St. Ann's Beach, Laguna Beach, California

Happy New Year, everyone. Time for the annual renewal, recharge, relaunch or whatever. I’m promising myself that some things will get done.

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.

LAist plucked one of the new Vito shots from the Flickr pool to feature with today’s homepage “Extra, Extra“. It’s got some classic LA elements, I think.

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.

The lovely Viewfinder Magazine has featured my image “Last Standing” in their July 2011 issue.

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.