"View from my Toilet"

Should be the name of a book. yes?

not mine though.

I thought I would share with you my new working process, or in other words... the view from my toilet.

I recently found out that my working process needed some improvement.  Before it was, shoot > make a contact sheet > choose what to print > make final print.

I really just didn't know any better.

But along the lines of not understanding the worth of my work I also have a really hard time knowing which photographs are worthy of printing. makes sense right?

This is where my critique class has been ever so helpful. 

new process.  shoot > make contact sheet > grab ANYTHING that sparks my interest, make a proof print > live with it > make a full size test print > final print.

The moment Jim uttered these word to me I knew it was just what I needed.  

I think the key here is living with the images. In addition to living with them I will be rearranging them, looking at them in different ways, and paying attention to which images speak to which.  And all this from my cozy little toilet room. I am certain a new spot is in order, but this is it for now.

I love this. Anything that slows the process down is a very good thing.

I feel perfectly content just making proof prints to live with for the rest of the semester.  Shhh... don't tell Mr. W.

Just kidding, you can tell him. I've worked my tail off this semester and have plenty to show for it ;)

* this girl ain't worried about it *

In a beautiful world.

Looking out the window of our San Jose hotel room Monday morning, I found myself a titch disappointed.  Oooooof course. It just had to get rainy on us. 

I distinctly remember looking at the 5-day outlook and it had a big yellow sun on each and every day. Promises had been broken.

I know you know what rain does to my hair. It's frizz-diculous is what it is. 

So I knew it was going to be an ugly day (me, not the city)  I accepted the fate and drove myself and kassidy into San Fran for our last day. 

If you've never driven into San Fran it is the most amazing sight. You come around the corner and suddenly there's hills and hills of beautiful buildings as far as the eye can see. It is gorgeous!

Over the city that day was lots of pretty fog. Why do I love fog? I do not know, maybe I don't get the pleasure often enough, but I find it really beautiful.

We really had no plan to speak of. What we did was, we saw tall buildings, exited the freeway at a random street, then drove aimlessly down it until we stopped at a random meter, in front of a door, connected to a building, of which we didn't know what was behind. But on the street next to our car happened to be a sandwich board advertising an art show they had on display. 

I thought, hmm... I love art.  How convenient.  And that is how we began our last day adventure in San Francisco! 

Now I want to tell you that even though it misted (not rained, misted) on us the WHOLE bloody time, and my feet sloshed in my shoes with every footstep, and my hair was a frizzy mess, and I was wearing a jacket over a hoodie over a sweater, over another sweater over my t-shirt... the moment I stepped outside my vehicle I knew we got lucky. Ohhh so lucky. 

Lucky for the fog.

Lucky for the rich beautiful saturated colors.

Lucky for the people walking by with their umbrellas.

Lucky for the lights reflecting off the street.

It was going to be a great day.

I cheater posted these color film shots on facebook, but the photo below, the one with Kassidy in it, I saved just for you, my favorite blog reader :)

Some favorite moments:

Golden Boy Pizza.  Away from the mega hustle and bustle, sitting at the wall covered in stickers and graffiti with my girl Kass, letting my feet dry, waiting for my pesto vegetarian pizza. totally cheap. totally yum.

Paying for parking just to find a bathroom. I had to go so bad, every store we went into pointed us out the door. When we finally did find one we also found a photo booth. *worth all 500 pennies*

eating a coconut macaroon dipped in chocolate made by the guy who dropped my change 3 times because... ahem.... I made him nervous. (?) No idea, but I'm thinking it was the big hair. 

Getting lost. like really lost, and laughing at ourselves when we ended up back in chinatown whilst trying to locate our car. (We were at Chinatown earlier in the day, and we thought we were in a completely different area, but apparently in all our circling/driving the wrong way down one way streets, ended up parking one block from it.)

Have you ever been lost? 

After I tell you this you're going to want to go out and buy an ipad. It saved our lives.

We drove round and round trying to find a place to park. We were somewhere in the middle of all the really tall buildings, thats what I knew. I finally found a spot on the street at a parking meter, just like I wanted. Then we started walking, aimlessly. we turned about 2 or 3 corners and I thought oh no! What street did we park on?? Kassidy didn't know either. So we noted the current location, figured it was pretty close right? Corner of blank and blank. Yeah... because we forgot that about two shakes later. 

