Kaylee at South Mountain

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....

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

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

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

Cactus that I kind of like

This cactus closeup is probably one of the first images I really like out of my 4x5. It's still a little clichéd but I enjoy the overall effect. I developed this one in a tray with four other images.

I don't think I like the tray processing much. The negs seemed a little thin and there was definitely some minor scratching on the emulsion. Granted I could have increased development time to compensate for not using the drum, but I'm also too careless and anxious in the dark.

The drum seems to give me more consistent results, but I can only process two images at a time.

Just happy to waste film

Sometimes I try to use this 4x5 like I would a 35mm in that I rush to load, set up and shoot fast and with little of the forethought and planning that most large-format shooters so diligently adhere.

One of the things that keeps pegging me as the 4x5 rookie is that twice now I've burnt an open packet of unexposed sheet film. Twice I was in a hurry to load some sheets and get out the door to catch a shot when I forgot to return the foil packets to their box. Of course, I clicked on the lights to see the tell-tale purple edge and notched corner poking out of the pouches before quickly slamming off the lights.

I've been able to salvage a lot of that film. Most of the inside sheets only get an edge fog near the top. But some have a pretty severe 1/4-inch to half-inch burn.

Anybody got suggestions other than just altering my hard wiring?

Not-so-happy accident

Here's an uintentional multiple exposure. I somehow failed to adhere to the common system of using the brail-like ridges on the film holder dark slides to indicate which plates are exposed/unexposed.

So this is a photo from Castle Dome mixed with a detail of a fan palm frond. The odd thing is that the palm shot is a rare horizontal. But you can barely see it because so much of it was in shadow. It had few highlights and you can see them faintly penetrating the Castle Dome shot.

More Polaroid

So I'm really starting to believe Polly Chandler is right on target with her Polaroid advice. I'm really digging this film. I'm still using this old stuff that Jason gave me, but I really like using this pos/neg film. I'm kind of anxious to get to the Phoenix area so I can get some sodium sulfite (sulfate) and a proper container for the negatives--although, I do so enjoy my early morning coffee, NPR processing sessions with the Kodak TMax 100.

This is a cactus in our front yard, shot at f/11-16 @ 1/2 sec. I lost the light I really wanted as the sun dipped behind a cloud just before I shot the frame. I could have waited for the sun to come back, but it was already close to the horizon, so I shot this with flat light just because I had everything set up and ready to go.

This is harder than I expected

Shooting full-frame is tough. I would love to show you this negative in it's full version, but it's almost embarrassing.

Lots of things happened with this cemetary shot. I had hoped to shoot a full moon photo. I drove around the day before and noted the location of the near-full moon at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday and thought it would be in the perfect spot around 5 on Wednesday-the day of the full moon.

So on Wednesday I hustle to the cemetary to do my feaux "Moonrise Over Hernandez" interpretation and there's no moon in sight! It's not even above the horizon line. I can't believe the earth's axis changed that much in one day as to totally obscure the moon from one day to the next in a half-hour's time!

So now I'm flustered and can't wait for the moon because I've got to go get Allie from day care. So I collect myself and try to shoot a standard cemetary shot. But it's hard and I don't want to use a name on a grave marker, so I really struggled with finding a good composition in a short time. The light on the cemetary was still too hot and not what I really wanted on this shot.

I've done a quick job of burning and dodging to make this somewhat effective, but I'm going to need a lot more practice.

4x5 of KOFA Mountains

I'm never really sure what I'm looking at, but this was taken within hiking distance of Castle Dome mountain just north of the Castle Dome Mining Museum. This is an early morning view facing north of what I suspect is the KOFA National Wildlife Refuge or part of Yuma Proving Ground.

This was a pretty treacherous outing for the Cambo 4 x 5. We were positioned on a small hill. Ron was bouncing about with his Nikon D100 merrily popping off images as the sun rose. I was precariously perched on the side of the hill with the tripod legs carefully balanced mostly on loose shale or slate. I was fumbling with the dark cloth, Polaroid back, film holders, etc. as the sun rose over Castle Dome mountain.

I've got a lot to learn about landscape photography with large format.

One More from Castle Dome Mining

More medium format from Castle Dome Mining