Part of "Where We Live"

So there's this internal push to make a photo zine or at least a longer-term collection of images around a theme. I've been diggin' this idea of "Where We Live" for the last bit and I've got a growing pile of images from around the Oklahoma City urban core. It's certainly still a work in progress, but I figure putting the idea out there will surely help keep me moving forward with the project.

These images are from a recent walk around the Paseo neighborhood with my RB67 and a roll of Kodak Gold 200. No clue if they'll end up in the final project, but a few of these were more than just hot turds out of the roll of 10 images

Shooting Kodak Tri-X 400 at 3200 ISO

At the moment my default in shooting black and white (B&W) film is pushing what's typically a 400 ISO film two stops to 1600. Even when I'm shooting outside with plenty of light to justify the 400 box speed, I still push that emulsion-coated plastic those two stops. That extra sensitivity keeps me from shooting wide open on my Mamyia RB67 and instead lets me stay closer to the faster end of my shutter speeds – 250 & 400 – as well as having a deeper depth of field. There's also the ongoing fantasy that my family and I still live in Brooklyn and those grungy and grainy Lower East Side photos I'm pretending to make are just a short train ride away.

This past Friday afternoon I headed out to the OKC Fairgrounds to try and make something. There's seemingly always an event happening out there, and this past week started the 2024 Oklahoma Youth Expo (OYE). According to their website, the OYE is the "World's Largest Youth Livestock Show." Something like 7,000 4-H and FFA members and their 13,000 head of cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats. Pro-tip: The pig barn smells the worst.

The exhibition barns are ginormous, but the lighting always sucks. There are all kinds of weird light fixtures to try and match, so this made for an easy choice to use Kodak's Tri-X B&W film. It's also weirdly dark, so a great excuse to push that 400 box speed film much more than I would normally.

Try as I might, I couldn't find much of a consensus regarding the developing time for pushing Tri-X 400 three stops to 3200. It's also surprisingly difficult to keep my developing chemistry at the recommended 68° F considering the temperature of my house, so I've always developed my B&W film at 75° F via a Sous Vide machine.

Massive Dev Chart has been my go-to for quite a while, but seemed like it contradicted itself with its push processing. On one page they mention an 11-minute development time to push Tri-X to 3200 using D-76 at 68°, but then elsewhere they elude to a 27-minute development time. Then I found a somewhat official-looking PDF at what looks like a Kodak website laying out yet another approach to developing Tri-X film. They break down the development time according to temperature and push processing, but they were nowhere near the same development times I'd gotten used to over at Massive Dev Chart.

That's when I built out a spreadsheet – shocker – based on Massive Dev Chart's figures and their standard developer push processing compensation advice: +1 stop = x1.5; +2 stops = x2.25; +3 stops = x4.5. That ended up being 20.5 minutes in a stock D-76 solution while agitating the film development tank every 30 seconds to push my Tri-X 3 stops; essentially almost an entire episode of Rick and Morty per roll.

In the end, I decided none of us know what we're doing and we're simply making this nonsense up as we go. Next time I might use that official-looking PDF from Kodak. Still, I ended up with a handful of photos I dug from those two rolls of B&W film. Surely they'd most likely been better used by someone who knew what they were doing and saved me $20 plus the developing gear and chemistry used. If nothing else, I can use the "it's a vibe" phrase with the nonsense I made.

Mental Breaks and Existential Dread

I should be writing and re-writing a communications paper at the moment as well as starting to tackle the assigned reading for my classes this week. Instead, I'm taking a quick mental break to share some of the photos I finally developed plus a couple of videos that kept my attention this past week.

