Today I shot half a pack of 665. I’ve been very slowly documenting (using that word makes me cringe a little… but what else am I doing? collecting? classifying?) my neighborhood.
The negatives in the bathroom mean that there are no showers to be had for at least 5 hours.
John (who also blogged about this topic today) just brought this to my attention:
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus starring Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr.
After watching the trailer, I’m a little shocked; in a way, this movie looks like every movie Nicole Kidman has ever been in (or maybe I’m just not a fan, and can’t see past her expressionless expression) and also, this movie looks so… anti-Arbus. I’m not sure that I’m qualified here - I’m certainly no Arbus scholar - but this glorifying, romanticising and setting to music Arbus’s seemingly tormented life seems like a terrible idea.
Plus, it’s in color?! Are they going to show her killing herself?
I will probably see this movie anyway, and watch it the same way I’m tolerating the car alarm that’s been going off outside for the last hour.
You reach for a bag of Uncle Jesse’s Nuts, of course!
In order to make up for some days off (Labor Day and then Thanksgiving break), Pratt Institute had no class on Tuesday, October 24th. Starting Monday night, I thought I’d celebrate.
I began by accidentally staying up too late watching the first season of Lost (which has a surprisingly annoying website). Yes, I am very late to this trend, but I haven’t had cable television in years and watching these types of shows through static is just worthless. Anyway, one of Tessa’s friends lent us the first season on DVD and I had been doing very well at limiting myself to 2 episodes per night. Until Monday. By the time I was finished with disc 3 it was almost 2:00 am, and I needed to get up early to get film to the lab in Manhattan. So, I decided to do what any rational, clear-headed person would do: watch all of the rest of the epsiodes and just stay up until morning.
Perfect!
By 7:30 am, I was finished with disc 6 and totally ready to get on the rush hour A train! Actually, I felt like my eyes had been hit with a hammer and I was barely able to stand up on the train into the city.
However, I made it to the lab (as it turns out, great service, horrible roller marks on my film) on time and decided to walk up to B&H via Chelsea.
I found a dollar on the ground in one of the fanciest neighborhoods in NY (and checked it first to make sure it wasn’t a poo dollar) and was very excited that I got it before some rich bastard’s little kid got it. And then B&H relieved me of that dollar (and many, many others) when I bought some more 665 film (Bradley: they seem to have tons of it) and some assorted photographic supplies.
I looked at light meters, and decided that I will probably buy the Sekonic Flash Master L-358. I didn’t actually need to look at it at B&H as I’m currently using one checked out from school, but I felt like I needed to engage the guy behind the counter before just asking how much it was. There is some strange process I have to go through in order to get a student discount, and I needed that information from him too. (Sekonic’s slogan is: Now more than ever. Is that not the absolute best freaking slogan?)
After B&H, I walked back down to the lab, which is on 4th and Broadway, and passed a bunch of trailers on west 12th street - the kind that are all over Manhattan, parked on the side of streets. They are trailers for movie and television stars (they even have names taped on the doors, but they’re usually fake-sounding, like “George” or “Lucille” and “Desi”). A block later some guy dressed up as a doctor walked past me, surrounded by women. His lab coat looked fake, with some patch on the shoulder, and he was vaguely handsome. I figured he was probably some soap opera star, and thought to myself: what a dick. He’s walking down 12th street in Manhattan, surrounded by women, and he’s so wrapped up in himself that he probably actually thinks he is a doctor.
And then I crossed the street and walked right past St. Vincent’s hospital. There were a lot more people walking outside the building, all with the same lab coat with patch, all vaguely handsome, all real doctors.
Man, I’m a jerk.
I guess that’s what happens when you stay up all night.
By 4:00 pm, I was passed out on the couch.
Get up late. Or, later than usual.
Last night was open studios at Pratt, which meant all the graduate students stood around their studios (or in the photographers’ cases, stood around a table in the middle of a room filled with photographs on the walls) and watched people (other students, professors and the general public) stroll through the rooms. It’s always depressing/telling to watch people look at photographs; they are usually only on their way to the other studios - painting, printmaking, sculpture (a lot of people came into the room I was in just to ask where the other studios were), and people have been trained to look at photographs (but probably all art) very quickly. I guess that’s what we get for choosing to study an art form that everyone has their hand in. I think that there’s a lot of the “even I can do that” attitude when it comes to looking at photographs. And even though that shouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, I think that people seem to think that if even they can do something (and they don’t happen to be a master-craftsperson-artist-type) then anyone else doing that same thing is obviously not worth looking at.
Ah - the insecurities of being a photographer. Sometimes I wish I truly believed I was simply better than everyone else. Albeit kind of embarassing, arrogance can be powerful and hard to ignore. Of course, I’m not totally serious; arrogance is also insulting and ignorant, but still…
Anyway, I got up late because I went to a party last night after the open studios thing. It was a photo graduate student party (my first ever) and it was interesting. I really like a lot of the students in the program here at Pratt. However, there is also a fair amount of bullying and gossip (just like everywhere, all the time). That part makes me increasingly uncomfortable. To be honest, I do my share of complaining and gossiping too (probably more than my share), but I’ve been hyper-aware of it lately, for some reason, and am not ready to burn bridges I haven’t even built yet.
I’m afraid that people are talking behind my back too.
And at the same time, I’m afraid that I’m not even provocative enough to spark that talk behind my back.
But I digress, really. I’m watching the Huskers lose to the Longhorns right now, and I’m actually disappointed. When I go back to Nebraska for the holiday break, I’m buying a Huskers shirt.
