Photo: October 2004 Archives
Of course I run through the last of my 120 film this week and then get a really, really great wet and foggy night. Such is life. Well, at least this way I'll have a few...erm...nicer shots to post.
Sunset in Brooklyn. But obviously a different Brooklyn.
Must be a storm coming, my Mamiya is acting up again.
I swear, just to mess with me, every couple of months it goes on this kick of not advancing the film right. Either giving me these massive gutters or overlapping. And then, just when I get ready to buy a new body, it stops and everything seems wonderful.
Sigh. Not what I was looking forward to replacing.
When I was developing negatives today I tossed a strip that I had processed over the weekend into the negative scanner while some other film was washing. All that, just so I could post something from my recent stint as "creepy hanging out at playgrounds in the middle of the night" guy. Enjoy.
Let me share with you one of the many reasons that I hate cellphones.
Years ago, if someone was alone in a public place and talking, you could safely assume that they were talking to themselves. These days, if someone is rambling like a lunatic while sitting in the shelter at a public park in the middle of the night, it's increasingly a safe bet that they're just chit-chatting on their own little mobile line to the outside world rather than bickering with the beast within.
So, when I was out photographing the playground at the public park shown below, I largely ignored the fellow sitting in the shelter for a while. Boredom with 5 minute exposures eventually got the best of my desire to not be a snoop and I realized that the guy was not, in fact, using real words. Sure, occasionally he'd say something that passed for English but for the most part he was speaking in tounges. He was not on a cell phone as I initially assumed.
Verizon Wireless: Bluring the line between social and batshit since 2000.
Pardon me for not writing much but I'm doing well just to keep up with images. In a fit of either frustration or inspiration I started taking night shots of playgrounds and playground equipment in medium format. I developed a couple of the rolls and it looked like some of the exposures are coming out well. Every time I go to a new playground I have to repeatedly remind myself to vary my distance since I tend to get into kicks where I'm seeing all close up or all middle distance compositions.
So, there's always that.
Busy, busy, busy.
Today I recieved a copy of the Disconnected book from Lulu. Part of the reason for doing a quick hack'n'slash color project was so I could check out how good Lulu's printing is. Aside from there being a few things that were messed up (that were largely my fault) the color printing was suprisingly nice. I showed it to one of my professors. When I told her that it was a 60 image book that cost me $14.87 including shipping she seemed to get really into the idea of using it to make books to show around to proper publishers. So even I didn't think the printing was too shabby.
Now I'm all excited since it's really a fairly nice little deal. And, as it goes with most things in photography, a damn cheap Christmas present.
I'm disappointed in one of the (generally good) local bars. Apperantly the Foxhead's owner has a policy against bringing studio lighting in. Frankly, I'm suprised it comes up often enough to have an official policy against it.
An interesting tidbit: this BoingBoing post speculates whether more people saw the Jon Stewart/Crossfire interview by downloading it through Bittorrent than saw it on CNN. I'm not sure what the comparison numbers generally look like, but that's pretty impressive.
This bathroom really engages the viewer. You could even say that it encourages you to interact with the space.
Here's a link to the torrent of The Daily Show's Jon Stewart on Crossfire yesterday.
It's certainly interesting to see.
I was talking to a fellow that works at a paper around here on Wednesday night and I was telling him about the digital slit camera I built and the limitations of the scanner. So, after I was talking about trying to get my hands on decent imaging elements and such, he drops by today with an armload of broken or obsolete gear for me to try out that his newspaper just hadn't gotten around to throwing away yet.. One thing was an older Polaroid negative scanner that looks very, very promising but requires me to get a scsi card first. Apperantly that stopped using it because it would do odd things like put the top half of an image on the bottom and vice versa. Or even more complicated screwy things. Which would seriously screw up your workflow...unless you're already winging your work flow with an odd experimental camera. Another thing was the back to some sort of 90's Canon/Kodak hybrid with a 35mm size imaging element. Assuming that I could get that thing up and running, that would be perfect for a couple different odd things.
