What are you all doing photographically while not "out and about"?

Unfortunately, I'm an "essential business" and am working as much as usual, perhaps more. Although the absence of the three hour daily commute saves me some energy, it also eliminates three hours of scenice country driving. I haven't taken a photo in three weeks...

Andy

AndyH said:

Unfortunately, I'm an "essential business" and am working as much as usual, perhaps more. Although the absence of the three hour daily commute saves me some energy, it also eliminates three hours of scenice country driving. I haven't taken a photo in three weeks...

Andy

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I'm with you. I am working as much as ever. The lighter traffic is nice, because I am in real estate and drive around just about all day.

I am taking plenty of photos, though. Everything is closed, so there's nothing to do BUT get out of the house into the fresh air.

I always seem to find something to do with my time. I have a Super Graphic that I purchased two or three years ago with the intent of turning it into a field 4x5 camera. It has been sitting in a box ever since it arrived on my porch, patiently waiting, as do many of my various project ideas. I happened to be looking for some other Graflex items a couple days ago and ran across the box with the Super Graphic so I finally pulled it out. I started putting it together today.

As most of you know the Super Graphic is one of the later models put out toward the end of the companies history and is actually quite a nice camera, particularly for use as a field camera. Mine is an earlier version built sometime around 1958. One of the only real downsides to this camera as a field camera is the weight, I believe it is about six pounds, so it is not going to be quite as nice to pack into the field as my Intrepid. But with that additional weight come a very solid build. I seriously doubt that this camera will be as susceptible to our local Nevada mountain breezes in the same way the Intrepid is. The camera is made out of metal, not wood, so it is very solid and strong. On a good tripod it sits pretty steady. In addition to its impressive build quality it also comes with front raise, front tilt, front swing and front shift. You can also drop the front bed if you need. Additionally the back itself rotates from vertical to horizontal very quickly with the press of a switch.No more rotating the entire camera onto its side to get a vertical shot. Very impressive capabilities if I say so myself. Just as impressive is how quickly you can bring the front standard back to square. Whoever was responsible for the design of this camera was very, very good at their job.

I am pretty impressed with the camera so far and it is in pretty good condition as it came to me. However I did have to do some work to get it ready to go. Obviously I am not using the rangefinder, though it does have one with a cam, nor am I worried about the various other press camera features such as electronic shutter buttons, flash equipment, etc. But I did have to install a replacement ground glass and fresnel from another Graphic. Though the process is a little more contorted than removing and replacing these items from the Crown Graphic back that served as a donor it went well with no real surprises.

The camera came to me without a lens but I happened to have a very nice Schneider Apo-Symmar 150/5.6 L in a working Copal 0 shutter that fit into my only Super Graphic lens board like the board was specially designed for it. In switching various lenses from lens board to lens board over the past few years I don't believe that I have ever had as nice and as neat an installation as this one was. Even better, once I was all done the front bed folded up with the lens still installed in the front standard.

Of course I had to expose a few frames once the camera was ready to go so I did a couple of studio shots of another Crown Graphic and a couple of outdoor shots through the back door. They are nothing special but I was able to test the lens wide open at f5.6, and closed up tight at f64 on some Ilford HP5+. I just finished developing them in some XTOL and I have to say I am very happy with the negatives from my quick first look. I'll pull the lightbox out tomorrow when they are dry and look them over more closely. I'm not able to enlarge and print right now but perhaps I can come up with a way to contact print them tomorrow. I do have a box of 4x5 Ilford paper that should work nicely if I can get a spot dark enough to do the deed.

Like I said, always something to do even when I am locked up with no place to go. And now I will be ready to head into the mountains with a new (to me) field camera as a ready partner once this virus scare settles down. And since it does not look as if anyone is in a big hurry to turn us all loose right now I still have plenty of time to play with this new addition to my collection and discover all its capabilities. Fortunately I have a couple more boxes of HP5+ to work with.

Well, I'm trying to clean up some of the three mile long do-list here so I have more freedom to exercise the cameras when (if) this mess is over. However, the art club I'm heavily entangled with normally has a member show about -- Now! -- which is canceled, and the venue where it's held is closed. So going back about 15 years I created a 'tradition" of bringing in a bonsai wisteria from my wittle twees and forcing it into bloom for the reception -- flowers and all that fragrance while it's still often wintry outside. Since that process for this year began in February before all hell let loose, I have it in a recently remodeled space in the house and have been periodically snapping pictures with my iPhone. [See, you thought I'd never get to photography!]



The camera on the window sill is a hand built ceramic piece modeled after my Canon F-1 (and even won a prize a few years back!)

So stay safe everybody ....

Andrew O'Neill said:

That's me as well, except for high school, and other studio courses such as ceramics...Sadly, darkroom work will be scrapped and remainder of projects shot on their phones...

