perfect timing in imperfect conditions

perfect timing in imperfect conditions

Image by pangalactic gargleblaster and the heart of gold
aka the raindrop ruined my lightning shot!

maximizing the abilities of my wondercam, i sat there in the rain taking 16 sec. exposures, and no time to switch on the dark-frame subtraction(which would have taken away all the little light dots in the dark areas)

i thought i had taken a great picture with this one, and i still think it is quite amazing. but the raindrop on my lens obviously changes things. i have grown to like it, because it conveys a sense of being there, in the rain but on the other hand can be seen to be pretty bad because there is no way to photoshop it out.

still, i'm running out to make a 8x12 out of this one.

Image by wakingphotolife:
What is most difficult, are the things that you cannot do with comfort anymore. You cannot watch any Wong Kar Wai. You cannot listen to Camera Obscura or Cheer Chen. The Lucksmiths are tainted. Jimmy books on the shelf, notepads from Muji, some empty, some filled, Uni-ball Signo pens McDonald's sundaes and magic hours. You go out of your way to avoid them. Even trying to move and hide them makes you feel uneasy so you leave them be.

Last night, I took the shoe box where I keep memorabilia from my life, out from underneath my bed. A friend is creating a book about the transient city: its movements, disturbances, drifts, the impermanent, ephemeral and momentary. Things only glimpsed. This friend asked if she could include some of my pictures from Hong Kong and asked if I could send her the original high resolution files for printing. Some of the ones she requested were scanned for nothing more than a 5x7, at most, so I had to do them again.

It's an ordinary box. It's from Timberland and is the same one that carried the boat shoes she bought for her father almost four summers ago. A lot of things are buried there. I have another shoe box, a Saucony one, but this one is different.

Before, the film negatives from Hong Kong were kept in the Saucony box. This one is much easier to deal with. Things kept here were are to come and go, be seen or not be seen. I could access the things inside without having to hold my breath before I opened it. Now they're not.

Since January of 2008, I've been scanning everything at 3200 dpi. This lets me print an 8x12 with around 380-400 dpi. For expired 35mm film, an 8x12 should be the largest size you print at. Anything more, the noise becomes overwhelming. I've tried it before. At 16x24, skin looks like dull sand paper until you are standing at least seven feet away. I like to be closer. And I know that she had the smoothest skin that I had ever seen and touched.

Scanning film negatives is a time consuming process. I've been doing it since June 20th, 2005. Sitting in front of the computer, waiting for the status bar to climb towards completion, has taken large parts of my nights since 2005. The dedicated Nikon scanner in the media lab at the university was much faster and I went in between classes and week nights. I'd study while trimming the edges of badly cut frames. Now I use a Canon flat bed and though it's much slower the whrrrrl it makes as the lens creeps across the glass is more soothing. If not for the bright lights that peek through it's lid, it would be enough to help me sleep.

I scanned at 2400 dpi because it was quicker. Everything was scanned in haste. Sitting here and looking at them now, I realize I shouldn't have done that. I should have went over the details. For shaving a few minutes, there's a lot that I've overlooked and missed. I can fill those blanks in my mind because I remember the physicalness of being there, but memories cloud over time and there is no substitute for the fact.

It's ironic, that printing at higher resolutions, the results are less grainy and more smooth overall. Yet, it's the opposite of what you see on screen. At least, I perceive it that way. You would think by smoothing, you would lose sharpness and clarity. Maybe for other things, but not for pictures. The most visually striking pictures have the quality of being both smooth and sharp. You could cut your hands on the edges and glide on your feet across the surface.

After this, I will most likely never go through and rescan these negatives again. This batch is the last even though the results could have been much better. The ones for this book and for the exhibition have all had their second go round. The only left ones are the ones that were for her and I. Or just her. Just me.

It doesn't matter. We don't represent ourselves truthfully in photos anyway. They lie about who we are and how we feel all the time.

What is most difficult in my mind when it comes to taking pictures is dealing with the what if's. For all the mistakes I can make, I realize that there are simple solutions for each of them if I had cared enough to remember them. How difficult it is to remove the lens cap before releasing the shutter or to just leave it. Why bother with a lens cap. How difficult is it to remember to switch the shutter from 1/125 to 1/30 of a second because the sun set hours ago. How difficult is to set the aperture to F22, where you can see everything, to F1.4 where you can only see her, or him, or it. These things matter if you're going about it manually and trust yourself. I don't always.

With film there's no way to go back and check. There's no screen you can look on to see if you got your desired result. And if not, go ahead and do it again. Check. Re-take. Re-check. Third take. It's hard to stick with film if you're not comfortable with being left in the dark. The sacrifice is the possibility for colors and textures that cannot be reproduced by any other physical means.

It's a devastating feeling to open the back of your camera and realize that there was no film in there to begin with. Even more devastating is to know there was and lose it.

I look through the sets and realize that it's all side glances, shadows, silhouettes, and blurs and I regret that it's all I have on film of her. There is only a handful of frames that hold a proper picture of she really was. Maybe they were just by chance. I never was able to capture who she really was. Or I just didn't look hard enough.

2400dpi or 3200dpi, the difference is only a few minutes and file size. I don't remove dust and scratches. I don't unsharp mask or auto-tone. When I am doing my own prints, I can hardly tell and all I get is just peace of mind. That's the most difficult thing, not being able to tell if you the time you spent, or time you could have spent, would help you to see anything better at all.



AUDIO: The xx - "Heart Skipped A Beat"