I took the Perkeo for a long walk along the Bay in SOMA. Not along the Embarcadero. No, further south than that along the old wharf and quays used when wharfs and quays were wood. The area, in the process of gentrification, still houses the ghosts of San Francisco's past, the existential mist of fish guts and musty old sailors smelling of weeks sprayed in ocean salt. The Perkeo fit in here, a product of 1951, and together the Perkeo and I managed to properly expose every image and return some acceptable results. The Perkeo seemed to enjoy this trip, this walk in its subject comfort zone away from the modern noises and lifestyle speediness that sit like a bugbear in the mental doorways of old men and old cameras.
1/200th, f4.5. This sculpture, part of the gentrification, conveys, well, it must convey something but I have no idea what. It's some tubes. But it's nice, visually acceptable and 'safe' (read as: non-offensive to anyone for any reason.) Therein lies it's offense: abject absence of risk. But it's neat and photographs well, so it isn't all bad.
1/100th, f11. With my cameras that lack light meters, I don't carry a light meter. I just guess at the exposure. This was an accidental double exposure, though. The faint lines in the right a shot taken at 1/300th, f16. The second, properly exposed shot was with the camera resting against a column looking into the sculpture's bow and arc.
After Later in our walk, the Perkeo and I took interest in the dilapidated wood piers that must have once been used to unload fish ships or other vessels. Very low to the water (in fairness we went out at high tide), the piers bend and arc toward the Bay, a slow crawl they seem to attempt to hasten, to oneness with and collapse into the Bay. Rusty nails knit these boards together like an old fighter's bones held in place with screws and plates.
1/200, f11. A different, but similar pier. Though the first shot's composition is probably superior, this shot is more well exposed. A better depth of field mixed with more dramatic shadows and water textures work well here.
1/50th, f4.5, gamma dropped to .25 in a separate layer made 75% transparent. Autumn passed last year, but its leave still move about city streets in the wind like bit-part players in a Hollywood epic. They make their gentle rattle as the wind scours them against concrete; they bunch and disperse in corners; they break under intentional and accidental feet. In time they accept the fate common to all leave in The City: the wind pushes them close enough for the Bay to accept them willingly. And they saturate, sink, rot, and return their remaining nutrients to biomass.
1.200th, f16. Though not a particularly good shot, this cruise ship was up on a floating dry dock for repairs. Maybe patching a hole, or repainting the underside. Maybe, even, replacing the rudder or propeller. Who knows. No one. Well, no one except the people working on it, dry dock company, and cruise line operators.
1/50th, f16. 120-size film uses a paper backing not attached to the film except by a single length of tape near the beginning. The photographer advances the film correctly by looking at numbers printed on the paper through a red window built into the camera. This works well, typically, except when the paper is cheap and doesn't bully block the sun. That happened here where sunlight polluted the negative, leading to the numbers and dots on the image. The ShangHai paper backing is a piece of black paper with white writing, which is clearly thinner or less capable of blocking light than the rest of the paper. It feels like basic construction paper, too, not the paper backing used by most film makers.
And this is what happens when I forget to advance the film for five frames. So this post's object lesson: remember to advance the film.
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