There Is No Cat

52@52 Week 35

I’m still sick. This cold just won’t quit.

I went out briefly on Easter Sunday and shot some shots up at Sandy Hook. These are houses in Officers Row, a set of beautiful houses from the days when the Coast Guard base on Sandy Hook was larger than it is now, houses that are being allowed to gently fall apart for the most part. The building in the foreground is actually being used by the American Littoral Society, but the rest of the houses are boarded up. I really wish they would refurbish these places; they’re gorgeous.

I decided to shoot with the Intrepid, using Tri-X at f/22, 1/100 of a second, Rodinal 1:15 14 minutes.

Posted at 11:09 AM
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52@52 Week 34

I’m still sick.

I didn’t let that stop me from going away with Laura last weekend to Ocean City, Maryland. But I probably didn’t have the enthusiasm to get out and shoot very much. So there’s this shot of the beach just outside our room.

Travelwide, Tri-X, rainy day so f/6.8, 1/50 of a second, Rodinal 1:15 14 minutes, blah blah blah.

Hopefully I’ll feel better and more inspired next week.

Posted at 7:53 AM
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52@52 Week 33

I’m sick.

I still managed to get a picture for this week, though. I went to the doctor yesterday morning for this sinus infection, and I took along my Wanderlust Travelwide loaded with a holder of Velvia 100.

On warm summer days, occasionally this area smells of fish. Not often, maybe a couple of days a year. That’s because about two miles from my house, there’s the fishery in Belford. It’s a co-op, run by the fishermen themselves. It’s always been there, more or less.

I don’t eat fish, so I haven’t sampled their wares. But I was driving by their dead-end location a few weeks ago and thought it looked picturesque. So after my doctor’s appointment and before work, I stole a few minutes yesterday and shot this.

As mentioned, this was shot on 4×5 Velvia 100. I developed it myself, using the E-6 kit I got from the Film Photography Project store that I mentioned a few weeks ago. I think I’m happier with this than with my previous attempts. It’s still a bit underexposed, but not unusably so. Unfortunately, my Pentax Spotmeter V is out of commission for the moment, so I used a light meter app for my phone to meter this. All things considered, I like the shot. You need to know what temperature your chemicals are in order to develop E-6 with this kit, but they provide timings from 100 degrees F down to 70 degrees, so it actually seems a bit less critical than developing C-41. I’m pretty amazed at the results I’m getting; I used to take my slide film to be developed because E-6 processing seemed daunting, but really, it’s not.

Sadly, Shoal Harbor Fishery was badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy, and has never re-opened.

Posted at 5:15 AM
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52@52 Week 32

I took the Travelwide out to the beach last weekend. I shot four frames, two at Fantasy Island on LBI, and two on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights. This shot was one of the latter.

This was again shot using the Linhof-selected Angulon 90mm f/6.8 lens from around 1972. I shot this on Tri-X TXP 320 at f/22, 1/100 of a second, and developed in my standby, Rodinal 1:50 for 14 minutes.

It was cold on the boardwalk on Sunday, but there were actually a few booths open and a fair number of people wandering around. They’re having their St. Patrick’s Day parade next Saturday, so I think some of the booth owners were open just to make sure everything was good for that. I enjoy this time of year at the shore. You have to be a bit insane to go to the boardwalk when the temperature is in the 20s and 30s, but there were quite a few insane people there. Like us.

I hope the photo communicates some of that.

Posted at 3:40 AM
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52@52 Week 31

I took the Travelwide out at lunch time on Tuesday. I used the Linhof viewfinder I bought last week. It makes framing a lot easier.

I also swapped out lenses. This is using the Linhof-selected Angulon 90mm f/6.8 lens from around 1972 rather than the 1937 beater I had loaded on the camera. I think it’s still a little soft in the corners, but less so.

I went back to black and white this week. It’s fun playing with color, but I like the look of black and white better. I need to look at getting a yellow filter for the Angulon, see if it’s possible.

Shot this on Tri-X TXP 320, handheld, f/22 at 1/100 of a second.

I love living at the shore. Not crazy about what that means for my commute, but while I’m here, it’s wonderful.

Posted at 6:22 AM
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