Some of my 4×5 Polaroid work will be in a show! The show will be at Space Gallery, at 1141 Polk Street in San Francisco. The opening is Thursday, August 5th at 8pm and the show will be up until August 12th. I hope hope you can come by and see analog photography works by local artists!

last weekend was up your alley, otherwise known as the dore alley fair. like folsom street fair, it’s a leather and fetish event in san francisco. it’s much smaller, the crowd is more local, and the weather isn’t as nice (unless, of course, you’re shooting film).

like folsom, my friend emery was gracious enough to host a party at his house, just a short walk from where all the action is.

i decided to take the rolleicord with me, since i haven’t used the camera for some time. it turned out to be a decent camera for street shooting. relatively small, quiet, and the xenar lens is pretty sweet.

This is one of my photographer friends, Yve Fontilea. She’s an easy bay based professional photographer. She and I agreed to do a mutual portrait session. We met last weekend at the Alameda Naval Base, which has an endless supply of interesting backdrops for pictures. A cute downtown area, barren huge parking lots, abandoned and active warehouses, Navy ships, subsidized housing.

These were taken with my Burke & James 8×10 camera, with the Gundlach triple-convertible lens. The film was Kodak TXP 320 pulled to ISO 80, developed in stock Xtol for 5 minutes. Printed on Ilford MGD.1M glossy RC paper.

You can see one of the pictures of me Yve took, here.

I’m finding this combination – lens, film, developer – works really well for these portraits. The lens itself has so much character, it really makes these images work. I feel sometimes that I’m just enabling it, I’m not really doing much at all myself. I just set it up, point, and shoot.

in san francisco, pink saturday is the day before the annual gay pride parade. the parade itself is a spectacle in itself, with an estimated 1.2 million attendees. the night before the parade, however, is when the craziness happens. a large swath of castro street and market street are blocked off. the area becomes a multi-stage concert venue and block party.

as is our annual custom, we went to a house party in the castro before coming outside to brave the crowds out on the street. i decided to bring what i’ve called the party camera, a crown graphic with a sunpak 444d and four grafmatic backs. entering a sweltering house packed with people, bringing such a huge camera, heavy camera might not cross your mind.

preparing for the party reminded me of last year’s folsom street party, where i felt really disconnected with the scene. this was a little different. it felt more like bringing along one of my crazy cameras to a party where all my friends were. “oh, you need to let schlachet take your picture with his crazy camera!”

i did learn a few lessons from shooting with this setup. first, when the subject is very close i should be looking through the camera and ignoring the sports viewer. second, when i slow down and think my shots come out much better.

overall, i am pretty pleased with the set. it’s quite an experience shooting hand-held 4×5 at night, let alone seeing your friends at a party in large format.