: Dirt Cheap Color Film :: Summer, 2000 (?)

In Burnsville, wrecks are news. I covered a lot, probably one each week. Typically, if it was a moderate news week, we only ran the big ones, but on slow weeks, things like this would run. I never covered a fatal car wreck.

Cattails, reticulated

Portra 160 NC. Nikon F100. Nikkor 50mm/f1.8 AF-D

When I shot the first cattail picture with the Pentacon Six, I was just shooting a test roll to make sure those crazy East Germans had gotten everything in order. But I could tell the shot was going to be good, so I went back with my F100 and took a few more.

Dropped off the film at a local lab, which shall remain nameless until the issue is resolved, and scanned it. I'm really pleased with the photo above, but this one troubles me:



First, the composition is terrible. But why focus on my own failings, when I could focus on the failings of others? See that weird grain pattern in the upper part of the image? No? Time for some pixel-peeping. Here's a close up:





And that, boys and girls, is reticulation. Clearly someone other than me has failed miserably. This is all Nikon's fault. If only I'd used a Leica, this never would have happened.

But seriously, reticulation in a C-41 film? Never heard of it, Google can't find it, and it seems counter to the whole idea of a standardized process. I have a tragic reticulation story to tell at some point during the SAD project. But that was silver-based film and a very uncontrolled environment (and the resulting prints are actually hanging in a gallery at the moment, so I guess it wasn't that tragic).

So I'll keep you posted. I can tell you're all going to be nervous wrecks until this gets resolved.

SAD051

SAD051 :: Pentax ZX50 :: Pentax SMC 28-80/f3.5-4.5 :: HP5 :: Summer, 2000 (?)