Carlos' film diary

More of Adrian

2009-08-15T11:30:00.001-07:00

Here are the last two 4x5 pix of Adrian. I still need to process some 120 film.

Overall, I'm happy that I nailed the focus. Adrian is a very good model. She's able to hold the pose long enough for me to do all the stuff associated with shooting a single frame of 4x5 film and not shift out of the plane of focus. So it's nice to have her expertise on board.

I love the window light in our guest bedroom. This is the first time I've had a chance to really shoot in there with that lighting. I'm quite pleased with that. The digital images in there were superb.

So I was also happy I was able to clean these negs. That was some pretty gunky stuff that accumulated on the film.

You'll notice the nude of Adrian on the bed is cropped tightly. I don't normally like to crop my 4x5 images, but this one begged for it and I sort of screwed up the original framing anyway.

Another of Adrian

2009-08-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

So I've now tried cleaning this set of negs with the old faithful (but deadly) film cleaner (gasp). I got this one somewhat cleaner than the previous image of Adrian, but there is still a fair amount of streaking. I've done a little Photoshop to soften the streaks and clean up the neg as best I can.

You will notice around her lower back that I'm battling the dreaded Newton Rings phenomena that occurs when your negative does not lay flat on the scanner.

Finding our way back

2009-08-15T09:43:00.001-07:00

OK. So after a long, long hiatus. I've returned to the fold and have brought you Adrian, plus just one more way to screw up some really good film.

Maybe drinking decaf isn't such a good thing for me early in the morning.

I "developed" this film only to pour out the TMax solution and see the telltale signs of the cosmetic dye leaching out of what I was pouring out. Because Kodak brilliantly added this dye, I figured out I had only processed my film in a water bath and not the actual developer solution. The dye does not show up when you pour out the developer solution.

So the film got a good 12-minute bath. Then it got processed again.

I think this contributed to the streaking and general sloppiness of the negatives.

In this picture you can't see the streaking so much because I softened the details and there are a lot of shadows in this particular image. In some of the ones to follow, you'll see some seriously bad streaking.

Bindi's Bride of Frankenstein

2009-05-10T11:08:00.000-07:00

OK. Note to self. The Mamiya RB67 is best used on a tripod. I fear my aged hands are struggling to hold the camera in a solid plane of focus. These where shot on Ilford PanX (ISO 50). So they were shot wide open (f/5.6) using studio strobes. So there's no depth of field and I misfocused on all but these two. Even these are not tack sharp either. But I do love the way this film scanned. I also had to fudge the processing time because the normal development calls for 4 mins. in the standard TMAX 1:4 dilution. So I used the solution I normally reserve to processing my 4x5 film in TMaxRS. This resulted in a 8.5 min. development time in the 1:9 replenished solution. This gave me some pretty reasonable results. Now if I can just focus the camera, dammit!!!

Jean on 4x5

2009-03-25T06:31:00.000-07:00

Jean is a model we brought in for some body painting. But I knocked off a couple of 4x5s before the day was done.

More 4x5

2009-03-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to think I can market these b/w art portraits. I like the idea that they are relatively simple to produce, yet the results are often unpredictable.

This one of Kandy Face is mis-focused, but I like the rawness of it. It's not so polished as the sharp, bright one of Bindy in the previous post.

We're on a roll

2009-03-19T23:23:00.000-07:00

Been super busy this week with studio shoots. Mike and I shot a lot of digital stuff, but I also cranked out some 4x5 and a roll of 120 that I've yet to process.

Here are a few 4x5 images. To the purists I apologize for going to some Photoshop compositing on the edges of the frame. Like I said before, my scanner won't yet let me see the edges of the neg. And these images especially were calling for me to enhance them.

My favorite out of these is Bindy. The other two of Stephanie are OK. They just don't have the impact of Bindi's image. I think that's due to the makeup artist's work and intimacy of that composition.

Finally!

2009-03-07T09:50:00.000-08:00

OK. It took a while, but this is a 4x5 from a shoot we did in my garage. We built a "Candyland" theme set and shot two models wearing some tu tu's from a local business called Chrissy Poofs. Yeah, kind of weird.

But this is a 4x5 image of Sabina, one of our models while she was not on set. I added the black borders because I can't yet get my scanner to see the edges of the film like I want. But rest assured this is an otherwise full-frame image.

Some film from the RB67

2009-02-19T18:31:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a brief interlude from the Cambo 4x5 to revisit the Mamiya RB67. I shot a roll of Fuji Reala and Kodak Verichrome at the Renaissance Festival. I really like the results. The RB is such a heavy camera and I was winging it around with one arm while shouldering a gadget bag on one side and my Nikon Digital on the other.

That's pretty harsh duty. I really need to bite the bullet and take ONLY the RB on one of those trips--that's a hard leap of faith to make anymore.

