FILM HOLDER CODING SYSTEM

FRAME  ONE	V
FRAME  TWO		V
FRAME  THREE			V
FRAME  FOUR	V	V
FRAME  FIVE	V	V	V
FRAME  SIX		V	V
FRAME  SEVEN	V  V
FRAME  EIGHT		V  V
FRAME  NINE			V  V
FRAME  TEN	V  V	V  V
FRAME  ELEVEN		V  V	V  V
FRAME  TWELVE	V  V		V  V

This is probably old hat with a lot of you but I hadn’t seen it anywhere so I thought I’d pass on my take of the Negative identification system.

I have seen a lot of flap notching systems but a lot of them have a wild string of notches that make it, frankly, difficult to identify the frame in the dark.

Another version seems to only notch the inner bevel of the flap which seems to leave them in the “shade” of the outer side of the flap and makes them very hard to identify.

I use a “binary” system that seems to work for me pretty well and makes it easy to help me identify the individual negative and allows me to easily pick out any frame in the dark.

I break my holders into batches of 6 (therefore 12 negatives) since that is what my tank holds. That is easy to identify since the individual holder can still be seen in the daylight.

You can notch the side rail if you want to identify each batch if you need.

I make the notches with an X-Acto knife so that I generate as little “sawdust” as I can.

The notches are shown below by V’s and are separated with dashes as placers. I put the first notches (or lack thereof as a 0) on the left side of the flap the second group in the middle and the third off at the right side.

I use the dashes because otherwise FB strings all the V’s together.

Frame one---------V---------0---------0

Frame two---------0---------V---------0

Frame three-------0---------0---------V

Frame four---------V---------V---------0

Frame five---------V---------V---------V

Frame six-----------0--------V---------V

Frame seven-------VV------0---------0

Frame eight--------0--------VV-------0

Frame nine---------0---------0--------VV

Frame ten----------VV-------VV-------0

Frame eleven------0---------VV------VV

Frame twelve-----VV--------0--------VV

I figured it was fairly easy to separate Left, Middle and Right for the notches in the dark,

as well as identifying Zero, One or Two to be fairly easy (Oh Kay so it’s really a Tri-nary system…)

You can notify up to 27 different negatives with this system.

Hope this might be of useful……..

https://lommen9.home.xs4all.nl/holders/

A LIGHT METER FILTER

A LIGHT METER FILTER

PHOTO GOSSEN PRO FILTERS

******************************
WHY
-- A way to bring your meter in correspondence with your camera.

WHAT

-- I’m one of those who keeps forgetting something.

-- To flip the film holder around or forget to bring back the aperture opening after having gotten my shot framed and focused.

-- One of the things that’s on that list, real close to the top, is to remember to adjust for the coloured filter on my camera.

-- With most 35mm cameras these days the problem is solved automatically. But there are a lot of cameras around these days where you do have to do the mental gymnastics.
-- Sometimes even my Minolta or my F2 on their bad days..

-- My spot meter has some very nice threads on the lens which means I can apply the appropriate filter to the meter.

-- Problem solved

-- BUT there were no handy little filter adapter or threads on my Luna –Pro (All of mine are SBC’s but I assume any of the meters with the same body may work.)

-- At first I thought I’d apply a small circular filter over the lens and why this would work it would be a bit fussy and probably I'd end up having to adjust the exposure in the opposite direction when I wanted to use s ND or UV filter…..  Probably too much fussing. (Or paying attention to.)

-- Then I thought that I could use a strip of filter gel and have the diffuser “dome” hold it down..
-- Still a bit fussy.

-- Then I looked of the recessed “tracks” that the little dome slides in.

And I discovered that sliding a piece of gel filter that way seems to work quite nicely.

-- I can slide either the filter or the “dome’ out of the way or apply either.

-- With two fingernails I can remove my little square of filter gel and replace it easily with a different piece.

