Saturday, January 27, 2001

You gotta love the web... look long enough and you'll find what you need and then some. Need a filter and exposure guide for several IR films? No problem, thanks to the incredible resources at WJ's Infrared site. Even ran across some examples of the new film that I'll be trying out tomorrow, courtesy of Robert Jander.

It looks like this Maco film may be an interesting tool to use. Although it is about a stop faster with a Red #25 than Kodak's HIE, according to the exposure chart, it also seems to have a lower contrast while maintaining a definite IR look to it. I'll try some tests tomorrow morning to take advantage of the great IR if the weather prediction is correct. Splitting the roll between a glass lens and the pinhole should give me enough data to be able to make some closer guesstimates as to what works for next time.

I love the look of IR in a cemetery and apparently so does a local model. We both agreed that winter is a bit too chilly for it but may try to get together for a photo session when warmer weather rolls around. So stay tuned... more adventures ahead. :-)
9:58 PM ::link::

Friday, January 26, 2001

Apologies for no recent additions of images here. It's been too cold and yucky for cemetery crawling, work has been a bit of a zoo with preparations for the new semester and I've been finishing up the final project in a series of classes I've been taking, leaving me without a whole lot of energy for weekend photo excursions. Yeah, pathetic whining excuses... I'll be working part of this weekend but will set aside at least a few hours to get out and play in one of my favorite cemeteries or may even venture into some new ground.

I stopped at the camera shop on the way home and scored big time. They had a couple of rolls of the Maco IR 820 film that I've been meaning to try, so I picked up a roll of that as well as one of Kodak's High Speed IR and some TMax 100 as well. Should be a black and white and invisible light sort of weekend.

I've heard some good things about the Maco IR film but not too much in the way of real hard technical information on suggested exposure. Infrared is always a guessing game anyway, so this first try with the Maco will be more of a test run. I've heard suggested ISO ratings of anywhere from 50 to 400, while the manufacturer suggests a starting point of 100. I'll bracket extensively, take notes and hope that something good happens. If anyone out there has played with this film before, drop me an e-mail. What the heck, send an e-mail even if you haven't. ;-)

8:28 PM ::link::

You've got that right, Randy.
3:47 PM ::link::

Thursday, January 25, 2001

If you could read my mind...
Ever wonder just how we can share the experience of others? Why we feel happy and laugh at a funny story, grimace when we observe someone else's pain, or cry real tears in reaction to another's sadness? We may be "wired" that way with part of our neural network in synchronization with the acts of others.

Vittorio Gallese and Giacomo Rizzolatti at the University of Parma have come across a new class of neuron. These neurons are active when a person performs a task, not unusual in itself, but they are also active when another person is observed to perform the same task. Dubbed "mirror neurons", these may be a key to the physiological foundations of all communication, providing the common understanding which must underlie an exchange.
8:10 PM ::link::

Alfred Stieglitz, who pioneeered photgraphy as an art form, also was influential in the art world as a gallery owner. He introduced French artists to the American scene and also was active in promoting American artists. His life and works are featured in an upcoming exhibition at the National Gallery of Art.
7:23 PM ::link::

Wednesday, January 24, 2001

Pat Costello, an Alaskan photographer, received over 100 donations to replace broken equipment from fans of his Cool Juneau Photo site. Sort of like a photo version of the Blogger Server fund.
6:37 PM ::link::

Cemetery as a place of worship

The city of Muskegon's list of charter parks, a designation for land that cannot be sold or transferred without a vote of the people, includes most of the parks and recreational areas within the town but does not include the Old Indian Cemetery. The cemetery was excluded at the request of a member of thetribal council of the Grand River Ottowas. The tribe believes that the cemetery is a traditional place of worship and that heavy traffic has made it difficult to have religious ceremonies.

Cemetery going to the dogs?

Should dogs be allowed to run unleashed in a cemetery? Don't ask the committee on Western Cemetery in Portland, Maine. Nine months and $50,000 worth of studies and consultants, they are still divided on the issue.

I am a dog person. Our pooch is a part of the family. She sleeps on our bed, rides with us in the car almost everywhere we go, she is a part of our life. However, I don't take my dog to cemeteries. I don't take my dog to church, not that I go all that often. Both are places that should be devoted to quiet reflection on greater matters.

