Midsummer

 I spent the morning at the Botanical Garden shooting Fomapan 400 in my Mamiya C330.

The Mind's Eye

 I haven't gotten out much to make pictures for some time due to a physical mobility problem.  I hope to get past that soon, but in the meantime I have also been trolling through my posted pictures to identify locations where I might go with my cameras which don't require a lot of walking.  In the process of looking at the pictures I was reminded of an odd mental phenomenon. 

American flags get included in my images periodically, often by chance rather than intention.  The odd thing is that in the monochrome black and white images I often distinctly perceive the actual red, white and blue colors in the flags.  Here are a couple examples:

Ikonta A 520

Kodak 1A Folding Pocket Special

I can look at those two images closely and remind myself that the pictures are completely monochrome, but I cannot seem to banish the perception of color.  

I posted the pictures on our local NM Film Photography group on Facebook, but I think only one person responded that they might see some color in the flags as I do.

In a related oddity, there is one picture of a flag in my Flickr photostream which does not evoke the color response for me.

Leotax Elite

The obvious difference in that image is that the flag is not shown in its entirety and the flattened graphic character of the composition somewhat obscures the identity of the flag object.  

No subject other than the flag in any of my pictures has ever produced a false color impression for me.

On the general topic of flags, I would not describe myself as being particularly patriotic and, while I am most familiar with the U.S. example, I don't think America's flag is more impressive graphically that that of a lot of other countries.

Square Photographs

 I have never been to Indiana, but I have a pretty good idea what it looks like thanks to daily visits to Jim Grey's blog, Down the Road.  Jim posts pictures there about his Home State, as well as those from his frequent road trips around the country.  The photographs are made with a large collection of old film cameras.  Jim has also published a series of books of photos and stories.  I was very pleased recently to receive a copy of the last book; it is entitled Square Photographs.  The pictures, in both color and black and white,  are all made with his Yashica Twin Lens Reflex cameras on medium-format paper-backed roll film.  

If you are mostly used to seeing photographs on the screen of your phone or your computer, looking at the nicely reproduced pictures in Square Photographs will be a somewhat shocking experience.  Even though many of the pictures depict pedestrian subjects they have a level of visual intensity that is hard to explain in words. Part of that impression comes from the large 6x6 cm negatives which can support considerable enlargement, but much of the impact of the photos is attributable to Jim's discerning eye.  I thought he made a particularly nice choice to put a head-on view of an old VW bus on the back cover.

My MAC screen shows a pretty good version of this shot, but it really pales in comparison with the actual cover picture.

Reassembly

 I have over a period of years deposited my thoughts and some images in two blogs.  One is this, about film photography.  The other is explained by the title, Everything Else. My motivation for adding the second blog was in part to have a place to put digital photographs.  While that division has some logic to it, such an approach can lead to a fragmentation of self-presentation that can be somewhat destructive.  My non-photographic blog posts wander through politics, religion, literature, and current events in no particular order, but there are common threads running through it all, and some connect to my film photography.

One such connection I came across recently was an Everything Else blog post, Haiku and Photography, that really seems now like it should be in my film photography blog. That post also seemed a good companion to one about Chaco which is in the photography blog, and which contains some of my own haiku. I suppose one reason the haiku and photography piece ended up where it did was that there are no images to accompany the text.

So, there, I have reconnected some threads with hypertext links. The effort has also got me thinking about how I might blend in some references to the only other form of poetry I have patience for, the Spanish ballads of the 15th and 16th Centuries known as the Romances (and their 20th Century resurrection by García Lorca). Of course, illustrating those is going to be something of a challenge for me, and certainly for readers of my blogs. Maybe some of my flamenco dance shots would work?

So as not to perpetuate a trend toward imageless posts, here is a bit of whimsy from Everything Else:

A fearless bunny

In the Japanese Garden

posed for my cell phone.

digital

Progress

 The density of my negatives is looking better after giving the Kentmere 400 an extra stop of exposure and seven minutes in HC110b.  I'll try the same next with PMK Pyro processing.

I took a bike ride of about a mile to the Tingley ponds.  The Leica IIIa is a nice lightweight companion for such an outing.

