The return of film [s]

So SFS got me a P-Sharan pinhole camera. It was a fun two hour construction, and it handles rolls of 135 gloriously.



It's a struggle to hold the camera still (braced) for the 3-20 second exposure times since it's light, cardboard, and held together by rubber bands.



I took the sb800 around with me. I shot at 1/2 power, afraid of blowing out bright objects. Nope, looks like full flash is just fine, dragged shutter of course.



I'm enjoying it, time to rummage for some more unexposed rolls.





I had the rolls of film from dirt biking and Connie's ceremony developed. A few more from the desert trip.











And it looks like Jon did some wildlife photography in Santa Cruz. I took the liberty of captioning the photo.

Keeping myself occupied [s]

By popular demand, I give you the area behind the fence. You can see the recently planted scotch grass that needs to get growing. Uh that's about it. It's steep, it's under some trees, yep. Nothing to see here, move along.



The fence isn't close to done thanks to the mere hour of daylight after work. Hooray for daylight savings on Sunday.



There's some more plants now. The one on the left is named Larry.



So I could leave the dryer vent alone and let it outlet under the house. Or I could go back to what I presume was OE and run it across the back of the garage to the side of the house. But in the interest of a clean looking solution I'm venting into a sizeable garbage can in the side room.

Of course, the only thing that comes from the pipe is moist, hot air so there isn't much for the bin to collect. It worked pretty well for my first load of clothes, there was condensation on the bottom of the can and nothing got exceptionally hot.

The above image brings about the important question of whether I should insulate and drywall the side room for style and comfort, or leave it as is for easy access.



Assignment five was due today. Tuesday night I hadn't shot anything so I made a few stops in La Jolla and Carmel Valley to basically document myself harassing friends. It went pretty well.





In class we did polaroid transfers. I dug up some old slides from Alaska and the '03 fires. The process loses a lot of color, some framing, and significant sharpness, but it's cool to be able to stick it on stuff.




Said:

• ... or maybe I am just making up the whole thing. But either way it starts a good rumor.
• doode.. you have to share the dream.. that's how it goes weasle!
• i woke up agitated like the D76 developer!
  

If you happen to watch Lost and tivo tonight's episode, check the teaser at the end for '... and loyal ties will be tested.'

Zones [s]

For this assignment we were supposed to apply the zone system to whatever. Ordinarily one might choose a landscape or something, find the zone iii, and expose as prescribed. I thought it'd be fun to try carefully metering something I couldn't look at, namely welding.



It was challenging, as evidenced by the contact sheets. I spot metered a shadow by looking at the lcd as some welding was going on. Then I refocused, set the exposure, and snapped a few with my hand over my eyes. I can't tell if the polarizer helped, of course I was randomly rotating it and hoping for an ideal alignment.




Grinding.


Erik welds in the driver side cage bar, Ian lends his feet to the effort.

I did dedicate a few frames to the generic zone application. The best part of shooting the grain silo (quarry) was when the dead silent Prius almost ran me over. Andy Bernard would be proud.

A story told by portraits [s]

Four glorious hours in the darkroom. I toned these because monochrome just doesn't look good on a monitor, it's all bluish and you can't see detail.

Portraits that tell a story (?) [s]

Assignment three, portraits that tell a story. I went both directions, straight up portraits and capturing a well-defined sequence of events.





I imagine the four prints we turn in should be from the same roll, both have a few candidates but the photojournalism ones are more varied. Of course, the following are just blown up copies of the contact sheet frames.


Maybe a smaller aperture. It was overcast though, so the window wasn't providing much light.


Lens filter worked well with the eyes.




Shoulda gotten that engine chromed. I mixed up mid-motion shots with poseds.


Under the car was tough, it was very dark but it turns out overexposure was possible.




Requisite beer, light was pretty low at this point but I shoulda risked a polarizer.

Preparing for the future [h]

There've been a few great quotables of late. I'm publishing these mostly for nostalgia's sake, but if you're real bored at work, read on. First, a discussion with my postdoctoral associate about the best course of action when the zombiepocalypse comes:
C:
Link [Ed: Humorous zombie survival guide from Wired how-to wiki].

PA: Shipping container? As shown in that Will Smith movie, zombies learned how to use tools and simple associative learning (low level brain function). Living in a container would be akin to being a tin of potted meat. The authors of the article would be the first to be eaten. To survive, you either live on a large ship, an island like Hawaii (UK has the Chunnel to mainland Europe - very bad) or oil platform. You would also need lots of guns and napalms like the ones in Aliens. Also, play RE.

C:
Pretty nuts the statistic that police have a less than 25% hit rate within three feet. Makes Rambo movies significantly more plausible.

I think the shipping container is based on the premise that you're coexisting with photophobic zombies, so you just need to hunker down at night. I'd be hard pressed to open one of those things if it were locked from the inside (which would require a hack for obvious reasons), zombies would need some serious tools to break in within one night.

