Photographer. Podcaster. Blogger. Reverse Engineer.
Panther’s Falls 2 – December 2020
I’m pretty happy with how this exposure, and the previous one, came out. This one was handheld, f/11, about 1/60s, on HP5+. I have a fairly steady hand but 1/60s is about my limit personally.
If you want to see much larger versions of these digital scans you can always look on Flickr.
Panther’s Falls – December 2020
As a kid I’d walk to these falls every chance I got. I had many bear encounters, caught tons of snakes (even though my mother forbade it), and swam a bunch. It was nice to visit them after nearly a few decades of being away.
I shot this on Saturday while on a hike to the falls on my Ansco Speedex. I was able to develop the negatives the next morning and even make a print that evening. This particular shot I captured handheld at f/11 1/60s.
If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter you may have seen that I was in the darkroom this weekend.
In March 2020, I purchased this Ansco Speedex from a local hip shop On&On. Around that same time a family member gifted me some expired Kodak Tri-X that he’s had frozen since 1982. A few weeks later, on a rather rainy afternoon, I set out with the Speedex and an umbrella to expose some of my very first frames of medium format film. That same evening I developed the film in our apartment kitchen sink and scanned the negatives the next morning. Which I published to my blog.
Here are a few photos from those days in March.
Now, in December, we’ve moved to a new home and we have room in our basement for darkroom equipment. On Saturday night, after many weeks of practicing printing, I have learned enough to make this frame-worthy print for our bathroom.
This print was a bit challenging due to the negatives being a bit flat. It may not appear to be flat given the digital scan – but that is very easy to compensate for digitally. This darkroom print needed a number of areas to be burned (which I’m still learning how to do). Expired film generally makes you work a lot harder for good results.
I’m super stoked. I love the provenance of these film projects. They are more than just photographs, they are our history.
Over the river – March 2020
I love how this tree hangs over the river. I’ve photographed it many times and assume I will many times more.
This particular image is a re-scan of a negative. I learned a slightly different way to scan and edit the resulting digital positive and I believe the above image is extremely good quality (though, the version I’ve uploaded to my blog is only 2,000 pixels wide).
See also; Studebaker, Sweeny’s Bench, Rail side. All of these being from the same roll of film.
Rail side – March 2020
I’d forgotten to publish this one. It is from the same expired roll I shot Sweeny’s Bench and the Studebaker on.
Penn Yan, New York – March 2020
This is a frame from my very first roll of new black and white film. It was taken on Ilford HP5+ 120 film stock. This is very forgiving film from my newbie perspective.
Eliza and I enjoyed a sunny weekend in the Finger Lakes isolating ourselves to some degree from the outside world. It was so sunny, in fact, that the Ansco Speedex didn’t really have a quick enough shutter speed to keep up. I’m limited to 1/100 being the quickest speed on the camera.
I look forward to shooting more Ilford and hopefully in the 6×7 and 6×9 ratios as well.
Studebaker – March 2020
A few more medium format film exposures. These were also taken with the Ansco Speedex.
This old Studebaker sits a stone’s throw away from a river that runs directly in front of our place. From the stories I’ve gathered it was sitting across the street for a few decades before being moved into this area and it has sat here now for a number of years.
My goal with this first expired roll of medium format film was to see the different tones I could create so I thought this white car would be a good subject for that.
