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June 22, 2005

Finally made some actual prints in the darkroom last night. I've been shooting and developing like crazy. I spent all monday making contact prints for a few hours. Last night, I got to make some images.

My brother home from Iraq for 2 week R&R

some mesmerizing singer from Tour des Artistes

June 19, 2005

I think I've shot about 40 rolls of film in the last two weeks. It has been busy. My brother came home from Iraq for 2 weeks of R&R so I went with my parents to pick him up from the airport. I tailed him the whole day and shot about 14 rolls of film. I also shot about 10 rolls at Tour des' Artistes.

I've finally finished developing all the film. It looks like I've got some good stuff. I'll have to make contact sheets this week and see for sure. For some reason, my film has been coming out a bit overdeveloped. I thought that my thermometer was giving bad readings so I got a new one. It still seems a bit over. I've reduced my dev. times and changed the agitation a bit and it's a little better. It just might be the summer weather. The developer must be warming up as I'm agitating and causing for more development at the same time. I'll have to experiment.

Within the last two weeks I've picked up 2 folding 6x6 cameras. An Ikonta III with a 75mm 3.5 Novar lens and a Super Baldax with a 75mm 3.5 Baldanar. They're not suppose to be the best lenses, but from the rolls I've developed, they look pretty good. I've been looking into folders as a more portable option to carrying the Rolleiflex around. The Rollei has a killer lens but is not very portable. I still haven't made up my mind about the folders but it seems that the Ikonta III is faster to focus but is a bitch to advance. The wind mechanism is the known weak point of Ikontas. The Baldax is a little more of a pain to focus, but the advance is ratcheted and works better. It's close focus ability also seems more accurate. A few more rolls should help me figure it out.

June 13, 2005

Not a lot of updates recently, but I have been shooting a lot. Shot Tour des' Artistes this past weekend. I was on my feet for about 12 hours hauling around 30lbs of camera equipment. My body hurts. Also shot my cousin's headshot the next morning. Ugh.

Anyway, here are some of my fav. snaps from Tour. Doesn't include the BW I shot (about 16 rolls worth).

June 7, 2005

A funny anecdote....I was waiting at the bus stop and someone was reading the Gazette. It had just come out and I noticed a really bright red picture on the cover that attracts your attention. I looked over the guy's shoulder and saw it was one of my circus pictures. Hehe...

look familiar??

June 2, 2005

Some snaps from the Moscow State Circus that was in town...in addition to the color digi, I shot about 8 rolls of BW during the warm up and the sad inflatable amusement park they set up for the kids...

June 1, 2005

Shot a portrait of an artist named Sigmund for the Grunion this evening. He works on sheets of aluminum. I was suppose to shoot him in his studio, but he's in between studios right now so the shot had to be done in his living room. I tried to fill the frame up with him and his work so as to crop out the kitchen and television in the background.

I've been having a bad string of equipment failures lately. My M4P came back from CLA and the focusing was off. A Canon 85mm 1.8 I got for the Leica is having focusing issues. My 35mm Summicron that I paid $900 got beer spilled on it. A Summitar I got off of eBay that I sent out to CLA was returned stiff. A 90mm Elmar that I also got off of eBay wouldn't focus. The gist of it is that I have a camera and 3 lenses away for CLA. I'm left with my M2 and iiia, which work ok, but is sort of a pain because I can't change lenses readily between them.

August 2004

July 2004