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 8x10s 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.

happiness is.. realizing the normal lens for your 8×10 works perfectly well as a long lens in 4×5. it’s like getting a free lens!

this morning i voted. when i got to the polling area, i was about number twenty in line. i waited a half hour. it feels good to vote.