Wigglegram

Joey-and-Tracy

You may recall how I extolled the virtues of GIFs in a previous post. I mean, we are in the future now, and one can only expect to have moving portraits like they have in Harry Potter. I think they called them magical portraits, but I like to call them wigglegrams.

My friends Joey and Tracy were kind enough to ask me to take some photos of them for some save the dates cards they’ll be sending out. Of course, I never turn down an opportunity to hang out with friends, so we went out and wandered around their neighborhood of Old Town, Chicago. I found a nice wall to photograph them, and they decided to just levitate in front of it like this. Legend has it that they are still floating there to this day.

I kid, but I did take a couple of other nice photos of them. I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to include a lot more of the environment in these portraits, and I could mix it up with some tighter compositions. Anyway, I’m a little behind on posting these, but congrats Joey and Tracy! You are both great, and even more so together!

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Wander with Friends

Just returned from a trip overseas with some friends to the UK and Ireland. It’s amazing what a difference traveling with great friends is. I’ve done some solo trips where I’ve explored cities on my own, but it’s is so great to explore things you might not find on your own, or are what you think outside your interests.

I brought way too much camera equipment, and didn’t use some of it. I need to learn to travel lighter. It was my first time trying to travel with a film camera, but I still had to bring a digital camera with a few lenses. Next time, I’ll just bring my medium format Bronica ETRSi, and my Nikon D800 with the 35mm f/2.0. I’m excited to see how those film photos turned out, but for now, here’s a couple of quick photos.

Here’s a gif of us before going out to dinner.

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And here’s a pic of me sitting in a coffee shop in Dublin, with my new travel hat.

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Hole-y Film Wholly Developed at Home

GW690II_Delta400_002

 

Finally got around to developing some film at home! Had a roll of 35mm film from this summer that I jury rigged to run in my Fuji GW690II (a 6×9 medium format rangefinder, colloquially called the “Texas Leica” due to it’s size), to get the exposed sprocket holes (hence the title). Since the camera normally expects a larger size film, I had to run a strip of paper in there so that the camera would cock the shutter. Unfortunately, the paper strip tore, so I only ended up with a couple of usable frames before the camera stopped cocking the shutter. Also, another downside… Since the film takes up a smaller portion of the frame, it’s really hard to compose (sorry about that eye patch in the photo below, Ashley).

 

GW690II delta400 001

 

Stand development with Rodinal was pretty easy. I used a dilution ratio of about 1:100, agitated at the beginning, and let it sit for an hour, while agitating halfway through. Rinsed, fixed, rinsed again, and hung to dry. While temperature doesn’t matter, try not to let it shift too much. I used water that was a little too warm to start (about 100 degrees f), and by the end, it dropped about 20 degrees. Which I think gave me some gradation in development (you can see some the bottom of the film is lighter). In any case, I’d say it was an overall success for my first time developing my own film in 20 years (and even then, had only done a couple rolls in high school)!

 

Ilford Delta 400. Scanned with Epson 4490.

#52weekproject: Week 12 #Jesstin2014

Week 12: #Jesstin2014

Photo taken on Friday, May 9th, 2014. This technically falls under Week 11, but I’m willing to fudge this so it gets it’s own week.

Misty Farms, Ann Arbor, MI

Misty Farms, Ann Arbor, MI

 

Jessica and Justin chose an awesome farm to host their awesome wedding festivities. They were awesome enough to allow me to pull them away for a couple of awesome minutes during the awesome welcome reception to take this awesome photo.

There had been couple of crazy short storms rolling through the area that day, but it made for some really beautiful evening light. I think this could have been even better as a portrait panorama, but didn’t think of it at the time. I might have been a couple beers in. Thanks for an awesome weekend guys! And congrats! (And did I mention how awesome they are?)

#52weekproject: Week 10 – The Shully Family

A Delightful Reunion…

 

Taken April 28th at The Shully residence, while my friends, Roberto and Amanda were in town from Paris. I first met Jenny and Enoch while in Cape Town, South Africa with Roberto and Amanda during the World Cup in June of 2010. Enoch was the manager at Arnold’s Cafe where we would camp out everyday for breakfast, and sometimes lunch, and sometimes dinner. And Jenny, who we met through our mutual friend, Rob, lived in an apartment just above Arnold’s. She opened up her home to us, tolerated our incessant tomfoolery and for some reason, still invites us over for dinner (and a lot of wine) after they moved to the States.

Here they are, with their beautiful daughter Tulah and their dog, Nyani.

The Shullys 05042014