Field Crew 2012

Above is Dave, Johnny, and I or "The Field Crew". Dave is the critter control guy, Johnny the corn picker, and I drive the tractors and communicate with the packing crew. We all also pack lots of corn. I try to get a photo of us in the field with the last load every year but it wasn't possible this year so I shot this photo in front of the John Deere 8335r. Below is Dave discing down the second planting in Harold's Field - unfortunately the frost ruined the field before we could pick it.

Cake and Costumes

Today was Andrew's(my nephew)first birthday and Trick-or-Treat night. We had dinner and cake at my sister's house and then the kids all went out to get their candy. I stayed behind and helped pass out candy to the other trick-or-treaters.

Last Load 2012

The last load is always a big deal at the farm - I didn't get the chance to shoot to many photos so I combined these with my photos of the second to last load. This year made for a long season - we started picking earlier than ever and went quite late. I'm tired, very tired. I love my job but would be lying if I didn't say that I was pretty excited to wrap things up at the farm. I have so many things I want to get into this Winter - I can't wait to share them....stay tuned...

Last Shot(s) of Summer

Yesterday I developed a roll of Iford HP5 Plus 400 film in Kodak HC-110(b) that I mostly shot over the late Summer. It took me a minute to figure out which fields and when some of the shots were from. This is my second roll of HP5(not counting my high school photography class) and I'm not sure yet whether I prefer it to Kodak Tri-X 400 or not yet. I feel that I get a bit more contrast with Tri-X but I need to shoot a few more rolls of this first and make some prints before I'm sure. I'm really pleased with the above shot that was taken directly into the sun which was just starting to burn of the thick fog from the Cuyahoga River. It came out as I hoped - I think my black and white film photography skills are starting to get where I would like them to be....

The corn picker in Muranyi's Field - shot with my ubiquitous red filter to bring out the clouds.

Pumpkin Carvers

Last night I went over my parents house to hang out and watch my niece and nephews carve their pumpkins. I came straight from work(where I shoot mostly natural light) so I didn't have a flash with me. That being the case I shot a few with my pop-up flash and a few at high-ISO settings. The high-ISO shots look decent in this size but start to show noise(or graininess) when viewed large - not really a big deal for these kind of photos but my nerdiness always prefers more image quality when I shoot digital.

Fall in the Field

Our last field, Mrs B's, at sunset.
Utility Pole - I like the highlights...

New Finds at the Bender Farm

A few days ago I left work early and decided to poke around the abandoned Bender Farm on my way home. I've hiked around and photographed the farm multiple times(old post) but I always seem to find something new. This time I found an old manure spreader in a little valley near where the cow pasture used to be. I also explored the remnants of the greenhouse and found the tombstone of Jim Brown's son.  

 Every old farm used to have one of these. Johnny Szalay told me they sold theirs(which was rotting into to the ground) to a nearby lady who uses it as a planter to this day.

Diet Velvia

I bought a roll of Fuji Velvia 100 last spring to shoot with my Nikon F3 but never got around to it - I figured the fall color on the farm would be a good time to test this film that is supposed to be great for its color saturation. The title of the post refers to the 100 ISO version of the film I choose to shoot - the original Velvia was ISO 50 - I was a little afraid to try such a slow film. Velvia is considered by many to be the best color film available - I still like Kodak Ektar 100 but Velvia is the best slide film I've shot so far.

Picking Corn Stalks

My favorite machine on the farm is our antique Internationale Harvester Corn Stalk Bundler. It runs off a drive wheel and was designed to be pulled by horses - we rig it to our John Deere 6320. Its an amzing machine to watch in action - we're still not sure how it ties the knot. We always like to imagine the farmer over 100 years ago who was sitting in his house one Winter night thinking, "I'm never picking and bundling corn stalks by hand again....I have to think of something....."

Saying Goodbye

Celebrating the life of Chris Stull at the Red Fox in Mansfield, Ohio. Shot with my Canon Cannonet 28 on Kodak Tri-X film - developed in HC-110(b). Happy, sad and cathartic.

First Load!

On Tuesday afternoon we went out and hand-picked the first load of sweet corn for the season at Szalay's Farm. The first load of the year is always a big deal and plenty of photos are taken. We hand pick most of the early corn because it would be awful hard on the Pixall Corn Picker since the ears are so low to the ground. Which is the same reason it can be a little rough on the old back - and the heat didn't help either. Picking on July 3rd was a new record for earliest pick ever at the farm!

The Last Supper

For some reason I had never been to the local landmark that bills itself as "Akron's Key West" so last week Laura and I decided to head to the Harbor Inn on the Portage Lakes.  It was nice to sit on a deck at the lake and enjoy some beers and decent food. I can only imagine the middle aged madness on the weekends....

MC Rokkor 58mm f/1.4

I have three of the older era Minolta(Rokkor) lenses known as the "MC" series that would have been used on the SRT series cameras from the late 60's -early 70's. My most used an favorite is the 55mm f/1.7 which has an amazing swirly "bokeh"(or background blur) which sometimes gives a 3D look(which I've written about before). I decided to shoot a whole roll with my MC 58mm f1.4 for some comparison and to make sure I wasn't missing out on something better. Physically the lens is a little larger and is a little slower to focus. I found the resulting photos to be a tad sharper and the lens has a pleasing bokeh too - but I still prefer the unique look I get with the 55mm f/1.7. I'd have to say I'd only grab this lens if I were trying to avoid the "swirl look" for a specific reason.
The lens was on my Minolta X-700 - the film was Kodak Tri-X 400 which I developed in HC-110(b).

The Galaxy

Laura and I had dinner and a few drinks on the patio of the Galaxy Restaurant in Wadsworth last week. We both had a couple of really great burgers. If you go I'd advise taking the back roads - it was a beautiful drive through the country.

Kodak Elite Chrome 100

I shot a roll of slide film(Kodak Elite Chrome 100) for the first time. I snapped most of the roll in Peninsula. Unfortunately Kodak has discontinued all slide film production - I have a few different rolls I bought when I heard the news though. The slides are beautiful but the scans don't do them justice. My scanner didn't seem to scan them very sharp and I had to spend some time in Photoshop correcting the colors(which kind defeats the purpose of shooting film). I'm hoping to eventually buy some software that has presets for different films to save some time. I really expected that my scanner would do a better job with slides than negatives but I was let down - it did a much better job with Kodak Ektar 100...

Post Holes

Anyone who has dug a fence post hole by hand will appreciate this photo of Dave and the auger. I shot this from the John Deere 6320.

Analog

Last night I read an article in Popular Photography about photo ideas around the house - one of the ideas was making flatbed scans of three-dimensional objects. This morning when I grabbed a roll of film out of my "film-vault" I realized that a bunch of film boxes would make for a cool scan. Many of these are films I haven't shot yet but look forward to using. That's one of my favorite things about analog photography - finding out the different looks of various films. Some of the films I have pictured above aren't even made anymore....

Getting There

Here are a couple photos of some young sweet corn in the Fiedler Long Rows at Szalay's Farm. Every year I claim I will do my best to maintain this blog when farming season goes into to full effect and every year I fail. So its almost worthless for me to make that promise again even though I want too. Anyways - if you don't see me here come visit me in the Valley - we open on Friday!