After the Polar Vortex, Survival is The Best Revenge
The Polar Vortex came through last winter and dropped temps into the single digits. I watched as my brown garden with defiant patches of green turned all brown. The gardenias suffered the most. The large seven-foot bush in the front of the house turned and remains brown, looking almost asContinue Reading
Bubblicious or Development Woe???
This was my first roll of Lomography Potsdam Kino. All winter, I’d been looking forward to shooting it. Opening the development tank, I was upset to find the negatives festooned with these odd patterns. I should have known better. While loading the film on the developing reel, it stuck,Continue Reading
Overwintering
Posh folks use “winter” as a verb, as in “We wintered in Palm Springs.” Although my unplanted sweet potato vines and geraniums do not count as posh items, I didn’t want to see them die, having never been properly seated in pots. I bought them along with 30 or moreContinue Reading
First Look–2x Teleconverters and +2 Close-up Filters
Buy enough multi-item lots on eBay, and there is bound to be at least one teleconverter in the batch. Cheap teleconverters have a bad reputation—for a good reason. However, since all I have are cheap, that is what I chose to test. In this case, I used a Tamron 2xContinue Reading
The Rules of Acquisition (eBay Edition)
Buying on eBay is an exercise in probability—that is, at some point, you are probably going to buy a dud. We’ve all been there—a “mint” lens with noticeable fungus, a supposedly working camera with a frozen film advance, and the ultimate sales pitch “I don’t know much about cameras, but…” OneContinue Reading
Perusing the History of Photography, Searching for My Muse…
As someone who got into photography for the pratical purpose of documenting my garden from year to year, I have no photographic home, so to speak. That is, there is no style or school of photography I gravitate to and no particular photographer whose style I admire. It is notContinue Reading
Love a Camera? Adore a Lens? (Go Ahead, It’s Okay)
Attachments to photography gear are not bad (I hope)—I certainly have mine. Ask people about their favorite cameras and lenses, and they will give reason after reason for their choices while tossing in enough about specifications and features to make the decision seem perfectly rational. However, look beyond the words,Continue Reading
Film Fare—Prices, Questions, Complaints
Film prices are skyrocketing, which is news to no one. On one hand, I hate this. On the other hand, looking back, perhaps I’m overreacting. Consider this: In June 1976, I bought my first Minolta, an SR-T 101. It was the bicentennial year, and I spent the summer in Washington,Continue Reading
On Being a Hunter-Gatherer, not a Collector (The Vintage Minolta Love Project, Phase Two)
I have a respectable assortment of Minolta gear, even a few big-deal items like the 58mm 1.2 and an SR-2 camera. I enjoy owning them, but I enjoy using them even more. The Vintage Minolta Love project (VMLP) has motivated me to track down sometimes obscure Minolta objects. The project’sContinue Reading
Photographs as Remembrance (but Art???)
What does a photograph mean? I asked myself this question while recuperating and looking over images of past gardening seasons. When not quite able to play in the dirt, yet longing to do so, those images gave me a sense of place, of being there. While many looking atContinue Reading
