Tag Archives: Kodak Ektar 100

Black and White, Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Travel

Paris in October – Part 1

November 5, 2013 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

My apologies for the very long delay in writing. Did you all miss me? Part of it was just a general busy-ness and part of it was that I was traveling to Paris for ten days, then waiting for my color film to come back from the lab, and processing and scanning my black-and-white work. Paris was a blast – I have to say it was an orgy of great food – I did not have a single bad meal, or even a humdrum one, in the entire 10 days. Well, ok, the breakfast at the airport on the day of the return flight was, well, airport food, but that doesn’t really count. I’d say the meals on Air France made up for it. I’ll save the rest of the food chat for another post – I took pictures of most of my meals.

I took only one camera with me on this trip, the Rolleiflex. It has only one focal length, and is entirely manual. I know to some folks, shooting their entire vacation with a normal lens would be heresy. I found that in actuality, there were perhaps a half-dozen photos that I took that in retrospect would have been better with a different focal length, and another half-dozen to ten that I didn’t take because they wouldn’t work with the focal length I had. This out of almost 400 frames (33 rolls of 120, 12 frames/roll). I kept my film palette largely restricted to two films – Kodak Ektar 100 for color (with two exceptions) and Tri-X for black-and-white. I did make the mistake of dragging along with me a whole bunch of additional film that I didn’t need to bring (way too much alternative black-and-white film, like some Ilford Pan-F and FP4+). The color exceptions were some Portra 160 for long night-time exposures and some Portra 800 for low-light where I could only hand-hold the camera.

I’ll start this series of posts off with a pair of highlights: the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral.

The Eiffel Tower:

This was a happy catch. I saw the shadow of the tower and the clouds passing overhead reflected in the glass of the security partition for the queue to enter the Eiffel Tower. I took a chance that it would work, and voila! (Tish, that’s French!!!) I was afraid that it would come out fuzzy because I was trying to focus on two different things that were not actually on the plane where they appeared (the security glass partition) and the color balance would be impossible to get right because the anti-shatter coatings on the glass created a bit of a prismatic effect. There’s still a touch of yellow in the clouds I couldn’t eliminate but otherwise it wasn’t too bad.

Here’s a shot of Notre Dame Cathedral, taken from a different perspective.

Notre Dame is actually a challenge to photograph because it has a very direct east-west orientation, so for much of the day, the facade that you want to see represented is facing west and in shadow/backlit. I was able to time this photo in the late afternoon so it was well illuminated.

The Rollei made for a perfect travel camera – phenomenal image quality, very easy to handle, and because it is so quiet (no mirror slap, the leaf shutter just makes a little ‘snick’ when it fires) it is great for candids. Thinking of which, I did grab a couple portraits of friends of mine who came over from London to visit. They recently moved there from Singapore. The last time we saw each other in person was 2003, so almost exactly a decade apart. Gosh have we all changed, but it was so great to see them again.

Peter, Profile, Blvd St. Martin

Cameras, Color, Events, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Travel

Three from the RenFest

September 22, 2013 dcphotoartist 1 Comment

I’ve been a long-time fan of the Maryland Renaissance Festival, from back in the day when they held it in the woods near Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. I think the first time I went I was perhaps 10, and I tried to participate in the Human Chess game, but I wasn’t quite strong enough to hold the pole with my chess piece on top for too terribly long in the hot sun, and I almost conked someone on the head with it when I lost my grip and it started to fall over. I was quickly captured and removed from the board anyway, so it didn’t matter, but I was a very frustrated 10 year old.

I try to make it at least once a year now, if not more. I get my Halloween outfits at the RenFest (new one debuting this fall, complete with red velvet tights with codpiece and a white shirt with puffy sleeves … I know, for some of you TMI). Anyway, the current RenFest is held near Annapolis in a permanent facility complete with jousting arena, multiple stages, and a series of shops and food vending stalls. It’s a great place to bring the kids for a day, and to indulge your inner childlike (and not-so-childlike) fantasies as an adult. Where else can you go and play dress-up as a naughty knight or bawdy tavern wench (as appropriate to your persuasions), talk like Shakespeare (or a pirate), and nobody will bat an eye at you (or maybe they’ll even compliment you for it!)? And you get to watch craftspeople do ironwork, leather, weaving and glass blowing. Here are a trio of folks plying their theatrical trade at the RenFest:

Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Taking Photographs, Washington DC

First in a Series: People Who Ask About the Rolleiflex

July 29, 2013 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

Truth be told, I’m a bit of an anxious street photographer: I’m not terribly good at asking total strangers to pose for me. So I’m getting started as an exercise by setting a new rule: if you see me out and ask me about my Rollei, you have to pose for me. We’ve already broken the ice by talking about the camera, so now we’re not total strangers anymore. This is the very first in that series. These two guys saw me out with the camera, and started asking about it. They even asked me to photograph them, which made it easier. The black guy was interesting; even though he was smoking, he asked if he should get rid of his cigarette for the photo. I told him to keep it.

Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

Another Neighborhood Walkabout

July 29, 2013 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

Just four random shots from around the neighborhood. These first three are small local businesses managing to hang on in the face of growing gentrification.

I don’t know what’s going on with EJ’s. Every time I walk past (which may be heavily influenced by when I’m going by – weekday evenings and/or weekends) it appears closed. I know the sign says “open” in the door, but you tell me what closed miniblinds means… I love the sign on the door (which is probably too small to read in the JPEG version of this shot): “We love children. However, insurance regulations do not allow children in the shop unless they are receiving services. Thank you, The Management”.

A sign of the times. General hipsterization plus the general trend of people being so absorbed by their mobile devices that they do stupid stuff like walk into traffic has inspired these signs spray-painted at the crosswalks of a number of intersections in the Upper 11th Trend Strip (don’t know what else to call it- North-East Columbia Heights Business District? NoECoHiBD? …that stretch of 11th where all the new restaurants have proliferated amidst old-time bodegas and coin laundries? How about just Hipster Velcro? (can’t call it a hipster magnet because that would imply something about hipsters that’s just not true. Velcro sounds about right because it sticks well to things like scruffy beards and ironic flannel). Of course, it NEEDS to be painted on the sidewalk, for it to stand a chance of registering with the phone-focused.

Black and White, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

The Difference Between Color and Black and White

July 24, 2013 dcphotoartist 3 Comments

Here are two images of the same scene, one in color, one in black and white. I’m sharing them together to demonstrate how the change from one to the other totally changes the way we feel about the image.

First, the black and white:

Notice the visual emphasis – how the tones draw your eye to specific parts of the scene. What do you find yourself looking at, and relating to? What compels you? What emotions does this evoke?

Now the color:

This has a very different balance. The colors change the emotional timbre of the image, as well as the focus point for the viewer, even though both photos were taken from essentially the same vantage point. I think it’s fair to say that in the black and white version, your eye and attention keep coming back to the boy. The image has a more stark, somber feel to it whereas the color image is much more lively, and balanced – it’s easier to view both sides equally. To be entirely fair, some of the impact of the black and white version is due to the way in which it was exposed and processed. This version is fairly high contrast, which makes the dark areas very rich and the whites very pure white. Were it done differently, there would be a greater balance between the boy and the garuda in terms of tones, and it would have a different resonance.

Cameras, Color, DC Cityscapes, Medium Format Cameras, Night-time, Photography, Travel, Washington DC

The Colors of Twilight in DC

July 5, 2013 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

This is an exploration of twilight into dusk in and around the 14th Street and U Street corridors in Northwest Washington DC. All these shots were taken in the same evening, and are within walking distance of one another (although in the name of time efficiency I drove from one area to the other so I wouldn’t lose the last light in the sky).

Nellies is a gay sports bar (betcha never thought you’d hear THAT particular combination!) at the corner of 9th and U Street and Florida Avenue (U Street turns into Florida Avenue at 9th). I’ve driven by hundreds of times and always thought about photographing their lights, specifically the “OPEN” arrow on the corner. The night I started this project, I decided to shoot the building from two different angles, one to capture the general ambiance of the intersection, the other to specifically address the OPEN sign.

Around the corner from Nellies is this abandoned warehouse which has some really wild and cool and somewhat disturbing graffiti on it. I shot some of this graffiti through the chain link fence around the side lot. The disturbing piece I intentionally cropped out of the shot, as it is the nude lower half of a female body that appears to have been severed from its torso.

Over on 14th Street, we have had an explosion of new restaurants in the last five years, with a huge spate in the last year alone. Rice Restuarant is arguably the best Thai restaurant in DC, and certainly the most innovative. A good friend of mine opened it gosh, maybe ten years ago, virtually pioneering the restaurant boom in the neighborhood. Now next door to Rice is Ghibellina, an Italian joint that opened this year, and next door to that is Pearl Dive, an oyster bar, which opened perhaps 2 years ago. Le Diplomate is a French bistro across the street in what was originally a car dealership in the 1920s, then became a laundromat. Le Diplomate also opened earlier this year.

At the intersection of 14th and Q Streets, I pointed my camera south on 14th to try and capture the energy of the neighborhood, through the traffic, the lights, the construction boom represented by the crane, and the people on the sidewalks.

Here is a second version of the shot, a longer exposure, that captures the car sitting at the traffic light, then traffic taking off when the light changed. The funky stuff in the sky is a combination of reflections of the tail-lights and head-lights of the cars reflecting off the clouds and lens flare caused by the lights directly shining into the lens.

I’m not sure if I like this one well enough to keep it or if some other night I go back and try to re-shoot it. Feedback welcomed. All shots, as is becoming normal to say now, were taken with my Rolleiflex 2.8E, on Kodak Ektar 100 film. This was in part an experiment to see how well Ektar would fare against Portra 160 as a low-light film. I’ve loved Portra as a low-light film for its ability to handle mixed lighting conditions. I’d say this put to rest any thoughts of Ektar 100 being inferior- it does look different, to be sure, but I’d say it did a pretty darned good job. I think I might even prefer it in some cases.

