When I go out of order

[ljplicease]

Last year I decided to post one film photograph and post it to my facebook, and my blog each day for a year. I called it “film 365” for the number of days in the year. (I decided to do it again this year, only call it “film 366”, since this year we get an extra day)! (Next year I am not going to do it). This was intended to give a framework for my work flow. Without a work flow you are just taking pictures. It was driven by my renewed interest in film. I had always intended to sit down and pick out some of my favorites and post them along with some commentary. Tonight I decided to do it, since if I don't get it done soon, I will end up having to do this years summary as well. In the unlikely event you are interested in the full collection, you can see it here:

• www.wdlabs.com/twilight/tag/film365

In no particular order, except for “random”:

(night flamingo ~ 80) Every month, unless it is canceled, I go to a Perl Nerds meeting in DC. Perl is a computer programming language, which I have been coding in for better or worse for most of my career. I take the metro into the city and this particular time I had mistakenly parked in a treacherous piece of ice. I wasn't sure that I'd be able to drive out, so while I was down town, I found the nearest grocery store and bought some salt. On my way back to the meeting place I saw this rather odd tree, and shot it with some high speed film.

(winter fountain ~ 1) This is the one that started all. The picture I posted on January 1, 2015. I was just getting back into film photography, and got some expired film from eBay for its weird colors. Lena and I went into DC to take some pictures, and I shot about five rolls of various expired films to various degrees of success. This is the Navy Memorial without the water in the winter.

(light on the other side ~ 293) The local arty school with some photography classes was having a special on their photo walks, so we decided to try it out. The field trip was to a local train tunnel. There were supposed to be some ruins as well, unfortunately they had been cleared out for bigger and better things. It was still fun. I like this picture which shows how far the other end was.

(wheeeee ~ 352) We went to the Montgomery County Fair for the first time last year. We'd been to the smaller Howard County Fair before. Lena likes the exciting rides. I like to keep my feet on the ground. So while she was on the ride, I took some pictures. Lena is the blurry one. This was taken with my purple Vivitar Ultra Wide and Thin clone, which is a plastic camera with a slightly slow shutter speed, so it emphasizes motion.

(battleship in the mist ~ 124) Lena had a Nurse Practitioner Nerds meeting in Philadelphia last year. It happened to be right next to the museum ship USS Olympia so I tagged along and took some pictures while Lena was listening to presentations. Unfortunately it rained. And it was foggy. But some of the pictures I took were really neat in a Hamlet/Scooby Doo sort of way. This is actually USS New Jersey which is parked across the river in the neighboring state.

(long-neck-a-saurus ~ 350) Dad came to visit us after the wedding last year, so I took him up to New Haven. New Haven is the first place that we lived in the United States. Living in the states was a huge adjustment, for a number of reasons, and altered my life considerably. When we lived in New Haven, dad used to take me to the Peabody Museum to see the Brontosaurus. Now, finally, I got a chance to take him to see the Brontosaurus.

(horizon ~ 38) This is actually left over from 2014! In October I took Lena on a surprise trip to Arizona for her birthday. This is in Petrified Forest National Park. These empty posts follow the old route 66 which is no longer there. It is funny the power that road holds in the American imagination, given that it doesn't even exist anymore. In February last year Lena and I took a black and white photography class. For me I wanted to review after a long time out of the darkroom. For her it was to learn how to do it. This is one of the photographs that I printed.

(dancing in the airport ~ 309) My mum usually comes to visit us at least twice a year. That is a lot when you consider how much she travels. On this trip we had scheduled a meeting with the DJ for the wedding to pick out some songs. I thought it would be nice to do it when my mum was around so that she could have some input into the wedding. She was so excited, it was infectious! Here she is listening to the mp3 player that we had given her as a gift, as she tried to pick out songs to listen to.

(ginger ~ 266) Last year I went to the local Perl Nerds meeting in Pittsburgh, in addition to DC and Salt Lake City. I was a buy traveler last year! Lena came with me, and one of the nights while we were there we went to this nice wood fire pizza place that served this fancy ginger drink that I really loved. Not just for the flavor, but also for the cup. I had to put a deposit down for the cup, because people apparently steal them all the time. Lena later got me one of these cups for... must have been Christmas or New Years.

(barber chair ~ 201) For Chicken Noodle Day last year, we went to Eastern State Penitentiary, which is a prison museum in Philadelphia. This is the prison barber chair. I was shooting some very fast expired Centura 1600 film. The faster the film the faster it deteriorates after it expires. I really like the way this photograph came out. It is probably my favorite picture from 2015.

(lime in the park~ 257) For our engagement photos, our wedding photographer suggested bringing props. So of course I brought one of my cameras (Hasselblad 503cx) so that she could take pictures of me pretending to shoot pictures of Lena. Only... there was film in the Hassey and I wasn't exactly pretending.

Here is a bonus photograph from that same roll which shows the photographer chimping. You don't need to do that on a film camera LOL.

