Foto Des Tages #67 ~ Reworked

Foto Des Tages #66 ~ Water Towers

Foto Des Tages #65 ~ Fun & Play

Foto Des Tages #64 ~ Classic

Foto Des Tages #63 ~ Adventure Zone

Technik Der Woche #5 Time Lapse

Do you ever wish you could make  everyone disappear from a crowed city street, and capture just the emotional value of the architecture? Well some of you are probably thinking to yourselves the people add to the emotion, keep them in. You could do that, but you could  also create a very interesting effect out of the entire event. Slow things down, to the point where everything moving is but a blur or gone entirely.

Wait what? If your shooting at night, or in a dimly lit room, this is an excellent technique. Set your camera to manual mode, or on a film range finder just set the following settings.

1. Aperture Should be set to smallest setting (Highest F/Stop I.E. F/16)


2. Shutter speed should be adjusted to the point where the meter registers +1/3 generally around 30seconds to 1 minute. On a manual film rangefinder set the camera to bulb, and hold it open for a count. If you have a shutter release this may help as well.


3. Do it again. Not every shot is going to be blurred as much as you want it to be. Keep trying. You might try opening up an old cheap rangefinder like a Argus C3 and creating a pinhole camera, out of it, dragging exposure times from 60seconds to several minutes.

There are tons of things to try just go try.

Foto Des Tages #62

Foto Des Tages #61

Foto Des Tages #60

Foto Des Tages #59

Foto Des Tages #58

Home Again

We have just arrived back from Winona where I was visiting my sister, and taking the opportunity to shoot classic styled photographs in a very old city as well as write about the wonderful attractions there.

For the trip I shot principally with my Argus C3 Rangefinder on Fuji Neopan Professional and was developed using my Caffenol Method .

The first batch will be up shortly, please enjoy. Foto Des Tages and Technik Der Woche will resume next week.

Locks, Dams, and Hights: Winona

Winona has continued to surprise me everyday I have spent here. The other day when I posted I talked about the attractions that would make photographing this city excellent, now I can add a few more.

Locks and Dams

Locks and Dams are a common, and prominent part of this area, and I didn't have to go far before I ran into one along the interstate. These locks are constantly in use so shooting a barge coming through is absolutely no problem. We stopped at two and both times a barge was entering or exiting the lock. I wish we had been there during better lighting conditions however such things happen when traveling with family.

State Parks

State parks are very prominent in this area, and fairly easy to get to. We stopped at Great River Bluffs State Park and John Latsch State Park, where I was able to capture quite amazing vistas from atop the bluffs. Be warned that John Latsch State Park is really a massive staircase up a bluff, that required more than a few stops along the way up. However at the top we were rewarded by an expansive vista. Most of the state parks in this area are fairly small and are easily navigable.

Arrival In Winona

I find myself writing this in a stange place. Having lived in Minnesota my entire life, I thought I knew what I was getting into when traveling to this part of Minnesota... I was quite wrong, and presently so. Winona is surrounded by a vast landscape of towering bluffs all the way along the Mississippi river.

Having only arrived late yesterday evening I can only attest to strange messing of rustic brick architecture mixed alongside a modern society. When presenting to you the Caffenol photo series I showed you rustic archetecture located across from Duluth in Superior Wisconsin. I am surprised by the striking similarities between the city of Winona, and the city of Superior. It seems the entire city was built upon brick.

However writing about Winona and my trip here is not why I am posting this here. I want to talk about the rich, photography opportunities this strange city offers.

Architecture, lifestyle, and the river are key to this city. Should you come here to shoot, take advantage of the unbelievablely rustic architecture captured downtown. You might be surprised by the nightlife, and the culture hidden here. Every Wednesday in the summer a band plays in the band shell along Lake Winona, while citizens have the chance to go Canoeing, Kayaking, or Paddle Boating. All of which seem to offer an excellent chance to capture people in there day to day life, or classic American architecture.

The photo pictured above is the Garvin Heights Observatory from which you can capture the city in all of its spender. When I took this shot this morning the weather was providing an interesting haze, almost a fog over the area perhaps adding a little to the shot. I however have no access to photoshop during this shoot so this photo is uploaded as is.

I will post more on this city when I can.

One Week Intermission: Bis Später

Unfortunately I will not be able to write my calm collected, daily, weekly, and monthly posts that may have been do this coming week. I  am helping a family member move in to the south eastern part of Minnesota, this trip will leave little room for writing, let alone posting.

It is a beautiful area, and I will post when I can during the week, however I may have to do so away from my machine, making posting to this blog nearly impossible.

I of course will post many of the images I take on the trip, and build ammunition for the photo of the day.

Posts that will be affected

1. Foto Des Tages ~ Photo Of The Day


2. Technik Der Woche ~ Technique Of The Week


3. Rolle Des Monats ~ Roll Of The Month (Film Role)

As A last note because of my new found ability to develop film in a matter of hours I will be discontinuing the Rolle Des Monats, and introducing a new category Analog

Till next Saturday!

Foto Des Tages #57

Foto Des Tages #56

Foto Des Tages #55

Foto Des Tages #54

Foto Des Tages #53

Technik Der Woche #4 ~ Developing Film With Coffee

On my first role I relied of this video heavily, and received a nearly transparent first role of film. It seems that every role of film is a little different. My first role developed for 8:30 minutes quite insufficient for my film. When I developed my second role I developed for 10 minutes and received denser images, however they were still not very good and required a large amount of manipulation to bring back detail into the images. Finally on my third role, which was shot almost exclusively in the Duluth-Superior area came out almost perfectly, having been in the developer for 15minutes. My next role will be developed for a total of 20minutes, as my negatives only needed to be slightly adjusted in GIMP.

Last Thursday had the chance to process my first role of black and white film, using the Caffenol method. If you're not familiar with this method, it essentially entails developing your film using instant coffee, a few household items, and a simple dark room chemical.  Don't believe me, it costs only around thirty dollars to get started, and it will last you tens of roles.

Materials include: Development Tank ~ Instant Coffee ~ Vitamin C Powder ~ Washing Soda ~ Film Fixer ~ Film Can Opener ~ Black And White Film

Following link only to items I used in the making of these images.

First of all before you can ever develop any of these you need to expose a role of film, I used a role of Fuji Neopan Professional 400 film, which can be ordered on amazon for around $3 a role at the time of this posting. I great deal for a fine grain film with 36 Exposures.

I first discovered the concept of developing my own film after finding a video online made by make magazine, a favorite of mine. Here is that video below.