When love comes to town gonna catch that train, when love comes to town gonna catch that flame.
Ironically, in the flight of the moment he failed to realize that this coal car had seen neither engine nor caboose in 13 years. It has indeed come to town, has been in town for a while and likely will be in town for a while to come. Smooth move, man, smooth move.
Nikon F3, E-series 50/1.8, Ilford HP5+
I got out of bed at 4:30 to catch a bus to South Seattle in time for the sunrise and Murphy’s law did it’s thing: the morning was fully overcast as daylight came. Mostly undeterred, I shot 22 or so frames of the area. Here are a few I liked.
Nikon F3, Series E 50mm/f1.8, Ilford HP5+. Scans done by Omega Photo, numbered by frame number.
Ilford XP2 Super. I like this film a lot, but it just doesn’t have the nice grain and tone of the HP5+.
All except for the beer-and-chips shot are from a day a few weeks ago when we spent the summer day helping Alicia get started painting her and Jon’s house (while Jon was on a business trip in Alaska–surprise Jon!). Don’t get me wrong, we did stay well nourished and hydrated while painting. A watermelon fight also took place, but I didn’t get any pictures of it; turns out it’s difficult to get good action portraits while dodging flying pieces of watermelon.
Pre-post note #1:
It’s a bit late to finish it now, but I’m working on writing/editing what I think about the “best” photo(s) I will ever take in my life. Hopefully this weekend I’ll have it coherently together.
Pre-post note #2:
These are the last shots I’ll be taking with Dad’s Nikkormat; hello Nikon F3 :D. Dear new camera: I hope you and I will do lots together and I appreciate that you double as a battle mace when I unlatch one side of your neck strap.
I decided to try Ilford’s C-41 400 film (so I can get it processed for…*drumroll*…cheaper. notice a trend?), XP2 Super. I like it, and when I finally get access to a good scanner, I’ll put it up against the non-C-41 (HP5+) shots I’ve got and see what differences there are.
This roll is the best photography I’ve done. I could be wrong about that..time may tell (do I hope it will in fact tell? I’m not sure). Here’s something odd though: I was convinced that one particular frame was the single best picture I’d taken, ever. Like, no doubting at all, I knew this. It wasn’t…it flopped. It flopped really badly. Composition, focus, aperture setting and all the works. It’s frustrating, but I can’t bring myself to be too cranky, considering how well so many other shots came through. Uncorrelated to that, I pulled my act together and numbered the scans by frame # finally.
Without more ado, here’re eight shots I feel good about:
Here are a few black and whites I shot on a hike up to Camp Muir the Saturday before last. It was a very somber day; on the way to the mountain my friend and I stopped at Burger King for breakfast at 4:30, we got to the mountain at 6:00 and talked with the ranger about avalanche conditions. Static filled radio reports from his handset filled the office, he was strained and chewing tobacco: an hour and a half earlier there’d been an avalanche on the mountain. Status reports were spotty, but there were at least half a dozen climbers hit and one likely fatality.
The exposures were taken with the same camera and lens setup, a Nikkormat and Nikkor 50mm f1.4; I shot Kodak Plus-X 125 film rated at 100. I’ve gone on the cheap and am doing my own scans now, but unfortunately I couldn’t get the really-fancy negative scanner at school to work, so again the scans are with a low end flatbed scanner. Hopefully I’ll have good scans in a few weeks. And again, same deal with the scan # versus the exposure #. Lastly, I do plan to touch up the ones that have obvious mechanical/chemical errors, i.e. the odd non-graduated horizontal tint/shade line in #’s two and five.
That day left a lot on my mind and heart, but none of it is really present and/or clear enough to be able to describe coherently; I want to though. Maybe in a few weeks, or months.
Edit:
I added three more shots. 6/24/10 DP
Edit:
So…somehow wordpress (naturally I blame it on them. Human error? Nah, couldn’t be that) ate this post, so here’s what I recall to be the four shots I posted.
6/24/10 DP
“The photographer first sees and feels a moment in time and life, then quietly tries to draw it from the world around it.”
It was more humbling than I thought it’d be, which is (hard to admit) a good thing.
Today I picked up my first two rolls of developed film. Although the lab did a great job, I’d like to develop my own film now. UW Photography darkroom, lets you and I become friends.
Part of me feels that I shouldn’t ever post only one or a few photos, as a musician may want an album to be kept whole. Being picky about that is something I’ve got to earn; I’ll wait till I’m better at photography to place/show each roll of film only whole.
The first roll is Ilford HP5+; the second is Kodak Tri-X 400. All were shot through a great 50mm f1.4 with a Nikkormat, both on borrow from my Dad (thanks pops!).
I’m not at all well versed in b&w filmstuffs, but I think I like the tones of the Ilford film.
Without further ado, here are a few that’re alright.
