As the most pandemic restrictions lifted and I could leave my neighborhood in spring, I committed to getting out of the house WITH CAMERAS.<\/p>\n
I have a habit of stocking up on film when I’m feeling flush, and I must have felt especially flush in 2016 – 2018: I stockpiled 100+ film packages in my refrigerator or on shelves.\u00a0 A sale here, a Kickstarter there, and “suddenly,” the dedicated film drawer AND refrigerator door shelves overflowed.\u00a0 All of this film has been steadily sliding toward ever-closer expiration dates as the seasons turned while I sat indoors, waiting for the end of the pandemic, or at least positive health trends.\u00a0 Expired film behaves strangely, but I decided to go out and shoot it, with hopes of getting all of my stockpile exposed this year before ordering fresh film.<\/p>\n
I’m making progress!<\/p>\n
This image, from June 2021, is especially representative of ME.\u00a0 It has many of my core San Francisco surface obsessions.\u00a0 T<\/strong>here is old brick (and lots of it) showing signs of patching over time; there are visible utilities, including the power pole (not exactly vertical) and its wires, the fire hydrant, and dark exterior pipes; there is a fire escape casting its shadows sharply on the brick; and there are hints of the location, with a view that peeks around the corner and shows a few distant landmarks.\u00a0 The sun is high and bright, the surfaces are harshly lit, and the shadows are all well defined.<\/p>\n Ordinarily, this photo would be in conventional black-and-white, but I’ve chosen to go with “Lomochrome Redscale<\/a>,” an experimental emulsion from The Lomographic Society<\/a> that is spooled backward, so the film base itself serves as a color filter.\u00a0 I treat it like monochrome, though realizing it enhances bricks makes it feel like it is performing some special trick just for me.<\/p>\n I used the “Extended Range” version of the film, which can be exposed between 50 – 200 ASA, depending on your intentions.\u00a0 I’ve had these particular rolls in my refrigerator for years, so I should have known better than to shoot at 100ASA – I should have given it more light.\u00a0 (Now I know, so I did learn something new.)\u00a0 The scans show serious under-exposure in many of the negatives, but the good folks at Photoworks (SF)<\/a> corrected for this in the excellent prints they made for me.<\/p>\n The results are satisfying enough that, once I’ve cleared my 100 roll\/package stockpile, I may need to order fresh rolls of the current edition of Redscale to get enough images for a small photo book…<\/p>\n It’s good to be out with a camera again!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the most pandemic restrictions lifted and I could leave my neighborhood in spring, I committed to getting out of the house WITH CAMERAS. I have a habit of stocking up on film when I’m feeling flush, and I must have felt especially flush in 2016 – 2018: I stockpiled 100+ film packages in my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":459,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[63,43,8,79],"class_list":["post-458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lomochrome","tag-color-shifted","tag-expired-film","tag-san-francisco","tag-yashica-mat-124-g","entry","fw-tab-6 fw-tabr-4","has-featured-image"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/AEG-brick-wall-portrait-202106.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458\/revisions\/467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aegraves.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}