Browse Category: photos

maple project

It’s been 4 weeks in the darkroom now and I finally came home with some worthy of keeping. What’s funny is that none of it came from a negative. I made what is called a photogram.

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I made this one by laying maple leaves on the paper and left it out in the sun for 20 mins. Then I stuck it in a black bag and put it in the “fixer” when I got to class yesterday.

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I made this one in the darkroom by using the first photogram as the “photo negative”. Basically, you lay one photo on top of another sheet of photo paper and blast it with just the right amount of light. I also added a filter to the lens for added contrast.

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This one was made by laying maple leaves on top of photographic paper in the darkroom. I played around with the amount of light and did some dodging and burning to get it just right. What fun!

Our next project is to shoot a few rolls of film to find the right photo to print and enter into the Orange County Fair’s annual photo contest. I have a couple subjects in mind but we’ll have to see if they work out.

A new family member!

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This morning our family gained a new member!  Her name is Katie and she was born at 6:06 am.  She came 3 weeks early and her delivery couldn’t have gone any smoother.  Welcome to the family, Katie!  And congratulations to my cousins, Pish and Debbie.

Here are photos from her first day in the big big world.

Famous

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Nicole Kidman photographed by Annie Leibovitz

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The White Stripes photographed by Annie Leibovitz

Jes and I went to the San Diego Museum of Art today to see the Annie Leibovitz exhibit. I saw ads for it in the New York Subway but it was no longer being shown at the Brooklyn Museum. Luckily, I was surfing the internet last weekend to find that it was in San Diego until today. Score!

For those who are unfamiliar with the name, Annie Leibovitz is most famous for her celebrity portraits featured mostly in Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. More recently, she photographed the infamous Suri Cruise photos.

lassie.jpgI met her once back in 1995 when I volunteered at one of her Vanity Fair photoshoots. It was a day-long photoshoot that involved photographing one very large group of Hollywood stars from back in the day. I actually met several of them including Eva Gabor, Gene Autry, Milton Berle, and even the 5th generation Lassie. (see photo on the left)  My job that day was to be Robert Young’s assistant.  He was the star of an old tv show called “Father Knows Best“.  My job wasn’t very hard since he was in a wheelchair and practically unaware of what was going on that day.  Another funny thing that happened that day was that I was asked out by one of Annie’s assistants.  Haha.  I don’t know if I ever told anyone this.  To make a long story short, I was way too naive and shy back then and turned him down that afternoon.

Anyway, back to the exhibit… It featured a mixture of celebrity portraits, her photos from Serbia, personal photos, and coverage of the Clinton and Bush administration. The rooms were pretty crowded but we managed to work our way through the gallery. For $10/person and an 80-mile drive it was not a bad way to spend a Sunday morning. What made it even more interesting was walking through the Earth Day festivities including a bunch of hippie propaganda and a Hare Krishna parade. Awesome.

On our way home, we stopped at Joe’s Crab Shack for a crabalicious feast. For $22.95, we got a platter of dungeoness, snow, and king crab. Yum yum. Their clam chowder was creamy and smokey and the fried shrimp was also very tasty. It sure did make driving home a little tougher with food coma and all but it was worth it.

dodge and burn

img_5694.jpgJust got back from my second evening in the darkroom and it’s getting pretty fun. I took a new roll of b&w last weekend and had the roll processed in time for today’s class but I was a dummy and left it at home. *sigh* So we printed some of my negatives from 1995, which didn’t come out too bad. I guess I’ll get to play with the new negs next week. We spent a good 2.5 hours in the lab printing and processing. We’re just getting the basics down but I’ve already dodged and burned some of my photos to make them look a little more interesting. Fun fun fun!

Props to all y’all

It’s National High Five Day and I certainly gotta give it up to the members of our *isofosho* Flickr group. We’re on our third theme, “Lemme See Yo’ Ride“, and the first day of voting has gotten off to a good start. We average about 20 submissions each time and the photos have been really interesting. It’s so neat to see everyone’s interpretation of the theme.  It’s also fun to see which ones get voted for and why. So, here’s a *high five* to all my fellow photogs!! Keep ’em comin’!

If you wish to join, just log in to Flickr with your Yahoo! login address and ask to join our group. Some just submit photos, some just vote, some just watch the action, and some do it all! Come play with us!

love the smell of those chemicals

Last night I started my 8-week darkroom class.  I also recruited my neighbor, Jay, to come along.  Once I stepped into the darkroom, the smell of the chemicals just gave me a nostalgic feeling of excitement.  I haven’t done this in about 12 years but found a bunch of old negatives and some unused paper in my stash so I was ready to go.  Last night we got a refresher on how the enlarger works, what the times were on the developing chemicals, and learned where all the supplies are stored.  Jerry, our instructor, did a demonstration on one photo and showed us how he makes test strips and how he dodges and burns a photo to get the exposure right.  He also surprised each of us with four free rolls of black and white film that he got from a Fuji Film distributor.  Sweet!  I didn’t get to print anything yet because we ran out of time but we’ll have plenty of time in the next 7 weeks.  Our class has only 4 students enrolled and get the whole darkroom to ourselves for 3 straight hours per week.  I also got a free pass to the open studio for the 8 weeks that we’re in the course.  Let the printing begin!!