Trump Terrorizes Title Town

Yesterday, Donald Trump made an appearance here in Valdosta for a rally event before Super Tuesday.

I went as a citizen journalist equipped with a couple of cameras. Unfortunately, I was denied access to the event because my cameras were "too big." I had no real interest in the event, but I wanted to document it. It was a private event and they have every right to do it, but as I told the rude campaign staffer, instead of documenting Trump, I would be documenting the protests and behind-the-scenes action outside.

Here are some of my results. Commentary to follow.

Being outside, I was able to see what the real story was. Trump touted that there was over 10,000 people outside who couldn't get in. That was not true at all. When the doors closed and no one else was let through, the number outside was roughly 1,000, maybe 1,500 tops. About half immediately turned around and left. This comes as no surprise as when I was walking around I saw many people who were simply there to see the spectacle, not actually support Trump. There was of course a large contingent of supporters there, most of whom got in early.

The protesters at their designated spot had many signs and cheered as people honked going by. It's too bad they were not seen by more people waiting to get in. Some people discussed ideology and recent events. As I mentioned to one protester, a dialogue is more important than epithets.

Many people are talking about the group of students led out of the rally before it started. I saw these students in line. They were all dressed in black and in my opinion were certainly there to make a statement. Unfortunately it was a private event and they can eject anyone they want, or not let them in, like me!

Much of the town just stayed away and wanted nothing to do with the event or the traffic snarl. Classes were even cancelled for some students. This event disrupted the entire city!

I am very curious to see how Super Tuesday goes. More photos to come later.

EDIT: I was going to do another post with more photos but I decided to add the last few here:

As an aside, these images were taken with either my Linhof MT and 150mm f/2.8 Xenotar or Pentax 67II and 55-100mm f/4.5 lens. 4x5 images were either HP5+ dev'd in Acufine or Portra 400, while 6x7 images were Tri-X dev'd in SPUR HRX or Fuji NPH-400.

Supposedly Winter?

For the past couple of weeks, Valdosta has been unusually temperate, in the 70s and 80s. Where is Winter? Perhaps we will get a cold snap for Christmas.

I spent an enjoyable afternoon at Grand Bay the other day in the warmish weather. I shot some T-Max 100 and Portra 160 VC 4x5 film I've been meaning to finish up (in my Grafmatic holders), as well as finishing a roll of Delta 100 in my 6x12 back. Here's a few b&w shots from the day:

Here are the color shots:

You'll notice some of these are a bit different than my usual style. Some have pretty short depth of field. I was just experimenting. This day I was shooting with my 75mm f/4.5 Biogon, 150mm f/2.8 Xenotar, and 21cm f/4.5 APO Lanthar lenses - some of my favorite glass.

Okay a few more photos - they harvested the cotton just recently but about a week before this I shot just a few photos of the cotton fields. I was experimenting with a new lens I bought, a Cinephor projection petzval that's around 120mm and f/2.8. This creates quite a striking image. Here are the b&w and color images I took with it of some cotton:

Wondering what it would look like normally? Well I also was testing out an old Rolleicord camera this day so I shot a frame with its 7.5cm f/4.5 Triotar lens at about f/13 and the minimum focus distance:

I really liked how the Triotar performed, by the way. This camera is now on its way to get a CLA.

Japanese Magnolias, February 2015

Our Japanese Magnolia tree (Magnolia liliiflora) finally bloomed, so late yesterday I grabbed a couple of photos. I might do some color tomorrow.

Here's a few shots, taken with my Linhof Tech IV and 150mm f/2.8 Schneider Xenotar, at or near wide-open, on old and expired Tri-X 320 and developed in Rodinal 1:50 for 14 minutes at 68F:

VSU Blazin' Brigade Pre-Game - September 2014

A couple of weekends ago, I went to the football pre-game show with the marching band and shot a variety of images. I used my two Linhof Technika cameras with a 150mm f/2.8 Xenotar and 250mm f/5.6 Sonnar lenses. I mostly shot T-Max 100 and a couple sheets of Portra 160VC.

I also tested a new developer with the T-Max 100 sheets, a lesser-known one called FX-39. I am quite amazed at the tonality with it. It's designed specifically for T-grain films and I really liked it!

Here's the images:

Fire, Motorcycles, and Whiskey - The Results

As I mentioned in the last post, Friday night the Adv. Lighting class as well as their professor and I had a little photoshoot / get-together.

I brought a few cameras and tried to snap a few photos here or there. I wasn't the one directing the shoot so I tried to stay out of the way.

The first, and best, photo I took was with my Linhof Master Technika, 150mm f/2.8 Schneider Xenotar, and Fuji T64 film. I used the rangefinder to focus, because seeing anything out there on the ground glass would've been impossible. This is the image straight off the film, with no color tweaks. The fire is a tad yellow and the model a tad blue, due to the color temperature of the film, fire, and flash interacting. I somewhat guessed my exposure at f/8.

After some slight color tweaks/masks this is the image I am going to print:

I also shot one frame of Velvia 50. Sadly this one didn't work out as well. The fire kind of petered out and so we just winged it and the chrome ended up very underexposed and without the sweeping fire effect. It's interesting in its own way I suppose. I decided at this point not to waste anymore precious 4x5 chromes due to the totally unknown results, so I'm glad that first T64 sheet came out so well!

Next I pulled out my Pentax 67 and loaded up some really old Kodak EPT. I was given 5 rolls of this stuff randomly and have been using it occasionally for shooting tungsten chromes on medium format. It's really old and has shifted kind of blue, and has some base fog, but it's fine when scanning.

I shot a few images with it and either my 105mm f/2.4 or 35mm f/4.5 fisheye. First the 105mm:

And here's the one image from the 35mm. I screwed up the composition as I couldn't see anything going on due to how dark it was. Also, I think I mis-focused it. Or the Pentax 67 fisheye is just a dog of a lens...actually I think it's both. Anyway:

Finally, I also had my Nikon F4 loaded up with some Kodak T-Max P3200 and a 50mm f/1.2 AIS. This film was way expired and had clearly lost a lot of sensitivity, as well as had some base fog, but I still got a few usable images. These were all just for fun and handheld, wide-open, at usually 1/15 or so: