Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Some Thoughts

Not a lot to convey. Have been carrying my Minolta with me back and forth to work. I've stopped once to take shots of some big storm clouds. It seemed like a perfect setting. Will have to decide if it was once I get the prints back. I enjoy having the camera with me. I like knowing that if I see something, that more than likely I will be able to capture it. Even today there might be opportunity for some more photos of storms in the distance.

I have been watching several cameras on eBay. Both digital and film. I don't know if I'll actually jump on one, or if I'll even be able to afford any of them. But I think that I am realizing what I really need is a really good film and slide scanner. I have so many slides and negatives stuffed in so many places. Who knows what treasures I might have stashed away! So before I go headlong into the digital world, I think I need to seriously do something with the photos I have accumulated over my 30 years or so of taking photographs.

It would be fun to have an old Nikon FM, or make the jump to an F4. But I don't know if I'll be able to swing any lenses at this time. Not sure either what a good scanner is going for. Need to research that more too.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Beautiful Morning

Don't have a photo to show, but the sunrise was really beautiful this morning. I was extremely bleary eyed and was thinking of just going for a walk. But when I came out to the living room I could see the Eastern sky through one of the windows. It was beautiful! So I grabbed my old Minolta, which I had loaded a roll of film onto over the weekend, and went out to take some shots. It was strange, this was only like the second or third time I had used the Minolta, but even in my semi-conscious state, I was able to set the exposure and even manage some over and under exposure for different effects. I decided, once I heard the sound of the shutter and the slap of the mirror, that I loved 35mm photography, and that I loved totally manual controls. I feel that I can be the most creative when I have complete control over every aspect. Maybe because I just haven't used them a lot, but when I get my hands on a digital SLR, with all the fancy controls, I feel like I don't have any control of what I'm doing. I just must be very old school.

I'll have to post something once I get this roll developed and a shot or two scanned into digital format.

Which prompts me to ask the question: what film do you like to use? Where do you get it processed and how do you get it into digital versions?

Until next time...

Monday, June 16, 2008

The start of something new

Welcome! This is a work in progress, and will develop over time. But for now, this is a a beginning of what I hope will be a place for photographers to meet and share their work, and just exchange ideas. My primary audience is for those that have yet to make the complete jump to digital photography. I myself have dabbled with digital, but personally don't own a digital camera. As a family we started out with a point and shoot digital, which served us well, especially for recording events as the kids were growing. When that camera died, I purchased a digital SLR for my wife. Primarily for her to use for her children's clothing designing business. So its really her camera, and I have only used it once for just fun and experimentation.

I have had several different cameras over the years, and will probably delineate those at some later date. My pride and joy was the Nikon FM that I purchased when I was a high schooler. I later added a Nikon FE. I had several lenses and loved what I could do with the equipment I had. For some reason when marriage and kids came along, this equipment just sat up on the shelf. I went through a serious drought of inspiration. So eventually sold every last scrap of photo equipment I had. For some reason I don't really regret it. I don't miss those particular cameras. I feel like I can use just about anything right now to make photographs. Currently I have a Yashica range finder
camera and a really, really old Minolta SLR. I haven't done a lot with the Minolta yet, and have even contemplated selling it and the lenses I have for it to possibly make that jump to digital SLR. But haven't yet. So I am in a sort of limbo photographically. I don't ever seem to have the time I want to devote to taking pictures. I always seem to see what I'd like to photograph while I'm zooming down the road at 60 mph on my way to a job that gives me absolutely NO fulfillment.


So, with out any further ramblings for this time around. I thought I'd share a photo. I have had a batch of old slides scanned so that I could have a means of being digital without having a digital camera. This is a shot of a canyon wall along the Texas - Mexico border. The name escapes me, but the water you see is the Rio Grande river. This may be Santa Elena canyon or perhaps Boquillious Canyon (my apologies for the spelling). This picture was probably taken back in either the mid 1980's or possibly the last trip I took to Big Ben National Park some time in the late '90's. The original was in color. I used PhotoShop to make it B&W. This would have been take with one of my Nikon's.