A New Toy

A couple of weeks ago, I ran across some paintings and photographs by Marilyn Minter. I remember seeing her photographs of Pamela Anderson in Parkett back in 2007, long before I was interested in photography at all, and coming across her work now—particularly ones where there’s a sheet of wet and/or broken glass between the viewer and the subject, or where the dripping glass is the subject and some human part-object dissolves to form a splash of color and recognizable form in the background—made me want to build something and start shooting in the studio again.

So I did… Continue reading “A New Toy”

the Red Bag

If you watched the video from a couple of days ago, you know the story already: how my darling, adorable wife went fabric shopping and came home with this big red plastic bag; and how I saw it lying on the floor, and instead of taking it to the recycle bin, I crawled around on the floor with the D7000, 28-105D in Macro mode, and the old Vivitar Auto 200 flash on a cactus trigger, and shot it for awhile; and how, when I got the pictures into the computer and started adjusting the levels things went a bit wonky somehow.

Well, here are the pics. Continue reading “the Red Bag”

Harmon Films – Ilford FP4 Plus (2)

I was impressed with the FP4 Plus the first time I shot it and I was looking forward to shooting it again. And after shooting through a roll, developing and scanning it, and processing the files into pictures, it didn’t disappoint, as long as I took the time to compose and consider the outcome.  Continue reading “Harmon Films – Ilford FP4 Plus (2)”

Huger Foote – ‘Now Here Then’

After averaging something like two photobooks per month in 2015, I’ve sworn a bit of a moratorium on photobook purchases, not as any sort of resolution, per se, but just as a sort of test of will and patience. The end of the year, what with its Listmas and other nudges (gentle and otherwise) to BUY THIS BOOK NAO!, was difficult, but I mostly persevered, except for those two books I mentioned in the last unboxing.

One thing that I ran across kept nudging me, though, and insistently…

Blake Andrews alerted me to this one too (see entry #7 under ‘Photobooks’ here, and also included in ‘Six photobooks the lists missed’ here), and while I don’t always agree with B, after perusing his various picks, Huger Foote’s Now Here Then caught my eye, and despite my best efforts, it haunted me for more than a week, and after some difficulty, I ordered it.*

Continue reading “Huger Foote – ‘Now Here Then’”

drive-by Hipstamaticing

After the FG stopped working properly, I sorta laid low on the photographic front, processed film, made a video, and got caught up on my photographic to-do list while the rain poured down outside and Mom went about her usual activities.

I shot with the phone some on the way to Arkansas, a tiny bit while there, and a whole bunch on the way back: 150 in all, most of which are absolute garbage. That’s what you get with spray-and-pray type hipstamaticing, as with other types of spray-and-pray shooting in general. If I had more time to really play with all the lens and film filters and combinations, I’d probably get far more quality out of it, but my photographic hobby is a bit schizophrenic at present (more on that later), and I don’t have time to do everything I’d like to do.

So I set Hipstamtic to swap lenses and films at random, and just shoot away, and hope that something comes out. Whether or not anything did, you’ll have to be the judge. Continue reading “drive-by Hipstamaticing”

Digital and Film: singing in the rain

When you plan your vacation around photography—as most other things—it’s a bit of a bummer when it rains the entire time, but there are at least two great things that rain offers to photography: shiny clean things and drops on windows.

Continue reading “Digital and Film: singing in the rain”