Archive for November, 2002

11/11/02

Published on November 11, 2002 in Text. 0 Comments .

Well, being the epuipment junkie who doesn’t do photography that I am, I have made another equipment decision, and I think it’s a good one. (well duh, if I didn’t think it was good why would I make it, right?) I am going to sell my Minilux and buy the Canon Powershot Elph S230. Selling the Minilux will just about pay for it, and though the Minilux’s images really do have an indescribable snap to them, the Elph will fulfill the same duties, only more cheaply. The Minilux isn’t all that much smaller than my M6, so all it offers me is autoexposure and flash capabilities, neither of which are too important to me. The problem is the fact that the Minlux is there for when I can’t or won’t carry the M6, but since they are about the same size and the M6 is quieter and more user friendly anyway (in its own way), I never use the Minilux anyway. The Elph is digital, 3mp, with everything I need in a snapshot camera, in a much smaller package. Also, film ain’t cheap, and my snapshots will end up digital anyway, whether I have to scan them or download them from a card. Do the Elph wins big time. Bye bye Minilux…

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I took a brief walk down Hollywood Blvd yesterday, which was closed off for a movie filming, and took some shots. It’s still very difficult for me to take pictures of people on the street, even though I see lots of interesting shots. It’s too damn intimidating. I did manage to take a few shots that I thought would be interesting at least, if not good, then went home and smacked myself on the forehead. Doh! I had put in a roll or Tri-X that I had already shot some frames on, but took out to replace with TMZ, but when I put it in, I forgot to skip all those frames. So… my shots of Hollywood Blvd will have my dogs superimposed over them. Who knows, maybe I’ll actually get something interesting out of it.

11/9/02

Published on November 9, 2002 in Text. 0 Comments .

Well, I’ve found a flaw in the M6… er… rather a flaw in myself that pertains to the M6. The meter will come on if the shutter release is pressed slightly down, and won’t turn off until however many seconds after you release it. In order to turn this off you rotate the shutter speed dial to B. Well, I’m not so good at remembering this, and so I have killed the 2 batteries I had for the camera. While in my Domke F803 bag, the shutter is pretty much always partially depressed, so after about 8 hours, the battery is no more. I just need to get into the habit, or I will be wasting a lot of cash on batteries. Actually I have no idea how much these batteries cost, but I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

11/8/02

Published on November 8, 2002 in Text. 0 Comments .

It’s raining outside. To most people that wouldnt be something worth mentioning, but I’m in southern California and we don’t often see rain. According to the weather report it may be one of the biggest storms to hit us for a couple years, with a projected 1 inch of rain! Mama pajama! Actually, in LA and Orange County, 1 inch of rain is a big deal. We don’t have good drainage systems on our roads, our parking lots, our driveways… so there’s lots of flooding. Its rained maybe a quarter of an inch so far, if that, and I had to walk across a makeshift bridge (plywood on a couple long 2×4s) to take the dogs out to potty. That’s pathetic, but when I get to NY, I’m sre gonna miss California weather.

I’m going to wait for the rain to slow down a bit, or maybe stop, then I’m going out to take some rare pics… Hollywood in the rain. People don’t often see that. Also, since not many people feel the need to own umbrellas (myself included), I’ll get a few shots of wet Califonians, too. I can hardly wait.

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I have made a few small design changes on the site… but I’m really not happy with it at all. I need to think outside the box or something. Who knows? I know that I would not make a good graphic design artist. The thing is, I can see someone else’s design, and give it a good critique, but I just can’t make my own from scratch. Luckily, as a photographer, I will look for designs in the light, shadows and forms, then I just need to capture them. I don’t think I’d make a good still photographer, actually having to set up shots, but hopefully I can do architectural photography, where I just need to find the shots

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I changed the image on the home page to one of Grace’s shots. I think this was from the second shoot I did of her. Actually, it may have been the third (and last). Unfortunately at the time I hadn’t really learned much about lighting yet and I overexposed the black background and it came out very grey, so I tried burning it out, leaving an interesting glow mostly around her head, and I ended up liking it that way. Hopefully it will stop raining soon so I can get outside and shoot some stuff, I am really itching to shoot!

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Unfortunately it didn’t stop raining before it got dark, in fact, I think it’s still raining now. I wonder how well the M6 does in rain, or at least sprinkles or drizzle. My 1v and L lenses were sealed to handle rain and snow and sand, but I’m guessing the M6 wouldn’t be too happy in those conditions. Then again, my 1v and 28-70mm weighed about 6 lbs.

