lomography – Page 2 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Through the Trees

The Monterey Peninsula is a wonderful place to visit. The ocean, landscape, towns, history all work a kind of magic. I would like to spend more time up here in various areas. We went to Monterey and stayed on the border between it and Pacific Grove. Walking was the mode of transportation for the most part, and we probably put in about 10 miles in 2 days. Here is a view as we walked back from Lover’s Point in PG to Monterey.

I took my trusty, rusty, beat up and brassed Nikon FM2n and a few lenses. One day I had the 50mm f1.4 AIS on the lens; this day I had the Series E 100mm f2.8. I also used Lomography Metropolis film, and I will say I really liked it. It’s sort of grungy looking, but not grunged up (if that makes sense) artificially. It is not a sharp film, either. Rated at 100-400 iso, I set the FM2n to 200 and metered accordingly. This is a crop from a larger, rather boring image.

En Plein Air

We spent three days in Monterey, California, doing basically nothing but eating and walking miles along the boardwalk in Pacific Grove and the bike path in Monterey. We walked and then ate, and then sometimes walked some more. When we weren’t walking or eating, the activities included simply being blobs, like reading books or knitting or watching “Good Omens”. It was a really hellish vacation.

While walking in Pacific Grove, we admired trees and people and rocks and birds. Then I espied this gentleman, out in the full sun, painting a view behind me. I stopped and looked, and decided to chat him up a bit – it is very seldom I see someone painting directly from the real world. Where I live, you are likely to faint from dehydration these days.

Anyway, he was so friendly and nice! (And he let me take his picture, too.) His name is Ethan Walsh, and he has a lovely website, Ethan Walsh Paintings which I decided to visit. His paintings appear deceptively simple – they look so easy to have done, but you can see the skill and work behind them. His portraits are really amazing, especially in his ability to capture expression. I wish I could do as well. Add to that, he paints the Monterey area, and he catches the light and geography beautifully. Look him up!

This is the view Ethan was painting – Monterey pines on a rocky outcropping into the waters of the Monterey Bay. Here he is painting in oils and was using a fine brush to catch the details. This painting is very different than the ones I saw on his website, and to me this attests to an ability to move in many dimensions when wielding pigment.

Ethan – if you read this, thanks for spending a few minutes with me in the middle of your painting. I really enjoyed it!

And for those of you who are curious, these images were taken using a Nikon FM2n, 100mm Series E f2.8 lens and Lomography Metropolis film.

Crummy to Better

This is the original photo, scanned on the Epson V600.

This one (above) is cleaned up using Epson Scan and Digital Ice, along with post in On1 Photo 10 and LR 6.

The one below is with the Noise / Dust and Scratch Removal in PS6. Sadly, it softens the leaves in the trees. I wonder if sharpening it in LR would help.

I have been putzing around with different ways to do post processing of film . . . a lot of work, but maybe worth it for keepers.

Trail a la Lomo

Hmmm. The images I get back from the photo lab are grungy. They arrive grungy. Using the Epson V600, I find crud everywhere.

With this picture, I moved it around on the scanner to decide if it was the neg or the scanner, and the neg won.

I cleaned the image with PEC-12, and the crud disappeared – a bit.

Then different settings in Epson Scan. Final settings which produced acceptable results were 2400 dpi, 48 bit color, digital ice, and medium unsharp mask. Final clean up in On1 Photo 10 and LR. Film was Kodak Ektar 100.

Prickly Pear a la Lomo

I am not sure if the lab is to blame or the camera, but this image was filthy when I got the scans back from the lab. Either way, for what I am doing, it is unimportant. I am just playing. At some point, I will check to see if the debris is stuck in the film. I cleaned up the worse of it in post, and then did some color correction.

This is an interesting process, looking at the images out of the Lomo LC-A. To my eye, it says poor equipment and bad images. On the other hand, I can see why it could be just fun. My persnickety side is at war with my “let’s do it and see what happens” side.

Aesthetically, I do not think grungy, dirty pictures (with debris all over them) are interesting if it was not done intentionally.

To counter the Lomo, I have a 6×6 Isoletta III rangefinder due to arrive today. Let’s see what that produces.