The 52 Project, Week 11: Back in Black...and White

 This week, after an absurd three week hiatus/disconnect from the internet, I'm going to start by doing something different. Before seeing the scans, I'm going to go over what I learned, not about film, but about the digital workflow/lifestyle.

Something Good: I backup my data bi-weekly. In the event of a total system meltdown, I still have my bare necessities. Also, my film scans from Millers come on an archival DVD, so no worries on color film; oh, and it's film, not a digital file, I still really have it. :p

Something Bad: My laptop hard drive was fried, one of my backups failed, and reformatting the system and re-importing, installing, and setting up preferences was a bitch.

Something Learned: Though it may take only a few days to get a system up and running again, life tends to get in the way of the regular blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr posts.

Next Week: Though it's over two weeks behind, should be up tomorrow. The last week of July, I accompanied my grandfather to a Toledo Mud Hens game. We had a blast, and I got a few cool expired color film images.

Now let's see some B&W scans:

I honestly had no idea what it was...Scan 1: Abandoned Chair

If the following series of images looks familiar, it's for good reason. This is that exact same, creepy house. I had a spare hour to mess around, so I grabbed some Tmax 100 and made a trip back. It was about 4:00pm, and I probably could have benefitted from some higher speed film, but this along with the next three images turned out sharp (enough). Processing was pretty standard, D-76 @ 70F for 6.5 min, regular agitation. Oh, but this time my fixer wasn't exhausted, so the scans have some extra "kick" to them.

Shaky floor boards are shaky. >__>Scan 2: Abandoned Kitchen

I'm never walking deeper into this house again, period. The floors appear old, rotted through, and they are. While snagging this view of what looks to have been the kitchen, my right foot started to sink through some shaky floorboards.  I managed to recover from the near miss, but also managed to miss-wind the Hasselblad and mess up my next frame. It's alright though, you can squeeze a 13th frame out of a 120 spool if you're careful while loading.

Too much development, this image has it.Scan 3: Abandoned Hallway

Somewhere between Scan 2 and Scan 4 resides this image. There's some cool old wiring sinking down from the second floor, creating this stark contrast between it and the far window. Oh, and note the floor closer to the bottom of the frame, it's even more precarious with a few intact boards to walk across; looks like I got lucky with these ones.

The title should've included "abandoned", I know.Scan 4: Toilet Humor

Probably my favorite of this week's images, this scene of an abandoned bathroom is powerful and contrasty, but without being overly shocking or disgusting. What you see in the toilet bowl is nothing more than wood scraps, dust, mold, and dirt. Interesting what well over ten years of weathering and neglect can do to the room of the house dedicated to hygiene.

The 52 Project, Week 3

Wow, so the past week has been quite a bear. I've spent most of my time: hunting down a "lost" package of 120 film,  gearing up for a big wedding, and scrambling to finish a photobook for the Hancock Historical Society. Luckily for me, shooting film was just the prescription for a stressful week. The scans below represent some fun experiments with Kodak Tri-x 400 B&W, hand developed in D-76, scanned on an Epson V700.

Ruby giving a big "dumb guy" smile. ^_

Scan 1: Ruby the American Bulldog

If it's not already becoming apparent, I have an affinity for pets. I like them, they stay still, I take their picture, simple as that. Though I don't normally like medium/large sized dogs, the two you can see in this blogpost are dosile, happy young dogs. This particular pup is Ruby. She's just under two years old, and an American Bulldog mix. She reminds me a lot of Chance from "Homeward Bound".

Twiggy barely ever sits still, especially hard w/ manual focus.

 Scan 2: Twiggy, the Mutt

Oh Twiggy, such an innocent little wire-haird dog. She's just over a year old, and I have no idea what combinations of dog are in her, but they sure give her a distinct look. She lives with Ruby, seen above, and they couldn't get along better. 

Beehive or not, this is some BIG hair!

