We’re home from our walking around Boston visit. We stayed mostly around Atlantic ave and the warf area, but also went to Haymarket and strolled through Quincy Market. Touristy stuff. It was a good time from the mental health perspective, though we tried to get into the Aquarium and failed, and from a nerd-shoots-film point of view it was awesome*. I finished the nearly-finished roll on the Nikon, shot through a roll on the Pentax, and then shot about 2/3 of another roll on the Nikon. Yikes!
I now have four rolls of film ready to develop, so I think it’s time to pick an online photo lab and ship things out. Today, or tomorrow, if I can. Here’s hoping everything comes out and there isn’t anything wrong with the ebay Nikon.
Fingers photographically crossed.
*It went awesome, assuming the photos actually come out.
I had to take a couple of pics with my iPhone, just for instant blogging gratification purposes.
I think I got this guy on film too.
Switching over to the Pentax and loading/unloading the Nikon, while Harry had a donut. The donut was pretty much the sole reason for the trip.
Harry hasn’t done many fun things this summer. He’s been working his ass off at the restaurant and hasn’t had time for much else.
Today, in the interest of mental health, we are going into Boston to just hang out. We have to be back somewhat early so he can go to work and I can visit Mom and Jen and I can watch an episode of Stranger Things. We are going to go to the North End, hit Harry’s favorite donut shop, and then wander around.
Of course a side effect of this mental health break is I will be taking both film cameras. The Nikon only has 8-9 shots left on its roll, but the Pentax has a full 36. When the Nikon runs out I’ll swap cameras. I just hope I’m not so obnoxious that I annoy Harry and Jen. Fingers crossed.
I took my little Nikon film camera with me to visit my mother. The idea being if Waze took me home through downtown Andover I would stop and take a pic or two. Waze did not take me home through downtown Andover but it did almost kill me. Well, the schmuck who tried to pull out of the breakdown lane without getting a running start almost killed me. The camera was on the front seat and slamming on the breaks to avoid death hurled it off the seat and onto the floor.
So I was sitting here, in the living room, in between episodes of Stranger Things, and Patches was just sitting there on the floor watching me. I took a pic with my phone and then tried to take a pic with the film camera. You know, just to make sure it still works after the trauma of the car ride.
Just as I was about to hit the shutter button Patches stood up and started walking. The shutter speed was pretty slow so I was pretty sure the images was going to be a little blurry. The first thing I did after hearing the click of the shutter was look at the back of the camera… which is where the display would have shown the image if I had taken it with a digital camera… instead of taking it with a film camera, which I did.
It wasn’t really a long week, but now that we’re up to Friday it suddenly feels like a long week. Eight hours and 11 minutes to go until the weekend. Who’s ready?
I was hoping for some car music today but I didn’t get a chance to write any lyrics last night. Maybe tomorrow. The plan as it stands now is to go to see a matinee of the new Thor movie tomorrow. That is both exciting and nervy. It will be our first visit to a movie theater since the pandemic started. That’s why we’re going to the first showing of the day. We’re hoping the place will be empty. We’ll see.
I thought about asking the bariatric surgery facebook group about the pros and cons of small amounts of popcorn, but then I re-declared the facebook boycott so… yeah. I’ll stick to water, thanks. Wicked smaht there, Robert.
I am going to visit my mother tonight. Hopefully I’ll get there once or twice more over the weekend. I need to stop by Dad’s too. We’ll see how things shake out.
I want to do some music, preferably car music and guitar playing and some lyric/melody/riff writing. The faux 50/90 is still happening, but I am about an astronomical unit* behind schedule. There are only six songs in the pipeline right now and none are even remotely close to finished. Also, July ends next week. I should have 13 songs complete by the end of the month. Not happening. Not even close. Still, it’s fun. I just need to get into the groove somehow. I was feeling pretty good on Wednesday. Let’s channel that and do some more.
Photography… I don’t know. Downtown Andover? Downtown Lowell? Boston and Cambridge? We’ll see. I want to have one or two more rolls finished (I have two finished now and one in progress) before I ship off to a lab somewhere, but that could take ages at this point. We’ll have to see.
Okay. Let’s get through the work day before we worry about any of this stuff. Happy Friday, folks!
*An astronomical unit is defined as the average distance between the Earth and the Sun. That is a perfectly accurate description of how far off the pace I am at the moment.
So I am not doing a third consecutive photo a day thing on Flickr. Nope. I am not two months away from completing a third year with at least one photo taken every single day without exception. Nope. Not doing it.
The film thing makes it weird. I took like 15 pictures today that will not get to Flickr for weeks at least, and will not even have exif data with the dates embedded into the file and the camera and lens used and the aperture and ISO and shutter speed. They are going to be just like… pictures… only. How strange is that? I am going to have to remember which cameras shot which images and which lenses they used. Well, the Nikon only has one lens but the Pentax has two.
I put film in the new/ebay camera. It was a little difficult getting it to advance. It moved okay when the door was open, but not at all when it was closed. I think I need to roll it back a little to tighten it. It seems that way at least.
I also have to remember to half-push the shutter to get the light meter to work. That has gone wrong once as my attempt to half push accidently turned into a full push. Woops. So far it seems to be advancing the film correctly. Hopefully that continues for… forever, I guess.
Now I just have to shoot the whole roll and get it developed so that I can know the whole thing actually really works instead of just feels like it works. I also need to know if there’s anything fatal with the lens. It seems okay, but focusing feels a little difficult.
I had two ideas for things to do on my lunch break today. I am not going to do either one.
