Christmas 2014, Part One - Chalmette and Cochon

For Christmas, Meagan and I stayed in New Orleans for 3 days. Last year we went for a day and were overwhelmed with all the stuff to do, and barely scratched the surface. This time we did better, but there is certainly more we haven't done!

So the first day, we got up at 3am and drove all morning to get into the NOLA area early, around 10am. The first thing we did was go to the Chalemette Battlefield and graveyard outside of New Orleans, which was a beautiful place:

 

   

 

Having stretched our legs we made our way into New Orleans and ate lunch at Cochon Butcher. This place was rumored to have excellent muffalettas - and it did! Here's some photos:

 

We had some time to kill so we wandered a bit in the French Quarter and along the river:

 

 
Of course there were numerous artists and performers around Jackson Square:

That's it for today, more photos soon. All of the above were taken with my Nikon F or F2 with lenses including my 20mm f/4 AI, 3.5cm f/2.8 pre-AI, and 5cm f/2 pre-AI, on T-Max 100 and Provia 100F.

Lightweight 4x5 kit

A few weeks ago I was describing how I would shoot 4x5 if given the limitation of making the kit as small and light as possible. I said I would use these items:

Chamonix 45n1 (2.7 pounds)
65mm f/8 Schneider Super-Angulon (0.6 pounds)
90mm f/6.8 Schneider Angulon (0.3 pounds)
150mm f/9 Schneider G-Claron (0.3 pounds)
Ultra-light carbon fiber tripod and small head (3 pounds)

Total weight: just shy of 7 pounds. But you'll need film holders. How many depends on what/how you shoot. But total you should be about 10-12 pounds total for a full kit with three lenses!!

I actually own all these lenses. So I went and tested this myself. It was a joy to carry such a small and lightweight kit. I ended up trading the 150mm G-Claron for a 135mm f/3.8 Xenar I wanted to try, but other than that I carried only the above, with 6 DDS holders and some extra Readyload color film.

I hiked for a few hours and made some nice photos. I occasionally missed having my nicer lenses but not much. The older lenses definitely were a little different than nice new modern lenses. The 90mm Angulon has a bit of spherical aberrations even stopped down but it makes the image have a subtle, but nice glow. The 65mm was hard to focus and the corners were certainly lacking. That 135mm Xenar ended up being not a very good lens. But otherwise, the lenses looked great. Really the only negative was some inconsistent shutter speeds. Most of these lenses have shutters that are 2-3 times older than I am so that's understandable. I can work around it (long exposures, or listening to the shutter speed and guessing roughly what speed it is shooting at and correcting the aperture accordingly).

I shot some T-Max 100 for black and white, and then either some old Kodak EPP in Readyload envelopes or Fuji T64II film with an 85B filter. Just wanted to see if the colors looked okay with some tweaking, using tungsten film with a corrective filter (they did).

Here's the images:

 

So there you have it. Some perfectly acceptable lenses for ultra-light-weight hiking. I even used some slight movements on some images (tilt) so they have plenty of coverage even. Most of these images were taken with the 90mm Angulon (I love the 90mm focal length).

Will I be selling my Nikon 90mm f/8? Heck no, but if I go on a trip and can't pack that kind of weight, I know that I'll be just fine with the Angulon, and other small lenses like that.

New Year's Eve 2014 Fireworks

We spent a couple hours at a friend's house and saw some fireworks on New Year's Eve.

I brought my Linhof MT and 75mm Biogon to try some photos. I was experimenting with de-focusing the image when (some) of the fireworks went off but it didn't really work. I think because I defocused it too much. I'll have to try again next time.

Here's the photos though, on Kodak Portra 160VC:

I also took this funny picture with my Leica M9 and 12mm Voigtlander Heliar, only a foot away from some bottle rockets:

Reflecting on 2014

I still can't believe that 2014 is finishing up.

I'm going to take a second to reflect on this year and my accomplishments, as well as goals for the future.

My biggest accomplishment this year was the show at Turner Art Center - Strickland Mill: A Retrospective. Sally and I made it and had a great opening. I am very happy with the work, the turnout, and everything about this photographic endeavor.

Next, this year was a great year at work. I got a nice raise, taught my first college course, and really feel I made a difference at VSU through my efforts.

Speaking of work, this year has also been a great year for my business ventures. A lot of new clients have come to me for audio, video, or photographic projects, especially at the end of this year. I continue to grow my freelance business and expand into new territories.

Finally, this was a year of learning. I made great strides learning and improving my craft in all areas. Photographically, I have learned a lot about developing with new and exciting developers as well as color films (negative and positive). I also have really improved my knowledge and workflow with regard to video projects. My latest DVD project looks much better than previous work.

Moving forward, I have some goals in mind, not all of which I will be sharing. However, my biggest goal is simply to keep learning and building on my accomplishments and knowledge base. For every new technique or method I learn in any area, another opportunity to learn arises.

Since this is a photo blog, I wanted to finish this year with a special picture I took last week on Christmas. This is a family photo of most of my relatives on my mom's side. Taken with my Linhof Technika, 15cm f/4.5 Voigtlander APO Lanthar, on Fuji 160S film:

I hope anyone reading this has also had a wonderful 2014, and good luck in the coming year...

Merry Christmas!!

A week late, but I am posting a Christmas post today since I was out on vacation for about a week around the 25th. Meagan and I went to New Orleans for 3 days and then Biloxi, MS for another couple of days. The NO trip was our Christmas present to ourselves.

I took lots of cameras but mostly shot my Nikon F2 with a new spiffy battery pack and my Pentax 67 with a few different lenses.

To go with the Christmas theme though, here's one of the first images I scanned tonight. I just developed 5 rolls this evening of Portra 400 and 160. This was from the Celebration in the Oaks, a New Orleans tradition in City Park. For the "Cajun Christmas" they had Christmas lights showcasing alligators pulling Santa's sleigh:

I've got a ton of scanning to do and more rolls to develop, but I'll be posting all of that next year. See you then!