I've been cutting 4 x 5 sheets of ilford paper and shoving them into my film holders, then using them as if they were actually film. I obviously didn't have the reciprocity down, or something, because only one image showed up.. and I don't know what it is of. I've ordered some fuji instant film, hopefully once this arrives I will be able to more readily check my composition/ exposure, rather than it being a whole day turn around prior to seeing my images. I've found this incredibly informative site about reciprocity, hopefully it will help.
I've been rewinding my life, and trying to find that time when I truly loved photography for itself. I remember sitting in photo class as a junior in highschool, and this devastatingly handsome skateboarder showed me images by Brian Gaberman. This one to be exact.
Anyway, Brian Gaberman is a photographer for Skateboarder, and here's the sweet part, makes images of quickly moving people flying through the air on small pieces of wood with wheels... with a 4 x 5. He also uses a lot of pinholes and a lot of darkroom manipulation. He made me love film. Him and Jerry Uelsmann, but he's another blog. Gaberman captures gritty dirty building exteriors, deep, rich black shadows, and moody skies. His images utilize a lot of blurred motion and have a dreamy aesthetic.
I'd like to be using my 4 x 5 wide angle pinhole which has a f/ 150 aperture, and is therefore very hard to meter. Yes, I could use my light meter and get an approximate exposure time, but in low light and long exposures, we're talking up to 3 to 4 minutes sometimes, you're in the world of reciprocity. This would take a lot of what my Physics 107 professor Dr. Pat Goolsby would call WAG-ging.. that stands for Wild Ass Guess if you didn't know, and as he'd tell you, one should really make hypothesis' using scientific data instead. So, the logical answer is instant film, that's why I've been looking into alternatives for the now obsolete Polaroid instant film, and my 545ii holder that is rendered useless as well since Polaroid declared Chapter 11. I thought about all those old film hoarding photo junkies but all the film I can find on Ebay is open and sometimes as old as a decade! But thank goodness for monopolies, Fujifilm is here to the rescue, for merely $3.40 a pop I can use their new instant pack film... with their new PA-45 Instant Film Holder ringing up at a bit over $200. I shot a bit yesterday evening, (utilizing my new pocket wizards to pop off some extra light!) using Ilford paper cut into 4 x 5 pieces and loaded into my film backs.. we'll see how this works out, it is really just an experiment, I am guessing it will not be as clear as I'd like, but perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised.. again this doesn't help with the light readings, but sheets of 11 x 14 paper are $1.80/ each, and I fit 6 - 4 x 5 cuts on each sheet, this is only .30¢ a shot then, now that'd be economical... SO
Ilford's 4 x 5 black and white ISO 100 film, is 100 sheets for $90, but I would have to factor in paying for Action Photo to develop the negatives for me, which translates to me waiting for film, and an additional $25 per 10 images, bringing up Ilford film to $3.40 an image + time to develop + at least say 2 sheets of instant film @ $3.40 a piece, I can expect to SPEND: $10.20 an image plus cost of printing..
Versus
Shooting directly onto Ilford paper, at .30¢ an image + approximately 2 sheets of instant film @ $3.40 a piece + time to scan film, print onto transparency to turn into a contact negative @ graphics lab for $1 a dollar, I can be spending $8 an image + cost of printing, this will save some time in waiting for developing and save $1.50 an image..
I napped today after spending the afternoon with Courtney Mannion digging through shelves and inhaling deeply into bound journals on the upper levels of Cabell Library. We talked for a brief moment about a perfume that smelled of library books, pipe tobacco and mildewy cloth. That may not sound appetizing to you, but it sounds like heaven to me. Well, I had some of the most vivid dreams ever, it was a bit like time travel, as they were really just memories of mine. I think all this thinking and conjuring up my why has started to yield some results. Let me take you with me...
The hayloft of my barn in Herndon, Va summer of 7th grade we were cleaning out the low eved "attic" and I scraped my back on the wood, and collapsed onto a creation our barn cat was making. Several animals killed and brought up the ladder to his "lair" it was a rat-pigeon-squirrel-vole-mouse-baby barn swallow that had literally congealed together... I had just face planted into it...
