President’s Day

Taken in 60 MPH winds during the blizzard known as Nemo.

Monday is President’s Day in the US. While not a holiday for those of us in the private sector, schools, banks, the post office, all closed for many. Car sales, and furniture sales for those who are off. I did take this SX-70 image during Nemo, but decided to save it until now. I used the #120 Lens Shade, and darkened the wheel to 2/3 towards darken. These represent some of the colors I have really been wanting to get out of PX-70 Color Protection film. Almost a dreamy muted look. It was really exciting to watch this one develop. The flag was on my front porch. A neighbor’s house can be seen in the lower part of the frame, across the street. Given how the electric eye chose to expose here, really surprising that the white house didn’t completely wash out and overexpose. It was snowing, so the sky overexposing was no surprise.

To those celebrating, happy President’s Day.

A side note- the challenge of blogging on a regular basis is complicated somewhat by several factors. WordPress keeps changing the blogging engine of their website, the iPhone application, and the layout. Constantly. I have no idea how to scale the size of the above SX-70 image, so that it is as large as the previous ones posted in this blog. it defaults to a much smaller size, and the editing engine now also defaults to HTML. WordPress, can you please stop the constant tinkering with the features and functionality of this platform? Just let it work. So bloggers can work.

Addendum- they never told us this, but you have to change it in the “Advanced” settings manually now. The default sizes are now much smaller ones.

English Draughts

Lego Guys On Checkerboard

Or, as known in America, checkers. A cold, gray, snowy day, and one frame of PX-70 Color Protection film left in the SX-70, before starting a fresh pack. What to do?

Took out a couple of my son’s Lego figures. But, I have already photographed such subjects with the close-up kit. Why not put them on his checkerboard? Into a small environment? I tweeted out earlier that this was something I wanted to do- shoot indoors, and maybe get some softer, muted colors. A fellow SX-70 photographer recommended for natural light to set it on the tripod, and use the cable release (#112 Remote Shutter Button). Exactly what I did here. But it was also recommended that I set the lighten/darken wheel into darken. Counterintuitive, but that it would yield a better exposure. I set it a third into darken here. The long exposure worry out of the way, I could have gone even more into darken, but the colors might not have been as soft. The Lego guys definitely did overexpose, but the #121 close-up lens gave me that crazy shallow DOF that has often eluded me in SX-70 photography. Not sure where the vignetting came from, but I like it here.

SX-70 photography does entail a lot of experimentation. Maybe more so than traditional photography. But the results can be curiously gratifying, as can the medium’s idiosyncracies.

Waltham

I recently took this SX-70 shot of my favorite watch, a Waltham. Now made in China, Waltham Watches were once, along with Polaroid, one of Waltham, Massachusetts’ largest industrial manufacturers. This watch was very inexpensive, but looks great, and keeps perfect time. The movement is that of a much more expensive timepiece.  I probably could have exposed the natural light shot into Lighten, but chose to go one-third into Darken. A flash could have also been a great option, but I did want to try some shallow DOF-

Waltham Watch, Made In China

The Electric Eye

I really think the SX-70’s electric eye got fooled here. Mostly some overexposure (the window), some underexposure (the red wall). While SX-70 electric eyes don’t seem to get tricked as much as Automatic Land Cameras. they can be. Somewhat lost in the middle is the flower I attempted to photograph. Anyways, this is my office lobby, captured with PX70 Color Protection-

The Lobby

The exposure wheel was left in the middle, and no flash was used. But I do love the reds- very reminiscent of the original SX-70 colors. Some of the flower’s pink hues are also visible. Some exposure wheel experiments are definitely in order soon.

Winterscape, Square

The square footprint of the SX-70 exposure can really challenge a photographer “schooled” on the rectangular 24x36mm image which is put onto, say, 35mm film. Like the medium format Hasselblad, this is pretty much a square image, at 3 1/8″ by 3 1/16″. It takes some getting used to, and forces the photographer to retrain the eye, and to rethink compositional assumptions.

So, one might say it is optimized for portraiture, or close up work. True. But it can also be great for landscapes. I decided to take the Alpha 1 down to the park, and capture a winterscape. The exposure wheel here could have been taken down into darken, but I decided to keep it flat, and see what happened. There is overexposure, but not crazy, blown highlights. This film is maybe a half to a full stop faster than the rated box speed of ISO125.  The yellowish tones of PX70 Color Protection I am attributing to the opacification layer not fully clearing. Maybe future editions will improve upon this. But still, considering the 20 degree temperatures when this was captured, pretty darned nice-

Frozen Pond, Elm Park, Worcester, MA

Two Flavors Of Coca Cola

While driving today on Route 13 South in Milford, NH, I spotted this old Coca Cola trailer that is being used as a makeshift sign for a farm. The back features this iconic Coke branding. As I am reading a book about the last years of Walker Evans’ life, and his amazing SX-70 photography, this inspired me to take that camera out, as well as the 450, and capture the same image, for different tones. At the time these shots were taken, it was 34 degrees out, so I did use cold clips for both. The Impossible PX-70 Color Protection film inexplicably defaulted to the “divot/snowflake” look of the earlier Impossible films. Maybe my rollers are once again in need of cleaning? Or, maybe it was just the cold. But the distressed look really works for the subject. While the 450 once again yielded spot-on exposure and tones. Happy I had both cameras with me, as this really was fun to shoot the same subject with both.

The Last Years of Walker Evans: A First-Hand Account by Jerry L. Thompson, available on Amazon, is truly inspiring, a great read. Evans arguably was the greatest SX-70 photographer of all time, certainly the most influential.

SX-70 exposure control set one notch towards darken. Showing off the warm colors and tones of PX-70 Color Protection.

Model 450, one notch towards darken. The Fuji FP100C colors are how I remember the scene as looking.