If there's been anything helping me balance out the mental load of school and the actual work I do to pay the bills it's been healthy doses of solitaire using physical playing cards and occasionally sneaking out with my RB67 to rip through a roll of film or two. Back in December, I started leaning heavily into Tri-X, one of Kodak's black and white film stocks that's been around since the 1940s. It's typically rated at 400 ISO, but I normally push it two stops and expose it at 1600. This past week was wildly taxing and to deal with the nonsense, I mixed up a new batch of D76 developer and processed a few rolls I'd shot over the last few weeks. There are still plenty of photos from that batch of negatives that need to be scanned in, but at least I got a few from those rolls I was immediately pleased with.

 

AI-Generated Video

This past week also had some WILD advancements in the world of AI-generated video. OpenAI's Sora is "an AI model that can create realistic and imaginative scenes from text instructions." A good deal of my filmmaking peers are going through an existential crisis and claiming the "end is near." I'm not quite in that camp, but I'm certainly paying attention. There's very good reason to be concerned about the potential of tools like this being used for online disinformation. There are also legitimate warning signs going up for those of us making a living with stock footage sales. Marques Brownlee released a solid video this week on what some of this could look like moving forward.

 

Conducting Better Interviews

Another video I caught this week that's worth your time is from my communications class. It's a May 2015 TED Talk from Celeste Headlee: "10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation."

My three biggest takeaways from her talk:

  • "You need to enter every conversation assuming that you have something to learn."
  • "Don't equate your experience with theirs... All experiences are individual. And, more importantly, it is not about you… Conversations are not a promotional opportunity.”
  • "Be interested in other people."
 

St. Anne the Wife and I made our way through Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the new Amazon series from Francesca Sloane and Donald Glover. It's a remake of the 1996 TV series and 2005 film and freakin' outstanding. I'm here for about anything Donald Glover does (Atlanta, Childish Gambino, Community, etc.), so this series was must-watch. Watch the trailer below and then head over to the New York Time's article with co-creator Francesca Sloane.

Surely I'll need another mental break from my classwork this coming week – along with what I actually do for a living – and I'll have more nonsense to share.

Things Other than Business School

Got to make and do some stuff that wasn't directly related to business school over the last few weeks, so that was great. I had some time off following the second module of the fall semester and I ripped through something like nine rolls of medium format film both here in Oklahoma City as well as a few days in New York. I got to sneak up to NYC for the Cinematography Salon Holiday Party and then back a couple days later with St. Anne the Wife and the two housefires for a holiday trip. Crazy, crazy thanks to Jeremy McDaniel for letting me crash at his place in Brooklyn for a couple days.

UPDATE
The good folks at Cinematography Salon released a recap video from the December Holiday party in Brooklyn. If you look closely, you'll see me in my nonsense along with with Jeremy – well, our backs at least – checking out the motion control and Phantom camera setup at about 0:02 into the video.

 

BOOKS I'M INTO AT THE MOMENT

I also plowed through a few books the last few weeks. Know I'm trying to dodge talking about school stuff, but in addition to a load of solid Harvard Business Review articles, I got to read Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek for my Advanced Leadership class. There's a few solid takeaways in the book, but the stickiest one to me was the idea of how abundance destroys value.

It’s not when things come easily that we appreciate them, but when we have to work hard for them or when they are hard to get that those things have greater value to us._

…it’s the struggle it takes to make it work that helps give that thing its value._

The two non-business related books I worked through were Poor Things by Alasdair Gray and Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. I wanted to read through the book before seeing the film version of Poor Things by director Yorgos Lanthimos. Honestly I'm glad I did considering all the changes they made from the source material. I enjoyed the book and the film was WILD. I'd seen David Fincher's film version of Fight Club years ago like just about everyone else in the western world but never read the original book. I'd read Palahniuk's Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread in late 2021 and it's wild. Looking forward to the next Palahniuk book I get to read.

I've also started reading Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert. Dune: Part Two by director Denis Villeneuve is coming out this March and I'd finished reading the original Dune book before the 2021 movie came out. I've heard the third movie is already in the works, hence me making sure I'm ready for that glorious nonsense.