(a couple of wavy lines ~ 202) When we lived in Silver Spring, we used to do this hike from out apartment through Rock Creek Park, all the way down to the Zoo. From there we could take the train back to our apartment. Now that we live further north, we sometimes go down to Silver Spring for the same hike. Only one day that we did this hike last year, we discovered that our old apartment building had been knocked down to make way for condos. I guess that explains why they kept raising the rent and taking away services. They must have wanted to get rid of us or something. (Actually I think that happens regardless).

(battlefield ~ 324) Last year we went with some members of Lena's choir to Manassas National Battlefield Park for a hike around the park. This photograph was taken on surplus government film that some have speculated was intended to film nuclear weapons tests. It is almost certainly expired and has a nice rich warm color to it, which suited the feel of the battlefield.

(great grandma ~ 149) Last year Lena's niece was born. Here she is pictured with her great grandmother.

(construction ~ 260) Last year we put a new bathroom into our basement. When we have enough guests it serves as a gust bathroom, and when we don't I use it as a darkroom. I took this photograph with a cruddy Lomo fisheye camera after they had taken the old walls out, but before they put the new walls in.

(national trolley museum ~ 221) We live not far from the “National” Capital Trolley Museum. Most “National” things in the DC metro (or in Baltimore, in the case of the aquarium) deserve the title, but this is really just a bit of track that happens to be not so far from Washington DC that some enthusiasts take you around for a wee bit of funding. That isn't a bad thing. When Lena's grandma came down in June, we took her for a ride on the rails.

(fleischmann pier ~ 205) It was my foolish idea (and a good one actually), to have the wedding party in the Hudson Valley, several hours drive away. Because we ended up going up there every other weekend practically. And sometimes every weekend in actuality. It was worth it for real though. I took this on one of our trips up there, scouting out the town that we eventually had the party. This is a black and white infrared photograph, hence the wild shades for the foliage.

(whiskers on the prowl ~ 140) This is the neighborhood cat. I call her Whiskers. Lena calls her Frisks. Her owners call her Jinx. The cat herself doesn't care what you call her, but would like to be let in.

(storm cloudy ~ 214) I went to the National Perl Nerds convention last year, which was in Salt Lake City. My mum has a house in Salt Lake, and the convention was walking distance from that house so I was all set for a place to stay! Salt Lake gets a bad rap from some because of the Mormons, but Salt Lake is actually a very nice, very liberal city. I took this from my mum's house before a storm on a very nice Fiji slide film.

(little trains ~ 23) For a weird thing to do, I took my father-in-law to Northlandz last year. It is this giant model train set. I forget what Lena and her mother were up to. I think this was a “guy” thing to do while they did the “lady” thing. Or something.

(b and o train museum ~ 261) Back in Baltimore, Lena and I also went to the B&O Railroad Museum which had slightly larger trains. I wanted to take my father-in-law to this one too. He wanted to take his grandson.

(smile ~ 162) Lena smiling. I don't remember the story behind it. Actually I think it may have been taken at the Silver Spring Farmer's Market. This is also on expired film.

(michael ~ 13) My father-in-law.

(warm dry ~ 331) Another easy hike that we like to do is Lake Frank. It has some old abandoned roads and parking lots. This picture was taken on the same surplus government film.

(columns ~ 296) The Jefferson Memorial. This was taken on some expired Fuji Reala, which is probably my all time favorite speed 100 color print film. Sadly the film has been discontinued. I have a few rolls in the freezer, but once I use them... they are finished!

(before the leafs fell ~ 297) Some leaves photographed before autumn took them away.

Comments

[arwen-of-lorien.livejournal.com]

These are all beautiful! I thoroughly enjoyed this post. :)

Do you happen to remember which lens you used in the "Ginger" photo (9th from the top)?

[plicease]

Thanks :)

Not 100%, but if I had a guess I would say my Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 ... fantastic lens.

http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-lenses/nikkor-50mm-f%252f1.2.html

Wow, it has gone up in price! I bought my copy second hand with a Nikon FE for considerably less :)

[arwen-of-lorien.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And yikes, that's definitely not cheap. I will bookmark it, though, for when I'll be upgrading my gear and maybe I'll luck out and score a used one. :)

[plicease]

I suddenly have this desire to shoot low light with that lens now. Thanks a lot :P

Check out eBay. The second hand prices are considerably less. The Japanese vendors are in my experience really good there.

[arwen-of-lorien.livejournal.com]

Will do, thank you! :)

I'm thinking that it would be a really good lens for food photography.

[plicease]

It occurs to me that I should probably mention that lens is manual focus, and though it works on high end Nikon cameras, it does not work with the metering systems in entry level Nikon cameras. Another lens which is very good, almost as fast is the Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G

http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-lenses/af-s-nikkor-50mm-f1.4g.html

Which will work completely on any autofocus Nikon. It is also a little cheaper :)

[arwen-of-lorien.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

[topum.livejournal.com]

I really liked great grandma and horizon.

[plicease]

Thanks. They are among my favorites :)