Faces Come Out Of The Rain

I saw someone at Kroger this evening who reminded me of an old...Friend? I guess you would call her?  Our relationship was a very odd one.

I know it was not her, but I began mentally having the conversation we probably would have had...It disturbed me to hear the things I think I may have told her.  Things I have been aware of for...Oh, I don't know the 22 years it has been since we met.  The year and a half of bad decision making leading up to it?

I should probably have a talk with the psychiatrist that lives in my head.

Pa Rum Pum Pum

Since I started out my photograpy stuff with 35mm SLR cameras and do not believe in post processing, I have amassed a sizeable collection of camera filters over the years.  Some of them are actually useful, some of them are just downright bizarre. A few of them I purchased, a lot of them were gifts.

My collection is mostly colored stuff.  I have a huge set of solid and gradient filters, a small set of colored gradient filters that I can actually screw directly to the lens and each other, a set of bizarre plastic I don’t even know filters that I refer to as my “analoge Instagram filters”, a couple of neutral density filters and even one odd…I don’t know? Fly eye? thing.  I also have a telescope lens attachment that I’ve never had ample opportunity to use and a fish eye job that I haven’t seen for years that I really need to find.

Solid and gradient filters

My wacky 5-way thing

SUPERSPEED!

Last but not least…My collection of analog Instagram filters!

On Every Page

This is going to jump around…A lot, so please stick with me.

I take pictures. 

Sometimes I take a lot of them.

Not going to lie, my preferred method is using a Nikon Nikkormat FS DSLR that was made in the late 1960s because it presents a unique challenge.

That camera is completely mechanical. No electricity whatsoever. No light meter, no nothing. No battery. No nothing. That camera has never once let me down!

CVS stopped processing film in store which is why I basically stopped using film.  I can no longer get a roll processed for $2.19 in less than an hour.  I have to send it off somewhere and wait a week.  I know, I know…#firstworldproblems and all of that, but for me I want to know so I can learn from my experience.  I want to see what I got before I forget what I used.

Post processing is a thing I really don’t believe in. For me each image is an individual lesson.  I want to know what I had so I can know what I did right and what I did wrong.  At any given time I will go on an adventure with several different cameras and lenses, so I like to know what I did with what while it is still fresh in my mind.

For me, the biggest reason I have stood by Nikon cameras is (other than durability) the Nikon F-Mount for lenses.  Nikon has used this mounting system since something like 1967, which means that virtually any lens that fits a Nikon camera from then on will work on a modern DSLR.

That makes me happy.  I have gotten so much amazing vintage glass for so cheap it is not even funny!

Also, I have found that shooting manual lenses on a DSLR has taught me enough that I can just shoot and go on 35mm and not end up nearly as many bad exposures as I used to get.  I have 3 rolls of nearly perfect film from 3 different cameras with 3 (vastly) different lenses to back this up.  No light meters, no nothing.

I just went with it.

When I Was A Child I Had A Fever

Here is the roll of film from the Minolta SRT-101 that I shot on November 30th.  Not going to lie, this might be the most perfect (color-wise, anyway) roll of film I’ve ever run through this thing.

There are some expsoures that were…Unconventionally altered? due to the back unexpectedly not being closed all of the way, and this camera has always had the occasional framing issue.

But seriously though…The exposures are, for the most part, dead on!  Not bad for a camera with no battery and no light meter!

As The Sun Burns The Ground

One of the rolls of fim I sent off to be developed last week ended up being a roll from Yellowwood that I shot on (I’m pretty sure) 10/22/2017.

I’m know it was shot with my black Nikkormat FT, and I’m pretty sure the lens I was using was the Rokkor 58mm that came with my Minolta SRT-101. 

I’m basing this off of those things being in a couple of pictures of me from that day,

Anyway, here is the roll of Kodak 400 that is at least 10 years past it’s use by date in all it’s grim and grimy glory!

That is the entire roll as developed. No processing, no editing, no nothing.