Film Processing: All Successes with One Strange Failure!

We had a 100% success rate in processing film in my Photo I class earlier this week:

Washed tanks after processing.


Film drying!

But one strange thing happened. Most of our white reels have the small "teeth" which are tricky to load. I have 2 reels from my personal stash that I brought in years ago that have the big "teeth" that are easier to load (and easier to keep the film from jumping off the reel as you're loading). One of my students was trying some practice film with one of my reels, and suddenly, it stopped pulling up the film. We noticed the little ball bearing had fallen out. I gave him a standard "smaller tooth" reel, and we kept working.

After they were done processing, I notice what had happened... Normally, the side of the reel looks like this, with a little white "cap" holding in the ball bearing:

But the white cap had fallen off on the other side:

Luckily, I was able to find the cap...

... but not the ball bearing. I might harvest a ball bearing from a different reel and see if I can super glue the cap back on. We'll see if that MacGyver fix will work!

ICE-Related Photographs from 4 a.m.

With the current state of things in Minnesota, I felt moved to head out to make some more "4 a.m." photographs - something I really haven't done for about two years. Here are a few photos from some recent outings:

[click each image for a larger version]

Lake Street and Hiawatha Ave at 4:10 a.m.


Renee Good Memorial at 4:15 a.m.


Renee Good Memorial at 4:20 a.m.


Lake and Portland at 4:10 a.m.


Lake Street at 4:00 a.m.


One block from the Alex Pretti Memorial at 4:50 a.m.


Outside of the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling
(headquarters of ICE’s “Operation Metro Surge”) at 4:45 a.m.

First B&W Prints from Photo I

Here are a few prints from the start of last semester's Photo I class at Concordia University. We had just finished "The Photographer's Eye" by John Szarkowski, and students worked to make photos in the 5 ways he wrote about in that essay. It was every student's first time working with a 35mm camera and printing photographs in a traditional darkroom.

[click each image for a larger view]

Ella: detail


CeeDee: detail


Raina: vantage point


Grace: detail


Emily: vantage point


Megan: the thing itself


Natalie: detail

Henry Cartier-Bresson Quote

A Design "Pop-Up" Exhibition at Concordia Gallery

It's nearly time for finals! Last week, the design department at Concordia University held a "pop-up" exhibition in the gallery showcasing work of current design students. Here are a some photos of the exhibition, including a few from the opening reception last week:

[click each image for a larger version]

The following are some pics from the opening reception.

Nice work, design students! I hope you were able to make some sales!

Comedian Demetri Martin on Digital Cameras

I like digital cameras because they allow you to reminisce immediately.

- Demetri Martin

Photograms from Concordia

Here are a few scans of some of my students' photogram projects. Many of these were considered "self-portraits:"

Natalie


Betty


Raina


Terra


Megan


Seojin


Emily


Natalie


Sky

You can see more projects like this in this post from 3 years ago, and this post from 2 years ago.

Printers