photos

Today was a great day. We started off waiting for Frank the driver, so Evan could pay rent for her apartment. Next it was off for street pastries and to pick up my negatives. After one pass through Heathrow, I am developing all my film before I travel, they wouldn't hand check anything. (The terrorists won.) Anyway, after that it was off to the Michael museum, which was short, but was worth the trip on its own. Seeing those 7 or 8 foot lithographs on cheap paper in person was amazing. I think if I ever was a billionaire, those are the originals I would try to collect.

Today started out with sleeping in. I think it was around 10:30 before I rolled out of bed, which was awesome, though its not normal for me. Our first task this morning was to drop off the film I have already shot, and get our transit passes. Luckily around 3 corners, at a distance of about 3 city blocks, there is a photolab that will do 1 hour e-6 or c-41 processing. And they apparently do enough medium format that they asked if I was shooting 6x6 when I asked them to cut it on 3 frames per strip. I wonder if they see more 6x7 or 6x9.

Evan is studying in Prague for the summer semester, and as a result, I have taken some vacation time to travel to Prague with her. I intended to learn a bit of czech before getting here, but that intent didn't quite catch up to the activity. I know enough to say excuse me, do you speak english, thank you and good bye. And so far, that actually has been enough. Not everyone speaks english, but the people who do are becoming more common.

Recently I heard an ad on the radio for the Austin Gorilla Run, a 5k run down Cesar Chavez in a gorilla suit. This idea alone piqued my interest, so I sort of made plans to go, because that's just funny. Through college I kept having visions of my friends and I long-boarding down the lakefront in Milwaukee in suits, or gorilla costumes, but we never did. I always thought just a handful of people randomly doing something like that would be fun, but, as I said, I never got enough takers together.

Just before Christmas, Evan and I went on a trip to Big Bend National Park. This was our first camping trip together, and it was an awesome trip. We went with the intent to do some camping, hiking, photography and to see the stars. We did all of this. Originally we intended to stay for a 4 day, 3 night duration, but due to illness we ended up leaving a day early. This doesn't bother me at all, because we got to see so much and I know that we will be back. I now have an understanding of what is there, and I can better plan and prepare for the environment for when I return.

So, I was looking through my photo library, and I know its not entirely up to date, but, I found an interesting progression.

My library currently goes back to 2006 for which I have 73 photos. In 2007, my library is 147 photos. In 2008 I apparently shot 521 photos, with 2009 archiving 656 photos. And to this point in 2010, I have taken 2,513 photos.
I think its pretty easy to see where I started to take photos more seriously, and to more constantly remind myself to have a camera and use it all the time.

So, I know the Hasselblad is still new (to me), but, I found an upgrade that I really needed to do. My 500c/m still had the original focusing screen in it. Which, having not ever used one before was ok, and I was able to see through it to what I was shooting, but, sometimes I felt that it was hard to find the focus correctly. So I went looking, and found myself a split-ring/microprism focusing screen. Well, this also sort of necessitated me moving to the Accute-Matte screen. Man, it is night and day difference.

In 2002 I went to Ireland, and I just recently got a scanner, so I have been scanning all of the old negatives from then. I have uploaded about 40% of them to flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dnovotny/sets/72157623940320048/. I will upload more later. These are old photos, and I haven't done any retouching on them, and the captions are really basic, mostly pertaining to my notes of where I shot each roll, but, I am happy to be uploading them.