Polishing those Steaming Piles

So we're nearly halfway through the second module of this fall semester. The amount of MBA classwork this time around hasn't been as thick and I've had more margin for things outside graduate school. This past week had me mixing up new batches of film developing chemistry and processing six rolls of film I'd put through my RB67. I've yet to scan in all that nonsense, but I did find a few images I felt were more than just hot turds.

It's kinda wild to think I'll be wrapping up business school soon enough. I'm on track to finishing up my master's degree in late March and then walking across the stage in Norman for an awfully expensive piece of paper. Seeing as how I've not been drowning in classwork these last few weeks I've had more time to consider what's next (potentially). You'll notice I'm not laying out some grand business plan nor am I moving into consulting or investment banking like some of my freshly minted MBA peers. I honestly did consider jumping to that seemingly greener side of the fence though, especially considering how bad it's been in the film industry this past year.

A few ideas are banging around that I'd like to pursue once I'm done with this educational self-abuse, but they're still cooking. That rubber stamp documentary needs to be cut and there's a bit more content I'd like to include in it. There's already been a decent amount of licensing revenue coming in from some of the footage, so if nothing else that film project has already been financially successful.

What's been incredibly humbling lately is the idea of "It's not what you know, but who you know." It's much easier to be critical of what others are putting out than making your own hot mess or even partnering with others who're much farther along than you give them credit. I feel like I've got ideas and approaches to the kind of creative work I'd like to be doing, but then get butt-hurt seeing those little darlings crumble under the weight of reality. Still, if this is the professional choice I've made for myself and my family, I'd better be prepared to be sitting on one of those inflatable donuts more often than not.

Ideally, the goal would be to continue following some of those shiny things that keep my attention and share them with others in a meaningful – and profitable – way. Right now that looks like developing new projects, partnering with others and their existing assets, and using what I've learned to improve the financial health of those who are better at the art kid side of this creative work.

A Quick Breath of Existential Dread

I had every single intention of keeping up with this wordy nonsense during this semester, but no. It's now five weeks later and here I am, trying to make peace with the fact things are crazy busy with family, school, and work responsibilities. This last week Anne and the kiddos had their Spring Break as did I with my own school work.

As much as I'd like to dig into my business financials and set up yet another spreadsheet to budget and forecast my variable and fixed costs, I'd also not be upset never thinking about the Managerial Accounting class I just wrapped up. My Investments class was interesting and I did well, but dang... I'd also really like to just pick up a camera and make something.

I feel like I'm coming up for a quick breath of air before plunging right back into the world I've made for myself. Towards the end of last week, Anne and I took the boys out to Bentonville, Arkansas. Turns out so did just about every other parent in this part of the country. Breakfast each morning at the hotel was like a drunken children convention with parents wading through their own existential dread. It was absolutely a "family trip" and not what you'd call a "vacation." What we did to deserve this and how civilization has continued all these years is beyond me.

Work-wise, the year is off to a slow start as usual. From the conversations I've had with my filmmaking peers, I'm not the only one who's been down work-wise since the last part of 2022. Even my stock footage sales have seemingly fallen off a cliff since November. My assumption is that it's due to the current economic climate, how much more expensive it is for businesses and organizations to borrow money, inflation causing additional problems, and...

...cue everyone's eyes to glaze over in boredom while I completely nerd out about economic and monetary policy. Still, it's been an interesting week watching the U.S. Treasury Bill rates bounce around following those recent bank failures.

Talking to Strangers

This past week was the beginning of this year's regular state legislative sessions here in Oklahoma. Monday morning had a sizable crowd of Trans rights demonstrators outside the Capitol building. Then on Tuesday there was another crowd there, this time they were Pro-Life demonstrators listening to a speaker under a banner that read "LAWS TO MURDER BABIES ARE MADE HERE." The crowd had dissipated before I could get back out there with my camera, but I did make it inside the building for the Homeschool Oklahoma Capitol Day 2023.

