new blogs, other stuff.

i (lindsey) have been unemployed for a few months now, and it's not a super bad thing (yet, anyway) because i was aware if it before it happened. since the day after my last day at work, i've tried to keep myself busy with house stuff and whatnot, but the thing I was most excited about was the fact I'd have nearly unlimited time to devote to photography. Coincidentally, this was also the same time that I got a photography block. 

I mean, YAY, seriously, this was the most convenient time for this to happen. I have all this time, film, cameras, and chemicals at my dispense but I have close to ZERO inspiration. There's been many mornings I've woke up super early, with bright and beautiful conditions, gone out in my car with camera in tow to get a coffee with the intentions of stopping whenever I see something I want to take a picture of and BANG- it was a complete waste of time to put the camera in the car. It never seems to fail me whenever I go through all the trouble of packing a camera with me. 

Granted, I don't leave the house everyday and to be honest the weather has really been shit from April-now. It's either super hot with a megawatt sun or pissing rain. Upon viewing the rolls of film I've shot during this time I've oftentimes felt that even the "best" shots were bleh and uninspired. For example, take this shot:

I had driven past this building many times after I initially saw the light streaming through this part of the building and wanted to photograph it. I finally got in there, saw what I wanted to do and took several shots. (Yes, there is a light leak in the lower right hand corner, I got my first fat roll with the Rolleicord that day... and yes, it was Fuji film.) I can say that it's a crappy scan, and I didn't adjust the levels well, etc., etc.  Unfortunately, this was the idea I had and didn't turn out to my liking. This has happened numerous times, usually with disappointing results. (AKA, the issue with the Nikon FG's light leaks)

I got kind of off-track there, but the point I was getting at was that I haven't had nearly the inspiration to match up with the time I've had to put towards photography and that I've been trying to pull myself out of this rut just by getting out and shooting. 

I tried shooting cameras I normally wouldn't, (basically putting the Rolleicord out of commission) using the Mamiya M645, Olympus OM-10 and also using a point and shoot like the Olympus Stylus Zoom. (Also still working on a roll of Superia 800 in a Vivitar PN2011, which I guess is kind of like a UWS.) 

My lastest "project" of sorts is to shoot up all the rolls of slide film I have: 1 roll of Kodak Ektachrome 100 and Ektachrome 160T in 35mm, old but not sure of the expiration date, and a roll of Fuji Velvia 100 in 120. Currently, I'm shooting the roll of Ektachrome 100 in the Pentax ME since I have more lens choices and a functional TTL meter on the camera. I've decided once all the rolls are shot I'm gonna take them to PFS to have them developed and probably scanned too because the E6 kit I have is growing stalagmites and I have a flatbed scanner with a messed up 120 holder. Also, I have only ever shot 1 roll of slide film which I cross-processed and screwed up overall... It'd be awesome to get some actual slide negatives for once! 

Lastly, I have started my own portfolio page which is Lscheppard.wordpress.com. Yes, it's free and my selection of photos is pretty bleh, but it's been fun getting the site together. 

By the way, Tim is still shooting but has been putting all of his efforts into shooting 4x5 on his Omega View camera he got a couple of months ago. We're both still trying to figure out the development times and stuff with the Shanghai and Ortho films, so we don't have any decent results just yet. 

lack of motivation / creative blahs

i've had a lot of free time lately, and have had the best of intentions to spend a lot of it shooting. although it seems this past month i have had very little artistic motivation. these are a few of the ideas i've tried to dig myself out of this funk:

• shooting with new to me / rarely used cameras from our arsenal (olympus om10, olympus stylus zoom, mamiya m645)
• shooting films i don't normally use (fuji acros, fomapan 100, fuji superia/fujicolor 200.. i bought some efke 100 and ilford sfx i haven't used yet)
• searching for new locales- this has proven to be most frustrating and difficult. it seems like just about everywhere i look nothing inspires me... since i haven't really found a lot of new and interesting spots, i  thought i'd shoot a few close-ups for a change with the m645 and i got a few good results. :)
• trying to learn new things- tim recently picked up a 4x5 crown graphic special and an omega view 45d; i shot my first sheet of film on the crown graphic this weekend, and it is definitely a different process than what i'm used to! if you think using a tlr can be slow, just try a view camera. (i composed /focused the image with the graphic using the ground glass & not the rangefinder.) looking forward to using it again soon and maybe eventually working my way up to the omega. additionally, i've been experimenting with pushing/pulling films and i have a couple new developers to try out. 

