(by free I mean, sticking your camera through a fence)

Bret’s commencement speaker that evening was the Bill Cosby!  It was cool to see him speak in person… even if it wasn’t comedic material

The next morning, before heading our separate ways, the five of us took a tour of Eastern State Penitentiary.  We did the self-guided tour featuring audio narration by none other than… Steve Bushemi!

It was such a cool place… and it was also super-sunny!  The ghostly presence of the building worked especially well with the dreamy Holga effect.

We started our journey by driving from Michigan to New Jersey, to stay with my dear friend Laura.  From there we were able to take the train or bus into New York City.  It was quite like I expected it to be… an overwhelming amount to see, but I sure had fun trying to take it all in!  I would like to take a moment to brag that we got to see a Cindy Sherman exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art!

After having trouble finding a good film lab here in SE Michigan, I am happy to report that I received wonderful service from Huron Camera (just outside of Ann Arbor).  Also, all of these rolls were from my 10+ years expired stash!  (there’s something powerful to me about the idea of making something that almost went to waste see the light of day).  The following are digitally composited diptychs from the Fujica — Can you identify where they were taken in NYC?

And although it was generally too overcast of a day to get good photos from the Holga, I did get a few of the new World Trade Center skyline.  Here’s one (two) of those:

Philadelphia will hit the blog soon… Boston could be a smidge longer because I have to finish the roll … A sunny weekend in Petoskey should do the trick!

These were taken with my vintage Rolleiflex on Fuji NHG 400. If you’ve never heard of that film, it’s because they stopped making it a decade ago! I love the unexpected color shifts that happen with expired film.

Unplanned, these were all taken at Pike Place Market.  I think we feel extra compelled to go there now that we know we’ll be moving soon.  Before, I took it for granted as a tourist trap (it is insanely busy in the summer):  there’s a farmers market in every neighborhood every weekend in Seattle.  While the different neighborhoods are fun and unique, Pike Place does have a timeless appeal.  I feel these work well in black and white because they convey the overwhelming historical presence felt roaming around the market.

These were taken on Ilford XP2 (color negative black and white) that expired in the 90’s (just like grunge).  Several are double-exposures.  I left in the imperfections on all

(Click to view large!)

My husband Joel and I stopped by Goodwill to pick it up last weekend.  We were surprised that the store seemed so much smaller than it looked from the outside.  Then, we were led by an employee back to the warehouse – that’s where they were hiding what seemed like miles and miles of treasure!!  How cool of a job it would be to see all of those items come in daily

My new toy.

When we got it home, I had to immediately try it out.  Everything seemed to be functioning normally, until I closed it up with the film inside.  Then, suddenly, the film advance lever wouldn’t budge  I thought “that’s kind of a bummer – I won this for $15 and a camera repair place would charge way more than that to fix this.”  So to Google I went — and to my surprise — found instructions someone had posted on how to fix the problem.  Thanks to Joel’s tiny screwdriver set, I was able to fix it within minutes

Feeling pretty proud of myself.

So I re-loaded and was ready to take photos!  Unfortunately, I haven’t had many opportunities to take photos this week though.  Since Christmas season is the busiest time for photo labs, I rarely see daylight!  I had snapped one of Joel outside one of our new favorite restaurants, Rowhouse Cafe, Sunday after brunch with our friends Erica and Natalia (the Cajun frittata rocks, by the way).  I wanted to finish the roll – but because we leave for Michigan Monday, I did the last film run of C-41 this afternoon.  It felt strange wasting a roll just for one shot, but I needed to make sure the camera was working before packing it for our trip!!  To my delight, that one frame turned out great:

Fuji NPZ 800 (Expired 2006)

I kind of want to type “scan straight from lab – no adjustments” because I think it’s so funny when I read that.  Trust me:  your lab is adjusting the scan.  In this case, I decreased the contrast in the highlights so Joel’s right cheek wasn’t blown-out.  But I didn’t change the color, or take it in to Lightroom afterwards, or any of that cheater stuff

Well I can’t wait to be back in the mitten to see everyone!  Hopefully I’ll have a ton of film to share when I return to Emerald City.

Happy Holidays!