On the other side of things, the plane landing plan keeps getting more and more refined. I need to hit a couple of the parking garages and try to find one with an outlet to do an example shot with a moving car since I really don't have any really good motion blur shots to show pilots to convince them to help me out. I say parking garage since it doesn't seem like the weather wants to stop drizzling.
Yes, it's cropped. No, I don't know why I like it.
I just got back from the airport. I talked to the airport branch manager who was very nice. I told him that I was a photo student with too much time and too many lights on my hands and that I was wanting to photograph a plane landing. At night. With strobes and constant light sources. He didn't immediately dismiss me and throw me out of the building. Not only that, but he offered suggestions and helped me work out some of the safety issues.
So, now I need to work out all of the technical details and do a dry run with a smaller, slower vehicle (most likely a car) to make sure all of my guesses and math are correct. Not only will that help me work out the process but it will also result in a print that I can show to pilots as I try to con one of them into "modeling" for me.
Now, my original idea was to shoot the plane from below on the landing approach. That way I could use the strobes without having to worry about ruining the pilot's night vision right before she lands. The manager suggested that I could also photograph the landing from the side and the pilot could simply mask out the window on the side I was shooting from. The motion trail effect might be nicer that way and the distances involved might be less extreme. Photographing from below, about the best height I could hope for would be 50-100 feet. That makes lighting and focusing harder, but makes it easier to make sure I hit the strobes when the plane is in the frame. From the side, I could probably get about 20-30 feet away and would be less at the mercy of the pilot in terms of the exact distance away.
So, now that I seem to have committed myself to this entirely insane endeavor, any suggestions?
Oh, and thanks to Mark Hancock for the idea.
I'm not quite sure if I should be as amused at this shot as I am.
Which reminds me that I haven't eaten my quota of apples yet today.
I took a few reference shots of PFE:GEM on display to help me remember the sequence and edit I used after I take the prints down. You can't see all of the prints in the shot below, but you get a pretty good idea of their current ghetto accomidations as well as their size. So, there's always that.
One of the things that has been beaten into my head recently is this: Always, always, always have some of your work on your person. For me, the main attraction is illustrating the kind of work I do when I'm trying to get permission to shoot in and around places. But it also has the added bonus of dispelling the basest assumptions in people's minds about photographers. Let's just say that being able to whip out some prints in the past has worked well for me.
Where I'm going with this is that I just ordered another batch of photo supplies and noticed that a 100 sheet box of the educational version of the Brand X paper I like in 5x7 was ever so slightly cheaper to use than 8x10 sheets cut in half. So I snagged a box with the intention of printing up a small selection of stuff and binding it into a little back-pocket book. And probably making a more portable version of PFE:GEM since dragging an ungainly portfolio case around every time I want/need to show someone that project makes me feel...lame. And then, with the leftovers, I can finally get all of these gift prints I've been meaning to get around to done.
Don't ask me why I ramble about these things. I think it's because I'm trying to feel better about spending another $12 on photography materials when I'm already nervously waiting for either my financial aid or severance check to arrive.
That seems like kind of a down note to end on. So I won't. Erm. Right, so in my techniques class, we have an assignment due wednesday that's sort of the culmination of all of the individual low light assignments thus far. Basically, it's just a pretty loose creative night assignment. So, I shot a janitor named Ron who works in one of the medical research buildings. I decided to do it using fast film. I got shooting out of the way a week or two ago and after checking out the contact sheets and a test print or two, I wasn't fond of the grain and contrast of the film but (here's the part I'm not supposed to admit) that it was probably good enough and that I should be spending much more time with the view camera.
And then last wednesday, my professor told us that an old friend of his who works for the Chicago Tribune is going to be at out class and since they've been a photo editor before they'll probably be helping us cut our images.
So, I went back to Ron with the test prints I had made, gave them to him and asked if he'd mind me shooting him a bit more using a flash. So, a couple of rolls of TriX later, I have a couple more strong images which makes me feel better. There, that's a better note to end on.