-- The Rosco people (http://us.rosco.com/en/products/family/filters-and-diffusions) make a Roscolene swatch book for about $3 and will give you enough materialfor 6 or so mini filters and in just about any colour you want,  Rosco’s information will actually allow you to tune their gels very closely to the photo gels or glass filters.  (Don’t use theater gels on your camera lens however.)

-- You can also use developed film (fog) base to provide you with various ND filter material.

-- What I did with these little “mystery” filters was to hold a filter over the lens of the meter and then do the same with the gel. You can take a very fine indelible pen to write info in the corner(s).

-- There are other methods including using Rosco’s paperwork or using Kodak gels but buying the second solution, even “used”, you can probably buy a couple of swatch books.

HOW

-- I measured out the width and depth of the filter and added on 3/32 on each side for the tab on each side as it shows.  These tabs keep the filter from sliding around and also hold it tightly agents the meter body and keeps light from leaking around the edges.

-- Just on the inside of the ¾ inch folding lines I score with a not quite sharp tool.  I use a metal nail file end.

-- Then I fold the little tabs up.

-- That’s basically it.

-- And, by the way, the red “filter” above is not one but is rather a piece of paper that I made so that one would show up in the picture…

AS SHOT NOTES 1

PULLING THE TRIGGER IS NOT THE END OF THE PICTURE

“SKATEBOARD”

(POSTED PICTURE SASS-344)

                                                                                         SKATEBOARD, AS SHOT

 (A) F2-2,5222, HC(H) (#109 )20d, 8.75t  D05-03-17, Z5 (DB-99% DC-23%)GS(M-0)(C-0) S-150

Walking back to my car on S. Water Street I took a “short cut” across from State Street over to Bank Street.

            Probably the first thing that attracted me was the sound of skateboards followed by the “clack” sound as one of the boarder snapped up his board when he saw me appear.

            Green Street, where I now was, had been the skateboard Mecca when the shop had originally opened up but it has now gone a bit more upscale as their business moved over to State Street. 

            While the skaters tried to make a stand on the main street with it’s wide and gently pitched sidewalk there, but they eventually came back to their original turf.

            The F2 with the 28-85mm Nikkor mounted to it; a combination that I really enjoy using was with me. It was loaded with high contrast re-spooled Eastman 5222 film that was originally intended for movie titling. This seemed appropriate to the kind of Hopperesque picture I saw.

            When I first tried to use this film I didn’t know whether I was happy with the results I got. It can eat up bushes and greenery and (as you can see here) it can really turn very black very quickly.

            I took two frames; my first inclination was to do the shot without the kid or kids but then thought it out again. Beside the light was disappearing rapidly and the skateboarder lent a nice bit of action.

            I think I was so concerned that the clouds and the sky might wash out that I under exposed this shot by about some 2 stops.

            Snap shooting this way, I just used the F2’s meter and probably pulled my reading from the sky and then the building’s wall, assuming it was my gray. But I didn’t really take, or have, the time to interpolate from the dark shady area in the foreground for the setting.  I was thinking the south sky was a 6, while since the sun was fading I should have read it more as a 5 or less. And the building was probably far lighter than I had thought.

            At least I didn’t loose the clouds……  the rest was not exactly what I was looking for.

            While I brought up the lightness by some two stops and softened the contrast a bit I’ll try to address that investigation at a later time.  Needless to say I do like my contrasty pictures just exactly that…contrasty. 

            I try to get the verticals in my shots as plumb as I can.  I have a PC (Perceptive Control) lens or two that are wedded to the F3 because it is really the only camera that it’s metering still works when the lens axis is shifted. With the F2 it’s time to pull out the meter if you need a reading. Sometimes I go to rather strange calisthenics to try to get things lined up when I’m using a more conventional lens.

            And sometimes parts of a shot may loose some of the alignments.

            In this case I was lucky and was able to get the buildings and both poles in agreement …  but 3 degrees off.

