Blitherings – Page 139 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

The Childhood Spaghetti Trauma Drama

I grew up on the world’s most disgusting ideas of what spaghetti with meatballs was. What is was consisted of some ground hamburger fried up in a pan, and then a box of some kind of “spaghetti dinner” added. Fast and cheap, and I would burp it up for days. The other idea of spaghetti and meatballs came out of a can and was warmed up in a saucepan. That’s it.

To this day, I have refused to eat anything with the word spaghetti in it (and it was years before I would try any pasta, but still will not eat spaghetti noodles), nor meatballs. That is, until a friend of mine from work told me how she makes spaghetti and meatballs . . . since she is the child of Italian immigrants, she should know, right?

So, here is the recipe I used . . . and like any recipe, it can be modified to use what is on hand, as long as it doesn’t deviate too much (I guess for me, that means nothing out of a can or box?).

Meatballs

1 lb ground meat (a combo of beef, Italian sausage, and if you use pork, very little)
1/2 c. romano cheese
chopped Italian parsley
milk
bread crumbs (I used panko)
seasoning such as garlic, onion, thyme, pepper
1 egg

Squish this all together, make into balls about the size of a golf ball. The balls should be light in feel, not heavy. Roll a bit in flour, and then fry until brown. Set aside and serve with spaghetti sauce of choice (preferably homemade, without oregano, as she says, “Oregano is used in pizza sauce.”), in which you warm up the meatballs, and serve with spaghetti noodles. (We will have bowties, thank you.)

Film . . .

I am beginning to really enjoy taking pictures with film these days.

Autumnal Grasses-1

As I’ve said, in my early days of photography – back in the 80s when digital didn’t exist – my experiences were all really bad. I had no training and no idea what to do. Maybe it is because my own family didn’t take pictures, so my experience with photography was very, very limited. I had no idea what made a good picture as far as composition, and no idea how to make a good exposure. Hundreds of dollars in printed ugliness was no reward, but the best deterrent!

Woodland-1

Enter the digital camera, some classes, lots of reading, and now I think I can go out and take a few shots in film without screaming at the results. One reason is I can get digital images, rather than prints. Costs are $10 – $11 / roll of film. I have my own scanner. Now, I am learning how to shoot film, such as lowering the iso for richer color and better contrast. I am learning how to use my software to do post production, which may seem like cheating, but it is simply a digital vs. chemical darkroom. Film still retains the quality of film, even if digitized – at least, it seems to me it does!

Fallen-1

One of the most fun things about film is trying out different types of film, and finding ones I like. I have tried Tri-X, T-Max, Superia, Rollei Crossbird, UltraMax, Ektar, and have a few others. It’s really cool. Developing B&W is going to happen with greater frequency, and later, developing color.

Trees & Rocks-1

What have I gotten out of this? Patience with composition. Appreciation of digital and analog film processes. A sense of success. And a whole hell of a lot of fun!

The First Pictures

As I stated in my last post, I processed my own film at home for the first time. and scanned them after the film strip hung drying several hours in the bathroom. I have a Pakon 135 scanner, and it gives excellent results.

Initially, with the Pakon, I was getting only negatives – I had forgotten what to check off in the software to make the negatives into positives. Once that was figured out, the results were interesting – for some reason the Pakon will image black and white with a rather reddish tint.

Desaturation was the key, so in LR, the saturation bar was moved to the far left, and the result was a black and white image! Now editing could begin.

The scans showed scratches and bits of debris – not sure if the debris is in the scanner (blow it out with canned air?) – but I expect the scratches were the result of my trying to roll the film onto the reel prior to developing. Fortunately, LR and Perfect Photo Suite help a lot in the post-production clean up to produce the final digital image.

Follows are some images . . . not all have been worked on, except to reduce the reddish tint.

Developing My First Roll of Film at Home!

This adventure began this summer, and only now did I finally get around to developing my first roll of black and white film (Ilford HP5, 400 iso) at home. I was tooooooo scared!

_DFS0164

On the dining room table, on a towel and metal tray, the chemicals and such were laid out. I practiced loading the reel and placing it in the developing tank multiple times. I have a developing bag that I bought, and it, as you may know, replaces the need for a dark room. I found that if I closed my eyes and focused on touch, things were much easier. Of course, when a dog barks suddenly, it does get a little stressful.

The directions I followed were from Peter at prosophos.com, and while my water out of the tap was a little warmer, I am hoping that there is a bit of latitude when it comes to temperature and time. My husband also helped out, sort of supervising the “now do this! now do that!” part of it – the first time doing anything is a challenge, no matter how many times you rehearse, eh?

So, now, I have film hanging in the shower stall, drip drying until later this afternoon or early evening, which is when I will scan it to see what I got.

_DFS0165

What excitement to pull out the developed roll! I can see that I got photos – there is contrast, so that means something worked right . . . on this roll, I used the Werra along with green, yellow, and orange filters to see how they affect contrast. Feeling the film, it is not tacky, which means the chemicals were good, too.

So, I leave you with this hint below . . . and will show you the results after I scan them. Stay tuned!

_DFS0166

Morning Spiders

Sounds gross, if you don’t like spiders. I like spiders . . . but not in my house and not on me.

The Sun is Up!

That said, I went out this morning with a new-to-me Spotmatic film camera with a 55mm f1.8 Super Takumar lens, and my cell phone, just in case something happened. I will take the film in later this morning, and perhaps add some images once I get the film and scans back from the lab this afternoon.

Cactus - Fuji Astia 100F

I never use my phone for photography, just because I don’t think of it. If I have the desire to take pictures, I take a camera. My intent was to use up the rest of a roll of Lomography 100 with two goals in mind – see if the camera and lens function – and to see what the film itself is like, having never used it before.

Cholla in the Morning Sun

I walked down the trail, waiting for the sun to come over the horizon to begin backlighting the fields of cacti and trees. Canyon wrens called back and forth, ravens croaked, and things scuttled in the undergrowth. At times, I saw very early hikers out further on the switchbacks dropping into the canyon below.

Web Sweet Web

As the sun came up, I turned around, looking at the beginning of the classic starburst of the sun through the leaves, and checking the beginning of morning backlighting of thorns and leaves, as well as silhouettes of leaves and branches further away. It was then that I noticed all the beautifully perfect spider webs, glinting in the sun – a real neighborhood of garden spiders in classical webs, centered like Xs. It was stunning.

Sunrise Web

I may have gotten a few good shots on film – don’t know until I see. I did shoot with my cell phone, and while the images are not really good, per se, they did catch a memory of a beautiful morning.