film

Amsterdam Bikes

Photography
Amsterdam bikes

Amsterdam was all about bikes. It’s nice to reminisce about my trip there.

I want to thank you for your good thoughts, virtual hugs, and comments on my last post. It all really helps so much. Much more than you probably realize. I am very grateful for my internet friends.

I have missed posting photos on Blatherskite and I think I am going to start doing that again. Fridays will be for creative stuff, so photography or poetry or both. Depending on what I have for you. If you are interested in more of my photography you can check out my photography blog here.

This is a photo I took in Amsterdam with my new favorite camera, an Olympus XA. It was loaded with slide film that was cross processed.

Pinholing myself and others

Photography

drum circle
I am drawn toward pinhole photographing people, myself included. I am fascinated with what might happen on film when movement is blurred for longer periods of time. Maybe a person will show up on the film. Maybe they won’t. If they do show up, how will it happen? In the photo above I used my Holga and photographed a drum circle I participated in last month the evening of the super moon. This photo was exposed for 20 minutes. I wanted to make sure something was in focus the entire time so I placed the camera close to the candle holder. I wasn’t sure how this would turn out at all because there was a ton of movement. At one point someone came and sat down on the table the camera was on and I was afraid they were blocking the view, but that wasn’t the case. Or if they did, there was enough of the exposure prior to them sitting down for it to be captured on film.

meditation

I thought I would also experiment with self portraits. I captured myself meditating for 10 minutes. I love the way my image is there and is not there. Again, I used my Holga. This time I used 400 speed film, Fuji. I don’t like the subdued colors of this film. I prefer the saturation of the Ektar (used above).

Afternoon at the waterfall pool

This was taken with my Zero 2000 at a waterfall in the Columbia Gorge on a hot day. I think it is a 2 minute exposure using Ektar 100. Again, I dig the movement of the people. It’s not a perfect photograph but It is one that has me thinking about photographing crowds of people.

International Film Swap, part 2

Photography

My International Filmswap with Brendan from Aware of the Void continues! He shot the last of the three rolls on Sunday – and even developed them himself so we could have results that day. I am so pleased with how they turned out! Here are some of my favorites. There are a couple that really stand out and I will post them in another blog post so they can stand on their own. They are included here as well.

My side was shot in Downtown Portland, Oregon and at Cape Disappointment, Washington. His side was shot in Dublin, Ireland. He blogs at AwareoftheVoid.com and he has a really good Flickr stream that you should check out too.

See the photos from Part 1 here.

Negative Stacking, part 2

Photography

attack of the killer baseball

Last night in my darkroom class we learned some image manipulation techniques. Weirdly and unexpectedly my teacher mentioned negative stacking. I wasn’t planning on doing this yesterday in the darkroom but I had to give it a shot, since she mentioned it. I picked out a couple of photos from the negatives I had just developed and sandwiched them on the light-box. As soon as I saw the baseball and the alley I knew I had to try it.

I love it! I want to do more. I want to get all cheesy and over the top with it. It would be hilarious if I could take a photo of the murderous, bird-killing neighbor cat and substitute it for the baseball.

This could get scary.

Evolution of a Print – Part 2

Photography

Evolution of A Print - Dodging
We packed a lot of learning into my class Monday night. After we were shown how to use contrast filters, and after we tried it, we were taught how to dodge and burn. I had the perfect image to try this on. I took this photo of a statue in the Louvre and since it was lighted from behind it was silhouetted.

I love how low-tech this process is. She simply used her hand to dodge. Or if you can’t use your hand you use one of the handy “tools” which is a small piece of cardboard duck-taped to a wire hanger. That is what I had to use because of where my statue is situated in the photo and because I put the negative in the carrier upside down.

A quick wave over of the statue and, voilà, more information is revealed. Magic.

Evolution of A Print - Dodging

It will be fun to use this more in the future and, hopefully perfect it. I don’t understand a lot of this at the moment, logically. I feel like I am feeling around in the dark (Actually, that is exactly what I am doing. No metaphor there at all). Hopefully it will feel more natural to me in the near future with practice.

Next week we are learning about photo manipulation. I am not sure, exactly, what that means but I can’t wait to find out!