Saturday, March 31, 2001

Is it the carefree, creative spirit of Mac users that brings out things like Jokes for the Macintosh? Or do Mac users just have a completely different attitude towards their machines, one that encourages playing with them rather than fighting with them?
10:27 PM ::link::

Is there something in the Baltimore air or water that turns out cemetery crawlers? Salvatore Prestianni, a Baltimorean transplanted to the wilds of Oakland, is writing a serialized novel, Graveyard Chronicles, set in Oakland's Mountain View Cemetery.
6:02 PM ::link::

Wooohooo!!

So happy for you two for finding a way to meet!

It's always been great whenever I've had a chance to meet with someone that I'd previously known only through online contacts. There are always some minor differences between what I've imagined they'd be like and who they are face to face. These differences usually just show up my lack of imagination because in each case so far, the "real person" has been so much finer than I could ever believe. Here's hoping for a fantastic time for the both of you.

4:55 PM ::link::

While backing up the Macs this morning, instead of sitting and watching the progress bar inch along I was able to scan and upload the pictures from Holy Redeemer Cemetery. They're in the database now, so enjoy the view. Some very nice sculptures and some that border on downright strange, even for my tastes.
1:05 PM ::link::

Friday, March 30, 2001

On the way to class last night, I swung by the photo lab and picked up the prints from last Saturday's trip out to Holy Redeemer Cemetery. If I can find a few hours this weekend, there'll be a new cemetery added to the list soon. Most of the shots tuned out okay, though I am definitely still in the "getting to know you" phase with the KX. There's a clear area in the right side of the viewfinder, where the shutter speed is displayed, that fooled me a few times. I'll get used to it eventually, sooner if I remember to check the corners of the viewfinder.

I was very happy with the results of the few experiments with the pinhole lens. Having a mirror lockup feature on the camera seems to have measurably increased the sharpness by reducing the vibration during these longer exposures. The crisper looking image makes the almost infinite depth of field obtainable with a pinhole a more obvious feature of the photograph. It'll take some more playing around while exploring all the possibilities of the "lens-less lens" but it'll be a blast.

Infrared is still calling me, softly taunting with promises of surreal imagery. I'm trying to resist its siren song until there is some more growth of lush new leaves. I hope I can hold out. Lots of projects in mind that require a nice warm day and a gentle breeze.
2:33 PM ::link::

Wednesday, March 28, 2001

Do you try to hear in your mind the voice of the person behind the text on your screen? I don't make a conscious effort to do so but the words often make a sound of their own in my head. I heard these words as softly spoken in a slow and carefully measured tone, with a somewhat sad and pensive flavor to them.

I can't remember the last time that I was so delightfully and thoroughly wrong.

Patti's mind is busily pushing out the words faster than her tongue can wrap around them. Hurrying along but never rushed, her thoughts come tumbling out with a gleeful appreciation of life. It was like talking with an old friend as our photographic addiction took over the conversation and we exchanged tales of how we met our true loves... our cameras. ;-)

That was a treat, Patti.
9:00 PM ::link::

Three months stretched in to two years of labor as a retired couple restore and document a small graveyard. Starting from an overgrown field,with few records and no map of the grave sites, they cleaned, located, measured and plotted over 300 marked graves. There remain an estimated 500 unmarked graves to be identified and plotted, a large task, even with the aid of gravestone recording software.

While a part of me is always glad to see a pristine and well maintained graveyard, there's another side that enjoys a stroll through one that is in that delicate state of semi-abandonment. The old hidden plots with tombstones winking out from behind a layer of brush have a charm and sense of mystery that call to me. There is a tranquility in walking down a narrow path through an old graveyard that has returned to woodlands. A strange feeling of both safety and freedom in knowing no one else has walked this path in months or perhaps years. Alone for a short moment, in the heart of the city and yet separated from all the surrounding turmoil, a quiet peace can be made.
11:15 AM ::link::

One of the problems with using a pinhole lens is that the aperture size results in an f-number that is well off the scale for most light meters and the amount of light admitted to the camera is far below the amount needed by an in-camera meter. This means that you'll need to take a light reading at some exposure setting within a range usable by the meter or camera and convert the result to find an exposure time with your ultratiny pinhole. This should not be too difficult, given the relationship between f-number, exposure time and the amount of light needed by the film. Simple enough when you're closing down the lens by one f-stop, just double the exposure time.

If you're like me, however, by the time that you get through counting f-stops and doubling time far enough to deal with the range that pinhole lens fall into you've run out of fingers, taking your socks off still leaves you a few digits short, and the numbers in your head start to swirl as you try to set an exposure before the light changes too drastically.

It'd be a real treat at times like these to have a simple, small and easy to use calculator that would figure this all out for you. One small enough to fit in a pocket or stash in a camera bag, one that would not need batteries and could be used quickly and easily. Something just like the Exposure Value Extension calculator, perhaps. Download the Postscript file, print, mount it on a bit of bristol board and poke a hole through the clearly marked center point. Bilingual instructions, both English and German, are part of the package. It's a good deal.
9:06 AM ::link::

Tuesday, March 27, 2001

Attention, Fat Corporate Bastards!

