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New Cyanotypes
These turned out pretty well. I maybe could go a little lighter on the exposure, I don’t know. The blues are just so vibrant and nice. Had an interesting double exposure, I had no idea I had two negatives stuck together. Not sure if I actually like it but I’m going to post it anyway. These have been fun. I think I have a long way to go before I get it down or find my own thing with it but it’s been fun!
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Polaroid Image Transfers
I honestly don’t really remember a lot about how to do these. I don’t think you can get the film I used anymore. You had a machine that projected a slide onto a Polaroid and then you took the top off and transferred it to other paper. It was a lot of fun and you got some really fun things. I think a few of these are emulsion lifts, too, which I’ve totally forgotten all about. I think honestly, some of these are 25 years old and they’ve held up well, I think. I still have the machine but a quick internet search shows 669 film available on eBay. And that’s mostly it, so I’m not going to be doing any more of these. It was a lot of fun, though!
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Not much going on lately…
I haven’t gotten a whole lot done lately. I did a few more cyanotypes (will share those later), did my 52 Frames submission and started drawing for another Portes de Pont-Aven painting. I dug out some old Polaroid Transfers from 2001-2003 and may list them on Etsy. We will see. I have a pile of them that have just been hanging out here. It might be nice to send them out into the world. I’ll make another post of them too. For today, I took a walk down to the pond, and I usually think there is nothing in the neighborhood really interesting enough to photograph. But I had a 52 Frames submission to do, and the theme was water. And we have a pond. I started off just taking generic photos of the pond, and they were ok. Mostly. Then I tried to do a few of just the reflections on the water. Then I found a rock and threw it in. And that was it. It’s not great, but it was fun to try to do something different. The extra credit this week was use a 1/4000+ shutter speed so I set the camera on shutter priority at 1/4000 and threw some rocks in. I even saw a little turtle and took a few photos of him. When I got back to the bank after going to hunt for rocks, I saw him trying to climb down the bank into the water, and it was a pretty steep slope. Poor little guy just tumbled all the way down to the water and just swam off, so I’m assuming he’s ok! It was really enjoyable. Here are a few from the pond.
All are Nikon Z50ii with the 16-50 2.8 Nikon lens.
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Ricoh Neighborhood Photos
I haven’t really gone anywhere interesting to take photos so took the Ricoh on a walk around the neighborhood; I can’t go far because Gary is recovering from extensive bladder surgery (he’s doing great!) but he can’t walk far. So, we just ambled around the house and neighborhood. I love the Ricoh, and it’s a great grab-and-go camera. I got a purple JJC ring for some bling on it, and maybe that made me want to do something with it. Nothing too exciting here, but I’m trying to appreciate where I am. And missing travel photography…
Ricoh GRIIIX, black and white custom recipe.
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Action Pugs
I had to do a fast shutter speed for 52 Frames and of course, it was going to be action dog shots. Only my dogs are awkward, so they just turned out to be funny. Oh well, it made me laugh and they’re super cute.
Nikon Z50ii, 70-200 2.8 lens.
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Watercolors
I’ve always loved watercolor painting but it’s something I haven’t really kept up with. When I was in France, I was so enchanted with all the doors and took tons of pictures of them. I had the idea there to do a series of paintings of them. I finally got around to doing one. But at this point it’s been so long since I’ve painted, that I tried the same door three times, to try to get a sense of the style I wanted to use. These are not great – I am really rusty – but it’s progress! So for the next one, maybe I’ll choose a simpler door design… The first one, I felt like the ink lines were too thick, plus I totally missed that the windows on the door had arched tops. The second one, no pen outlines, and the third, a finer pen. I’m not sure which I like the most. Leaning toward the no-lines one. What do you think?
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Cyanotypes
I started seeing these posts on Facebook or Instagram or somewhere – you know, the ones you didn’t ask for and they just keep spamming you with it – of a person doing cyanotypes with digital negatives and a UV light. So, after seeing so many, I decided it might be fun to try it myself. So I got the chemicals, made some digital negatives, and got a UV light and did it. They are not great, but I don’t know, I kind of like them. This is the first batch – planning on printing up another set of negatives in the next day or two, so we’ll see.
I used Photographer’s Formulary cyanotype kit, liquid so I didn’t really have to mix anything except Part A and Part B together. I got a Everbeam 50 watt UV light from Amazon, which was highly recommended. I just used my cheap Epson 4205 for the negatives, which turned out fine, I think. I was a little shocked that it worked, but I did have to tape the transparency paper to a plain sheet of paper so the sensor in the printer would see it. The first few I tried only printed about 2″ and then stopped. So that was an easy fix. I used some random cheap watercolor paper I have around – it was just leftover pieces so I’m not sure what kind it was. Most of my exposures were about 7 minutes. I used a box that I cut a hole in the top of for the light, putting the light at about 9″ I think from the paper. Used a clip frame to keep the negative and paper together.
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Farmer’s Market
I had a 52 Frames assignment to photograph in the style of another photographer, so I chose Elliott Erwitt. I love his dog photos and his juxtaposition and humor. I am definitely no Elliott Erwitt but I set out at the Farmer’s Market to find some dogs to photograph, trying to emulate him in some small way. Here’s what I got:
All photos were taken with my Ricoh GRIIIX and custom black and white recipe.
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Just Random Stuff
The 52 Frames assignment a week or two ago was “what is it?” and I used a macro lens to try to get something. Here are a few outtakes from that assignment. It was fun!
All images taken with Nikon Z50ii and Z 105 2.8 MC lens.
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70-200 Practice
Gary and Hazel got to practice their modeling skills and I got to practice my shooting skills with the Nikon Z 70-200 2.8. Not the newest model of the lens, of course, but this lens is a really beautiful lens, and yes, heavy, but takes amazing action photos. We were just in the backyard so not too much for the scenery. I would like to take this combination to one of the trails and try letting them run there and see what we get, so hopefully that’ll come soon. In the meantime, way too many pictures as usual but it’s Gary and Hazel so it’s ok.
All of the following photos taken with Nikon Z50ii and Z 70-200 2.8:
And then a few with the Z 50 1.8 lens:
Pugdesigns 