Why I need a darkroom...

Way back when, from 1988 to around 1992, I actually had a full darkroom. I currently just develop my own film and scan the negs onto my computer. That's fine for straight "prints", and photoshop does have some nice controls that are difficult to duplicate with an enlarger. On the other hand, there are tons of things I can do in the darkroom that are impossible to replicate on the computer. And if they are, it's not as much fun, anyway.
Since I haven't done anything new for the past month, I figured I'd hop in the wayback machine and post some experimental stuff from my darkroom days. I would spend hours in the basement playing around with developer, contact prints, zeroxed negatives, overheads, anything I could make a print from. I hadn't really thought about any of this for awhile until I was looking at Bea's site (see links on right side), and she was describing (I think) placing a paper negative into the enlarger, which was something I used to mess around with. So here are some things I did back then. None of this stuff is matted or was ever meant to be displayed. I haven't really cleaned any of these, either, so sorry for the dust and hair. It's just stuff I created from screwing around...most of it postcard size, since it was cheaper to work out ideas that way. I'll explain what I remember. There are some shots I have that have so may steps that I can't remember exactly how the finished product came about.

This is a fairly simple concept. Two separate negatives, with one half being blocked and exposed and the other side then exposed with the other neg...


This shot was a contact print from another contact print. So I printed the shot, used that shot as a contact to make a negative contact, then used the neg contact to make another positive. It's a nice way to soften the image and give it an interesting texture.


Further exploration of that theme produced some interesting effects. There are actually at least 30 shots in this series. I just kept using each contact print as another contact print, occassionally playing around with solarization or whatnot, until the image loses most of its definition through continious printing through thick paper. I'd like to try another more controlled experiment with this someday.



I can't remember the method here, where you take a neg and make a really high contrast neg out of it...maybe something to to with lithography? Anyway, I did a lot of that, too. Used to be big into combining nature and machine.


Not sure what I did here. Must have been some toning going on or multiple negs. I can't really tell, but I kind of like it. Looks very early 1990s, too. The streaks are actually part of the image and not damage or scratches.


Probably cut out paper contacts here, or possible cutout paper negatives, judging from the loss of definition. Like making a collage negative. Toned a couple of times, it looks like...sepia and blue. Again with the mechanical theme.


A continuation of the above shot, contact printed who knows how many times and solarized.


I'll post more of this stuff later. One of the reasons I like toy cameras so much is that they do a lot of what I tried so hard to do in the darkroom automatically. Not everything, but a lot of the low-fi effects are 'pre-installed' in my shots now. I'd love to take them and see what I could do with an enlarger. Anything to remove the computer from the equation. I love analogue. Someday...more money and more time.
On a side note, I haven't seen these girls in forever.

On another side note, a couple goofy things I found inside my old photo file:


I would LOVE to be installed today. Makes me think of Doctor Who.


I also would take those realtor mags and deface every single portrait on a page (where they would have 30 realtors listed on a single page)...because they deserve it (and, I know, realtor is caps and with a registered trademark, and I don't care, the rebel that I am...and it's sad that I know how realtor should be printed). Maybe I'll locate them someday. I save everything.

Dusty Memories

Haven't done anything cool the past few weeks...just school or work, work or school. I have a couple new cameras I want to try out. One being the Konica WaiWai wide angle (reloadable) disposable camera. Also expecting a Lomo LC-A+ in the next few weeks. Put off getting a Lomo forever, but this camera looks like fun. Been wanting to get some kind of nifty little quick 35mm camera (I never use my bulky Pentax), so maybe this will fit the bill. So, since I haven't been doing anything, and I'm tired of work and school, I'm dreaming of leaving, so here are some shots I took in Palm Springs last July. They were taken with my Snappy Diana clone. We were driving back from Los Angeles and I had to stop, since I don't drive through the area more than once every couple of years. It's actually a neat area. You can drive pretty much wherever you want in the desert. There are fences around the windmills, but in some spots you can get as close as 25 feet away. They are huge! The shots I took are very muddy and quiet...I assume a combination of the camera (the Snappy is by far my favorite of my Dianas), the film (arista.edu 200, don't really care for it), Diafine (lots of development artifacts, with the banding and all), the smog/dust and the sun being low on the horizon. Anyway...

"Expired" Expired Film

I like to experiment with expired film, as evidenced in my previous posts, but sometimes expired film is just...dead. This was a roll of Kodak Plus-X 127 film, expired October 1953, shot through a Brownie Holiday at Zion National Park. I can see very faint images when I hold the film to a light. The edge of a frame, the shadow of a tree...but much too faint for even a scanner to pick up properly. And I've scanned some pretty faded negatives.




