While photographing René on his perch with the sun behind him, he decided to try some magic tricks on me. He folded out his wing like a cape, and then made his head disappear when he pulled his wing back.
Tag: lighting
A Cat Tail
Guildenstern was pointing out photos with his tail and then admiring himself on my computer.
Breakfast with Beaker
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.
A Case with Character
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.
The Lion and the Lamb
As we begin this Advent season, I can report relative peace in the house — Guildenstern was lying (okay sitting) on the couch with a lamb.
Route 66 and All That
The last time I photographed the Route 66 Diner, I believe three years ago now and the wall at the entrance off Central Ave. (old Route 66) didn’t have all the old signs and Route 66 memorabilia nailed to it. The mess of signs makes for an interesting collage under the distorting eye of my 17mm lens.
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.
Spooky Side of Aix
We walked around Aix in the rain all day on May 18th. The wet, gray weather added to the erie starkness of the old Castaño trees lining the edge of a park. Death followed a poor soul through the streets, and the moonlight in the clearing night sky lit an ancient church on our walk home late in the night. Aix-en-Provence, May 18, 2013.
Dia de los Gatos
Rosencrantz commemorated his kitty version of Dia de los Muertos by being half ghost / half black cat. The photo is the result of an experiment using my 4X5 view camera, and “ghetto scanning” the negative.
Fiddling with Film
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.
Off Center & Not Even 