Man With Poles

The Bridle Path, Central Park - Yesterday

They call them 'trekking poles; and I don't really understand why someone would need them on flat land. (or anywhere else?) - JeffK

2 Rolls

i sit on the edge of the bathtub inverting a plastic lightproof canister 4 times every minute. i have two rolls of film in the canister. two plastic containers with liquid - one yellow and smelly, the other clear -- sit on either edge of the bathtub rim. i look across at the lightswitch. it has a stain around it from fingerprints, probably fingerprints with chemicals on them. it's been building up for ten years. i think: not once have i put some fantastic and cleaned that area. is it a memorial of some kind?

and i look at my casio stopwatch which says its time to invert the tank again.

what's on those rolls? i know roughly that its what i shot yesterday in the park. i remember a couple of shots that i'm sure i got. but are they any good? will what i thought at the time was a humorous shot still have that humor on the negative? i never know.

and i'm getting towards the end of 8 minutes and pull the plastic top off the tank. man, if i could do that without getting developer in my lap. i should wear an apron. remember photographs of Ansel in the darkroom with his apron.

but an apron in my bathroom will take up 10% of the space.

i pull up the toilet lid and pour the developer out. the yellow liquid is ready to pour in. i don't feel like putting that damned top on again so instead of inversion i swish it around a while. oh, yeah - 30 seconds. i haven't swished that short stop for 30 seconds in 30 years.

out it goes into the toilet where the water turns purple. flush.

in goes the fixer. plastic top on and give it a good shake. i'm going to really hypo these rolls. i'm giving them full agitation every 30 seconds.

in the meantime, i'm setting up my gravity works washer in the sink. i hate to do anything with chemicals in the sink since the cat drinks from same; but we're just talking about washing. and after the thing is washed, i'll scrub the sink before giving Buddy his water.

i really should clean that light switch.

soon the two strips of film are hanging from the piece of string near my kitchenette over a small pot with a touch of short stop mixture in it. The smell keeps the cat from brushing up against the bottom of the hanging film.

Ah - these negatives look good. Nice and dense the way I like 'em. That shot looks great. I wonder what it will look like...

Infrared

In the quest for dreamier photographs I'm going to pick up some Kodak HIE tomorrow. I've read through most of the fact sheets; what filters are useful; keep the stuff in the dark etc. I haven't been able to find dev. times for HIE and Ilfotex dd-x. I hate using two developers (contamination, confusion etc.). So I think I'm just going to do take a wild stab at the first roll with dd-x and see what happens. Probably just do it as I would tri-x. What the hell. I did a search for the recipe on Ilford and Kodaks' sites but you know how it goes.

One of the handiest developer / film databases I've ever found is at DigitalTruth.com

I was sort of wondering what happens if you put some portable heat source into something - like the telephone I've been using and do it in infrared. I'm sure there's some glove warmer, or liquid heat pack, that you could do this with.

Anyway - the holidays are fini - so the quest to spend money in the Chelsea or Western Midtown? What is that area around B&H called. Did it used to be Hell's Kitchen? It does seem sort of hellish.

Hup Two Three

This was an old digital shot that I had a lot of trouble with (the usual stuff - highlights etc.) but I managed - what two years later - to get something halfway okay out of it.

Gods on 42nd Street

42nd Street Gods

This was shot with the Pentax 67 !! So you see - the Pentax 67 is one of the best cameras for street photography.

Fring and Yellow Stuff

It looked like spring. It felt like fall. It was a perfect time for me to go to Central Park and play with my yellow phone idea. The cherry blossoms and all the other blossoms were doing their best to entice me - and I couldn't help taking straight nature shots. But then I pulled the yellow phone from my knapsack and hung it from the cherry blossoms and began playing around with various arrangements. Passersby stopped to gawk - and I don't blame them.

My stock answer to anyone who asked what I was doing was: "I'm working on an art project for a class." That seemed to work. Everyone knows that you do crazy things for classes.

After a while with these weird still lifes - I began putting the phone in places where people could walk by and I could shoot their reactions. So conceptual meets street. No getting away from it. People are still more interesting than cherry blossoms.

I want to do the same thing again - but I want to do it with infrared film. I've never shot infrared and all I know is that you need a red filter (which I have somewhere in 39mm). But as to which film - or what ASA etc. - I'll need to do some research and testing I guess.

But it was damned good to get out. And dispite my intentions of doing this artsy thing - I found myself - as usual - doing some straight shooting as well. And that may be the best. I saw something very strange - a guy on the bridle path came walking by using what looked like cross country ski poles - but no skis of course. Is this some new fangled exercise regime. I have no idea but I got the shot with the cherry blossom trees in background.

detritus of the city

if you want to keep an eye on the Montauk Lighthouse section. It's a work in progress and you can see what I think I'm doing as I go along. Or not.

* * *

As I said - I'm sort of sick of straight photography. I haven't mentioned this before, but I've been collecting odds and ends from the street over the last month. The last item was a yellow phone handle, the wire has that protective covering for a street phone. The protective wire didn't work that well since the phone wire had been pulled from the phone box.

