The idea was that with the attached Kalart rangefinder I could focus without the slow agony of dealing with an upside down, backwards, and hard-to-see image on the ground glass.

To eBay! And to Goodwill to buy a vest! (I’ll need a hat, too, with a card sticking out of it saying “PRESS”.)

I have learned a few lessons already. First of all, just because you search for “4×5 speed graphic” on eBay does not mean that the results are necessarily all 4×5 cameras. This I found out when – auction won – I got the box in the mail, opened it, and pulled out the curiously small film holder that came with it. “Gee, that’s smaller than my other 4×5 film holders… and why does it say 3¹/₄ x 4¹/₄ on it?”

Lesson number two: when you ask somebody on eBay specifically “does the shutter function” and they reply “it looks great!” they may, in fact, not have a clue what they are talking about. It does, in fact, look great. It does not, however, “function”. Still, the guy who is going to clean and adjust the shutter (for another $75) assured me I got a decent deal on the whole thing anyhow and I should not be too upset.

As for the rangefinder to focus concept… well, that’s fine if you’re hand holding, but if you’re on a tripod for a nice studio portrait and your subject’s eyes don’t happen to be where the rangefinder zone is… not so useful. All of a sudden having that ground glass sure sounds like a nice idea.

Anyhow, enough complaining. The whole thing seems relatively decent. It came with a 120 roll film back which the repair man mused would, on its own, probably fetch what I paid for the whole kit. So I can shoot – and easily develop – 120 roll film with this (and the rangefinder) Once, that is, I get back on eBay and buy a developing tank, reel, and changing bag. Sigh.

Now that school is out and I have some time to catch up on things, I finally dusted off the envelope of paper and had a look. I had seen that the packaging mentioned that, in addition to placing objects on the paper (leaves, keys, etc.) you could also make contact prints from negatives (provided you had sufficiently large negatives).

I figured “hey, if I can make contact prints I could also cut the paper to size and stick it in my 4×5 view camera!”, bypassing the traditional film negative. They say that a negative could take up to two hours to expose, so I tried two hours in the view camera.

Nothing. Four hours…

…nothing. Well, if you look closely you can just barely see the bright white roof of Ohio University’s Convocation Center in the top left of the image and the sky above the hills north of Athens along the top.

At that point I did some more research and discovered that the light-sensitive chemicals require UV light – frequently/usually blocked by normal camera lenses. Ooops.

That was a bit of a disappointment, since now I’m back to just making normal contact prints, but at least I have some 4×5 negatives to work with. It still took a while to figure out exposures. I’m really not sure where they come up with 2 hours for negative contact prints: in my experiments 1 hour was too much, 20 minutes still – even 6 minutes were too long. For this negative, at least, 3 minutes in bright sun seems to be about right.

A friend of mine mentioned rinsing in bleach to bring out vivid blues and online research mentioned ammonia, among other things to rinse with (no, I did not find out what happens if I mixed bleach and ammonia). Turns out bleach makes it much darker and richer, so that’s cool too. Once I run out of the Sunart pre-made paper I’ll get some real cyanotype chemicals and take it from there.

So, more to come… but first I need some more interesting negatives to work with, which is a whole different challenge.

I think the series can go on indefinitely. I’m excited about various shades of brown – maybe for cinnamon twists, but I’m thinking the next one needs to be green. I’m thinking mint. I’m thinking “mojito”.

We’ve got a chocolate cupcake, lemon cheesecake, blueberry scones, and orange cookies.

I liked the orange set a lot, so I worked it a bit more.

I had to paint several coats over several days, and my backdrop paper got to be pretty cool. Then, below, I shot all of the sets with my Arca Swiss 4×5 view camera with a 210mm lens and a Leaf Aptus digital back. Then I shot it all with my Canon 5D Mark II, just to be sure. in the final shots the blue one is from the 5D, the others are all view camera / digital back shots.

Best part is, since I didn’t do anything nasty to the food and it isn’t really perishable, I got to eat the props after I was done. Yummy.

Here’s the top result.

The speaker also repeatedly drove home his conviction that whatever you do, do NOT be a generalist. Find your niche, find what you are passionate about and can focus on for five years, and DO IT.

Ok, guess I’d better get right on changing my complete personality – what has made me me for 37 years. Everyone is telling me the same thing, so I must be wrong. Anyone have any suggestions for which of my various interests I should focus on?