here are some scans from the past month where i've utilized the ideas from above. 

 tree stump, taken with an olympus om10 and kodak bw400cn; shot at iso 320 and developed at box speed. (processing done by walgreen's)

 rock with foliage, taken with a rolleicord iii and rollei retro 400s; shot at iso 250 and developed at 400 in rodinal 1:50.

jefferson mills, taken with a rolleicord iii and ilford hp5+, pushed to iso 800 and developed in tmax. 

tree silhouette, taken with an olympus stylus zoom and kentmere 400, developed with tmax.

gerbera daisies, taken with a mamiya m645 with fuji acros 100. used a closeup lens (i think a +4?) also developed with tmax. 

proof that dundy can be a glamorous dog. 

olympus om10 shot with arista premium 400 @ 250, developed in adox adonal 1:50 for 11 minutes. film not spooled properly on the reel. 

more on my flickr.

kodak plus-x pan pro push test

(i'm not sure if i could pronounce the title of this post if i had to.)
a few months back i bought 3 rolls of this film for $5.00 from john's camera corner in blacksburg, va. not being one to shoot expired film that often (as especially not as expired as september 1983) i was somewhat skeptical of using it even though i was told it had been kept refrigerated.
a couple weeks ago we went out on a sunday to shoot and i brought a roll along in my bag, and once i finished the roll of portra or arista.edu 400 or whatever it was i decided on a whim to give this film a try.
i think immediately after i loaded it i had forgotten what i put in the camera, and i was metering and shooting as iso 400 when in fact this film is rated at iso 125.
i finished up the roll this past sunday when we were shooting in downtown roanoke, va. i was excited to see how some of my shots from there were going to turn out, especially since i have my tripod back in commission after a month-long hiatus. i finished the last shot, wound to the end of the roll and opened the back- eek! (that was not the film i thought i had been shooting...) so after cursing for a few minutes and throwing the roll in my bag, thinking all was lost as i usually do when i make a mistake, i loaded the roll of rollei retro 400s i had in my bag for quite a while. we finished up the day and ate dinner and went to bed, etc., etc.
yesterday morning i woke up and was thinking of the roll of pxp i thought i had ruined when suddenly it hit me- "HEY, all i did was basically push the film. no need for alarm/self loathing, everything will be okay, etc." (can you tell i have never intentionally pushed film before?)
i read around a bit online and found where a guy had pushed this film but developed using hc-110. all i had on hand was rodinal (no) and d-76. i went to the massive dev chart and found a recipe using d-76 stock for ei 500, and decided that was a no-go. thankfully there are guidelines for push processing on said site, so i went by kodak's data sheet using d-76 1:1 for normal development (7 minutes) multiplied by 2.25 mins. since i was approximately pushing 2 stops. (that equals 15.75, hooray for calculators)
i spooled my film, which of course was curly as hell but it didn't give me horrible problems.
when i started mixing up my chemicals i remembered that i had one kodak anti-fog no. 1 tablet on hand and thought this would be a good test case for it. i used half, which might've been overkill in hindsight but if the film was fogged it worked. i heated up 250 ml of distilled water in the microwave to 85 degrees, put in half the crushed tablet & mixed the 250 ml d-76 stock in.
in the background i had my film presoaking, and i probably soaked it for over 5 minutes... not intentionally, but i was trying to get my chemicals down close to 68. i gave up when it got to around 72 and the film had been soaking for nearly 10 minutes. surprisingly, the water from the presoak came out clear.
i only developed the film for a total of 13 minutes because the temperature was a little higher than it should be and i didn't want to run the risk of overdeveloping. it probably could've went the extra 2+ minutes, but the negatives turned out okay, albeit, thin.
this film has a very thin base and the emulsion side was more fragile when wet than most films i normally use. the film actually slipped right out of the clip as i was holding it up to the light to inspect, so i wouldn't hang something heavier than maybe a tiny binder clip on the end while drying.
i scanned a few from this roll today, although it was pretty tough considering how curved they are.