Talk about whiplash between the two days worth of demonstrations. That and the differences in the weather that helped make for two completely different looks. I'm always interested in people and the things they're passionate about, but honestly I should've been home working and/or studying those two days. Instead I was down the street at the Capitol building with my old camera, more expired film, and just talking to strangers.

At the Trans rights rally on Monday, I finished out a black and white roll of Ilford HP5 that I've still got to develop, but then I switched over to a roll of Kodak Vericolor III that'd expired in 1998. I'm especially proud of a handful of those images as well as getting to meet and interact with some of the peaceful demonstrators who some conservatives are calling a "mob" that had "stormed and occupied" the Capitol.

"The protesters gathered to oppose a group of bills that target gender-affirming medical care. Some of the bills would completely bar minors from receiving transition-related care, including one that would prohibit such care for people up to 26 years old. Other bills would bar providers of gender-affirming care from receiving public funds." - "Peaceful protest or a trans 'mob'? Oklahoma demonstration riles the right" – NBC News

Tuesday's weather wasn't helpful, especially because I'd loaded a roll of ISO 160 Kodak Vericolor that'd expired in 1987. In compensating for how old the film was, I'd need to plan for a loss of one stop of light per decade, so that ISO 160 film would need to be exposed at ISO 20 and I'd still be shooting nearly wide open on my camera lens (f3.8). Even then I decided I'd need to push the film two additional stops in the developing process. Honestly I'm surprised I got anything out of this roll of film that was nearly as old as I am.

Out of the ten shots I'd made on that old roll Tuesday, the only two worth looking at were a couple portraits I'd made with a man named Steven Hess. I'd been loitering outside the Capitol building and just hoping someone interesting looking would walk out in the rainy weather. This dude and his fantastic looking beard walked out and he and his family were taking pictures on the south stairs. I waited for them to finish up and then I approached and started a conversation.

"Hey, I really like your beard. I think it looks great. Would you mind if I took your picture?" "Sure."

From there I scrambled to get a light reading using an iPhone app and we made some small talk. He's a bit older than I am, but turns out we had both gone to the same high school. More than that, we'd both taken photography classes there, so we most likely had used the same darkroom way back in the day. He asked if I'd send him a copy of the photos if they turned out and he gave me his number. We ended up texting back and forth for nearly an hour that night after I'd developed the film and sent him the files.

I got to have similar quick conversations on Monday with a few of the Trans rights demonstrators. I'd posted some of the images I'd made that day to Instagram and was able to share and connect with a few of the people I'd met at the rally.

I've for sure made pictures over the years of strangers out in public with long lenses and without permission, but it's something else entirely to walk up to someone you don't know and ask them to be vulnerable with you for just a moment.

Freakin' Old Film

I'm currently spending my weekend getting stomped by my Managerial Accounting class this semester. My Investments class is coming along, but surely you're not here to listen to me whine about the maths. Instead I'll just post some of the images I made in the last few weeks using crazily expired film.

My parents are estate sale raiders and they'd come across a house of an old film photographer a few months ago. They said I should come check it out and I 'bout lost my mind when I saw a shoe box of old film that'd all expired back in the late '90s and early 2000s.

I wasn't keeping up with prices at the time, but right now a 5-pack of medium format Kodak Portra 400 retails for $65.95. The estate sale guy standing guard in the old photog's room surely saw me freakin' out about the film, but still quoted me $40 for all five boxes. I'd had a birthday a few days earlier, so crazy thanks to my parents for buying me the film as a gift for being another year older.

There's plenty on the internets about how to shoot expired film. From what I'd seen and read, you're supposed to overexpose by one stop for each decade past the expiration date. This nonsense was about 25-30 years expired, so I overexposed by about two stops. Shooting handheld with a shutter speed below 125 is just asking for trouble, so by this point I was already nearly wide-open with my lens. With the faster Portra 400 I was exposing at ISO 100 but ended up around ISO 40 with some of the slower film and still around a f3.8. Don't look too close 'cause you'll see plenty of blown focus from my shots of the MLK Jr. Parade.

