Saturday Night/Sunday Evening

Saturday Night

 

Sunday Evening

The Basement

Laura and I got a bite to eat at The Basement on Waterloo Road today. We had heard that the wings were supposed to be amazing - they turned out to be good but nothing mind-blowing. Our reubens were really good though - I got mine with a side of spaghetti - which seemed strange - but not strange enough to stop me from getting it....

House Hunters

I know I've been light on new posts this week but I have been shooting - just mostly film. I have a few rolls that need to be finished before I can develop and post. Also Laura and I have been searching for a new home - above is a photo of what may one day be my darkroom! Fingers crossed - more on this soon....

New View(finally)

After years of putting it off I finally bought a new computer monitor - a Dell UltraSharp U2410 - which you can see dwarfs my old one. Even typing this is a weird experience across 24 inches and 1920 X 1200 resolution. I knew that I didn't want to get a cheap monitor from Best Buy and that is what had kept me from getting something for so long - knowing it would take a decent chunk of change to get what I wanted always made it fall farther down the priority list of new lenses, cameras, film and filters.... My girlfriend finally convinced me to pull the trigger. I still couldn't justify spending the thousand + dollars on a top-of-the-line model but I think I got a pretty huge upgrade nonetheless. I do have some research to do on the correct settings and I'm a bit nervous as to how it will affect my photo editing as I had become so used to me other monitor. Yesterday when I was editing the Ektar 100 photos I was struggling to get them to look like my prints - today when I looked at them again on this new monitor I realized I had actually pretty much nailed the color. Other considerations will be how much to use filters like the unsharp mask - before I was probably over-sharping to compensate for the antique monitor(same with saturation). All in all I hope its a tool that will improve my photography - I know it will at least improve my neck and back(no longer having to be hunched over for hours with my face right up to the screen).

Ektar 100 in the Valley

Today I finished and had developed a roll of Kodak Ektar 100 that was shot with my Nikon F3. This was a beautiful combination - I only wish the scans of the negatives did this film justice. Grain is absolutely non-existent and the colors are wonderfully saturated. The Nikon F3's meter(heavily center-weighted) seems to never miss the mark - I shoot the camera in aperture-priority mode(I set the aperture, the camera sets the shutter speed). After seeing the results with Ektar I don't think I would ever shoot nature shots with cheap film again....expired film has its place(but not in my F3).  

Target Date Night

Once in a while I decide to really treat my girlfriend - because you know, dealing with me isn't always easy, so she deserves it. We needed kitty litter and cat food so we took a trip to Target - but this wasn't any trip to Target. I took her to the foodcourt where we each ordered a 'Hot Dog and Soft Drink Combo'(which consisted of a hot dog and soft drink). What a night it was! The kind, old man only took about five minutes to get the dogs off the spinners(that they had probably occupied for at least 8 hours) and on to our kinda fresh buns! A little mustard and you could almost enjoy it! Best 6 bucks we ever spent!

Flowers in My Front Yard

What the title says...

Pictureless?

Today I went for a hike to try and find and explore a ravine I had been told about.  The magic hour lighting was about perfect and I had my Nikon F3 with a 28mm lens on and Kodak Ektar 100 loaded.  It would be a perfect combination for some great landscapes.  After hiking up a hill I was completely out of breath - I looked up and saw what I though was a barking dog about 50 yard away.  I soon realized it was a coyote being very vocal - probably protecting its young.  I backed off a few steps and fumbled for my 300mm Nikkor lens - I clumsily attached it to the camera and tried to steady myself and achieve focus for some shots.  Unfortunately with the slow Ektar loaded I could only get about 1/30 second exposure at f/4.5 - which will probably be blurry....we will find out soon.... 

Cutting From Above

I worked all day long and only snapped a few photos. These are of Dave in the front-end loader of the John Deere 6320 cutting up a tree that had fallen over our fence. If only everyone had a good camera man to make them look cool at their job....