i had to adjust the curves in this one a bit- i find i've had to do that a lot lately.

nothing done in post here; this is pretty close to what the wall looked like at that time.

i thought this looked better scanned as a color negative. 

kodak bw400cn + adox adonal = a lot of work in post.

so i temporarily fixed the light leak in the nikon fg yesterday. to test it, i shot a roll of kodak bw400cn and developed it semi-stand in adox adonal 1:100 for an hour. if you do a straight scan all your highlights are completely blown out and it looks like straight crap. but with some level adjustments in photoshop it can be somewhat corrected, and you end up with a very grainy and high contrast image. 

this will be my second time using this film/developer combo, both times i shot the film at iso 320.

here's a few examples using a pentax me, without any work done in post:

here's a few from the nikon fg, that needed a lot of work done in post. however, the light leak is temporarily fixed.

yep, just like it says.

so yeah, not the best film/developer combination but it works in a pinch. (or if you're just too lazy to bring your color chemicals up to temperature.) i'm going to do further testing with the fg as i'm probably just going to sell it. though it does have a damn good lens on it, in my opinion. (tokina 35-70mm macro zoom) 

by the way, did i mention that 35mm isn't my forte?

well, that's enough of a me-centric post for now. if you somehow found our blog, thanks for looking!

prints now for sale/view at pulaski bikes, other stuff.

yesterday tim and i dropped off three prints at pulaski bikes (see previous post(s) of his photos taken with the mamiya m645. we only scanned 2 of the 3, pictured here:
norfolk southern engine
chrysler
we forgot to scan the other one. OOPS.
i've contacted the fine arts center of the new river valley in hopes of getting some of our work on display. maybe i'll get a response back.
i'm also trying to find some other outlets to show our work in blacksburg, but i haven't reached out to anyone yet.
yesterday we found a very interesting spot and shot a couple rolls, however, we both had a streak of bad luck. tim was able to salvage some of his negatives and made a few prints:

and

in my case, i was shooting the old nikon fg which has a terrible light leak at the bottom of the film door. i've posted some of the results on a flickr set, but nothing is noteworthy by any means.
after developing and scanning the negatives i decided to do a bit of lightproofing, and shot a roll of kodak bw400cn that i developed in rodinal 1:100 for an hour. the negatives are drying now. from looking at the negatives i think i fixed the light leak problem, but as with a previous experiment with this film and developer i'll end up with a lot of blown out highlights and loss of detail. if i end up with any decent results i'll post them here.

Old Chrysler

Old Chrysler, a photo by Dundemunde on Flickr.

One of Tim's prints, shot with the Mamiya M645 using Arista.edu Ultra 100, developed in Kodak TMAX 1:4. Print was developed in Adox Adonal.

upcoming prints for $sale$

if you are a local to the NRV (or new river valley, for those not in the know) look for some prints made by tim of some of our photos at pulaski bikes. the prints he has made thus far are 8" x 10"s in a matted frame, $30.00 / ea. they're made in our home darkroom, using a beseler 23c ii enlarger. most of the prints have been developed using rodinal. to view scans of some of the prints, see tim's flickr. he's pretty specific with all the developing/printing details. tim and i do a lot of our photography here in town travelling by bike and mike (the owner) is a superawesome guy and agreed to let us post up some of our framed prints for sale in his shop. the shop is located in the restored town depot, (which is picturesque in itself) and is right at the start of the new river trail in downtown pulaski, va. so come on by and take a ride, (or walk) or if you don't have a bike on your person you can always rent one... check their site for rates. we hope to have several framed and up for sale by the end of the week.

corvair

corvair, a photo by rabbit & squirrel on Flickr.

here's one of my pictures from our excursion this weekend. this was shot on kodak portra 400 in a rolleicord iii.

tripods, "slow" film, rodinal, long stories, etc.

