Chitostyle is Chris Tong, a designer & front end engineer from Vancouver. Chris works for Pivotal Labs (San Francisco), largely for the Pivotal Tracker team. The last time Chris was visiting us, I took him around the corner to this dark brown wall that’s frequently tagged. I thought it would make an interesting backdrop for a portrait. As soon as the sun ducked behind the tall buildings on Mission Street, we went out and shot this.
I met Chris at a going-away party for my friend Jonathan, who was moving to Australia. These types of get-togethers are interesting because you get to meet friends of your friend that you haven’t met. I had the Canon AE-1 with me, and Chris and I drummed up a conversation about shooting film. I asked if he’d be up for doing a portrait some time. He’s a former film student, now getting an MFA in cinema, so he’s no stranger to this.
We met up this past Friday in front of the Castro Theatre. It was drizzly, but the light was pretty nice right at the ticket booth. We did two exposures, the one above and another. The other shows more of the theatre, but frankly I like the close-up head/shoulders shots more.
Taking two shots seems to be around right. In every case so far (knock on wood), one of them has been just what I wanted. This seems to be the case for my 4×5 portraits as well.
The image is a scan of a contact print done on Ilford Glossy RC.
The Falco is the moniker of my youngest step-brother, Ranier. When my dad remarried, he became part of a family that aleady had grown kids. The best part of the deal for me was becoming a kuya, the filipino word for older male relative. Being an older brother means you need to have all the answers, or at least most of them. It means steering your younger sibling around life’s obvious obstacles and helping them out with the challenging ones. Having long talks with Ranier about food, life, and photography, reminded me of my own childhood and being the source of so much knowledge for my brother Tom. I still have a never-ending curiosity about how the world works, and I really like that trait in both Ranier and Tom.
My brief resurgence as a brother-mentor is pretty much over, and I’m thankful that I had a second go-’round.
Ranier writes two blogs, one about fashion and one about dating – check them out!
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Last weekend I was in downtown with my Crown Graphic. The area was moderately busy but nothing too interesting was going on. I was headed down Powell street, when this guy stops me on the sidewalk. He asked if I could take a picture of him and mail him the photos. Sure, I said, why not.
As I readied the shutter and stepped back, he fell into this pose with his arms crossed with a very serious look. I tripped the shutter. We did one more for good measure, but it wasn’t as intense as this one.
He introduced himself to me as Vonn Arthur Tatum and wrote down his mailing address in my notebook. Born and raised in San Francisco, he told me. We chatted for just a minute before we parted ways. A quick search of his unique named turns up this iTunes Page, showing a single reggae style music album.
San Francisco never disappoints me, introducing me to so many interesting people.
I will be mailing him some prints of this photo this week. I hope he likes them.
This is Herbie Hancock, Maiden Voyage. I have really been enjoying listening to music on vinyl, so much so that it’s been a great distraction from everything. It’s been an opportunity to discover music that’s new to me. I’ve been listening to some mint condition albums from the 80s that make me feel like I’ve travelled back in time.
To me, playing music in vinyl gives me the same connection to music as film does for photography — it’s a hands-on, interactive experience. It’s a chance to be particular about procedure, to make tweaks in the system, and be more involved with something I really love.
This photo also represents the first darkroom work I’ve done in a while. I’ve been so caught up in everything else that I haven’t had time for my most precious hobby.
HP5+ at ISO 1600, souped in Rodinal 1+25. Taken with a Crown Graphic.
My friend John took this shot of me and my Burke & James camera just before I shot this diptych of John and his wife Betty.
As summer approaches and things settle down (work, health, vacations, house, etc) I hope to do a lot more portraits this year.
After seeing some of my street portraits, my coworker Hari wanted me to do a portrait of him as well with my Crown Graphic. I did two images, two shots each. The first was in our 6th floor conference room, which I love, but this shot in our server room turned out much better.
Hari works on our Global NOC team from Bangalore. He’s finishing up an extended visit here to California, to work in our Operations group while my coworker Chris is out on paternity leave and I’m busy with a project. It’s been great having him here for sure, and his working closely with us helps strengthen ties between our operations here and our monitoring/support there.
I hope he likes the portrait.
Here are a pair of shots I took of Ryan last Monday. I’ve been holding onto a factory-sealed box of Fuji 160 NPS with an expiration date of 2005. I decided to crack the seal and give it a spin. In late morning, many of the Mission’s colorful alleyways are still relatively quiet and Monday’s cloud cover had not quite broken. Perfect situations for a color portrait. I had the film developed with a day turn-around at Light Waves in SOMA.
As you can tell from my blog, I don’t often do color work. I usually dislike all the business with profiles, color temperature, saturation and hue, and all that.
Speaking of portraits in the Mission, I was chatting with John and Alan the other night about that topic. They’ve given me some ideas on how to step up my game on Mission photography. I’ve got some homework to do, some ideas, and a mission of my own. Maybe I can narrow my goal from being that guy to being that guy in the Mission. Part of my homework begins this weekend, doing some printing from 4×5 film. I gotta find some live paper, and probably get some fresh paper developer before then.
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