Resurrection? Maybe, Maybe Not

wtf ?    I thought this was supposed to be a blog about film photography.

 I tipped over my old Dell desktop computer on its side so I could take off the side panel.  I could not see any obvious reason why it would not boot up, so I replaced the panel, plugged it in and pressed the Start button.  The computer started up normally.  

 I moved the computer back to its place on my desk, hooked up monitor and keyboard and pressed the Start button again.  The cooling fans roared for about five seconds and then everything went quiet.   Another four or five tries produced the same result, leaving me again without access to Photoshop CS2 and the Silverfast scanning program which runs my old Epson flatbed.

Acquiring a copy of CS5 that would run on my IMAC provided a considerable improvement over GIMP for photo editing on the IMAC, but I was still left relying on VueScan, which I find to be much slower and unintuitive in use compared to Silverfast.  I was motivated to take one last stab at getting the old Dell to come back to life. 

I laid the computer over on its side again, plugged it in and pressed the Start button.  The fans and the hard drive came back to life along with the Windows XT splash screen.  I did a test scan with Silverfast and then did a software restart which worked fine.  At that point I was tempted to just leave the Dell running, but that just seems too wasteful.  So I am shutting it down and we'll see what tomorrow brings.

* * *

  Thursday Morning:  I attached the power cord to the back of the Dell and then pressed the Start button on the front panel.The computer made a low moaning sound and went silent.  I'll probably try a few more times to get it going today  Looks like a nice day coming up.  The sun is out.  No wind.  I still have half a roll of Kentmere to shoot in the Pentax ME.

 Thursday Night (6 PM):

Back in business.  It seems to matter how I plug in the power cable and how I press the Start button.  This time I first connected the power cable to the back of the computer.  Then I plugged the cable into the power strip and immediately pressed the Start button briefly.  Not sure if this is evidence of some short circuit, or some other issue.

 

High Water

 Snowmelt and rain have pushed the river over its banks to flood the riverside forest.  I walked about half a mile parallel to the river with my Mamiya C330.  

Housemates

 The dog heads for the closet whenever I bring out a camera.  I coax her out with a treat and then have to allow her up on the couch to get her to pose for a photo session.

The cat is not much bothered by me chasing her around the house with a camera, but at age fifteen she doesn't get above floor level, so finding good lighting has gotten to be more of a challenge.

This whole roll of Kentmere 400 looked underexposed.  I think the bottle of HC-110 has gotten tired, so I'll open a new one for the next session.

The New Kentmere 100 in 120 Format

I think it is very nice stuff.  I'm looking forward to seeing what others are doing with it.

I shot the first of the five rolls I got from the Film Photography Project in my Mamiya C330.  Processing was in PMK Pyro for ten minutes at 75F.

I'll likely give the 400 speed version a try soon and I'm also looking forward to using Kentmere 120 for some pinhole work.  

Midsummer

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

Riverdance

 I took a morning walk along the river.  A lot of water has been let through the dams for irrigation, so the bosque is getting the benefit too.  There is strong growth in the patches of yerba mansa and there a few flower buds on the plants.  I expect the flowering of the yerba mansa will reach its peak in a couple weeks.  So, I'll look forward to getting back soon, probably with the same camera and film.

The cat gets the last frame.

Miles gone by

 I revisited the southernmost section of the Petroglyph National Monument.  It has been quite a while -- five years? ten? -- I'm not sure.  Memories of the place were sparked by a recent discovery of the photographic work of David Grant Noble who spent about forty years documenting ancient ruins and rock art of the Southwest. I'm not sure how I missed seeing Noble's excellent pictures sooner; I only became aware of them because the Maxwell Museum has scheduled an exhibit and artist talk in May. I was pleased to find a couple copies of Noble's book, In the Places of the Spirits, in the Albuquerque Library.

I was also delighted to find that Craig Childs has published several books since I read House of Rain twelve years ago. I decided to start catching up with Childs by reading Tracing Time; Seasons of Rock Art on the Colorado Plateau. Childs' approach to thinking about the ancient cultures of the Southwest is informed by familiarity with the academic research, but it is fundamentally the product of a unique personal immersion in the region's arid environment.

