First Outing with the Nikon F

Last month I finally got to try out my Nikon F. It needed a good CLA before it would work properly -- the downside of buying a $30 Nikon F. Here are some shots from the first day. I tested it out on Kodak 5222 Double-X. The results were very grainy. 

Goodbye to the Olympus OMG

After picking up an Olympus OM-2N a couple months back, I decided I only really need the one Olympus body. I don't really shoot Olympus all that often (even though their lenses are AMAZING.) So I decided to have one last evening of fun with my OMG and some mirrors.


A fun self-portrait. This took a while to get without blur since the exposure time was between two and five seconds.


Using my dad's old Captain Video robots, a flashlight, and (not at the same time) a candle, I set up a mirror box. The box is taped on the outside so I can take it apart if I want. I used a two-way mirror to allow me to photograph it it from outside. Having the lights in the apartment off helped reduce camera reflections, but didn't eliminate them.





For this and the one below, I used a cigarette lighter to create some spark effects.


I'll actually miss the little OMG. It's a great camera.

Photo Class Portfolio

Last fall I took Photo 101 for fun. I learned a lot and got to refresh my darkroom skills, my main goal. For my final portfolio, I picked abstracts. I was happy to see, during the final class, that my portfolio was not the best. I can think of at least two that I thought were as good or, honestly, better. One of the better portfolios came from Erik Bender, whose blog you can read here.

Here's my final portfolio. I'll add some notes about how I made each shot. I decided to attempt abstracts created by abstracting subjects, using darkroom processes, through macro work, and by simply photographing unrecognizable subjects. I managed all four, which I was happy with.







These first four received pretty wild speculation about how I captured them. People noted the movement in the last one, and the abstract forms in the first two. To me, the third should have been a hint that something ordered had occurred. A lot of people asked how I did them and I agreed to show the class after my portfolio showing if no one guessed the method. That received some interest. After my portfolio showing, I turned on my cell phone and switched to my Electric Sheep live wallpaper. I used a macro lens and took about 13 rolls of film of the wallpaper's renderings to obtain these four shots.





I made these two with a pinhole camera. The first pinhole is a Monster energy drink (how do people drink that stuff?!?) can with five pinholes in an "X" pattern. The latter is a Brisk Iced Tea can with two pinholes oriented at about 75 degrees. 





These two were shots at the De Young museum that I manipulated in the darkroom. Prior to and during print exposure, I brushed very dilute fixers onto the images to cause a smoke effect on the prints.



This was a similar process to that above except with developer and a bright flash of light to solarize the image. In real life, it's actually kind of purple and green.


Just a photogram of nails. I set all the nails on their heads, so the different perspectives are from the angle of light casting shadows on the nails.

A macro shot of a white acrylic sheet resting on a beer stein back lit by a naked bulb. This was just a test shot, actually, to confirm focus, but it worked really well.


The bulb on my Repronar. I dodged the surround, otherwise it would have been black instead of gray.


This also stupified people, too. For this I used my Repronar and placed a plastic tray on the light plate and poured in some vegetable oil. I added oil-based paint and the different colors reacted and spread differently.




These two came from a stereoscopic pinhole camera. I've featured it on this blog before.




The first image was an accident created by exposing paper to light and then developing it in the light in developer being mixed and with a distinct temperature gradient in the fluid. The bottom is a contact print of the paper negative.

Yokohama Panda

I figured I would open with a peaceful photo because



this panda wants to eat your soul.

Last day in Tokyo

Back in July I spent a week in Tokyo. On my last day, I met up with my buddy Steve who lives near Mt. Fuji. Steve showed me around Shinjuku, Akibahara, and some other neighborhoods. We went to a festival for some fireworks and were rained on. Some rando put their fingers on my 31mm FA Limited's lens on accident. I ate the most incredible street food and octopus I've ever tried.


Before Steve arrived, I had about an hour to ram around Shinjuku and stumble into a Nikon shop. It was pretty great as I'd never seen one of the Canon f0.95 "Dream Lens" lenses before. After Steve arrived, he showed me all the great camera stores in Shunjuku. I wish I had bought some cameras. I wanted to but, for some reason, decided against it. Yes. Worst decision of the trip.


At Shinjuku Station, they had some mascots.


And somewhere in Tokyo this Panda waited for its owner to leave a store.


After some hours, we ended up at a festival. I forget what for, but there were fireworks over the river, too. A good portion of the people dressed in traditional Japanese garments.


Tradition mixed with modernity.


Steve and I were not the only photographers there. This girl from Hong Kong had a Holga.


Steve and I seemed, for a while, to be the only people NOT shooting medium format. I really liked this guy's Bronica. Beautiful camera.


And a giant lantern. I could have easily gone through two more rolls of film at the festival but everyone kept asking me to take their photos. Literally, they left everyone around me alone. Steve, who speaks Japanese, said someone said they thought I was a professional. I guess a lot of people heard that.


After deciding to take photos of things other than other people with their cameras, Steve and I were herded by a cop with a megaphone almost as big as him. It's pretty great.


And we stopped for octopus. Totally worth the 15-minute wait. I wanted more. I want to fly back to Tokyo and walk around until I find this place and have more.


Unfortunately, I don't have any fireworks photos because it rained. Hard. It was all Steve and I could do to keep our gear from getting wet. In the subway, we watched a few trains leave to get shots of how insanely crowded they were.


The cops tolerated us. Mostly.

Domo Aragato, Mr. Roboto -- the Film Version

In early July I had a post called Domo Aragato, Mr. Roboto. It featured some still lifes I made with my dad's old toys and my Pentax K-7. This week I'll share some of the film photos I took that night along with the camera I used.

Pentax 6X7 (Fuji 100 Acros)


Minolta SRT 102 (Foma 100)






Pentax Spotmatic SPII (Foma 100)

Yellow filter (note that the red caboose is substantially lighter than a red caboose would normally be while the blue robot in the front is very dark.)


Red filter (here the red caboose is dark enough to read the white American Flyer text, mostly due to a slightly longer exposure time, and the robot is much darker than in the previous image.)


Blue filter (here the caboose is dark and the robot much lighter.)

Filters work by cutting lights waves that don't pass through the glass color. So a red filter actually cuts all the light waves except red. The further the color rests on the spectrum from the filter color, the more effectively that filter blocks it. So red filters make blue dark gray or black and blue filters make reds dark gray or black.

Canon RT (Kodak Double-X, 5222)






Zeiss Ikon Contaflex (Kodak Double-X, 5222)














Canon AE-1 (Kodak Plus-X 125)