Moving Back to Flickr

I know a while back I said I was moving away from Flickr because of all of the changes they were making to their user interface, and I was having some real problems getting links and such. So I went over and used Ipernity for a while. I never joined the "Club", so I had limitations on my account and had to find work-arounds for some things like direct links to photos. It wasn't long before I started creeping up on the 200 image limit and when I saw the end in sight, I needed to make a decision. Either join the "Club" or go back to the less limiting free Flickr account. So after weighing the cost/benefit I decided to return to Flickr, get used to the problematic user interface and get on with sharing photos. It turns out that some of the bugs I was experiencing before had been fixed, so that's nice. I will leave the photos I uploaded to Ipernity over there since I don't want to go figure out where all the links are and change them.

Since I don't like posting without having a photo to show, I will just put this up for your enjoyment. :)

Taken with my Yashica Mat 124 on Kodak Portra 160

Pushing Through XIII

Here is another in my series where I am capturing plants that are defying man's attempts to control them. You can see the rest of the series HERE.

This shot was taken in the waning light of late twilight. You can see the sodium lamps in the distance. The sky looks brighter than it was because I made a 5sec exposure on Portra 160 film. It was even too dark to get the focus right. You can see that it is about a foot or so in front of the particular bushy plant that I was 'aiming' at. This plant is growing up between the ties of an abandoned railroad track. The trees overhead are dropping debris on the rails as well. If this keeps up for another 10 or 20 years, the tracks will be lost to the mini urban jungle that is growing up around them.

B-W Color Film

What is that supposed to mean? Film is either b/w or it is color, right? Well, yes and no. We normally think of film this way, but there are cases where color film is developed in such a way that renders greyscale negatives and there are cases where film is "color" emulsion, but the only color used is black. Let me explain a little. All films use silver to make blacks and greys. This is how we normally think of b/w film. You expose it to light, the silver salts are reduced to varying degrees according to how many photons hit the crystals, the developer then converts those reduced salts to elemental silver which looks black. Ba-da-bing an image is seen in negative. Color film does the very same thing, only it adds layers of color dyes that are developed in similar ways. However, if you don't use the right chemicals to develop the dyes... if you use say Rodinal, you just get a plain old b/w photo. The silver is still developed as normal, but the dyes all wash away, undeveloped. This is the unfortunate fate of anyone still holding on to rolls of Kodachrome. That process is dead and no one is bringing it back. The chemicals and machinery that developed that very special film are gone. So if you have any, it is going to have to be developed as b/w. Sorry Paul Simon.

The other case I mentioned is with what is called "chromogenic" films. These are films that came out in the 80's to take advantage of the explosion in popularity of color negative films. Small labs found it more economical to harmonize on one process and develop everything with it. That is why in the 80's and 90's it got hard to find a lab that would develop straight b/w film in-house. Most small labs would mail it off to Kodak or Ilford or one of the big vendors that was still offering the process. Chromogenic films use black dyes to create the image. The process is just like developing color negative film, just without the colors at the end. I recently acquired some Ilford XP2 Super 400 film that expired in 2007. I exposed it in my Yashica Mat 124G at iso 250 and developed it in Unicolor C-41. Here are a few of the shots I took around the building I work in. Enjoy.

Pushing Through XI

When this tree was planted, they installed a steel grating around it. The idea being that the steel, being stronger than wood, would contain the tree within its provided circle. The tree didn't get the memo and had different ideas for its future. It has grown up and over the steel grate and will continue this growth until it consumes the steel. I'm sure that at some point the city workers will come along and cut down this tree and replace it with one they hope will be better behaved.

JamesWatson

James Waston (co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA) came to the company where I work to give a talk about this great scientific discovery. I never read The Double Helix, nor did I really know much about the discovery aside from the names Watson and Crick. He talked for a while about the science and the personalities involved, which was kind of interesting. Then he started sprinkling in personal remarks about some of the other scientists. Not nice or complimentary things, but derogatory things, insulting things, downright mean things. In fact the only scientist he didn't have some disdain for was himself, to whom he directed many very complimentary remarks. At one point or another, he must have insulted everyone in the room of about 150 people. Now I am enough of a realist to know that not everyone is 'personable', especially among the smart sectors of humanity, and he was mostly insulting dead people. But here is when things turned the corner for me. He just finished an attack directed against Republicans and finished by saying rhetorically , "Why should you bother with such hateful people?" Okay, fine. He doesn't like hateful people and is making a wild generalization about Republicans. Whatever. But then in the next 10 minutes he went on to name two or three groups of people he "hates". Yes, he used that word, "hate". So opinions about women, conservatives, vegans, biologists and 'dumb' people aside, he is just logically inconsistent. According to him, we should pay no attention to him because he is a hateful person. I expected more from James Watson.

After the partly shocking, partly disappointing talk he gave, people were lined up out the door and down the hallway to have him sign a book or a paper and get a picture with this bigoted elder statesman. Needless to say, I passed on the signature and the photo-op. I did snap a couple of photos of him just with this blog entry in mind.

I am sorry for James Watson. He obviously has (or had) a brilliant scientific mind. It is sad that it was not coupled with a more kind, compassionate and forgiving spirit.

Pushing Through VII

See Pushing Through for an explanation of the series.

Pushing Through VI

See Pushing Through for an explanation of the series.

Pushing Through V

See Pushing Through for an explanation of the series.

Pushing Through IV

See Pushing Through for an explanation of the series.

Pushing Through III

At first glance, this looks pretty common. It's just a plant growing up through a gap in the sidewalk. But if you look a little closer, you'll see what attracted me to this particular one. First, behind the plant you can see that "they" have tried to seal up the gap with asphalt. This plant is growing in defiance of not only the sidewalk itself, but the added effort to keep nature at bay. The next thing to notice is that in fact the entire section of the concrete sidewalk is being pushed up from beneath. This is probably caused by a tree root. The roots push up and crack the concrete, then seeds get blown in and there they start to grow. I often try to imagine what things will look like in 200 years. Will man have truly mastered his environment so that his walkways are no longer damaged and 'littered' with these interlopers? Or will the plants continue to struggle and push through the concrete, reminding us that we are the intruders here? We are the ones struggling against nature. We are fighting on the side destined for failure. I want to think that we can come to some form of a 'truce' where man can allow more nature into his urban environment.


I took this photo with my Yashica Mat 124G, using Kodak T-Max 100 film. Development was in Caffenol-CL with 70min stand development. Scanned with an Epson Perfection V600. See Pushing Through for an explanation of the series.

Pushing Through

I have had this idea for a photo essay or series for a while. This photo is the first in the series. It is called Pushing Through I. The subjects of the series are plants that push through the holes and cracks in humanity's infrastructure. It is a metaphor for many things. A couple that come to my mind when I think about this photo are the persistence of life in general. There have been mass extinctions in the history of our planet, yet there is always some scrap of life that manages to survive. Recently, I saw a short film about the Nazi concentration camps and the genocide that happened there. Yet even in the face of that evil, horrific holocaust, there was a remnant of Jews who stayed alive, both in the camps and outside, hiding in attics and cellars. The life of an entire race squeezed through the cracks of hatred and violence. It is really about hope. I think I will work on this series with all of my cameras and see what sort of eclectic mix I can come up with. I hope you enjoy seeing it develop as much as I do.

Taken with Yashica Mat 124G on Lomography X-pro 200 film. Shot at 100 and developed in Unicolor C-41 chemistry using standard times and agitation.