I'm including one photo I really like. It's a shot of a falconer with a kid listening, but it has a small light leak that ruins it--so goes life with film. I'm not sure how the light stain occurred. It looks like the kind of thing that could happen if you jiggle the film back on the camera. It's kind of weird because an identical stain appears in an adjacent frame in the same location. I could Photoshop it out, but for now I'll leave it as is.

Grandma's Pearls

2009-02-11T13:59:00.000-08:00

This is my friend Jessica posing for me in my garage studio. I managed to fit in four sheets of 4x5, TMax 100 in between about 165 digital frames we shot that afternoon. We made some great digital images, but I think this is pretty sweet stuff.

This is actually a happy mistake. I was supposed to shoot this with only the available light from the garage-door windows, but forgot I still had the studio strobes plugged into the Cambo. So this is a 1/2 sec. exposure at f/5.6-8 with bunches of strobes piled on.

We're on a roll

2009-02-08T06:18:00.001-08:00

OK. This is kind of breaking my unwritten promise of only displaying full-frame film images. But this one begged for cropping. I returned to Apache Junction on Saturday with the wife and kids so I could take advantage of the clouds moving in. I ended up trying to do some macro work with the 4x5. I think this is a brittlebush or what's left of it. I was trying to focus on that stalk in the foreground, but with the bellows racked out and the wind gusting just a bit, I sort of back-focused. But still fun.

Back after a long hiatus

2009-02-07T08:59:00.000-08:00

So these pictures are nothing to write home about. I debated even posting them. But I felt it was important to note some things:
1 I finally got a chance just to drag out the view camera and do some shooting.
2 My buddy, Mike, and I got stuck in traffic and reached our destination just as the sun was setting. We really should have been to the location about an hour earlier.
3 The light changed so fast I really should not have even shot these images. But I really wanted to go through the motions of using the camera and getting a feel for it after a long layoff.
4 Good news is that Sarah is finally sleeping through the night and that means I can get up in the mornings to process film again. Yea!!!
5 These images suck as far as content, composition, lighting, etc. But I consider it a small victory just to pick up the camera, shoot and process 4x5 film.

Rose is a Rose

2008-10-05T06:27:00.000-07:00

I keep fighting my natural instincts which are to photograph people and I pursue still life and landscape when the opportunity presents itself.

So I've been toying around with these dried up roses with little success.

I've got this idea of photographing dead and decaying things.
In my mind's eye, I can see exactly what these pictures are supposed to look like, but I fail miserably at staging and lighting the moment.

I've been half-heartedly vowing to stop photographing live models because of the time, expense and hassle involved in dealing with them, but so far they provide my best and most satisfying material.

Deanna with Piano

2008-10-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

Here's a Polaroid 55 pos/neg of Deanna Dupre a wonderful Phoenix model. This was shot at f/5.6 which unfortunately was about one stop underexposed. I forgot that I was metering for TMAX film and the Polaroid is ISO 50 while the TMAX is ISO 100. This was supposed to be low-key lighting anyway, but it would have been nice to have that extra stop of light.

The neg's got some nasty sodium sulfite streaking that I failed to clean thoroughly. I may have to go back and rewash and photo flo again.

4x5 scanned using color neg settings

2008-09-27T09:46:00.001-07:00

I finally pulled the Cambo into the studio for a photo shoot with Donna.

The scan here is originally sized at 98 mb and scanned using the color neg settings which gives it this bronze/sepia effect. There are still a lot of dust and scratches. But overall I'm happy to be back in the darkroom.

New-ish Web site

2008-08-22T15:08:00.001-07:00

Carlos has updated his Web site. I've taken off the art photos because I'm currently working more with schools and families and don't want to give off the wrong impression. My site, as always, is www.morenophoto.com. I will continue to post art photos to my film blot at www.carlosfilm.blogspot.com and I will also keep my art portfolio updated at modelmayhem and onemodelplace.

Back in the Saddle

2008-07-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

This is from my first studio shoot in the studio I'm sharing as part of a co-op deal in Phoenix.
The model is Stacie Snow and this, of course, was shot on Polaroid 55 pos/neg media. Not sure how long my supply will hold out and if I can get anymore since Polaroid has gone away.

I'm still here

2008-05-14T17:16:00.001-07:00

I promise I haven't abandoned this blog. The new baby has kept me from getting out with the 4x5. I've got some medium format stuff I will post up hopefully soon.

Trust me. I'll be back.

2008-02-07T06:27:00.000-08:00

Scorpion Gulch

2008-01-26T08:33:00.001-08:00

Here's a landscape view of Scorpion Gulch located near the entrance to South Mountain Park. This is one of the few landscapes I've shot so far that I like.