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Same here.... students supplies are still on campus and no one is allowed in.

DWThomas said:

Well, I'm trying to clean up some of the three mile long do-list here so I have more freedom to exercise the cameras when (if) this mess is over. However, the art club I'm heavily entangled with normally has a member show about -- Now! -- which is canceled, and the venue where it's held is closed. So going back about 15 years I created a 'tradition" of bringing in a bonsai wisteria from my wittle twees and forcing it into bloom for the reception -- flowers and all that fragrance while it's still often wintry outside. Since that process for this year began in February before all hell let loose, I have it in a recently remodeled space in the house and have been periodically snapping pictures with my iPhone. [See, you thought I'd never get to photography!]

View attachment 242826

The camera on the window sill is a hand built ceramic piece modeled after my Canon F-1 (and even won a prize a few years back!)
View attachment 242827
So stay safe everybody ....

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That bonsai is quite impressive.

I started off by catching up on a backlog of film to develop, which is now only four rolls from completion.

I have a (very) tiny darkroom that has been in an eternal state of semi-completion and I started work on a darkroom sink I've been meaning to build for almost a year.
Then I got sick and ended up in bed for a week.* Now that I'm feeling better I will continue work on the sink and, if I complete it, on tearing out the old plumbing (it's a basement bathroom), expanding the electrical, painting the walls and legging up a good, stout platform for the enlarger. It's a big job for such a small space, but I hope to make some headway on it.

I also have over 25 years of negatives that I'm trying to catalog. It's slow and tedious.

I have some films I'd like to test. I can stay local (or even stay in my yard), shoot some test rolls and knock another thing off the to-do list.

Then there's scanning.... I'm so far behind on scanning I don't even want to think about it. It's daunting.

Of course, all of this will hinge around getting non-photographic things done around the house, too, so I may not get very far on my list. Hopefully I'll be back at work sooner than later and I'll run out of time. I never thought I'd hear myself say that!!

*I was sick but I doubt it was coronavirus. Then again, there aren't enough tests to go around and I wasn't very sick so I'll never know! I'm just thankful that, for me, it was nothing serious.

I pulled everything that I could out of the darkroom, cleaned, mopped, threw some stuff away, and put the rest back. That was last weekend.

I'm taking a camera when I go on walks. Looking for photos that reflect the times. Not finding much other than empty parking lots.

Will probably do some printing within a week. I work at home normally (software engineering), so my weekdays are mostly unchanged.

Sorting through 32 years worth of negatives and slides, looking for things I never printed or scanned...

Sirius Glass said:

That bonsai is quite impressive.

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Thanks!

Scott Murphy said:

Man that Canon F1 looks beaten to death! What did you do, drive nails with it?

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You know, sometimes I should follow my own advice -- I had tooled all sorts of knurling, leather texture, and even text and numbers into that and planned to use a manganese oxide black which works more like a stain when fired, but then I let the instructor talked me into one of the black glazes. When I saw it after the cone 10 firing (it's stoneware clay), my heart sank like I just wasted Zeus knows how many hours. But reckon it's all part of learning. I put it in an art show and it got an award so, hey. whatever!

DWThomas said:

You know, sometimes I should follow my own advice -- I had tooled all sorts of knurling, leather texture, and even text and numbers into that and planned to use a manganese oxide black which works more like a stain when fired, but the I let the instructor talked me into one of the black glazes. When I saw it after the cone 10 firing (it's stoneware clay), my heart sank like I just wasted Zeus knows how many hours. But reckon it's all part of learning. I put it in an art show and it got an award so, hey. whatever!

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The F-1 was fairly well weather sealed, you could always try to make a silicon rubber 2 part casting of it and then cast it in resin or plaster or whatever!

I'm lucky enough that my yard is somewhat interesting and so I'm doing a Polaroid series of the boring places I'm finding interesting.

Sirius Glass said:

I am even learning beatboxing so I can do it with my grandchildren.

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Well that should take care of the social isolation stuff... I'm working my way through a big pile of books and doing lots of writing, as well as the Postcard Exchange. I might even find the time to take the odd picture! Sadly, I'm currently unable to access the darkroom facilities at Stills (Edinburgh) and Street Level (Glasgow); I might have more undeveloped film than Gary Winogrand by the time all this is over.

back to sort of work tomorrow as online/sent home lessons begin for my middle schoolers. In my time off I chased a lot of shiny objects. Started building a UV exposure box as mentioned. Hit a wall in deciding the final print size I will ever do. Too the guts out of a project jeep and made a list of what I need to replace and put it into my wishlist at summit racing, set up my vitual classroom in an unused apartment/office. Today I will build the PVC sound booth frame for recording my lessons as well as readings for students with learning disabilities.

