Take Stock

Incidentally, the upside down Chinese character rightly describes what I have been going through for the last two months.

Shooting F5 In Times Square

At long last, I actually shot with my Nikon F5 and my 50mm f1.4. I loaded up the thing last week but just shot one picture. Very typical of me.

I was shooting my way to Times Square. The first shot was hard but then it got easier but never better. It was a new Times Square that I have never seen before, with a so called pedestrian mall where people can lounge on beach chair in sort of a make-believe beach right in the middle of Times Square. It is an interesting idea that David Letterman likes to make fun of.

I think it really takes some courage to be a street photographer it's definitely not for everybody. Again there is no set rules, I guess or I know I am no good with people. I don't want to just snap around. I believe in getting close to your subjects, either by developing a rapport or doing the complete opposite--total disregard of your subjects and getting blatantly close them. And I am not good at either and I don't believe in long lenses. I guess I better off stick to abstraction or what I think is abstraction of inanimate subjects. Anyhow, it's just my futile attempt to engage in something that's kind of fun and kind of arty farty.

As usual I left one last frame just in case I have the shot of my life happen somewhere on my way back and I wouldn't get caught with an empty camera. It's just a habit.

This time around I deliberately shot my Elite Chrome 200 at ISO 320 and going to push 1 stop in developing, as suggested by some helpful folk at photo.net. I just want to see what the pictures look like.

I just found out I have a finished roll of 135 film sitting somewhere in my closet and I have totally forgotten about it. I like this kind of discovery. I have another finished 120 roll film as well. So all together I have three rolls to be developed. Probably going to cost me quite a lot to develop and scan them.

Untitled

Untitled

The original are much bigger, I resized them to width 1500 pixels before uploading them to Blogger. I think this might be the best scan I ever have, well I paid for it. I won't say I have mastered the 160 NC, but my very limited experience told me that, it's better to err on over exposing than underexposing it. I shot them at the rated 160 ASA and for the most part I guestimated the exposure relying on the f16 rule. For the above shots, I had my Nikon FE with me, so I relied on its meter and exposed those shots accordingly and I have to say I am pretty happy with the results. I don't think I have a lot of 160NC left and I haven't seen any more on Craigslist either. When my supply is gone, I either stop shooting my 120 or I pay retail which is expensive. I paid my expired film around $1 a roll.

Yashica Mat-124 G

I am totally happy with my own Cartier-Bresson guestimate exposure. I am not happy at all with the color and the scan. The scan can't be right at least can't be called HI-RES. The color isn't right either (or maybe it's right, I know Portra is supposed to be low contrast ....) but I guess I would never find out whose fault it is anyway, as it can be due to the fact that the film is expired though unlikely. I guess it's time to shoot chrome or just process my own black and white or go digital all the way. That way at least you don't have anybody to blame but yourself.