It's probably not so much a landscape as it's more of a still life, but semantics is not my strong suit. I really love the interplay of textures and light here.

This old building looks like someone's home that has been abandoned for many years. There may have been a fire at one point. But it just looks like someone homesteaded here and maybe had a small business next door. There is some indication of indoor plumbing and electrical wiring. So the home is not necessarily turn of the century, but I'm guessing it was built in 1930s or so. To me it's just a neat old building worth exploring photographically. Plus, it's a good location for shooting models.

Amber at Scorpion Gulch

2008-01-05T06:39:00.000-08:00

OK. SO I'm back in the "swing" of things (large-format shooters will get the pun).

This is Amber, an aspiring model, at Scorpion Gulch at South Mountain. I'm not sure what Scorpion Gulch is/was. It appears to be ruins of an old home. But it's a great locale for shooting. It's not great if you want privacy because it's just a few yards from the road leading to South Mountain park. So we had every low-rider and hip hop-playing, Korean-car-driving punk slowly drive or even stop--waiting for Amber to take off her clothes. Uh, not going to happen.

Anyway, I really love the overall feel of this image. Unfortunately I screwed up the post processing of the Polaroid 55 film somewhere. I immediately immersed the negative in sodium sulfite and it seemed totally clear. Even after I got home and rinsed and Photo Flowed it, it seemed clear. But when I came back after it dried, I found these two diagonal streaks. They almost look like the emulsion had merged with another emulsion, but not quite as dense.

Also, the neg is very dirty. There are a lot of tiny dust spots that I tried to Photoshop with the dust and scratches filter. This is why the overall sharpness is not great either. But all in all, I like this picture. Even the streaks are kind of ghostly and lend an ethereal quality to the shot.

Some Internet posts I found suggest the Scorpion Gulch is haunted. Maybe I've got some ghost trails here.

Kaylee at South Mountain

2007-12-11T09:16:00.000-08:00

Here's a shot of Kaylee my model friend from Flagstaff. We're up halfway or so into South Mountain in Phoenix. This is my first attempt at using the Polaroid 55 in the field with the sodium sulfite solution. I've got a few kinks to work out.

First, I've got to remember to carry the plastic storage box with the sodium sulfite to the shooting site instead of leaving it in the car.

Second, I need some better storage for the SS. The cheap, plastic storage containers I bought at Walmart are...well...crap. They leak if the fluid sloshes. So now guess whose car smells distinctly of sodium sulfite?

I like this overall image of Kaylee. I'm ticked because I've got branches merging with her head. This is one of my pet peeves with my students and here I am shoving her right into the middle of some creosote bush.

The neg scanned very contrasty. The print, which I gave to Kaylee, was gorgeous. This negative is tough to scan and quite dirty. I think the dirt and some other aberrations are the result of me carrying that neg and print down to the car in my Cambo case; then immersing it into the SS.

I shot some TMAX 100 of her on this rock as well. I will process those and get back here with the results ASAP.

Finally....

2007-12-09T20:11:00.000-08:00

Whew! I finally got the camera out and clicked a shutter. The guys at Tempe Camera Repair were awesome...or maybe they just took pity on me. But they glued my bellows back on for free. So in exchange, I promptly went upstairs and spent $200 on a new loupe, some Polaroid 55, sodium sulfite and 4x5 plastic sleeves.

Here's the first 4x5 image from our home in Gilbert. These are our patio lights in an acacia tree in our back yard. This was shot at 1 sec at f/8-11 on the fresh Polaroid 55 pos/neg film. It appears a little underexposed. I probably exposed a little too much for the light bulb rather than the shadows.

This was also my first time clearing the film with an 18 percent sodium sulfite solution and rinsed with water followed by Photo Flow. I think I may need to add some Kodak hardener to this procedure. The negative seemed soft and fragile. It's got some water spots, but overall I'm pleased with this trial.

A bump in the road

2007-12-01T05:01:00.000-08:00

I finally found a window of opportunity to pull out the Cambo. We had a rare rain in the valley of the sun and the palms in my new backyard were holding some nice water droplets...and yes, it's a clichéd photo, but I'm still working out the kinks on the camera.

Well, I stretched the bellows to their max to get a closeup and pop! the bellows came unglued from the rear frame. My first instinct was to go get some gorilla glue and make the repair myself, but on further inspection, this may require some special clamps or equipment to get a light-tight seal.

So I'm taking this to Photomark or Tempe Camera to let the pros handle it.

In the meantime, I may shoot some more medium format stuff.

So please stand by.

Please Be Patient

2007-11-24T06:44:00.000-08:00

We have been in the process of moving from Yuma to Gilbert, a suburb of Phoenix.

I won't be able to post images for another week or so. Thanks for visiting and please come back soon to check out my adventures.

Carlos