What's everybody up to?

wildbillbugman · Sep 20, 2011

Kirk- What do your synthesizers synthesize? Sensitizing dyes? Or things less legal? Somehow I cannot picture you strung out on methanthetamine.
Always be kind to animals, to the mentaly chalenged and to photographic emulsion makers.
Bill

Kirk Keyes · Sep 20, 2011

Bill - they synthesize beautiful sounds!

Ron - Tomorrow never knows...

Jerevan · Sep 20, 2011

Kirk, are running old ARP 2600s and MiniMoogs or is it new-fangled stuff?

Me, I am just doing the usual armchairing stuff, but the photos that Denise put up got me thinking again...

wildbillbugman · Sep 20, 2011

Jerevan,
Denise's work will do that! I call it "inspiration". I still say the staircase stands out - for detailed contrast. I just feel at home in dark places.
Bill

Photo Engineer · Sep 20, 2011

Bill;

And my work does not inspire you? Who taught you all? Who captured your interest?

PE

michaelbsc · Sep 21, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
Bill;

And my work does not inspire you? Who taught you all? Who captured your interest?

PE

Well, your work inspires me Ron. And as soon as I can get some of my other responsibilities out of the way I'll get back to the darkroom.

wildbillbugman · Sep 21, 2011

Ron,
I was not awair that I had to choose. We are talking about two distnct types of "inspiration". Your work inspires the "tinkerer/technical/scientist" in me. That hapens to be the dominant part of me. I have not spoken of it befor because it is a daily dominent part of me. Just the daily ho-hum thing for 50 years. Denise inspires me with a leval of Art which eludes me. I tell people that I am not an artist, not a scientist, but a tinkerer. I make no apologies for that. It is just what I like to do. If I was an Arist, I would just try to "master" the formulas and procedures that other people have perfected. But my atraction to photograpic images on glass has forced me into the world of The Tinkerer.
I was taken by Denise's Spiral Staircase, the other three images,ehh, not so much. My eyes are very picky. Most images, no mater who did them, just get a "nice" out of me. and a "nice" without a capial "N".
Bill

Photo Engineer · Sep 21, 2011

Bill;

You must have missed my smiley then. You don't have to choose in this case, as I fully understand, being both myself. I am a scientist / tinkerer and an artist as well. You can see that in my work with emulsions and with my photos themselves.

So, there is no problem, just a jesting comment. Under the circumstances, I thought you would get a good laugh from it.

Ron

wildbillbugman · Sep 21, 2011

Yeh Ron, I did see the smiley face! And I did think that you were being humorous. It was me who "had" to get up on a "high horse". But I have a caustic sense of humor,soometimes, like any time befor noon ,Pacific Time. Ask any of the Great stand-up comics (the late George Carlin, for instance). Humor is Truth. But I know there is no problem.
Bill

Kirk Keyes · Sep 21, 2011

Jerevan said:
Kirk, are running old ARP 2600s and MiniMoogs or is it new-fangled stuff?

Me, I am just doing the usual armchairing stuff, but the photos that Denise put up got me thinking again...

Yes - I actually do have an ARP 2600 and a Minimoog. Since you are familiar with those two synths, I also have a Jupiter 8, OB-8, D-50, JP-800, JP-8000, and a Rev 1 Prophet-5 - they only made 184 of the first revisions of the P-5. That's the highlights for synths, for samplers I also have a Roland S-50 with a mouse and video monitor so it's just like a little Fairlight (which I hope to get someday...), a Prophet 2000, and an Emulator II. Drum machines - I have a Linn LM-1 drum machine. I only have one synth from after 2000, almost all of it is mid 80s and earlier.

My musical influences range from Kraftwerk, JM Jarre, Human League, Depeche Mode, on up to Ladytron.

There's about 20 items in all in my collection. Lots of stuff to play with when you don't have time to get in the darkroom and work on making emulsions.

Photo Engineer · Sep 21, 2011

Enjoy the silence Kirk!

PE

wildbillbugman · Sep 22, 2011

Kirk,
Can your synthesizers replicat Tunesion Throat Singing, or any style of Throat Singing? That is my currant audio facination. If you are not familiar with throat singing, I highly recommend . Google search for samples of various styles.
Bill

dyetransfer · Sep 22, 2011

Hi Bill - I saw a group of Tuva throat singers at Dartmouth some years ago, it was great! They were from Mongolia IIRC. Not the sort of thing you see every day.

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Sep 22, 2011

I love to listen Oberlinger Organs , I dont know they are described as synthesing something and I love Manzarek tube synth , they use it NBA and really wonderful.

Kirk Keyes · Sep 23, 2011

Well, I found out what tomorrow knows... I ended up getting a cold and spending the last couple days sick.

