so things are pretty well settled in the new place. here’s a summary of the past several days:

- restaurant accross the street is awesome, peruvian-latin. great sangria for $20/pitcher. the wine shop is also pretty good, though they don’t carry sake. there’s also a good thai restaurant within walking distance. the kitchen is slow when the place is busy, but the food is good and their nan is super.

- sbc deemed the dry pair “very clean” and we’re very close to our central office. too bad the order was placed late, but soon enough there will be dsl and wireless access. thankfully there are some open waps nearby.

- the loft is just how i imagined it would be. my next project is building a darkroom on top of hardwood flooring!

- the new place has already been the scene of a dinner with friends, including a movie. last night we made extuded christmas cookies, just like the ones my mom used to make when i was growing up. i even made icing!

today i’m down in the south bay running errands.

im grumpy this morning from dealing with a particular person at work.

the person has a shortcut on their desktop. i inspected the shortcut myself, it looks proper. sometimes it works. sometimes it prompts for a login and password. sometimes it brings up a “link locate browser” dialog box, which i’m not sure i’ve seen before.

when i got back to my desk, i took a small brain vacation and explored HCI, something i am interested in.

you know, i am really getting sick of computers.

in microsoft windows, if you click on the desktop and do a ctrl-f, nothing happens. if you click in an email and do a ctrl-f, it forwards the message. if you click in a web page in internet explorer and do a ctrl-f, it brings up a searh dialog box.

it’s completely ludicrous how much more consistent apple’s operating system interface is. there’s something to be said for wanting to do something like find (a file, an email, a word on a page) and knowing the key sequence to do it.

something else that’s really be getting on my nerves: customer service. i just moved to a new place. i ordered adsl internet service on a dry pair (meaning it’s not going over a carrier signal on a standard phone line. pacbell got an order to install the line.

first off, i live in a 4 or 5 year old building that’s very well connected and wired. to give you an idea, in my unit, all rooms have multiple ports which all go to a connection panel in the closet — how wired is that?

in any case, i got an email confirm from covad. they stated pacbell will be running the line on the 28th. and they don’t schedule for a particular time that day. in fact, the customer may or may not see or hear from a pacbell tech on the scheduled day.

considering how wired the building is and assuming the previous tennant had a phone line and/or internet service, i’m wondering what will happen on the 28th. i’m forced to stay home and available for an entire day (what hours, exactly?) so i may or may not be needed to run a line that is very likely to already be run.

~~~

the second annoyance this month has been direct tv. we placed an initial order for the receiver-tivo combination unit, which wasn’t properly placed. luckily, we can get our initial service first on a special deal, then get another discount to upgrade to the tivo unit as a “current customer”. the tech came at the end of the time window on the scheduled day. his orders were to install our 3 room service.

we live in a building with multiple direct tv customers. instead if having multiple dishes on the roof that all point in the same direction, one might imagine there’s one dish and everybody’s lines are split off that one source. this is the case. in fact, in our unit we have a line coming from the satellite and goes into a splitter, so multiple rooms can access the signal. so far, this is not rocket science.

the tech sized up our premises and refused to install more than one receiver. his reasoning was he couldn’t install multiple units coming from a split signal (perhaps by policy). the signal coming into our unit is already split once, but that didn’t seem to make a difference. the order paper, a copy of which he gave us, stated we ordered a 3 room system. that didn’t matter.

now i’m no satellite tv technician. but i do imagine that if people want to subscribe to the service from the same satellite source, they can share a satellite dish. i happen to know, by observation alone, that the receivers have some sort of customer identification built into them, so it doesn’t really matter where the signal is coming from. the receiver will only allow access to the proper channels.

sometimes it feels like such a burden. such a stretch of procedure and habbit. please, just think and reason with me. things like, if you get people used to hitting a particular button to get a particular feature, don’t release other tools that use the same button in a different way. things like, if i’m obviously getting service from a split signal, don’t refuse to fill a documented and agreed-upon order because the signal is split.

i am not a HCI engineer. i am not a telepone line installer. i am not a satellite television technician. but i do think of myself as a thinker.

so far i’m 95% packed. unfortunately, the move day was pushed forward to friday. luckily i have friends who will be there for me. we’ll load up the truck at ryan’s, load the truck at my place, fill the rest of its volume with boxes, then head up. there are three more people joining us later friday to help out.

i just completed change-of-address requests for everything except work. a check has been made out for the deposit and first rent. all utilities have been cancelled or moved.

i can’t believe how much photo stuff i have!

on the monday following the move i’ll be taking bart under the bay to west oakland and catching a shuttle to work. that will be fun!

looks like everything went through and i’ll be moving this month. scared and excited.

in about five hours, i produced nineteen 11×14 prints and thirteen 8×10 test prints. it wrecks my back because i have to bend over the tub a lot. i use my kodak tray siphon for final wash, a last effort to rinse the prints before i carry them to a layer of paper towell that covers my livingroom floor.

one of the best practices i picked up was taking notes on my final prints. here are my notes from tonight:

grafton building-tree
11×14 height=54 150mm f11@20sec y88 m7
burn upper left 1/4 an extra 5 secs

grafton big-barn
11×14 height=54 150mm f11@14sec y65 m15

grafton church
11×14 height=54 150mm f11@12sec y52 m20

zion rock-windytoad
11×14 height=54 150mm f11@12sec y42 m34
burn upper 1/3 for 6 secs, dodge bottom 1/3 for 3 secs

zion circular-pool
11×14 height=54 150mm f8@17sec y27 m60

went to the hayward camera show this morning. “oh, it’s you again,” was how the entry ticket woman greeted me (playfully). i remembered my flyer this time for a dollar off admission; last time she gave me a hard time about it. i got the next two filters on my list — a linear polarizer and a dark green, both 82mm. tim (the filter guy — we’re on a first name basis!) asked what i was shooting that used 82mm. he gave me a good discount on the green filter. it was a nice way to start the day.

today was the second full day in a row of aggressive rentalhunting. it seems likely that i’ll be moving this month.

my first day back at work for two and a half weeks was capped by an excellent evening with coworkers, including a touR of thedude’s loft. this seals the deal for me and a loft. jim framed the three prints he purchased from me and they look even better than i imagined.

im almost done unwinding from my recent travels.

i have a half dozen rolls of film to develop from my stay in ohio and indiana. i have a ton of printing to do from my zion trip.

and i still have some scanning/photoshopping to do for a friend before i ask him for more modelling. i have some logistics i want to try out in 8×10.

here’s a provia 400 shot from my rolleicord, which shows the colors i saw in zion.

i’ve transcribed the notes i wrote during my trip to zion. they are in reverse chronological order, due to the nature of blogs.

i shot this picture at grafton. there are cows on the back of the farm. in the background you can see the huge rock in the background.

