Ok, now suck it in

I am busy packing for my upcoming trip to India and Pakistan and of course I have to decide what I want to bring for cameras...
Looks like the winners are:

Lumix digital and 3 film cameras:

Diana +f- because of its truely crappy quality and plastic-ness, and the fact that a Diana has this nack of making images look like real memories, hazy, blurry, distorted and dreamy...and I can do pinhole with it.

Olympus trip 35 - 1974 auto and manual 35mm cult camera, tested and ready to go..

Speed Graphic. ok, it is a bit overkill for a backpack, but I just can't pass up the opportunity to shoot wet plate while I am there.

So that means I have 3 sizes of film, 35mm, 120 and 4x5 sheet film, plus glass and metal plates AND a portable darkroom that I am lugging as carry on baggage. Ambitious? Uh, yah....

I hope to post photos of my darkroom in action doing tintypes and ambrotypes on the streets of Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, as well as the beaches and backwaters of western India. I am not taking any chemistry with me since it is somewhat problematic to take flammable, explosive, and poisonous things on airplanes and through customs.
So my first task when getting to Pakistan will be to find chemistry. Oy vey!

My urdu consists of "excuse me, I'm sorry" (how Canadian), "please", "thank you","good morning" and a bit of hindi for "don't move for 3 seconds" .
I figure if you don't know what is going on, at least be polite.

I needed to test my Olympus trip 35, that was birthday gift from daughter and had yet to be used.
I live in a small place, isolated by a ferry ride from the big city. Well, you'd think it wouldn't be so terribly difficult to get a roll of film developed...2 weeks later, an additional sample roll shot, that I requested be developed gratis and asap (sorry 'bout that) since my order was taking soooo long...and it came out monochrome...
hmm....not right...so I asked them to do it again.
The little trip works splendidly in automatic, which means I can hang it out the window of moving trains!

I much prefer square fomat however...If only I could somehow cram my hasselblad 500c into my carry on bags...I don't really need to pack clothes do I?
I guess I will have to repack.

So that is 5 cameras and a portable darkroom.

west coast winter wet plate portraits

Leah
4x5 ambrotype

So after fall's home renovations and then the holiday season, I now get to spend some time in the dark...ahhh...the darkness. I was unsure whether I would have any satisfaction from my old reddened collodion or my wayyy too old developer, but even with the dark rainy Canadian west coast day, I managed to make some shoe portraits. Since no one was home and the dog can't manage to sit still for a whole 90 seconds, it had to be shoes...

taken with a 4x5 speed graphic with a petzval type lens, for 90 seconds, on a very dark and rainy day.

pour le moment

au revoir Ottawa and all my fab SPAO people. I had a fantastic workshop, lots of great creative folks and now I am off to the west coast to get mucky. Merci ms. Aviva Cohen for snapping a photo of me as I prepared for my departure.

Aching for the Ether

Image by Ed Ross

































Image by Kristen Hatgi

It has been 4 months since I made my first wet plate image, and it feels like an eternity. I had to return to the west coast from Ottawa to take care of my home and ended up in renovations. So on the eve of my return to Ottawa to teach another Modern Tintype workshop at the School of Photographic Arts Ottawa. I am truly ACHING to get out my wet plate gear.

I have found some lovely wet plate folks out there scattered across the world like Ed Ross from San Francisco and Kirsten Hatgi from Denver.

So upon my return I will endure the cold rainy days and attempt to shoot in the rain with my new (old) brass lens.

Goodbye Ottawa- you were good to us!!!!

Favorite Ottawa Places
the Shanghai
RawSugar
Bridgehead at Elgin & Maclaren
Adorit - the best of vintage and fairly traded goods at awesomely fair prices
Galerie La Petite Mort Gallery
School of Photographic Arts Ottawa
Cube Gallery
the Carleton Tavern

The hunt for the holy grail

Who loves you?? Thats right...




















yes, it was arduous, it was hot, very hot, we could not find bubble tea, but we hunted with earnest - for an insert for my daughter's 45rpm record We were told it was an impossible task, it could not be done...we met with much head shaking. But we persevered and yes, we found one. I can't tell you where. But for all of you who are also hunting for the illusive 45 inserts, think, independent, that is where you will find one.

Extreme Analog on Elgin St

I'm meltiiiiinnnngg......no, I am not made of sugar, but, oh my! heat and humidity are not friends of liquid emulsion. We had a full day of shooting and as the day heated up so did my metal plates which resulted in images dripping right off the plates! Luckily the morning was cool enough that I was able to get some interesting shots of Dave the butcher on the street at our local Bridgehead. I suppose it is a curious site to see me load up my speed graphic and put that dark cloth over my head. Extreme Analog