Toning.

First experiments.

Yesterday I fiddled with toning cyanotype. First experiments were fairly positive, with two, maybe three out of eight working out.

I used green tea.

Wet the print, then a bath in a tray with 2L water mixed with a spoonful of washing soda. The bleaching was quick and noticeable.

Then in a tray with green tea for about three minutes.

Then into a tray with water/H202 mix, really just a rinse.

Agitate at each step.

There was still a lot of blue showing, so I dunked and agitated it in the washing soda again and then back in the tea and it started to turn brown.

Last, a clear water rinse in the utility sink in our garage, then the print was hung to dry.

I tried a few different variations of the above, using prints from the past that didn’t make the cut. I have a whole folder of them. Success with cyanotype has not come easy.

The toning saved a few of those rejects.

Cool.

Instax Wide 300.

New toy. Yay.

This freakin’ thing is HUGE at 4″ deep, nearly 5″ tall, and 7 1/2″ wide. It weighs in at 1.62 lbs.

The pix are good sized, with the actual image 2 7/16″ tall x 3 7/8″ wide. The whole integral film packet is is 3 3/8″ x 4 1/4″.

I came with a snap-on close-up filter, but ~16″ is as close as it’ll let you get.

I opened the box, attached the strap, plugged in the batteries, then I burned through a 10-pack of the wide film walking around the house, garage, and yards.

Fun camera. It’ll take a little getting use to the heft, and framing with the viewfinder, but it does take pretty cool shots.

Vic’s addiction, Dead roses, Buddha, Lieve’s addition.

Shen-Hao HZX45-II.

Look out, 2021.

I have this.

I also have a half-dozen 4×5 film holders.

And three boxes of black and white sheet film **.

And a Polaroid 405 back, not t’mention a healthy stash of fuji peel-apart.

And a shade cloth.

And a Toyo focusing loupe.

And light meters.

And a sturdy old Calumet tripod.

Using all that was one of 2020’s goals.

Getting out with all this stuff is now a 2021 goal.

Wish me luck.

** I also ordered that cool LomoGraflok 4×5 instant back (and 10 2-packs of Instax Wide film. That’s 200 shots!). Their site lists an April 2021 ship date – here’s hoping it arrives before Spring ‘Roid Week, which starts on 4/18. Fingers crossed!

The Mary Stuart Rogers Educational Services Gateway Building.

California State University, Stanislaus.

We’d drive past this unusual bit of modern architecture every time we visited Torri’s grandmother in Turlock, CA.

I couldn’t resist getting a few shots using the *ist D with the Lensbaby attached.

Converted to black and white in Photoshop using NIK Silver Efex Pro 2 plug-in.

Colors 2.

Orange.

Second in a series.

Also, see > Blue.

Discoveries.

Totally worthy.

It’s funny how sometimes you look at a picture (or 3) and dismiss them as not being worthy. They’re put in an envelope or box, stored away, and quickly forgotten.

I came across these three Instax Mini 8 shots just before the start of Fall ‘Roid Week. They were in a Instax Monochrome box on my desk, a box I hadn’t opened for who knows how long.

I shuffled through all the pictures and noticed these three under-exposed shots being somewhat similar. Interesting.

Only then did it dawn on me to group them as an abstract triptych.

I like the way they look together.

Something new(ish).

Blue boy.

Back in February I attended a Cyanotype workshop at a local art center and by May I’d assembled the chemicals and miscellaneous tools and materials needed to get started.

I’ve made cyanos using bits of nature, cyanos of original geometric designs, and cyanos using digital negatives created from photos – old and new – picked from the archives.

These are the latest four photo-cyanos…

B’s reel
6″ x 6″ on 9″ x 12″ Canson Bristol board
Original image

Ol’ Glory
6″ x 6″ on 9″ x 12″ Canson Bristol board
Original image

ARS
6″ x 6″ on 9″ x 12″ Canson Bristol board
Original image

Whirlwind
6″ x 6″ on 9″ x 12″ Canson Bristol board
Original image

Colors.

Blue.

The missus n’me have been layin’ low since March, and I haven’t really done any shooting away from the house.

This time has given me an opportunity to go back, review, and reflect on the last 16 years or so of my obsession with photography.

I recently passed the 7,000 mark for images posted on Flickr. I’ve had that account since August 2004.

I fiddled ’round a bit with their search tool to help organize a few fave shots by color.

It was a fun little exercise, and brought back lots of memories. I’ll be posting these on the first of each month.

Here’s the color blue, first in a series.

A $40 experiment…

… continued.

Fall 2020 ‘Roid Week is October 18-23, a month and a half away.

It’s my fave photo-event and I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of awesome instant photography from its many participants. So much talent. Check out a Flickr Gallery of my faves from April…

I’ve made good progress with the LX100/SQ10 project.

To start the experiment, I printed a few black and white shots on regular Instax Square film, taken using the LX100 just to see if the idea was feasible.

It was. The three shots above were proof enough.

Over the last month and a half I’ve printed a handful of decent shots, scanned a few, and still have a coupla’ packs of Instax Black to use before ‘Roid Week gets here.

Every shot had differently lighting, so a consistent process was never really an option, but I still managed to get some satisfying results.

Plus, I haven’t wasted toooooo many shots.

It’s been interesting.

Highways 35/45, revisited.

A tale of two exposures.

Sometimes bad is good. Happy accidents. Kismet.

All that.

I brought a few cameras with me that morning. The location is an intersection of highways just north of Austin, TX called 35/45.

I set-up in a field right next to a car wash, and I was able to safely park in their lot. I asked if it was okay. No problem.

The structure is huge and this vantage point is quite something.

I used one of the wide-and-long shadows cast by the early morning sun to set up the tripod.

I used one of the wide-and-long shadows cast by the early morning sun to set up the tripod. Getting there early worked pretty well.

I had with me a pair of pinhole cameras that had some old film in ’em. My GX8. And I also brought along the Fujifilm Instax Mini 9.

I’ve posted before about the pinhole experience.

I made four instant shots in-between setting up and shooting with the pinholes.

I was quite happy with one particular instant and posted it on my film IG, @dogbonesoup

The other three didn’t seem to capture the story, how I feel, or what I liked about this location and vantage point.

This was back in July 2019. Over a year ago.

This past week I’ve looked back again at the instants from that morning – they’re in a stack of various sized instant shots on my desk I need to organize and store – and what caught my eye this time around was a different shot that was a little overexposed and somewhat blown out.

My position in relation to the sun had changed, and when I moved I lost the shade from the structure.

My position in relation to the sun had changed, and when I moved I lost the shade from the structure. That also means that a couple of these instants were overexposed because I didn’t change the settings on the camera accordingly.

Anyway, today I scanned the two that illustrated the point I’m trying make, here…

Looking at the two scans side-by-side, I am drawn to the dream-like feel of the overexposed shot.

The good exposure, while nicely composed, looks a little tame. Staid. A well documented structure. Very little emotion.

In contrast, the overexposed instant has so much more going for it. I holds a story. Feeling. Nostalgia. Mystery. A sense of wanderlust.

Emotion.

I love that this shot has a toy-camera vibe to it. I guess stepping out of that shadow proved to be a good thing.