Plenty of Photons To Work With

 

I thought my old eyes were pretty well calibrated to light, but I guess there's always more to learn. The morning light appeared dull and boring to my partially caffeinated senses, and I almost didn't bring a camera along. In actual fact, I was shooting HP5+ at f/8 and 1/125 s, which, while not a bright sunny day by any means, was still plenty of photons to work with. The woods offered any number of interesting views, and I'm glad I had the little Contax T with me after all.

Other People's Dogs

To be honest, I was pretty happy when I noticed this dog about to photobomb my shot. What is it about dogs, anyway? I guess we each have our own particular reasons for loving 'em. A few years ago we lost a beloved dog, and I'm still not ready for another. But at least there's other people's dogs to enjoy.

Tasting notes: Contax T, HP5+.

Framed

It took us three hours to get into the city and we were over an hour late for our assigned time, but thankfully, the guards still let us in to the museum. It was a bit over crowded inside for my tastes, so I spent a good deal of time leaning on the perimeter wall and looking out at the expansive view of Washington, DC. Kind of like staring out to sea, the existential gaze. 

Tasting notes: Contax T, Ilford FP4+.

Pocketable

On a recent stay in Washington DC, I decided to take my Contax T camera and some Ilford FP4+. As fate would have it, the temperature plummeted and the battery-dependent little camera struggled a bit. It took a little coaxing to get any outdoor shots at all. It was quite windy down at the Tidal Basin and I enjoyed photographing there, as I don’t visit often. I’m always pleased with the results I am able to get with the tiny T. It would be amazing to see a digital version of the T.

This Was My Experience

Sometimes the photographic medium will surprise you, such as when you shoot a colorful subject in black and white and the result is better than you visualized at the moment of exposure. Recording your subjective experience is more important than you realize.

 
Tasting notes: Contax T, HP5+, DDX 1+4.

Contre-jour

Not sure about you, but I definitely love shooting into the sun. It can work well with a great lens, as was the case with this photograph, and sometimes even with a lousy one, if you like 'character'. I had just walked up a long grind of a hill and noticed the fine light as I caught my breath.

Tasting notes: Contax T, HP5+, DDX 1+4.

Agitated...

I have a love hate relationship with monobath development. On the one hand, I really like the idea of using a single solution to process film because of both simplicity and speed. But it can also be a temperamental process, with inconsistent results over time, which is kind of unacceptable. The quirkiness of the process makes sense, I guess, since when you use a monobath, you are balancing the rates of two competing processes -- development and fixing -- in a single solution. The developer has to act pretty quickly to convert the latent image to silver, before the fixer has a chance to do its job. Anyway, you will have surely noticed that there are bright areas in the sky in the image above that correspond to the location of the sprocket holes in the film. The presence of these hotspots (dense on the negative) suggests that my agitation pattern was a little off. Sigh. That said, my disappointment with the problems in the sky was at least partly outweighed by by my pleasure in how the image was rendered by the terrific little lens on the Contax T. 

Looks like a pleasant enough weekend ahead for us in Dixie. Hope the light is good in your neck of the woods as well.

 

No country for old men

We have one or two daily walks on the menu, and on one of these walks recently, I shot a few images with the Contax T. I decided to create a montage out of the 3 images that I liked the best from the roll of Lomo 800. I loaded one image into the red, green, and blue channels in Photoshop and then turned the colors to eleven (they were pretty out there to begin with). It is a technique I picked up by reading some interviews with photographer James Welling. He has a couple of videos on Youtube as well, if you are interested. Folks down here like to park on the grass, its kind of a thing, but this car runs just fine, it's not sitting on cinder blocks. No sir.

Sonnar salutations

Knocking out a couple of sun salutations is a good way to get your juices flowing in the morning. Lately, a couple of lovely Zeiss Sonnar lenses have been waking up some of my photographs. The basic Sonnar lens design was developed at Zeiss in 1930 and the name derives from Sonne, German for sun.

The image of the cypress foliage was captured using the Zeiss Sonnar 100 mm f/3.5 lens mounted on a Contax ST. The film stock was Lomography Berlin and processing was done in a monobath, because why not? Interestingly, I think the negatives came out better using the monobath than when processed using separate solutions. At any rate, this is a really terrific lens that punches above its weight, and like most slowish lenses is cheap as chips. In addition to a pleasant rendering overall, good sharpness, a flat field, the bokeh is pretty spectacular too. Pairs well with digital sensors in addition to analog.

A Contax for Christmas

"At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands in front of the camera, to honor what is greater and more interesting than we are. We never accomplish this perfectly, though in return we are given something perfect -- a sense of inclusion. Our subject thus redefines us, and is part of the biography by which we want to be known." -- Robert Adams

From the back cover of Why People Photograph, seen in the image below. What is between the covers is also pretty good stuff.

You've stood in front of some interesting things this year, and you've tried to be a decent human being. In other words, you've put some real effort into your bio. You deserve something nice, but that kinda goes against your better nature, doesn't it?

Well, that's old Saint Beatnik standing in the background, with his cool crazy black beard, Dad. I hope he brings you something groovy this year, like a Contax.