Posts Tagged ‘photography’

Random Film love…

August 17, 2010

I’ll go ahead and say it…I miss film, I miss the feeling of knowing that you only had 12, 24, or 36 shots.  I miss that rhythm of opening the back of the camera, taking out that exposed roll and slapping another in its place.  I miss that smell when you opened a new unexposed roll.  I miss the simplicity of it.  I miss the all metal cameras.  I feel all of this each time I pick up one of my relics from the past.  Not that I have a bunch of old collectibles, all my film cameras were bought used….well used.  Paint worn down to the brass around the edges, scratches, buttons that had popped off long ago.  I always considered myself a shooter not a collector, I didn’t care how it looked, if the meter worked, and it was light tight, it was good enough for me.


Today starts what I am going to work on becoming a reoccurring feature here; Random Film Love.  I’m going to hit the streets, pound the pavement, and get back to the basics.  I’m going to get back to what I loved about photography in the past.  Not that I don’t love it now…it’s just it was different back then.  I don’t know if I’m going to go as far as bringing 1/2 of the darkroom back (the developing stage), I don’t really have the space for the enlarger and trays and such, and I don’t think I want to go back to constantly mixing up developer and fixer every 3 or 4 months.  I’d like to thank Dwayne’s photo for the develop and scan of these rolls of film!


I always seem to come back to my old Junior High.  It was my first school upon moving here 20 years ago.  I met friends here that I still have to this day.  I remember playing basketball on the rough asphalt courts during 9th grade PE, then during summers when I was in High school and on into college.


Went back on two separate days – once in 35mm:

And once with the Square:

My 2010 Resolutions….

April 1, 2010

Okay, this is going to be a list my reso–actually, I’m tired of saying that word, let’s substitute goals.  Here is a list of goals that I want to accomplish this year.  Not in any particular order.  I know that we’re three four months into the year, but I’ve been late with a lot of things in the past; it’s how I rolled:

  • I didn’t get a cell phone until 1999, and I never had a pager; if I wasn’t at home you were going to talk to my answering machine

  • I didn’t start using digital until 3 years ago, and I bought a old D1X(which was 6 yrs old at that time)

  • I waited until age 33 to actually get serious and try to make my dream (photography for a living) a reality, why didn’t I try 10 years ago?

My 2010 Photography goals:


1.  Get physical with my imagery – Since these days so much is done digitally, alot of my photos just end up on my hard drive, or on this blog, nothing like the old days, when you had physical results from taking photographs.  You took photos,

You ended up with negatives or slides.   Some of those ended up in the form of prints


I want to make something physical – maybe put on my own show somewhere; something small, but something where I have an end to go along with the means.  Maybe I’ll do a photozine or a book, but something that I can hold in my hand, and in turn hand to someone.


2. Film – A while ago me and my wife were watching Kalifornia, in that movie Michelle Forbes is a photographer, and she spends the movie shooting with a Nikon F3 (I believe) and she asked me if I missed shooting film.  Even though I tailed off shooting film seriously over the last 10 years, it took me a little by surprise.  I did miss film somewhat, I recently ran a roll of slide film through my F4, I had forgotten how colors pop on slides!  So, I’m going to shoot more film this year, I’ve collected enough of it over the past 5 years that I haven’t shot

And I’ve accumulated more than enough film cameras…they need to be shot with.

3. Get project oriented – Come up with some projects that interest me, and then make them happen, not sitting around saying “I wish I could shoot, blah,blah, blah, maybe I’ll get to do that someday…”  Why does it have to be someday?  And when I start it, finish it.  What good is a project that you start, attack with full steam, and then just give up?  Even if it doesn’t work out like I envisioned – at least I can say, I finished….


4.  Keep a creative journal – this I’ve actually started:

and started: and started: and started


But it would be nice to keep it going, not write a page, or couple of pages, but actually have a book that I can come back to for inspiration.  And when I put ideas down in it…actually come back and try some of them


5. Take more personal photos -  life moves so fast it seems these days, the only way that we can remember the little details is to write it down, video it, or take pictures.  Like these of my wife and my niece decorating Easter cookies.

Something little now, but how are they going to feel about this moment looking back on these pictures in 10 years?  15 years? How am I going to feel?


6.  Network – get myself out there to other photographers, become part of the community.  It’s how you learn and how you find and create opportunities.


7.  And probably the most important thing on this list; getting comfortable with at some point I’m going to have to tell people that I’m a photographer.  Saying that phrase is heavy; there’s so much expectation attached to it.  You can read the books, take the workshops, the classes, do the TFCD work, do the photo zines, the 365 projects.  All that is so you can live it.  You can love it, because it’s what you are.  The moment you say that phrase, it’s what you do.

Business Cards!

