ACPLA: Update

Chalk up one more roll for the ACP book project! Yesterday, I picked up a roll of Kodak's Ektar 100 film from A&I that I had dropped off to be developed earlier in the week. I was REALLY nervous and anxious as to what kind of results I would get. Sometimes, I would go onto Flickr and do a bit of research on any particular type of film I plan on shooting. During my time researching on Flickr, I noticed that there was absolutely NO examples of Kodak Ektar 100 that had been cross processed AND pulled 1 stop. So as far as what I would expect, I was shooting in the dark so to speak. Of the examples of Kodak Ektar 100 that had been xpro'd at speed on Flickr, the color shifts tended to be muted and some came out with pretty good results so I was looking forward to getting similar results. To my surprise, my results were FAR from what I saw on Flickr...

I'm not quite sure if pulling the film was the main reason why the shift on Ektar tended to be a really dull blue all around, or whether if it was the fact that the film was scanned by A&I or both but I really didn't expect that much of a color shift to be honest with you.




Most of the images that came from the roll looked as if I had shot using some sort of a hybrid ND and blue filter on the lens and I could only use just a few photos from the roll to put into the book because as I went through each photograph, I just kept saying to myself "bah this is just awful". I want the photos within the book to pop! Although high contrast and color shifts are a part of what cross processing film will get you, when the color shift shifts towards a dull shade, it puts a dent into my original vision.

There is a bright side however as far as implementing this film when you're crossing it while pulling it one stop. If you wanted to convey a really dark and gloomy setting in a photo, crossing and pulling this film one stop would probably yield a great result as you will see below. I don't know. Maybe near sunset but just before the golden hour so that you get the right amount of light, while you're in a cemetery or in a forest or wood setting. Maybe in the desert? You'll get that dark look that you're looking for which is probably what I'll do in the future should the need and idea for a photo arise...



Even though the results wasn't what I expected with this film (or crossing color negative film with E6 chemicals), it won't stop me from experimenting with these methods. I do plan on shooting Ektar and crossing it again in the very near future for this ACP project. The next time/s will be different though. I'll be shooting it at rated speed AND I'll probably push it one stop. The next roll I have in my camera is Kodak Portra 160VC which is going to be crossed as well. I forget if I have it pushed, pulled or at speed. Yet another C41 film to be crossed with E6 chems. Should I expect dull color shifts as well? We soon shall see!

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Technology - 1, Q - 0

I had made it a point to work on my ACP project today and shoot the area of Hollywood. I made plans to park my car at my friend's house and just have the day to myself to work on this much needed to finish project. I had my 35mm Canon EOS Rebel all locked and loaded with a roll of Kodak Portra 160VC, checked the battery meter as I always do, and feeling I had everything checked out, I went off on my way. I had even brought two extra rolls of film just in case I had a good day and went through a roll faster than I had expected.

I arrived at my friend's place around 2pm, parked my car, grabbed my gear and my iPod to keep me company. I started to walk north towards the Hollywood Bowl and along the way, I picked out things I wanted to shoot on the way back on. The plan was to start at the bowl, work my way back down, and then work the east/west direction when I came back to Hollywood Blvd. It took me a good 30mins or so to arrive at the Hollywood Bowl but once I got there, I started to prep my camera for the first shot which was the Hollywood Bowl fountains with the sign sitting as the backdrop. Checked my f stop and set it to 11 with a shutter speed of 500. Set the camera's eye piece to my eye and started to focus. Once I felt comfortable, I press the shutter button and what happens? Battery dies!

What the hell happened?! It read a full bar and suddenly shuts off? Something is wrong with my battery reading meter apparently. To put it nicely, I was deeply disappointed. All that time setting up, all that walking and all for nothing. Day wasted and the work on my ACP project is delayed until next week which sucks because I have other plans to work on other projects (hint: kodachrome) before the year ends. Bah! Sometimes I miss having a full manual & mechanical camera like my old Canon AE-1 which is sadly damaged. I might have to pick up another one on ebay or something completely similar but wildly different (hint: Vivitar 3800, only 35mm SLR with double exposure setting!) soon.

Meh.

Wish

I love Talking Heads. I also love Radiohead. Radiohead's name was inspired by the Talking Heads' Radio Head. I can imagine Thom Yorke being inspired by this song but I can't really see him and or Radiohead covering the song. I wish for that to happen...

