26.
what i’m working on today: Eberwhite Woods
25.
the president’s effect on a small Texas town, a film by David Modigliani
Farewell to All That: An Oral History of the Bush White House
with photographs by Annie Leibovitz; makes ‘em look like weasels
what are the next president’s options?
24.
All Through the Night
Lou Reed
It ain’t so much when a man’s gotta cry
to get a little loving and some peace of mind
said, hey baby, give it to me all through the night
Some people wait for things that never come
and some people dream of things that never been done
they do it, oh baby, all through the night
The city’s funny and the country’s wide
but I wanna know why they don’t have a riot
don’t they do it, oh baby, all through the night
Oh mama, oh mama, tell me ’bout it
all through the night
I wanna have it all through the night
Christmas comes only once a year
why can’t anybody shed just one tear
for things that don’t happen all through the night
Ooh mama, all through the night
oh baby, do it to me all through the night
Easy, easy baby, why don’t you give it to me
all through the night
23.
me and my succulents,
Celia, who used to sit on the window sill,
and the A. Vera known as Marcos,
wish you well
happy holidays
22.
meditative film of Kodak plant in France
photographs by Lithuanian artist
Identity Theft collages
spectral inertia
21.
Easy bellows extension exposure compensation; you need a list + two numbers.
1) The list: F-stops in 1/3 increments, keep this close.
3.5
4
4.5
5
5.6
6.3
7.1
8
9
10
11
13
14
16
18
20
22
25
28
32
2) First number: know the focal length of your lens in inches; divide mm by 25.4 to arrive at the customary unit. Some common conversions: 90mm=3.5″ 150mm=6″ 210mm=8.26″ 240mm=9.4″ 300mm=11.8″ Locate this number on the F-stop list.
3) Second number: measure the bellows extension in inches from the center of the lens plane to the center of the film plane. Locate this number on the F-stop list.
Method: total the number of 1/3 stop differences between the focal length and the bellows extension and that will be the approximate increase in exposure required.
Example: 150mm/6″ lens is about 6.3 on the F-stop list with a bellows extension of 9 inches counts 1 full stop of added exposure. Another: 210mm/8.26″ lens is 8 on the F-stop list with a bellows extension of 10″ equals 2/3 stop increase in exposure.
20.
Well, I looked at the exhibition here; somehow boredom is a rough word to use. I looked at Mili’s stuff and that certainly bores me. I like what Smith wrote about the photographs–why he photographs, what he believes. I wouldn’t be bored with him because he’s obsessed with it. I’m never bored when I feel an obsession in somebody. I’m bored with the aesthetics of photographs, but then I think Walker’s photographs are like jewels. They stay the same. I’m not bored with that. I’m trying to define how I am bored with photographs. I’m sort of bored with mine.
If I continued with still photography, I would try to be more honest and direct about why I go out there and do it. And I guess the only way I could do it is with writing. I think that’s one of the hardest things to do–combine words and photographs. But I would certainly try it. It would probably fail; I have never liked what I wrote about my photographs yet. That would be the only way I could justify going out in the streets and photographing again.
- Robert Frank, April 1975 at Wellesley College symposia Photography within the Humanitiess
19.
directed by Patrick Wilkinson
video by Paul and Marlene Kos
talking head Jacques Derrida
17.
Rex’s Blues
performed by Jay Ferrar and Kelly Willis
written by Townes Van Zandt
Ride the blue wind high and free
She’ll lead you down through misery
Leave you low, come time to go
Alone and low as low can beIf I had a nickel I’d find a game
If I won a dollar I’d make it rain
If it rained an ocean I’d drink it dry
And lay me down dissatisfiedLegs to walk and thoughts to fly
Eyes to laugh and lips to cry
A restless tongue to classify
All born to grow and grown to dieTell my mother I did no wrong
Tell my baby I said so long
Tell my brother to watch his own
And tell my friends to mourn me noneI’m chained upon the face of time
Feelin’ full of foolish rhyme
There ain’t no dark till something shines
I’m bound to leave this dark behindRide the blue wind high and free
She’ll lead you down through misery
Leave you low, come time to go
Alone and low as low can be
16.
hand tooled hand held wide angle large format
the story of Kodak’s first digital camera
uses a camera as big as a camper
14.
and then the stars devoured the sky
13.
Crawley’s FX-2K / a high acutance film developer
Stock Solution A:
750 ml water (90 degrees F)
2.5 g metol
35 g sodium sulfite (anhydrous)
7.5 g glycin
+ water to make 1000 ml
Stock Solution B
750 ml water (90 degrees F)
112 g sodium metaborate
+ water to make 1000 ml
Mix chemicals in order given; begin stock solution A with a pinch of sodium sulfite to minimize oxidation of the metol.