Turns out the developing process isn't any different – or maybe it is and I stumped Google. I do my own developing at home and only had one roll that didn't make it. Apparently the plastic used was either thinner back then or somehow becomes much more brittle over the years. That one doomed roll ended up ripping as I was loading it onto a reel, so freakin' sad day for those life-changing images never making it to this side of the process.

The day I learn to breathe underwater will come sooner than me ever learning to properly color grade an image. There's no telling how this film had been stored all these years and the image colors are all over the place. I knew it'd be a crapshoot, so in processing I intentionally didn't try and correct the colors. I'm still using my Epson V600 and SilverFast9 to scan in my film and surely one day I'll drop the $100 on Negative Lab Pro, but not today you temptress.

But still, I'm out here getting to make some images in my downtime and not paying the Kodaks of the world an arm and a leg for a roll of film.

"The Patriarchy Smells like Hot Dog Water"

Woof. So last Friday and women's rights in the U.S. huh? Growing up I'd never planned on becoming an active protester, but here we are. I'd also never imagined I'd be on this side of the fence considering my evangelical Christian upbringing, but again, here we are. Quoting one of the protest signs I saw yesterday at the Oklahoma state capitol building, "The Patriarchy Smells like Hot Dog Water."

Phones across the country melted just a bit more than normal as social media caught on fire following Friday's news of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. There's plenty of extremely qualified and insightful writing out there on what's happening, so I'll let them handle the facts. The best I can do is let you in on what brings this nonsense home to me.

Before this weekend, I'd assumed I knew women in my life that've had first hand experience with abortion, but more than I expected came forward with their own stories. Friends of mine posted about their abortions and how they chose to end their pregnancies due to medical as well as personal reasons that certainly aren't any of my business.

My Christian faith is still important to me, but I know that our country is filled with people and faiths different than mine. As people of faith, why should we expect others to respect our beliefs when we don't respect theirs? I'd found it incredibly helpful seeing a social media post from U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about "beliefs are not facts."

"...beliefs are not facts. The belief that abortion is murder is a subjective one. Banning abortion violates the religious views of many. Judaism, Islam, and many other faiths and philosophies have widely ranging, different takes on the matter. Judaism, for example, not only condones abortion but insists upon it in for cases where a mother's life is at risk... So banning abortion raises real first amendment violation questions."

What's happening in right now is wrong. I'm struggling to express how I feel, but I'm upset. I'm frustrated. I'm angry and I'm sad.

“What’s happened is not about religion, or morality or unborn babies. It’s about politics.” - Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood (How Did Roe Fall?, New York Times)

There's been protests across the country since Friday. Oklahoma is frighteningly conservative, but there was a solid showing of protesters on the north lawn of the state capitol Sunday afternoon. I'd come to not expect much from Oklahoma City protests, but yesterday made me proud. I've not seen official numbers, but I'd heard someone estimate nearly 1,000 people showed up.

Anne and I took the boys to the event because we think it's important they see their parents as active and visible participants in standing up for what they believe. I remember going out with my mom when I was young during the Oklahoma teacher strikes back in 1990. Tiny Tanner was more stoked about being out of school for a few days and had no idea what those frustrated teachers where actually doing, but I remember it. Protesting doesn't seem practical, but the further into it I've gotten over the years the more I believe in it and see the strength of its long game. Knowing I'm not the only one frustrated with what's going on brings me hope. Showing up and being visible is important.

Developing Black & White Goodness

Freakin' black and white film photography has been good for soul lately. Not caring about the color temperature around me matching the film in my camera has been a nice change, plus I'm also diggin' the fact that a roll of Ilford HP5+ is nearly half what I was spending on Portra 400.

My first legit experiences behind a camera go back to high school me. Back then I spent most of my time in the band room and/or trying to keep up with my honors classes, but then there's that one photography class I took that ended up being the most related to what I do for a living. Not sure where I got the camera, but we shot our assignments on 35mm black and white (B&W) film that we later developed and printed in the school's darkroom.

