IR Update

Well, the worst thing happened as I walked into the photo shop. I looked at my negatives sticking out of the envelope and say to the man behind the counter, oh no, were they all overexposed? He says, no, underexposed. Dreadful. It is a strip of see through failure. Apparently with the filter I was using and the film I was using, they needed a much longer exposure time. All that stressing & looking things up didn't amount to much when the amount of infrared light picked up by the film is too low for the filter I used. Terrible. I may try another go around in a few months, but for now I'm going to stick with the rolls I have stocked up.

Diana F+ - Adventures in Lens Testing

I am officially 2 rolls into my lens testing project. I shot a roll of 120 Fuji Velvia with the 110mm lens and a roll of 120 Efke IR with the 38mm lens. I dropped the IR off for developing today and now I am completely freaking out. I can not tell you how worried I am. I spent hours and hours looking up tid bits about IR shooting, and the most consistent answer I found was to shoot it at 1-2 seconds in full sun at f 16 with an IR filter and tripod. That translates into "partial clouds" on the Diana F+. I was able to borrow a proper IR filter (87C) from a friend and have my brother's old tripod. I took along my notebook to jot down notes. I was feeling prepared and excited!

Having just shot my last 3 frames this afternoon, I am completely convinced I totally fucked this roll up. First off, I forgot to advance the film 3 times on this roll! Twice today. I can't believe I did that. I don't think I've had that problem yet. Then the first few frames of the roll my shutter release cable kept sticking open. I forgot to check it first before I put it on, so it was in the lock position, and therefore stayed open after I released it. Doh! I think I was letting my careful preparation & nerves get the best of me. These are horrible, simple mistakes.

I am completely worried that I have overexposed most of the shots. I was keeping the 1-2 second rule in my mind, but the first few frames are at least 3 seconds due to the shutter release issue, and some of the last couple frames are double exposed on top of having a longer shutter time - 5 seconds. What am I thinking?

I really wanted to test this roll out at varying shutter times to get a better idea of what these shots would look like. I don't know why I thought 5 seconds or even 9 seconds was a good idea. The first day I shot was a bit hazy, but the sun was out & today was sunny. I am afraid these are all going to come back blank. That leaves me with 6 shots out of 12 I am holding out hope to come back nice. This is not a cheap hobby so I am really freaked out about it. Now I'm looking forward and at the same time dreading Friday when I pick the roll up.

Melancholia

I went to see Melancholia tonight, at the very last showing of it in the theater as far as I could tell. It came out last year, so I am a bit behind the times, but after seeing the trailer I really wanted to check it out. It is very much an art house movie. It is slow paced but it is at times, especially in the beginning where we see a glimpse into the future of this story, much like watching a surrealist painting come to life. Once we delve into the story, I am pulled in emotionally. The end of the world is not an easy topic to cover and it is an interesting thought to see how a group of people go about their ordinary business resting on the assurance that they will survive. Many of the relationships within the film leave me with some questions, and even when I think I may have gotten why someone would act this way or say that, I find I'm not 100% sure. Perhaps it really boils down to people being as chaotic & predictable as the planet on its collision/non-collision course. Of course people aren't always predictable, certainly at times these characters weren't, but I found that there was a sense of predictability btwn them - they basically know what to expect from one another, even if it isn't what they hope for.

Melancholia from Zentropa on Vimeo.

SOPA / PIPA

There is a very important issue at hand, and today you may see many websites taking a stand against the proposed bills for SOPA & PIPA. These will take the internet down an extremely dangerous path if they go through, so please get educated, take a stand and sign a petition or call Congress.

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Tequila Mockingbird

Hustle Roses released a video for her new song "Alive". Check it out, it's a pretty awesome & catchy song. Her new EP, Tequila Mockingbird, is released February 1st, but can be purchased today online at: http://hustleroses.bandcamp.com/album/tequila-mockingbird

The cover picture is very Madonna-esque, but after seeing Ollie's style over the years in The Oohlas, it's very clear she has a style all her own. Be sure to check out the post from Pink Is The New Blog for all the details, and of course stop by the Hustle Roses' website: http://hustleroses.com/

The Casket Lottery ... is back!

I can't tell you how excited I am this band is back together & recording. Just yesterday one of their songs came on my ipod & I thought to myself, it would be awesome if this band was still around. I loved this band! So today when I thought of it, I looked them up to see if they had any new projects going. They've had a few in the years they've been apart. Then I am reading this article on No Sleep Records and thinking to myself - wait, what? When was this written? Now a 5 piece, on this label and recording a new album in the Fall/Winter of 2011/2012 to be released this summer - the only words I had were No way! AWESOME!

Apparently they got back together early last year, but have only played a handful of shows. I'm a little behind on this news. I saw them in Upstate NY probably 10 or 11 years ago & in LA a couple times when I first moved here. Excited to see them tour again.

