Following my initial tests with the Red Dragon, after tripping out with some psychedelic redscale and some play time with the green kitten, I felt it only fair to shoot a roll of Ultrafine Red Dragon at its rated 100.
Coincidentally, the One Touch 100 defaults to 100 with non-DX coded film. A match made in heaven? Let’s see… Continue reading “Touching the Red Dragon”
There are things I want to do, but I don’t tend to make resolutions, and I rarely announce future plans any more. For one thing, I don’t want to be a hypocrite, I don’t want to get into the habit of breaking promises. For another, and this is part of Allah’s design: when humans announce projects and plans, we get a little thrill in the brain as if we actually completed it, and this makes us less likely to continue on and succeed. I’ve noticed this in my own life, and when I’ve announced projects or plans in the past, I’ve often quickly abandoned them, or crept along halfheartedly for a bit, before petering out, and may God forgive me, this happens almost any time I announce something before I complete it.
Situations like this call for a dua. Continue reading “God willing”
Yes, Ultrafine Green Kitten 320. Don’t get excited… it’s not a fancy new film stock. In fact, I think it’s really Konica Professional 160 that the good people at Ultrafine reverse rolled to create their Red Dragon 100 film, and that I deredscaled… Why 320? Well, when you redscale film, everyone suggests you shoot it at 2 stops over. Ultrafine rate their Red Dragon at 100, so I reasoned that it came from some 400 film, and since most of the 400 films I’ve shot look a little bit cleaner at 320, I thought that would be a good place to test this out.
I’m going to share a pretty much the whole roll below, so get ready. Again, though, don’t get too excited, it’ll mostly be to point out some issues I have with the Red Dragon film.
Now, I’m not positive the Green Kitten is really Konica 160, but if it is, that would explain 1) why most of the non-fogged shots were underexposed by a stop or more and 2) why Red Dragon 100 is so incredibly dark at 100. There are no edge codes, so only the Ultrafine people could confirm: maybe they’ll read this and let me know. And if I’m right, maybe they’ll reward me with a free 100 feet of it (and a Bobbinquick bulk film roller too, maybe): I think it’s got some real possibilities, and I’d happily shoot 100 feet of it, if it was properly loaded and I knew what to expect from it. Continue reading “Ultrafine “Green Kitten” 320″
Tiny Plastic Box, vol #2 is, as you might guess, the 2nd volume of Jon’s zine, documenting his film, pinhole, 365 project. I knew more or less what to expect, so it’s less surprising than vol #1, but it’s no less exciting or inspiring.
https://youtu.be/7Q3d1Wauw8I
Continue reading “Unboxing Jon Wilkening’s ‘Tiny Plastic Box vol #2’”
Narrated by Abdullah ibn Amr
“There are four characteristics, whoever has them all is a pure hypocrite, and whoever has one of its characteristics, he has one of the characteristics of hypocrisy, until he gives it up: When he speaks he lies, when he makes a covenant he betrays it, when he makes a promise he breaks it, and when he disputes he resorts to obscene speech.”
أَرْبَعٌ مَنْ كُنَّ فِيهِ كَانَ مُنَافِقًا خَالِصًا وَمَنْ كَانَتْ فِيهِ خَلَّةٌ مِنْهُنَّ كَانَتْ فِيهِ خَلَّةٌ مِنْ نِفَاقٍ حَتَّى يَدَعَهَا إِذَا حَدَّثَ كَذَبَ وَإِذَا عَاهَدَ غَدَرَ وَإِذَا وَعَدَ أَخْلَفَ وَإِذَا خَاصَمَ فَجَرَ
May Allah protect us and make us steadfast, especially in this age of mass communication and comment threads on the internets. Can’t we just agree to disagree and go out for ice cream or something?
It’s #BIFscale17! Woo!
In order to really get the party rocking, I decided to redscale a roll of Dustin Adams‘ ‘Psychedelic Blues’ film to see if I could bring some color to the redscales. Continue reading “Psychedelic #BIFscale17!”
In the category of trying to increase myself in Taqwa, I’ve taken to writing down three things that I’m grateful for, every day in my RantBook™. It’s sometimes hard to list 3 things, believe it or not, and I forget or get too busy to scribble on some days, and when I do, I’m reminded of just how ungrateful I am, and how far I have to go. Continue reading “Count your blessings”