March 11, 2010

Being an amateur photographer, I’ve experienced when I’m out somewhere taking pictures of something, anything and someone sees what I’m shooting with, I get asked if I shoot ____ (family portraits, weddings, etc).  Last October I was at my niece’s birthday party, at Incredible Pizza, and one of the people working there was getting married and she asked me if I had a business card because she was looking for a wedding photographer.  Business cards?  They’re something that I know that I needed to get at some point in time, but also something that I stressed about quite a bit.  I wanted them to be perfect.  Did I need an image?  or several images?  Which ones?  Did I have “those” images that I could put on a card to advertise what I do?  What about text?  What about color?  Vertical or Horizontal?  I was sent an invite to attend a Pictage group meeting (which people who weren’t members could come, I’m not rolling like that….yet!), where the topic of discussion was going to be second shooting/shooters for wedding photographers.  Hmmm, I’m trying to be a wedding photographer (along with other subjects as well), and I’ve been looking for opportunities to second shoot for someone, and there’s going to be a discussion group on this topic, with plenty of networking opportunities.  As I was getting more and more excited about attending, I noticed a sentence saying “Bring lots of business cards”….Again with the Business Cards! There’s nothing like short term necessity that motivates you to action doesn’t it?  Thanks to the advice of Ashley Kinney (who also passed me along the invite to the Pictage meeting), she recommended VistaPrint, who just happened to be running a free business card promotion, free cards!  so I created an account, and had them rushed to me 3 day FedEx, and I must say for free business cards, I’m pleasantly surprised and happy with the way they turned out!

Kodachrome….

October 6, 2009

By now everyone knows about Kodak putting the nail into a piece of photographic history by killing off their legendary emulsion Kodachrome earlier this year.  And Dwayne’s in Kansas, the only lab in the world that still does the K-14 process (how Kodachrome is developed) announced that they are going to stop developing and processing Kodachrome.  I bought two of these rolls of K64 about 5 years ago, (these rolls expired in October 2003) and stuck them in my freezer.  Due to a recent move out of my old apartment, I took out all the film that I had frozen (most of it expired).  I had forgotten about these rolls, I was saving them for some special occasion or something.  And now, with the end of the year rapidly approaching us, I need to take to the streets and shoot something with it, just to say that I shot some Kodachrome.  I don’t know exactly what though….

Kodachrome

Wow, I have stuff to post!

September 27, 2009

I’ve tried to be the type of photographer who doesn’t let wanting to buy more gear get in the way of taking photos, and I’ve never subscribed to the logic that if I just had X (lens, flashes, different camera body)  I could make great photos, but I have neglected equipment from time to time.  I was recently inspired by Bert Stephani, a fantastic fashion photographer, who was inspired by Jeff Ascough, one of the top wedding photographers in the world, to make more usage of one of the most basic lenses that every photographer has (or should have) in their bags – the 50mm.  As Bert says, before the kit  zoom lens of today, when you used to by a SLR in the film days, you more or less bought it with this lens, it’s usually the cheapest lens in a camera line (depending on speed, faster the lens, more money you pay), I have three fifties, one that I got when I bought my first 35mm camera, an Olympus OM-1.  when I first got that camera, that was the only lens that I had, so I had to shoot everything with it, and you pretty much could /can shoot anything with a fifty, step back far enough, you can get  a decent wide establishing shot, they focus close enough where you can capture details or close ups.  Now that I have Nikons, I have two fifties, a 50 f2 AIS (which I bought when I bought my first Nikon 35 mm – the F3) and an autofocus 50 1.4.  Bert is pusuing a personal project he calls 50/50.  That is he’s shooting everyday details (and some assignment stuff) with a fifty mm lens over the course of 50 days.  He’s an amazing photographer as it is, but what he is doing with just that lens is on another level, it forces you to make the shot without some of that other stuff creeping in.  Instead of reaching for a wide angle or a zoom or a tele, you have to make it work with the angle of view that the 50mm provides.  Hell, this got me up and off of my ass, shooting just for the fun of it with only one lens.  Unfortunately I don’t have a D3 or a D700 so that I could use my either my 50 1.4 or the AIS.  But I do have the 35 f2, which is a great little lens in of itself, that I bought about a year ago, and haven’t used much, so I’ve put all my other lenses away and just struck out with my D300 and the 35 F2.  While my results aren’t any where near Bert’s, I am starting to see patterns in the way that I shoot, which is the first step to developing style as a photographer.  It’s also helping me with editing, over the past week or so, I’ve shot 72 photos, took those 72 and narrowed them down to about 20, and here are some of those twenty:

I have stuff to post

The Start….

August 29, 2009

Hello

Hi, How are you?  This is my journey.  Life – Photography – Skateboarding.  Let’s see where it takes me