We're a sad case.

One lucky thing. I remembered when we parked, as soon as I got out I started looking around for something interesting to photograph.  There was a bridge that went over the street. I only noticed it because people were walking across it with their umbrellas. And I also knew I took a photograph on California st. (see above) so I zoomed in really close to that area and found the bridge that crossed over the street! I dropped a pin and hit directions. led us straight there. 

Did I mention I drove the wrong way down a one way street?

We may not be welcome back.  

I <3 you SF.

I coming back.

The all new ART paper by Ilford

I woke up this morning and the first thing that went through my head was I gotta do a blog post on the new Ilford Art 300 paper.

Not that I am in anyway qualified to do a real live review on any product, but it's something I bought, used, and have opinions about. Maybe someone out there is on the fence about buying it since it's description is, well, confusing to say the least. They throw out words like matt and eggshell in the same sentence. huh? exactly.

Lets start with the extreme buoyancy of this product. This stuff floats. Like if you wash in a vertical washer it sticks up a good inch out of the water. Its not really a problem, I just wasn't expecting it. I mean it is a problem, in that you need to find a way for it to stay under, but it's not that difficult to solve. I just laid some plexiglass pieces over the tops to hold them down.

I printed 3 of my images on this paper. I scanned them to give you a bit of a visual but again its not really fair because its a scan... and scans are crappy, but then also the paper has this texture which makes it look quite grainy in the scan, when in fact it is not at all a grainy image. You can see that I included the whole of the image, all the way to the edge of the paper, and it is indeed textured.

These are they...

I love the way these printed up. This paper does a really beautiful job with the blacks and contrast. I mean really beautiful. The tones are perfect. In the description it says, it has a cool base colour and warm image tone.  I wasn't sure what that meant. The example photo on the box looks really warm. Kind of a rich brown, I don't find that to be the case in real life.  I can see that its not a cool black, but its not brown either. its a warm black and thats really the only way to put it. But definitely black.  

The thing that throws me off about this paper is the texture. If you look at the print straight on the texture is really noticeable.  And sometimes usually I don't really like all that texture. It seems to give it this furry look. Really hard to put in words.  But then if you take the print and tilt it, and look at it from an angle, even a slight angle, it transforms into shimmery wonderfulness. Honestly, any furriness it had disappears completely and you are left looking at a gorgeous print, almost as if the light picks up the little slivers of silver. It's really something to see! That particular quality about it excites me. But the texture not so much.

it is also very heavy/thick, which is nice.

So is it worth the $1.42 per sheet, plus shipping and/or tax?

I say yes. 

I won't print all, or even most of my images on this paper, but I think certain images will look really beautiful on it. 

And if you're a darkroom printer I think its definitely worth a shot. I mean, you just HAVE to see the gorgeous silvery shimmer. It's like nothing I've ever seen, not that I've seen much of anything really.

For reference, the paper I usually print with is Adox premium fiber based paper. Which I do quite love.

If I have any film shooter, darkroom printer, blog readers out there, I'd LOVE to hear back from you how you feel about this paper.

My local camera store doesn't carry it. I ordered it online from Freestyle Photo. I use them quite a bit, they are really great, I get all my paper from them and a good lot of my film.

Also... lots of exciting things happening in my little world of photography that I will talk about more later, but I just started a critique class over at Art Intersection with Carol Panero-Smith and Jim Hajicek. AND... I also just signed up for wet plate collodion workshop with France Scully Osterman! 

yeah yeah, more later :) !!!!!!!!! 

(I can hardly wait)

WANTED

opinions!! 

for all those who care to dish it.

one is film. one is digital.

I was going to make you guess which one is which but since to me it's so obvious which is which (its really not fair to the film image, scans of images are so horrid) I will just tell you...

the top one is digital and the bottom one is film.

There just something different about film, they say. I can't put my finger on it. its just different. analog.
(if you ever wanted to see a side-by-side of film vs. digital you're in luck... I got one right here :))


furthermore if you ever wondered what a crop sensor is doing to your photos this is a prime example. Both images shot with a 50mm lens (or the equivalent... don't make me go into the specifics of shooting medium format) my digital is a crop sensor. Both images taken from the exact same spot. Look at all the real estate you're missing out on!

