Too Many Hobbies

In my last post, I talked about losing my inspiration, and not feeling the same pull to photography that I normally do. Based on some of the other blog posts I have seen this week (here and here for starters) it would seem I’m not the only one. Maybe its a season change thing (even though Autumn is friggin beautiful for photos). Maybe its a year end, looking at the books things. Who knows.

What’s really important is how do you muscle through it? Regardless of the cause, the general consensus seems to be to force yourself to create something, whatever it may be. Music, pictures, cooking (doesn’t work for me, but eating does ) and so on. It seems impossible when you are in a rut, but if you can get off the couch and make something, it will help. Leah will tell you, I am very often guilty of not following this advice. But not this week. This week I did something I have been wanting to do, and been putting off for a whole decade.

I’ll start at the beginning, of the week anyway. Pseudo-Halloween, the office costume party, was fast approaching. Every year, around late June, a thought flows through my head: “You should get your costume ready early this year, and avoid the last minute stress of shopping the day before Halloween.” Then, as abruptly as it appeared, the thought is gone. Until October 29.

My office , as far as I can tell, has an unusual amount of Halloween spirit. I was told by several people that not having a costume would be viewed negatively. That’s putting it lightly. I had a feeling several of my co-workers had met behind my back and had a “contingency costume” ready if I were to show up without one. I imagine it would have been less then dignified. I was starting to get nervous, as I had no ideas, and even less time to get myself to a store to get a costume.

Thankfully, on Wednesday I was at band practice, and found a 2 foot tall stack of costume “Gangster Hats” (don’t ask me why there was a two foot tall stack of halloween “gangster hats” in my bands practice space, I don’t know either, some questions are better unanswered). I had a sudden brainwave: I’d take one of the hats, go into the basement at home and find one of my old 3-piece suits and make a “press” tag for the hat. Just add a camera and  Ta-da!!  I’d be a press photographer! I felt very smart. Upon getting home, I discovered that there was only one suit that “fit” me. I could get in it, and zip it up, and do up the vest. But there would be no sitting, no running and NO bending over to pick up anything.

This is what happens when you leave things to the last minute

Also, it was green. Very, very Green.

So green in fact that 80% of people didn’t get the costume.  The question I got wasn’t “what are you?”. It was “what does the camera have to do with being a leprechaun?” Being that I didn’t really have a costume idea until two days before this, I decided to roll with it. I cut off the press tag, stashed the camera in my office, and borrowed a cane. I made some jokes about being a rare french leprechaun, and there was my costume. Plus I think they liked how tight the suit was. Well the pants anyway, the vest may have been a different matter. I won second place in the voting. I think that’s the first costume contest I ever won. Tight pants = prizes. Another valuable life lesson.

So what does any of this have to do with photography? Well none of it, except the camera. Obviously.

My Conley Junior

To tie my costume together I decided to leave the 7D at home and bring one of my favorite possessions. An old accordion fold up camera I thought was from the 30′s. It was my grandfathers, and I was always fascinated with it. I don’t know where or when he got it. It’s just as likely that he had it all his life as it is he bought it at a farm auction in 1995. When he passed away in 2001 the camera came to be in my care. I have displayed it on my bookshelf prominently ever since.

It’s in relatively good condition. The mechanical shutter parts all still function perfectly. There could very well be some light leaks, but the body itself seems to be intact. I had always wanted to get film for it and take some pictures. Partially out of curiosity and as a tribute to my grandfather, who I imagine would like to know it is being used. I just never got around to it. I assumed that the film, if I could find it, would be too expensive, and impossible to find a place to process it.

So last week, when I was sitting at my desk eating lunch, I had a closer look at the camera, and started googling what I assumed to be the model, Conley Junior. It turns out the camera is more likely from 1913. Conley Junior was a camera brand manufactured in Minnesota, owned by the Sears Roebuck Company. You can find more information at this site. In my searching I also found a catalog from the year before the release of this camera, which is a fun read. Derek, my IT department head, did some calculating on the cameras in the 1912 catalog and found that, accounting for inflation, these cameras sold for $3200!! It’s like the 5DmkII of 1912!! I don’t think it does HD 1080P though.

What I also found was that the 120 film my camera accepts was still readily available. Lomography.com has a wide variety that can be ordered quite cheaply. So I decided to give my local print shop a call. To my happy surprise, they not only stock it, but they can process it!! Also, it is only $6 or so a roll!!