Facebook | The-Casket-Lottery
http://www.nosleeprecs.com/

Butterflies, a Falcon, an Owl & James Dean

Today I took a trip up to Santa Barbara & Goleta with a couple friends to check out the Butterfly Preserve & Santa Barbara in general. The Preserve is pretty awesome. A nice little trail wraps around a winter nesting place for thousands of butterflies. You can see them floating around and gathered in clumps hanging off the trees. The trails also lead out to the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Not a bad place at all to spend a Sunday... and also nice to be in a forested area. Plus, I have started my lens testing project on my film camera - 110mm Telephoto lens is first up. You'll have to wait a while for those pictures. Hopefully they come out!

Afterwards, we headed down to Santa Barbara. We visited the Natural History Museum where we saw a planetary show (slight nap time for me) - I missed something about insects growing to huge sizes in the "possibilities" of different planets section, but was quite awake in time to see their gas filled planet visions of floating jellyfish that looked more like, well, testicles. This was a very bizarre show. This place has a disturbing amount of taxidermy, but I suspect that is the best way to display animal species. Much to my joy though, we did get to see real live birds up close - a falcon & an owl that the employees brought out to show people. I want to take that owl home. So cute!

To wrap up the day, we walked around town, had dinner & stopped for coffee before heading out. The dinner was, disappointing. After going up & down the street we found an Italian place that was reasonably priced, vegetarian friendly, and had a cute atmosphere. I ordered ravioli with pesto... and it was gross. After eating it, my friend tries a bit of the pesto & asks, why didn't you send that back? That is awful. I've never sent food back for not liking it before, so I guess it didn't dawn on me that I could do that. We figured out the pesto was a spinach pesto - who the hell does that? I hate cooked spinach. I love basil pesto. Damn them. But I did get to look at a picture of James Dean while we ate. There were little celebrity pictures under each table glass top (first pic below). I saw some pictures of him a while back on the Lomography website. First pic of those is from the Torn Sweater Series shot by Roy Schatt. I think it's a good moment to share them. What a looker.

 

 

http://www.yelp.com/biz/coronado-butterfly-preserve-goleta

A Box Full of Film

As I have spent the remainder of the day sitting on the couch, on the computer, eating more than anyone's fair share of Reese's Miniatures ($2.09 post Holiday sale), I have actually been semi productive. I'll say that with a small yeah right, but really... I totally did my laundry today; I mailed some bills out; I have researched several film festivals to enter my short film in - hopefully to submit tomorrow & not break the bank in the process; I updated my resume last night. That counts, right?

The real fun part of the day was getting a box of film in the mail. Yay! It's funny, as the world gets more advanced, I decide to take up a hobby that is expensive & outdated. Eleven rolls of 120 film to add to the rolls I have waiting to be shot. It's pretty exciting, if I actually take more photos! I traveled all over the place last year & didn't take as many film shots as I should have. Why? Part of me keeps thinking that I need to only shoot what I think is a worthy shot, and the other part of me gets so wrapped up in where I am or taking photos on my point & shoot, that I just plain forget to take the camera out of my bag! Plus, I don't want 1,000 landscape shots.

So this year I have decided I am going to do what I had planned on doing last year but never did. I'm going to test out every single one of those lenses my Diana F+ came with, and I'm going to shoot a roll w/ each lens. I really want to see the difference to get a feel of what I like more, and since I'm horrible at actually writing down the info for each shot, I've never really been able to guess what lens I used at the time, unless of course it was a Fisheye lens. First opportunity comes on Sunday when I head up to Santa Barbara with friends to go look at the Butterfly Sanctuary.

In all my down time (unemployment) I have been pretty lazy about doing any of these little projects, so I'm really setting my goal here. More photography adventures! Maybe that will motivate me to do my other projects, like continue learning Italian, which I started last summer & have promptly put to the side since returning from Italy, or practice the guitar that I've had for 9 years & shamefully only know 4 chords, or doing that genealogy project on my family.

Favorites 2011

I still have a roll of film to develop but here are my favorite shots from 2011. I certainly got to travel a lot of places last year - The Grand Canyon, Seattle WA, Portland OR, Upstate NY, NYC, CT, San Francisco CA & all over Italy. Here's to hopefully another good year.

Christmastime in New York City

I went back East to visit my family for the holidays & while I was home, I took a trip into NYC with my siblings & a couple friends. It was very cold, but luckily not as cold as it was last year when I went - thankfully no wind this time! We walked around and looked at the Christmas decorations and stopped into a pub for some drinks & food. We didn't look at any window displays, although I saw some in passing. It was very crowded, being the Sunday before Christmas. If I go again next year I think I'll have to plan out some so we can catch a show as well.