I have been tinkering with the site some more, and though I’m not happy with it, I’m happier than I was. I’m guessing I’ll never be completely happy with it, or rather I’m hoping I won’t, otherwise I’d find no reason to continue to update it. I finally got the frames to work on the new photos section. It was actually really simple, I was just missing a few things.

11/6/02

Published on November 6, 2002 in Text. 0 Comments .

So I’ve been trying to tinker with the site design, and realize that I suck at it. I have always been big into simple, straightforward designs, and I’m not very good with the use of color. All I end up wanting to use is black, white and shades of grey. If I ever have to add color I’d prefer t be a dull blue-grey. So far things haven’t been going well. I am also trying to redesign the new photos section using frames, and that isn’t going well either. Dreamweaver doesn’t appear to want me to use frames, it keeps making some of them disappear after I save and reopen my files. I am probably just doing something wrong but I’ll be damned if I know what it is. I think the site will look like crap for a while until I get all this figured out. I would just mess with the design and upload it all when I am done with it, instead of uploading every time I make some crappy change that I know won’t stick, but it’s not as if I’m going to upset any of my visitors, as there really aren’t any. I have had a few visitors who stumbled into my site mistakingly due to google.de and google.fr indexing my journals. I got some visitor who was swarching for “jennifer beals flashdance gallery” and one for “robin williams one hour photo”, I even got a few that were searches for various camcorders. They don’t seem to look around too much once they’ve arrived, maybe 2 or 3 pages. I guess once I get some actual photography up on the site I may get more traffic. I certainly am not going to try to advertise the site until I have something more than just this journal.

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I received my journal from 1000journals.com yesterday. It is #945. Nice cover design, but as I think I said before, I’m rather uncomfortable with this because I’m the first person to get this one. Which means I am starting the art. That’s not easy for someone like me, who has never really accomplished any “art” yet. My first idea is to shoot a roll of Agfa Scala (black and white slide film) and put it in a neg sleeve, tape off the ends, then glue or staple it to the first page or two, so you can flip it out and hold it up to the light to look at it. I was thinking of maybe attaching a loupe on a string, but figured that might be going a little too far. I haven’t decided what to shoot yet, but I’ll probably just put the film in the M6 and go walk around Hollywood for a while. I wonder if they’ll do a good job of scanning the results once the journal gets back to them. They are scanning everything and posting it on the website when it comes back, which I think it great. But if they just use a flatbed scanner with no tranny adapter you won’t be able to see a damn thing. Oh well. The good thing is that we are encouraged to let family and friends enter stuff into the journals too, so I’m going to encourage everyone I know to do just that.

I’m also waiting to receive the disposable camera from the photo.net “chain-cammie project” that Daniel Flather started. I get one shot, then I have to pass it on. Now that’s pressure!

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I’m pretty pissed off right now. Just yesterday I received the first junkmail I’ve ever gotten on my vu@buistudios.com email address. I haven’t used it to sign up for anything anywhere, but I guess it was only a matter of time before some evil email sniffer found the address on my site, or maybe on someone else’s guestbook or something. Today I’ve already received 3 or 4 junk emails, and I’m guessing that by the end of the week I’ll be getting 100 a day, just like my yahoo account which I’ve had for 5 years and which is used whenever I have to give some website or some company my email address. That just pisses me off. I hate spam… well, I guess just about everyone does. And the truth is, it wouldn’t be too hard to get rid of it either. All we need to do is stop all the idiots out there who keep responding to or actually buying some of this crap. If it was entirely ineffective, they’d stop doing it. If they never got a single response or never made a single sale because of these damn mailings, they’d shut it down. Damn I’m pissed.

11/3/02

Published on November 3, 2002 in Text. 0 Comments .

I went to The Getty Museum yesterday, and I’m really glad I did. I didn’t get to see what I went there for, but I got to experience some amazing work nonetheless. Had I frequented museums a bit more in the past I’d know that they don’t shaw all of their stuff all the time, it gets cycled through display. So, I didn’t get to check out any of the Walker Evans stuff that they have so much of, stored in the back, waiting to be displayed again. That’s a shame, too, I really was looking forward to it.

What I did end up seeing in the photography section was their exhibit of Dorothea Lange’s photographs. Wow. I can honestly say that some of her photographs moved me. I plan on going back during the week when it’s not so busy so I can take a longer look, because the exhibit rooms were so crowded with people you couldn’t look at a photo for more than a few seconds before being nudged away by the next person. I’ll wait to say more about her exhibit until I’ve had a better look.

I also very much enjoyed the Rembrant and Company (or Rembrant and his Circle, something like that) room. Now I see what all the hubub is about Rembrant lighting. I truly fell in love with some of the work in that room, and I need to go back and have a closer look. Some of the other stuff from those earlier centuries was amazing too. I especially liked the more detailed paintings. Again, I think I’ll wait until I have a closer look to comment on the stuff there.

