Stay on the trail

Stay on the trail.
A buzzing insect visits me in the shower, crawling up the pipe to the shower head. I slay it viciously with hot water and watch it swirl away.  It does not understand my politics, and I have no patience for it.

I am america, both in my balance and my sum.
Dancing the daughters of flimsy men away as the sun shines down on defeated ideals that were only golden in the mouths of politicians anyway.

A slain insect, an aborted movement, an encouraged trend.
Each second, brings less human recognition than before, the methylated masses search for every sign in the old ways
and disbelieve the new.

The fly on the wall did not comprehend,
and I didn't either,
until now.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park on Ektachrome 100S

In the late fall, I had the opportunity to take a few days off here and there and run around the Cuyahoga National Park with Steph while she was working. We visited Blue Hen Falls, Brecksville Station, and other awesome sites up and down the Towpath trail and Riverside Drive.
This Ektachrome 100s is probably about 10-12 years expired, and didn't have much in the way of magenta shift or anything else...just good chrome color.

Fujichrome Astia 100

I recently shot up some Astia 100 expired film that I've had laying around for about 2 years. Its about 4-7 years expired, based on the rest of the lot that I purchased and I've shot a bit of it before (at night) that I was somewhat pleased with. This, however, took me aback. I sent the roll to Dodd Camera in Cleveland to develop, and it came back beautiful. I think this is the best color that I've seen from chrome film thus far, my crappy developing aside.

The Fisherman (Agfa Isolette Test)

Due to the great weather we've been having lately, Steph and I headed out this weekend to take some photos of what we could find.  We ran down to rocky river and shot the bridges and persons that we could find. I have recently received a gift of several awesome old cameras from a friend of mine, so I took one of the brutes down to the river with me, an Agfa Isolette, loaded with expired Agfa APX 100 film in 120.  

The camera is nice, the bellows are in good shape and the aperture/shutter is pretty snappy.  On many of the shots, I was much too close to the subject, resulting in blurred nothing, but I did get two nice photos. One, of a fisherman that we'll call "Jim". I later got a chance to take a photo of him with his personal camera holding a 30" Trout that he'd just pulled out of the river.

Strangely, this is the only shot with any apparent light leak on the whole roll...I'm wondering if maybe it's just a flare on the glass...

Sunshine in a Bottle

Here, I'll tell you a secret,

There is no sunshine in a bottle, 

but 

the dim rooms of winter can often allow you 

to bend the rules a bit. 

Those dawns are hard to forget, too,

the sun streaking in, 

last nights cigarette still clinging to your throat and lungs,

starting the day with a cough that ends in a retch.

I wish I had a better tale for Christmas, 

but here it is. 

Look elsewhere.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Cuyahoga Valley National park is one of the only reasons that I stay in Ohio. Aside from the metro parks there is not much nature to see, other than driving through endless farmland, which, on the interstate, is more boring than suicide. So, there's some great parks to get into in Ohio, if you're willing to close in on the cities to get it done. 

The black and white in this set represents kodak plus-x in wd2d for 6 min, and then we have some expired velvia 50 for fun. 

Sand Run Metro Park

Sand Run was a good experience. Located near Akron, Ohio, it is located around a large reservoir, and filled with stately trees and streams. Here is a sample of what I found, shot on some 10 year old velvia 50. I really like this film. It scans well, and the expiration adds some interesting character to the shots, I think.