my life, as far as i know.

first, bad news. my polaroid back is jamming. it seems to not grip the metal edge of polaroid 52 film.. it bends the metal. i’ve ruined a bunch of film. it seems to still work for 55 film, for some reason.. so i’ve used that to test out a new lens i got today.

above is the test polaroid. 5.6 at 2 seconds, polaroid 55 p/n. i used most movements to try to get most of the kettle in focus.

it’s nice having a longer lens for the shen-hao. and my quest for the other lens has ended. i should soon have a somewhat long lens for 8×10 on the way.. that should be fun! i now have the film, lens on the way.. i’m not far off from shooting my first film with the ansco.

working on putting together my 8×10 set. i have some film arriving this week. as for a lens, still working on that. i went to the hayward swap meet on sunday — almost bought a 5.6/210 but realized it had a line visible through the front element and was high priced; i ended up getting the same lens, classified E by keh for a little bit more. that should arrive this week. still on the prowl for a 10-12″ lens.

sometimes it’s fun to watch people on the road. i make it a point to look at people who pass me, tailgate my car, and swerve dangerously from lane to lane. i like to make quick, ignorant judgements about them so i can imagine what types of people they must be. i wonder where they’re going in such a hurry, or what they’ve experienced that makes them drive so frantically.

this morning, i was the subject of driving observation. i wanted to merge left into a lane that had plenty of room. i signalled, then merged. i wonder what type of person i must have seemed like to the guy who made it a point to stare me down.

i was driving to work on central expressway, a four lane road that cuts through sunnyvale and santa clara. i was in the right lane and wanted to merge left. as i usually do, i guaged traffic before i made my move — there was another car in the left lane, a few lengths back and not closing in. so as i watched through my rear view mirror, i put on my turn signal. sure enough the other car sped up, as if to prevent me from merging. i merged anyways — he wasn’t moving, i wanted to get in the lane, there was plenty of room, so i signalled. he accellerated until his car was right on my rear bumper. he swerved into the right lane and passed me by, giving me this piercing look.

now while he didn’t have laser-eyes or a forehead-mounted gun or anything, i’m not sure what he meant to accomplish. in fact, he took the next exit and left the expressway. had he merged right to take the space i was occupying, there would have been no stress, no net traffic change, and he wouldn’t have to spend the time giving me dirty looks only to nearly miss his exit.

i must overthink driving. i use my turn signal. i judge traffic flow for each lane and pick the one that seems to be running the smoothest. i favor lanes to the left when i am going a longer distance. if i want to get into a lane, i take advantage of people leaving the lane.. after all, swapping lanes means no net change.

it seems to work for me. i generally make progress in traffic, sometimes moreso than people who constantly change lanes. driving is relatively low stress for me. i don’t have people honking their horn at me. although sometimes i get people flashing their lights at me (which is dangerous to do) when i merge into their lane after signalling — haven’t figured that one out yet. do i have a brake light out?

Ann Carlsworth, Christie Kaymore, Deb Bevins, Mike Holliwell, Doug Middleton, Thad Pope: they were the core of the popular crowd, and for the next six years my classmates and I studied their lives the way we were supposed to study math and English. What confused us most was the absence of any specific formula. Were they funny? No. Interesting? Yawn. None owned pools or horses. They had no special talents, and their grades were unremarkable. It was their dearth of excellence that gave the rest of us hope and kept us on our toes. Every now and then they’d select a new member, and the general attitude among the student body was “Oh, pick me!” It didn’t matter what you were like on your own. The group would make you special. That was its magic.

So complete was their power that I actually felt honored when one of them hit me in the mouth with a rock. He’d gotten me after school, and upon returning home, I ran into my sister’s bedroom, hugging my bloody Kleenex and crying, “It was Thad!!!”

Lisa was one grade higher than me, but still she understood the significance. “Did he say anything?” she asked. “Did you save the rock?”

My father demanded I retaliate, saying I ought to knock the guy on his ass.

“Oh, Dad.”

“Aww, baloney. Clock him on the snot locker and he’ll go down like a ton of bricks.”

“Are you talking to me?” I asked. The archaic slang aside, who did my father think I was? Boys who spent their weekends making banana nut muffins did not, as a rule, excel in the art of hand-to-hand combat.

–
from dress your family in corduroy and denim by david sedaris.

the odometer of my integra flipped over to one hundred thousand miles today. in an impromptu ritual, i rolled down the windows (my favourite way to drive) and coasted at the speed limit a mile from my home when it flipped. it slowly moved again as i rolled into my parking spot. it was great. i’ve been anticipating the moment for two days now.

this was the first new car i’ve ever bought. i met my stepmom-to-be and her kids on the lot of the dealership the say i signed the papers. i’ve been driving this car through every relationship i’ve ever been in. i was driving this car when i broke my record for the fastest i’ve ever been in a moving car. i’ve enjoyed so much music in this car, thanks to a custom audio system. i’ve been through a bad solo accident and two fender benders in this car.

i test drove this car when the odometer read “5″.

i love my car.

a new toy arrived on friday. it needs a lens and some film, i can’t wait to put it to use.

my efforts to reduce dust on my negatives were thwarted last night. it’s so frustrating. needless to say, i went to bed so early i got a full eight hours of sleep, had a night full of dreams, and woke up early enough to spend an hour at the coffee shop before i headed into work.

