A brown package showed up on the doorstep yesterday, containing the calendar I’ve been talking about lately. It’s really out of the ordinary—the whole thing is printed on 14 sheets of thick pressboard, notched in the top and on the bottom. Sliding any one of the cards into the top notch displays a month, and there’s a photo on front and back. My photo is technically the ‘back’ of January (turning the whole thing around reveals a shot of the Aquarium with the dates printed over top).
A few months ago I was contacted through my Flickr account about possible usage of a photo I’d taken in Georgia during a loooong commencement speech. At first, I was a little skeptical about the whole thing, but the gentleman who inquired explained the purpose and scope of the project, and I signed on board. After negotiation of rights and agreeing on a price, I sat back and waited to see what happened. Things were quiet for a while until last week, right before Christmas, when an envelope with an unfamiliar New York address appeared in the mail bearing a check. I’ve provided a wide variety of creative services over the years, and now I’m happy to add photography to the list.
Something that always brings a smile to my day is a funny little toy my Grandma gave me. It’s a fabric Santa who wiggles and does a barely legible rap to “Jingle Bells.” I’ve had him since I was in high school, which means he’s been packed and unpacked across multiple apartments for almost twenty years. He’s tacky and goofy and he sounds awful, but he reminds me of my Grandma’s smile, and that’s why he always gets a place of honor on the mantle and a pair of fresh batteries every year.
One of the unfortunate side-effects of living near a school is the barrage of discarded papers that seem to blow into our yard. Yesterday morning I found this one next to the Jeep as I loaded up for disaster recovery—a consulting client got walloped by the windstorm two nights ago, and their servers, printers, and network were down. A solid day of troubleshooting cut into my Cristmas [sic] purchasing time, but I got them back on their feet by close of business. Meanwhile, our dining room fills with boxes delivered by the brown truck, and decorations are slowly appearing around the house. Maybe this year’s holiday won’t fly past before we get to enjoy it a little.
This used to be a pole decoration–probably fifty years ago. He has a great nostalgic look to him. Nowadays it would be a product tie-in.
I finally got around to scanning the medium-format negatives I shot in Oregon last year. Overall, I’m very pleased with the results—amazed, actually. Besides a yellow cast on the film, probably due to the flatbed scanner color-shifting negative to positive, and two examples where I double-exposed the film, I got a handful of beautiful shots on one roll. For these shots, I cheated with the light meter on my Canon, shooting the scene first digitally and then transferring the shutter speed and aperture settings to the Rolleicord. Now that I’ve got a better grasp of that relationship, I can take full advantage of the camera’s potential.
This is enough success to consider buying a flatbed scanner with a transparency adapter and shooting a lot more medium-format film. Can anyone with color developing experience tell me if it’s stupidly expensive to do at home, or more complicated than black and white?
