Rose petals mysteriously left behind.
Month: November 2013
Ural Patrol
One wouldn’t think Russian sidecar motorcycles would be common in New Mexico, but with a little searching I discovered there is a Ural dealer in Santa Fe, the “city different!” This model lists for $13,699. There are eight sidecar models available from $10,499 to $14,350 and one “Solo” model offered without a sidecar for $7,999.
Ghetto Scanning
I processed a batch of 4X5 negatives I took of the Sandias and a railroad bridge with my 4X5 view camera over the past few weeks. Since I don’t have a scanner that is made to scan 4X5 negatives, I did “ghetto scanning” of the negatives by making a film holder out of a sheet of card stock, placing the holder and a negative on my old Epson 1260 scanner, placing a sheet of paper over the holder and negative, and holding a lamp with a 25 watt light bulb over the paper the negative is under as a back light while scanning the negative. The scanner is set for reflective scanning, so it doesn’t quite focus on the negative with a backlight, but the process sort of works, giving the resulting images a vintage look.
Since I’m still learning how to process 4X5 film using a daylight processing tank, when I first pulled the negatives out of the tank after the final rinse, they were purple in the middle. Oops! I hadn’t fixed them quite long enough, and I needed to agitate the tank more during the fixing process. So the negatives went back into the tank for another round of fix with more aggressive agitation. After another round of hypo-clearing agent and another rinse, all the purple was gone, but the double round of fixing left the negatives a bit uneven.
Then there’s the issue that the lamp I’m using for the “ghetto scanning” doesn’t fully cover the negatives, so I get bright edges on the images in the resulting scans. I did a little “burning” around the edges in Photoshop to even things out, which worked a pretty well on some images, and didn’t make much difference on others.
Cat
Rosencrantz stepped on my iPhone that was laying on the counter next to my computer. He activated Siri, which asked him what he wanted. He meowed, and when I looked at the phone Siri had brought up the Wikipedia for cat. I tried to photograph it with Rosencrantz stepping on the phone, but I got too much glare of the phone’s surface, so I had to prop the phone up against my coffee cup. Rosencrantz still wanted to step on it, and stuck around for the photo. Rosencrantz is also a bit of a magical cat as he can apparently go through walls. We’ve let him out and then all of a sudden he’s back in and vice versa. It the second photo I got him half way in and out of the screen.
Tail Wind
As we continue our adventures on the Rhône delta, a cyclist was riding down the the beach at the same time we were driving down. With the nice tail wind, we was able to ride the speed limit all the way to the beach. He was from Switzerland and was riding his bike across southern France on his way to Spain.
End of the Road
At the end of the Route de la Mer on the Rhône delta is a nice, sandy beach. However, when we were there close to 9:30 pm on May 22nd, the Mistral winds that blow from the Alps to the sea, accelerating as they pass through the Rhône and Durance valleys, were blowing at almost hurricane force at the end of our road. The wind was so strong it seemed to stretch shadows, and even using a shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second, the sand blowing across the beach is a blur. Mistral winds blow day and night for three to four days straight without letting up.
Flamingos
Now that we are seeing more Sandhill Cranes, I’m noticing the similarities between the cranes and the wild Flamingos we saw along the Route de la Mer that runs to the Mediterranean Sea on the Rhône delta in May. After looking at the area on Google Maps, it looks like the areas the Flamingos are wading in and flying over are normally dry. It was an unusually wet spring for Provence this year.
Umbrellas
The only umbrellas I own go on my flashes. They work great for dispersing light, but they are not much good for keeping rain off me. I’ve never found a need for a rain repelling umbrella in our arid climate, and, besides, in New Mexico, I believe an umbrella acts more as a lightning rod that a cover to keep you dry. France is another story, you really need to have an umbrella in France, and, fortunately, Sophie lent us umbrellas when we where in Aix, and there was one in the apartment that we rented in Paris.
Project Cars
The blogger one man and his mustang – ’66 restoration project mentioned that he had the first frost last night, which prompted me to comment that we had been getting frost almost every night since the 3rd week in September. I also mentioned that we have several project cars. He replied that he would like to see photos of our project cars. I remembered I had done some on a frosty morning about 3 years ago, but when I found them, all I got of nearly complete cars in the frost were front views of the ’66 VW and the 1980 280 ZX (Tristan and David have the 280 ZX pretty well restored now). I only got parts of the ’76 Sun Bug and the 1960 Rambler in the frosty morning shoot, so the photo with Tiffany leaning on the hood of the Sun Bug shows the best shot I have of back of the Rambler behind her, besides the closeup of the trunk handle in the lead photo. The only photo of the Sun Bug in toto that I could find is one done by Susan Graham when we were having the houses torn down, that she has on her blog for her Photography Master Cup Nominations on February 19th of this year.
Morning Coffee and a Bath
Beaker was ringing his bell this morning for some of Laurie’s coffee. He drank the morning brew, closed his eyes, savored the flavor, then went of to his water dish and took a bath.
Off Center & Not Even 