~~~

all my film is developed, all my brochures and notes are put away, and all my belongings are packed away. aggie and i have dinner with sharon. then we embark on our twelve hour drive home. it was uneventful and we got into the bay area during the evening rush hour. it took me three trips to unload all my things from the truck. aggie and i hugged, said our farewells, and she took off for her home. i collapsed onto the couch.

here are the photo related items i brought on the trip:

lowepro mini trekker, shen-hao 4×5, schneider super angulon 8/90, nikkor 5.6/210, meyer apo-process 12″, multiple cable releases, uv haze fitlers, 25a red filter, samigon 8x loupe, “dark cloth by old navy”, manfrotto tripod (tripod, head, and wide strap for carrying), lots of 4×5 holders (mixed fidelity and lisco), clear plastic carrier for film holders, hard case for transport of shen-hao, extra ground glass (satin snow).

this is one of the wierd rock formations in zion, near the checkerboard mesa. i shot this from a graded rock face. sharon was concerned that my gear would roll down the hill and be destroyed! it seemed worth the risk. besides, the ledge i was on was aa good foot wide :-)

~~~

last night sharon and i went into the town of hurricane (i cant bring myself to pronounce it hurr-i-cunn as the locals do). we were laughing at our little trip, “going into town for food and water”. like in the old west. we’ve been going through lots of distilled water.

we had dinner at mcdonalds, which was attached to a phillips-66. later we saw a wendys attached to a chevron. the mcdonalds had large, grey trash cans plugged into the wall. one was actually speaking, “please emtpy” every few minutes but nobody reacted to it. the other had its door slightly open from all the trash inside and had a red light blinking on it.

our drive today — coral pink sand dunes, angel canyon, caves park, kanab utah, fredonia arizona, pipe springs!

went to pipe springs national monument. the drive was very nice but the park was small and a bit dull — too “parkified” as sharon put it. we ran into rob and alan and later went shooting with them in zion. got some awesome shots i think.

sharon took some digital photos of me and the shen-hao on the rock face. for one of my shots, i setup on this foot-wide ledge on an include. sharon was worried that my film holders would tumble down the rock along with my camera!

alan got some experience on rob’s wisner 8×10 today. every has been very open to teaching alan.

this church is part of the restoration project of grafton.

~~~

today we went out to grafton, a small ghost town outside of rockville. it looks like there is some active farming out just passed the center of town, but most of the old structres are abandoned. it’s hard to believe that people work here. the buildings are simple and made of local, red stone they are slowly being restored. a couplel other buildings are all wood and nails. one of them even had a cellar but i was too wussy to explore that deeply. i shot less film today than i did yesterday.

in talking with sharon, i realized i was underexposing shots in which i was using a red filter. bummer. hopefully today will be better. its been a while that i used filters, actually.

everybody is getting friendlier as the week goes by.

~~~

this is one of the old wooden structures (barely) standing in grafton.

this image shows the great texture of the zion rock.

