Imagery to Film: 2018

Monday, December 31, 2018

Camp Helen State Park

Closing in....

A Beachside Stonehenge of Some Sort....

Seascape Pageantry

Guide to a Lost Thing at Sea....

Friday, December 28, 2018

Cermak Plaza - Lost Art

Three lost sculptures from Cermak Plaza, Berwyn, Illinois.

Dustin Shuler - Spindle

George Rhoads Bee Tree and Dustin Shuler's Pinto Pelt

George Gerberich Helicopter

Polishing Cloud Gate - Millennium Park, Chicago

Prior to its official completion, the Cloud Gate sculpture was covered during the polishing of the welded seams.

Docked

Attention to detail

And finally....

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

A fifty-something year old medium format TLR, found at a thrift shop, had some film in it. There were a few exposures left on the roll, so I photographed this barn, near Madrid, Iowa. The film was a color emulsion that was last produced in the 1970s. Instead of sending it to a lab, I processed it as black and white film. This was about 15 years ago - I'm not sure if the barn is still there. It seemed a fitting subject for an old, forlorn camera.

Face to Face

Turn your pretty head

Friday, December 21, 2018

Empyrian

Radiance

Venet and the 4th Presbyterian Church

Wreathe

Venet and the John Hancock Center

Straight to the top

Albatross II - Dustin Shuler

At the Cermak Plaza, when it was populated with some fantastic art.

Albatross II- Dustin Shuler

Zone Plate

Three images, using a zone plate, from the Hasselblad.

Bee Tree - George Rhoads

Spindle - Dustin Shuler

Sancta Maria - Mission Dolores, San Francisco

Hancock and the Venet

For several years, there were a number of sculptures by Bernar Venet. This one, in front of the John Hancock Center, was one that I liked to include in numerous photographs. I love the massive 105mm glass on the front of the old Hasselblad 40mm Distagon C - as it will produce some fantastic 'light-splash' with the sunlight across the face of it.

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Cedar Bridge, Madison County, Iowa....

When I first started using a large format camera, I would often use different types of film.

This is the Cedar Bridge, from July 2003.

Horseman 45 LE, Rodenstock 210mm 5.6 Apo-Sironar S.

Fujifilm NPS 160

Kodak T-Max 100

With all of the photo apps available, it's easy to convert the color version to black and white. There are many reasons to choose one over the other, a topic that can be discussed endlessly, elsewhere.

Monday, November 12, 2018

Large Format Film in Polaroid J66

My parents had a Polaroid J-66, made between 1961 - 1963.

Using a camera designed for obsolete film sizes is fun - with a little patience and experimentation, you can get some interesting results. For this camera, there is a huge opening in the back - almost perfect for a piece of 4 by 5 inch large format film!

To load the film, I put the camera and film, still boxed, of course - into a light-tight changing bag. You do this by feel. To get the proper shutter speed and aperture for the HP5 film I taped a piece of neutral density plastic filter over the light sensor, and opened the aperture to its maximum setting.

This setup, of course, is a one-shot wonder. I decided to wander over to the Ghery Bandshell, in Millennium Park.

The result was spectacular - the exposure was near perfect. Part of the charm for this type of experiment are the little anomalies - the softness, vignetting, some geometric playfulness....

This was surprisingly sharp, considering the plastic lens. Two of the notable imperfections - the light leak, and slight geometric distortions, as the film isn't necessarily perfectly flat - due to the mismatch of film type, and the characteristics of the improvised loading method.

This was probably done in 2005, on a frigid winter day - snow, and brilliant sun.