film fridays - harpers ferry

this panoramic photo was taken a while back during a day trip to harpers ferry in west virginia. specs: made with an xpan II and kodak tmax 400 film.

film fridays - times square

i was in nyc visiting friends a few years back and we were on our way through the city when i made this image. i've seen a lot of photos of times square, but i wanted to take back something that seemed less commercial and more gritty than the current touristy vibe that the area has. the black and white film helped with that, i think.

specs: taken with a nikon fm3a and kodak tmax 400 film.

film fridays - the grand canyon

the grand canyon in black and white. i have a bunch of photos of it, but i like this one because of the shadow from the tree on the cliff where i was perched.

specs: shot on kodak tmax 400 film with a nikon fm3a camera (i think).

trust me

this is another holga photo i made during the july 31 sketchcrawl through washington dc. this was taken near the mall, where i saw this strange banner of the colonial drummer. while i wish i could take complete credit for the words overlapping like they did, i discovered the amusing juxtaposition after i developed the film. sometimes even i am a little surprised by what comes out of my holga. :)

film fridays - platinum print

i know this image looks a bit different than some of the other film images i've posted, with a strange color cast and all. that is not a mistake - it's a platinum - palladium print! i've made silver print versions of this image as well, but the ghostly quality that i like so much about this image shines through with the platinum technique, so this is the version i prefer and show.

the specs: original negative was made with a hasselblad 501CM camera, and then the negative was enlarged to roughly 5x7. i think this particular image was enlarged digitally (cheating!), but there are plenty others that i enlarged by hand using an enlarger and reversal film, so i don't feel too bad about this - besides, we had to do one digital enlargement for our class. :)

the final negative was then contact printed to a piece of paper that i hand coated in the platinum - palladium solution and exposed under light in a contact print frame. this particular print is on archival hot press watercolor paper (arches was my paper of choice back in the day).

museum of the americas holga

this holga photo was taken on the very last stop of our july 31 sketchcrawl through dc at the museum of the americas. i had never been there before, and that's one thing i love about sketchcrawls - we make pit stops in lots of places around the city, ranging from heavily traveled to more obscure and everything in between. anyhow, i was drawn to the minimal nature of some of the elements i was finding in and around the building, and thought it would be fun to combine them. the hunch paid off, and this is the resulting image.

film fridays - multiple exposure

i made the portrait part of this week's film fridays image while still an undergrad in college. i was taking my very first studio photography class, and recruited just about everyone i knew to come and sit for me to let me take their photos. this guy was in my creative writing class, and it was a really fun session. fast forward about 7 years, and i took another photo of the crystal pool doors at glen echo park here in maryland (these are the old, decaying, beat up doors i was talking about in an earlier post!). i was teaching my photo class at the time about creating double exposure prints in the darkroom and how they could take two separate negatives and combine them into one image, and made this print as a demo. i really liked it, so i kept it on file.

both images were shot with 35mm film cameras, and i believe both were nikon N90s bodies. the film for both would have been kodak black and white (either tmax or tri-x, not sure which).

and yes, i know you could do something similar to this with digital, and what's more, i know how to do this sort of effect digitally... but that takes all the fun out of it. :)

DCCAH - permanent collection

a while back i entered some of my original toned silver gelatin holga prints to be considered for purchase by the dc commission on the arts and humanities art bank.  the work in this collection is purchased from local DC area artists and is displayed in a variety of government buildings throughout the the district. anyway, they accepted two of my images into the permanent collection, which is pretty awesome!  the images they chose are incidentally one of my oldest and one of my newest holga images: "chinatown" and "the mall."

so, if you are in any government buildings keep your eyes peeled for my contact prints, matted to 11x14 inches! if i ever find out where they are displayed i'll be sure to announce it.
:)

film fridays - matt

i've always liked this photo i made of my friend matt several years back. it's not exactly a portrait, not fashion either. but the minimal aspects of it, the focus on tiny details of his jacket, and the implied body language are all kind of cool to me. it's just a little tiny sliver of time that is very dear to me, and this photo serves as a reminder.

like most of my "film fridays" choices, this image never fit with any exhibits so has not seen the light of day until now.  that is one of the driving forces behind this weekly feature, since everyone tends to see and know my holga work.  not that i don't plan to share my holga images more, but other work deserves attention on this blog too.

the specs: made with a nikon fm3a camera, and kodak tmax 400 film.

glen echo - crystal pool holga

a few weeks ago i went to glen echo to make a few prints in the photoworks darkroom, and after i was finished there i took a stroll around the park with my holga. this is one of the images that resulted: the crystal pool. the front doors have been fixed up a bit since i first started photographing there several years back. the pool has long been filled in, but the front door is now new and painted. i actually sort of preferred the decaying version, but i can see as how it might appear unattractive to visitors!

film fridays - winged woman

look! it's another color film image! but, like the last one i posted, this was captured on medium format chrome film, and NOT negative. these rich blues and contrast just wouldn't have happened by using film - at least not without the help of photoshop. if you're gonna shoot color film, then SHOOT COLOR and go straight to the chrome. :)

the specs: photographed outside an art gallery in sedona, arizona, with a hasselblad 501CM camera and fuju velvia 120 chrome film.