Thrift shopping for manual film SLRs on the cheap
The Salvation Army store in Salem, NH is apparently only open M-F 10am to 5pm meaning I will never be able to get there unless it’s on my lunch break
Take one of the cameras (probably the digital) out into the woods behind the house to check out a couple of huge fallen trees. Nature photography, babie. Yeah!
I think the main reason I am not outside right now is ticks. I would have to put on longer, heavier socks and maybe boots and shit like that and I just don’t wanna.
Instead of doing those two things I am sitting at my desk typing this here message to you, the universe.
I’m actually struggling with lunch today. I don’t know what I want. For the first time since before the surgery I am kinda tired of the handful of mini-meals I’ve been eating. I wasn’t in the mood for any of the usual suspects. Chicken, Tuna, Eggs… nothing. I made myself 3.9 ounces of chicken salad but I really don’t want it. I am just eating it to get the protein.
What do I want? Who am I?
Unrelated note: I read that CVS takes 7-10 days to develop your film and return it to you. Today is day 11 since I dropped off the first roll. One YouTube video on beginning film photography said it takes two weeks. Is the YouTube video more accurate than the store? Stay tuned and find out. Or, CVS can just give me my friggin’ pics.
ADDENDUM: Screw it, I thought. I am going to check out that spot in the woods. I grabbed my camera and opened up the bulkhead (which is right next to my desk), and saw that our next door neighbor was hitting golf balls into the woods, as he sometimes does. Shit. A 10 minute photo-op is not worth getting beaned in the noggin’ with a golf ball. Maybe tomorrow. Ticks be damned.
If you thought that I was going to post a summary of today’s film photography extravaganza before I had the film safely removed and ready to drop off at a developer then you’re just nuts.
I am knocking on every piece of wood in the house as I say this, but it went okay today… I think. Who knows? We won’t know until I get the actual photos back from wherever CVS sends them, but from what I can tell everything is okay.
I retraced most of yesterday’s steps. I didn’t go to Canobie Lake in Windham. I didn’t want to drive that far if it wasn’t a perfectly clear sky. Also, I was gun shy and didn’t want to go too far from home.
I started at the Methuen Rail Trail. I did not see any Canadian geese today, but I did see people. There was a couple out walking their dog, I waited in the car until they passed by, and another person walking away from me who was way in the distance. I went to that little bridge over the Spicket again. The river was perfectly calm and really low. This spot is within the bird sanctuary but I didn’t see any wildlife to speak of.
Obligatory iPhone pic for the Flickr 365 album
I then went downtown. I took one picture of the sidewalk where the businesses have their signs hanging off the buildings and then bolted to the Spicket Falls Dam again. I took a bunch of pictures there. Probably too many. Today’s roll had 36 exposures (Kodak ColorPlus 36/200) and after 12 years with my Nikon D90 and a memory card that can hold over 2,100 full res images, the idea of having to limit myself is kind of hard to wrap my brain around.
After I finished with the dam I went back to the record store to try and get the sidewalk from the other direction. I made sure to get one of the big clock too because it’s me we’re talking about here.
Next I went back to the Tenney Castle site and took a bunch of pictures of what’s left of the courtyard. I took one of the long dead water fountain that I think might have a blurry background. Fingers crossed on that, right?
This was the end of the picture taking as I ran out of film. I went back to the car, holding my breath the whole way. The next step is to unload the camera and that’s where my stupidity turned everything to cow shit yesterday. Picture me walking on eggshells, spiritually speaking (or some shit like that).
I made one other stop before I went home. I saw a flyer online a few days ago for a July 4th event where the Methuen Historical Society (I think) is going to read the Declaration of Independence at the oldest burial site in the city. I went to that site to see if it might be a good place for some pictures, but it’s fenced in and locked up. It looks like there might have even been barbed wire at some point. Yikes.
So back home I went. I left at 5:33 and got home at 6:25. Out of pure paranoia, I did all of my morning routine stuff before sitting down to try and unload the camera. Once that was out of the way I came downstairs to my desk and took care of things. As I mentioned yesterday, there is no way I will ever unload the camera again without having the manual open in front of me (yes, this is an exaggeration in the long term, but I sure as hell had that puppy open today). I read through the steps and did it. No issues that I know of. I have a little zip lock baggy in one of my desk drawers that holds finished rolls. It’s the only roll in the bag right now. I then took the third and final roll from my Walgreens experience last weekend and loaded it up. The camera is good to go.
Sigh of relief. No signs of any mechanical failures. If anything goes wrong from this point it’s because I suck at photography, not because I did something stupid or because there is something wrong with the camera. Sigh of relief indeed.
I actually need to get my pantoprazole prescription refilled (for the final time ever, I hope) so when I go to CVS to pick that up I can also drop off the film. Seems like a decent deal.
Okay, the photography experience for today has come to a close. Time to make a protein shake and walk for half an hour while watching The Umbrella Academy. Bye for now, oh my readers and only friends.
I am going to try again tomorrow. There are clouds in the forecast, but only partly. This will be the third time I try this shit and if something goes wrong this time I’m going to put a pin in it for a bit. My goal is to shoot film in Disney in January and I am just trying to see if I can get the camera to work correctly and also see if the photos come out okay. That’s not too much to ask, is it?
I have a roll of 36 exposures at 200 speed in the camera right now. Let’s see if I can’t use some of that up while hitting my favorite places in the city. Yeah, let’s do it. And screw you to the universe if anything breaks down again, even if it is my fault like it was today. I am a moron.
Sunrise is at 5:12am tomorrow. Let’s do this thing!
Inside the Red Head's Head 