I can’t believe I just said that.
To counter that spurt of manliness (ewwww! gross!): I just went into the other room to bother Tessa during halftime, and she was on the People magazine website (no, I don’t know why; I think it has something to do with putting off reading law school stuff). We found a John Stamos video pop quiz and I correctly answered 7 out of 7 questions. Seriously. John and I have, like, this totally cosmic connection. Or something. I’m not sure if I should be proud or ashamed.
Oh, wait; there it is: definitely ashamed.
I bought a Fuji GW690III from Christian the other day (thanks Christian!). It looks like a toy because it’s freaking giant! Relative to that Half Quart of Country Club Malt Liquor® and my tiny Bessa-R, the Fuji looks like a freaking dump truck. I’ve not processed any film from it yet, but I’m anxious to do so. This is a camera without a light meter, which is going to slow me down quite a bit, but the Polaroid has got me conditioned for that anyway.
In order to more closely understand the difference in scale, I conducted further experimentation:
Here is my Bessa-R, which fits really nicely in my hand. In fact, this is probably my most comfortable camera. It’s light enough to hold with two fingers, and the shutter has a very comforting quiet-ish sound. And I love the 35mm pancake lens. It’s not the sharpest (in fact, not really that sharp at all) but there is something about what it does with film that I’m very happy about.
And then the new Fuji, with all of its hugeness. My weak little fingers look like they’re barely holding onto this beast. This camera will probably require a tripod half the time I’m shooting. I’ve been told that this is the “Texas Leica,” yet not much more than a really nice lens with a crappy body attached (that doesn’t sound like a Leica at all…). The body certainly isn’t anything to get excited about (except for the built-in level, which is kind of nice, I guess) but I’ve heard good things about that 90mm lens.
No better way to finish a scale-comparison than with a nice pint of your favorite malt beverage. Mine is still Country Club Malt Liquor®, America’s Premium Malt Liquor (especially Brooklyn’s). I have determined (from extended research) that the three X’s on the can stand for excellence, exuberance and attitude.
So, John has shown us what SX-70 cameras can do and he has made some beautiful photographs. Bradley has asked “Which would you like better. SX 70 or the 180?” and I’ve got to hold up my end: while the SX-70 is a totally sweet camera, it’s got nothing on my 180. Here are two images made from 665 film (scanned on a Hasselblad [same as an Imacon] Flextight):
and a couple of details:
While I still need to work on my actual photographic skills, the camera is superb. The film is a bit touchy (really hard to keep water spots off of a huge negative drip-drying over my bathtub without any photoflo) but because I’m scanning, I can fix most things in Photoshop before I print them. I made my scans @ 19 x 25″ and printed them on an Epson 9600 Quadtone on enhanced matte archival paper (total size 24 x 30″). They do not look like exactly like “real” prints - the blacks, especially on matte paper, look a little more like ink than silver, but the finished product is still very nice. The prints almost look like lithographs - like very fancy book-appropriate reproductions of photographs.
Shooting with the 180 is very slow - and if you’re not lugging around a container to keep your negatives wet (I’ve heard of people using ziplock bags filled with water-soaked paper towels… I’ve not tried that yet), you’ve got to be really close to your negative-clearing area or you can only take one negative and just keep it in the camera until you get to your negative-clearing area. Most of my images so far are shot on the roof or down the street, but I’m itching to get out a little further. I’m thinking of investing in a clearing tank for “field work” (I hate that phrase).
All in all, the SX-70 and the 180 aren’t comparable at all - totally different means and ends. I would recommend having both, of course - but if you had to choose it would be based on what you’re looking for: do you want a beautiful, unique “polaroid”-sized Polaroid, or do you want a 3 x 4″ postive (and/or negative)? Either way, you’re going to have to spend some money on the camera and the film (the 180 will be a bit more expensive). But it’s totally worth it! I’m getting huge negatives with my 180 (with a pretty good lens) for a fraction of the cost of a view camera.
The spam I’ve been getting lately has been awfully poetic - until I saw this one - which just painted the worst picture in my mind.
A couple of days ago, as I was looking for ways to put off doing my real work, I dug through one of my camera boxes. When I moved to NYC in August, I got rid of most of my cameras - the buildup of a quasi-collector (however, nothing like John’s collection) - and only took those that were the most precious to me.
I’ve been so single-minded the last two months - shooting almost exlusively digital with a Nikon S1 and a D70 - I feel as if I’m missing some “camera soul.” So, I got out my Polaroid 180 that Tessa got me a few years ago. It’s one of my favorite cameras ever - I shot with a ProPack camera for a number of years, but that camera is all plastic - including the lens - and the quality is always a little rough. The 180 is a rangefinder with a glass lens (Tominon 114mm) that produces very sharp images. I bought a couple of packs of 665 (positive/negative black and white film) and started messing around.
It feels really good to make such unpredictable images. Even with all the control the 180 gives the photographer, there is still some magic involved during the process. However, the 665 film doesn’t really lend itself to walking around and making images - the negative needs to be cleared (but not in a sodium sulfite solution like Polaroid says; water alone will clear the negative just fine) and carefully hung to dry, as the emulsion is very, very soft.
I got up on the roof last night, and made some exposures. After a little testing (actually a lot of testing) I found an exposure that seemed to work (665 is ISO 80, @ f11 for 10 minutes), but I ran out of film while testing. Once I get more film, I’m going to try some portraiture. The 3 x 4″ negatives will make for some huge scans; I should be able to get good inkjet prints out of these things.