One of the topics Childs deals with in Tracing Time is the destruction of the ancient petroglyphs and pictographs.  In previous books he made the case for leaving any traces of past cultures completely undisturbed.  In this later work he suggests that those who deface and destroy ancient rock art are motivated by assertions of power and ownership which likely were behind similar destruction in ancient times.  It is not uncommon to find rock art panels with many layers of pecked or painted designs laid down over centuries.  The difference, of course, is that the destructive process has been greatly speeded up by exponential population growth along with greatly more efficient tools of destruction including firearms, spray paint and off-road vehicles.

Over the years I have maintained this blog I have at regular intervals acknowledged the idea that my photographic efforts would be enhanced by a more focused and deliberate approach, as opposed to just walking for miles and recording interesting sights I came across.  My journey back to Mesa Prieta yesterday was a concrete expression of that strategic option, brought about now by necessity.  I just can no longer wander for miles at a time to indulge an urge to record serendipitous discoveries.  I'll likely get back to National Petroglyph Monument again soon, and also hope to visit some of the many other rock art sites within a day's drive from Albuquerque.

I am also thinking I will try to narrow my choice of cameras to a few which are likely to produce reliable results to match my current photographic ambitions.  I exposed my recent roll of slightly expired Tri-X in my Mamiya C330, first on a walk beside the river, and then during my visit to the rock art site.  What I found in the process was that it would have been wise to quickly review the camera's manual before setting out as I encountered some problems with lens swapping which I was not prepared for. The C330 is the most versatile tlr available, but the controls are decidedly unintuitive.

Acros 100 II

I can't say that the new Acros is the same as the old, but it is nice stuff in terms of grain and tonalities.  I processed these shots in Rodinal 1:50.  My old Silverfast scanning software does not have an Acros profile, so I tend to skip around to find one that produces what I want from the negatives.

Duotone

Ringtone

I bought five rolls of the Acros 100-II from Adorama where it was on sale at about half the current price, probably due to the fact that it was close to the expiration date.  I have several rolls left, so I'll likely try the film in additional developers includiing PMK and HC110.

More Tri-X expired

 A quarter century on this Tri-X performs nicely thanks to frozen storage.  It seems to me that the tonalities and grain are very close to what a fresh roll of the film would produce.

I still lost one frame due to the curling of the thin film at the end of the roll.  For the next roll I will reverse the loading to put the curly end at the innermost part of the reel.  Or, maybe a better solution would be to insert the film strip in the reel with the emulsion side out since both ends are likely to have a strong curl.

Tri-X Prof (TXP) 07/1994

 I shot a roll of Tri-X Prof (TXP) in my Mamiya C330.  The expiration date on the 320 ASA film was an intimidating 07/1994, but it had been frozen. I gave the film a little extra exposure and a little more time in the developer and it performed very well.  My handling and processing, however, left something to be desired.  I lost a couple frames to poor loading onto the reel and also saw some light leak damage in some of the pictures.  The tonal values and grain were very nice in the surviving frames.

Plaza Don Luis

Plaza Vieja

I have four more rolls of this old Tri-X.  I'll try to be more careful with the processing, and I'm thinking it will be interesting to try some portraits to take advantage of the unique character of this film.

Shooting the Beast

 I nearly always like the images I get from the Mamiya C330 and each time I shoot it I pledge that I will use it more often.  It doesn't happen.  I average picking up the camera once yearly.  That's been going on now for ten years.  

I loaded some HP5+ into the C330 on Saturday and went down to the river in the afternoon.  There were ducks, geese and cranes in the ankle-deep water from bank to bank.  It was a scene that seemed to call out for some telephoto work.  Of course, I had left the 180mm lens for the C330 at home along with all the other accessories for the camera.  Luckily, the 2.8/80mm lens is ultra-sharp and the HP5+ combined with PMK Pyro processing yields very fine grain.  So, I came home with one good bird shot.

I think the lens on my YashicaMat is likely just as sharp as the lenses I have for the C330.  However, the close focusing and parallax correction available in the Mamiya give it the edge whenever I'm out prospecting for images.

On my recent outing with the camera I used the waist-level finder; it is very bright and easy to focus with the flip-up magnifying lens.  The Porroflex finder is a little dimmer and does not completely show the full image that will be on the film, but it makes shooting at a downward angle much easier.  The accessory grip  in combination with the neck strap also contributes greatly to managing the heavy camera.