According to Flickr, I made my first film post back in April of 2009. Since then, I’ve shot many feet of stock, learned quite a bit about line and shadow, and managed to become a decent processor of black and white negatives. I’ve enjoyed sharing my work by scanning negs and posting them online, but they never have the same impact that they would framed, hanging on a wall (I’ve had a shot at that, too).

When I decided that I wanted to try developing, my father-in-law eased me into things by giving me a trove of film paraphernalia that was sitting unused in his garage. Besides a Yashica Mat-124G TLR, the bin contained a Paterson tank, reels, thermometer, and other processing accessories, alongside an enlarger (covered in dust-abating trash bags). I gladly accepted the lot – I’d been studying up on developing, and it seemed achievable. The whole darkroom thing felt like a far-distant goal.

An axiom of photography goes something like, “It’s not a picture until it’s printed.” I’ve got a nice Epson 13×19 inkjet photo printer that produces big, beautiful color images – I need to use it more for that – but I’ve never been sold on the black-and-white output. At the same time, something just feels “less-than” about digitally printing a photo that came to be in an analog process. I’ve been itching to carry that through to the next step, emulsion to emulsion. A week ago, something in my head told me it was time.

I stripped away the plastic of the bags covering the apparatus and found that I’d been gifted an late-70s Omega rig with a Chromega B Dichroic color head. What’s that? It’s purported to have been of the better enlargers for home printing of color photographs. I don’t plan to print much color (if any at all), but the color filters built into the unit are perfect for controlling the contrast of black-and-white prints as well. Its external power supply buzzed a satisfying buzz when switched on and the in-line timer did its job when asked. The whole thing seemed in great shape, except for the burned-out halogen lamp. With a replacement for that and a few more supplies, I figured I’d be able to convert a windowless bathroom into a weekend darkroom and be on my way.

My father-in-law was excited about the prospect of showing me the ropes, so I took him along to Hollywood on a Freestyle run. As always, the staff there was awesome and hooked me up with what I needed – bulb, trays, tongs, safelight, and paper. I went with cheap Arista chemistry and paper – a resin-coated pearl – as I knew I’d be blowing through a lot of it in trial-and-error exercises.

At home, we set to work light-sealing the bathroom door. It was easier than I’d expected, with a simple blanket-and-towel arrangement. As with film developing this time of year, cooling the chemistry down to the proper temperature was a pain, but that was the biggest trial of the afternoon – I’ll take it. Trays out, safelight on its perch, tongs at the ready, we got to it.

With guidance, I did well enough. I made a few boneheaded moves – mixing up tongs, placing paper on the easel wrong-side up (made an interesting ghostly image) and such. A couple of the runs took quite a few tries to dial in the proper exposure, but I didn’t mind. Like seeing that first strip of negatives come out of the tank, watching an image quickly rise in the developer under the red glow gave me a charge. I don’t know what I thought would be so daunting – it’s easier than film, really, and you get as many chances as you need to get it right. My reward for a few hours’ work was a small batch of prints that I’d consider a passable first effort.

The next day, my son and I made another set of attempts, and came up with an even better batch (shown above). We accomplished one of them – a tonally-complex architectural shot of a passage at UCLA’s Royce Hall – in a lucky single pass. The results so far are easily good enough to set me on a quest for mastery of the process. Next time, I need to work out the system of filters on that enlarger so that I can control the contrast of the prints, which seems to be the trickiest thing.

Since I changed jobs, I don’t have easy lunchtime/after-work access to Los Angeles, so I have to make more of a trip of it if I want to blow some film capturing its charms. I had some time last weekend, so I took the little Vito out for a spin. I didn’t have any specific aim, so we meandered through Burbank, Hollywood (Sunset, mostly) and up over Mulholland Drive. I think I have the hang of the Voigtländer’s workings now, and got a few frames worth posting. I’ve started a Vito Flickr set.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve found a lot of ways and places to acquire film cameras, but the Bargain Camera Show had not been one of them. Held once a month, it’s a multi-room swap-meet of sellers and buyers – some pro, some not – that convenes in a slightly-musty Elks Lodge in Pasadena. I’d been a couple of times, and my visits left me unimpressed. The vendors who had something worthwhile to sell were well aware of the value of their product, and weren’t afraid to gouge. The others were just hawking junk.