I’ve wanted to learn to SCUBA dive for a long time. I figured I’d just go on a vacation to Sharm el Sheikh or something (that was much more feasible when living back in Amsterdam) and do a short course to get certified. Boy am I glad I didn’t do that. As the OU SCUBA t-shirts say, “Don’t just get certified, learn to dive!” I think there is a big difference: learning the skills and information over a period of several weeks – as opposed to a weekend – makes me feel much more comfortable and safe. Plus it gave me a little bit of time to get in sufficient shape that I wouldn’t drown from exhaustion.

Speaking of drowning, there was a swim test on the first day of class. The first portion of the test was to tread water for 3 minutes with our hands above our heads. I knew I was in trouble when people watching started pointing at me and the lifeguard slowly made her way around to my side of the pool. I only went under briefly, though, and managed to get through the middle portion of the test ok. Then the final 12-lap (width) swim was just mind-over-matter – and patience. But the good thing about pushing your personal limits – no matter how lame they are compared to people who are actually in shape and know how to swim – is knowing that your limits are actually pretty far out there and until you get to them nothing really bad is going to happen.

I spent the next few weeks learning how to clear the pressure in my ears, learning how to do surface dives, clear our masks, and other basic skills. Once I was able to deal with the pressure in my ears, dive efficiently, and hold my breath for a little bit, it was really awesome. Laying on the bottom of the deep end, gazing up with all that water and people floating on the surface…just cool stuff. And it got better once we were on air and I had more than 10 seconds of bottom time to enjoy things.

After completing the course and taking the final written and swimming exams for the class we had several options for the actual certification check-out dives. One was pretty cheap – only $45 – to go swim in a quarry in, of all places, Circleville (the town where I grew up). No thanks. Option three was to spend a week on a sailboat in the Bahamas… for $1500 or so. Probably a great deal, but even I couldn’t figure out a way to justify it. So I took the middle route: about $300 for a long weekend trip to some clear water springs in Florida.

After a crazy 15-hour drive south we pulled into Devil’s Den campground and SCUBA diving spot. Set up camp in the dark, which was fine for me, until I discovered in the light of day that I was apparently the only one who didn’t group their tents all together in a nice social bunch. Well, the nice social grouping was in the bottom of a ravine that filled up with water the next night, so I don’t feel so bad up on my small hill.

The first morning of diving was a load of fun – it was great to be in the real world instead of a swimming pool. Also very nice to be wearing a 5mm wetsuit (and therefore not be shivering constantly). One new lesson learned, though: eating baked beans for dinner could result in an uncontrollable air space the next day. During the first checkout dives I was trying to equalize my ears by holding my nose and blowing, damn near equalized something else.

Unfortunately on one of the dives I managed to get stuck under a rock and then screw up control of my buoyancy and went up a little too fast into rocks that were a little too sharp, but the panic was manageable and I have a hard head, as I’ve been told many times.

After the morning checkout dives we spent the two afternoons snorkeling in various super clear waters around our part of Florida. The first day we headed into the Crystal River network of rivers, in part to see manatees. Unfortunately we were not allowed to wear any weight belts, so in our wetsuits we were more buoyant than corks bobbing on the surface – couldn’t dive or get close to things much at all. Considering in the 5mm wetsuit I normally wear 19 lbs of lead not having that makes a big difference. At least I didn’t have to worry about getting tired of swimming – I couldn’t sink if I wanted to.

We did see a few manatees in the muddier river we were in after that, but right as one was swimming in front of me some big old guy swam between us and kicked me in the face with his fin, so I left the area – he was fat enough I figured beating the snot out of him might be mistaken as harassing a manatee by a passing park ranger.

The second afternoon we drifted down the Rainbow River, which was cool as hell. It’s this good-sized river that is very nearly crystal clear – and very fast moving. If it weren’t for the other students swimming so (too) fast it wouldn’t have been necessary to swim at all, really except to get closer to something you wanted to see. We were allowed weight belts, too, so diving down and swimming with the fish was a hoot. Who would have thought we would voluntarily strap lead weight on to get in water – and be mad when we weren’t allowed?

One of the highlights of the trip – and some of the better photos I managed with my little point-and-shoot – were of a school of alligator gar that swam by me at one point. I probably spent 10 minutes lazily swimming interlocking loops around them as they made their way around and down the river.

Now to do something really cool, like the Red Sea or Belize or something. And with real camera gear. Stay tuned.

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BTS.The Flying Saucer Song from Tim Jackson Films Library on Vimeo.

A while back I worked as the still photographer on the set of a film being shot by one of the School of Film students here at Ohio University. Riley Gibson, one of the crew members on that film, had the chance to work on his own projects a few weeks later and I was able to photograph that as well.

I haven’t yet processed all of my photos, but one of the other crew members filmed a behind-the-scenes video in which I star (dimly) around 2:05 and in the group photo I shot at about 4:39. I don’t know when Riley’s film will be finished – probably months away – but here’s a peek behind the scenes for now.