Working on a cyanotype...working on my taxes... working on a cyanotype....working on my taxes....

Off topic posts and responses thereto deleted. Please keep it to what you are doing photographically during this time.

I pulled out a late-1930’s Kodak Duo620, loaded it up, and started shooting. First had to re-spool film, and that was done in about 3 minutes. It’s a blast to shoot with but I’m noticing more now than ever how small the shutter markings are.

Buying LF gear. Looking for good locations to use said gear, when it’s all put together.

1) Looking on auction sites for some cheap unusual plastic cameras for play and test. Much better for me is to surf on auction sites than reading the news.
2) Darkroom time, got a lot of papers, and it is time for some lith print, last time I did it was 3 years ago (I wonder if my unopened Moersch Lith A+B chemical are still good...).
3) Photo-books.

I'm burning some film when I go out for walks to get exercise. Tomorrow I'm going to take another walk in the early morning, then fire up the Jobo and process my film (18 rolls of 120 by the time I'm done). I shot four rolls today while on walkabout - DC is, relatively speaking, a ghost town now. I walked out into the middle of U Street at 11 AM on a Saturday and photographed an effectively empty street. On a regular weekend day, I'd be taking my life in my hands to take that photo even when I had the light!

I've also been reading some critical books, some theory, and some exhibition catalogs. Oh, and I also re-arranged my home gallery a little again. I moved the Carl Moon native American image into the hall gallery and out of the office, and put the Pirie Macdonald portrait of Teddy Roosevelt in its place.

I've been making salted gelatin silver emulsion using local bay water I harvested pre-pandemic in little jars. (I got the recipe here>>http://thelightfarm.com/Map/DryPlate/Patton/DryPlatePart.htm). and I am on my 3rd batch. double coated another batch of cheapo virgin butcher paper (cut down to 8x10) yesterday. going to be contact printing on it again soon. works great for sun prints (unprocessed, wet or dry) as well as a bright light. others quarantined in the same structure have been cleaning the basement and harvested 15 bags of "stuff" that is ready to be donated to goodwill/big sisters/sal's place once they start doing pickups again...I'm also making glass and shiny metal (stainless? aluminum?) flashing cyanotypes using doo dads picked up for photogramming, and hopefully will print words written on OHP film (via china marker ) on either paper/metal/glass cyanotypes (using Ron Mowrey's recipe ) or the photo paper I coated.
also watched Harold and Maude a couple of days ago, scenes from deathrace2000 (both for the cinematography ) and an uplifting documentary about wartime news correspondents called dying to tell. looking forward in watching the Disfarmer movie too !
good to see people doing interesting things to keep busy !

**THANKS DAVID!**

jtk said:

Playing more gypsy guitar than usual...still not enough. Studying kitchen waste a little more closely than before. Not a new vision...devil in details. Have been printing big for past couple of years but switching to small, thanks to completion of a bunch of sets, just before the famous plague got me (now in rear view).. Guess I'll be doing a lot of reprinting too: 70s/80s negs in different inkjet light.

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Inspiration #1 practicing "Lulu Swing"...a rare Lulu Reinhardt transcription .. great bass line hooks... started to learn this a dozen years ago, then quit due to life disruption/transition...Covid 19 ain't all bad. (also working on "Minor Swing," and "Nuages" Django's most famous pieces). Lulu's bass line hooks are great with my big dreadnought , but my French Selmer copy is best for just about everything else. Wish I hadn't quit a dozen years ago!

Inspiration: #2 A dear friend sent a tiny, beautifully toned 4" square B+W inkjet "Yosemite Valley Sunlit, 1982" ...(Hasselblad, Canon scan) ...on Canon's wonderful Pro Premium Matte, a slightly-cream-color stiff-heavy paper...Canon had sent me hundreds of sheets at 13X19 as an early adopter (I suppose that was their logic), but I put it aside in favor of their "Luster" which works wonderfully at 13X19. ...... in any case, small inkjet prints use less pigment and printing time than big inkjet prints ...so...I'm using that Matte to print around 100 (random number) files I've long ignored due to long preoccupation with big prints.

Just got my Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 16 Certified End User certificate for digital color grading of moving images.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/training

It's free if anyone else is interested; even the books and sample files are there for the taking.

Took me about a week of note taking and study.

(This IS a mixed workflow thread after all...)

Kino said:

Just got my Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 16 Certified End User certificate for digital color grading of moving images.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/training

It's free if anyone else is interested; even the books and sample files are there for the taking.

Took me about a week of note taking and study.

(This IS a mixed workflow thread after all...)

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Wow! That's wonderful. My digital cameras are reportedly good for video (4K ?) but I've ignored that because the only reason I photograph is to make prints...but I think videos would sometimes relate well..

Are you a videographer as well as photographer? Why... art, curiosity, employment....?