I’ve been participating more often in gatherings sponsored by the LA Street Photography group on Meetup.com, and somebody threw together a trip to the Pasadena show. I like meeting new people, and browsing gear with others who appreciate it (especially analog stuff) is fun. It’s a low-investment trip, so I put it on the calendar. When the day came, the social part of it was a bust – there was no good way to identify fellow group members, and the BPOE hall became crowded quickly.

Building on that disappointment, a couple of trips around the tables confirmed past experience. The place smelled a little better than on my last visit, but the stock and prices were not inspiring me to part with my money. On what I’d decided was to be my last round, I passed a table that I’d skipped due to crowding. The selection was small, but the pieces were all clean and well-presented (opposed to the jumble found on many tables) and the couple running it were pleasant and helpful. A small folding-lens job caught my eye – the German Voitländer Vito II, manufactured circa 1951. I didn’t know anything about the particular model, but I knew of the Voitländer reputation (they’re the oldest name in optics and camera manufacturing) and had always been intrigued by the folding design. It felt good in the hand and was in excellent cosmetic shape. The seller said it was in good working order and came with the original leather case, but he only wanted $40.00 for it. I couldn’t pass that up, and left the show happier than I’d expected to be.

When I got it home, I couldn’t help but admire it for a while, turning it over and inspecting it from all angles. The thing is a charmer – easily the prettiest camera I own. It’s got quirks like any other, but it was easy enough to figure everything out after I located a PDF version of the manual. Some of the highlights (or lowlights, depending on point of view) are the folding lens mechanism, the aperture/speed settings, and the focusing. Like some of my other gear, the Vito has a non-coupled viewfinder; frame through the finder, focus by distance estimation. Many of the frames from my first backyard test roll suffered in the areas of focus and exposure, but I got enough decent ones (see below) to know that the failures were my own.

In any case, I seem to have become their go-to American grainy-black-and-white film guy.

I try to pay attention to the flood of news from and regarding photographers, Web sites and various contests and promotions that I receive through a dozen channels – e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. – but most of it barely registers. A Twitter item caught my eye a few weeks ago, alerting me to the impending launch of a new site called “Citizen of Photography“. I checked it out and was immediately taken by the concept. In essence, their plan is to take digital submissions from anyone, using any camera, and winnow down the best to a curated few. That selection is then offered for sale as a limited edition of ten prints, at a reasonable price.

I signed up, and on July 1, I received a message letting me know I was on board and the site was open for submissions. Through most of July, I followed my usual pattern of procrastination and let the weekly informational messages pile up in my inbox. Late in the month, more was revealed; for the first two months, early contributors will have some exclusivity, with only 5 images posted per week, and after the first month, a reception and showing is to be held at London’s West Bank Gallery, featuring the first rounds of prints.

The final message came in as I was vacationing at the Grand Canyon, so I set a reminder to look into contributing when I returned home. I had a few images in mind to send along, so I followed their advice and set myself up for Dropbox transfer. Once I got into it, I decided on a dozen – a mix of color/B&W and styles – to contribute. What could it hurt? I had no idea how they’d execute their vision, but it seemed like a low-risk opportunity to gain a little exposure and maybe sell something.

I hadn’t expected to hear anything (especially not right away), but a couple of days after submitting I got a note asking if I could provide a higher-resolution version of “King without a Crown”. It’s a murky self-developed frame from a toy film camera (the blackbird, fly) – soft, fuzzy, and sprocket-holed. They’d selected it as “one of our top images” anyway, but it could not have been printed very large at its uploaded size. I thought, “Well, maybe there’s something to this.” I dug through my poorly-organized negatives, hoping that I’d been good about sleeving it. Luckily, I had, and I pushed up a scan at twice the original resolution. I got a nearly-immediate acceptance note and waited for the August 1 launch date.