Rediscovered

I love to have my iPod playing in shuffle mode. I have SO much music on my iPod that sometimes I'm surprised with what I have so it really is no surprise that I often rediscover music and artists. Sometime last night, I had my iPod playing in my car and Bobby Caldwell's Sunny Hills came on and I remembered hearing this as a kid and immediately fell in love with it again. Something about the beat, namely the flute sound, is what drew me to it. Now, as a kid, I could care less what the words of the songs are or what the song meant. So long as it sounded good, I was content. Hearing the song again, as an adult, I was surprised as to what the song might be about! As Bobby beautifully sang the words, it dawned on me that this song could be about a retirement home but the lyrics...they came off a bit morbid. How can a song, so beautifully sung, with a catchy funk beat, be about a retirement home? I'm determined to find out the meaning and history of the song so if you know anything about it, please! let me know! Here's the song in question:



I still LOVE it though :)

Name and the Labor Day

Hi! As you may have noticed, this blog is no longer called "Through My Eyes". This past Labor day weekend, I had a change of heart about how I'm going about this whole site. See, I'm currently operating 2 blogs. What was once "Through My Eyes", which was dedicated to random thoughts on events and happenings I've experienced via (digital) photography, and also "American Analog" which dealt mostly and primarily with the technical side of things pertaining to film photography. I felt too much was going on and both blogs pretty much were speaking about the same thing just different forms of it so having that second blog seemed pretty redundant. So I decided to work on just one blog but not just a photography blog. I'm taking a different approach with this blog. It'll still have alot of photography posts but I want to eventually incorporate some (personally) fresh aspects to it by way of other interests of mine like music, fashion and other varying art forms. With the decision finally made, I figure I might as well change the name of the place also and I went with a line from one of my favorite songs by Tracey Thorn called Grand Canyon. Basically she sings a verse or two about a man, but I suppose it could be applied to any person; male or female, that has dropped his past of...disappointment so to speak and comes to his own by being around people who understand and share the same views. The verse:

"Lock the past into a box and throw away the key
And leave behind those days of endless night
Everyone is waiting, everyone is here
Step out of the woods into the light"

The beat stops for a second, much like a buildup, and then she belts out the line:

"Everybody loves you here"

So there you have it. Without further adieu, the first post of Everybody Loves You Here!

This past weekend was Labor Day weekend marking the final day of the Summer. It felt like the Summer went by pretty fast but that's partly because there wasn't much of Summer weather here in LA. The high temps really didn't hit the area until the latter part of the season and then suddenly we're hitting temperatures in the 80s. Anyway, me and a couple of good friends decided to hit up the annual LA County Fair on opening day Saturday the 4th to start off the weekend on a good note.



County fairs and carnivals are one of my favorite things to do. Other than the food, games and rides that are abound for one to enjoy, county fairs and carnivals are fantastic for photography. The last time I was at the fair was during the morning/early afternoon hours when the temperature was high in the 90s and Summer actually felt like Summer! This time around, I thought it might've been better to head out closer to sunset so it wouldn't be as hot (as the Pomona Fairplex is known to get insanely hot when the sun is out) and, more importantly, golden hour!



I've never shot the LA County Fair during this time of day and I really didn't take many photos during said hour. One reason being that upon entering the gates, we immediately went on the ferris wheel and right after that we went and sought food because we were hungry. The other reason being that the sun set pretty damn fast! Oh, there was also that whole line thing one goes through at such events. From the workable photos I was able to manage, I'd very much like to go back during golden hour and dedicate more time in shooting and plans are in the works to go back. Hall & Oates are supposed to perform sometime in September but sadly they perform on a Friday and I work Friday evenings. I'm a big Hall & Oates fan too...



With the golden hour gone, the option to shoot some nice carnival night photos was still available. I didn't bring my tripod with me on this day. Didn't feel like lugging around something that heavy and cumbersome but I wish I had. It was my loss and I blame my laziness for that snafu. I could've gotten some nice long exposure photos of the rides in movement and some crazy light blurring and shooting handheld is just not possible to attain crisp images. Possibly the next time around for sure.

The night ended in a bust for me. Before heading out and calling it a night, we decided to play one of the carnival games to win a prize and I really don't want to talk about this because it really makes me mad but it is a bit funny. We played what looked like to be a really simple game of tossing a ring. Here's the set up: There's a pool of water with a current running through it and a bunch of rubber ducks are sitting on the water and all of them are moving counter clockwise along with the current. All you have to do is toss one ring, ONE ring, onto the duck's neck and hooray! you win a prize. Simple enough right? So I have a go at it. $5 into the pot and I get 4 rings. 1, 2, 3, 4 and all the rings either bounce off of various ducks or just fall into the water. OK. I'll have another go at it, Another $5 into the pot. I give one of the rings to my friend so he can have a go also. I decide to take the more patient approach and pick my tosses carefully. I toss my first one with no luck. My friend tosses his and he misses as well. I wait for a couple of seconds and see my moment. Toss the second and it bounces off a duck and falls into the water. Last one! I wait and wait for my moment to appear again. AHA! Toss the ring. *Ploop* into the water. FUCK! This is like Vegas all over again and I'm consumed with conquering this game! I wise up and decide to not waste any more money than I already spent on it. My friend however, decides to spend his $5 and have his go at it before we go and wouldn't you know it?! On his second throw, on his first $5! He gets it. I start to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Not that he didn't deserve it...he did. Just laughing at how easily it is for me to become so worked up with winning. All in all it was good fun!