This photo is, to me, very funny. A little over a year ago, I was enrolled in my first photography class since high school. In this class, we got one word or phrase assignments. Things like "science fiction," "decisive moment," "portrait," etc. The first one was simply "light" and we really weren't given any guidance as to what was expected out of us. And one of the photographs I used for that assignment was of these two tanks. The professor looked at it and said "Let me guess...light and dark?" And I had to admit that that was indeed my lame gag. But hey, at least I wasn't one of the people who photographed "light beer."
Watching the debate at George's on a Friday probably wasn't the best idea. Pretty much ever seat in the place was taken but some people were just there to get trashed and talk loudly. It was sort of odd how they reacted to a bar full of people trying to hear the TV glaring at them and the occasional shushing.
All I have to say about the matter is: The Internets.
Today I had the pleasure of sitting through two entirely seperate studio lighting demonstrations. Both were of the compressed "Here's how you set stuff up without breaking it, here's what's available for checking out, here's how to use a flash meter, here's the most bland and generic starting point possible" variety.
I'm increasingly tempted to try to do something large and stupid. If I was really compelled to I could take out at any given time 4 hot lights, 4 modeling lights/studio strobes, a pair of very expensive strobes with a very expensive power pack, a portable backdrop, a pair of flash meters, a 4x5 and a Hasselblad (with an 80mm and a 50mm lens.) If only I could come up with some sort of project that's so over the top that it really demands using all of that at once.
This article is a fun read. If your immediate thought is "I'm not registering to read this" then go ask Bug Me Not.
It's Hasselblad and lighting demo this week, which means we can start checking out the portable lighting sets, the Hasselblads and the portable backdrop. I've been meaning to hook back up with the chilled water guys, if for no other reason than to drop off a couple of the extra larger prints I made. Due to the recent cold snap, I assume they're only running one of the plants and probably not even running that one very hard. Since they're off of the fit-inducing 24 hour, 7 day, 3 plant summer schedual, it would probably be a good time to show up with a car-load of gear, film and prints and just shoot the hell out of a plant for a day.
Ever since I started in on the 4x5, I've been thinking about shooting the chill plants. Knowing the layout and lighting of the place, I can see all of these interesting and complex shots that I can only really make with camera corrections.
In addition, my previous work's reluctance to use anything but available light prevented me from doing quite a lot of things that would be quite interesting if intentionally lit.
And...you know...I just want to get my grubby little mits on one of the Hasselblads. (They're just your standard 501CMs, I believe but I'd very much like to see if there's a discernable difference between them and my C330. Plus, I believe we have a 55mm or 65mm lens to use with them which would make my constant waffling over buying the Mamiya TLR 55mm lens.)
Not to mention that I should probably shoot some more color. My apologies if you've already seen this.
This is all a fancy way of saying "ramble, ramble, ramble."
The second Pornography for Engineers project ended up with the name "Genitalia Ex Machina." Most people take a second to think about it then give me a polite chuckle. Some people get a big kick out of it. But about the best reaction I've ever gotten out of the title was presenting the project to the visiting Swedes.
I was projecting my scans on the screen in a lecture hall. I spoke a little about getting access, the equipment I used, etc. My professor prompted me to talk a little about the title, which was nicely timed. I started off and explained that "Deus Ex Machina" referred to the practice in some Greek and Roman plays to lower a god from a crane to solve the conflicts at the end of a play. And that now it was used to describe any conflict resolution that was a little too convenient. Basically the expression is (for my purposes at least) a fancy way to say "cheap gimmick."
Then, to pad out to the appropriate image, I rambled a little bit about visual languages and the difficulty of photographing something entirely unfamiliar to your audience. And, in this project, the method I tried to use was trying to capture things that would be visually familiar with the viewer. At this point, I hit this image:
I walked up to the screen and indicated the rather phallic area. The gimmick.
Lots of laughs.