The most recent still life assignments were to collaborate with a design student to create a magazine cover or two-page spread. One of my designers wanted to do something with Valentine’s Day and cupcakes, and, as you’ll see, I’m on something of a monochromatic kick at the moment, so I wanted to paint everything red. Oooh… next shoot: Paint it Black.

Anyhow, most of these were shot with my Canon 5D Mark II, but a few – such as the photo above – were photographed with my Arca Swiss 4×5 view camera and a Leaf Aptus 65 medium format digital back.

At some point I got it into my head that I wanted to paint a bunch of stuff all one color and make some (hopefully) cool surreal photos playing with shapes and shadows. The first try was with a jewelry shoot. First lesson: get good paint, preferably with a matte finish.

I had liked Tiffany & Co.’s sea foam green/blue color, and tried to work with that and some white pearls. Somehow I doubt Tiffany gets their paint from the spray paint section at Lowe’s, though, and by the end of the project I was fairly well sick of looking at it. The paint was tacky (physically, if not also visually) and held fingerprints easily. The gloss surface had glare that, yes, I could control, but still… wasn’t the feel I was going for. And, mainly, it wasn’t the right color.

The first assignment in this quarter’s still life class was to “photograph aluminum foil”. I tried a variety of concepts, including punching out little foil snowflakes and photographing various things reflected in a sheet of foil.

I also tried to freeze a sheet of foil in a block of ice – I figured “it’s -8F outside, might as well capitalize on it” – but since the ice was so clouded with bubbles and stuff it was hard to figure out what was inside. It was fun to experiment at least.

Did a self-portrait, too. With the digital camera it wasn’t too hard, but when I tried to shoot it with 4×5 film… less easy.

“Still life, again?” you may be thinking. Yes, I had a still life class winter quarter last year. This class now is theoretically different – I’m working more with designers and we have to create a business plan – but basically… I’m a little curious about the program I’m in. My peers in the photojournalism track are currently spread across the US – and, for one, Guatemala – doing their major Magazine class shoot… and I’m sitting in my living room photographing cupcakes. Again. Hmm.

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I accompanied my friend Rebecca to New Straitsville, Ohio, for a look-see and some tasty diner food. Rebecca is covering the village for her current photojournalism class and wanted to take some photographs with my 4×5 film camera, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to get out of Athens and explore the countryside for a bit.

Along the way I met some really nice and interesting people, climbed around in a cave, and had biscuits smothered in sausage gravy, fried eggs, and cheese. It was a good day.

Towards the end of the fall quarter I got to thinking about using a large format camera over the break, just for fun mainly. While I was in Wyoming I saw several photographers working with 4×5 and 8×10 cameras and saw the resulting prints, which were pretty impressive. During a class discussion last year the prof pointed out that despite whatever other advantages digital might have over film, having a sensor this large is (still) impossible or impossibly expensive. Four inch by five inch film puts my 35mm sensor to shame.

I also found that working with the view cameras last year in the studio forced me to slow down and concentrate more on what I was doing. It was still digital – we used Leaf backs to capture the image, so I still took 200 shots a night – but composing, figuring out the depth of field (and getting enough light), and focusing were all far more time consuming than with a DSLR.

So I thought I would use one over winter break, with actual film. Turns out I can’t use the school’s equipment over break, so I made the mistake of checking eBay. I asked one of my professors how much – ballpark – these things cost, and he pulled up eBay and did a quick search. The first result was, by all appearances, a great deal on an Arca Swiss 4×5 camera with all kinds of extras. Two and a half hours later I had bought a camera. Another week or so and I found a lens and some film from Midwest in Columbus.

It took me a while to work up the courage to load the film sheets, find subjects, and even more time to work up the courage to mix up the chemicals, darken the bathroom, figure out how to time things in the dark without a timer, and get the film developed. I only sloshed a liter of Photo Flo all over the bathroom… minor accident. Scratched the heck out of a couple of the negatives – need bigger trays – but all in all it was a fun experience.

I foresee more black and white in my future, since a) it’s cheaper to buy film and b) I can develop it myself. Now for landscapes in the cold and snow!

Friend and fellow grad student Rebecca Miller and I went headed to the hills to get some fresh air and photos. Got a late start, so only really had time to walk around Ash Cave and Cedar Falls. We’ll have to go back to check out Old Man’s Cave.

After freezing and sniffling around the Hocking Hills Rebecca and I canvassed Logan, Ohio, for a non-chain place to eat. We found Bush’s Restaurant, and it was… awesome.

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