my life, as far as i know.

this morning..

i was running late so i decided to not rush. late is late.

i talked to michael at the coffee shop a bit about books and what i’ll be reading next. i have one more book in the ender series. then i may read i, robot.

on my way to the coffee shop i stopped at a four-way stop with stop signs. a girl in a civic stopped at the same time, to my left. she started off and crossed me before i could go. i could have sworn you are supposed to give right-of-way to the driver to your right.

on my way to work from the coffee shop, i saw an old heavy set man on the corner holding out two pamphlets. he was looking over his glasses. i saw him as i was turning right and he extended his arms towards me, as if i could read the pamphlets from where i was.

and this morning, once again i am totally ruled by air’s how does it make you feel ……

do you know that when you look at me, it is a salvation?
i’ve been waiting for you so long
i can drive on that road forever
i wish you could exist to live on my planet
well it’s very hard for me to say these things in your presence
so how does this make you feel?

this is from one of my first rolls of provia 100f. it is one of two rolls i shot in san francisco on monday. 6×7 slide film is awesome to handle. i’ll take advantage of my coworker’s offer to do super high resolution scans on one or two of the frames.

my epson scanner did pretty well. i did scans at 3200 dpi, 48 bit color. in photoshop: crop, drop to 8 bpp, unsharp mask {500%, 2 pixel, 0 levels}, then resize. the images came out great. granted, i had to upgrade my desktop’s memory to a gigabyte before photoshop performed decently.

yesterday i took the day off from work. i spent the first half of the day walking around the mission district with my pentax. i picked the mission because it’s a very colorful area of the city.. i had decided to try out fuji provia 100f. i shot two rolls and change.

the second half of my day was spent recovering from the first half. almost all areas of the bay reported record temperatures, many over ninety degrees.

in the evening, i took ryan to a nice restaurant for his birthday, tamarine. the decor, service, and food were all excellent. definitely a place i’d go back to.

ok, this time around i picked up some items at the hayward show:

i almost picked up a fujinon 5.6/210… it was in pristine condition.. maybe i held off because it wasn’t mounted.. i should get a lens board wrench and look for used boards. then next time i won’t hesitate…

“sister carlotta quoted somebody in the bible about how a man and a woman marry and they become one flesh. very mystical and borderline weird.”

– bean, in shadow puppets by orson scott card

tonight i shot two images on 4×5 sheet negative film for the first time. in lieu of any proper equipment, i used 8×10 hard plastic trays for development (rinse, 1+25 rodinal @ 7 mins, stop, fix, rinse). my negative clips wouldn’t grip on the negatives, so i let them drip for a bit over the sink and i propped them up against a box to dry. one image is a shop window, the other is a textured wall. viewing a 4×5 negative is completely different than other, smaller formats. now i’m really anxious to pick up some color film.

decided to try a sheet of the type 79 today. the color came out rich and creamy. it looks a little better on the print than in these pixels. but you get the idea. controlling convergence is pretty easy.. now i want to learn more about controlling the plane of focus, then i think i’ll be ready to go out and play. i can’t wait to shoot chromes with this camera.

finished building jon’s machine and installed it at the colo last night. i’ve just about filled every cubic inch of my space allotted; next upgrade is to move the shell machine to a 1u server. i took matt with me, since he wanted to see the he.net colo.

i just realized what i’m missing:

a stock of delta 3200

why doesn’t the 3200 come in pro-packs?

tomorrow i’m going to ess eff to a gallery opening. what camera shall i wear?

now i wish my fed wasn’t broked.

yesterday i worked a nearly twelve hour day. but it was great. five of us implementing a plan i spent two weeks working on. and our end result.. a system i am proud of.

today i had some free time so i did some reading and decided to try a shot with back tilt. the image above is one of the sun microsystems buildings in santa clara, just down the street from intel’s headquarters.

photographing office buildings makes the security folk nervous. a security guard came to check things out. i was on a public sidewalk taking the picture, so there wasn’t much he could say.. so i introduced myself, my intentions, and showed him my polaroids.

if i were a photographer-terrorist, i would probably pick up a d70 or 300d. something i could put a good lens on. it would be interesting, though, to be meticulous and artistic in surveilance work.

i was also disappointed that i scratched my polaroid, getting my gear back into my apartment. that’s life.

this is a photograph i took about two years ago this month.

now that i’m starting to study photographers and keep an eye on design people i admire, i’m thinking a lot about style.

