b&n – Page 11 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Home Sweet Home

If you look, you can find old photos taken on huge, bellows cameras of these cliff dwellings as they were discovered. Many were in terrible shape, and today, through skilled restoration, are in better condition than they were 100 years ago (or more). In keeping with the old photos, I put together this panorama of Square Tower House. What I like is that you can see just how nicely it is tucked in under the cliff, and beneath the mesa above. I think this would be a great place to live – give me that top room! – but the commute might be a bit much for this old lady.

Square Tower House

Of all the pictures I took at Mesa Verde National Park, this was one of the most difficult. To see Square Tower House, you have to sort of lean over a railing, and look into a canyon. This building seems to be built into the corner of a canyon. Additionally, nothing I did conveyed the beauty of the place – it was really hard to get the lighting corrected to show the colors and the details. Final editorial choice is obviously the b&w, which I think does the job rather nicely.

Another Form of Life

Welta Weltur, 6×4.5, Kodak Ektar 100 rendered to B&W in Nik Silver Efex. Scanned with Epson V600.

Stripes

Something salvaged from a home film processing disaster. Ilford HP5+, Holga 120 GCFN, Epson V600, along with LR6, On1 Photo 10, and PS 6. Probably a few other things, but I forget . . .

Catastrophe in the Dark Room

Well, in the film-changing bag.

I have the Paterson set-up, with adjustable reels, for home developing of film. My first round of developing was smooth and easy, using 35mm black and white film. This time, though, was awful. The Paterson reels are plastic and adjustable, and I like them for the 35mm – but did not like them at all for the 120 film.

The reels are harder to load than I realized for 120, and as soon as I got the film in the bag (without any practicing), I knew I was in for trouble. I couldn’t do it. Neither could my husband. The film was bent, spindled, and mutilated. As I had already poured out my chemicals, I just went ahead and jammed the film in, figuring the practice in developing wouldn’t hurt, and since things were already a mess, what the hell.

The film here is Ilford HP5+ used with the Holga GCFN 120 camera I got for my birthday last month. I kind of like what happened, but don’t want this experience to be my usual for 120.

The funny thing is, there are some pictures in here I actually like, but will need to do some work on to get them where I find them acceptable. Contrast adjustments, cropping, whatever. In particular, out of this sea of mistakes, I like the leaves – I’ve never thought about deliberately doing double exposures, but the double exposure of the leaves are pretty cool. (I also have some Kodak Ektar 100 I double exposed in another camera that I also like.) So, even though there was catastrophe, Pandora’s box is not all dark.