Working strength solution for stand development is A:B:Water = 1:1:18.
Development time is 60-90 minutes.
Presoak film for at least one minute. Agitate film in developer for the first 30 seconds and then again 30 seconds halfway through.
*expose film at rated speed; do not overexpose.
[minimum exposure / maximum development]
12.
security and imagination
David Foster Wallace on teaching Franz K.
Carola Vogt and Peter Boerboom
document the intersection between nature and civilization
10.
The Camera Fiend
Camera! Camera! Camera!
For Breakfast, dinner, and tea,
And I would that my tongue dare utter
The thoughts that rise in me,
But, alas! there’s a law for too much jaw
While the camera fiend goes free.
Camera! Camera! Camera!
No matter how fine the day
The dark room’s charms and the ruby glow
Are better than old Sol’s rays;
And the cat and the dog and the chimney log
Have been “took” in a hundred ways.
Camera! Camera! Camera!
I never shall feel the same,
I’ve a simpering gaze which I cannot brook
And posing is all too blame;
While the conscious look of this shady nook
To me is a burning shame.
Camera! Camera! Camera!
The world is no longer the same.
Since my landscapes were foggy and
failed to please
The plates I say are to blame.
But my three-legged horses and houses like trees
Have brought me undying fame.
- Lillian M. Ratcliffe, 1903
9.
Thoughts for an eleventh September: Alvin Toffler, Hirohito, Sarah Palin
Adam Greenfield on the non-future of this future
an Ask Metafilter answer breaks it down
photographer Sean Smith interviews soldiers of the 101st Airborne
beautifully crafted handmade viewmasters
photographs by Frederik Froument
8.
How do I know that enjoying life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death we are not like people who got lost in early childhood and do not know the way home? Lady Li was the child of a border guard in Ai. When first captured by the state of Jin, she wept so much her clothes were soaked. But after she entered the palace, shared the king’s bed, and dined on the finest meats, she regretted her tears. How do I know that the dead do not regret their previous longing for life? One who dreams of drinking wine may in the morning weep; one who dreams of weeping may in the morning go out to hunt. During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming. We may dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the awakening will we realize this is a great dream. And yet fools think they are awake, presuming to know that they are rulers or herdsmen. How dense! You and Confucius are both dreaming, and I who say you are dream am also a dream. Such is my tale. It will probably be called preposterous, but after ten thousand generations there may be a great sage who will be able to explain it, a trivial interval equivalent to the passage from morning to night.
6.
the fear is in the shutter
letting loose, settling right,
the one picture that hurts.
it’s not that i won’t
love it; just not
certain i’ve
the heart
5.
Iraq war as filmed by a National Guard platoon on convoy duty
Q&A: Slavoj Zizek, professor and writer
the master of the run on gag
Hasisi Park is a Korean artist
two projects: Housemaid are photographs inspired by a character from filmmaker Kim Ki-young and Family documents Park’s recent visit with her Japanese cousins.
3.
hey, is your power out?
yeah. my power’s out.
mine too. i’m just down the street. i was in the basement when everything went dark, thought it was a fuse.
yeah. i got no air conditioning. no fan. no tv.
porch lights are on across the street, so they’re alright.
yeah. all we got’s daylight.
i hope it doesn’t last long. maybe i should call the electric company.
least it’s not like that one time.
this happened before?
oh yeah. the whole thing was out. from New York city to California.
the whole country?
everythin’. coast to coast. out. for four weeks.
four weeks?
yeah. four weeks.
what did you do?
nuthin. we didn’t do nuthin.
2.
Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan and the Home front, in the Words of US Troops and Their Families
selected stories, poems and letters from the war as read by Stephen Lang, Joan Allen, Chris Chalk and Matthew Modine; a brilliant and chilling podcast.
Against Ease: Or How the Infinitely Reproducible Pushes Us Further from the Source
Michael David Murphy on getting back in the darkroom
Found: double exposures, ghosts and invisibles made visible
a flickr set of vintage photographs collected by Roz Leibowitz
1.
Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Lucy
Manuel Alvarez Bravo and I walk across the courtyard to the darkroom, maneuvering around bulky, expensive equipment that has been draped and pushed to the corners, unused. Slowly, he makes his way past the tin kitchen cups and eighteenth-century irons that have replaced precise measuring tools and electrical paper presses. A bed of tinted glass marbles sits conspicuously in the sink. Chemicals in hand, he turns his picaro eyes toward me. “Ariadne, after we work on these negatives, maybe you could accompany me to the photo shop. I like to ask them for things I know they don’t have. That way we keep them entertained, no?”
- Ariadne Kimberly Huque, diary excerpt January 11, 1989