Bill - I have heard throat singers. It's sure an odd sound, and rather synthetic sounding.

wildbillbugman · Sep 23, 2011

Kirk,
I trust that you are being "tongue-in- cheek" about throat singing sounding synthetic. 'Tis the exact opposite.
Many, many years ago, I saw the then famous Indian Sitar master Ravi Shankar at Carnagie Hall. Their was a "back-up" musician who did percusion and vocals. Befor doing a purely vocal piece he made the statement that "all instruments can be duplicated by the Human voice." He then proved it. I think that he had it backwards, though.
Funny how fickle the public is. One year the House was sold out. When Shankar came back the very next hear, the Hall was almost empty.
Bill '

Jerevan · Sep 24, 2011

Kirk,

quite an impressive setup of instruments you've got! I really love the sound of the early stuff, the analog ones. Music, that's my first love. Mum and Dad played all sorts of crazy 70's stuff on the stereo when I grew up so a lot of the 4/4th, eternal love lyrics things are just... not my kind of music. I used to dig Frank Zappa when I was 5 or 6 years old - in hindsight I am happy I didn't understand the lyrics, would have been too much for that tender age...

Kirk Keyes · Sep 25, 2011

Bill - I find a lot of the different styles of throat singing very "synthetic" sounding - from the bass drones to the whistling overtones, they all sound as if they could be "electronic" to me! Synths have come a long way since Moog Modulars and Switched On Bach.

Jerevan - thanks!

I was really lucky that I started working in the mid-80s and had disposable income then that I could use to buy many of those synths back then. The digital synths were coming out and people were scrapping all their old analog stuff, and I was able to buy several synths that had cost $5000 just a couple years before for less than $400!
Hmmm, reminds me a lot like the camera world a couple years ago - especially for large format cameras.

Kirk Keyes · Sep 25, 2011

BIll - was George Harrison playing with Shankar the first time you mentioned seeing him and not the second time?

And sitars are very cool sounding as well - very non-western sounding. I have a few floppy disks (5 1/4") for my Emulator II sampler with sitar samples on it. But the sampler doesn't really do justice to an original instrument like a sitar...

wildbillbugman · Sep 26, 2011

Kirk,
There were Throat singers long befor Synthesizers,analog or digital. Had you heared throat singing in ,say 1956, would you think that they sounded
synthetic? I doubt that that word could have been applied to any form of music back then. Soon, the New York Philharmonic will be tuning its instruments to more closely sound like a digital recording. "Life immitating Art".
Bill

Photo Engineer · Sep 26, 2011

Or art imitating life!

Forbidden Planet, a movie released in 1956 and filmed in 1955 used synthesized music. (Elelectronic Music by Louis and Bebe Barron)

So......

Anyhow, back to what we are doing.

PE

dwross · Sep 28, 2011

The first Great Travel Experiment is over and it all worked better than I could have hoped (and I'm a wildly optimistic person.) Travel with handmade film is identical to travel with any other kind of film. At no time was there a sense that I was 'working alternative.' It helped that I worked with TechPan sheet film for years. The film I was using last week exposes almost identically. My old habits kicked in and I didn't even use an exposure meter. Much better latitude than TechPan at development time, though. I can highly recommend the experience to anyone willing to embrace slow photography.

Best to you all, whatever your photographic (or musical ) pursuits. carpe diem.
Denise
www.thelightfarm.com

Kirk Keyes · Oct 2, 2011

Looks great, Denise!

Now was this roll film or plates or sheets?

dwross · Mar 18, 2013

Hi Kirk,

Sorry to be so long responding, but I just saw your question! That trip was with 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 sheet film and a Baby Graphic camera. That seems so long ago! D.I.Y. film has come a long way since then. I shot ~ASA 100 ortho roll film with handheld cameras all last summer.

dwross · Mar 18, 2013

Hi All,

I thought maybe it was time to resurrect this old thread. We can maybe morph it into a "post your ..." gallery. The GEH bromide emulsion (i.e. mostly dry plate) workshop is this week. Some good work should come from that. There are also the GEH alumni from the Cl paper workshops. A few people are actively following the Light Farm web workshops, and I have to assume other people are happily pursuing their own paths. If we all start posting here, we might be able to raise awareness enough to get 'dry plate' added to the ubiquitous list of alternative processes that always lists wet plate, but never dry! Of course, handmade silver gelatin isn't just dry plate. We've got glass, paper, and film all in our corner.

It's hard to over-emphasize how important it is to break through the perception barrier. Most people, even highly educated photographers and gallery managers, don't realize that handmade silver gelatin is possible, and it is an unfortunate fact of human nature that most people do not see what they do not already know exists. Let's update the perception of what's possible.

d

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