So what have a learned from using expired film? Number one: if you are shooting for a day, a few hours, whatever, don't rely on the expired film. I always shoot with multiple cameras, and I make sure I have non-expired film (or at least no older than 10 years). I would hate to make an effort to drive someplace cool, shoot five expired rolls, and find out I got absolutely nothing from of the experience. For me, expired film is kind of like icing on the cake. I go out with an idea of what I want to shoot with my cameras, and I take a roll or two of expired along and just shoot here and there when I think it might be interesting. I rely on my regular film and hope for the best with my expired. Sometimes the icing is nasty and makes your stomach hurt...other times it's the best thing you've ever had and you have some sort of icing orgasm. Or something. Bad analogy, but at least I got to use the word orgasm in my blog. Anyway, toy cameras are often unpredictable, and expired film makes them doubly unpredictable. But that, for me, is also part of the fun. And even the 'non-photos' that result are sometimes beautiful, with a somewhat minimalist painting quality. I could see one of these at six feet across.
One final tip when using expired film: lots of contrast. The greater the difference between your blacks and whites, the greater the chance of getting a usable image. Sometimes you just get the perfect shots regardless of lighting conditions (at least as far as a toy camera will tolerate), but you want to try to shoot with the worst possible results in mind. You can't hurt good film with contrast, so it's the best way to go about it. Don't let the above images scare you! Photography is about having fun. If you take it too seriously and it becomes work, then it's just work. I like to say the reason they call it work is because someone has to pay you to do it. If you can get payed to take photos, great. But it should still be about adventure and experimention. Anyway, I'll shut up, because I can see your eyes glazing over!

More Expired Polaroid

Sad news...Polaroid will be discontinuing Type 80 films in the last three months of the year. I love Type 87, so I guess I'll have to stock up. The other option is to buy expired film. Buying expired Polaroid is a bit of a crapshoot. It dries out after a period of time, depending on how it was stored. Five year old film can be bone dry, and 30 year old film will still have working developer. It also tends to not be cheap (not usually as expensive as new Polaroid, but still enough that one can be unsure of spending cash on what may amount to a nice display box).
The attraction of expired Polaroid, at the same time, is it's unpredictability. The chemistry is different, which already creates different tones that of current Polaroids. Couple this with old film and old developer and yoy can get some truly fantastic results. These pictures were shot with my modified Square Shooter and Type 88, expired 9/96.











Skorj also has some nice examples of expired film on his flickr site.

Imperial Continental Camera

I found this camera for $3 US at a thrift store called Savers, similar to Goodwill. This is truly a crappy camera. The Imperial Continental Camera was made by Herbert George Co, Chicago, Illinois, USA. There are other Imperial cameras by the same company, the most common being the Imperial Mark XII. I also have an Imperial Snapshot camera, a small, plastic box camera. If you do a search on eBay, you will see various other Imperial cameras. But you may not find this one. I've searched all over the web and have not found a single reference to this particular camera. Is it so bad that even crappy camera collectors don't care about it? I doubt that is possible. Maybe they only made them for a very short period of time, or they are made so poorly that they just couldn't carry on through the years.





Sorry for the nasty shots, I didn't feel like getting out the tripod...
The camera takes 620 film, producing eight 2 1/4" x 3 1/4" shots. It sports a fixed focus 88 mm Stylar lens, whatever that may be worth. I'm pretty sure it is glass. The most striking feature of this camera is its blatently ugly design. It is fairly large for a 620 camera, even one that takes larger photos. The front slides out to make the camera even larger. It's a good thing I took the camera apart to fix the shutter, because I didn't know this at first. I just thought the front was loose. It doesn't really fit together very well. The shutter mechanism is very sloppy, with lots of room for the parts to move up and down, so it sticks a lot. I have to hit the button very quickly or the shutter stay open. This actually seems to more of a design issue, as opposed to a problem of age. Kind of like the Diana clones have really screwy shutters. Also, the knob on top is missing, so advancing the film is painful. Age, of course, not design. The viewfinder is basically good for aiming in the general direction that you want to shoot, and nothing more. It is not shaped like the actual photo being taken. I guess the square front of the viewfinder is ill matched with the round eyehole on the back.
So how does it work? Quite well, I think, if the toy camera look is your thing. It has a nice blur effect around the edges, particularly on one side. It randomly leaks light, apparantly right across the middle. You can see the picture falls off around the edges. Some random vignette. All around, plenty of toy camera effects. Nice vintage quality to the shots. I like it! A great find, and I plan to use it more in the future. Not a display camera by any means, but fun to use.


The shutter stuck, so I had to shake the camera to unstick it...then I just shot again, cuz that's what I do.

UPS Sucks!

I'll have a decent photog post in the next day or so, but I want to put out some negative publicity for UPS, because I hate them. They misdelivered a package of mine today. I call them, and they say, well, that's not our problem because the computer says it was delivered...contact the sender for a formal investigation. Around Christmas, I found a sweet lot of cameras on ebay. UPS lost the package. Their answer: We are not responsible for losing your package. Contact the sender for a formal investigation. Twice before that I've had packages delivered to the wrong condo building, even though the buildings are clearly marked. Answer from UPS: Once we show it as delivered, it's not our fault. I refuse to use UPS anymore, and any company that uses UPS, I guess they don't get my business. My purchase shouldn't be a crapshoot. Here's my money, what are the odds of getting my product? 50%? 90%? If I'm paying for a service to have something simply brought to me, I expect 100%. If I pay $15 for a pizza and it might not actually be delivered to me, am I going to order that pizza? Nope. So screw you, UPS. Oh, and HP sucks for not including a USB cable with a printer. Why the hell would I buy a printer for my computer and not hook it up to my computer?