this morning, over a yummy white chocolate mocha, i thought long and hard about dust. my goal for the day is to kick up the humidity in my bathroom, let it air out. then load film into a holder. shoot as usual, then again raise the humidity before i unload the film into chemistry.

did i ever have dust problems with the sinar? not sure i’ve ever even shot sheet film with it.. just polaroids.

anyways, apug makes me feel not-alone with respect to photography. it’s around when i need, there to bounce ideas off of, and willing to listen when i have something to be excited about. sadly, it’s like the friend i wish i had.

shooting after work yesterday was fun, at least. i got to talk to some random people who stopped by to see what i was doing and asked what kind of camera i was using. earlier yesterday i came upon some 8×10 shots that totally inspired me to learn about near/far focus. i did some shots on the stanford campus in which flowers just at the base of the tripod were in focus as well as some buildings in the background. it was great. composing on ground glass really is fun. too bad the negs are crap.

also: this morning at the coffee shop, there’s a sign saying “barbeque days are here!”. before i said my order, i subtley rubbed off the apostrophe that was between the y and the s.

this morning, someone in a miata rolled through a right turn to cut me off. i had the green light, so they technically ran a red. then to make things worse, they threw out some food wrapper out their window, which bounced off my windshield. this is a good week to go postal.

the guy who ran weblogs.com shut his site down with zero notice. thousands of blogs have disappeared.. it’s been covered by slashdot and, surprisngly, netcraft. as someone who provides free hosting, i can feel the pain of running services for people who don’t understand the work that goes into them. but at least i’d try to warn people if i had to dump everything. once in a while i do get thank-yous. i should compile some updated stats of the offramp skunkworks…

in the last month, offramp has received 43000 emails and sent 4700. it rejected 22000 emails. the web server’s seen about 2759000 hits. 50 unique users logged in.

spent some time today doing software updates. ssh on the web server and staged it for the shell server. i also upgraded 3 installs of Gallery, truly cool software. The gallery on offramp has more than 3600 uploaded images in it! it took some time for the upgrade to update all the images.

not been feeling too well lately.. also haven’t been too productive at work. most likely it’s from not sleeping enough and thinking too much about projects that are going crazy from key people being out. yesterday i was sick to my stomach and left work after lunch.. went home and slept. slowly, i am getting better.

think think thinking a lot lately.

i feel like i should post an image tonight.

this is a shot i took when i was hiking with one of my best friends jeff and his wife, jessica. i shot it with the rolleicord.. it felt like the right camera to take that day.

did some portrait shots of my dad and stepmom tonight. we used his sony 5 megapixel camera and i brought my studio lights and meter. i had to fiddle around with the camera to force it to use the flash, and how to set aperture and shutter speed in manual mode.. once i got everything setup, the shots came our perfect. low iso to cut down noise, lights through the umbrellas at 45-degrees to light evenly. i had to raise one light up to cut out reflections on my dad’s glasses. some post-processing in photoshop and these should be great.

tonight showed it really is about the lights when it comes to doing decent portraits.

i also showed my little step-brother my shen-hao and showed him all the features. he likes checking out the new toys and asks lots of questions about cameras when i’m there. he asked for an update on how many cameras i have now. “i have 17 now.” “wow! didn’t you have just 8 last year?” “something like that.”

lately i’ve been disappointed about hobby peers. that is, people in me demographic who are interested in wet photography. i wrote up a sizeable rant on the subject, but decided to hold off. i got some good thoughts on the subject from sid and i’ve spent the past few days thinking about things.

two nights ago i wandered up the peninsula at night, driving around, thinking. yesterday after work i went off to the santa cruz mountains to do some shooting. it’s been great to have some solitude like this. the weekend is approaching fast.. i plan on going to the bryant st. swap meet saturday morning (looking for a 200-250mm.. that reminds me. if i wanted to buy a lens board, where could i go locally? no clue!) and who knows what else this weekend.

i haven’t decided on what i’ll do next, with regards to my dilemmas. but i do have some ideas.

happiness is..
..the caramelly foam left over from a caramel macciato

field camera work is very nice. with a polaroid, i get instant feedback on my settings, composure, focus, etc. then i shoot the scene on ilford delta. then i get to have even more fun on the enlarger. it feels like a crime printing from these negatives on anything less than 16×20 paper.

i’ve been wanting to take it to the streets. when i get some more ideas, a location, or an image in mind.. i’ll be ready.

i’m sure this has been photographed a million times by a million photographers. to me, though, it reminds me of the drive i took this past weekend, camera gear all over my car, through la honda on my way to the coast. i also shot this in 4×5 but it turned out to be one of the dusty negatives (read previous entries for that issue).

in the shower this morning i had a revelation (where most of them happen).. the one place where dust is most likely to hit the film is in the changing bag. i’m using a used bag i got with my sinar. i turned the bag inside out to inspect it… i’m not sure.. it could be. it is tight quarters in there, with stacks of holders, the film in its 3 boxes, etc. my test will be to load old and new holders in my darkroom (will be easier, anyways) and then keep an eye on those films through development. it’s too bad i already pre-loaded all the holders again with film. those may be affected. i guess at this point i could try air-blowing them in the dark to hopefully rid them of dust. at least i have something specific to test now.