I love a parade.

Red poppies everywhere.

I joined in on a photo stroll with a new club I learned about a few months back.

The Round Rock Image Creators had their first walk yesterday in Georgetown. Yup. Right smack dab in the middle of the town’s annual Poppy Festival.

A short drive from our house, I got there about 8 a.m. to make sure I could park near Town Square. Good strategy.

I slowly made my way to the neighborhood just north of all the festival activities, shooting my Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1 with the Thingyfy Pinhole Pro S11 attached.

Today is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. I wanted to make sure I had a few shots in the can if I don’t get a chance to get out.

After about 45 minutes of walking around I headed back to the Escape to switch cameras for the stroll. I also brought the Panny GX8 with the ƒ2.8/12-40 Pro.

Anyway, a small group of folks from the club met at the north steps of the courthouse and proceeded to walk pretty much the same route I had earlier, but this time around the streets were abuzz with people and vehicles lined up for the Festival’s parade.

Naturally, I lost the RRIC group somewhere along the line.

That made for lots of good shooting. And, naturally, I lost the RRIC group somewhere along the line.

Perfect timing, just like when I organized a stroll around the Day of the Dead parade in Austin back in November of 2011. Shooting in the staging area makes for a lot of up-close and unscripted moments.

I got to meet Chet Garner of Daytripper fame – one of my fave PBS shows here in Central Texas.

I didn’t stay for much longer and was able to get out of Georgetown without any problems, traffic-wise.

Baby sharks

Big Texas smile

Chet

Cover

Windy

Red table cloth

Red ribbon

Red fez

Puppy

Poppy

Poppies

Firetruck

Drumsticks

Horse tie

Multi-fauceted

People watching

 

‘Roid Week Spring 2019

Instant fun, revisited.

Torri and me have been adding a lot of color to the backyard this Spring, so it made sense that a majority of my shots for ‘Roid Week would end up being botanical in nature.

I even managed to get in a few shots from one of the local nurseries we visited.

I’ve gotta’ use up some of the Fuji peel-apart film in my stash next time around.

Here are my 12 contributions for ‘Roid Week Spring 2019, April 21-26…

Reddish

Pink gerber

Rose (finale)

Petunia

prfct strm

Ranunculus

Sharp

Directions

Dandelion

Peachy

Shapes

Garden King

Dog Bone Soup.

Resurrected.

A long while ago I started a blog on Blogger.com for the purpose of highlighting photos I made using film cameras. It’s called Dog Bone Soup. I abandoned it in 2011, but it still exists.

Well, I’ve resurrected the name and premise on Instagram. In my goal to use up my film stash it made sense to start again fresh on the now dominant platform for sharing photography.

The simple logo I’d created for blogger needed attention, so I tweaked the design slightly and added color and a little shading.

I also created a Photoshop template that’s 1080 pixels square with the IG handle @dogbonesoup centered near the bottom, a consistent location for branding.

Over time I’ll be posting 100+ pictures made in the past and new images made from my fairly hefty stash of film.

Speaking of film, I’ve ordered many of the items on my list of film dev stuff from this post, awaiting their arrival.

Time to get out and shoot some black and white. I’m jazzed about the prospects.

Please, visit and follow @dogbonesoup on IG.

A perfect day.

Sunny skies, awesome hot rods, and friendly people.

I made it to the 18th Annual Lonestar Round Up on Friday, April 12 down at the Travis County Expo Center in Austin.

It’s a two-day event. I make a point of only attending on Friday. There are fewer people millin’ ’round than there are on Saturday, which makes it much easier to get shots of the cars without folks standing around.

Friday’s weather was perfect.

Just by pure luck, Friday’s weather was perfect.

Saturday morning there were thunderstorms blowing through this part of the state – but it all cleared up by afternoon.

Hopefully that little bit of weather didn’t deter folks from showing up on day 2. It really is a great show.

There were lots of great cars and the people watching was unbelievable. I got plenty of shots of both, here are a few examples…

Styin’ couple

Seven of hearts

Black hats

Rumble Cats

Sinister

Golden flames

Baby blue ’53

Tail lights

Sittin’ pretty

Slick shoebox

Flying A

Shag and Rocco

Window sticker

Rusty

Stephanie

Rockin’ threesome

V-12

Freckles

Hangin’

Rusty Balls

Clearly, not thinking.

Starting all over again.

When Torri and I committed to retiring and leaving California, I made a decision about photography that, at the time, seemed sound.

After a few choppy years of on-again-off-again picking up the cameras – totally ignoring my film camera collection – I gave a bunch of my black and white film developing stuff to one of the student interns working in the office, a young lady who was pretty much just starting out as a film shooter.

She got my Paterson tank and extra reels, a dark bag, my notebook with dev charts and notes, all the little accessories that made for loading magic in that little black bag, and the plastic bucket that held it all.

I gave a bunch of my black and white film developing stuff to one of the student interns working in the office.

So, now I’m retired. And after 4 years, we’re settled into our new Texas life. I have plenty of time on my hands. I also have a decent stash of expired 120 and 35mm film, along with a bunch of old Fuji peel apart and some random other bits of film that needs to be used up.

Turns out that was definitely a hasty decision. I’m about to rebuild my film developing set-up.

Digging around in my “archive” I found an old article I snagged from the Web back in July 2006 by Justin Ouellette of (now defunct) chromogenic.net fame that explained all things required to develop black and white film for a reasonable $49.38. Step-by-step in a conversational voice.

Justin’s post was really good and it got me quickly up to speed, seeing as I hadn’t developed black and white since 1969-70!

Here’s his 2006 shopping list…

• Kodak D-76 Developer (powder, makes 1 gallon) – $5.49
• Kodak Fixer (powder, makes 1 gallon) – $5.19
• Kodak Photo-Flo 200 (4 oz. bottle) – $3.95
• Omega Universal Developing Tank w/ 2 adjustable reels – $16.95
• Kalt Stainless Steel Film Clips (set of 2) – $3.95
• (2) Delta Datatainer One-Gallon Chemical Storage Bottles – $2.95 each
• Delta Datatainer 32 oz. Chemical Storage Bottle – $1.95
• 16 oz. Funnel – $1.50
• 20 oz. Graduated Beaker – $4.50

By comparison, here’s what these same – or close to same – items go for today, with a few things added that’ll fit my specific needs, each linked to their source…

• Kodak D-76 Developer (powder, makes 1 gallon) – $6.95
• Kodak Fixer (powder, makes 1 gallon) – $12.95
• Kodak Photo-Flo 200 Solution (16 oz) – $7.95
• Paterson Multi-Reel 3 Developing Tank – $32.95
• Paterson Auto Load Adjustable Reel for Super System 4 Tanks – $8.99 (3 @ $26.97)
• Delta 1 Stainless Steel Film Clips (Pack of 10) – $19.95
• Delta 1 Datatainer Chemical Storage Bottle 128-oz (One Gallon) – $9.95 (2 @ $19.90)
• Delta 1 Datatainer Storage Bottle (32 oz) – $3.99
• 16 oz. Funnel – $4.95
• 64 oz. Plastic Beaker (Ounce and Metric Graduations) – $17.95
• Film Changing Bag – $21.99
• 2 gallon plastic bucket – $3.85
• 35mm archival negative sleeves @ 25 binder pages – $5.99
• 120 archival negative sleeves @ 25 binder pages – $5.95

It totals up to $192.29 – naturally, some of the items cost quite a bit more than they did in 2006!

It’s likely this list will grow…