LA County Arboretum, Arcadia, CA

More Color Prints from Around Los Angeles, CA

Some Test Prints From the First Roll w/ The Rattler

Camera 2.0: "The Rattlesnake Trap"

Coined by a bro at Griffith Park who assumed I was in fact hunting for venomous snakes with a wooden box... This newer model features a different lens and improved light-tightness.

ST. JOHN'S WOODS (Bowling Green, OH)

Tried out a 38mm lens in the woods behind my parent's house when I went back for Christmas.

 

HUNTINGTON CACTUS GARDEN (PASADENA, CA)

Despite problems with fogging and questionable light-tightness I was still able to get some solid images while up at the Huntington Botanical Gardens in Pasadena.  The black-and-white rolls were the most successful.  Again, thanks to Lou Krueger for guidance with these prints.

 

 

BLACK AND WHITE

Here are couple of prints from the inaugural black-and-white rolls.  Props to Lou Krueger for his help in the darkroom.

Two Views of Urban Light, 2010

Fred Berger Post Trash Run, 2010

LIGHT LEAKS, FOGGING, AND OTHER SUCH GUFF

After running several rolls of film through we started to notice systematic fogging on the negatives that was originally suspected to be overexposure or an errant shutter flying open.  We also started questioning the light-tightness of the camera.

Thick rectangle-shaped bands of light (like the one on the left side of this partial frame) arbitrarily appear on the film.  It appears uniform from top to bottom suggesting it's not a light leak from the lid, otherwise one side of the negative would be more heavily fogged.

ANOTHER EARLY ROLL OUTSIDE OF LACMA

Brought the camera along to LACMA (Natalie and I were checking out the Eggleston exhibit) and took some photos by the sculpture garden and the outdoor walkways.  Some of the abstract images produced when the frames overlap are pretty interesting.  My old man gave me bag of old film and I think one of these rolls was particularly old hence the super high grain (again, 120 film).

Outside of LACMA, December 2010 - 6 second exposure

Even in this night shot, you can see how sharp the focus is inches from the lens.  Look at the grain in the concrete.

Natalie sitting by Chris Burden's "Urban Light" - 2 min exposure

THE FIRST ROLL

Based on a few tests back in Ohio, I had a general sense of exposure but the virgin run on this camera was still a total crap shoot.  Here's the first image from the first frame taken around dusk.  The mess of black in the foreground is a bunch of cranked-out waterfowl.

Echo Park Lake, November 2010 - 8 second exposure

THE CAMERA (a.k.a. 'The All-Star')

My dad has been involved with experimental cameras and photography for several decades now.  His latest design is a wooden camera that I've been testing for the past month or so.  We've been making adjustments and modifications along the way.

This camera has a large pinhole aperture and glass lens that creates unique sharpness down the center of the image with just enough of the distortion on the edges that you'd expect from a standard pinhole camera.  Perfecting focal length, exposure, etc has been an ongoing process.

Camera with lid and face removed.