I like the collapsable Elmar 3.5/50 lens for its compactness and sharpness.  I'm not sure it is actually a better performer than the similar Soviet lenses, but it is nice to have a complete Leica outfit.

Confessions of the Frugal Photographer

 

I stopped in at a local thrift store recently for the purpose of getting change for a twenty.  I plucked a book off the shelf and took it to the counter.

"Just the book?, said the cashier.

"Yes."

"Thirty-five cents."

"!!!"

I probably should have bought the CS2 manual thirteen years ago when I first acquired the program.  Instead I muddled through as I often do, relying on what information I could scrape up from the web.  Of course, I might have had to pay double for book then, but it still would obviously have been quite a bargain.  Also, the CS2 version of Photoshop cost me nothing as the company for about ten days allowed free downloads as a new version had gone on the market.

I probably have about the same number of books about photography as I do old film cameras.  Most have been acquired from used book stores at bargain prices.  Some favorites I have enjoyed going back to recently include Ilse Bing: Photography Through the Looking Glass,  Paul Strand: An American Vision,  and A Shadow Falls by Nick Brandt.

All of which leads to the confession part of this missive.  While it is difficult to quantify,  I think it not unreasonable to posit that about half of my enjoyment of film photography derives from the fun of hunting for bargains in old analogue photography cameras and accessories.  The majority of my collection came from ebay, but I have also picked up quite a few from junk stores and yard sales.  Here is a small sampling from the ninety-nine cents to ten dollar category:

The Nikon EM was found at a neighbor's yard sale and cost $10.  The five-dollar Hikari came from the Savers thrift store in Albuquerque.  Both have mounts that accept some of the finest lenses ever made.  I picked up several of the much-in-demand Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim at junk stores; none cost more than five bucks and the last one I found had a "99 cents" price tag.

Well, you know what is coming: Cheap is good, Free is better.  Dedicated photographers over the years find themselves in possession of fine cameras which have been superseded by other fine cameras.  Asking for money in exchange for a camera that has produced treasured photos seems a bit like selling a friend, so one goes looking for an enthusiast who will treasure the surplus camera and use it as intended.  I like to consider myself in that category as I have always to some extent justified my possession of more than a few cameras with the idea that I have made pictures with (nearly) every one.  And, thus, I have ended up with some very fine cameras thanks mostly to the generosity of friends who I have known only through my connection to the Internet.

Not all the donations have been of the extraordinary quality apparent in the above examples,  and there are times when a perfectly useable camera just does not seem to fit the current work flow.  So, I have passed on quite a few cameras to others.

The prices on old cameras have gotten a bit weird lately.  I often see examples that are neither uncommon nor unique in their capacities selling for hundreds of dollars.  Still, there are bargains to be found even if it takes some dedicated searching.  Somewhat surprising is the fact that I still find myself on a daily basis doing just that, even though the likelihood of buying yet another camera is presently miniscule.  It takes about ten minutes to troll through the auction listings on ebay in four-hour chunks, skipping past the details of grossly over-priced cameras, while examining the particulars of those which come closer to my traditional target upper limit of thirty-five bucks.  It reminds me of my youth in downtown Seattle, window shopping with my grandfather in front of First Avenue pawnshops and sporting goods stores.

Kentmere 400

 I have had nice results in the past shooting Kentmere film and processing in both HC-110 and PMK Pyro.   Recently, though, my negatives end up looking a stop or two underexposed.  I bought a new beaker and a syringe for measuring and mixing the developer, thinking that the problem could be contamination of the processing equipment.  That made no difference in the outcome, however.  I still had to compensate for the thin negatives with Photoshop adjustments.  So, my plan now is to shoot the film at a stop slower and accept that it is not going to produce what I want at the rated box speed.

It is tempting to theorize some manufacturing fault, but I haven't seen any reports on the issue elsewhere , including from the people who have inspired me to use the film at Photonet and Rangefinder Forum.  On the up side, the fact that I can get a reasonable outcome from the weak negatives speaks to the fundamental excellence of the film in regard to exposure latitude and fine grain.