            This error was a quick fix in postproduction, but any “fix” with cropping inevitably seem to sacrifice some of the frame square footage  This shot wasn’t too bad as far as chopping off some useful material but some times these things leave you with the classic Morton’s fork.

             The 3 degree turn that was imposed on the edges of the frame makes you reassess the cropping lines. While it’s really nice to have a nice little dark, un-cropped, line around the picture that is not too often true when the camera is not on a tripod. I try. This often confronts the photographer with another potential dilemma. Do I frame the picture as tightly as possible and, thereby, avoid an increasingly small format with the resulting graininess or do I allow wider margins in order to avoid having to crop off something that 

            As you can see in the second print I squared up the buildings and plumbed the pole that was instigated by the picture twist to the right. I just managed to maintain the trim on the left hand first floor window and I opted to get rid of the somewhat intrusive right hand telephone pole.

            I then brought the dark shadow with its diagonal line in the foreground to follow it visually with a continuation of the natural one. This, therefore, now follows an imaginary line (that I lightened in the third picture) leads the eye to the new corner. I tend to lead a lot of both natural and “imaginary” lines to either the focus points or to the corners. Maybe a bit slavish but it lets me help to anchor the picture.  

            If I had shot this a little bit earlier in the afternoon the shadow line would have radiated along the same radiating lines that the building creates, but that was too much to hope for.  The skateboarder was enough, and it made me happy enough.

            I also thought about cropping out the second board at the right:

            However I felt that it crowded the right of the building and cut down the “negative space” made up by the sky. So I left the second board.

            If I were prone to “clean-up” things with a digital editing program I probably could have “lost” skateboard two but I think that’s potentially starting down a slippery slope.

WHAT DID I LEARN…

            The two biggest things that I came away from this exercise have often challenged me…

1.         Meter the full range of the scene and don’t think that what you see you think is the middle gray. In reality in this shot, what I felt was the mid zone (the building wall) should have been moved up about two stops lighter. Not good…

2.         There is no real excuse, particularly since my finder has grids, for being so far off of vertical. 

SKATEBOARD, FIRST SHOT  (A) F2-2,5222, HC(H) (#109 )20d, 8.75t  D05-03-17, Z5 (DB-99% DC-1%)GS(M-0)(C-0) S-150

            Haste is a poor rational, altho’ in my defense, the shot without the skateboarder was a great deal more plumb and the densitometer readings were a bit more reasonable.

Remember Mortan’s Fork……?

THE ARCHITECTUR OF IMORTALITY

NEW LONDON CEMETERIES

    One of my viewers asked me a question about the above picture that I had made a little while back and who's obelisk this was. And in a sort of flip way I said:
    "I'm not sure. Sometimes I see images and walk right by the words and sometimes the words are the images."
    Then I began to think about her question.
    This was ironically followed by a copy, auto-posted by FaceBook, of this picture I had made of the New London Light in the fog a bit over a year ago.

   And passing beyond the political issues that were in this picture it caused me to think about Architecture as monuments and conversely Monuments as architecture.

   In a very casual sort of way I had assembled some of the New London Cemeteries which I had taken of them and their "buildings".  While I'm photographing and drawing "portraits" of some of the local houses (Great and less so) it seems logical to address the houses of those that have passed on. 

    This first batch is of no particular order and are not addressed as formal portraits or documents as I am want to with a lot of my buildings.

    That is, obviously, to come... squared up with a more appropriate lenses and/or with the view camera.

    Let's see where it goes.....

    That foggy day at Cedar Grove

The door to the Dimock's Egyptian Revival mausoleum                                                                          

Back to Cedar Grove

They're more but this is the idea. 

SEASIDE #1

SEASIDE SANATORIUM
    So incredibly close to Harkness Park and yet so completely different is the Seaside Sanatorium.
    Designed and built in the depth of the Depression the facility was discontinued in the 1970's.
    While abandoned the architecture, almost playful Robin Hood look yet solidity of the buildings as well as the spectacular water vistas are fabulous will hopefully be appropriately re-utilized soon

.
  

