Laurie has to share her cereal and coffee with Beaker most mornings. Guildenstern thinks we have things all wrong — “one should have birds for breakfast, not have breakfast with birds” he meows — but he knows Beaker and René are formidable adversaries and stays clear of both of them. René is slowly getting better at flying and I’m slowly getting better at sneaking in better lighting to catch him in flight.
I’ve been searching for a reasonably priced case for my 4X5 view camera. Most of the cases made for 4X5 view cameras that would fit this model were more than double what I paid for the camera and lens for cases in good condition, and $100 or more for cases that were pretty old and beat up. After lots of searching I found the above instrument case that had the right dimensions for $25 with free shipping. I got a call from the reception desk that I had a package that is really heavy up front. I was wondering what came in that would be heavy. I walked up front to find the case, and when I picked it up it is was very light. I asked Beth about it and she said that the delivery guy wrestled it in through the front door on a dolly, and then used both hands and his legs to slide it off the dolly like it weighed a ton. Either he was paying attention to the “Delicate Unit Handle with Care” sign by the handle on the lid, or he was a drama queen. Besides being a great price, very sturdy and light weight, this case has been all over the world with stickers from airports in China, Columbia, Chile, and the Dominican Republic that we were able to easily identify. With a little cutting on the foam, it’s a perfect fit for the camera with room to add compartments for film holders, dark cloth and other accessories.
The photo below is a 4X5 view camera selfie of sorts.
Only in New Mexico can you buy red and green chile wines and park your horses downtown.
I got a 4X5 view camera and lens on ebay, and I had ordered an adapter that was supposed to allow me to use my Canon bodies on the 4X5, moving the adapter around to six different positions to cover most of the view area on the 4X5. Then I would have stitched the six images together to make the final photo. The adapter didn’t fit right so it couldn’t move through any of the positions, which was useless, so I returned the adapter. I was going to return the 4X5, but then I thought, “what the heck” and decided to keep it and do some film again (I used a 4X5 view camera exclusively when I was a photo student in the early 1980’s).
I mixed up chemicals this morning, and using a daylight changing bag, I loaded negatives I had taken a couple of weeks ago into a daylight processing tank. I processed my first test negatives in the kitchen sink this afternoon, and hung them over the sink to dry. It was fun and nostalgic being a photo-chemist again — measuring and mixing the developer, fixer and hypo-clearing agent, getting the developer to the right temperature, agitating the tank at minute intervals while the developer did its magic, followed by the stop bath, fixer, hypo-clearing agent and final rinse. All the time there was much anticipation with some anxiety about the results, as it was the first time I had processed 4X5 sheet film in almost 30 years.
The negatives are not too bad, but negatives look like negatives, and since I currently do not have a scanner that can scan 4X5 negatives, I photographed them on a soft box, then reversed two of the images into positives that are displayed below. The first photo of each pair is a shot of the emulsion side of the negative, which is not as reflective, but the images are reversed. The second photo of each pair is a shot of the negatives turned over so I’m shooting the shiny side of the negative. In all the photos below, my macro lens picked up the texture of the fabric cover on the soft box, so you can see texture in parts of the photos. The emulsion side of the negatives was easier to photograph because there was less glare, allowing the black background to be black. I had to hold the camera at a different angle to reduce the glare on the shiny side of the negatives as much as possible, which also created a much shorter depth of field on the second photo in each pair.
Laurie painted her nails my two favorite colors for my birthday. They make good nails for Halloween as well.
You may have heard of “air guitars” or “air drums”, well, while I was using Laurie as a model to test exposures before the 60th anniversary shoot, she started using an “Air Camera” on me.
Yesterday was Jim and Ann Mogford’s, aka Laurie’s parents, 60th wedding anniversary, so they came over to have their photos done. They had a lot of fun cutting up in front of the camera, and they were great models. The photos are straight off the camera with very few adjustments to the raw images and no post processing.
I gave Laurie a gift card to get her hair colored and styled for her birthday. Since she’s studying Old Norse, her inner Viking pushed her into going for the lighter red in her hair, so now my beautiful wife is a Viking redhead. Like Gorm in the Icelandic Sagas, I might not be considered the wisest among men, but we were both wise enough to marry beautiful women. His wife, Thyri, was considered Denmark’s Adornment. My wife, Laurie, I consider my Crown Jewel of Corrales.
I went out before sunrise to see if the test balloon from the balloon fiesta might fly over, which would mean the mass ascension would follow. No balloons flew over today, but I discovered Mother’s Rose glowing in the pre-dawn light. Then I came out of retirement from baking and, with René’s help, made Laurie a chocolate mocha cake for her birthday.
Marisa is graduating from high school next month. These photos were done in the bosque and along the river.
Off Center & Not Even 