~~~

had a real breakfast this morning. watched cnn news, reporting that colin powell had resigned. four cabinet members are gone now.

this morning we’re heading into the park for a demonstration on pre-flashing. per showed us with polaroids where you just barefuly fog the film (shoot a grey card out of focus) before you expose your real shot (with usual settings). he shot a high contrast scene, whose highlights and shadows differed by six stops. the pre-flash we shot was the grey card at 3.5 stops underexposed. then you shoot the normal scene on top of that. it brought out more detail in the shadows. we did another where the greycard was underexposed by 2.5 stops. it brought out even more detail.

polaroid 1: normal exposure f22@15

polaroid 2: preflash -3.5 f~64@15 + normal f22@15

polaroid 3: preflash -2.5 f~32@15 + normal f22@15

went out shooting with sharon. it turns out i double exposed one sheet and accidentally messed up another in development. i was trying to develop too many sheets in one evening. i really need to let the combi-plan tank dry totally before i reuse it. per looked at my first set of negs. he pointed out how contrasty one of my images was. everything else looked ok. he also commented on my film and developer combination, delta and rodinol. probably the most sharp pair i could be using. he said pyro would make edges sharper and some even-toned areas much smoother because of the way it hardens the gelatin in the film.

i think i need to stop, slow down, and do things a bit more carefully. then i wont lose or mess up film. tonight gary brought over his crazy huge jobo processor into aggie’s bathroom. we edeveloped 4 sheets in abc pyro. it does pretty well. per talks about rollo pyro, so i should check that out.

today i asked abel what kind of dark cloth he uses, since i liked his the best. before the trip, i knew i wanted a dark cloth. i inquired about cloths at keeble and schucat. they had only the delta one. it was very large, and very heavy. not something i’d want to backpack with. i ended up using my jacket as a darkcloth, even sometimes refusing offers from other guys to borrow theirs. instead i studied other people’s cloths. abel said he got his from the view camera store. i later looked online — it’s a btzs focusing cloth. it’s now on my shopping list.

big rocks at zion. everywhere in theh park, all you can see are these rocks. if you’re in a car, you have to put your head to the windshield to be able to see the sky. they’re orange-reddish coloured.

~~~

this morning we came back and per gave a small talk on image content. it was good, he had hand-outs detailing five images that have stuck with him. he talked about what the images meant to him, and what about them made the imagery stick in his mind. some of it, i have heard before. it never hurts to hear wisdom from someone else, it helps solidify the message.

here are the images per used in his talk:

• igor travinsky, by arnold newman
• moonrise over hernandez, by ansel adams
• napalm in vietnam, by nick ult
• goebbels, by alfred eisenstadt
• jp morgan, by steichen

igor travinsky, by arnold newman

later in the morning sharon and i hiked up to the upper emerald pools in zion. what a hike! the pain was well worth it. it was very cold but sharon lent me some gloves. i shot about 10 sheets in all. the falls were so tall there was no way i could get it all in a single frame.

in the afternoon everybody brought their cameras out and it was very cool — almost everybody had unique cameras. some were even checking out my shen-hao. one other guy had one but later moved to a wista, i think. rob had a beautiful wisner 8×10. lars had an ebomy and an 8×10 monorail.

before dinner, four or give cars’ worth of us are headed over to the west side to catch the falling sun on the rocks.

curvy road at the bottom..
f64 at around 2 seconds. delta 100, schneider super angulon f8/90.

sharon has a modern super angulon 90 on her sinar. it is a sexy lens, but the rear element is huge. there’s no way it would fit in a small field camera. i wonder if it would cover 8×10, or fit inside a 5×7? i’m not sure i’ve seen a lens with such a large caboose.

this morning we went out shooting. after a long bathroom session, that is. shooting was awesome. hitting it off well with sharon. we went out with this guy abel, 70. his daughter is a news anchor in los angeles!

the weather was very sporadic and we got rained out of some opportunities. this afternoon, 16 of us showed up with per in the camgrounds meeting room. some of the guys are 10-15 years into large format. one or two are novice like me. one guy was compeltely new and didn’t even have a camera! going to be a decent workshop. afterwards, sharon and i took rob (an experienced commercial photographer from toronto) around the park. then dinner. i ate a whole entree. and without an immediate need to go to the bathroom. i was so excited! sharon and aggie were concerned about my health, so i shared my little news with them.

tomorrow morning at 8, sharon and i are going to emerald pools.

after dinner we chit-chatted with dave pettitt. his large prints are done on a lightjet. they are truly beautiful. the average joe goes for the large color prints. the artists are into the black and whites, he says. he shoots with a 4×5, just like most of us.

tomorrow at noon, everybody is bringing their cameras to the meeting. there will be at least 2 8×10s there. sounds like per brought a larger one..?

