The Poconos and MaxFunCon East

Over this past Labor Day weekend, my husband and I attended MaxFunCon East in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania. We have been to plenty of conventions before - horror conventions, sci-fi and comic conventions, classic film conventions - but we had no idea what to expect about this one. All we knew is that we were fans of a number of MaxFun's podcasts and the other fans we had "met" online all seemed to have the same creative and open spirit. It was an amazing weekend, and I almost feel like apologizing for wandering around with my Pentax K1000 and trying to make it look as creepy as possible. Almost.

Montreal and San Francisco on Film

It's been an oddly busy summer here. We recently made two quick trips - first to Montreal, a lovely city with amazing food that I very much want to go to again when they aren't experiencing record heat. So hot, in fact, my plans to take photos at the Mount Royal Cemetery were thwarted. (We did at least stop at the scenic overlook though.) Then just two weeks later we went to a beautiful family wedding in Marin, California. Since we were flying in and out of San Francisco anyway, I insisted we tack on an extra day to see the city. More great food and drinks and the weather was much more to my liking!

Still working on my backlog of negatives to scan, but here are a few of my favorite from the first batch. First, Montreal:

2016_Mini_001

2016_Mini_013

2016_Isolette_Montreal_003

2016_Isolette_Montreal_008

2016_Isolette_Montreal_010

And San Francisco:

2016_Isolette_SF_022

2016_Isolette_SF_003

2016_Isolette_SF_006

2016_Isolette_SF_016

2016_Isolette_SF_017

Experiment: Cyanotypes

I first learned how to do cyanotypes from a great class I took at the (dear, departed) Corcoran College of Art + Design four years ago. After the class, I tried doing some at home and completely failed. I'm still not sure why, but not a single thing came out. And I put it all away until a few weeks ago. These are just a first attempt to get back into cyanotype printing. Lessons learned:

• Coat the paper once, then let dry then, coat again instead of just applying as much as possible in one step (I wound up with damp, streaky paper)
• A sunny Virginia day means start timing exposures at 5 minutes (not 15!)

I need to make some time soon for attempt number 2 - and update this blog weekly as I originally intended. Busy summer is no excuse!

FotoWalk Underground

I'm very honored to have my photo "Capitol" displayed for the summer in the Crystal City FotoWalk Underground as part of Exposed DC's 10 year anniversary celebration. Exposed DC is a great resource for local Washington DC area photographers, and they hold an annual show that I always look forward to. "Capitol" was originally selected to be part of the 2013 Exposed DC show at the LongView Gallery. It was taken with a medium-format Lomography Diana+ camera, then scanned and printed digitally. (Original negative scan is below.)

Learning Curve

I'm still working out the best way to use my Agfa Isolette. I've gotten some great images, but I thought I'd share one I wasn't that happy with. I was so excited to see this on the scanner thumbnail view, but when I looked a little closer it became apparent that I had the focal length all wrong. I'm guessing I was going for a shallow depth of field, with the statue in clear focus. With the overall soft focus, it looks more like a Lomography photo. I haven't yet decided if that's a happy accident or not. The hardest part of film photography for me is remembering to slow down, which is exactly why it's also therapeutic. Manually setting everything when you have a great shot lined up and the light is going is a true exercise in mindfulness and being in the moment.