It’s a little early (even for the UK-based site), but the live site is up. As promised, the photo is one of an eclectic bunch of 5:

I like the presentation, and that they appreciated the quirkiness of it:

When a photograph puts a smile on your face it’s very difficult to ignore. The Citizen of Photography team got so much pleasure in discussing the merits of this shot we simply couldn’t ignore it for inclusion on the site. Taken using a Superheadz Blackbird Fly on Hollywood Boulevard, Gary has brought a touch of humour to CoP towers with this effort. Printed on Fuji Crystal Archive gloss to create a rich, punchy finish.

It’s not one that I’d figured for a pick, but it does tend to draw notice. It was a lucky shot with a dodgy camera. We’ll see what it can do.

I hadn’t been out shooting with other people in a while. I generally prefer to be on my own, but sometimes a group setting draws out different things and gets me into new situations. The Los Angles Flickr group hasn’t been floating events that fit my interest and/or schedule, so I decided to give Meetup a shot.

I’d gone on an outing earlier in the year with the L.A. Street Photography group, but since it was a trip to Edwards Air Force Base and the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, it didn’t really count as “street photography”. This time, the destination was downtown Los Angeles, to include the Mission district/Skid Row and the garment and jewelry districts, with a black-and-white theme. A half-dozen guys showed up, toting a mix of film and digital rigs. I  toted the AE-1, Mat-24G and Sprocket Rocket. The Yashica drew many comments from passers-by.

We managed to hike from 3rd and Hill through Pershing Square, the aforementioned districts and Skid Row. I didn’t feel comfortable making images in the latter – the scene was pretty hostile – but got a few in the other areas. We ended up in Little Tokyo as the air was cooling, and took a break near the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. They’re hosting “Art in the Streets“, a massive exhibition of street art from many generations and from all over the world.

The entrance to the show was framed by a Levi’s-sponsored film-making exhibit, and guarded by a bunch of energetic and chatty USC film school students. We wandered in to look around. The Yashica again spurred conversation, and after some talk about the state of film photography and the evils of 3-D cinema (one lad mistook the TLR for some sort of 3-D apparatus), I was waved into the larger space sans admission fee. I’ve quietly admired street art and graffiti for years, and the variety and quality on display really was mind-blowing. Equally impressive was the historical background information on the artists and pieces. It made for a great ending to the day.

I’m enjoying the aesthetic of medium-format 6×6 — especially in black and white — more and more. I need some practice to gain the skill to employ it to its best effect, but I can see possibilities.

I took the little Lubitel out to Eaton Canyon Park in the foothills of Altadena over the weekend. The sky was gray and the light was harsh, so I didn’t expect much, but I got a few landscapey keepers.

Wow – four camera posts in a month and a half. This will really be the last one for a while. Maybe it’s not so bad because this gear has been in my possession for a long time.

More than a year and a half ago, when I mentioned that I wanted to start processing film, my father-in-law offered up a box of stuff he’d been storing in the garage – tank, reels, thermometer, even an enlarger – so I could try it out without a big cash outlay. At the bottom of the stash was a TLR, a Yashica Mat-124G. He’d gotten it in-trade or something and never used it, so had no idea whether it worked. It was pretty banged-up, but there was no obvious critical damage. We tried dry-firing it, but the shutter was unresponsive and the button was sticky and stubborn.

At the time, the only film camera I had was the AE-1, and I had been thinking about how to get into medium-format. Since he wasn’t going to be using it anytime soon, he suggested I take it and try to work out the problems. I could try to get it working, and give it back it it was of no use to me.

I cracked it open at home after a struggle (the body latch was also a challenge). There was no film in it, and the innards were tidy. I couldn’t figure out the shutter issue, though. I quickly became distracted with the developing side of things, and the Mat sat. I considered repairs, even getting an estimate when I took the Mamiya in for its work-over. The cost was fairly high, compared to the probable worth of the camera, so I held. The Mamiya gave me my medium-format fix, and I sort of had a taste of TLR-style shooting with the little blackbird, fly. I returned to the Yashica from time to time, but made no progress.

