Plastic Mpls, 2012
April 18, 2013
April 13, 2013
August 26, 2012
Dreamy, Plastic Minneapolis on Flickr.
Holga 120N | Fuji Acros 100 | Rodinal (1:100) | Post in LR3
It’s fun to revisit and photograph places. You get to see what time does to a place. I haven’t been doing this long enough to notice any real changes in the Minneapolis skyline, but my previous photographs of the skyline from St. Anthony Main have all been very different than this last one. I love how the dreaminess of the plastic Holga lens combined with the long exposure softens this malleable scene. I only wish that the lightning that was surrounding me showed up in the background. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll be back here with a new setup and a fresh perspecive.
August 20, 2012
Storm over Valley II on Flickr.
Prints | tumblr
Holga 120N | Fuji Acros 100 | Rodinal (1:50) | Post in LR3
August 16, 2012
August 12, 2012
August 11, 2012
Dusk over the Mountains on Flickr.
Holga 120N | Fuji Acros 100 | Rodinal (1:50) | Post in LR3
This is a three-shot holgarama, each frame is approximately a one minute exposure (it was pretty damn dark out).
August 9, 2012
Storm over Valley, Holga on Flickr.
This officially kicks off the film photographs I took over the past week in the Black Hills and in the Rockies of Colorado. I’d kill for a nice digital camera (fingers crossed that the Nikon D600 is real and that all D700 owners sell their rigs for cheap to pick up the new toy so I can buy cheap on the flooded used market!), but sometimes film, especially film shot on a plastic lens, gets results that digital could only dream about. I was struck by how many photographers, undoubtedly all amateurs like myself, were out shooting in the mountains. I wonder, if 1,000,000 people take a picture in the same spot, will there be 1,000,000 identical results? Obviously not, but with digital the chances are much higher. The dynamic range of the negative I started with would not be possible on one shot using digital. Even with HDR, the result would somehow look digital, processed. The reason I’m still out shooting with film (and my iPhone) is because it’s not always a different perspective that yields a unique photograph of a popular subject; sometimes it’s the medium. On that day, my medium was of the medium format film, plastic camera variety. Long live the Holga!
May 22, 2012
Stampede on Flickr.
Holga 120N | Ilford FP4+ | XTOL (1:1) | Post in Topaz Adjust
The long march home.
May 21, 2012
May 19, 2012
Mount Minneapolis on Flickr.
If you happen to be in Northeast Minneapolis this weekend and are looking for something to do, come visit me at Art-A-Whirl! I’ll be at the Waterbury Building, 1121 Jackson NE, in suite #121.
May 18, 2012
Mill City is Crumbling and I’m going to Art-A-Whirl! on Flickr.
Prints
Holga 120N | Ilford HP5+ | XTOL (1:1) | post-processed in Topaz Adjust
Not really! There is some construction going on, I think on one of the grain elevators, which adds to the idea behind this piece. The overlapping images, I think, really give the sense that the mill ruins (now home to the great Mill City Museum) really are crumbling. It’s disorienting and one of the joys of Holgaramas—-you never know what element the process might add to your idea!
A quick plug for my photography business: I will be at that the 17th Annual Art-A-Whirl in Northeast Minneapolis this weekend. It’s the largest open studio art fair in the country. I will be at 1121 Jackson St., in the Waterbury Building, Suite #121. Come over and stop by if you’re in the area. This print and more will be on sale, with 10% going to Everyday Miracles, a local non-profit. Hope to see you there!
More info here: nemaa.org/art-a-whirl
May 17, 2012
May 7, 2012
The Weisman Art Museum: A Holgarama on Flickr.
Holga BC135 | Kodak Plus-x | XTOL (1:1) | post-processed in Topaz Adjust
I’m fascinated by the intersection of analog and digital technology. There’s nothing like shooting with a film camera and the freedom that digital processing affords allows a lot of creativity once your negative is scanned. I’m not going to get into the digital vs. film debate because I think both have their place in a photographer’s toolbox. For this shot, I decided to embrace the Weisman Art Museum’s wonderful curves, Holga’s dreamy lens and ability to overlap frames, and the power of tonemapping, which highlights local contrast most often used in digital camera photos. It’s a tool best used minimally, but for the dreamy, unfocused, and overlapping look this image already possessed, I thought it worked out very well!
May 7, 2012
Stuck Between Stations on Flickr.
Holga BC135 | Kodak Plus-x | XTOL (1:1) | post-processed in Topaz Adjust
“The devil and John Berryman, they took a walk together and they ended up on Washington talking to the river | He said I surrounded myself with doctors and deep thinkers | But big heads and soft bodies make for lousy lovers | There was that night that we thought that John Berryman could fly | But he didn’t so he died”
The Hold Steady’s “Stuck Between Stations” accurately names the Washington Avenue Bridge as the suicide location of the poet John Berryman, who jumped to his death from atop on January 7, 1972. It’s a famous landmark, not so much because of suicides, but because it connects the east and west sides of the University of Minnesota together. During the day, it’s filled with throngs of students on all forms of transportation. Luckily, for the winter months, it has a covered part that provides shelter from the Minnesota cold.
This is a panorama shot in-camera on film using a 35mm Holga. Holgas are great because you can use the shutter at all times, it’s not coupled to the film winder. To create these imperfect (but that’s the appeal) images, you take a shot, wind about halfway, take another shot, wind halfway again, and take your final shot. You have to guess where each frame lands in relation to the previous one. It takes some trial and error, but I think you end up with some special images.
