New/Old Cameras

I've finally caught up on shooting, editing and uploading photos of the cameras in my collection(except that Minolta I got at the flea market Saturday!). Now I'm working on updating and redoing my camera page on this website. My goal is to make it more personal - about my usage and the way I obtained the cameras - instead of trying to be like another version of Camer-Wiki. More photos, bigger photos, and more interesting stories. Hopefully I'll have that all up in the next few days....

Purple Tulips

Pretty much what the title says - shot these yesterday in my yard. I really love tulips - its hard for me to drive this time of year - I just want to keep stopping and taking photos...

Wetmore Barns

Laura and I went for a hike on the Langes Bridle Trail today. We picked the trail up at the Wetmore Trailhead on Wetmore Road. The Langes Trail is across the street from the parking lot and made for a beautiful hike. When we got back we poked around the old barns near the trailhead for a bit. One of the barns is clearly and 1800's classic, valley barn while the rest were more modern - they were mostly horse stables - the last private owner(before the park took over) breed horses here - but I don't know anything beyond that.

Rome with a Brownie

I developed my final roll of film from my Rome trip the other day. It was a roll of Ilford Delta 100(120mm) that I shot with my 1949 Brownie Hawkeye Flash Model. I like the Hawkeye because I can use 120 film in it without respooling it onto 620 reels(long as I use a 620 take-up reel). I brought this camera with the intention of shooting a few rolls of "street" photography which works because people usually don't know when I'm taking a shot, however I didn't spend much time hanging around looking for great street shots so I only got one roll.  There seems to be a little bit of fogging on the film but I'm not sure if it was the old camera, the x-rays, or my handling of the film - it really doesn't bother me on these type of pictures though - it just ads to the ol timey snapshot feel.

Pizza Party!

I decided to try and make some pizza by hand - the sauce and crust. The sauce turned out pretty good but the crust was just average - I think I made it to thick. It actually tasted better the second day cold.

Just a Badass and His Car

What the title says - good looking '78 in front of a good looking '96.

Perkins Bridal Trial

Today I went for a hike on the Perkins Bridal Trail off Everett Road in the Cuyahoga Valley. It was one of the few trails in this part of the park that I hadn't been on. It was a pretty day and area but the sun was to direct for good nature-type shots. I found some cool remnants of old building but I shot those with black and white film. Three of these shot are of some kind of farm implement that I found - but I'm not sure exactly what it was. Google has failed me in my search for "Bean Royal" - I did find some good Mr. Bean pics though...

Riding Run Trail

Today I went hiking on the Riding Run Trail in the Valley - I was actually hiking in the "back woods" but I found the trail and followed it for a while. I found lotsa old trash(bottles, tires, and the like)and some old building foundations. It was getting late in the day when I was out though and I had to cut my expedition short - I plan to head back here when I get the chance.

Tivoli & Ostia Antica

These are my last few shots of the Rome area on 35mm - these are on Fuji Neopan 400 and developed in Kodak HC-110(b). I'm just about out of my bottle of HC-110 and I'm debating whether or not to try a new developer or to buy another bottle of this syrup which has worked so well for me over the last year. I'm starting to lean towards trying something new. I have one final roll of film to develop from my trip to Italy - Its 120mm shot with my Browne Hawkeye Flash Model. 

Above is a statue in a piazza in the hill town of Tivoli. I took two shots of this - one without the kid on the bike and one with - I preferred the above - it ads more scale and life. 

Although I tried to keep my film from going through X-Ray machines at the airports and museums it still happened a few times(at Fiumicino Airport in Rome and at The Vatican Museum) - I didn't seem to notice any ill effects on the images. Both machines said they were "safe for all film". The security personal in Philadelphia and Akron-Canton Airports were very nice about hand checking my film - the opened a few boxes and swabbed the rest - but didn't give me any trouble.