The ship's not a bad idea, some of the denizens of Fallout live on a docked aircraft carrier and it's pretty effective. Has zombie effectiveness in the water been demonstrated anywhere? Hawaii is big and populous enough that any contamination would easily survive. Remember the 28 Days Later virus didn't start in the UK, it came over on a plane.

And consider the possibility of zombie birds. It just takes one peck, and they can spot and reach you from far away.

I'm going to say a remote location that cannot sustain itself - like an oil platform - will suffer the fate they mention where you go to the grocery store, are not on your game, and die. If you're lucky you can get freshwater from rain and grow your own food, but this is not an option for non-vegetarians who dislike fish.

How about Montana? First, it's often cold which, as discussed, severely affects zombie metabolism. Second, it's got a statewide population of 12. You just have to split a few wigs and you're in relative safety, assuming zombies don't make road trips. And though you'll always have to be on your guard, it's not much worse than living in LA or New York.

Montana is large and flat, there are no sewers to hide from the sun or plan a subterranean assault. Life is good when you can pick off the undead with a psg at 2,000 yards (and miss a few times), instead of duking it out with a chainsaw and hoping their blood doesn't mix with yours. Also there's a grip of self-sustaining land up there with roaming animals that will be uninfected if you do your job.

Napalm booby traps, lights, motion sensors, you'll have plenty of time to set it up and everything works on x10!!!

PA: I did not consider birds as a biological vector. If this is a factor, then no island or boat is safe. On a boat the radar operator would tell you if there was a flock of birds in the area. A single bird would not appear on the screen. I think cold is a pretty good deterrent. I don't care if the muscle cell is dead or alive, the effects of extreme cold temperatures would mechanically limit motility. Plus, there are no birds in cold places. I guess you could live in Iceland, Greenland or dock your boat in Antartica?

C:
Plus you're on a boat so there's always going to be a flock of birds in the area. Especially after the outbreak when there'll be lots of decomposing corpses for them to pick at.

The only problem with cold is that it's cold. Brrrr. One could definitely go for severe cold, but it's a tradeoff between zombie deterrance and providing for your own survival. You wouldn't last long in Antarctica, though it'd be a great place to find non-infected if you like scientists (I do not).

And from a recent Mazda 3 purchaser:
Freezing, foggy, wet, and muddy the whole time. However, my car is
thoroughly broken into now! We were rolling in mud and dirt... I wanted
to spin donut holes but Ryan had to remind me that I wasn't in an
off-road vehicle.'

And regarding the recent Casbah concert featuring Canadian band F*cked Up, two buddies of mine separately decided to attend and invite me. Alas, I was in the darkroom that night:
Concertgoer 1:
When the naked 300 lb Canuck covered himself in honey, I was amused.

When he walked around the audience giving hugs covered in honey/sweat/hair, I thought to myself, "Please God, let it be me."

It was not to be. I was forsaken.

Concertgoer 2:
Yes, but did you happen to see the coup de grace? Pulling his shorts down, revealing his ample and fleshy buttocks, immediately ending my life.

I write this email from beyond the grave. My only advice is Chris, quit being such a photography maniac so you can have ringing ears like me and [CG1], go to the Saturday Coachella show for a second chance at a hug.

CG1:
Ah yes, I am trying to repress the memory of his hairy plump ass. Thanks for ruining my day man.

I am buying tickets for Coachella. Sunday night will induce face melting. I saw MBV played at 132 db in LA. I want to re-live the 30 minutes of 132 db's. It was like staring at the face of God.

Did you buy a mixtape? I bought the old one, I wish I bought the newest one also.

PS. I hate the bald bouncer. He is always harshing on everyone's vibe.

C:
Hah hah hah, clearly I should have blown off class and attended. But I was torn, I had received two concert invitations the same night. What's a girl to do?

CG1:
A simple choice really, there was no other show of note last except the one we attended. Even the opener Miko Mika were great. I am a sucker for props, in this case a telephone microphone.

The city's purveyors of hipness were in full attendence, as evidenced by [CG2] and I making an appearence. The Artfag and Skullcontrol people were also attending.

After much labor I turned in my first and second assignments. The 6x6 was very challenging and rather unfulfilling. Next up: portraits that tell a story. So, like, photojournalistic portraits or something.

Solar [i]

One of this week's two assignments is to do solarized prints. I'm somewhat divided on the technique, but it's fun and can make a turbo looks pretty cool (above). Below is a comparison, though they were both printed for solarization, color reversal only took place on the bottom. It's a tricky process if you want to apply any sort of science to it.

If nothing else, solarization adds some mild intrigue to the the still life assignment of finding 'circles and curves'. I might take another crack at it since the weekend didn't allow much shooting and we're supposed to use as much daylight as possible.





The other assignment due next week is the dark room equivalent of a stitched together image. We're choosing a single subject and taking 36 frames such that when it's layed out on a contact sheet it becomes a single 6x6 tiled image. Gulp.

Portfolio fin [i]

The portfolio class final presentation was yesterday. There were a lot of visitors, much love to the people that came out. I don't have a copy of my artist statement at the moment, but it basically said "I'm shooting street bikes, cheers."

Check out Connie's photos here. A sample:



And here's what I matted...