The week after I replaced the hood on the CR-V, it decided to show its appreciation by stranding Jen in Baltimore City, on the way to pick up a friend for dinner. She said the clutch locked up, and she was unable to shift into or out of 2nd gear. She was able to pilot it safely to a side street and call me; I arranged for a tow truck through USAA and they picked it up a little over an hour later. Our mechanic can’t seem to find the problem but did find that the gear oil was very low. There’s no noise coming from the box and two short trips I’ve taken since then have been painless; this could mean nothing or it could mean the clutch is about to shit itself. Only time will tell, I guess. The mechanic hinted that it would be wiser to buy a new car instead of fixing this one, but we have a large amount of loyalty for this car and I’d much rather keep it on the road than absorb a new car payment.
I’ve had a Flickr Pro account since 2005, when I decided I’d use it for my image hosting CDN. It’s been very useful over the years, even as it’s been bought and sold, and as they’ve added useful features and then taken them away. I’ve found, however, that I’m not using it all that much anymore. The last photos I uploaded there were from the camping trip in June, and everything after that I’ve uploaded directly into WordPress. I’d guess there are a couple thousand photos I’ve linked to over the course of 4,672 posts, and for now that’s fine. I am thinking about the future, however, and at some point I’m going to have to go through each post and update the photo with a local version (as well as fix a bunch where the links have broken). Not today, though.
My IPA stopped fermenting on Thursday evening, so I have to rack it into a secondary fermenter as well as dry hop it. My neighbor picked up another kit for me yesterday and hopefully we will be brewing this evening, but he hasn’t nailed down a time yet. It feels good to have a batch in the works, and it would be even better to have two in the kegerator by Thanksgiving. It also got me thinking about some of the gear I’d like to update next year–a better burner, a slightly bigger kettle with a temperature gauge, and maybe some upgrades to the kegerator itself. But for now, what I’ve got is working well and I’m just happy to be brewing again.
Meanwhile, the crops in the greenhouse are winding down. There are still many black and red cherry tomatoes on the vines, and there’s a second wave of Indian Stripe and Paul Robesons growing slowly, but the whiteflies have really damaged the plants. There aren’t a lot of green leaves left on anything so I don’t know if any of the remaining fruit will ripen at this point late in the season. I’m going to replace the back wall in an effort to keep the heat inside and start winterizing things.
I haven’t uploaded anything to Flickr in a couple of months, partially because I have no good photo workflow anymore. I sat down and worked through shots from the last month and picked out a couple to post and share.
I don’t have a selfie of me in a gown today; that’s probably getting old. Radiation is pretty much the same; I avoided mooning anyone, which is good. No bowel exodus to speak of, appetite is normal (Shake Shack for lunch!) and no soreness or swelling.
Fun Fact: I now weigh more than I ever have in my life, give or take a few pounds.
I got the proofs of all my film back this afternoon, and I’m THRILLED. I sent five rolls off, one from the Rolleicord, two from the Yashica, and two from the Minolta 35mm.
The Rolleicord roll turned out to be ancient, and did not hold up well in the camera. Which is a shame because there are some beautiful shots of Finn in there, including this one:
That dates back to September 2011, when we were down in North Carolina with Mr. Scout.
The two Yashica rolls turned out better than I hoped, including these two shots:
These were metered by using my digital cameras to approximate the aperture and ISO settings. I could not be happier with these pictures, and I’m going to have them both blown up and printed.
We also got these shots from the family portrait session:
Looking carefully at the edges, there’s some circular distortion around the edges at wide aperture, which makes for an interesting bokeh effect in the leaves behind our heads. I don’t see it in the portraits at the top but it’s visible in these two. These bottom two were taken with the now-operational light meter, which means I’m on the right track.
Finally, the Minolta had some interesting shots, from years ago and the new:
The first one dates back to probably 2010 or so. The B/W shot is from our vacation this year.
Is shooting with film expensive, tricky, and slow? Yes. Is it rewarding? Hell yes.
We hiked up to the park on Saturday to take some family photos before I start radiation and chemo treatment. I brought the Fuji and the Yashica, loaded with a half a roll of black and white film. We walked down to a wooded, open area beside the river and did some tripod shooting with the timer, which was difficult due to the sun going in and out of the clouds; none of the shots metered the same. Then, based on some advice from a nearby hiker, we walked up a nearby trail to a beautiful waterfall and shot some more.
I’ve been having problems getting consistent color with the Fuji and I don’t know if it’s how I’m working with the camera or how I’m importing and processing in Lightroom. I want to love this camera more but it feels like the results I’m getting are regressing the more I shoot with it. I’m also concerned that my skill level is regressing.
The Yashica is a crapshoot and I have no idea if anything I’ve shot will come out, but that’s been the fun part. I’ve got two rolls of 120 dating back to our vacation that I’m keen to have developed, two rolls I shot with the Minolta, and another roll I found in the Rolleicord I’d forgotten about. Most of the stuff I shot with the Yashica was guesstimated by using the meters from other cameras, but I’ve been working on getting a Gossen Super Pilot light meter to work for the past couple of weeks. After some confusion with the replacement battery I purchased, I got it working relatively well. I’ve still got to do some testing with a modern camera to see if the readings are correct.
All of the film is getting sent off to thedarkroom.com, who developed a handful of mystery film for us back in April. My fingers are crossed for a couple of good shots from each roll; I’d love to get some blown-up silver gelatin prints of us from each, if possible.
I shot this with an old Nikkor 50mm f/2 manual lens on the front lawn before Finn went up for bed. While it’s not the sharpest image, I love the look.