my life, as far as i know.

this is a picture of my parents from 1973.

i haven’t posted anything for a while and thought i would dig through the slides and find one to post. i think this is a great shot of them. the framing, their composure, and the colors. it made me think about the future, by the way they are looking off to the amazing distant horizon.

this is another folsom street fair image taken with the crown graphic. i had no idea who this person was, they just caught my eye and i wanted to shoot a photo. someone on flickr identified her as shavonna star. it’s interesting to read about people you meet briefly in fleeting moments like this.

i suppose i had a better than average opportunity to chat with the strangers i shot, but i never took the opportunity. i’ll keep working on shooting people, despite my awkwardness i still enjoy it.

it’s been a while since i’ve done much photography or blogging stuff. too long. i get that uncomfortable feeling, where i swear to myself that i’ll bring a camera along to the next event i attend. well, things fell into place such that i brought my crown graphic with me to the folsom street fair.

the fsf is the largest “leather event” in the world and attracts a huge crowd. it’s a six-block-long public exhibition of fetish with vendors, artists, and street fair food.

i wondered the fair with a small group of friends, but once i split off on my own i found a lot of photographic opportunity. part of it is, which ryan pointed out to me, that i feel more comfortable with the camera when i’m by myself. the crown graphic is such a fun camera, and so uncommon now that it attracts a lot of attention so it turns out to be great for a shy photographer. being shy at an event such as fsf seems silly. anyways, i found that with the crown.. you basically set it up for shooting and people will come up and ask you about it. or you make a gesture that you’d like to shoot someone and they pose for you, let you shoot, then ask about the camera. it’s a good camera for me.

i ended up shooting 17 sheets of tmax 100 at the street fair. i wrote down a pre-calculated exposure cheat-sheet, but ended up just using 1/500 and f/5.6 the whole day. i slowed the shutter down a stop or two where i was out of the direct sunlight. it’s funny how accurate “sunny 16” is. when the same ev, i basically just worried about focus.

This is Echo Lake, the start of our 16 mile hike.

A panoramic view of Lake Aloha, the hike destination. Click on the images for larger versions. These images are plagued by the horrible smudge that was on the lens.. but you at least get a sense of scale of the landscape.

i took this on my trip to the abandoned naval air station in alameda.

on my past few photo trips, i’ve found myself focusing on repeating patterns. also, something really intrigues me when i use color film to shoot mostly monochromatic scenes. i guess it’s about finding the subtleties in life.

this one is from the same drive, but in emeryville.

today i decided to go to the hayward camera show, but it wasn’t until i was heading down the peninsula that i realized it’s tomorrow and not today. i was already on the road with the pentax and film, so i decided to go to Alameda. you can see my route on the map.

aside from getting what i think will be great images of some of the buildings on the grounds there, i met dennis, a medium format shooter! he was out in alameda, where he just moved, with his pentacon. i recognized that camera a mile away, since it’s a cousin of my kiev-60. we had a little show-and-tell, since he had been thinking about a pentax but was disuaded from getting one. he showed me a czj 180/2.8 he has — that lens is crazy! anyways, we had a great conversation and i hope to bump into dennis again.

tonight i made my first successful attempt at printing on something other than photographic paper. this is a piece of a ‘keep out’ sign, the cheapest plastic sheet i could find at my local hardware store.

i used rockaloid’s “liquid light” product.

here are the basic steps you take:

i had trouble getting a decent print really, i was happy to get what you see above. but it was neat to see it work for the first time. i wonder how clean an image one can make with liquid light.

my goal is to eventually use this method to print a portrait onto glass.

here is the back of my print:

on june 11th, our group at work went to beresford park in san mateo, one of their many municipal picnic areas. it turned out to be a warm day and, with a lot going on at the office, a nice break to be outside.

i brought my rolleicord for the day, with some ilford delta 100. most of my shots were at 1/500 and nearly wide open. looking at this image, i’m glad i took my camera with me that day. i only shot 6 frames on that roll and only scanned two of those, and i’m posting just one.

my coworkers all have very diverse backgrounds and histories. most have them have been employed at the same company together for many years (i’m the “new” guy just passing my two year mark in a couple months).

i love how snapshots like this bring a moment in time (and the people pictured) out of context.

(flickr set)

on saturday we threw a birthday party for ryan at nikon whiskey lounge at folsom and 14th in san francisco. extensive whiskey bar, great japanese food. we reserved a private even room upstairs for our party. we topped off the party with two delicious cakes from miette.

i decided to bust out my polaroid spectra camera to document the occasion. it was a big hit, everybody seemed to enjoy using it and watch the prints develop. they all turned out great!

(640×797)

feeling grey lately. i think it’s stress from work, joint troubles, and continued house-hunting.

i decided to wake up early this morning and do a self portrait. i understand why some artists make them.. it’s sort of a “portraiture for introverts”. when you make something, what’s going on in your mind is projected through it. you not only see how you look to others, you see yourself subconsciously interpreted.

ilford hp5+, rodinal 1:50 for 12 minutes. negative scan.
shot with an 19″ apochromat red-dot artar with a dark blue (tiffen 47) filter taped to the front. wide open at f/11.

light was 400 watt-seconds from a speedotron 202vf head in a medium softbox above. white reflector below in butterfly position.

position self with pre-measured twine. open packard shutter. pop flash with meter. close shutter. develop sheet film, something i haven’t done enough of lately.