Oh hai winnar!

On Labor day Monday, there wasn't much to do. None of my friends were hosting any BBQs and I wanted to do something so I remembered that Target sponsors free admission to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) during holiday weekends so I decided to make a day of it and brought along my trusty Canon 7D for some art, culture and people observing and boy do I love me some people observing!



One of the things I love about LA is that there's SO many things to do and alot of said things are very art and culture filled. I think LA has some of the best art options around. You've got 2 MOCA locations in Downtown LA. You've got 2 Getty locations, one in LA and one in Malibu. Then you've got LACMA which is arguably the biggest museum in the Los Angeles area to hold a nice collection of contemporary art, both permanent and borrowed, along with other varying art forms. Sometimes I visit the various museums we have on regular days and I do see a good amount of people visiting but it isn't until holidays where these museums are filled with people (weekends are also fairly crowded but not as much as holidays...)

A favorite moment of the day was when I came upon Rene Magritte's "The Treachery Of Images" and saw two women standing in front of the painting talking about it. Treachery Of Images is well known to being the painting of a pipe but really, it isn't a pipe which is a contradiction but when you think about it, Magritte's assertion is in deed true. One of my favorite pieces around (and as well one of my favorite Magritte works) because I learned about this work during my philosophy studies during high school and I remember quite vividly the day I studied the piece and had this "AHA! I see what you did there" moment. Anyway, having any person in front of that piece demands a photo and luckily I had two women. Any photo in these conditions is a play with/on Magritte's assertion behind the painting itself and thus you have a photograph of something that isn't a pipe and aren't women...



One of the things I don't like about art museums are their rules on photography when it comes to collections that are on loan which utterly sucks because well, loaned collections don't last long so who knows when the next time one will see it again! So no photos from the loaned collection from LACMA and they had some pretty cool ones going on right now such as Thomas Eakins' "Manly Pursuits" and Catherine Opie's photographic work "Figure And Landscape" which I absolutely LOVED! So for those of you reading who are in LA or will be visiting LA really soon, I recommend that you go to LACMA to see these collections before they're gone. As there are no photos from said loaned exhibits, I'll leave you with how I felt at the end of the day...

Apologies as I failed to take note what this piece is and who the artist was

Golden Hour Shooting

One of my favorite hours to shoot is during the golden hour. It's that time of the day, usually the hour or so before the sun sets, when there's this warm hue to everything, the sun's light isn't so strong and the shadows are longer. I think above all, it is the shadows element of the golden hour that I really love.



We were at the famous Griffith Park Observatory (this post is merely a continuation of the day from the previous post) doing our final run of the lenses we rented. I'm really glad that we decided to do this, pick out the observatory as our spot, and the time we left to do this. I really love how the sun is low to the horizon that when you see people walk in front of the sun, the shadows cast veils people's faces. Whenever I see and experience this hour in a populated place, everyone comes off as walking silhouettes. Just a beautiful moment for me.



It's funny but everytime I hit up a "tourist" spot, I sometimes catch myself thinking about the people that are there. Whether or not the next person I see is just a local spending their last weekend admiring the place or if they're from out of town and experiencing some place they either seldom see, that is, if they visit LA alot, or a place they'll never see again. I guess it's evident that I don't travel alot and it is something that I'd like to do much more of. The only other city I find myself visiting often is San Francisco. I've been to New York once. That's about it. Anyway, I wonder what these visitors think of my beloved city. I would hope, and like to think, that they come out of it and go back with having a positive impression. I'm sure that on this very day, during this particular golden hour, these people did...

Eye Catching

A couple of weekends ago, me and my friends decided to hit up the Griffith Park Observatory to have some fun with a couple of lenses we had rented for a wedding shoot before returning it. One lens was the 14mm f/2.8L Super Wide lens and the other was the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM. Parking in that location is horrendous to say the least and it was a Sunday so it seemed everyone was there to spend their last weekend relaxing amidst a historic site with an awesome view of Los Angeles. Normally, it would take hours just to find a place to park within the immediate parking lot. The lot is so small and the crowd is so big that they close off the entrance and you'd either wait and drive around until they open the entrance again, or park downhill and walk your way up the hill to the observatory. We lacked the patience so we decided to hit up the exit area of the lot which is on the other side of the hill, park our car and enter through there.