~~~

this is a small pool i saw in a little valley along side the road. i didn’t realize the circular movement of the water. that’s what is cool about long exposure, the film sees things you can’t see with your eyes.

this is part of the upper falls in zion. the falls were so tall i couldn’t get the entire view through my widest lens. this is the upper extremity. the water falls so far it’s just a sheeting mist by the time it reaches the rocks at the bottom.

~~~

still a bit sick this morning. might bee the chinese food from last night. had a very light breakfast this morning. sharon shows up and we go out exploring. gosh, ten seconds into the park and there are deer everywhere!

on our way back into the park it started raining. we saw a rainbow that turned into two. we actually saw the end of the rainbow! we were close to it when it jumped over the hill. soon after, it was moving along side of the road next to us! i had never been so close to a rainbow before, let alone seeing it race down the street next to us. sharon asked if i wanted to stop and take a picture. it would still come out in black and white she said. a “greybow” i called it.

today we picked up some distilled water for mixing chemicals and twine for hanging up negs. the grocery store was full of hot food samples and an elderly woman singing christmas carols over a loudspeaker.

this is a picture of me on one of the large rock faces in zion. i’m setting up my shen-hao 4×5 camera to shoot the rock formations.

~~~

as i crack open a fresh journal book (in which i originally wrote the text to follow), i am standing under an alcove on mission boulevard at the mission san jose de guadalupe, in fremont. despite the plans changing to circumstances far less convenient, anthony delivered me here this morning. my stomach has been in knots for twenty-four hours. i spent most of this morning in the bathroom. i’ve never had such an anxiety problem before. within an hour, hopefully i’ll be on the road north and then west, headed towards utah. hopefully then my body will calm down.

i started feeling better after lunch. aggie and i stopped in bakersfield before we head east to las vegas. so far everything has gone smoothly and it will be cool to arrive at the park early. aggie knows a lot of people. we passed part of the twelve hour drive by listening to a book-on-tape (compact disc, actually). paranoia by joseph finger, read by jason priestly. jason’s voice was a bit too forced and, in reading the obligatory love scene and swearing, he sounded weird.

here is a yahoo map image of a route between mountain view and springdale. i think this is the route we took.

this is another shot i took last weekend.

today i’m so nervous/anxious my stomach is in a knot. i wasn’t able to eat much of anything for dinner. i went crazy looking for “long johns” (a guy at sportmart had never heard of them) in five places. one place had two shelves full of the size below the one i wanted.

today was a mess. i got a haircut finally, changing my hairstyle a bit thanks to the awesome scotty. i spent more than half an hour banging out emails full of instructions to coworkers to follow while i am gone.

my ride to the rendezvous point has been patient, as my plans have changed at least twice, both in time and in destination.

i’ve been stressing out about not having the right equipment, not warm enough clothes, or even running out of film. and what if my room’s bathroom isn’t dark enough?

i’m going to sit down and relax for a minute.

put together a darkroom-in-a-box.

lay out all my gear.

lay out outfits and layers.

and relax. i think this trip will be one of the best things i’ve ever done for myself.

this is one of my first negatives from taking the shen-hao out in the wild. image features a leg of my tripod and my left shoe. this is also in my first set of negatives developed in a hp combiplan t tank system.

stress and nervousness levels all over the map this month. trip (make that two trips). 2nd workshop. moving plans. family. art for work. just lots of stuff going on.

today i took some time out to practice using the 4×5 in the field. converted my lowepro minitrekker to “lf mode”. contents: 4×5 camera, meter, all 3 lenses (featuring my hand-made wooden lens board!), 25a filter, other stuff. the sterilite box with 5 holders and a roll film back. so i had the backpack on, and carried the holders holder and the tripod. i need to carry holders in the backpack so there’s one less thing.

also took some time today to work on offramp stuff. upgraded the virus scanning and spam filtering software. both should get a good boost in accuracy now. two machines are spam filtering, so i can upgrade one at a time without letting anything get through unfiltered.

i’ve been communicating with aggie on things i need to bring with me to utah. i have a box of supplies arriving tomorrow, and i still have to figure out clothing. oh man, am i excited and nervous.

on monday i may hear about work art stuff. a coworker is pushing my art pretty hard; i am lucky to have such an enthusiastic and influential advocate. coming back from this workshop with good negatives may be a turning point in this story!

as soon as i get back from this trip, i am off again to the midwest for family stuff.

soon i’ll hopefully be forgettting everything as i concentrate on learning and doing what i love to do.