Cameras, Color, Events, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Travel, Washington DC

Smithsonian Folklife Festival

July 5, 2013 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

Here are a few shots from my visit to the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. The Folklife Festival is held every year on the National Mall, and it is a celebration of cultures and traditions from around the world. This year’s featured country is Hungary, and the overall theme is “One World, Many Voices”. There are representatives of many indigenous cultures around the world from Hawaiian Islanders to Penobscot Indians to Quechua speakers from Bolivia and Peru to Tuvan people from Siberia. The “many voices” part has to do with showcasing efforts to preserve vanishing languages and cultures. Go to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival Official Page to learn more about the events and programs for this year’s festival.

This pavilion is part of the Hungarian exhibit – playing on traditional Hungarian crafts like lace-making and using the forms and styles in a wooden structure.

And here is a sculpture of a Puli shepherd dog, rendered in blackened wood. Pulis are similar to Komondor sheep herding dogs except they are black, not white. They used to get shorn along with the sheep they guarded, but now are left to grow their coats out as a fashion statement, to the impairment of the dog’s mobility.

The door of a Yurt, representing the various nomadic peoples of Siberia who are sharing their culture this year at the Folklife Festival. Yurts are traditional nomadic home structures – they are portable like tents, with canvas or fabric tops and latticework side walls.

Paper flowers in the Mexican pavilion:

Quechua musicians, getting ready to perform a traditional Quechua song, talking about the meaning of their indigenous language and the importance of preserving the language, to pass on the connection to their cultural traditions of respect for the environment.

A Tuvan instrument maker, carving the body of a lute:

A Tuvan stone-carver, demonstrating hand-carving techniques, making a bull out of soapstone:

These last three shots are not specifically of the Folklife Festival, but are representative of the location and the spirit of the day. The weather was quite hot, but at least we had a relatively dry day with periodic breezes (Washington DC, particularly the area of the Mall, was built on a swamp, and big chunks of the Mall area, especially west from the Washington Monument, are actually landfill. Which is why the Washington Monument is sinking very slowly. So summertime in DC can be particularly miserable – almost New Orleans-esque in its heat and humidity).

The sculpture is outside the American History Museum, which caps one end of the Folklife Festival and plays host to the temporary festival gift shop.

Sculpture, Cloud, American History Museum

It was tough waiting for people to NOT be walking through the shadow of the sculpture on the pavement. I’ll have to come back and shoot this again in the wintertime when it casts a longer shadow and there are fewer people out on the plaza so I can catch it as more of an abstract piece.

Sculpture, Shadow, American History Museum

All shots were taken with my Rolleiflex 2.8E, on Kodak Ektar 100 film.

Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Travel

Memorial Day Weekend, Part 2- Brooklyn, Coney Island, Lower Manhattan

June 5, 2013 dcphotoartist 1 Comment

Brooklyn/DUMBO:

We got ice cream here at the Brooklyn Creamery- some of the best ice cream I’ve had in ages.

There is a line going down the block out the front door of Grimaldi’s Pizza basically every minute that they’re open. I don’t know if you can see the sign or not, but on one of their banners it says, “coal-fired pizza. Cash Only, No Slices”. I assume they mean charcoal when they say coal – I couldn’t imagine pizza made in an actual coal-burning oven. A little coal tar with your pepperoni?

Despite the image in most people’s minds of the New York City subway being gritty, grimy, old and just plain filthy, once you get out of Manhattan there are some very attractive stations. This tile-work was in the entrance stairs to the station at Prospect Park for the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Coney Island:

Arriving at Coney Island from the Subway.

Nathan’s Hot Dogs – they’re a cliché, but still – you can’t pass up a Nathan’s hot dog and cheese fries your first time at Coney Island.

Nathan's Hot Dogs, Coney Island — Nathan’s Hot Dogs, Coney Island

We had to ride the Wonder Wheel, and of course, we had to take one of the swinging cars, even though they don’t get as high.

While in line for the Wonder Wheel, I saw the sign for the pay toilet and wanted to take a picture of it – the sign and the old metal turnstiles are just so cool (and before you ask, I didn’t pay to go in and find out exactly what they looked and/or smelled like- even though it was opening weekend, it’s still Coney Island!). This old man with a fancy walker (purple anodized aluminum frame with a hand-brake and a fold-down seat) saw my Rolleiflex and struck up a conversation – he had been a camera salesman at a store in Brooklyn for many years and remembered selling them.

Luna Park, The Beach, From the Wonder Wheel

Here is the world-famous Cyclone roller-coaster. The ride was fun but frightening, not only because it is bone-jarring from the wood track, but because the coaster operators were not paying enough attention and allowed the incoming car to slam into the back of my car as we were getting loaded in. Fortunately we were already strapped/safety-barred in, so the shockwave of the impact passed through instead of knocking me forward into the back of the seat in front. Much as I love riding roller-coasters, especially the old wooden ones, I don’t think I’ll ride the Cyclone again.