I already had the 70-200 locked and loaded on my 7D and once my friend had parked his car, I walked out and immediately started shooting the downtown skyline which wasn't all that great of a view from where we were at but I wanted to test out the capabilities and quality of the lens. All said, I love the lens and am sad that we only had just a few days with it and I can't afford such a lens yet.

We started walking up the hill to the observatory and everytime I visit that place, I'm captivated by the architecture and how beautiful that place is. I always think about how visitors many years...decades ago saw the place and what life was like then. Upon reaching the top of the hill, I was rather surprised to see this vintage Schwinn bicycle. I'm not sure if it was an authentic vintage Schwinn but that's neither here nor there. It was just there and it seemed like an apt and complimentary greeting for me. Other than the modernity that surrounded me that day, the cars, people and LA air quality, the only thing that looked out of place (and appropriate at the same time) was the timeless look of the Observatory itself, and this beautiful bicycle...

Lines & Curves

The more you look at any particular photographer's body of work, you start to notice a recurring theme with regards to the subjects in the photos. I've seen many photographers who tend to shoot people off the streets (street photographers), photographers who tend to shoot obscure stuff they just happened to find, emotive subjects, found objects etc.

It may be just me, but I see no theme with me. There is a theme with respect to my approach with post work but that's totally different than the subjects in my photos. I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere. I'll try to focus on one type of subject for "x" amount of time and then I'll go on to another type of subject. Not to say that I purposely avoid getting into themes. I'd like to find myself shooting a particular style so that I can get really good at it. I just tend to shoot alot of things. Maybe someone other than me will see and think otherwise about my body of work.

All this said, one particular style or theme that I've seen from other photographers that I love are those that deal with curves and lines. I don't know how they do it but I've seen some amazing compositions where the various curves of a particular building just seems to blend and meld with the geometric straightness of the lines from a street block and those of light posts and/or various signs. Really just amazing and inspiring stuff.

This was my first attempt at trying to blend all those elements into a fairly good composition and I emphasize the word attempt! I was at the beach close to sunset and I first noticed how the setting sun cast this lovely bit of shadow from the wood fence that was lined across the edge of the beach. That was what initially made me want to take a photo of it but as I was bending down and focusing my lens, I then noticed the waves and curves of the sand due to the wind blowing surprisingly briskly that late afternoon.

After loading up all the photos onto my laptop and seeing this particular photo, I fell in love with the shadows. Shadows of and from the fence, the shadows on the peaks of these mini dunes and the shadows that were cast from these curvy mounds of sand. It was obvious to me to put this image through a black & white treatment but what wasn't so obvious was what it was I was taking a photo of. Was it the lines and curves like I had seen initially? or was it now the shadows?

-Q

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Suavecito

I really love the medium of street photography. I was never really comfortable with model portraiture in the past because I always had this grand idea and image in my head and they never really turned out the way I wanted them to. I chalk it up to that bit of perfectionist within me (actually it really is more like A LOT and not a bit...). Street photography is vastly different. I can still do portraits (given the right situations) but I can go into a situation without no prior image or idea in my head and take the shot. The majority of the resulting images I get really satisfy me because I'm able to capture a person's essence in that particular moment in time which really is a beautiful thing to me. Everytime I'm satisfied with one of my street portrait photos, it helps build my confidence and allows me to be more comfortable in model situations.

This is one of my favorite images I've taken. It was during the May Day rally in Downtown Los Angeles and there was this one band setting up their equipment on a corner of the sidewalk and when the rally started to march down the street, these guys started to play this beautiful sounding Mexican ska that felt charged with emotion in a political/social issue type of way if that makes any sense. As I walked up, I was able to capture this shot of the singer just before he sung out the first words to the song.

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Evil Eye

Sometimes people just don't like being photographed. I understand that. I don't like it but I understand. This photo was taken during the grilled cheese festival that happened a couple of months ago. My friend had asked me to document his entry into the competition by taking photos of him while cooking and crowd shots of the event. I had finished doing one of my sessions of shooting my friend so I decided to take a couple of crowd/people photos and there was this guy who had just picked up a sample of my friend's sandwich and I thought I'd get a photo of him doing his judging thing. So as soon as he was writing down his verdict, I pulled the camera to my eye and I'm focusing the lens but no sooner as I had the eyepiece on my eye, no joke, he stopped dead in his writing tracks and SLOWLY raised his head and his eyes and looked dead center of the lens and gave me this look of disgust and disbelief. The look he gave me seriously scared the shit out of me and made me feel uncomfortable like I did something horrible. I probably did. Oh well. I snapped the photo and got the shot. Not the shot I was looking for or expected, but this was a memorable moment.

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