i love you but it drags me down

happy birthday.

Wish I Could Have Frozen Time

I finally got a new scanner (Canon 9000F, basically the same thing as my last scanner, but a little faster) and i've been working on getting some old and new photos archived. These were taken with the Seagull 205A on Long Beach Island, i guess about a year and a half ago—Fall 2009. I wish I hadn't cross processed them. More stuff coming, hopefully more regularly now.

you're gonna miss me

montauk











Photos that I didn't mess up from my last trip to San Francisco. Other than the first photograph, the rest are from Stinson Beach north of San Francisco. I took all of these with the Seagull 205A. Great camera that always continues to impress. It's a shame these are all I have to show for my last trip out there, but the Olympus Pen-FT still had some kinks to work out apparently. I think I finally figured what was wrong with that camera, though I still have some testing to do. The lens (I think it's the lens) seems to be shooting a half-stop fast, so I'm testing stopping it down a half-stop and see what happens. It's still very trial and error.

I miss it all so much. You never should have left me.

wednesday morning

This is literally the first photograph I ever took with the Seagull 205A. A San Francisco February morning circa 2004.

angel island 2004

we went to angel island for buzz's birthday. me, melissa, buzz, janelle, and richie, the guy who drew the cover for Green Day's "Dookie" record. we ran around the island at night, climbed its highest points, watched the city run silently across the water beyond us, saw the lights of Tiburon sparkle in the black night, watched oil tankers and other massive ships pass across our panoramic view so slow and huge it felt fake. melissa and i were the only ones who didn't bring a tent, so we got drunk and slept under the stars on top of this abandoned Army bunker. I had weird dreams on top of that thing that i still remember (partially).

I shot these with the Seagull 205A, and just got the film developed today. pretty impressive for a little Chinese-made rangefinder, but I'm still having issues with some light leaks and the film not advancing correctly. i'm having the same thing with the first roll i shot with the Pen-FT. maybe i'm not loading the film in the right way or something... I still have to figure that out. The Pen-FT works very well; i'll be posting pics of that soon from Portland and Peaks Island, Maine. I think the light sensors are a little off, but the images may be a little blown out due to the whole half-frame thing and I'll have to correct the exposures in Photoshop. I also recently developed some other film from 2004-2005 of this band in Dolores Park, and another roll from the Tampa Am contest back in 2000, but didn't find much of use. Oh well. As a better man than me once said, sometimes you get the fish, sometimes the fish get you.

Also, my cousin started his own photo blog. He's just getting rolling, but i expect to see some really cool stuff from him i've never seen before on it. he works a lot with natural light, long exposures, and unconventional perspectives. it's a good start so far. check it out at Purple Shade of Snow.

[edit: I realized I did this in 2004 not 2005 as I previously wrote.]

the buff

anti-hero


arturo


porkchop


ed


paint mixes


keeping it safe and clean


atari and tens


ed buffing it out


HEART101


15th and mission


valencia and 16th


BS @ valencia street


boozer @ valencia street

When I was living in SF I did this project for the now defunct Web magazine WORK, which was a graphic design site done by Tony aka KEM from Philadelphia. I rode around the city with a few Public Works guys who just drive around and buff graffiti all day. It was part of an ongoing project I was doing for journalism school at the time, my thesis actually on the city's war on graffiti. These guys Arturo, Ed, and Porkchop were all kind of mellow, though Arturo was ostensibly the "boss" so he was kind of a dick to everyone. Ed and the guy who called himself Porkchop were both pretty cool though. There was another story these photos were supposed to go with, but the piece ran in the Bay Guardian without any images. I really can't recall how the piece in WORK Magazine looked, the site is no longer up and I didn't archive it myself. There were some quotes and stuff that went along with the pics, of which most are from my old neighborhood in the Mission. It makes me a little nostalgic to see those static, empty photos from Van Ness and Valencia and Mission Street. I'm going back in February for a wedding and to see how it all has changed. Oh yeah, I shot these on my prized Nikon F4, all with the 35-70 2.8. Great classic camera. (EDIT: I just realized I actually shot the last two photos with a Seagull 205A, a new-old stock find from China that Sam bought for me from the Lomography site years ago. Another great camera.)

Unfortunately for me I essentially pawned it to my dad when I was really broke, and still owe him a little money to get it back. It was the workhorse of the Nikon F camera series, all metal body, shutter rated to over 500,000 exposures or something; just a solid, reliable piece of equipment. They don't make shit like that anymore, as the old timers like to say. Mine was from 1989 I think. I bought it from Al at Newark Camera for $800 in mint condition back in 1999 and I still think it was a great deal. What was weird about that was the same day I bought my F4 from Newark Camera, somebody stole one from their store and stole another one from Cameras Etc. up the street. How the hell did that happen?

Anyhow, buy your stuff from Al if you're still in Delaware. He'll help you out. He sold my grandfather the Hasselblad 500c (1968) that I use now. Every time I go back there Al asks me how the camera is doing.

Also, my apologies for the delay in updates. I've been working on this ridiculously long piece for FANZINE on the Brooklyn Fishing Derby. Right now it's clocking in at 13,000 words and I feel like I rushed the last couple scenes in an effort to keep it from getting too long. I may need to make some adjustments in there. I'll post a link when the piece goes up this week/weekend.