Baseball Boys

You can shoot all the frames you want as fast as you can with a digital camera and you can't get this....
Jalen shot on b&w film with a rangefinder camera and a prime lens that was manually focused.  No matrix wonder metering here just good old center weighted metering like the old days and look at that wonderful exposure lattitude......

I love being a photographer, but more than that I love my boys.  I am thankful for these images that in years to come will take me back to the good old days of little league in June of 2012.

David Burnett

I keep reading about people missing film and it comforts me to not be alone in that boat. I miss shooting film. I miss using those old film cameras. i loved my Nikon F5 and I still use my F100, Hasselblad X-Pan, Yashica 124G, Canon T-90 and T-70 and my ever trusty Olympus Stylus Epic.

I fondly remember in the old days when we used film in the PR office at HU and we had our own darkroom. I shot mainly with 35mm Nikons. I started with a 8008 and soon moved up to the 8008s. The s was for spot metering. I bet I took a million photos with that body and as I remember I don't think I ever had to send it in to be repaired. I had a Nikon FE-2 as a backup. Thinking about that old FE-2, I had the motor drive attachment for that camera and one day Gary Elliott mentioned that he had that camera and always wanted the motor drive. Well he had a 55 F3.5 Macro lens and we traded. I so got the sweet end of that deal. I still use that lens today even though it is manual focus. In the old days when I wasn't feeling creative I would switch to a different camera. I would usually shoot with the office medium format camera, a Bronica 645 with a 40mm, 75mm, and a 150mm lens and 2-120 film backs. On occasion when I didn't want to change cameras I would go to the bookstore and buy some Tri-X and Plus-X film. That changed things up in the darkroom as we normally used TMAX 400. Sadly I never new how great TrI-X was, I used T-Max because it had much better grain. I didn't appreciate the latitude of the old grainy film. I was reading the current magazines of the day and they were about the new better films. I didn't spend time learning the old great photographers until much later and we were already changing to digital.

David Burnett is an interesting journalist because he has used film all throughout his career. He shot the 2000 Presidential campaign with a Rollieflex and today he shoots a good deal with a Speed Graphics. Here and here and here are links describing his 4x5 work.
Here is a link to David Burnett's website. Here is a link to his article in this months Digital Journalist web page that got this post started. Don't for get to read Bill Pierce and Dick Kraus while you are over at the Digital Journalist.

Grandaddy Long-leg

I got this Granddaddy Long-Legs photo at my in-laws house in Mississippi. The boys and I were shooting bb guns at paper plates and I was sitting on a stump being the adult supervisor and marksmanship coach. As I was supervising, Josie announced that I might want to leave my perch due to the fact that a huge spider was crawling up the back of the stump. I agreed and I found the would be spider to be this Granddaddy Long-Leg.

Photo Note- I always shoot holiday photos with a different camera. This Thanksgiving Break I chose one of my old film cameras the ruggedly awesome Nikon F100. I shoot only B&W film and this week I had three rolls of C-41 process Kodak B&W film. I used only a Nikon 50mm F1.8 lens and a Tamron 28-200. I love both of those lenses. The 50mm is so much fun to shoot with and the fast aperture really allows you to control depth of field. In good light, the Tamron 28-200 is a great lens as well. 28mm is wide enough and 200 is reasonably long enough for most general shooting and as you can see from this photo the 28-200 focuses fairly close as well. Speaking of film, I love the latitude you get with negative film. Some days I miss shooting film.

Happy Fridge

This is what a happy fridge looks like. Coke Zero is my cola of choice these days. This photo is old but it never got blogged and I really liked it. My fridge currently has Peach Tea and Sam's Choice flavored waters in Peach, Lime, and Strawberry Kiwi. You might wonder why I have a fridge in my office? FILM. I used to keep this fridge stocked with Tmax 100, 400, 3200 and Kodak Portra 400NC in 35mm 100ft rolls. I also kept Tmax 400 and Ilford 3200 in 120. Now I am a Tri-X fan but for all those years I used Tmax 400 because it was supposed to have better grain which it did but the latitude was not the same of Tri-X. I did also keep Tmax 400 in 4x5 as well but it seldom was used. In color we used Fujichrome 100 in 35mm and 120. We shot the 120 in our Bronica ETRS. That was a fun camera. We have the 40mm, 75mm and 150mm lenses for it. I miss film sometimes because in the old days when I felt like I was stuck in a rut I would just put the 35mm cameras up for a week or so and shoot medium format. There is no real digital equivalent of that these days, unless I bought an digital back for the Bronica and that is not going to happen. If you are still reading this I applaud your dedication to the randomness of my thoughts this morning. I bought 4 rolls of B&W 35mm film this week. Now........which camera will be called up for service.

Film Scans-Jenna

I don't often get photos of Jenna because she is not around as much and most teenage girls aren't crazy about getting photos made by their Dad. Lately, Jenna has been at Volleyball practice. This is the first year that Harding Academy is having VB. Tonight Julie, Jenna and Jenna's friend Lindsey are gone to LR shopping for school clothes. I am home with the other kids watching a Super Mario Movie. I really thought Zach and Cody was bad but a Super Mario Movie is a whole different level.
This photo is Jenna sitting on her bed in her room packing for Camp Tahkodah. She was gone to camp for three weeks this summer. I can't believe she is 14. School starts Monday and she will start 9th grade. It doesn't seem like that long ago that I was in 9th grade. But the truth is I have been out of HS for 20 years.