The fact I really don't know if the images I'm trying to make will actually turn out or not is pretty great. My 1970's era Mamiya RB67 Pro-S smells like an old car and doesn't have a light meter. Sometimes I'll do test shots with my DSLR to dial in shutter and iris settings. Sometimes I'll lean into my handheld Sekonic light meter to do the thing, but then again shooting film is all for naught if you screw up the developing part. I've got a growing binder of color and B&W negatives I've shot since getting my film camera and can honestly say there's only a handful of images in there I'm proud of. In our world of instant gratification, forced patience is a good thing.

Back in May I was in New York to film an abortion rights protest and came home with five rolls of Ilford HP5+, some powdered Kodak D76 developer and fixer, plus a small bottle of concentrated Kodak liquid stop bath. I'd had a good experience with powdered C41 chemistry before and knew the powdered form would have a longer shelf life. Plus I didn't want to chance big bottles of liquid spilling out and destroying the other gear and actual livelihood packed away in my checked gear cases while in transit.

For my C41 film processing, I already had a Paterson developing tank, dark bag, and some other misc. bits. I keep my color chemicals in one liter dark amber glass bottles, but opted instead to get those accordion style plastic bottles for my B&W goodies. So far I'm more impressed with those plastic bottles seeing as how they're less likely shatter and they can squish down to keep out excess air (and oxidation) to help extend the chemistry's shelf life.

Most of the internet told me not to try and break up the dry chemistry batches into smaller quantities, but they're not the boss of me. A couple other rebels let me in on their secrets and I too broke up my gallon batches of D76 developer and fixer. Make sure you're prepping your chemistry in a well ventilated area so you're not losing a lung like this hero. Be smart too and wear rubber gloves, a mask, and avoid doing this nonsense in the same place where you prep food.

There's tons of B&W developing tutorials online. For some reason they all seem to not get along or agree like those nice hipster kids doing their thing with C41 color developing. I kinda mixed and matched what I could find considering the film stock and the chemistry combination I'm using.

DEVELOPING B&W FILM

ALL CHEMISTRY NEEDS TO BE AT SIMILAR TEMPS

PRE-SOAK
Agitate for :60
Dump out
Rinse
Dump out

DEVELOP (stock)
Agitate first :30
Invert 4x every :30 & tap out bubbles
Developer back to storage container for reuse

STOP BATH
Agitate for :60
Stop bath back to storage container for reuse

FIXER
Agitate first :30
Agitate & invert every :30 for 5 mins & tap out bubbles
Fixer back to storage container for reuse

RINSE
Rinse film for 5 mins with room temp water

DEVELOP TIMES (STOCK)

Ilford HP5+ & Kodak D76

ISO TIME TEMP
400 5:05 75° F
800 7:07 75° F
1600 9:29 75° F
 

The one thing most agreed on was using The Massive Dev Chart website to work out and match up developing times and temperatures. According to the website, you're supposed to process Ilford HP5+ at 68°F with your Kodak D76. But it's summertime here and during these months our house never gets below mid-70°s. Again, thank goodness for Massive Dev Chart because it's got a conversion option to help do what you need done. I'm using my developer at stock vs. diluting it – at least at this point. I'd shot a couple of my rolls at the box speed 400 ISO, then the others pushed to 1600 ISO. Again, Massive Dev Chart came in clutch with the help in developing.

Another thing I found out in doing my B&W goodness is that my scanner is jacked. I've got an Epson V600 that I've been using for a bit, but turns out I've also got the magenta line curse like a ton of other people on the internet. For the longest time I thought my film back was scratching my negatives. But no. It's thanks to supposedly dirty sensors that this dude on YouTube was able to fix. I did the thing and cleaned the sensors on my V600, but it didn't help like it did the other film bros lurking in the video's comment section. Looks like I'll have to reach out to Epson and work out warranty stuff.