Scan 3: Big Sexy Hair

Having set the "great hair" bar a little high with last week's bearded beast, I had to find someone/thing with equally impressive hair. Then, while dining at the Panera Bread in Westlake, OH, I came past this lady with some truly original hair. Certainly if you lived during the '60's and earlier you've probably seen a "do" like this, but to me, this was a new thing that was truly awesome to behold in person.

Something good: I particularly like the "look" that Tri-X film gives when processed. There appears to be deeper blacks and more blown whites, especially so in higher contrast, outdoor areas. 

Something bad: Hand processing the film is going well, but my film is just curving way too much during drying to make for good scans. Note the horrid light "falloff" on the edges of scan 3. The negative does NOT look like this; if only I could get the hang of the Epson V700.

Something learned: Even though I'm working with significantly less data, 16 bit B&W vs. 48 big RGB, each film does really have its own unique look. And from what I've been reading thus far, each developer leaves its own unique "mark". I intend to exploit as many combinations as I can throughout this project, starting with all films in D-76, then working my way to other developers.

Next week:  The more I play with B&W films, the more I like them. There's just something about not having to sit in Lightroom for hours playing with the file to get it to look like it does out of the darkroom. Expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights, simple as that. I'm going to keep shooting different B&W films and post their results.



The 52 Project, Week 1

Since this is the inaugural edition of The 52 Project, let's cover some of the ground rules for how these posts will (hopefully) be laid out. Firstly, we'll have story time. I'll discuss what I shot, how I shot it, and maybe even have a fun story in there. Next, we'll look at what I chose to scan, and why (sometimes I may choose non-keepers). Following the images I'll have a quick review section, giving a quick rundown of the good, the bad, and the ugly of the scans shown. And finally, I'll include a little bit about what I'd like to do better/differently in the next week of shooting (this is a learning process, after all).

Having shot my way through six rolls of color 120 film, this first roll of black and white is actually my 7th ever. I'm slightly more confident when shooting, but still playing it safe, using a predictable combination of 400 speed film and metering with the built-in Kiev 88 meter. I'm fascinated that this meter is 10 years older than me but still somehow works; and very accurately at that! Well, enough beating around the bush, let's get to the shots!

Kay doing what kittens do best!

Scan 1: Kay Kitten Sleeping

Not much to say here: I love cats, blog readers have asked for more blog posts about kittens, and compositions with lots of hidden triangles are fun. Besides, with a kitten this cute, my buddy Berb needs to share this adorable kitten with the rest of the world.

House found on Sandusky Street, Findlay, OH

Scan 2: Cool House in Findlay Ohio

I usually don't like architecture of any kind, but this house was more about the creepy feeling I got while walking past. The very contrasty colors on the front of the house really make it pop.

That's not scanner dust, just a visibly dirty wall :p

Scan 3: B&W 6x6 Self Portrait

While winding last week's roll of film down, I suddenly had the inspiration to break out the unused pc sync cords in my lighting bag and see if they could trigger my wireless, off-camera strobes. "Son of a bitch, they do!" This was more a test than anything else, and had I not clipped off my toe at the very bottom of the frame, I'd probably like this image even more.

Something good: Got a lot of good shots this week, uploaded 5 keepers to Flickr (you're seeing 3 of them). All exposures were either spot on or slightly underexposed (good for enlarging and scanning). This is a very good thing considering it was my first ever hand-processed roll in the darkroom.

Something bad: Having been the first ever hand-processed roll in the darkroom, I was bound to mess up. My last frame had two lines streaked over it from touching part of the unused film on the plastic reel. Oh well, 11 out of 12 good exposures is still better than my digital record ever was.

Something learned: This week really gave me a respect for the darkroom process, and the look of black and white film, which too often is badly emulated in digital. Hopefully throughout this project, this interest in black and white will blossom into something more.

Next week:  I'll be getting back to Kodak color films with some more Portra 400NC. Granted the black and white off-camera lighting results, I'd really like to try it out in color and see how it looks. I'm still building up a library of film, but would like to try just about everything I can to learn as much as I can. If anybody has some suggestions for film, processing, etc. please leave a comment and I'll be sure to get to it.