My Dell CRT Monitor & That Epson PerfectionV700 Photo
Saturday, March 08, 2014
One dramatic change for me since I started
blogging in January 2006 has to do with my complete ignorance on what a blog
was. Within a few days I removed that ability of anyone leaving a comment. While this meant that I would no longer have
banal musings from idling busybodies it soon put my blog into an uncertain
domain that was out there.
In that first year that was 2006 more often
than not a blog consisted of my going through my extensive photo files and by
either random or by purpose search I would find a photograph or a series of
ones that would inspire a blog.
This has reversed itself in the last few
years when I
know what I am going to write about and then have the problem of relying on my memory to find a photograph to illustrate what I have written.
know what I am going to write about and then have the problem of relying on my memory to find a photograph to illustrate what I have written.
For my first three years I was obsessed
with the idea that since a daily blog was just that, a daily blog, I had a
midnight deadline to fulfill. This was awfully difficult when we traveled. I
had no computer to take with me so internet cafes in remote Mexican or
Argentine towns became the rigorous part of every day.
Then I figured I could write blogs in
advance before I left for a trip and then on the day in question I would post
them.
This has all changed but I still attempt to
have a blog for every day even if I have to go back to several weeks of blank
postings. I feel I have a duty to myself to blog every day even if the sequence
is skewered.
Sometimes I feel lazy. I think to myself, I
can look for a picture in my files of a sexy looking woman. This will please my
friends John Lekich and Gavin Walker who are avowed heterosexuals (with just
the right amount of romanticism in them to not make them possibly scary
predators!). I put up the photo write some technical information to provide
words and it is done.
Invariably these blogs will have a “like”
flag when I post the links into facebook (note it has to be written in lower
case).
But of late my blogs have mainly consisted
of personal content relevant to my existence in which the photograph I use to
illustrate them is secondary. And would you know it? The “like” (your picture)
flags will still proliferate.
This blog has a series of four pictures
which I took with a Nikon FM-2 and a 35mm lens. My film was Kodak b+w infrared
film which has been discontinued for many years. This particular strip is not a
scan of the long negative but of the contact sheet. The sepia colour is there
because the photographic paper, Ilford Multigrade if not properly fixed would
turn and the image would decay (ever so nicely, I think).
What has changed since 2006 is my discovery
and reliance on the multi possibilities of my Epson Perfection V700 Photo
scanner.
At one time I would have gone to my
darkroom (I still do with increasing irregularity) with a strong mug of tea and
a big fat file of negatives.
Now I sit here in front of my Dell Cathode
Ray Tube monitor, with a strong mug of tea to my left, a big fat file of
negatives and that wonderful Epson.