If you actually had even the faintest glimmering of what reality on the net is like, you'd realize that the real unit of currency isn't dollars, data, or digicash. It's reputation and respect.
@man

link blatantly borrowed from ETWOF.
12:10 PM ::link::

A worker at the Florida National Cemetery will be spending his summer vacation cleaning and replacing headstones at the Vicksburg, Miss.'s Soldiers Rest section of the Cedar Hill Cemetery. Wrestling 240 pound stones around in the summer heat and humidity of the South is quite a job. Help is expected from the groups Sons of the Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy, as well as several other veteran's organizations.
11:42 AM ::link::

Rumors of a new black and white infrared film, MACO IR750c. I was disappointed with the results of my last test of MACO's other IR offering, IR820 but this was most likely due to a failure of the nut holding camera than a fault of the film itself. I hope to be trying it again as soon as there's enough new leaf growth to make the IR effect more noticable.

This time I will be trying out the Between the Film Rail (BTFR) filter method, using either a true Wratten 87 filter or maybe trying a length of unexposed and developed transparency film. This combination will yield a E.I. of somewhere between 3 and 9, which will limit the conditions in which I can hope to get a usable image. I might as well look at it as an advantage rather than a limitation and use the pinhole lens to play with exposure times of one half to four minutes. Hhhmm... ideas percolating already.
10:00 AM ::link::

Monday, March 26, 2001

Oh boy but I just l*o*v*e catching jokers that think nothing of linking directly to one of my graphics.

Having fun yet, Mel?
12:46 PM ::link::

The Old World style portraits of Phillip Stewart Charis bring a painterly look to photographic portraiture.

"Everything is controlled. Then all that's left is the expression that I think is most exciting. People can look good, bad or indifferent. I want none of that. I want exceptional, terrific, the essence of that person."
Philip Stewart Charis

Portraiture is an avenue I haven't ventured down yet, at least not to any great extent. It seems like the ultimate challenge, to capture the spirit and vitality of a living human being on a bit of film. I'm looking forward to warmer weather, as I have been contacted by a local model that is interested in doing some work in a graveyard location.

We've decided to hold off until Spring temperatures start living up to their full promise and are using the time in between to scout some locations. It should prove to be a learning experience and hopefully a great deal of fun as well. It'll be interesting working with a partner and a living subject. I think we're in tune as far as what essential feelings of the graveyard we want to capture, something along the lines of a flowing Victorian or a Classical Greek style. Most of her previous experience has been in fine art figure work, so who knows what may emerge as the final results.
11:22 AM ::link::

Jeff, of Lucid Confusion, captures a conversation that's been heard more than once around my home. Where'd he hide that microphone?

In the same posting, his feature, Bluzz of the Week, spotlights a real winner. Alwin and his journal View From the Heart are in my "must read each day" list. Make it a part of your day, too.
9:04 AM ::link::

Sunday, March 25, 2001

No doubts here, this has been a fine weekend. A new cemetery, new growth in the garden and now, despite feeling under the weather in more ways than I care to imagine, despite a misbehaving keyboard, despite life sucking in so many ways, Saundra has kicked out Cherry Half Moon, Chapter Four.

10:42 PM ::link::

I had hopes of returning to the Holy Redeemer Cemetery today with some more film to try capturing a few of the many statues that I had passed by during yesterday's visit. Two hours and one roll of film barely allowed me to cover more than a small part of the cemetery and I was eager to return for a closer look at more of the grounds.

My wife had other ideas.

Apparently, sunny skies and a gorgeous spring day trigger the "cleaning mode" rather than the "let's get out of the house mode." It was a case of "Men are from Kodak, Women are from Hoover." She was right in a way, the house did need a thorough going over. Not my idea of a fun way to spend a Sunday but I must admit the place looks better after several sweepings (dog and cat...one or two sweeps never get all the damn fur) and ruthless culling of clutter. I'm counting my blessings that it was still too chilly to do the windows but I can see a session of balancing my butt on the window sill in the not too distant future. I did manage to get outside for a bit under the guise of cleaning the garden.

Ahh...the garden. All 50 square feet of it. The soil was still chilled from the cold weather last night but moistened by this week's rains. It is early enough in the season that the weeds and grass haven't gained too large a foothold and they were easily subdued with a few hours of digging. Catching them early will save a bit of work later and gives the new growth a chance to flourish, which it needs given the quality of inner city soil.

The crocus have bloomed already, first the dark purple smaller variety and now the striped giants. The early daffodils in the warmer corner of the plot have already burst into bloom, with their slower cousins getting ready to erupt in a volcano of bright yellow by next week. The tulips are sending up shooots and even the lilies are poking their strange sprouts above ground.

Of all the returning growth, I was happiest to see some signs of life from the poor clematis. I'd darn near killed the plant last summer through inadequate staking and support and I wasn't sure at all if it would survive through the winter. I haven't managed to coax a single bloom from it yet, so seeing some growth signs this spring would be great news. And there they were... springing from the dried, withered stalk were four new shoots... with an additional two shoots sprouting from the ground.

I'll get back to the cemetery some other day, seeing those few shoots made today a good day to stay home and clean.
3:05 PM ::link::

Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax, Minolta... the list goes on of Japanese camera manufacturers that have changed the photographic world. An article in the Japan Times features the Japan Camera Industry Institute Camera Museum, which houses over 8,000 cameras in its collection.
2:40 PM ::link::

Daily Reads

Cemetery Bloggers

GothicTomb Journal
lunatique raving
Mostly Cemeteries

Photo Bloggers
Living Art
Laying Foundations
-trianide-
Rannie
Wanderlust
le-champignon
photodude

Contact:

email -coldmarble@dgbn.com

AIM - ColdMarblePhoto

ISSN: 1534-0910

[Cemetery List]
[Cards]
[Links]
[Your Thoughts?]
[My Thoughts]
[ColdMarbleCam]