my life, as far as i know.

my first pure white portraits. the subject is about a foot (well, one of my feet) in length. as silly as the print is, it’s a learning experience for me.

speaking of learning experiences, i was looking around at the stacks of bum prints. wrong development, maladjusted contrast, wrong framing, holes or dents in the paper. i must have thousands of bad prints laying around.

i was wondering if other wet-photographers do the same. i keep mine around. i guess the reason why is to remember the mistakes i made.

i pushed the contrast on this print too hard, now that i think about it.

and something else, i just realized i should probably overexpose a shot like this. let the extreme highlights exceed the lattitude of the film. then i can slightly underexpose on the enlarger to bring in the subject but forget any detail in the white area.

and find a slightly more interesting subject.

i am clearly having avedon-inspired ideas. and my lust for 8×10 is respawned. yesterday i did a 55 p/n of a red chili pepper on pure white. it’s addicting.

i’ve also decided: keep film holders empty/put away until i need them. i’ve also found that i have to trip down the 55 negs for the omega’s carrier. that or i need to get a glass carrier. hrmm.

should i go for a 4×5 portrait? i’m seriously thinking about picking up a roll of paper.

things i’ve done so far today:

this is the new lobby at work. after a second tiring weekend in a row, i decided to spend a little time at work doing something i enjoy — photography. i also shot this on film, looking forward to doing a print.

yesterday i woke up at 4:30am. got into work by 6am. worked until 1am sunday. came in again today at 9am.

i dont fully comprehend why we decided to let cablers unplug/replug/move cables today. we had a few systems to be off-limits for them so we could keep our financial system running. we didn’t take into account the non-production systems we depend on to do our work. so that was delayed several hours.

now i’m trying to bring up the rest of my systems and half the machines i worked on have lost power due to loose cables being jostled. the last power drop took out three drives.

meanwhile, we are all getting sick from the constant dry/cold air.

my nerves are wrecked.. i’m writing this from the far corner of the data center so i can cool off. some how, we will get everything back online before monday morning.

tonight i had dinner with my secret jasmine tea brother

this weekend was rough. we moved a lot of machines to our new data center at work. a long, 18 hour day. i came back on sunday to help out with other fallout and it turned into a 13 hour day. per my manager’s suggestion, i did some clean up at work this morning then went home.

there’s a lot of work to do this week, then more moving this weekend. after all this move business is over, we get to deal with all the work that’s been waiting for the move to be over. and then we get to walk to the new building often to work, since all the machines are there.

hrm.. i think there’s a movie night brewing at my place next week.

playing the metropolis part 2 album. and it soo kicks rump !! it’s totally recharged me.

anyways.. seems it’s not as simple to sell my sinar as i wanted it to be. it’s weird, there are other sinars for sale locally. mine doesn’t come with a lens or the finer small extras (like a loupe), but i am trying to sell it for much less than i paid for it.

work stress is high. on the cusp on major moves. getting kudos on unrelated projects i’ve been spending time on.

had dinner with jon. talked about cars.

still no call from the renters insurance lady. i’ve been too busy to call anybody this week.

may go shooting with jon this sunday. he says he loves his d70. i’ve been aching to shoot as well. i finally ordered a replacement for my jamming 545 back. can’t wait to get that. i want to shoot more LF. that reminds me, i need to stock up on 4×5 film.

today i wrote three replies to entries of friends who blog but abandoned submitting them.

amid all the stress of this month’s activities at work, i reformatted my desktop computer and installed fedora core 2.

there’s an element of peace to working in a darkroom.

when i’m developing film in trays, my bathroom is so dark it doesn’t matter if you close your eyes or not. it’s such a neat feeling, closing your eyes and not seeing any difference. somehow my eyes seem more relaxed when my eyelids are covering them even when there is no reason to strain otherwise. i seem to naturally concentrate on sounds. the muffled sound of music coming through the door, or the steady piezoelectric beeps from the enlarger timer. sometimes it feels like i can hear my own thoughts.

