The photographer, Robert Adams has been featured here several times ,  photos here in Wheat Ridge, photos in Eden Colorado.  While perusing a photography auction catalog I saw one of his photos to be auctioned.  It was of a Menonite church in Joes, Colorado.  I frequently go through this small eastern Colorado town on my way to Kansas.  I was interested to see if I’d ever taken a picture of this church or whether it might have been taken down.

Here’s Adams’ version from 1965.   Here’s my version - not very glamorous and it takes some imagination to see that it is in fact the same structure.

I will be going thru Joes this weekend and will try to get a better image.  In fact I’m thinking of bringing out my Bronica S2 6 x 6 camera which needs some exercise.  Stay tuned !

“Are, bure, boke” (grainy, blurry, out of focus) is a Japanese phrase that describes a photographic style associated with the Provoke era in 1960s Japan. It’s characterized by intentional roughness, blurriness, and a rejection of traditional photojournalism. Bokeh, on the other hand, refers to the aesthetic quality of the blur in out-of-focus parts of an image. While “are, bure, boke” is a style, bokeh is a specific term related to the quality of blur.

This style is most associated with the Japanese master photographer Daido Muriyama

The photo above is mine shot on an Olympus Point and Shoot - something I’m sure Master Muriyama would approve.  Why have a $10,000 Leica set up if you are going for blurred, grainy , out of focus shot.

While it was cold there was a huge turn out.  I left just at the beginning and there was a tremendous showing.  I went several weeks ago to a similar rally that was focused on immigrant deportation and this rally was larger and had mostly Anglos in the crowd.  And an older crowd as well.

• Sourced from medical X-ray film and adapted to standard perforated 35mm film for your still photography camera
• diffusion effect and beautiful, enhanced grain into every photo due to the lack of anti-halation layer
• Variable ISO - shoot between 200 – 400 ISO - Our tests indicate that 200 ISO is the “sweet spot”
• An Orthochromatic (ortho) film. Ortho films can only see blue and green (outdoor) light. Reds are rendered darker and therefore create darker skin tones. 
• Our X-ray film has a higher green sensitivity, enabling the film to be handled using a red photographic safe-light and allows processing by inspection, meaning you can load and unload film onto your home development reels when using the safe-light

This is how they advertise this film.  I thought it was a nice BW film.  I developed it in Ordinal 1:50 for 11 minutes ( 10-12 is what they recommend). I didn’t see it as being super contrasty and grain was not a problem.  I only had a few weird shots that I can’t explain:

The rest were fine:

Thinking you know most great photographers of your time - you get blown away by someone this good that you had never heard of.  Sage Sohier is just such a photographer. Take a look at the video and a smattering of some of her photographs - you will be amazed as well

In the fall of 1968, Robert Adams (born 1937), a college English teacher, found himself inexplicably drawn to photograph a nondescript area south of Colorado Springs whose most notable feature was a truck stop off the interstate. Unflinching in their descriptiveness, yet embodying a mysteriously radiant peace, the pictures Adams made of the otherwise graceless site confirmed for him a vital new way of relating to the world. He transformed this revelation into The New West, the book that established both his photographs and his subject, the contemporary landscape of the American frontier, as matters of wider consequence. - Photoeye.com

Robert Adams is now a famous American photographer who started off as a professor at Colorado College.  My initial introduction to his photography did not end well.  I couldn’t grasp the significance of some his work.  Those works still leave me cold however, others seem to hit the nail on the head.  Several taken here in Colorado really capture not only a moment in time but also the look of Colorado in the early 70’s.

I recently purchased his book EDEN which captures this small village that is north of Pueblo.  It is still there but almost nothing exists of that bygone time.  While on a 3 day photography jaunt to photograph Highway 50 I went through Eden and this is the only thing left that is identifiable from Robert ‘s  book

All that is there now is the ubiquitous gas stations, Hotels/Motels.

After one disaster trying to develop ECN-2 at home and multiple poor commercial lab experiences ( hugely expensive with 2-4 week turnaround) I decided I had to try it again.  This time I purchased an ECN-2 prewash from Flic Film to remove the remjet layer.  These images are officially cross processed as they were not developed in ECN-2 chemicals but rather C-41.  A few of the YouTube videos I watched suggested that this was not a bad thing to do.  As I shoot way more C41 film than ECN-2 ( at least as of now) it makes sense to “cross process” in C41.

Getting rid of the remjet turns out to be supper simple.  These shots were developed with the ADOX C41 kit at 3:15 min develop at 100deg F

Many big cities in the US hold a “month of photography” and Denver is one of them.  It’s held every two years and is organized by CPAC ( Colorado Photographic Arts Center).  It is a massive undertaking.  Venues are all over the metro Denver area.  I went downtown to CPAC and they had amongst other artists, Phillip Toledano who does amazing AI work.

But of course no trip to Denver is complete without me taking my own photos:

I’m still looking for a dependable lab to do my ECN developing.  This film is re-spooled Kodak movie film.  The lure of this film is that it’s high quality at a much lower price than a top notch still photo color film like Portra 400.  The one draw back is that movie film has a black backing called remote and is for use in fast moving film projectors.  During the developing process it has to be removed.  In theory it is not technically that complicated - I tried it once and it was a mess.  I started to look for labs that could do this for me.  The other issue is that ECN has its own developing chemicals but can be “cross-processed” in C41.  From my viewing various Youtube channels there doesn’t appear to be a big problem developing in C41.

