Small Town Inertia is a moving collection of Jim Mortram’s portraits of his friends and neighbors in Dereham, UK, portraits that Dave Stelfox, writing in 2014 in the Guardian called “intimate depictions of social exclusion in Britain.” I couldn’t describe it any better, really, so let’s get into the unboxing.
Or, just go order a copy and see for yourself!
Continue reading “J A Mortram – ‘Small Town Inertia’”Given the issues I had with the Fakmatic (light leaks, inability to track progress, requirement to wind multiple times), I decided to try my luck with some 126 cartridges and ordered up a few expired rolls.
A roll of 1975 expired Kodachrome X was first to arrive. I reclaimed the film, wound it onto a 120 spool, and shot it in the Yashica-Mat 124 with near-disastrous results. The Kodak cartridge was very difficult to pop open; I ended up tearing the plastic in a few spots. But it still seemed close enough to light tight, so I carefully spooled some Fomapan 200 into the Kodachrome backing paper, loaded the pack into the camera in a dark bag, and got to shooting.
Continue reading “reloading 126 cartridges: Kodachrome X”I stumbled across Speak Softly to the Echoes in a Half Price Books some years ago. It was cheap and I snatched it up for the combination of image and text more than anything. It’s given me an idea about something, reminded me of a twitter exchange (I think… I can’t find it now) some months back with Andrew Molitor that I won’t go into here…
Continue reading “Art Gore – ‘Speak Softly to the Echoes’”Sometimes, a little flash of beauty is all you need.
Continue reading “Focal Color 126 (1982): small victories near the beginning of 2021”I woke up one morning back in October with an idea to get a 126 camera and shoot some square 35mm images. I bought the Agfamatic 200 Sensor and a Fakmatic adapter, and then bought some long expired 126 film in hopes of getting better results from reclaimed cartridges.
The first to arrive was a 20 shot roll of Kodachrome X, expired in 1975. I reclaimed the film and spooled it into some 120 backing paper, shot it at EI 8 in the Yashica-Mat 124, and developed it in Ilfotec HC, 1:31 for 9.5 minutes, as I had with my earlier attempt with Kodachrome, and hoped for the best…
Continue reading “Kodachrome in 126: failure(s) near the end of 2020”I looked at and read more books in 2020 than I did in the entire decade 2010-2019. I didn’t keep count, but I averaged 1 book a day for the first half of the year, and then 2-3 a week since. I’m not proud. Most of it was virtually indistinguishable from broadcast television and the time spent reading was time I didn’t spend with my darling wife and therefore caused some tension in my marriage. Still, though, I did it.
Continue reading “(photo)book(s) of the year, 2020”The Open Road: Photography & The American Road Trip is a large, heavy, coffee table-type survey of major photographic projects that dealt with the United States as seen by car, from car or hotel windows, while on road trips across, back and forth, up and down, or all around the country, and it’s maybe the worst book to try to review when you’re in photobook-buying-budgeting mode…
Continue reading “David Campany – ‘The Open Road’”
