Thursday, December 18, 2003
Yesterday marked one hundred years of powered flight, thanks to the Wright brothers and their experiments with aviation. You may not have noticed how well these early experiments were photographically documented , spoiled as we are with today's instant video coverage and promises of "film at eleven." Given the rudimentary equipment available, view cameras and glass negatives, we are fortunate that the Wrights were not only passionate about flight but also enthralled by photography.
"In looking at this picture you will readily understand that the excitement of gliding experiments does not entirely cease with the breaking up of camp. In the photographic darkroom at home we pass moments of as thrilling interest as any in the field, when the image begins to appear on the plate and it is yet an open question whether we have a picture of a flying machine, or merely a patch of open sky."
-Wilbur Wright, 1901
I've been shut out of my favorite transportation shooting site since the roundhouse dome collapsed. It's too chilly to roam the harbor looking for tugboats. So maybe I'll follow in the Wright's footsteps and wander down to the new National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center. I've flown hang gliders, ultralights, sailplanes, and small powered planes, so maybe it's time to get a few photos of the progress of aviation.
Posted by coldmarble @ 09:49 AM ET [Link] [blab]
Monday, December 15, 2003
Monday's are bad enough with facing five hundred or so pages waiting to be scanned for next semester. Yes, it's started already and will only get worse until about the middle of March, if I'm lucky. I took a few minutes to scan a couple of Van Dyke prints and the gum over cyanotype attempt I printed last night.
I'll definitley have another go at the fish after I do some tweaking of the digital negatives in Photoshop. Things are kind of smooshed towards the shadows, with none of the highlight detail coming through.
The Van Dykes were my first shot at this process with the new UV printer. It's still difficult to judge exposure by examination with this new light source. Both of these came out on the well done side initially. A few minutes soaking in a bath of very dilute selenium toner bleached them back to an acceptable range with the side benefit of bringing out more detail in the highlight to midtone range.
Several models are lined up to play with some more light painting experiments after the holiday craziness subsides. Looking over the spectral output of a tungsten lamp, it may be possible to do some IR light painting as well as regular b/w. The exact exposure will take some experimentation and testing but I don't see why it can't be done.
Posted by coldmarble @ 03:28 PM ET [Link] [blab]
Sunday, December 14, 2003
Between the holiday shopping and wrapping and decorating and normal weekend chores, I'm amazed I found as much playtime as this weekend offered. Saturday saw a very nice turnout of eight LF addicts to shoot in the dim light of the Basilica. I had time for all of three shots with the view camera and two from the pinhole. Shouldn't have wasted my time with pinhole... even my hour long exposures were too short by a big margin. It's a magnificent old church, built back around the 1820s, with a wonderful 
domed ceiling, an ornate altar and a good sized pipe organ.
A couple of Van Dyke's from the view camera negs are drying now and may be scannable tomorrow, as will my attempt to add a layer of color gum bichromate to the digital negative cyanotype of the fish. I really need to spend some time tuning the curves of the neg to match the tonal range of the process. So much highlight detail's being lost with the wide range of the negative. I did run a test strip of a 20 step wedge to get some idea of where and what tweaking's in order, so future images should have a better range.
Posted by coldmarble @ 08:37 PM ET [Link] [blab]
