California

I went to California recently to visit my sister and her family and also take one of my nephews (who belongs to another sister) down there to do the same.  I mostly spent time swimming and stuff with my nephews and a niece.  One day we all went to San Francisco, that's the only time I really took pictures.  We did all sorts of stuff but I am not about to post a billion pictures.  Here is a few:

 Look at that Golden Gate.

 Look at that Alcatraz.

 Look at those Full Houses.

 Look at that tasty In N Out.

 Look at those sad seals (sealions?)

 Look at that sad gull.

 Look at that sad doggy.

Look at these sad crabs.

In N Out Secret Menu

Enjoying a nice 'grilled cheese' with grilled onions and chopped chilis plus fries and a Seven Up (and post game neopolitan milkshake).

Adventures in Polaroid Land

Since picking up the camera again lately and re-immersing  in photography I have wanted to find a good film format to shoot in.  I have tried many different things since I first picked up a cheap camera over a decade ago.  35mm film of course, in all it's varieties (color, slide, black and white, cross processing, dark room developing, etc.), some medium format, various cameras (cheap point and shoots, SLR's, TLR's, rangefinders), SX-70 Polaroid, I even shot a box of 4x5 Fuji Astia once which is really pretty (too bad I sent my favorite shot into a a skateboard mag and never got it back).  Of course, I have shot with a digital SLR for about the past 5 years, first with a Pentax *ist DL which I really liked, and now I have a new Canon Rebel T3i.
You will hear people say this kind of stuff all the time so I hate to hash through it again, but film is just cooler than digital in many ways.  When it comes to many applications digital is just as great or identical (or better) in performance to film... for example I love digital for shooting skateboard photos.  It's also great for standard portraiture and all sorts of commercial applications, and anything you really want.  Fact is, as much as some people try and make it seem that way, there are no rules in photography besides physics.  So whatever you like is what's right.
That said, the fun thing about film is the unique interaction you get between your camera and film of choice.  There are so many options here.  We could make a big list of all sorts of photographic niches that people love.  One that I particularly like is 35mm cross processed slide film shot in a small compact camera.  This is popular among users of the Lomo LC-A, but there are so many cameras that you can get for cheap that are just as, if not more satisfying.  I used an Olympus XA a lot (I sold it though!).
Let me get to my point:  I have been wanting to find a fun format to mess with.  I think I'd really like to shoot black and white film and do the darkroom thing, but you need space and such for that.  Cross processing slide film is fun but it's sort of a hassle waiting while you mail it off to be developed.  I don't know what sparked it in my mind first, but I wanted to maybe shoot some large format film again... but this is sort of cost prohibitive.  Then I remembered the old Polaroid folding cameras you can find at thrift shops sometimes.  Most people are familiar with the Polaroid 600 series that spits out a roughly square picture on a white rectangle frame... everybody thinks you need to shake it to make it develop faster.  It's pop culture.  Polaroid discontinued this stuff a few years ago... but some people purchased old equipment and are making films for them again (it's called The Impossible Project).  I guess Polaroid also recently brought out a new camera system called the Polaroid 300, probably due to demand from people who missed the old stuff.  Fact is, the 300 series pictures are smaller (they look cute though) and are actually made by Fuji.  It's just rebranded as a Polaroid.
Anyways, in my thrifting adventures I found a Polaroid 360 Land camera, one of the better Polaroid folding cameras out there.  It came in a box with the original flash and charger for the flash.  I bought a battery for the camera, and the shutter worked.  I purchased new NiCad cells to refurbish the flash... the flash charged up and I mounted it to the camera.  Unfortunately, although the flash appears to cycle up all the juice it needs, it doesn't fire.  I have a feeling it's an issue with the camera not triggering rather than the flash itself. 
I wanted to get film for the camera, and since I didn't have the option of using the flash I chose Fuji FP-3000B which is a fast speed black and white film.  Only Fuji makes film for these cameras anymore, Polaroid also discontinued that as well!  Polaroid fails, Fuji wins.
I ordered four boxes of film, which is about $10 a box... you get 10 shots per pack so it's basically $1 a shot.  I thought I would be somewhat judicious and try and ration it, but one thing led to another and I ended up shooting it all in a day.  It's SO addictive.  The unique stuff about this film, compared to the 600 series integral film most people are familiar with, is that you have to manually pull it out of the camera, wait a short period of time, and then peel it apart.  One side is your print, and the other side is the negative, which you typically throw away (although people have found use for these negatives using various techniques).

Anyways, I will quit talking and show you all the decent photos I shot!

