Topic: The weekend thread for 6/29

[Jeff Warden]

Hello all, and happy weekend, finally.

I've been hanging out with dancers, and walking around with my shutter open.

 





Makina670/FP4

[Andrea.]

Fantastic work. More please

[astrobeck]

Yes!
What Andrea said...more please.
They are so light and airy...I love them.
 

[MiguelCampano]

Wonderful shots, Jeff. Especially the first one.

I don't have much to share. This weekend I am in NYC so hopefully I'll be able to take some shots around with the good weather and all.

Sonrie by Miguel Campano, on Flickr
Kodak Ektar 100 - Bronica ETRSi

Take care Y'all's's

[Jeff Warden]

Hey thanks everyone, I appreciate it. The dancers are working on a September performance that is all about liminal sensations, so I'm visiting them once a week and trying to depict, uh, liminality, which is a challenge. :-) For now I'm playing with motion and the barely visible, and I will take that until I go too far and can't find the performers at all. It's good fun and I'm learning a lot while wasting ridiculous amounts of film.


Zeiss Ikon/Plus-X

[Jeff Warden]

Miguel you're having a good time getting to know that sharp new Bronica I see. When you come back to Philly I'd enjoy playing with it.

[Bryan]

I agree with Jeff, great work with the Bronica Miguel.  I'm still on the fence with mine but I'll give it more time. 

I have a few shots from the mercury mine I'm working on in Oregon.  Leica IIIf with a Summitar f/2 5cm lens, Tri-X developed in R09 1:50. 

Window and Wood by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

Gears by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

Excavation by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

[Kai-san]

Really like your first shot, Bryan. Hope you are being careful around that mercury stuff.

Contax 645 / Zeiss Sonnar 140mm f2.8 / Fomapan 200 in Xtol

[Francois]

I have a few shots from the mercury mine I'm working on in Oregon.

I know it's going to sound stupid but I never knew mercury was actually mined!
Since it's a liquid at most earthy temperatures, I would have thought it would have been pumped like an oil well or something similar... or dug-up in chunks in the frozen arctic and thawed in a factory or something like that...

[Bryan]

I have a few shots from the mercury mine I'm working on in Oregon.

I know it's going to sound stupid but I never knew mercury was actually mined!
Since it's a liquid at most earthy temperatures, I would have thought it would have been pumped like an oil well or something similar... or dug-up in chunks in the frozen arctic and thawed in a factory or something like that...

Cinnabar is the mineral ore that they mine for mercury, it's mostly found in hydrothermal deposits like hot springs.  After they mine it they crush the ore then heat it in a kiln to cook the mercury out.  They then distill the mercury from a gas to a liquid.  Usually you don't see pure mercury naturally but this mine had such a rich deposit that they did hit some veins of pure quicksilver.  Unfortunately at this mine like many others they just pushed the tailings (the waste byproduct after the mercury is extracted) off to the side.  In this case they filled in a ravine that had a stream running through it.  The last photo I posted above is my crew excavating the tailings out of the stream channel. 

In the western U.S. there are mercury mines up and down the coastal mountain ranges.  There's a lot of volcanic and hydrothermal activity around here because of the tectonic subduction zone off the coast.  That's your Geology lesson for the day.

[Francois]

Interesting. Here we mostly have to deal with the remnants of gold mining, including the massive quantities of cyanide that was used to extract it from the rocks.

[Jeff Warden]

I have a few shots from the mercury mine I'm working on in Oregon.

I know it's going to sound stupid but I never knew mercury was actually mined!
Since it's a liquid at most earthy temperatures, I would have thought it would have been pumped like an oil well or something similar... or dug-up in chunks in the frozen arctic and thawed in a factory or something like that...

Cinnabar is the mineral ore that they mine for mercury, it's mostly found in hydrothermal deposits like hot springs.  After they mine it they crush the ore then heat it in a kiln to cook the mercury out.  They then distill the mercury from a gas to a liquid.  Usually you don't see pure mercury naturally but this mine had such a rich deposit that they did hit some veins of pure quicksilver.  Unfortunately at this mine like many others they just pushed the tailings (the waste byproduct after the mercury is extracted) off to the side.  In this case they filled in a ravine that had a stream running through it.  The last photo I posted above is my crew excavating the tailings out of the stream channel. 

In the western U.S. there are mercury mines up and down the coastal mountain ranges.  There's a lot of volcanic and hydrothermal activity around here because of the tectonic subduction zone off the coast.  That's your Geology lesson for the day.

I also had no idea where mercury came from! 

And I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but if you haven't listened to it yet, S-Town is a pretty amazing seven part podcast that might interest you.

[cs1]

What an interesting thread. I had no idea how mercury was mined. Thanks for the explanation.