UltraMax

These are a few photos that I took to finish the roll from St. Patrick's Day. Above is part of my collection of old bottles mostly found around the Cuyahoga Valley.

St. Pat's on Film

On St. Patrick's Day I continued my three year tradition of shooting my Nikon L35 AF with color film. Its actually a "new" camera as my old one quit on me. The film is Kodak UltraMax 400 which I believe at some point replaced Kodak Gold 400. I like this little early 80's Nikon - its Auto-focus is pretty good, its exposure meter works for most situations, and it has a convenient pop-up flash.

Parco degli Acquedotti

...or Aqueduct Park - is a short subway ride outside of the city center in Rome - and it is an amazing place. The main sight is the longest section of standing, ancient aqueduct near Rome - the Aqua Claudia ruins - and there is also the 1500's Acqua Felice running through the park. I happened to visit on a beautiful, weekend afternoon(which after days of rain was very welcomed) and people were out everywhere enjoying the weather. As the sun lowered in the sky I clicked off two rolls of Fuji Neopan with my Minolta X-700 and also snapped some shots with my Canon 7D to capture the 'magic hour' colors(and for insurance in case something happened to my film).  

These shots are some of my favorite from my trip to Italy - I absolutely loved this place and spent at least 3 hours walking around the ruins and shooting. To anyone spending more than just a couple days in Rome I would definitely recommend finding your way here - its was awesome to see the ancient, engineering genius of the Romans in a peaceful setting without the hustle and bustle of central Rome.  I found it hard to wrap my mind around the age of the ruins - I was starting to think of things like the Acqua Felice as "new" even though it was built at the same time as the oldest standing European structures in the U.S.  Also how can you relate to 2000 year old structures when you're used to thinking of a barn from the 1840's as old?!

Germinating Too

What a cute title! 

Anywho - got some more seeds in the soil - this time I did eggplant and two kinds of tomatoes. I can't wait to see if they pop up! 

Chips & Salsa

'Tito's Study v.3'
Three things I love, Mexican, Photography, and graphic design.

Baking 101

...or maybe 'Baking Autodidactic'? I've decided to teach myself how to bake bread - a combination of the internet baking forums, recipes on packages, and a bit of my own ideas.... So far I've done alright. Below is my Oatmeal-Stout Banana Wheat bread. I found a recipe online and then altered it for ingredients I didn't have(butter instead of oil/threw in some nutmeg/left out the pecans/used wheat gluten instead of wheat germ(whatever that is)) and poured some home-brewed oatmeal stout in too. The photo is another example of CS6 making my 7D work like a new camera - this was shot at ISO 1250 - but who could tell? I would never add vibrance and saturation to such a high-ISO photo in past versions of Photoshop but here I have a decent amount of both... 

Baking, gardening, Rome, video, CS6, new job - 2013 is shaping up to be a very learn-ed year for me....

Germinating

Laura and I have been planning our garden and I decided to get a little head start on the actual thing tonight. I bought some green pepper seeds at Acme the other day and I placed them in some most soil to get them started germinating. You can expect many more gardening posts as the weather (hopefully) improves. Maybe even some video(!)

Wooster Day Trip

On Saturday Laura and I took a trip to Wooster, OH and the Killbuck Marsh State Wildlife Area. We went for a short walk in the Wildlife Area, which was kind of strange. I guess it is basically a public hunting/fishing/trapping area - we found skulls, skeletons, and not much else. It seems like it might be a prettier place to visit when it comes alive in the summer. 

After that we walked around downtown Wooster stopping in some antique shops and the like. We were surprised how full of shops, restaurants, and people Wooster was compared to many of the other small towns in Ohio. We had dinner at The Muddy Waters Cafe and Grille and then headed over to the JAFB-Wooster Brewery - a newish craft brewery that we had been wanting to visit. JAFB had really great beers - we were especially fond of two of the wheats they had. Its a little bit of a hike(about an hour) but definitely worth the trip.