ASHLAWN FARM, LYME, CT #4

THE SILO
    While facing the two empty chairs in my "Sit Awhile" shot, you see the base of the silo shown here.
    At one point I sketched up a way to put a small glass surrounded office up there.
    By the time I had a circular balcony at the top it all was beginning to look a bit like a lighthouse.
    Not that that's so bad.. but none of it any way came to pass.

                                                          © 2016 G. Roger Clements

ASHLAWN FARM, LYME, CT #3

SOME MORE PLACES TO SIT

    Lest you think there only North facing seating here are some chairs in the sun.
    There was a corner on this deck that, on a sunny day, you can stay warm and toasty for a nice cup of coffee and catch a few rays.



    The lawn chairs made their appearance when the Farmer's Market started.  They were a great place to sit for a beverage but were a bit of a challenge with a hamburger.
    I preferred the stone wall, which oddly enough I didn't have any pictures of.  That situation is a problem that I can probably still rectify.

ASHLAWN FARM, LYME, CT #2

SIT AWHILE

    While I started with two organic (one way or another) photographs but this shot is probably more emblematic.
    I must admit that I addressed these chairs a bit but I couldn't resist when I saw the light and he rare fact that there was nobody sitting there.
   I was looking for a subject to shoot with my 4X5 and landed on this.

    © 2016 G. Roger Clements

ASHLAWN FARM, LYME, CT #1

THE GROUND WORK

    This will offer everyone a break from Harkness before I move on to the other buildings.
    Altho' I was an Ashlawn devotee from the moment it was all conceived I really haven't photographed the property until the teens.
   This serves two purposes in starting this post:
        I have the opportunity to figure out how to tie my drawing work with the photographs
        How do I separate two subjects on the same Blog  i.e.: the Harkness work and that of Ashlawn.
    Unfortunately Ashlawn has turned out to be more fragile than I had thought and the Coffee Shop which was the focus of my work at the actual farm has now moved to Old Saybrook and while a terrific operation it doesn't have the organic, slightly gritty feel that my camera loves.
     I will start with some shots around the farm itself with the hope that it will give you the feel of the operation itself.

    This shed sets immediately adjacent to the driveway and the merger between wood trying to dirt and the vines tryin to conquer the tree fascinated me.
    For a person who looks for clear verticals found this a true challenge.
    I think in this case I just gave up....

HARKNESS, THE SUPPORT COMPLEX

RANDOM EXTERIOR SHOTS

    Before leaving the Carriage House (for the time) here are three outside views. I batched these since they don't necessarily stand on their own but have some interest.
    The view with the tree is the front exterior of the West wing (no not that one..) and behind whose walls contains the current gift shop.
    The next is the front wall that embraces the carriage yard. Here you can see what the splotches on the front of the building in the front lawn shots are. Defiantly not  flowers. I like the combination of walls, windows, dormers and roofs with Rogers with his best European look.

    And at the last are two basement windows that I believe allow light to a bowling alley. I hope to check

THE GAME ROOM

    Or what I assume it is. In spite of its darkness I like this room. This picture was taken with nothing but available light that allowed the bushes outside to be seen.
    Even after this long period of un-occupation it  still has a very comfortable, clubby sort of feel.
    If you look at the shots I did of the windows titled "Carriage House Details" you will see the solution that Rogers use to blank the far windows in this shot without producing an expanse of blank wall on the exterior of the building. These arched transom lights effectively eliminate the potential gloom. Well done...

DAFFODILS OR DANDELIONS

    Two shots of the front of the Carriage house. While I like the picture with the Dandelions in the foreground it's more for the "golden lads", the often most underrated "weeds".
    The tighter, lower shot reflects more what Rogers must have envisioned as it reflects the symmetry of his Italianate design.

    Here the door is centered better and the void amidst the Daffodils (a happy accident) plays well too.

    Here I wasn't crawling on the grass nor was this as well centered. But I liked the little sprinkling of Dandelions.