I quickly made a plan to go after work and pick up a roll of B&W 100ISO and a roll of Colour 400ISO (Leah, dressed as a ninja turtle from her office party, was kind enough to drive me). We decided we would go for a drive on Saturday afternoon to take some landscape shots.

I got home, did some more googling on how to load the film (it was nerve-wracking the first time), and tried to decide what my first picture with this camera was going to be. I have no idea when the last time film was in this camera. I decided, since I had used my digital camera gear to take some shots of the Conley, it was fitting to use the Conley to take a picture of my digital gear. I got everything lined up and positioned as much light as I could. I got a measuring tape to measure the distance to make sure I had the right focus notch out of the three available (5-10ft, 10-25ft or 25-100ft). Once I was pretty sure I had it lined up, and had set the shutter and aperture properly, I held my breath, put my finger on the shutter, and *click*.

The First Exposure in who knows how many years. Exposure 1

That was it. To be honest, it felt pretty anti climactic. I have never shot film, other than disposable vacation cameras. It was an interesting feeling to not have any idea at all what hit the film. I started to wind the film to the next frame. This required another visit to google, as I had no idea what to expect, especially when a dot appeared in the counter window. Did the counter go 1, dot, 2? I was terrified of winding past one of the 16 (or so I thought, see below)  precious frames I had on this roll. Thankfully I found this fantastic explanation, with a roll unwound showing the layout. I moved the film to exposure 2, closed it up and waited excitedly for the next day.

Below you can see the shots from that outing. For fear of boring you to death, I’ll try to do a brief explanation of each and show its digital counterpart where there is one. If you click on an image it will take you to the twitter page for all of the pics from that day. There does appear to be some light leakage. I don’t know if this is from the camera, or if its because I stored the film incorrectly. I’m going to try another roll and be more mindful of keeping it in the dark and see if that changes anything. I haven’t done any cropping or colour adjustment on the film shots yet, so you can see what came out of the camera.

First shot of the day, oops. Exposure 2

Apparently, in 1913 they didn’t have anything that went 80km/h. I should have known better, but I just couldn’t wait to take another picture.

This one is better. Exposure 3

This one did a little better. Leah stopped the van and I got out to take a pic of the road behind us. You can see the light leaks mostly on the right side. I think this is probably because I left the roll out after I shot it for a day, and it probably wasn’t the best idea. Lesson learned. Still, looks kinda cool though.

First of my many focus challenges. Exposure 4

I took this one right after the last one. I probably should have thought about it a bit more, and done something about where the focus selector was. I would have prefered the focal point to be a bit higher in the frame in hindsight.

This Biplane crop duster stopped us in our tracks. Exposure 5

This was a little further down the road. I love airplanes. I always wanted to be a pilot. Leah knows this, so she stopped the van before I could even ask her to. I don’t know if I like this angle, seems more of a snapshot rather than something I would look at for a long time.

Below is one of the shots that I kept from my Canon 7D that we can compare directly to the Conley.

A much better angle on the crop duster. Canon 7D with EF-S 17-55 2.8

Roughy the same composition with the Conley. Exposure 6.

We pulled into the parking lot a bit so I could get a better angle for these shots. I had been using the 7D as a very expensive light meter. Setting it where I thought the Conley would work, and seeing what came out. Looks to be pretty accurate! I really like both of these shots, but im a bit fonder of the one from the Conley, mostly how it pushes the tree line back further.

Yet another road shot. Won't be the last. Exposure 7.

There is something about a single tree beside a road that I love. Particularly when it arches over the road.

This tree was amazing. Exposure 8.

We found this tree beside a creek. Unfortunately there was a wire fence, so I was limited to what angles I could get on it. I only had my 50mm on the 7D at this point, which was not the ideal choice, so none of those shots made the cut.

This is also where I ran into a snag. It seems that most of the loading instructions I used when figuring out how to load my camera were for a Holga. Which takes the same film, but can pack more shots onto it. My Conley makes bigger frames, and there in only room for 8 of them on a roll. Not knowing this, I panicked a little when my numbers went from this “…5 …6 …7 …8″ to this “|     |     ||   ||” and then it stopped winding altogether. It didn’t take me too long to figure it out, but it sure makes every shot count a bit more when you realize that your 32 shots for the day is now just 16. So doing my best to shield it form the light, I wound up the now exposed colour roll and loaded the Black and White.