First shot test.  Some speakers* and a party sign.

(*I got four Realistic MC-1000 speakers a few weeks ago, another addition to my collection I have dubbed 'Speaker Town')

My dad.

And again.

Bike photos are cliche but this pack film turns anything into art, especially in black and white.

Cruise boat on the Columbia river.  When you pull the film you need to pull it with even pressure because it is popping open a small pouch of developing chemicals.  Obviously I didn't get an even pull so the developing was light and dark in spots.  The errors can be charming though.

Howling coyote ;)

What self respecting photographer who grew up in Richland, WA hasn't taken a photo or nine of this dumb old elephant slide at Howard Amon park.  Pretty cliche if you live here... but dang, it just looks so good shot on Polaroid pack film!

Joe setting up a board at Mosaik skate shop in Richland, WA.

That's supposed to be Keri but it's super back lit.

And this is the point it all went down hill... 'Hey let's take a photo of you ollieing my bike!'  I rode by the skatepark and saw Chris McFarland and Hermiston Joe and next thing you know I was on the skateboard photo train which is a real wormhole, especially when film of any kind is involved.

I think this one was a botched attempt but I can't remember... looks like he might be catching a kickflip but he was just trying to ollie it. (He did actually land it several times though)

The timing was difficult with the bike on flat ground so we moved it over to a bump to get some floatier shots so the timing for me would be easier.  I ended up taking several... none are quite perfect and they all have elements that I like...

I like this one a lot but I think I took it too early...

Pretty bad pull on this one, but the silhouette looks boss.

Chopped and it's got lens flare, but it looks cool.

Still a bit chopped and flared but this one is pretty great.  Which one is your favorite?

Hermiston Joe.

Frontside 5-0, sometimes the bad pulls look cool I think.

Chris McFarland

Lien to tail.

All together now!

Synchronized front bluntslides.

I still had one pack of film left at this point but couldn't let well enough alone, so I decided to do some self portraits.  The camera doesn't focus particularly close and doesn't have a built in self timer... that stick in the background is what I am about to use to hit the button at a distance.

I didn't mean to look so serious or mad, I was actually just trying to concentrate.  I like the background on this.  I also like that you can see that I am using the stick.

I seriously did try taking some shots where I was smiling a little but they looked all kinds of goofy so I did not scan them in.

This is the best one I think.

Painting. Finished.

Finals week.  Schools out, basically.  Math final tomorrow.  Then I am done.  Here are my finished pieces for my painting class.

Impasto.  It is kind of cool, but also kind of the opposite of cool.

My finished collage piece.  I went kind of loose and impasto on the tank.  I think that mostly worked well.  The lightning is easy.  The tree line looks pretty good.  Overall, it's sort of average.

Maybe soon I will be creating some art that I want to create, and it will be pretty awesome!  I have lots of ideas.

Riding Bikes!

Riding bikes is totally boss.  If you don't ride a bike at least some of the time you might not be very cool.  I went on a bike ride with my friend Jaime.  I took a photo of my handlebars on the way to his house.  I could probably turn this into a post card and sell 1000 of them.

We were riding on the bike path in Richland, which is totally boss.

Sometimes we took breaks though because breaks are boss.

The river is flooding, look how high it is!  It's eating up the dock!

The river is so high it was at the perfect height for this photo.  It looks like the little dude, who is not supposed to be swimming, is really swimming.  Normally this sign is like 6 feet out of the water.  So boss.

More Painting Progress and Graduation

My blended portrait is finished and I got it back from grading.  It came out pretty good.  Now what to do with it?  There is no real need for a painted portrait of myself to exist in this world.  I think art assignments are ridiculous.  I think I am going to paint on some Ray Bans now that it is all graded and I don't have to show it to the teacher.

For the final in painting class, we have to build and stretch our own canvas; 6 square feet of surface minimum.  This is my frame, which is 30" x 30".  Another thing I don't like about art classes is that they tell you what size you have to make things.  I don't like making big pieces of art!  I prefer a regular sheet of paper size.

As for subject matter, we are supposed to compose a coherent looking 'collage' of photos to paint from.  I didn't have much of an idea what to do, so my composition doesn't have very many elements to it (or at least it doesn't have as many as the instructor would have liked.)  Basically, I got the band the 5.6.7.8's jamming in a tank.  I through on the helmets of Boba Fett, Darth Vader, and a Storm Trooper on there and blasted some lightning in the background.  It works. 

 Here is how it is coming so far.  Not too bad but I still have to finish the tank and it is due next Wednesday!  Yikes.