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I had brought the M6 to the museum, of course, but I got so immersed in all the art there that I hardly shot anything. Just some touristy shots. I have realized one thing, though… I wish I had started off in photography with manual cameras. It’s like my dad told me when he started to teach me how to drive. Learn with a manual transmission, and the automatic will be nothing, but learn with an automatic, and the manual will seem like quite a task. I have always used auto exposure cameras, and only recently started using the aperture priority mode on them (when I got my Contax G2). So going to an all manual exposure system is quite difficult. Throw in manual focus (all my cameras have been autofocus too) and by the time I am ready to snap the shutter on any non-static shot, the moment is gone. Focusing with the rangefinder patch is difficult so far. I am trying to get into the habit of parking the lens at infinity when I’m just walking around, that way I will always just rotate the focus ring in the same direction and stop when the images are aligned. Otherwise I go back and forth searching for correct focus. I really need to spend some good shooting time before I go on my trip, or I’m going to have a hard time. Well, I always have the Minilux to fall back on If I really need to shoot something quick, but I really don’t want to use it as a crutch.

For some reason the 50mm seems like a tele to me. I had decided to use the 50mm only for a while to get used to the camera and the lens, but this morning I decided to go ahead and take the 35 out of its box and stick on the camera. Maybe I’ll be more comfortable with this focal length. Actually, after thinking about it, I believe I only percieve the 50 as such a tele because I’m used to framing with the edges of the viewfinder, not with framelines. The framelines for the 50mm cover maybe half(?) of the viewfinder image, so it just seems like it’s being cropped down so much. I guess I just have to get used to that.

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So I shot a couple rolls with the M6 today at a little family gathering, and I’m quickly getting more used to the camera. Don’t get me wrong, the ergonomics are great, it feels wonderful in the hand, it’s just the damned manual focus and exposure that I need work on. The M6 is a wonderful camera to hold and shoot, and I still am not used to how quiet it is, but the G2 wasn’t so bad, now that I think about it. I in no way regret selling the G2 to buy the M6, but I do kinda miss it anyway, it was a great camera with a great feel to it and wonderful funtionality. It just wasn’t what I need in a camera. I am pretty sure the M6 is.

I shot mostly with the 35mm today, it was easier to get more people in the framelines, but for a couple shots I wished I could quickly switch to the 50. I think I am going to need another body, so if I can afford it, a Bessa R2 may be on its way. The only thing I don’t like about the 35 is the fact that you don’t get to see much outside of the framelines, I guess this is why the 0.58 finder is so great for the wider angles. With a 28mm I wouldn’t see outside the framelines at all. So I like shooting with the 50 framelines the best, but I like the field of view of the 35mm. Go figure.

I also have only shot with TMZ so far, and I really need to try a roll of Tri-X before I get too comfortable with the 3200 speed film. I can shoot indoors at middle apertures and nice shutter speeds, and that is great. Then in the darker parts of the house I open up to f/2 or 1.7 (depending on the lens) and can still shoot at around 1/60, which is a comfortable speed for indoor candids for me. With Tri-X I won’t have that luxury, but then again I can’t even shoot in daylight with TMZ, even at f/22 and 1/1000 I am still overexposing. Oh well, you can’t have everything. I guess if I got a Bessa R2 I could use mostly TMZ in it with the 35mm, and have a fast lens but also a slightly better top shutter speed of 1/2000. Hey, one stop might make a difference sometimes. I think maybe I should just stick to Tri-X and the M6 w/ 50mm for a while though, master (or at least get used to) that, then move on to another lens, then another film, then maybe later on another body. Ah, so much crap I put myself through when this doesn’t need to be so complicated. I really enjoyed shooting today and that’s what matters, even if the results end up just being a bunch of snapshots.

11/1/02

Published on November 1, 2002 in Text. 0 Comments .

So it’s a new month, I have a new camera, and I have no time to use it. I have been obsessing over this thing for a month, now it’s finally in my hands and I haven’t had the time to get out there and start taking pictures. Last night there was a big thing on Hollywood Blvd with rides and booths and even a hot air balloon. All of Hollywood was a parking lot, it took me an hour to get home from Pep Boys, which is only a mile from my apartment. Needless to say, I didn’t get a chance to go out and do some shooting, and I’m pretty darm upset about that. I had the Tmax 3200 loaded and ready. Oh well. Maybe I’ll have time this weekend, though it looks like it’s gonna be pretty busy. I guess that’s just how things are when you are about to move across the country.