The end of the Decade - Everything Old is New again

So here we are nearing the end of 2019, with the 21st century version of the Roaring 20s just around the corner.

I have been at loose ends with my photography for the last few months for a number of reasons, even so there are a few blogs and podcasts that I follow regularly to stay a little close to things that inspire me.

Jim Grey’s blog “Down the Road” is a great read, he covers all things photography, mainly film, with a dash of digital and life in general thrown in.

Ted Vieira is a photographer based in Las Vegas. Ted produces the Photography Matters Podcast on a fairly regular basis, always informative, often inspiring, I find it helps me place my own photography into context. Definitely worth a listen!

Earlier in December Jim Grey published a piece titled “You should start a Blog” . This one article brought me back to the base of why I like photography. The making and sharing of photographs.

I’ve never been fond of the social media, in fact I do not use any of them, I don’t do photography for the “likes” . Photography for me is my art, I do it mainly as a release from the craziness of the city life.

Saturday mornings in my darkroom are special, a little jazz exploring negatives shot months ago. Or late Saturday or Sunday evenings reviewing the digital shots from some small adventure earlier in the day. Most of them don’t get shared, a few will be printed and even fewer will show up here.

I’ve been off and on with this blog over the last few years, mainly off, but reading and thinking about Jim’s words in the article, it is important to be an independent publisher. There are a number of links to great resources at the bottom of Jim’s article to help get things moving.

Jim also published a list of film photography blogs to follow back in 2018, many of these I visit regularly to stay up on what’s going on in the film photography world. I haven’t seen an update to the list, but most are still active and it’s a great resource!

There will be more posts here in the days, weeks and months to come. I’ll be sharing a little on small adventures, some of my favorite processes from the darkroom, and some gear reviews on older vintage film equipment I have experience with.

Happy holidays!
Dean Chartier

A Saturday walk with Kodak Gold

Another walk in the inner city, this time a little out of the beltline, over to Stephen Ave and into Inglewood to the old Zoo bridge soon to be replaced.

These are shot on my beloved Pentax K1000 on Kodak Gold 200 film which is easy to get at WalMart and is dirt cheap. I've done no adjustments other than remove a few dust spots on these negative scans. Kodak Gold 200 is an amazing film in my opinion, it dries totally flat and offers pretty amazing color, I think anyways.

Anyways, enjoy these!
Dean.

 

HP5 and Microdol-X

So. I went out and shot a roll of HP5 film (400 ASA) using the 83 year old Kodak Jiffy 620 and then developed the film using long expired Kodak Microdol-X developer. I had no idea how this would work out. I'm pretty pleased with the results. 

Print scans of the RC 5x7 prints are shown below.