Then, I was in California the first year I aged not in Virginia, my birthday, turning 19 my little brother sent me a box, this was the best present I ever received (and a really intense couple of years doing, inhaling, taking things I had no business ingesting made me forget all about this box.) It contained a scrap of fabric I had used to sew a dress with in high school he must have found in a dresser stashed with other things I left when I moved away, and a note that said "STOP: Put on the blindfold and have William help". There was instructions that my then boyfriend followed. I heard him opening little jars and told me to inhale. In through my nose came the smell of my life in Virginia in the fall. First was straw from the horse stalls, then in the next jar was rotting leaves from a big birch tree in the corner of our yard, then ash from the fire pit, then dirt from by the lake, then a small clipping of leather off an unused horse bridle ... I can't remember all the things he put in the jars, but as they say scent is the strongest link to memory and a nauseating rush of homesickness poured over me. I woke up and spent the last few hours staring at old negatives of mine from high school, when I was so enchanted with photography I wanted nothing else in my life. I haven't felt that way in such a while, and these old images were invigorating and inspiring. I spent much of my high school years crawling through abandoned houses taking slow shutter speed images of me creeping through walls and over exposed windows eating away at my image. I was amazed at the themes and ideas that were floating in those images and I'd like to revitalize them, I seemed to better understand the nature of the camera, the nature of light, and ideas about identity, permanence, memory, and image. I don't know if this is allowed, but it's pretty early in the game, and I'm so very much infuriated by my lack of enthusiasm for my current project. I feel as if art school has shoved things/ideas/images down my artistic esophagus so forcefully that it has engulfed my own self. The work I have made recently, and not so recently does not seem to be mine, it seems to be a response to Richmond, to Being, yes but not to myself. Looking at work from the past year at VCU I see nothing reminiscent of my own personal style except one roll I took during alternative processes, and it's like I'm just looking at things for the first time, because they don't speak of me, my experiences, my desires, my visions. I think there is a more natural and fluid way to express what I've been trying to say, I feel as if I've been devoured by an artist that is not me. Stay tuned for what's next, I'm heading home to the farm, to memories, to me.
Did you enjoy the hallway? I did. It was like a mini meditation session. I re-watched "Me and You and Everyone We Know" the other day. I love that movie, it makes you FEEL so many different things. It even gets boring in parts, but it feels INTENTIONALLY boring, I love it. I've always identified with the next door neighbor girl, Sylvie. She collects timeless, classic home appliances and toiletries to save in a hope chest for her husband and her daughter. She lays down Peter and tells him the layout of her home, the breakfast nook, the island with the stove in it, and the conversations she will have with her unborn, unconceived, child. I had completely forgotten about this girl when I put this movie on my Netflix queue. I just remembered the poop, and the sidewalk of life. The sound track is also amazing. I'm listening to it now. It is hopeful, nostalgic, and desperate all in one. The most amazing thing about Miranda July to me is that she makes art just for me. Her pieces address me, the speak just to me... and to you, but not to both of us at the same time. They are just for the viewer, a single solitary soul, and then the next person, and the next, but each gets their own individual art piece. This video made me remember something I had not remembered in the longest time. My mother and I used to spend Saturdays walking through model homes. They were always furnished, decorated, and stocked, or so it would seem. The grapes were fake, but usually right next to them was a plate of crackers left by a realtor, and when you went to use a toilet you would lift the seat cover and the bowl was blocked off, there was probably a sign left on it that said the toilet in the selling office is functional. We loved to go to the Dream House, each year this multi million dollar home would be raffled off to someone who could not possibly pay the taxes on it, one year it was the most fabulous thing I'd ever seen, I remember each room ever so clearly, or maybe it is just a blend of every model home we walked through...Can't you imagine yourself living here? This little girl's room is designed to look as if it is underwater! Murals on the wall of fish, the carpet the color of sand, the blinds blue and floating/ swaying like water, that bed was a seashell, and there were mermaid pillows. The ceiling was the best, it was painted to look like you were underwater looking up, sun rays rippled through, and the bottom of a boat just started to skim into your aquarium. The basement was a movie theatre, red and yellow, there was a ticket booth, a bar made to look like a concession stand, thick velvet curtains pushed back to enter into the theatre, 3 rows of REAL movie seats with an aisle lined with little tiny string lights, and a projector that illuminated the front wall with some 90's blockbuster hit. This part I don't remember, because I was so fascinated with a home that was just so PERFECT. Nobody could ever live like this, there was no food in the sink, there were no dirty clothes in the laundry, the laundry actually was filled tile samples and paint chips, so you could customize YOUR home. I'm just starting to understand the implications of memories like this, especially now that the housing bubble has popped, and it's hot air that was released is smothering my generation of disillusioned youths, who grew up in perfect little homes, filled with lovely things, driven around in cars not paid off, and never noticed the ever encroaching disaster that is now your society.