My recent adventures with Russian cameras got me fired up about film things again, and after playing around with the Lubitel, I wanted to work with a “real” TLR. Don’t get me wrong, the Lubi is a fun camera, but it’s based on simpler designs like the Voigtländer Brillants of the 1930s and lacks a lot of the advancements and polish of the newer gear – it’s not much more advanced than the plastic blackbird. To be fair, the Mat-124G is a Japanese knock-off of the much more expensive German Rollieflex, but it’s a good one.

I dug the Mat out and opened it up. I’d forgotten about the stuck latch, so I applied a little oil under the knob and after a few minutes of working it through its cycle, it was good-as-new. As for the shutter, I had a feeling I was missing something. I located a PDF of the manual (thanks to OrphanCameras.com – an Internet miracle) and quickly determined that I had misunderstood the way the shutter mechanism was designed, and how the shutter trigger was “charged” before a shot. Of course, it only behaves properly with film in the camera. With that knowledge, and a little more oil, I was ready for a test.

I loaded up some Arista.EDU Ultra 100 and spun off 12 frames at the local civic center park (gave the back yard a rest). I don’t have a replacement for the mercury battery in the Mat’s meter, so I used the Sekonic. I’m not a big fan of the film (re-branded Czech Fomapan), but it’s cheap. The results aren’t bad. Contrast is decent, and the focusing is much easier and more accurate than on the Lubitel. There’s a mid-frame fogginess in some of the shots, but I can’t find an obvious cause – might have been glare on the overcast day.

I’m looking forward to applying this rig to more serious subjects soon.

Yes, it happened again. I somehow ended up with another Russian camera – I swear it’s the last for a while. This time it’s the Lubitel 166 Universal TLR, manufactured by LOMO in 1986. It came complete with soft case, strap and Cyrillic manual, and is in good shape mechanically and cosmetically. I made sure to get one with the rectangular mask, though I’ll probably shoot 6×6 square most of the time.

I took it through the usual new-addition walk-through of the yard, my impatience pretty much guaranteeing weak results. The Lubitel is notoriously soft at wide apertures, it was late in the day (an overcast day at that), and the Arista EDU 400 goes crazy with the grain sometimes. Everything seemed to work smoothly, except for the focusing. I knew from research that the ground glass/magnifier combo was something of a joke, and confirmed that right away. I relied on the distance scale as with my “toy” cameras, and got close enough on most frames. A couple of them are below. I’m sure that sunny-day results will be better.

Adam is 11 years old today. He’s everything a Dad could wish for, and I’m very lucky to have him in my life.

He’ll celebrate with his friends next weekend, but this year’s portraits are already on their way to family all over the country. Like last year, we went out to a local park for a natural-light posing session with the 5D and the RB67. The digital result is above, and the film below.

Though I was pleased with the results from last year’s experiment with WHCC (I’ve used them since), based on a number of recommendations, I decided to try the services offered by Mpix. Apart from the good reviews from friends, I really liked one of the Mamiya frames and wanted to include it as the second shot in the family package so I was interested in their True B&W Paper process.

The Mpix order flow was easy, and all of the options were clear. I chose the Endura Metallic option on the color prints, the True B&W  for the other, and the die-cut corners for wallets. Post-order communication was good, and production and shipping were speedy. The prints arrived on-time and nicely-packaged. The colors pop on the metallics, and the depth and gloss are nice. The matte black-and-white processing lived up to the promise, so I’ll probably put more work through it in the near future. The price was comparable to WHCC and other services I’d shopped – a little higher on some items, lower on others. Overall, a great experience and I can join the satisfied customer chorus.

Ordinarily, the order would have included a larger print to frame and place on our family gallery wall. As I was considering print vendors. coincidence dropped an e-mail in my in-box from CafePress and their recently-acquired Canvas On Demand service, offering half-off a gallery-wrap canvas print. I took the chance and ordered an 11×14. The result was not bad for the price I paid, but the assembly quality was not up to the standard of some gallery wraps I’ve seen. If I want another, I’ll probably look elsewhere.