Ashes and Snow

Came across this photographers site as a post on FB from a friend. And I have to say - this exhibit is absolutely beautiful. I'm utterly stunned at the idea and beauty and impact you can feel from these photos. Ashes and Snow is an exhibit by Gregory Colbert - and I'm SO going to have to look into more of his work. Go to the "Explore" section on the link - its flipping amazing - combines short video clips, tons of photos an hauntingly beautiful soundtrack and selections from the book. I just played around with it for two hours and I still don't think I saw all the photos! At first I thought that some of these had been photoshopped... but apparently not. I highly recommend watching the short little video clips on the website - shot while the photos were taken - they're amazing!!

Pentax Play

I decided to shoot Preston (my 1924 Chandler and Price Letterpress) Tuesday night in the garage with Nathan's SIT method. A bunch of trial and error with f-stops and speed and such ensued and a bit of frustrated consultation with the manual for a certain setting until I finally got it just right. And then I was tempted to make a 1am run to Wal-Mart for some cool-toned compact florescent bulbs (instead of the warmer-toned ones I had)...but I didn't think Paul would really want me making a late night run to the store for bulbs and all. So I used a flash unit in combination with the fluorescent. And then stole my fluorescent lamp off of my desk as a last resort. As it was my head didn't hit the pillow till 3am anyway. I was WAY too excited and had to post the photos to Flickr.



And then this afternoon I played around with some daytime photography and a setting or two.

The tulips in the front yard are up and showing off their colors

Some of the settings on the Pentax are way crazy as I found out - crazy - but kinda cool!

The cheapest model there is - paid in treats!

Ahhh...Black and White Film

There's just something beautiful about black and white photography with actual film. I think its the purest form of photography in this all-digital age. Black and White is hard as heck to do correctly and not have washed out gray photos - could be the gray subject, the gray day, the gray shadows - but when you find a happy medium of contrast for everything - Black and White can be absolutely jaw-droppingly brilliant!

I pulled out my Dad's trusty old Minolta SLR a few weeks back because I felt I needed to shoot some real black and white film. Last time I'd shot a good roll of B/W was in college photography class. (um... yeah... that'd be about 10 years ago). I gave it a whirl - with my pooch as the relaxed model, a bit of late afternoon light and a few guessed f-stops. The results were not too shabby - here are some of my fav's:




If you're in a Black and White mood Unclaimed Mysteries has some really phenomenal B&W infrared photography. And then Realms of Reality just added some Black and White recently!