Lou & Alexander II

Chicago Lakefront, September 2009 (Canon 40D, 70-200mm F/4L, ISO 100, 1/800 sec @ f/4)

Still working through some final, overlooked sections of my archives. I shot this while I was wandering the South end of the Lakefront Path, waiting for K to finish a long training run.

Winter In The Bone

December 2011, Chicago, Illinois
(Agfa B-2 Cadet, Fomapan 400 120 film, home developed and scanned)

K said she would like to see this printed big - something along the line of several feet across. This does get cooler as it gets bigger, maybe one day when I'm fabulously wealthy.

North Side Space Port

Holga 120 WPC, Kodak T-Max 400, Home developed and scanned
November 2011, Chicago, Illinois

One of the CTA elevated train stations near our apartment. Shot with another one of my plastic cameras: the Holga Wide Pinhole Camera, which takes 120 film and gives you a 6cm x 12cm size negative. Never done much with pinholes before, but I like what I am getting with this camera. More coming soon.

Heading Downtown

"Heading Downtown" (December 2011, Chicago Loop)
Expired Kodak Tri-X 400, Canon A-1, 50mm f/1.8

Since I have had a little unexpected time on my hands of late, I have taken the opportunity to start developing my own black and white film. I had been keeping a bag of exposed 35mm and 120 rolls to experiment with and have gotten about half-way through the bag. I must say that doing my own developing has been a very rewarding experience. There is just something almost mystical about pulling the developed negatives out of the tank. Turns out to be a lot easier and cheaper than I had thought, (and quite a bit faster and easier than sending out, as well). This probably means you will be seeing a lot more black and white as the blog goes forward.

Sometimes The Imperfection Makes The Image

"The Flyover" (Canon 40D, ISO 400, 17-40mm f/4L)

What You May Find While Walking Your Dog

"Hidden Path" (Fuji 100B, Polaroid Land 250)
This is a neat little path behind some an older housing complex, which runs next to a part of the Chicago River. Oddly, the path is blocked off where it goes under the overpass you can see off in the distance in the upper third. Nice little path, that I never see anyone on.

"What Remains" (Fuji 100B, Polaroid Land 250)
One week ago, this was an old, brick Chicago 3-flat.

No Need To Dream . . .

Fresh-Fallen Snow, Christmas Morning 2010, Chicago (Canon 40D, 17-40mm f/4, color converted)

Snow Dog!!

First snow of the season.  Couple of inches so far and still snowing . . .


Rudder wasn't quite sure what to make of the snow, but he seemed to get into it as the walk went along.  Right now he is much more into laying on his dog bed in my office and being wrapped up in a blanket.  (Smart dog.)

Everything Old . . .

 . . . is fodder for some hipster to decide its ironic and cool.  Case in point, "lo-fi" photography - film cameras, toy cameras, Polaroids, vintage cameras and all manner of unreliable, unpredictable and lower-quality image making devices.  Oh, and did I mention that now that digital is the ubiquitous choice of the masses, that these non-digital options are also more expensive than their shiny new brethren?  But hey, just because the hipsters like it doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't actually cool.  And some of this stuff is definitely cool.

Even in the age of instantly viewing your shot on your camera's digital screen (don't deny it, everybody chimps), there is just something inherently fascinating about watching the picture slowly come up, or the anticipation of that moment before you peel back the developing layer to see what the camera made out of the image you framed in the viewfinder 60 second before.  Call it the triumph of chemicals over pixels.

I caught the Polaroid bug very late.  I picked up an old Land 250 just in time for Polaroid to announce it would be discontinuing the manufacture of all compatible films (and then only a bit later picked up an SX-70 with similar results).  But I instantly fell in love with the camera.  It was a sort of "where have you been all my life" moment.  I still love, and predominantly shoot, digital, but also love to bust out one of my Polaroids now and then to change things up.  An expedition with a Polaroid is a much different affair than with digital, or even regular 35mm film.  Where I might take 100 shots (or much more) on a day outing with my 40D, a prolific day out with the Polaroid will involve pressing the shutter 10 to 20 times, at most. Setting aside the cost of the film, the process itself is just much more involved, and you are forced to slow down, pre-visualize your shots and be more selective about when and what to shoot.  Add in the fact of expired film that isn't working quite as well or in the same manner as fresh film would, and it the day becomes an act of experimentation.

I have a box of unused Polaroid films that I have been sitting on.  This includes some color and black and white film for my Land 250 (authentic 669 and 667), some Spectra/600 packs, and a couple of very rare packs of the last Polaroid SX-70 blend film.  I also have some packs of the newer Polaroid films produced by the Impossible Project (http://www.the-impossible-project.com/), which is the only place that I know of that you can get new film for that SX-70 you might have hanging around in a drawer somewhere.

The film isn't getting any fresher sitting in the box, so I have been making a point of shooting more Polaroids lately.  The 669 color film seems to have faired the worst, but you do get some interesting effects.  I'll be posting more (and better) results from my renewed experiments with these films soon.

Check It Out . . .

So I have been an on-again off-again participant on this photography contest site - DPChallenge.com (Digital Photography Challenge).  I kind of went off on photography for some time, but have been working myself back into it.  So, I submitted an entry for a recent challenge with the them of Night Shot and . . . I got 5th place!!

Clouds At The Gate


You don't get anything but bragging rights, but I'm pretty jazzed about it.

Night Work

Trying to get the hang of night photography with the digital SLR.  I had a pretty good handle on it with film, but have not been able to get quite the same cool color mixtures that the old tungsten slide film would provide.  Will keep working on it, though.  I like the idea of continuing to work with film, but in reality the film boxes gather dust because digital is just so much easier and provides such faster feedback.

Gotta Love This Town...

... even when it is colder than snot!

Lovely, Lazy Thanksgiving

Chilling at home. Dinner with friends later.

FYI... the Cubs suck!

Wow. I know they played well enough to at least get them into the playoffs, but the way the Cubs played against Arizona was just pathetic. With the home team stinking up the diamond and old Lou glowering from the dugout as yet another raft of players get stuck out on base in the clutch, if felt just like being back in Seattle during the Mariners bad old days. Wanted the team to do better for Lou. Guess he has got two more seasons to break The Curse. Next season is the 100th anniversary season since the Cubs won a World Series. ...Spooky stuff.