I pulled out the big guns for the last days of the #FP4Party: the Graphic View 4×5 and a couple sheets of FP4+. I had it all ready and had sheets loaded before the shoot week even got started, but it was Saturday before I came up with an idea, and Sunday before I executed it, poorly, but this is my idea of a pleasant evening at home: a cup of tea (or, in this case, hot cocoa) and a good book (T. J. Clark’s Farewell to an Idea). Continue reading “a pleasant evening”
Downtown McKinney Photo Walk
Saturday the 9th found me in downtown McKinney, TX with the Dallas Photo Walk group. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was my third photowalk in historic downtown McKinney.
On the first, in 2012 with the Dallas Photo Walk MeetUp Group (a different group), I shot some Fuji Pro 400H in the Ricoh 35ZF alongside the D7000. I’m pretty sure that was my first photowalk with film, and I’m pretty sure I never shared pictures from that roll.* Shame, I think.
The second was a fun Scavenger Hunt with the North Texas Photography Explorers Meetup Group in 2013, and all digital. I didn’t much participate in the group voting, and don’t think I won any awards for my attempts to combine multiple items into each photo. Oh well.
Somehow, in the intervening years, I forgot all about those walks, and it was only late in the day, when I came across that strange, fenced-off, main street play yard thing at the back of CASA of Collin County that I remembered.
This, though, time was all film: I finished off the last roll of 35mm FP4 and a roll of Fomapan Profi Line 200, then started rolls of Lomo F²400 and Adox Color Implosion, and had a pretty good time. Continue reading “Downtown McKinney Photo Walk”
I still go in early…
The early morning is a beautiful time. Everything is quiet and still. The streets and highways (and the office) are empty, and everything is at peace. It’s little wonder that this is a preferred time to pray and seek forgiveness. Continue reading “I still go in early…”
Saturday morning at the Cedar Ridge Preserve
The Cedar Ridge Preserve is a nice bit of nature, just 20 minutes south of Dallas, and worth a visit if you like pleasant little hikes along marginally improved trails. Most of the preserve is, well, preserved, wild. I quite like it; my darling little wife, less so, perhaps. Saturday morning, the next-to-last shooting day of the #FP4Party, my darling adorable wife and I took a nice ~2.5 mile hike up, down, and around. We took the Escarpment Trail down to Cattail Pond, then took the Fossil Valley Trail up and around to where it met up with the Cattail Pond Trail, then up and down and back to the car. Continue reading “Saturday morning at the Cedar Ridge Preserve”
New Desk in a New Wing
A couple of years ago, the company I work for moved our office, from a faceless office park down the street to a comparatively fancier X-shaped building in North Dallas. Everyone was thrilled.* The new office occupies one whole wing of the X, and half of another, and it’s up high too, with a nice view down a major street where I took a whole bunch of streaking taillight pictures.
Well now, they’re moving us again, but this time just around the corner, literally, from the half-a-wing of the X we were in, to the full wing. Good times. Continue reading “New Desk in a New Wing”
Let’s get this party started right…
Today marks the start of post week for the December 2017 #FP4Party!.
I shot so much during shoot week (3 rolls of 35mm and 4 sheets of 4×5), so if you don’t like FP4 in Rodinal (1:50, 12 minutes), maybe wait till next week sometime before you pop back by, cause it’s going to be all FP4+ this week, InshaAllah. Continue reading “Let’s get this party started right…”
do not despair
If you’re anything like me, you’ve committed a few sins… today… since breakfast. We humans sin all the time: it’s just how Allah azza wa jall chose to make us. The important thing is repent and try. Try to be better, try to recognize your sins and things that trigger sinning. Pick one little thing to do to try to avoid the sin the next time. But don’t despair: in Surah Az Zumar, Allah tells us
قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِن رَّحْمَةِ اللَّهِ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا ۚ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ
Say, “O My servants who have transgressed against themselves [by sinning], do not despair of the mercy of Allah . Indeed, Allah forgives all sins. Indeed, it is He who is the Forgiving, the Merciful.”
