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.

Pine Trees and Pear Trees

It always amazes me how using a different camera changes your perceptions of things. These pine trees are in my backyard and I have never noticed those two pieces of bark being gone before. Today, I walked outside with my Hasselblad Xpan loaded with B&W film and I see these two spots on the tree by my driveway.

You might be thinking maybe someone knocked them off yesterday and that is why I hadn't noticed before. Well that might be true but the camera has something to do with this. I walked across the street and took the rest of my roll of film up shooting the beautiful blooming Bradford Pear trees. I went to the office and grabbed my Nikon bag full of lenses and came back to the same trees and for the most part, I like the handful of photos from the film better than the couple of hundred photos of the same trees I took with the Nikon.


On the other hand, I did shoot the Nikon in color and there is something to be said for shooting in color.

Saturday Frog Hunt on Film

There is nothing like Frog Hunting with Josie. Saturday afternoon after the Razorback game we went over to Harding Park and trolled around the creek to see if we could find any frogs. We heard a bunch of frogs croaking but we didn't catch any. Still we had fun.

I was having fun as well shooting our Frog Hunt on film. Shooting film is like giving yourself a surprise present. I love the anticipation of waiting to see the film at the lab and seeing if you got anything. I also love using film cameras and on this shoot I was using my rangefinder Hasselblad Xpan. Funny story about this roll of film. I finished it while standing on a rock in the middle of the creek as you can see from the photo above. I was thinking I ought to get out of the creek before I change film so I don't drop it in the water. Well, I dropped it, but thankfully it landed on a tuft of grass at the edge of the water and only got the bottom of the case a little wet. I still didn't know for sure that no water went in the cassette and ruined the film until this morning when I got the film from the lab.

Even if the film had been ruined, I still had an afternoon Frog Hunt with my baby and that is more important than the pictures. Thankfully I have both,

Film Images

I love shooting film and I got a roll back from the lab today. One of the best things about shooting film is getting to use film cameras. I love how film cameras work, you have to think and pay attention because there is no instant gratification screen on the back of the camera. These frames came from a 1950s Kodak Signet 35 camera. I currently have a roll of 120 Tri-X in a Yashica 124G twin lens reflex camera. I also love shooting with my Hasselblad Xpan. The Xpan and the Kodak Signet are both rangefinder cameras and they are really cool to shoot with because everything always looks in focus and viewfinder never blacks out on RF cameras or on tlrs either for that matter. While we are on the subject of equipment, I read the other day of the Online Photographer that Leica has made their last film camera. Kinda sad to think that there will be no more new Leica film cameras. The company still makes digital rangefinder cameras, but the nostalgic part of me hates to see the film world slowly passing away. There have been several stories lately about Steve McCurry shooting the last roll of Kodachrome. Today I saw a cool story from the St.Louis Post Dispatch about one of their photographers shooting his last roll of Kodachrome 200 at the Missouri State Fair. The photo above is of Jalen sitting on our front porch in our hammock that Jenna and I brought back from Honduras.
This is Jackson in the same hammock from Honduras.
Walked out to take trash out the other morning and this beautiful yellow leaf was laying on the back door mat. I loved the contrast of the light colored leaf against the black mat.
As a photographer it is hard to pass up clouds. B&W is not always the best solution for sunsets but I liked how this turned out anyway.

I always say that if you have friends in Security, Maintenance, and Custodians you can go anywhere and get into any place. Well these guys are a couple of my maintenance buddies. Mike and Jeff are always around someplace like parked in front of the Lilly Pool in their truck. When I asked why they didn't park in the lot 25 yards away and walk over to the fountain, Mike replied "what if we needed a tool?" What can you say?

I took this photo after flipping through the Elliott Erwitt book "Snaps". As I talked to my buddies I tried to imagine how EE would shoot these guys. I used a Nikon D200 and a Tamron 28-200 lens. B&W look applied in Lightroom.

Heading to Branson tomorrow for the long weekend. Bought 6 rolls of film to shoot through the Hasselblad Xpan so be looking for more film images soon.

Film from the Hasselblad Xpan

I just wrote a journal piece over on my Shutterfly Share Site for my summer film project. I gave more details about the photos and about my Xpan. I hope you will go over to that site and check out the photos and read the journal articles there.

Clicking on the photos will enlarge them.

Me and Jackson Photo by Julie

Casey and Jamie in front of their cabin.

A quick family portrait with everyone except Jalen, he had gone to change for the swimming test.

You can't shoot with the Xpan and not occasionally take a wide shot. All of these scans are from USA Drug. Their machine didn't know what to do with this frame so it divided it into 2 photos. I used the auto stitch feature in Photoshop to put it together again.

Candid Camera

Here is a link to an article about the history of Leica cameras.

Reading these stories make me want to shoot with my rangefinder cameras. I have a Kodak Signet 35 that my mother-in-law got me for $5 at an auction that I use and it takes great photos. I have a roll from that camera that needs to be developed now and I can't wait to see those frames. I often carry that camera around with me because it has a leather protective case so it can take some abuse. I also have a Hasselblad XPAN that Jennings Osborne gave me the first year we went to Disney World. It shoots regular 35mm size but it also shoots panoramic. It is way modern with a built in meter with aperture priority and a auto winder. It takes awesome photos as well. I love to shoot both of those cameras with Tri-X b&w film.