When this is all done I will have completed my Associates degree!  No more silly community college for me.  Cool.  I will be transferring to Eastern Washington University next fall.  I will be studying to become a high school art teacher.  On one hand I want to say forget it and instead try to get a BFA because it might be easier and quicker, but what in the world would I do with a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts)?!

I like making art, and the one thing art classes are good for is making you make art.  The downside is, they tell you what to make.  It's incredibly stifling.  It inhibits my creativity.  I am not a genius, but I do have some natural talent I think, so it is frustrating that you have to make art inside the box they give you.  That's what is weird about art school.  For example, this fall at EWU I am supposed to take a sculpture class.  Since when do I do sculpture?  Of course, it is applicable to my degree though because I need to know this stuff if I am gonna be teaching the childrens some arts, but it isn't really my thing.  Who knows I may like it.  Anyways, I hope I can blaze through school, because I want to be able to create things I want to create, not fill some art professors* quota.

*Obviously, art professors are cool and just doing their job.

Also, congratulations to my niece Caitie who graduated high school!  Check out this almost pretty good photo I snagged at the graduation.  It might be kind of noisy and maybe even slightly blurry or soft because there wasn't that great of light and it all happened so fast and I even turned on my optical stabilizer on my lens.  It almost looks like I could have shot this for the newspaper, though!  Almost.

On Shooting Fashion

Sometimes I wonder what I should or should not blog about.  It's not like I need to share everything.  I do want to share my creative pursuits, but I don't want to be annoying with it. 

Anyways, awhile ago I opened an Etsy shop called Wheat Penny Vintage.  If you don't know what Etsy is, it is a website where people can set up shops to sell either handmade items, crafts, or vintage stuff.  My friends Jared and Anna do this, selling vintage clothing.  Naturally, that got me interested in doing the same.  It IS fun to go scouting around trying to score vintage clothes and other stuff to stock my shop with, but I have to say it takes a lot of time, sometimes!  So I don't know whether or not I will continue to do it.

I have sold a few things in my shop, but I have mostly just been photographing the items on hangars.  This is totally fine and works well, but I did want to try shooting my items on a model.  I actually have wanted to try shooting some fashion photos for a while.  I think there reason is, as I have actually heard from a few people, is that skateboarding photography and fashion photography have a lot in common.  I don't know whether or not that is true, but I can see the similarities.  While you may think of skateboarding as a sport, which it is more or less*, when it comes to shooting skate photos it really could be seen in more of a fashion or portraiture sense.  Whereas in a baseball or basketball game you are trying to candidly capture the crucial moment of a play, in skateboarding the skateboarder is really more or less modelling.  Instead of modelling clothes (although they may be a bit geared out anyways!) they are modelling a trick, usually at a very specific spot.  The photography sets up flash lighting and arranges careful composition.  It's much more delibrate than other sports photography which is probably a bit more off the cuff.

Anyways, I thought I would post a few shots from my first real attempt at shooting fashion.  In some of them I was going for more of a stark or deadpan sort of look.  Whether or not that was the right approach to shoot for I don't know.  Also, I spent quite awhile editing these photos, cloning out annoying stuff in the background or fixing contrast or whatever.  Tell me what you think!

I really like this one a lot.  I took this upstairs in the Uptown.  I spent a lot of time cloning out a really dirty door in the background because it was distracting.  (P.S.  The plaid wool skirt is going to be for sale in my shop!)

I like how 70's the hallway upstairs looked with the carpet and tacky plant.  We tried to shoot some jumping photos.  This one came out looking kind of like she is floating.

This one came out pretty good.  It looks a bit more 'fun' than the more straight faced photos I shot. 

 

 I spent a lot of time cloning the wall texture back in near the edges of the frame because the flash I used for the back-lighting on the models hair blew out the detail.  I really like the contrast in this one otherwise though!  (P.S.  This dress is already for sale in my shop!)

I kind of liked this one, I think I should have maybe had her go for a different expression though.  I think using the old film camera as a prop worked well with the outfit.  It's sort of safari-like.

(P.S.  The polo, which is brown in real life, is in my shop right now!  The jeans, which are awesome high-waist flares are also in my shop right now too.  I will possibly also be posting the camera with several lenses for sale in the near future as well!)

Let me know what you think of my photos!  I don't know if I want to try any fashion shoots again or not, but any constructive criticism could be helpful!

Also, definitely check out my Etsy, there is also lots of great mens clothes too.  I need to find a male model now.

*Some people don't like skateboarding to be considered a sport, but I think it is.  It's more like a martial art, or dancing, or yoga, though.