The 52 Project, Week 30: All About Amherst

The large format adventures continue with more from my trip to Amherst, MA to visit my good and long-time friend Katie O'Neil. During the very brief visit, we had quite a few adventures, including but not limited to: (you can pm me for the entire scoop)

• Painting horses
• Bailing someone out of prison
• Visiting an insane asylum
• Meet Dr. Suess' nephew
• Losing cell phones and Polaroids deep in the woods

Fun times indeed. Now here are some scans:

Preceding the Halloween party on the Lone Birch Farm, this is my failed attempt at a group shot. Note the lack of people. >__<

This is Katie O'Neil. She loves horses, Ireland, good movies, and climbing trees. The first three are hard to photograph, so here she is.

Ah urban decay, you photograph on large format so nicely. Well, at least when there's a contrasty scene; here, not so much. >__<

 Just covering the bases again here, all of the above were VERY quick contact prints made onto Oriental RC VC paper, developed in generic Dektol replacement for 1:00 min. The prints were then scanned onto a trusty Epson V700 with some level tweaking in post.

Now a for this week's closing words.

Something Good: For my third overall batch of Pyrocat HD negatives, these guys all came out equally dense. Print times were all within 5 seconds of each other. When printing from a 20x24 equivalent height (for consistency's sake), that's actually pretty close.

Something Bad: These images as negatives were all equally over-processed. When over-processed negatives come out of a staining developer, the overall film base (usually clear) becomes stained/tanned itself. Not necessarily a bad thing, this side effect can be corrected by either reducing overall density in farmer's reducer or by printing longer...way longer. >__>

Something Learned: The more dense a Pyrocat stained negative becomes, the more filtration it will need to obtain proper contrast on VC papers. Remember, brownish-stain acts like a yellow SUPER-low contrast filter to VC paper, so this must be countered with yellow's compliment, purple light.

Next Week: Back to only one image, but a big one, with a great story and some great impact.

The 52 Project, Week 13: Little Miss Japan

Life really has a way of getting in the way sometimes...

A slew of incredibly cool things have been happening lately, and as soon as I've finished processing them, this blog might start to get back on track. >__>

Leaving this stagnate for over a month has been awful. A six week hiatus while in the midst of catching up an already behind project is a formula for disaster. This blog was established for BOTH the reader and for myself to reflect upon the week by week trials of shooting film. Hopefully busting my ass this month will get me back to such a point. To readers who've stuck by and checked up occasionally through this dead period (you know who you are), Thank You.

*Now back to our irregularly scheduled programming*

Back in August (<__< I know), a very long time friend, near and dear to my heart, came back from her studies in Okayama, Japan to visit friends and family. Though my time with her was short, we certainly made the best of it. There are a couple more rolls and scans waiting in the wings, but Laura's just such an expressive, wonderful girl that the four scans from this one roll should tell you everything you need to know about her.

Yeah, I can't believe this dog is 12 either. Scan 1: Laura and Nick, the Happy Mutt

Laura LOVES dogs, period. Old dogs, inbred dogs, ugly dogs, slobbery dogs, and of course, the cutest of cute puppies; they all manage to make her day. If you start to see an unusually high number of random dog photos on this blog, part of the reason was I shot them for her. ^__^ This particular dog is her old pal, Nick. And although at 12 he's not moving as well as he used to, taking a walk down the street with Laura seems to turn him into a puppy again.

Ah window light, you always go down smooth.Scan 2: Laura at Squire's Castle

Squire's castle, just outside of Cleveland's eastern suburbs, is a great place for anyone to take a photo. During the summer you've got temperate weather, boat loads of window light, and a ton of windows with which to pose pretty girls. So I decided to follow through with all the hype and give it a go.

An imcomparably genuine smile. Scan 3: Happy Laura

The following two scans were both an exercise in Laura's expressions and a testament to the dynamic range found in color negative film. Completely unlike digital, I didn't have to horribly underexpose my subject just to obtain a desirable background. I just metered my shadows, pointed, and shot. Voila! For you hardcore tech geeks, my SBR (subject brightness range) was about 10-12 stops. And considering only a little sky is blow out on this not-so-cold-stored 8 year old film, I'll take it.

Could you tell we were having fun with this?Scan 4: Laura Peace Sign

If Laura's somehow talking with somebody without smiling, it's more than likely because she's in the middle of flashing one of these. Yeah, it's definitely a Japan thing that she's picked up along the way, but we'll forgive her for that. ;)

 Something Good: This old Portra comes to life in the shadows! Just make sure to limit over-exposure of your shadows to no more than two stops; otherwise, we're talking Chernobl-esque highlights.

Something Bad: Like any old, medium to high speed film (yeah, 100 was FAST film back in the glory days of Tri-X and Tech Pan) flare is something that needs to be unscrupulously controlled. Scan 2 was acceptable to myself, but others will argue.

Something Learned: So long as this old Portra 160VC is shot in overcast to shady conditions, the skin tones and saturated landscapes it produces are magical. Try it in direct sunlight or flare, and it becomes just another color film.

Next Week: I plan on catching up, but in no particular order. These updates can be expected to occur at a rate of two to three posts per week, not necessarily all including photographs. We'll see. ^__^

Shooting kids, more fun than you'd expect...

Cliche, yes, but moms go ape over it. Logging into Facebook a few weeks ago, I was surprised to find a request from a high school friend.

"Hey! How are you old friend?! How are things going? Well by reading your info I guess you're a pretty damn good photographer, so you're definitely the man the job!"

0_0 Oh no, this was not going to bode well.

Well, it turned out it wasn't so bad. She was a new mom looking for some simple documentation of the newest edition to the family. So how was I going to shoot this? Would I bring the whole mobile studio and overshoot this poor little girl, or would I use a little photojournalistic style? The latter, hands down.

I learned a few things shooting a four-month old:

• Take a standard portrait. Sure you hate it, but most relatives require it. 
• Be patient and move away from the camera and regain baby's attention.
• Mom doesn't want to see herself, no matter how much you need her to hold her baby for that perfect pose.
• Use a telephoto! Those big blue baby eyes are big enough without wide angle. 
• Baby looking at the camera is great, but baby discovering the world around him/her...better!

Little Claire discovering dandelions for the first time.Wrapping up this baby shooting experience:

Was it fun? Yes.

Babies aren't picky models or fat businessmen who want to look 25 and skinny, they're babies. If you want to give a baby motivation, play peekabo with your SLR or tug at your cheeks.

Would I work with kids again? Maybe.

I got really lucky with a great set of clients, especially considering this was the first real kid shoot I've done.

If nothing else, this shoot has given me great respect for those that do this day in and day out.