Lucy, Camera Timeline, and a Decisive Moment

This is another small grouping from my last roll of film. Lucy is taking my picture as I am taking her picture. A very normal thing to do. She is using a very old 3MP Kodak camera. That was the third digital camera that the office bought. The first digital camera was a Kodak DC290 a 2MP p&s camera that we paid about $500 for and a 48MB CF Card that we paid $150 for in 2000. After the Kodak 290 we bought a 3 MP Nikon 990 because it had a manual exposure mode which was a big help in controlling exposure. After we bought the Nikon My boss started using the Kodak which he wore out shooting Optimist Club events. The Kodak no longer worked but Kodak offered a rebate to buy back a bunch of their cameras and they were paying $250 for the DC 290. I called and checked to see if it had to function and was told there were no conditions on taking the cameras back. So we traded the DC290 in for the Kodak DC 4800 and only had to pay $50. After the Nikon 990 we stepped up bigtime to a Nikon D1X in 2002. We later added a D100 and Then the awesome D2X and D2Xs.

Just as Lucy was about to take my photo Jackson put his hand in front of her lens and I got this decisive moment. You have to be thankful for motor drives. I was using my Canon T70 film camera so motor drive might be a stretch. Auto winder is more what that camera has since it operates at about a frame per second. I love the total look of disgust that she is giving Jackson. I feel the same way, it is never funny to put your hand in front of someones camera lens.

In this last picture, Lucy is giving Jackson the you better not mess with me because you will loose look. One of the reasons that I got this sequence is that I am staying with the subject and the action which is easier with a film camera because you can't chimp. The other reason that I got that sequence is that I am a highly trained professional- at least that is what I tell my boss when he asks how I got some cool photo. I often refer to Nick Kelsh and his three rules for great photography and rule three is shoot more photos. I would be out of line to not give credit for The Decisive Moment to Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Jackson and some Basketball Memories

Here is another of my film shots. I envisioned this portrait of Jackson holding the basketball with the goal in the background being out of focus. Shooting with my old Canon T-70 with a 50mm F1.8 lens nearly wide open that was easy. I remember being a kid Jackson's age and playing basketball. Our goal was mounted to our garage which was at the back of the backyard. The yard sloped down to the garage so it was not level at all. We kept the boat, go kart, lawn mower and bicycles in the garage. There was a small uneven concrete slab in front of the goal which was set at abour 8 ft. On the left side of the goal were pine trees and the fence. Behind the fence was a wooded field where we played and shot our bb guns. You had to be careful not to put too much air into you ball or it would bounce over the fence and it was a real pain to get your ball back because it was often muddy behind the fence. So needless to say we always shot from the right side of the goal. Over time as the ball hit the rim on the right side it would loosen the rim until it would start tilting too the right. When my dad would tighten it back up and you couldn't hit anything for a few days because you had adjusted to the tilted rim. Other things I remember about basketball as a kid. We also had a nerf goal mounted to the door at the end of the hall. I remember my mom playing nerf basketball with me. i also remember in those early years of nerf b-ball that I would re-enact Memphis State games on my nerf court. Keith Lee and Phillip "Doom" Haynes were the players that I liked the best. Jack Eaton, the Channel 5 sports caster, did the play by play for the tigers and I loved listening to him call the games on my old clock radio. In 3rd grade ( the grade Jackson will be in when school starts) our team won first place in basketball. I think I scored 4 points all season. All the Harding Academy elementary schools formed their own league. The star of our team was Trey Nolan. Trey's dad was the coach. In 4th grade we were the worst team in the league because Trey played in a city league. I distinctly remember playing Quince Road that year because we lost the game 20 something to 6 but I had all 6 points. I hit three jump shots from the right side. I guess all the shooting from the right side payed off in that one game. My best year as a basketball player was 6th grade. I don't remember our record but it wasn't that great. I think I averaged about 8 points a game and a few rebounds. I was as tall as I am now in 6th grade so I was considered tall back then. Our coach was our 6th grade teacher, Ken Roberts. Ken is also part of my family, he is married to my cousin Barbara. Ken was a fun coach. One of his many talents was juggling. One afternoon after practice he was juggling 2 basketballs and asked me to toss in a third. Well I didn't toss the ball in, I threw the ball at him so he would drop the other two and then I ran because I knew he would get me. As we walked across the street back to school I was walking about 30 ft behind Ken and the rest of the team because I knew he was going to get me. Well he looked back at me and I stopped. He turned around and started walking again and as I started walking he threw a basketball over his shoulder in my general direction. I wasn't paying a lick of attention and the ball hit me in the mouth which had just been fitted with braces about a month before. It freaked him out that he had hit me and he was worried to death about screwing up the braces. The braces were fine but the inside of my lips were all cut up from the ball hitting my mouth. This story sounds horrible by today standards but back then it was just a teacher and a kid horsing around. In Jr High I gave up basketball because I wasn't that good. My friends and I would play pickup games after lunch and we would usually play 21. I had to learn to become a shooter because I could hardly ever get a rebound. But if I ever got the ball and hit a shot I could usually win because I could hit the rest of my points to 21 in free throws. Eventually my friends instituted a 5 point free throw limit to help make the games a little more fair. Well so much for the basketball memories. The kids love to play basketball in the gym after church. Jalen really loves to play speed with the big kids. One final picture of Jackson. He wanted me to take a shot as he made a layup. Unfortunately, just as he went up the ball slipped out of his hand.

Film Clouds

I just got a roll of film back from the lab. I had a roll of B&W film that required C-41 ( color print) processing. I dropped the film off on the way to work the other morning and it would be ready after lunch. It felt like Christmas, the anticipation of seeing what was on the roll of film. I have several other images that I really like but this is all that I have time to write about today. I start teaching photography for all the local schools Yearbook Camp today through Friday.