when i am loading film in complete darkness, there is a lot of physical work to do. unpackage the film, set it up, removing dark slides, loading film, stacking the loaded holders. again, eyes closed or not, there is nothing to see. i might as well be looking up or side to side. sometimes i intentionally look up as i work. it feels like i’m performing some sort of trick.. doing a task without looking. as if i could look if i wanted.

most of my darkroom work is done with light, ironically. a low, reddish “safe light” which emits a special color not seen by photographic paper. it takes a while for your eyes to adjust. it’s not the overly bright red light of darkrooms you see in the movies. it’s much darker. and when objects cast shadows, the shadows are a very deep black. i try to keep my safe light up near the ceiling, where it can reflect and diffuse into the room fairly evenly, even if faint.

under the safe light, it pays to keep your eyes open. i’m sure the irisises of my eyes are wide open, letting in as much light as possible so i can see what i’m doing. working in a darkroom is peaceful. the only noise is made by what you’re doing and the trusty timer that may click, beep, or buzz, letting you know when your current task is over.

especially now that there are two enlargers in my darkroom, there is not much room for anybody else. darkroom work for me has always been a solo affair. once in a while i’ll have a guest to show what i like doing, but my nervousness always prevails. i make mistakes. but when i’m not putting on a show, my instincts take over. and i finish the evening with an entire roll of paper towells used; large prints laying on my living room floor. air drying, hopefully not catching too much dust before they dry completely. when i wake up the next morning, i walk out of my bedroom in a slumber, eyeing the dried, glossy prints. not feeling the ache in my back any more from kneeling over an easel or wiping the water off a print. it’s like christmas.

this morning i woke up to find my car had been broken into. the passenger window was smashed, the trunk opened, and some items stolen.. including my latest acquisition: the ansco and its lens as well as the tripod. i was lucky to get the gear at decent prices, and the lens i got for it was somewhat difficult to find. a filebox with some personal files and my car’s subwoofer were also stolen.

so now my car is getting repaired. i’m driving a big american rental car. i’m thinking about getting a new car.

and i’m heartbroken about losing that camera.

last week i learned that july fourth is the deadliest day to drive. so what did i do? i ended up driving hundreds of miles. on a little brain vacation, i packed up some cameras and set off on a aimless journey.

i got stuck in traffic on southbound 101, as an overturned bigrig had caused a backup of over 8 miles.

later i managed to land at the hollister bikers’ independence rally. i came, i saw, i bought the tshirt.

i wandered through ranches off highway 25. i swore i was in the middle of nowhere, when i turned onto a street named, quien sabe. who knows! i chuckled out loud.

i saw squirrels, a type i hadn’t seen before. i saw deer. i saw a long snake crossing the road. i saw cattle. i saw a bird i couldn’t identify.

i spend some time resting in pinnacles national monument park.

all in all, it was a nice day. the weekend.. well, that is for another post.

good bye ansco.. it was fun while it lasted :(

lens came in the other day. oh man, i’ve forgotten how large copal-3 shutters are. and a 19″ in this diameter is heavy. it is pretty clean.. has some spots as expected.. shutter seems to be great. my first neg from this negative looks GREAT. i have an almost complete rig now..

i’ve been reading up on tripod stuff. my bogen may suffice.. i have a hexagonal plate head i got for 4×5.. only rated at 16 pounds. people are saying there’s a larger version of the head i have (the one i have is #3407) that can handle a large camera (funny how 4×5 doesnt seem all that “large”). unfortunately, i think my favourite photo shop may be closed tomorrow.

think i’m gonna go out and shoot tomorrow.

my first 8×10 negative. seems the 5.6/210 does cover 8×10 (at least enough for testing.. maybe not for focusing at infinity).. i stopped down to f45 for depth of field, not thinking about it pushing the coverage just enough. i even used a bit of front rise on this shot. so who knows. in any case, i am stoked about 8×10!!