The Underwater Holga

I've been wanting to turn my Holga into an underwater camera for awhile, and finally got around to building a waterproof casing. I spent many hours on the design and implementation, making sure the seal was absolute, as you can see:


A very complicated mod. I did tape the end up, to make sure the zip in the Ziploc didn't unzip. Laugh if you will, but it worked! The images aren't perfect, but the concept works.




I had no problem advancing the film or turning the focus knob. The focus is off because I'm focusing through water, I'm sure. The dress was a bit busy and blends in with the water. Next time I'll probably try her in a swimsuit or something darker for contrast. The mess on the second shot was a developing error from film overlapping. The last shot was supposed to show her hair floating towards the camera, but it mostly just looks goofy. I couldn't really see what I was aiming at, so the shots were somewhat random. Not much else to say about this experiment! Simple, somewhat effective, and worthy of future usage.

Expired Polaroid Type 88

Picked up three packs of Type 88 that expired in September of 1996 on eBay recently.


I'm trying to make it last, since expired Polaroid is tougher to find...at least the kinds I can use. Took a couple shots around Phoenix.



The tones are muted and lean towards orange. The El Camino was actually bright yellow on the sides, so you can see how much darker the film is. I also decided to try a few emulsion transfers. Tried and failed. This first was with wet watercolor paper. This is the print and the transfer. It was developed for 15 seconds to leave the dye on the goop side.



As you can see, I mostly just got globs of blobs. Almost pretty, but just ugly enough to be...ugly. Looks kind of like someone crapped on my artwork. The second set shot was done with dry water color. Again, the print and the transfer.



Even less successful! Looks like denim. I actually like the prints, with the ultra faded tones and the goop stuck to them. These are my first two attempts, so I assume I will get better at some point. This film may just be too old...or it's too warm (around 84 degrees F in here)...who knows. I'll keep trying, though! I've read that the newer emulsions don't transfer, but then I've read that people still use the newer stuff. I think I'll save this expired film for actual prints. I want to go around some of the Hispanic (or Latino, whatever you prefer) areas of town, with the brightly painted store fronts...be fun to shoot some in Nogales, too, but that's a longer drive. Whatever, I want to use the film to maximum effect!

Bloq?

This has absolutely nothing to do with photography, but my mind was drifting this morning and thought up something silly. I propose a new word to describe a blog that explains something, as opposed to a blog that is about life or whatever: bloq! A combination of blog and faq. I considered blaq, but that has entirely different and possibly interesting connotations. So if three years down the road it's all the rage (like who the heck ever heard of a blog five years ago?), you heard it here first! I googled 'em, so I know I'm first. Doesn't mean it's not stupid, but it makes me feel...powerful. Good morning!

Lubitel 166B + Found Film

I bought a Lubitel 166B on ebay recently, shipped from Ukraine. Nice looking little camera...heavier and more solid that I expected. I've read mixed reviews, but most of the negative remarks came from "real" camera users, as opposed to toy camera users.


I haven't used it yet. Figured out all the little levers on the front, but I'm not sure how to focus yet. Turn the knob, I know, but it's hard to tell what's going on in the viewfinder. And there is a little magnifying glass that you can use with the finder...no idea. There are a few good Lubitel sites on the web, so it won't take me long to figure it out.
The best part, though, was finding a roll of film in the camera!


I assumed it was black and white, and developed it with Diafine for 4 and 4. It's very thick film and has an old film texture to it. I think it was actually color, though it wasn't orange like other old color film I've developed with Diafine. The images were pretty vague and funky, and the film was close to opaque, so I'm thinking it was color film. No lab I know would risk developing it in their chemicals not knowing what kind of film it was, so I would have used Diafine regardless. I pulled these three off of the roll. One was fairly visible, the others were very faded. All were of a family in a living room.



Not sure why some of it is positive and some negative. Here is the last shot converted to black and white and inverted:


Pretty psychedelic shots! Looks like it could be in the late 1960s or 1970s? Hard to tell for sure. I always wonder what happened that someone shot a roll of film and just forgot about it until it's pulled out 30 years later.
Can't wait to try it out for myself!

I'll have a decent post in the next few days. Took 15 rolls of film in Utah, so I have a lot of developing to do. Took two colors rolls that were a bust. Way too dark in the canyons, I guess. Here are a couple shots...

A view of Zion National Park from Angel's Landing, shot with a Fujipet:



Zion from below, with a Holga::



More to come! Shot a couple rolls of expired, should be interesting.

I turned on word verification for comments, as I'm starting to get spam. Hope that's not a pain in the ass for the few people that leave comments!