The 52 Project, Week 29: 8x10 around New York

During my brief time in New York before and after my guest spot on the early November 2010 episode of the Film Photography Podcast, I had some free time to roam around some other cool places in New York and play around with the 8x10. The same as last time, these are all scans of quick and dirty contact prints on Oriental RC VC paper with very little correction in post. Click the scans for a better view plus exposure data.

The deep downtown area of Newburg, NY, quite run down, but in a very photogenic way!

This image definitely took some "cojones" to take. I was in a VERY bad neighborhood for quite some time scoping out and setting up this image. Thankfully, I'm still around to share the urban decay of Newberg, NY with everyone. P.S. If it looks like a meth house, smells like a meth house, and has gunfire like a meth house, chances are its a meth house. >__<

Moving on.

A very unusual view from a scenic outlook of the Hudson River and Poughkeepsie, NY. Just ignore that little "squiggly" in the corner :p

So just when I thought things couldn't have gotten any hairer as they had earlier that day in downtown Newburg, I got hassled not once, but twice by Poughkeepsie police about shooting with my 8x10. Apparently, having anything on a tripod that looks more menacing than a point and shoot is "against city ordinance". After explaining that I wasn't Ansel Adams or planning to score big bucks of the above image, they were a little more relaxed with my shooting; they still followed me back to my car, however. >__>

This image helped to kick off my love affair with long exposures on the 8x10. For all you sports shooters out there, you just won't get it.

No real drama with this exposure, unless of course you considering a long exposure in a heavy downpour and 45 degree weather to be a problem. For large format? Not so much. ^__^

Keeping it short and sweet, onto this week's lessons...

Something Good: Each 8x10 sheet metered very differently, but with a little Zone System came out with even density in the negative with consistent print times for the contact prints. Yay!

Somehting Bad: Hair and dust are the bane of my scanning existence, nuff said.

Something Learned: Big cameras attract lots of attention (duh), both good and bad. Know your equipment, but know your photographic environment as well. If things get sketchy, ask yourself if getting the shot is really worth that extra risk.

Next Week: The big 'ole sheets of Tmax 400 keep on coming. And even though there's not going to be any new emulsions or processes, I guarantee the subject matter will keep things fresh!

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.