The question is... which do you prefer and why?

I feel like the scanner did an exceptionally terrible job of scanning this one in. Wooo doggies.

I can assure you with certainty the actual print does not have a blown out dress.

You don't have to be a photography expert to have an opinion. I welcome all opinions :) !!

Chad and I have differing opinions on this one.  And incase you wonder why I have one on digital and one on film, my film camera is a Pentax 6x7 and I don't trust the light meter one iota. And since I don't want to put out the money for a hand held light meter I use the digi to proof the shot.

This photograph very much belongs with the sunrise collection from the previous post.


Talk to me people!!!

A meager life's work

On day 18 of a 20 day semester I found myself putting in twice the normal days work as I stayed quite late to learn how to tone prints. And as I stepped out of the classroom that day holding my two boxes overflowing with prints, my teacher said to me...

wow, that's like you're whole life's work you're holding there.

I supposed that was true in a way, and as I looked again at the overstuffed boxes, what seemed before to be an enormous amount of work, now seemed meager and deflated.

Though headway has been made, I was reminded that I am only at the very beginning of my journey. With all the discoveries yet to be made I think the beginning is an exciting place to be.

Someday perhaps two arms won't be enough to carry out the life's work of this girl.

Before I show you what I have been working on all of June let me first explain that this is from an ongoing project which is still taking form. Eventually it will include the wholeness of my family, but for now it is mostly consisting of my three little girls. I am in awe of the beauty that can be found within the sincerity of a young person. What they give you in terms of truth and depth is such an amazing gift. Especially so for the mother that has an all access pass to witness these things plainly and often, now to capture them is a treasure.

Again this is not the whole of my project but a small sampling of what was created within the small amount of time that was my summer school class.

note the sequentiality of the photographs as we begin in a public place, and move into more private spaces. The tracing of these moments being under normal circumstances unavailable to you as an outsider, now sit suspended here for indefinite amounts of time for your looking.























Now next time you go to photograph ask yourself this one question...

What does ____________ look like photographed?

and then answer the question with your experimentation.

within reach, if you're willing.

Tomorrow is my last day of summer school. It's bitter-sweet, with a little bit of a lean toward the sweet.

I'm preparing for some much needed sharing on here!

Till then...



oh yes~ Take your children to see Mr. Popper's Penguins, it's great. I laughed and laughed. Abnormally loud in fact.


<3 jill

6x7 times the fun

I got myself a new weapon for self defense...


yeah I know... you can't tell from the photo how massive this baby is but believe me when I say this camera is taking you down like a ninja.

think about it for a second. The pentaprism says ASAHI on it.

Say it out loud... ASAHI

Did you picture a ninja when you heard it aloud? Yes, I thought so.

Maybe next time I will plant my mug behind it so you can see how humongous it is. The camera, not my mug :)

I've shot 2 rolls so far. I get 10 exposures per roll and the negatives are a thing of true beauty. big. like the camera.

I decided the first shot should be a really ugly photo of myself. It was a brilliant plan.

... till I saw the photo.


I was unprepared for the ugly I beheld. Ha. Not such a brilliant plan after all.

There are very few photos I bother to give a title to. This one I fondly refer to as 'Ugly Me'

I love hate it.

Hate it because I really do look like that sometimes. Love it because I really do look like that sometimes.

I was talking to my teacher about photographing ones self and he brought up an interesting point that I hadn't previously thought of. It was the notion that people have a perception of them self and a certain way they want to be presented. perhaps the problem I have photoing myself is that I see myself as 'me' too much and not just a subject to work with. And I know he's right because I feel very uncomfortable when I look at this photo of myself.

That is something I will surely struggle with forever. How can I not?

Would you like to see something a little prettier now?

yes, lets.


I love that face.

This next image came from my last assignment. I was using the nikon to meter for the Pentax. I don't quite trust the meter on the Pentax yet. I have this one on film as well :-)


This assignment was quite interesting. We chose a poem and tied our images to it. Perhaps I will share what came of it when I get it back.

Other things you should probably know...

Today I climbed my grapefruit tree. Got the ones off the top. YUM.

also, set the smoke alarm off. Which makes Lucys legs shake, like when she sees a big dog. Is she afraid of dogs? Well I am so that would make sense I guess.

nighty night.