If you had asked me two days ago whether or not I was planning on bringing a film camera on our next Florida vacation in June I think I would have said no.
Then yesterday I got a bunch of film developed and now I think the answer will probably be yes. I am so easily manipulated.
Seven rolls of film. All downloaded, sorted, cleaned up, and uploaded to Flickr. Here are a few randoms from the haul.
From Burlington, VT. I don’t remember the name of the bookstore.
From the Atlantic Ocean in Hampton Beach, NH. Splash.
From the happiest place on Earth.
From Animal Kingdom… unless it’s from The Last of Us.
From the lake surrounded by the Beach Club, the Yacht Club, and the Boardwalk hotels in Disney World.
With Kylo Ren at Galaxy’s Edge in Hollywood Studios.
From Rockefeller Center in New York, NY.
And in closing, my new favorite photograph.
In my previous post I speculated on which of the two packages I have shipped over the last few days would arrive at its destination first, thus winning the race. Would it be the USPS package full of 35mm film that shipped out on Saturday or would it be the FedEx envelope with my passport renewal application that shipped out last night?
I have the answer.
The film has arrived at The Darkroom. I can expect my scans to be uploaded to my account in 3-7 business days. In other words, an eternity. Disney and New York on film… coming soon.
It’s weird but I actually have two packages that have been shipped out by me over the last couple of days. One is a passport renewal form that went out via Fed Ex last night and the other is seven rolls of 35mm film* that I sent out via USPS on Saturday. Which will arrive at its destination first? The race is on! In this post-pandemic era of online shopping it’s common to be following packages that are on their way to you, but less common to have to follow packages that are on their way from you. Maybe not. I don’t know. I have to write about something.
Apparently you can spend six months in Scotland without a visa. Who knew? Ireland only lets you stay for three months. England and Wales are also six months, so is that a UK thing in general? What about Australia? I’ve recently watched two television shows that took place in Australia so I feel like I practically live there already. Duck Duck Go (fuck you, Google) says you need to obtain an Australian visa before you arrive. Well that’s no fun. Kevin Garvey, Jr and Nora Durst must have already had a visa when they left Miracle, TX on The Leftovers. Kevin Garvey, Sr… well who knows what that whack job was doing. He sure as hell didn’t.
The Bruins season ended last night on another painful loss. Some teams still have a game left to play, but my team is done. Mercifully. The best they can finish is tied with Philly for last place in the Eastern Conference. The worst they can do is finish in last all by their lonesome. Unfortunately for the draft lottery, there are 4-5 teams out west that will finish with worse records. Not that we have a General Manager who knows how to draft for shit though. In other Boston sports news, the Red Sox actually won a game last night after getting humiliated on Monday night. Fun.
I’m in the office today and tomorrow so the pickin’s for photo a day will be slim. Not that it matters. They are all just pictures of cats anyway. This one for today made use of the iPhone’s low light feature. It works well.
*35mm film refers to the size of the negative… I think. 120 film does not refer to the size of the negative. I read somewhere that it refers to an old Kodak catalog product code. Mentioning 35mm and 120 film in the same sentence makes my ass itch. It’s like doing your physics homework and mixing up your units of measure. It’s like referring to velocity (measured in meters/seconds) and acceleration (measured in meters/seconds squared) as if they were the same thing. I believe the product code for 35mm is actually 135 (not too confusing there, Kodak) but I don’t know what the negative size for 120 film is. I can’t bring myself to call 35mm 135 so I guess I will continue to mix units and have an itchy ass. I could say medium format instead of 120 but that just feels like taking it all a step too far. I don’t know.
Coming…
…and going…
But coming and going to and from where? In this specific case it was the post office. I mailed some important stuff for my wife and one absolutely not important thing for me. What was the thing? Film. Seven rolls of 35mm film has been sent off to the lab for developing. Get ready for insufferable Robbie to rear his very ugly head.
I haven’t been to every city on Earth. Not even close. I love San Diego, CA. I love New York, NY (except for the fucking Yankees). I love a whole bunch of other cities as well, but if I had to pick just one as my favorite… just one city to spend the rest of my days… it would be Boston, MA. My home. Sort of. I grew up about 20 minutes north of Boston and today I live about 30 minutes north of Boston. Close enough. Boston is home. Boston is my favorite city.
For the next few nights we are going to be staying in Boston for my wife’s company event thing. She’s going to be there for the whole time while I am still going to go to work as usual. I’ll just be hanging out waiting for her work events to end each day. I could stay at home while she stays at the hotel, sure, but that would mean we would be separated for a few days and frankly I’d rather stick a railroad spike through my eye than chose to spend a few days apart from my love. Call me sentimental.
Anyway, she’s wrapping up her work day. We both have a bag packed. Yeah, I’ll be home for the work day tomorrow, but I am still bringing cameras. I expect to do some wandering around while she’s at after-hours events. I don’t know if I will have time to shoot any film, but night shooting digital is definitely a possibility. Hopefully I’ll have enough sunlight to FINALLY run a test roll through my new, ebay, Lubitel. Once that is done I can send off a whole pile of film for developing. Disney World and New York photos will be included. It’s a must, really.
Here’s hoping it’s a nice hotel room. If we’re going to be stuck there for a few days it would be helpful if it were comfy with a nice view. It’s close to Boston Common, but not close enough to see it. At least I don’t think so. I’ll probably post a few thousand pictures over the next few days. You know, like I do.
I redefined the word nerd. We went on the safari ride thing at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I had my digital camera and my dad’s film camera and I alternated between the two like a dweeb. One animal on film, the next on digital, wash, rinse, repeat.
Neither camera had a zoom lens. All of the pics are going to need serious cropping. Also, the ride was bumpy so guaranteed none of the film shots will come out at all.
WHEEEEE!!!
We are going to Magic Kingdom today and there will be film. I hope you don’t mind waiting months to see the pics. Heh heh heh.
That’s my dad’s camera. I need to keep it safe while it’s out in the wild.
Frankly I am embarrassed to write this post.
With the possible exception of Dune, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any David Lynch work. Blue Velvet… Eraserhead… Twin Peaks… Nothing. I’m not even sure if I’ve seen Dune or not. I know I’ve seen bits and pieces, but did I ever actually sit down and watch the flick? I might have. I’m probably 66.67% sure that I have, but that’s not 100%, you know?
This is a guy who, purely by reputation, I should be very much familiar with. I mean… Eraserhead, right? How can I not have ever seen Eraserhead? Also, Twin Peaks? Eraserhead was before my time but Twin Peaks came out while I was in my first, first year of college and everyone on Earth was watching it. I mean… I was in music school for crying out loud, how did I not watch Twin Peaks?
Now David Lynch has passed away. It’s too late for me to do anything more than catch up in his memory. Somehow that seems very shitty of me.
As always when a celebrity dies, I have written a post about them that was really all about me. I am a selfish asshole that way.
Rest in Peace, David Lynch.
One roll of film per month using a cheap camera and cheap film.
I’ll use my new cheap Soviet medium format camera. I think you’re supposed to use the same film each month but I’ll bend that rule because I don’t want to use black and white all year and the roll in the camera right now is black and white and also I want to feel like a rebel.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Also the link is to an out of date website. It was replaced by a facebook group and I don’t like linking to facebook. You understand, I’m sure.
Inside the Red Head's Head 