(1024×810)

this is one of the last frames on the roll of kodak 160vc i shot in sonoma last weekend. i took it while everybody else was in the car waiting for me. i saw this barn off in the distance and decided to use the o-o-f foreground to frame it. when i was looking through the viewfinder, i wasn’t sure if it would make or break the image. it’s atypical fo me to frame a shot like this. what do you think?

negative scan, kodak 160vc, 6×7. pentax 200/4.

last weekend after i met jared, i spent the following morning walking around downtown los angeles with my pentax 6×7. i’d never really spent time in downtown before.

i started near the gehry-designed disney concert hall and walked my way through chinatown, then down through central city.

one of the things that caught my eye on my walk was the all the textures and patterns. i decided to make it a theme in the photographs i took. it’s something you can find in every city, but what makes it interesting to me is the sheer scale of patterns in larger cities.

mustard growing in pescadero, california.

i took this on the recent large format outing in pescadero. this field of mustard was growing in a lot just off the main drag in town. a short walk from the gas station / taqueria we had lunch at. scan from kodak e100vs.

shooting in color makes me want to upgrade to a scanner that can do full sheet scans. i want to start including the film edges, especially in 8×10.

i shot this last weekend. kodak ektachrome e100vs. i used my jamin-darlot lens.

so spring is basically here. time for new things to be borned.

i’m off this weekend to go meet jared. bringing my notes. taking the laptop with a copy of
some of dad’s slides.

in my mind, i’m building up this rendezvous to be something really special. but as i’m winding down from an exciting and busy week at work, i’m realizing i shouldn’t expect anything. i’m just hoping to not have car problems.

anyways.. 2008 is already a big year for me. i hope it’s big for you too.

this past weekend we attended a hockey game, sharks v blackhawks.

i thought it would be a good opportunity to bring my agfa billy, a camera i haven’t used in a while. unfortunately, i must have messed up the lens because it wouldn’t focus at inifity. i did find this one frame (above) that works as such.

film is ilford delta 3200. shot at rated speed, 1/25. souped in rodinal 1:25 for 11 minutes.

between periods, they bring out these two remote controlled sharks which fly out over the crowd.

the game was the venue of our friend emery’s birthday. this is the second time he’s organized a large group of us to all chip in and get a box at the arena. a great way to watch the game, in my opinion: plenty of food and wine/beer, high def monitors, a great view of the entire arena, and plenty of good friends at arm’s length. the game wasn’t bad, either.

this is one of my images from the ski trip i went on.

the shot is just over the mountain from heavenly. it’s in a town named genoa, the first settlement of nevada.

there are four silos total, which you can see on the satellite view on google maps:
link

shot on ilford delta 100, using a nikkor-w 210mm with some front rise. souped in rodinal 1:50 for 14 minutes.

lake tahoe, taken with my cell phone camera. i need to find/make a supplement lens which will allow it to focus at infinity!

this weekend i went with a large group of friends to lake tahoe on a ski/snowboarding trip. i don’t do either of those sports, but i do enjoy a good drive, the company of friends, and opportunities to take my camera out.

i packed by shen-hao 4×5, a bunch of holders, and ilford delta 100. i shot about 25 sheets, so it will take me a while to get it all processed. these images here are just from my cell phone.

clockwise from upper left: my camera on the lake, emerald bay, the drive home, and genoa.

one of the most interesting places i visited was genoa, nevada, nevada’s first settlement. it is a small town with a lot of charm. i would have spent more time there, but the wind was getting really bad and my dark cloth was acting like a sail. next time i spent time in tahoe i hope to return there. the pic of the silos is on the outskirts of genoa.

my number one fan gave me a shiny new portfolio book for christmas. the cover is aluminum and hinged. the pages are welded polypropylene with archival liner sheets. the set is really perfect for the images i’ve been working on.

it is moving slowing, but it is moving forward. a real series of images.. what i consider my first coherent body of work. and thanks to this new nudge, the makings of a real product are forming.

since photography is as much of a process as a method for me, it’s been difficult to set aside prints i wonder my “work”. i forget that the word work is part of work in progress, the eternal label for what i’ve produced. i’m realizing that a portfolio is just a snapshot of my work, and that in no way should it mean i change how i’m working.

thanks, mom.

(1024×756)

my favourite vacuum tube just trying to fit in.

i’m learning to control the jamin-darlot a bit more. trying to center inside the image circle, for one. i’m such a sucker for old glass. lens and tube alike.

background is grey paper. black foam core to the left, medium chimera softbox to the right (with 50Ws of speedotron pop). scan of a polaroid 54 shot with a shen-hao 4×5.

this is a close-up of my new lens. i spent some time cleaning it with brasso and it’s cleaned up pretty nicely. what i love about the barrel is the detail in the lettering.

the only thing i didn’t understand about the words is the succ’r. tonight at dinner (at our favourite french bistro) i asked the waiter. he thought it might be an old version of a new word, obscuring the meaning a bit. he also thought of succursalle, but there’s no ‘r’ in it. he called his mother-in-law on the phone, who suggested it might be successeur, which seems to be much closer.

successor might be right, since jamin and darlot worked together before darlot went on to work on his own.