My first lab was a small one man operation out of Utah, TreeHouse Labs -  he was great.  His site is gone and he said he was doing home remodeling so that is no longer an option.  Next I tried Bluemooncamera.com in Portland.  They were not cheap and had over a 3 week turnaround time - not acceptable. Finally I’ve given up on Bellows Labs in Chicago - their turnaround was great but they don’t pay for shipping into them and they use an expensive FedEx to ship back the negatives.  On top of that they didn’t even do a rudimentary color cast removal.  Finally there were at least 4 frames with heavy artifact that I think was due to incomplete reject removal.  I complained and they just responded to my 2nd email.  They were apologetic and said they would refund my processing charges.  Still wouldn’t trust them.

This is the Bellows scan.  The one below is mine

Next lab I will be trying is Atlanta Film Lab……..to be continued

A memorial to the Cheyenne Indians who survived the Sand Creek massacre, as well as to the last known male buffalo shot in the area. This location is deemed by some historians to be where the ongoing battles between the plains natives and white settlers following the civil war began.

I’m not sure how I found out about this new BW film developer but I did.  It’s from Flic Film of Canada.  It is a two part developer - both A and B take just 3 minutes each.  Wash, Fix are all standard.  I am always down for trying something new so long as it’s in my skill level ( i.e. Pyro I think has some toxicity to it so it’s a no go for me).  Part A lasts for 20 rolls and Part B for 10 - they give you two powder packs for Part B. ( you don’t want to run out of milk before your last Oreo).  This roll was shot on my P/S Silvestri 28 on TriX.  Temperature of the solutions just needs to be between 65 and 75 degF.  Some of the negatives were a little on the thin side but not all so it’s hard to say the film was under developed.

Will continue my experiments.  :)

Went downtown yesterday to see the beginning of the 50 State Protest against Trump.  There were the usual folks protesting something else but by and large it was to speak up against Trump’s retarded executive orders.  Here are a few shots from the rally

It’s becoming harder to shoot respooled Kodak Movie film stock known as ECN-2.  The supply is drying up as Kodak will only sell to folks that can show that they are legitimate movie makers .  ECN-2 gives great color rendition as you would expect from an emulsion made for the motion picture industry.  I recently bought a few rolls out of China from Reflx Labs.  Here’s their take on the situation:

https://reflxlab.com/blogs/news/the-case-for-respooled-film

Then to make matters worse, our dumbshit president put a hold on excepting small packages from China as they are not required to pay customs.  But the good news is that the US Postal Service will continue to accept these packages.    So overall I dodged a bullet.

The Oklahoma State University Cowboys basketball team plane crash occurred on January 27, 2001, at 19:37 EST, when a Beechcraft Super King Air 200, registration N81PF, carrying two players on the Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball team along with six Oklahoma State broadcasters and members of the Oklahoma State coaching staff, crashed in a field 40 miles (64 km) east of Denver, near Strasburg, in the U.S. state of Colorado. The pilot had likely become disoriented, caused by equipment and instrument failure during snow storm. The plane was flying from Jefferson County Airport to Stillwater Regional Airport after the team’s loss to the Colorado Buffaloes. 

The aircraft was carrying two crew members (pilot Denver Mills, and co-pilot Bjorn Fahlstrom) and eight passengers involved with Oklahoma State basketball. All ten died.

Got up this morning - everyone else is asleep.  It’s quiet, just me and my numerous life saving pills and a mug of coffee which I consider live saving in it’s own right.  I got to thinking about how long has this blog been going?  Turns out it had its 8th birthday last month and I completely forgot about it.  December 1, 2016 was when the blog was started.  The inaugural entry was about G.A.S. - gear acquisition syndrome.  I can now report that I have significantly cut down the amount of camera equipment I own.

Anyway a belated Happy Birthday.

The price of all film stocks have skyrocketed in the last 18 months.  A roll of Ektachrome is now about $20 and by the time you have it developed you are looking at slightly over $1 per image.  Lucky Film out of China ( sold by Reflx Labs) is selling SHD 400 for $6 a roll which is about the cheapest you will find unless you bulk roll.  The shots were done today and seem wee too contrasting.  Come to find out that on the Reflx website they recommend that it be shot at ISO 200 which would control some of the contrast.  The comments from other folks is that the shadows are blown out to black and this might not be corrected by shooting it at 200.

Today was the opening ceremony for John Fielder’s prairie pictures at History Colorado.  It was a small but awesome collection shown on the 2nd floor Mezzanine.  I was able to talk to members of the staff and thank them for putting this show on.  John Fielder is a nationally known photographer who is also known as Colorado’s Photographer as his subjects captured quintessential landscapes in this state.  With his passing a few years ago he donated his collection to History Colorado which I think is the most fitting place for his collection.

Bryan Birks lives in the midwest and has a series of vlogs that are interesting.  He talks about his own photographic process as well as that of other photographers.  I find him inspiring.

The next one is entirely different but also engaging :  Austin Augie who lives in NYC and does the urban thing

Allow me to geek out for a bit.  Ilford XP2 is an all around champ in terms of a Black and White film.  It is a color print film that renders only in Black and White.  So its native developer is C-41 BUT it can also be developed in traditional BW chemicals.  Not only that it has a wide lattitude and you can shoot it at ISO from 50 - 800 without major problems.