And NOW....

I've made it back to winter again.  Next year, the 'year in review' will go throughout the month of December and not the month of January. I'll have more sense.  January has been 'The month of the Camera", insofar as we in Ohio are concerned. Due to the generosity of 2 friends and Steph and I's industriousness, our camera collection has grown by 6 new cameras.  We added a Mamiya MSX 1000, an Olympus Om-1 and Om-2, a Mamiya 135 ee, and a Honeywell/Pentax Spotmatic.  All cameras are in functional shape and with a bit of TLC and lens cleaning, (fungus) they'll be back on-line.  Stephanie, too, has caught the 'film-bug' and has finally finished her first roll of film in several years.  Its always good to go back to analog products and do what first sparked your interest in any given craft or art.  Also, due to my friend Derek, I've developed my first roll of 'found film'.  Derek sent me a roll of kodacolor II film from 1974-1981 (approx) and I developed it in acufine developer.  It took a week's research to determine what times and temperatures to use, and I did find several individuals that helped along the way.  The film was 127 type, which is 43mm wide and contains 16 exposures. Kind of an 'in-between' film for 135 and 120, now discontinued utterly.  There were 2 exposures that had been saved on the roll, all the rest were solarized completely due to someone opening the back of the camera after the film had been exposed.

Here is the result of my research. I developed for 8 min @ 22c in acufine developer.

I would encourage anyone who reads this to send along any 'found films' that they might have lying about, and i'll see what can be done with them.  You can always reach me at josephdecker0@gmail.com if you'd like to send along some film, or have an orphan camera that needs a home.  Broken is best!  It gives me an opportunity to learn something. :)  Thanks for all the views and the lessons last year, I hope this year is just as good!

Blast from the past, Agfa 400 Expired 1986

To be honest, I really wanted to load these up one at a time, and write poems for each of them.  They are good memories, and strong emotional images for me.  I may do so, at some later date.  This Agfapan film I picked up at Loomis Camera, a great place.  The owner often sells highly expired films, and always comments that "the dust is free".  There are many wonderful items there, enlargers, ancient cameras, accessories and lenses....but, I digress.  This film is 400ISO shot at 1600EI, developed in Tmax developer.  It did expire in 1986, and in retrospect, I should have shot it at box speed, and not pushed it at all...Live and Learn.  The tones it produced at a 2 stop push were pretty nice, by my standards, and even though there is some 'underdevelopment' going on, or 'underexposure', none of the highlights are blocked up and there is still a pretty wide range of tonality, even if I sacrificed some sharpness.  I'll never complain about expired film again after this.  I'll just assume I screwed up somewhere and try to figure out where. :) 

Attack of the Mantis Machines

Marching in waves
across every barren space

They are coming.

RAAAR!

Sometimes there is glory in the simple child-mind

Imagination Rampant

The clouds are coming to get us!
The tyrannosaur has returned!

Stretch, Blocked, Flowering

The First Sun in Forever

"my family", The Road, And 'take it...'

1. & 2. The Working Man (before) and (after) 3. Child caught in the act of dishes.

More of the same roll.

Experiments in Color Film

Here are some of the results from my first development experiment in color film. I took regular old Kodak Ultramax 800 @ 3200 and developed in regular dilution Acufine. I poured in enough developer @ 22c to get about half of the film covered and then let it stand for 2 min. I added some 18c water and agitated lightly for 30 sec, then let stand for 2min. I dumped the solution, added more regular developer and agitated once every 2 min for another 8 min. I then stopped for 1 min and fixed for 12 minutes agitating gently and regularly. What I got wasn't at all typical, most of the posts I read on-line specified that it would be a waste of time, that there would be 'zero contrast' and it was impossible to print or scan negatives through the orange mask on the color film. I am pretty happy with the craziness that ensued.