City owned cemetery solution

The Greenwood Cemetery in Owensboro, Kentucky is owned by a corporation whose charter expired in 1957. Perhaps a common case with cemeteries as they age and fall into disuse. The two majority stockholders in the cemetery want to sell it in its entirety to a group of developers, despite the fact that over 600 people are buried on five of the eleven acres making up the property. The attorney representing the other 1,000 to 2,000 stockholders is asking the city to consider purchasing the land.

Kodak announces new 400 consumer film

Kodak Max 400 is claimed to have superior characteristics over competeing brands of 400 speed 35mm film. The improvements include finer grain, expanded exposure latitude and greater color consistency.
6:14 PM ::link::

Tuesday, January 23, 2001

The City of the Silent Caretaker's Notebook has two fine articles on how community involvement and active family participation can make a cemetery a place for the living. Flatland examines the practices of for profit funeral organizations and contrasts this with an older and gentler style of burial. Sloppy Kisses for the Dead looks at the individuality expressed in what some have left as mementos at a loved ones grave. While not fine art, these simple treasures are indeed fine heart. And that, my friends, is what it should be about.
5:39 PM ::link::

Tom Kilburn, co-inventor of the first storage mechanism for a computer program, died Jan. 17 in Trafford, England.
4:01 PM ::link::

Camera maker Sinar targets the professional photographer with a large format digital system. The productivity increase from digital image production might help offset that 40 to 90 kilobuck price. A tad too steep for me but I can dream. ;-)
3:59 PM ::link::

A little different view of a cemetery than I'm used to seeing but I kind of like the way he gets in close for details and texture.
1:02 PM ::link::

A simple ceremony but a loving one. What a beautiful way to remember a loved one.
12:21 PM ::link::

Some nice words about a nearby cemetery caretaker.

Annapolis is a short drive away, so I may have to expand my cemetery coverage from the Baltimore, MD area and get down and say hello to Mr. Hall.

That'll have to wait for spring weather, though. This winter seems to be dragging on with weekends full of chores or bad weather for cemetery crawls. I need to get out soon or I'll forget how my camera works.
11:25 AM ::link::

Oh no!!! Say it ain't so! BlogVoices goes away?
11:08 AM ::link::

Monday, January 22, 2001

Liverpool opts for green burials.

Yet another municipality offers this option to the standard coffin and headstone. I hope this movement and idea catches on in the States, it sounds like a wonderful way to be interred.

Burial fashions... yes, there is a fashion element to it, have changed throughout the years. Each generation has its own methods of memorializing and remembering. From the spiritual stones of the late 1700's, the secular designs of the 1820's, the Egyptian phase in the mid 1800's, the Victorian splendor and the recent cookie cutter designs of mass manufactured headstones, maybe we have finally arrived at a solution that makes sense.

Let us move away from the idea that the body should be preserved and protected within a steel box, marked by a stone that will eventually wear away due to time and weather. Opting for a complete return to the Earth, providing a space for a new tree to grow and flourish, is a better way to be remembered.
9:20 AM ::link::

Sunday, January 21, 2001

A mausoleum for your Rolls-Royce?

I'm sorry but that just strikes me as wrong. I'm certainly in favor of an individualized and personal memorial, one that reflects the life that you led and may even serve as an inspiration to others. Spending that much money to assure perpetual care for a car, even if it is a part of your own monument, is such an incredibly ostentatious act. The good that a sum of that size could do as a donation to any number of charitable causes seems a far better memorial to leave as a testament to one's life than to provide for the loving care of a piece of machinery, no matter how fine a car it is.

How empty was this life that the only way to be remembered is with a funeral garage? It makes for an interesting monument but also a rather sad one.
8:58 PM ::link::

There's been quite a bit of discussion lately on the Taphophile mailing list as to what each member would like to have played as their "swan song". Things seem to be pretty evenly split between those supporting a beautiful classic piece and the hard core rock 'n roll crowd.

I'm sticking with the Dead, of course... He's Gone. ;-)
6:09 PM ::link::

The Poe Toaster kept his annual nocturnal appointment at the tomb of Edgar Allan Poe in the Westminster Churchyard here in Baltimore, MD. I'm a bit disappointed with the note left this year, however. The reference to the upcoming Super Bowl football game was quite out of place and hardly in keeping with the traditional visit. It would seem that the torch has been passed to a less thoughtful keeper.
9:36 AM ::link::

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