i've never been much of an avid tripod user. i've used them a couple times for long (night time) exposures on my digital (i know, BLASPHEMY) and a couple other times experimenting with portraits and such. i'm mostly a hand-held shooter, and depending on the film and combination of shutter speed i can hand-hold a shot as low as 1/60. also, i shoot mostly iso 400 film in daylight so there's been very few times i've needed the added stability of a tripod.
i acquired a tripod from tim's grandpa, which was intended for use with one of those heavy 80's vhs camcorders, and it does the job, but it's rather clunky and the head doesn't pan very well. not really something i'd want to lug along when we're out shooting, especially since we walk maybe 2 or more miles total in a day with a camera bag in tow. tim has 2 old aluminum tripods, but primarily uses a welt safe-lock that suits his needs. he got at a thrift store in connecticut for $3.00.
this past weekend we went to two locales we've never really shot at before. a few days beforehand, we got in our ultramega freestyle order which included some films i'd never used before.
since saturday was such a bright and sunny day, i thought it would be perfect to try out the ilford pan f + 50 i just acquired. i'll also mention that i just got in from ebay around the same time a (new to me) g.e. light meter that is a slightly newer model than the one tim uses. i won't go into the specifics of this day too much but i will say that my meter is not accurate. secondly, and this is probably one of the most important points, i developed the negatives in rodinal at a 1:25 dilution, which (if i understand what i've read correctly) basically reduced my film speed to half of the box speed. i probably should've read more about using rodinal at this dilution, etc., beforehand.
after i figured out my meter was wonky, i used tim's; unfortunately, most of the shots i attempted that day probably would've came out a bit less shaky if i had a tripod.
however, here is one shot that came out sorta okay:

so with this in mind, i made a rash decision to buy a tripod TODAY! and this is what i got: Slik Pro 340 DX with a 3-way pan/tilt head . it's kinda pricey for me, but hopefully it'll meet my needs. i'll make sure to post some pics with it in use to flickr once it arrives!

a bit about our workflow

i thought i'd write a bit about our workflow, er, works. we shoot independently, (of course) but come together as a team to get our film from negative to scan and/or print.
since most of our shooting occurs on saturday and/or sunday, the majority of our developing/printing/scanning is also done during this limited timeframe.
so once we have our rolls of film completed, of course the first step is preparing them to develop, i.e., spooling the film. this is one of tim's fortes. :) i think he has probably set a landspeed record numerous times with both (very troublesome) rolls of 35mm and 120. i will note that i can spool film, however, it usually takes me twice as long and can be extremely frustrating to me.
so once the film is spooled and nestled in the tank, here's where i come into play. i enjoy the chemical developing process more than the aforementioned or the next to be said step(s). tim has done plenty of developing, however, i take pride in being accurate with timing and temperature, rinsing, checking the fixing time, and rinsing, and rinsing (and adding a bit of dishsoap in the final rinse).
and then, there is the drying of the film, which under normal circumstances i will hang the negs in the bathroom on a clothes hanger + several binder clips for up to 24 hours. however, when the weather cooperates, tim once had the bright idea to hang the negatives from our clothesline to dry which reduces drying time significantly. (about 20 minutes per roll.) he also does the same for wet spools with an apparatus made from a metal clothes hanger. our house is located on the edge of a cliff for all intents and purposes, so we get a lot of wind!
once the negatives are dry, my next and final step is to scan. i use a canoscan 8800f with the stock negative holders. i shoot predominately 120, and unfortunately i broke the upper half of the negative holder off some time ago so i must carefully load the negative into the holder to ensure a somewhat decent scan. i use the software that came with the scanner, with all "enhancements" off, and it's set to calibrate for each scan. 99% of the time i do not tweak my scans nor do any post "tweaking."
This is Tim writing the rest of this.  I do not like to scan things, but sometimes I must, to get them onto the internet for others to see.  I prefer to make my own prints, and I think that is the most fun thing there is to do in photography.  I use a beseler 23c-II with a condenser head.  I also have the colorhead for it.  I also have another enlarger, a Bogen model 22.  It is a condenser as well.  I am fortunate to have a 6x6 negative holder for the beseler and also a schneider lens for it, which makes dundyful pictures.  I have the capability to make 5x7, 8x10, and 11x14 prints at this point.  I highly recommend the beseler 23c family of enlargers.

me and my rollei

me and my rollei, a photo by rabbit & squirrel on Flickr.

hallo.
this is the test post. hopefully tim and i will have fun with our co-blog!