film fridays - san francisco

this is the famous golden gate bridge in san francisco - i visited there in 2004.  this image was made with a hasselblad xpan II camera and kodak t-max 400 film.  i love the xpan because it's such a wildly different crop than anything else i use, and it forces me to think about my compositions in a different way. i think this photo is a good example of that, utilizing the negative space throughout most of the frame!

film fridays - new york city

i made this image in new york city in 2003 or 2004 (i'd have to look it up) during a visit there. i was standing inside the guggenheim museum, watching people come in the revolving door.  don't worry, i actually looked at the inside of the museum too. :)

the specs: nikon FM3A camera body, and kodak t-max 400 film.

film fridays - arizona

i know you are all confused now.  am i not the one who said i do not shoot color?  yes, i did say that. but, this is different because the image above was made on medium format chrome film and not negative film. slide film is much, MUCH more awesome than negative for a lot of reasons, but mostly because the colors are so much more vibrant and rich. if you're gonna shoot color, i say, SHOOT color, and don't mute it down. but, maybe that's just me.

anyway, the specs: this is my husband andy, during a trip to arizona in the spring of 2002.  the image was made with a hasselblad 501CM and 80mm lens, and i think the film is fuji velvia 100F chrome.

that's all for this week's film friday, so see you next week!

film fridays

yeah, i know what you're thinking... isn't like, every day a film day for you? well, i do shoot digitally on occasion, but yes, the majority of my personal work is indeed captured on film. however, the majority of my film work is shot with a holga camera, and i specifically wanted to showcase some images that i've taken over the years that were NOT made with a holga. i'll note the camera used and if i can remember, the type of film i used as well.

so first up, an image i made in 2004 in san francisco, california. it is photographed using a nikon FM3A camera, and kodak tmax (i think) 400 speed film.

i love the geometry of this photo, and love the FM3A. i lament that i don't get to spend as much time using this camera as i did in the past. i have too many cameras and not enough time! but one of my goals is to shoot more film and get back to the fun-ness of making photos that are single exposure (read: not made with the holga). i don't plan to give up on the holga any time soon, but a little diversity is a good thing, and it keeps the creative juices flowing.

so that's it, and expect another non-holga film image every friday from now until... whenever i feel like doing something else. :)

absence makes the heart grow something something...

i haven't posted here in a while. that's partly because i have film that has yet to be developed / scanned, and partly because i've been focusing on drawing a bit more recently. also, i got a bike for my birthday last month and have been working up to running errands with it (i procured energy bars and chick peas from whole foods today using said bike!).

last weekend i participated in sketchcrawl #28 around washington dc. basically, a group of local artists walks around the city, spending about a half hour at each location, and we all sketch.  it's cool because i get to meet new people, but also because it's neat to see how each person interprets a scene since we are all together for the duration of the crawl. this is also a worldwide phenomenon, and you can check out results from all over the globe on the sketchcrawl site.

here are a few sketches from that day (and hopefully soon i'll be back to posting some holga work or mordançage prints... i'm itching to get back in the darkroom!). click on the image to see in more detail.

(view from the salon on the second floor at the renwick museum)


(figure drawing at the corcoran museum)

(drawing myself drawing on the metro on the way home from the sketchcrawl)

check out all of my sketches from the day on flickr!

LottoHEART mordançage

i've been sitting on this image for a while because it was created as a donation to LottoHEART and was just auctioned off along with 199 other works of art for their annual artwork lottery. every piece of work, donated by hundreds of artists ranging from beginner to established, is exactly 5x7 in size, and is presented anonymously so that no one knows who created each piece (hence the reason i had to wait to post mine publicly). see all the artwork that was auctioned HERE at this link, and you can also see more about the organization and get a list of the participating artists there as well.  i had fun trying to match the works donated to the artists on the list, but am not sure anyone would be able to do that for mine... this piece is a little different than my more widely known artwork. but, hopefully it will end up in a good home and help raise money for a good cause!

oh, and happy 4th of july, everyone!

Brookland Holga

this is the last holga image from the brookland sketchcrawl in may. technically this is the first holga i took that day, and this is the corner of 12th and newton NE streets, underneath the CVS overhang. the sketchers all went their separate ways to sketch and arranged to meet at the CVS, and i was there earlier than most... so i whipped out the holga for the remainder of my time there. 12th street is the main drag in brookland, and there were a lot of signs, letters, numbers, and various other things we're probably supposed to be paying attention to. i like jumbling them all up together in my images. ;-)

Franciscan Monastery, Brookland DC Holga #2

this is the second holga image from my latest dc sketchcrawl outing, again taken in the franciscan monastery gardens in brookland, dc. i tried to showcase the architecture a bit more in this one, and i was immediately drawn to the door labeled "private". i find myself photographing doors and fences a lot with my holga work, and while part of the appeal is the aesthetics of these details, there is a psychological intrigue as well. i don't know what it is, but i always want to open doors that tell me i am not welcome there. ;-)

Franciscan Monastery, Brookland DC Holga

this is one of several holga images i made during the latest sketchcrawl on may 15 (#27, for those in the know) where we walked around the brookland neighborhood of dc. one of our stops included time in the franciscan monastery gardens, which are huge and gorgeous - definitely worth a visit whether you are religious or not, as it is a very peaceful and pretty place to chill out and enjoy being outdoors. the mosaic of mary in the center of this image was one of many pieces of art i found throughout the gardens, and you can also see the architecture to some degree in the photo.

it is official: i love brookland, and want to live there someday!