The Hunt Field

Today I was working in the Hunt Field to try to clean up and fix some of the damage from last year's flood. I drilled hundreds of holes through the hardpan to help with the field's drainage. I also cleared a bunch of trees that the Cuyahoga River had washed into the field. We still have much fence work to do - the flood destroyed much of the work we did last year.

Long Exposures

I've been thinking about doing some long exposure shots with one of my old 620 Kodak cameras, but tonight I wasn't in the mood to re-spool 120 film so I took the idea digital. Its nothing I haven't done before - just some long exposures on West Market Street around my neighborhood. These three here looked kinda cool....

Bluebells Ring

Today I went for a beautiful hike along Furnace Run and the bluebells were in full bloom. I love the woods, I love the valley, I love the Spring. It was Zen-like...

Grilling with My Bro

I had to work the first part of today and didn't really get the chance to shoot anything. By the time I got to me brother's for some grilled burgers it was already getting dark. I shot this at ISO 2500 - giving it that famous cheap-cell-phone-look that all know and love so much...

Sprayer Fixin'

A seal blew on the high-clearance sprayer today. The hub/planetary gear assembly/and its motor had had to be dissembled to get it fixed...as always I had to step aside and document with my camera.

New Old Cameras

I shot and uploaded photos of the latest additions to my camera collection today. I've been reworking my Vintage Camera Page and should have that up soon. Its going to have links to blog posts and photos I've shot with the cameras and a little about my experience fixing and using them. It should be up by the end of the week along with a redesign of the rest of this website...

Kodak Duaflex IV

I ran a roll of T-Max 100 through my Kodak Duaflex IV camera over the last few days. The camera is a pseudo-TLR - just a point and shoot like my box camera(Target Six-20). The images are a little smaller though, so I get 12 photos instead of 8. I shot most of the roll as double-exposures just for fun. I used a new mix of HC-110 developer to make sure there was enough in the tank - last time I shot 120 film I left a small strip under-developed. All in all everything came out pretty well - its obviously not the sharpest lens on a camera I own and there is no control - but its fun to shoot and it looks cool!

Easter

A relaxing Easter with the family....

Easter Cactus

My Biggest Fan

I shot this photo of a vintage fan we picked up at an estate sale with my original SX-70. Unfortunately my camera didn't want to give up the photo so I had to yank it out. I guess that accounts for the failure across the top half of the Polaroid. I still liked it though...

Under-Exposed @ Szalay's

Today I shot a roll of Tri-X400 at the farm(while we planted) with my Minolta X-700. About 13 shots in I realized my shutter speed dial had slipped from 'Aperture Priority' to 1/1000sec.(probably when I took it out of the bag).  Every photo was probably at least 2 stops under-exposed so I decided to under-expose the rest of the roll by two stops and then push-process the film....so I took a gamble and extended my six minute development time to seven minutes. Almost everything turned out good, really good in fact - some of my favorite black and white shots yet. The only thing that didn't work were the photos I took with my 135mm lens that didn't have a red filter - those were far too dark. When this roll is looked at in order it makes a great photo essay on planting - I should make a slideshow of it....

First Planting

Today we put the first sweet corn seeds of the season in the ground. Two fields were planted - Mrs B's and The 2 Acre Field. These photos are of John Szalay in Mrs. B's Field. Its a little earlier than usual to be planting - its a gamble on the weather(which can't possibly be worse than last year, right?) we just hope for no frost once the corn is coming up and that our Winter-levee work keeps the floods at bay.

Gospel Plow

Above are the freshly plowed(by me) Fiedler Long Rows. There are going to be a lot of farm posts from now through the Summer and Fall - so if that doesn't interest you check back in November!

Turn it Over

Today we started to work some of the fields at Szalay's Farm. With all the nice weather we've been having it seems to be go time. Corn may even go in the ground this week! These photos are taken in the 2 Acre Field which will be the first to be planted. We disked and plowed this field and one other today.