Another thing is a very heavy wrought iron top of something - maybe a fire hydrant. I'm not sure. Detritus of the city I guess.

I'm thinking about photographing them in odd settings where this stuff doesn't belong. First stop Central Park. I honestly have no idea what this is about . I'd like to say that the ideas comes from dreams or something - but I think it comes from the idea of simply forcing conflicting ideas in the same frame. I could do it easily in photoshop, but I want to actually go out and do it in the so called real world.

mamiya going away?

Barrett sent me this link:

Mamiya folding it's tent.

Here's a question for you - what camera companies will be left ten years from now?

The two obvious ones of course: Canon, Nikon.

* * *
Okay - I'm going to start a list of defunct camera companies. I'm still a little groggy from yesterday so let me know who I forgot so far. What about Fuji? Does Kodak still make cameras?

DEAD CAMERA COMPANY LIST

KONICA MINOLTA
CONTAX

colon day 0

9:20. I'm off to Mt. Sinai for the colonoscopy. Spent most of night making frequent trips to the can. That phospho soda is powerful. I was thinking they could use it for rocket fuel. Or maybe some upscale spa could re-label it and sell it as a high-priced cleansing routine.

I'm taking the hexar with me. I don't know if I'll be able to use it but we'll see.

Thanks to all of you global well-wishers. Let you know how it all turns out.

* * *

1:30 p.m. I'm back. Colonoscopy is finished. Doctor said all looks good, but now I must wait a week for biopsy results. Now for some sleep and the release of a lot of air that was pumped into me.

Scott McClellan

Looking for suggestions to replace the white house spokesperson. I'll open the bidding with: Tom Cruise because I would watch him knock out the press corp. I think the whole white house press conference thing could learn a thing or two from the Worldwise Wrestling Federation.

Both are phony, and both require great skill.

I would have Tom Cruise hooked up to a video screen showing his blood pressure. If it gets too high, he has the right to let off some steam on an ancient reporter.

Montauk Lighthouse

Montauk Point, Lighthouse

Construction began on June 7, 1796 and was completed on November 5, 1796

This shot has a long history. I woke up before dawn and went out with the Elan 3, and put together the longest lens I had with the 1.4x convertor, and waited for the sun to come up behind the lighthouse. It was off-season - which is usually when I could afford to go out to Montauk - and it was cold and yes - a cold rain started up. I covered up the camera with a poncho and sat in the car. When the sun finally decided to show, I took a couple of shots, packed up and headed back to the motel.

When I did prints of this thing - the blank sky was annoying - and the pre-dawn atmosphere was not on the film. So I began to play around with the sky these many years later. I did several edges and cut what texture there was in the sky so that other layers with related colors could show through. In other words the sky is three shades of blue composited.

Fog was added to the beach and a bit to the clouds to get a touch of a halo. Still not quite finished. The top of the lighthouse needs work. I want to give a tint of - not sure what - pinkish something to the clouds and I don't like the gray shadows in clouds which are leftover from the b&w picture.

COLON DAY - 1

This would be nice if they'd send out pre-op instructions on pastel artwork. Considering how much these things costs - I think it would go a long way to soothing fears.

One thing to keep in mind as you read this stuff is that this is my own personal fright. In other words - not every one has it. I know people who went in - took their colonoscopy and came out saying - hey - that was not such a big deal. Unfortunately, for a lot of reasons - some passed down probably from my mother - or maybe genetic - I simply have never been able to walk into a hospital without my blood pressure rising 20 points. I don't think I'm a hypocondriac - not in the sense that I always think something is wrong with me - I simply have a dread of doctors and hospitals and I'm old enough to know it just ain't gonna change.

Some of it may stem from the 15 years I spent going to hospitals and emergency rooms with my mother who had Lupus. The hospital was just a place where horrible things happened. Patients were lost in the paperwork. (See the movie The Hospital with George C. Scott for my take on it).

The only odd thing - is that as the day gets closer - my own fears start to disipate. That's something I don't understand completely although maybe its just - well finally its here so let's get on with it.

Another layer on top of this already existing fear is that they'll find something related to the Crohns disease: polyps, spread of the disease etc. Who the hell knows. On the other hand, I know rationally - since I'm having these things every year (more or less) that they'll probably catch whatever before its gotten out of hand. But there you have it. Tonight I'll drink the lemon flavored (there's a lie for you) Phospho crap; and from there on in its just a matter of sitting in the bathroom half the night.

Now I'm off to buy a few gallons of Gatorade.

[editor: I've been telling Dave not to spend so much time writing about his upcoming colonoscopy since readers would like to see some new pictures; or discussions about photography; but you know Dave - stubborn.]

Hey editor in chief - that's my life right now. This blog wasn't ever supposed to concentrate on photography - but on the "life of the photographer."

[editor: Well - if you want to turn people off - keep at it.]

No one's forcing anyone to read anything. In time - this will become interesting. Take my word for it. Especially if I can document the thing with pictures. I'm loading Tri-x into the Hexar now.