my overall style has changed, definitley. but for a week or so i’ve been really searching for my own style. i’m sure it will take longer than a week. part of me says, hurry up and find your style so you can exploit it while other parts say just go with your instinct, that’s how style is born. i think style is what brings people to your work. if they like a certain style, they’ll like you. if you’re all over the map, so too will your admirers. so we’ll see.

tonight i’m going to dinner with a., then since it’s supposed to be a clear night, i’m going for a drive to seek out interesting light.

oh, and this week i finally went through my first battery on the pentax.

so i had some errands to run regarding my new camera. a cloth tape measure, another notebook, some binder clips, and some black cloth. i thought on my way home i’d buy a yard or two of black cloth to use for focusing. no sweat, i’d ask if someone could sew up the ends so the piece of cloth wouldn’t unravel. i’m sure a quilting/sewing store could handle such a request. as with most things out of my arena, i was a bit put off by the store. this woman helped me and i explained what i wanted to do, first thing. the regular black cotton cloth would let too much sun through. we checked out a second fabric; it too wasn’t up to par. i folded it in half. two pieces of it blocked enough light out. great, i’ll take this. the woman calculated out loud how much fabric i would need. i was thinking to myself, i never asked about having someone assemble it for me. then she rung me up. wait, how did she calculate the length? this is almost twnety bucks of fabric. here’s your change. thank you. no, thank you. and suddenly i was on my way out the door feeling rather clue — no, hope less. instead of turning back and setting my situation right, i kept on walking. on the drive home i thought up this blog entry. and started thinking about how to solve this on my own.

and this is why i don’t do people photography.

ok, tonight i finally got it:

set the aperture for the flash
set the shutter speed for the ambient light

been learning a lot about shooting 4×5. my first couple shots turned out underexposed and i couldn’t figure it out. i forgot the inverse square law for light falloff and extending the bellows. of course. since the camera doesn’t seem to have any interconnection between standards, i may pick up a small ruler or tape measure and calculator.

so far, delving into large format is 100% fun. it’s a shame i work this weekend, i would love to take it out somewhere.. once i learn how to compensate for bellows.

tonight i’m working on prints. tomorrow is print night at camera club and it’s my week to bring the cookies.

some prints in my apartment (just laying about) are starting to curl a little.. i need to give them away or put them away. (need to give myself a deadline for t.g. prints..)

it’s almost time to turn down the lights and turn up the music. maybe i should get a dvd/cd carousel for my entertainment system.

i have about 25-30 rolls of exposed/undeveloped film in my apartment now.

i’ve been collecting photography books. my new idols: sally mann and richard avedon.

i’m already looking at other lenses/accessories for my beloved sinar. it never stops, does it?

cheers,
jason

on saturday i got a new camera (new to me, the camera is actually used), a sinar f. i paid as much as i expected to pay for a new camera.. and perhaps a little more than i could have, but it came in a complete set of pieces with a trunk case. the camera, tripod mount, 2 extra bellows, standard back, 6 dual sided film holders, graphlex back, 545 polaroid insert, f8/90 schneider angulon lens, extension rail, bag bellows, and a locking trunk case. maybe a few extra smaller parts. maybe it wasn’t a bad deal. i also picked up some polaroid film (which is FUN to use) and a cheapie 8x loupe.

on sunday, i attended an all day workshop, in which i shot 20 rolls of film (the organizer noted that i was the most technical person, career-wise and brought the lowest tech cameras — my pentax 67 and my rolleicord v) with models in a studio. it was great experience, and one of the models and i really hit it off. i still have some deep thinking to do about my work and people. and now i have a lot of darkroom work to do :(

on the print front: i have to finish up the series for jim, i need to bring some work up to SF for tague, and i need to get some prints together for wednesday (i’m bringing the cookies for print night this month, for camera club).

plus i had dinner with family on saturday, and ryan and i went up to le cheval for dinner on sunday at which we had seven courses of beef. quite yummy.

i’m completely exhausted from this weekend, and i have busy stuff going on at work, i have prints and deadlines for my photography, and i’m scheduled to work this coming weekend, at least a full day worth of work.

so.. thanks to the president of my fan club, to my sweetheart and others who support me in my work, and all of the people i’m working on prints for their patience!

my first 4×5 polaroid. more details later.

played around with lights tonight. this is an image on polapan iso100, shot with my holgaroid. the real work was done with a rolleicord, delta 100, various light setups. getting nervous about sunday. and saturday, for that matter.