Apart from the interesting facts about mercury I really love the diversity of the shots. Jeff, your first shot in this thread is brilliant, very dreamy, very ethereal. Miguel, your portraits are great. It looks to me like you have a very positive chemistry with your subjects. The shot in this thread proves it. Bryan, I like the textures in your closeup shots. They go well with Kai's industrial shots. Great work everyone.

I took my Olympus 35RC for a spin and I'm still very much in love with that little camera. The following shots where taken on Fomapan 400, developed in Caffenol. (Kai, when I saw the garage shot after scanning it I thought for a moment that I had subconsciously imitated your style. )


Tilted seat by C S


Corner of a garage by C S

[astrobeck]

Nice work guys. Totally love Jeff's dancers and liminality...I had to look up that word!
 I did know about Mercury though...there's an old mine down near Terlingua in Texas. Lot's of interesting history...

Back to photos...mine is a test shot from an old Ricoh KR-10 super that I use for astrophotography. Turns out it doesn't focus at infinity, but in front of it...so it's been a stinker as I don't want to toss it, so am trying to figure out a solution short of just buying a spare body to use.
Anyway, just some dead grass...shot with the Rikenon F/2, which I like a lot as a cheapy lens to knock about with.
Oh and Arista 100, dunked in caffenol... my usual potion

[ManuelL]

Love Jeff's dancers, Bryan's old window and CS1's tilted cart this week!

Don't have anything new at the moment, still have to get some film developed. Therefore another pinhole, from a tick-invested forest.


Kaersgard Klitplantage Pinhole by Manuel Lion

[Andrea.]

Poland. But I guess you could tell that.

Minolta 505si/Polypan-f

[Pete_R]

A couple of  test shots from the freebie Flexaret I got from chris667. Just taken around the garden. Fuji Acros in FD10.





And a crappy self portrait that, at least, indicates why I'm not bothered about the NHS no longer giving free dandruff treatment...



I found the Flexaret quite difficult to focus but, in the end managed to get most things in focus. I only got 11 frames though. I'll have to check that out as I'm sure the frame counter said 12.

[EarlJam]

I haven't had much of a chance to shoot film recently, so here's one from the archive. Pentax MX, 50/1.7, and probably Ektachrome 64.

Jeff's dancers remind me that I've forgotten the power and beauty of long-ish exposure motion images. I need to try that again.

[Kai-san]

I took my Olympus 35RC for a spin and I'm still very much in love with that little camera. The following shots where taken on Fomapan 400, developed in Caffenol. (Kai, when I saw the garage shot after scanning it I thought for a moment that I had subconsciously imitated your style. )

I's an honour to be imitated! 

[Francois]

I found the Flexaret quite difficult to focus but, in the end managed to get most things in focus.

So I'm not the only one who found it hard to focus properly... this can only mean that my eyesight is not that bad after all 

[jharr]

I'm a sucker for backlit grass, thanks Becky.

I'm missing the part of Andrea's shot that makes "Poland" obvious, but still a nice shot.

Here in sunny San Diego, it's sunflower season and we all know what that means. I'll be posting numerous sunflower shots. Here are a couple using the 'flipped 50' macro technique. The added bonus of this technique is that you occasionally get light leaks from an otherwise light tight camera.

Taken with the Chinon CP-5 on 2001 Expired EliteChrome (thanks Bryan), souped in DIY C-41.


ChinonCP5-EliteChrome-029 by James Harr, on Flickr

ChinonCP5-EliteChrome-030 by James Harr, on Flickr

[Blaxton]

Liminal dancers, pipe forms, ghost walkers (in Poland, obviously), and a pin-hole forest—a great weekend thread.

A recent walk around Lagoa Velha in Tocha reminded me of the devastation from forest fires that traumatized all of Portugal last year.  So far, the weather this year promises a bit of relief from the fires.

Olympus OM1, 24mm Zuiko lens, Fomapan 100 (asa 200), RO9 1:100, semi-stand

Lagoa Velha, Tocha, Portugal by William Blackstone, on Flickr

Lagoa Velha, Tocha, Portugal by William Blackstone, on Flickr

Lagoa Velha, Tocha, Portugal by William Blackstone, on Flickr

[Francois]

Here are a couple using the 'flipped 50' macro technique. The added bonus of this technique is that you occasionally get light leaks from an otherwise light tight camera

Never thought of just hand holding the lens in front of the camera....
Love those colors.

[Bryan]

Here in sunny San Diego, it's sunflower season and we all know what that means. I'll be posting numerous sunflower shots. Here are a couple using the 'flipped 50' macro technique. The added bonus of this technique is that you occasionally get light leaks from an otherwise light tight camera.

Taken with the Chinon CP-5 on 2001 Expired EliteChrome (thanks Bryan), souped in DIY C-41.

Those colors are great.  I checked my freezer, it looks like I gave you all the EliteChrome I had, I’ll let you know if I find more.