Maine

It's summer which means that I am doing a lot more things that require me to leave the house, and, consequently, a lot less crafting. A few weeks ago I took a trip to Maine which is a great state for taking pictures.  

 

The square black and white photos were taken with my modified Holga 120 on Arista Ultra 400. They were developed in Ilfotec DD-X. The rectangular black and white photos were taken with a Minolta XG-M on Kentmere 400 film and developed in Caffenol. The color photos are digital. 

♥Jessica

Danbury Railway Museum

 The Danbury Railway Museum, located in Downtown Danbury Connecticut, is a treasure chest of old trains. I visited the museum last weekend to check out my friend Anne's photographs which are on display, and took some of my own while I was there. 

The museum is located in the old Danbury train station, and scenes from the movie "Stranger's on a Train" were filmed there. The best part of the museum is that they let you explore the rail yard and go inside a lot of the old trains. My favorite in the mail car. 

These photos were taken with expired Tmax 400 in my Minolta XG-M. I developed them with Ilfotec-DDX

♥ Jessica

New Britain Museum of American Art

A few weeks ago I visited the New Britain Museum of American Art. I had no idea this museum even existed until a friend suggested we go see their Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit.

One of my favorite sculptures at the museum is Don Quixote, right out front.

It's funny how a great museum could be so close I you don't even know it. I definitely recommend visiting the NBMAA if you are in the area. 

The Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit will be open until May 12, 2013.

♥ Jessica

Winter

Here in Connecticut we are all pretty sick of Winter. It snowed on Friday and then it was very warm this weekend. I hope it's a sign that spring is here. 

This is a picture of a frozen pond I took at some point this Winter. Sometimes when you shoot film it takes a while before you develop the pictures. I even developed some from Christmas this weekend. This picture was taken with my trusty Minolta-16.

I hope everyone out there is enjoying some nice weather!

♥ Jessica

Camera Print Journals

My newest set of pamphlet journals features a camera and a roll of film. I'm a big film geek so I enjoyed carving this print. I think film is very nostalgic for people of a certain age, and even if you don't use film anymore, you may have fond memories of it.  Remember finding an exposed roll that you forgot about? Getting the prints back was like opening a hidden treasure.

 

 

These journals are 6 inches square and have watercolor paper inside. 

♥ Jessica

Minolta 16mm "Spy" Camera

Back in late 2012 I received a Minolta-16 as a gift. It's a small metal camera that was originally produced in 1960. Sometimes this type of camera is called a "Subminiature" or "Spy" camera, but it wasn't actually designed for secret agents. It was marketed as a pocket camera for kids and families. It took small cartridges of 16mm film produced by Minolta (similar to 110 film cartridges). It's a fixed focus camera but you can adjust the shutter speed and aperture which makes it very handy for a variety of shooting conditions. It's super handy as it fits in your pocket so you can take it almost anywhere. And the negatives are so cute!

Thanks to the magic of the internet I was able to purchase a cartridge loaded with fresh film and a developing tank which can hold smaller rolls of film. 16mm film was primarily used in movie cameras and is still produced today. In an effort to save money I purchased an older 50 foot roll of 16mm Tri-X 7278 (which is different from today's Kodak Tri-X film) for loading into the cartridge. I was completely lost when it came to developing. I have a bottle of Ilfotec DDX and I had no idea if it would work with these films, or how long to develop them for. I arbitrarily chose 6.5 minutes and, for some reason, it worked.

 

 

 

The first three photos are from the fresh roll of film that came in the cartridge. The last one is from the old Tri-X 7278 film. I'm very pleased with the resulting pictures and I am looking forward to shooting the next 48 feet of film.

♥ Jessica

Fifth Annual Worldwide Photo Walk

This weekend I participated in Scott Kelby's Fifth Annual Worldwide Photo Walk. I joined the Poughkeepsie NY walk at Locust Grove with my photo buddy Anne. 

There is a contest but you can only submit one photo. Which one should I choose?

Details:

Minolta XG-M loaded with Fuji PRO160S developed with Unicolor C-41 kit.

Minolta SRT-101 loaded with Rollei IR400 developed with D-76

Modified Holga 120 loaded with Tri-X developed in Ilfotec DD-X

♥ Jessica

Autumn and Progress

 

I celebrated the first official day of Autumn with my co-workers at our annual Autumn-Fest. It was a little chilly, but we had fun frolicking in the pumpkin patch and feeding chickens. These photos were taken on some Kodak Max 400 film that I got for free at a flea market. It could have been expired, it could have been damaged, but it was free so I gave it a try. I developed it with the Unicolor C-41 kit.

So, I am happy to report I am making a good deal of progress on my goals. As I wrote about a few weeks ago, I created 4 Simple Goals before 2013. I have kicked my soda habit and now only occasionally enjoy one. I would say it's down to once a week, which is better than I expected in such a short time. I immediately started washing my hair less, and although I hate day 3 of "lived in" hair, hopefully my head will begin to get used to it. I haven't had much "downtime" to enjoy, however I was sick earlier in the week and I was able to just relax and watch I Love Lucy reruns without feeling too guilty. It's still a struggle and I did work on my Halloween decorations a little, but overall I think I succeeded in "enjoying" my downtime (enjoy might not be the right word since I felt like crap, but you get the idea). Unfortunately, I haven't taken any Polaroids since I set that goal. I definitely need to devote some energy to that.

As for my goal of creating 150 journals before Renegade next summer, I have been thinking a lot about new types of books to make, but haven't sat down to make any in several days. Sometimes you need a break, and I don't think I have fallen too far behind yet. 

♥ Jessica

More Fun With Caffenol

 

As I have mentioned before (here and here), I have a ton of Kentmere 400 film (because it is SO cheap) but I haven't been happy with the extremely coarse grain. I think I finally found a combination of exposure and developing that gives me the grain size I like. The pictures above were shot with the camera set at 320 instead of 400 for metering. I developed them according to the Caffenol-C-L recipe which is as follows:

1000ml room temperature water
16g washing soda
10g Vitamin C powder
10g Iodized salt
40g instant coffee

Presoak for 5 minutes. Agitate for the first 30 seconds after adding developer. Let sit for 70 minutes (including the 30 seconds above). Rinse and fix normally.

I know what you are thinking, "70 minutes!" But it's easy because you don't agitate after the first 30 seconds, just set it up and ignore it until you hear the timer go off. I'm definitely pleased with the results and I'm looking forward to shooting the rest of my 100' roll of Kentmere 400.

(FYI I use the website http://caffenol.blogspot.com and the Flickr Caffenol group discussions to do a lot of my research.) 

♥ Jessica