The same crazy tree, but closer and in Black and White. Exposure 1.

Switching to black and white, the light leaks have some different effects. The most noticeable is the white line that fades to the left. I’m not sure what would cause this, it doesnt seem like a light leak, if anybody knows, please feel free to leave a comment and help me out !

Crazy tree from the bridge. Exposure 2.

Same shot switched to portrait. Exposure 3.

For these shots I moved to the bridge that went over the creek. I  like this angle for the tree. If I have to choose I’d prefer the landscape version. I like how sharp the branches managed to be. These shots really make me feel like we are looking at a 96 year old picture. Curiously, the white band seems to have moved closer to the edge of the picture in these shots.

Some cows grazing. Exposure 4.

Yet more cows. Exposure 5.

While we were passing these cows I bounced back and forth between stopping and not. Finally I decided it was worth it. I walked back to the bridge and took some digital test shots of what at that time were very interested cows. Once I got back to the van, grabbed the Conley and got back they went back to their grass and paid no attention to me. Out of these two, I like the bottom one the most. I wish the cows were more in focus. You’d think with only three focus positions I’d have gotten one of the two right.

The next three images are another set in which I loved the test shot and kept it. I made a copy and converted it to black and white, partially to see how it compared to the film version, and partially cause I loved what it did to the sky.

One of my favorites. Canon 7D, EF-S 17-55 2.8

Same picture, converted to B&W in Lightroom

Same Composition but with the Conley. Exposure 6.

These are easily some of my favorite shots from the day. It wouldnt surprise me to see the colour version framed at some point. To me its one of those shots that make the whole day worthwhile. I love the B&W conversion too, the sky in particular. I love looking at the shot form the Conley. This is one that definitely gives that 1913 feeling. It almost has a tilt shift appearance to it. That soft focus on the tree would normally bother me but I think it adds in this case. One thing I am on the fence with are the scratches. They may be hard to see here. I was prepared for there being some mechanical issues in the pictures. The camera is almost 100 years old, it isn’t surprising that there may be some scratching on the film. I was hoping they would  add some atmosphere, but in this situation they seem to take away from the image. Not much, just enough for me to notice.

A different tree in a different field. Exposure 7.

This one turned out better than I thought it would. The tree was in the middle of a field and this was the closest we could get without trampling over private property. I wasn’t expecting much, but I’m happy how it came out.

Last shot of film for the day. Exposure 8.

So here it is. The final shot of film. As far as the film shots go, this is one of my favorites. I asked Leah to stop the van. Then ended up walking for what felt like another 100 meters until I felt better about the composition. Leah said she felt like we were doing a cross country run with her following me in the van. After I finished this shot, I wound the film onto its reel and put it into my bag. I really couldn’t be happier about how these film shots turned out. When I saw them at the lab, I immediately bought another roll of colour film, this may grow to an even more expensive habit. That being said, don’t think I’m putting down the digital gear. I’m still a fan of seeing what I shoot right away. And as you’ll see in the next shots, there are some things you just cant do with the Conley.

Shooting from the van at a hawk.

Same Hawk, different angle.

This really drove home the benefits of my SLR. While we were driving along, Leah slammed on the brakes as we saw two of these hawks emerge from a tree. I leaned out of my window with my 7D and 70-200 2.8 and let fly in drive mode. I only kept two or three, but I couldn’t imagine getting anything useful with the Conley in this situation. These next shots are the opposite.

I don't remember taking this particular shot.

An old church, converted to B&W.

Closer detial, converted to B&W.

These shots made me wish I bought another roll of film. We were randomly driving around the countryside when we came across this old abandoned church. It would have been great to shoot with the Conley. The tree above would have worked well too, though I don’t remember when I shot it. I converted the church pics to black and white, if you want to see the colour versions click on them to go to the Flickr gallery.

I’ll leave you with one shot of a group of three I kept (they are all in the flickr gallery as well). I actually asked Leah to turn around after a couple minutes to go back and get these. I’m glad I did, this one is the wallpaper on my phone right now. Overall I’m extremely happy we went out and I had a lot of fun shooting with the old camera. I had been wanting to do it for a long, long time, and put it off for too long.

It almost looks HDR, but it isn't.