Family is important

Back in October/November 2021 I was going through my old posts looking at all the different photos I’d taken and deciding which ones I should keep and which I should prune to make sure I don’t run out of storage space.  There were entire posts that I deleted to make room for new photos; I think now that I will bring some of those pictures back.  A lot of those were family pictures and I have many more since the funeral so it might keep the blog going for a bit longer.  As a mini project, it hearkens back to an assignment I did in my Intermediate Photo class, and it will be good to revisit this subject.

So here are more family hangout pictures this time post-memorial with my cousin Chris and his family.

I went back to my Nikon F2A (and good thing, too).  This is the first time I used Ilford HP5 (except for large format) and my first impression is that it’s sharp but also that it has some of the same characteristics of XP2 in its look, namely to contrast.  I’d say that they look pretty similar to each other, and a noticeably different look from my old Kodak standbys.

Day One on the trolley

Honestly I’m not a fan of driving it myself, got a few different reasons behind it, from the number of shorter tours per day to the kind of clientele you get (and the corresponding tips).  But I’ll take it every once in a while if someone else needs a break from it for a week.  It provides excellent fodder for Gawkers As Spectacle.

Also fun to watch my different expressions throughout the sequence.

2021 late season jeep tours

The most up-to date I’ve ever been on producing photos, considering I took all these between August and October.  And I still have all of 2019 which I haven’t published, plus all of 2020 which should all be developed next week.

I suppose I cherry picked here a bit but then I didn’t have as many considering I had a different job most of the Summer.  But it’s kind of odd that I can lump an entire season into one post and nine images; however, there will be more.

Duke and Parson 4×5

One more for the road.  This was also shot at the bowling alley during the Christmas party, though I didn’t really feel that it went with the others.  I try to print a copy for each subject though I didn’t see either of these guys last year, so this picture along with a few others that I had spares for, are all hanging up in our office.  I’m glad I work at a place that appreciates what I do.

And here’s the alternate because I almost always make one:

So that’s it as far as large format work goes.  I did have a few more that I’d developed before the COVID shutdown near the end of March, but I never was able to get them scanned…I also have 12 more sheets waiting to be developed.  It will take a while before I’m able to get that done also, but my photo instructor promised to let me back in to finish all that up when this thing is all over.  This post was just waiting at the bottom of my queue but since tonight is this year’s “Christmas” party it seemed a fitting time to publish.

Summer 2021 on Ilford XP2 Super

After not being able to use the UCCS darkroom last year during the pandemic, I decided to patronize my local camera store a bit more, which has included buying/processing color negative film almost exclusively.  One thing I didn’t want was to be stuck with even more rolls of black & white that will either take a lot of money to be developed or will sit in my freezer until I can get back to developing at the university.  I still wanted to try to continue my current photo project for just a little bit longer and for that I decided to go chromogenic black & white.  Here are a few of the shots I took over the Summer:

I shot just a roll or two of BW400CN before Kodak discontinued it and man do I wish that Kodak would bring it back but I’m happy and thankful that Ilford is still here for us.  I would not say that XP2 is a worthy replacement for Tri-X but for what I needed I think it works well.  One thing that I noticed was that it behaved very much like a color negative film in that I think its true speed is not 400 but 200, so I tried to overexpose when I could.  The shadows can fall off really quickly and yet it is so flat when scanned.  That’s mostly good because I have never been thrilled with how black & white is scanned by the lab; it’s usually way too contrasty and if the exposure isn’t exactly perfect you’re losing quite a lot of information.  I prefer to scan myself at low contrast and dial it in on the computer, something that XP2 does nicely even when lab scanned.

I will eventually go back to Tri-X when I can develop it myself but for what it is and what I need right now I’m pretty happy to continue shooting Ilford XP2 Super.

Nelly diptych

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On the ground at Garden of the Gods

I spend so much time on the road but wanted to get some shots from inside with a bunch of tourists.  Most of this was just a regular Thursday in the Summer, I missed out on getting 4th of July because it rained a lot of the afternoon.  I’ve been back a few times now but the crowds haven’t been there.

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Colorado Springs breweries

One of the special tours we did recently, a team-up with a bus tour company and the nicest hotel in the area.  Colorado Springs has almost 25 breweries around town, these half-day tours focused on 3 of the more prominent ones.

I also threw in one that’s close to the office as I go there now and again.  Some of our most interesting spaces are old buildings that have been renovated and repurposed; we have a few breweries around town like that, they used to be hotels, schools, railroad infrastructure, etc.  I’m happy to see these buildings given new life instead of being torn down in the name of progress.

Riding

…and learning to ride.  At Flying W Ranch, Colorado Springs.

I took a few shots and it was hard picking my favorites.

A rapidly vanishing America

As I write this I’m staying in a vacation rental in Fountain, CO, on an old 1915 farmstead that is a holdout in what seems like ever-faster-paced life all around it.  Across the street the suburbs keep encroaching on what used to be arable farmland.  Now it’s just fodder for the land developers and the constant flood of people from California.

It kind of reminds me of this article that I read recently, with changing tastes and demands just contributing to ever-more waste and unsustainability in the name of “morals.”  We’ve known since the time of Malthus that there would be a breaking point but when will that be?  What I want to do more than anything is get away from all the crowds, the influx of the unwashed masses, live somewhere unspoiled by Man.  The problem is, I would be just the tip of a new spearhead and then slowly yet another landscape would be ruined eventually.