Playing with Medium Format

I brought in a couple of medium format cameras to my Photo II / Advanced Photography class last month: a few twin lens reflex cameras along with my Mamiya RB 67.

After class, a few students stuck around to check them out in more detail. And they started taking "cutesy" Instagram-worthy pics with their phones looking down onto the ground glass. Here's a pic of the student on the left posing with a camera while the student in the middle makes a photo of her on the ground glass of another camera:

Click image to enlarge.

Oh, and note my drawing on the board of an unrolled roll of medium format film, showing the paper backing. I destroyed an old roll of expired film during class to show them how it works, but I had that drawing up on the board before class to discuss it before we got real "hands on."

Student Juried Exhibition at Concordia Gallery

I posted last month about my Photo II / Advanced Photo students printing larger images for the upcoming student juried exhibition. The opening for that show was 2 weeks ago, and here are some photos of the exhibition:

[click each image to enlarge]

Some printmaking, collage, and photography work.


Design and photography work.






Design and clay work on those pedestals.




A panoramic image from the back corner of the gallery.

The majority of the photography work that got accepted into the exhibition were my current students! And I believe 100% of the rest of the photography work was from former students of mine! Congrats Concordia art students!

Again, see my previous post about making some larger prints for the exhibition last month.

Making Big Prints in Class

Earlier this week, we fired up the 44" HP printer in the design department at Concordia so my Photo II / Advanced Photo class could make some prints for the upcoming Student Juried Exhibition. (Here are related posts where I shared a quick pic in 2023, and more details during the Student Juried Exhibition along with more prints being printed in 2024.)

Four photos just after printing.


Two big images coming through!

The HP software is great for "nesting" images on this bigger paper. As an exmaple, when I uploaded the first 4 images, it looks like this in the software:

Four images on the left, and an example of what the
selected print will look like on the 44" paper at the bottom.

Then when you click on the printer at the top, it opens up more options:

More options, with an arrow pointing to "nesting."

If you click on "nesting," it will nest all of the images that you loaded. So in this example, the printer will use the same amount of paper, but it nested in the other 3 images to the side of the bigger print:

Good luck students! The work will be juried shortly, so we'll see who's pieces get accepted! The opening is Thursday, April 10th 2025 from 5-7 pm at the Concordia Gallery (1301 Marshall Ave, Saint Paul, MN).

PhotoFlow and Busted Film

Last week, half of my Photo II / Advanced Photo class processed film. One of my students was doing it for the first time. And everyone's film turned out!

I mixed a fresh batch of PhotoFlo, and I love/hate how it's so "soapy" that the printing has been rubbing off the bottle:

Sorry for the quick and out-of-focus pic... trying to get it before my students came back in.


Text smearing off the bottle.


Rinsed tanks and reels after successful processing!

Oh, and I had a "first" in the Concordia darkroom - this has happened before, but the last I recall it happening was back in my CVA days over a decade ago.

A student used a fully manual 35mm camera for the first time (Canon AE-1), whereas in the past, she had a newer / more automatic 35mm camera (like a Canon Rebel 2000). She was unsure how to start rewinding it, so we did it together. Only I IMMEDIATELY felt no resistance while rewinding - there was no film being rewound. Usually, that means the film was never fully loaded and it just "sat there" not being fed through the camera. But I didn't believe that happened in this situation, because we loaded the film together the week before, and we noted that the rewind knob was turning as we advanced the film, so the film appeared to be loaded properly and moving through the camera.

I asked if she really tried to force the advance lever when she was near the end of the film, and she wasn't sure. I HOPED that she just tore the film off the spool as she finished shooting the roll. So we waited to open the camera until the lights were off and everyone else was loading their film onto reels. SURE ENOUGH, she had just muscled her film right off her film spool! I cut it clean and handed her the film in the dark and had her load it up for processing. When we turned the lights back on, we saw how it tore off a few inches from the spool:

Quite the way it tore! (Scissors just holding the film flat.)

I figured it would have pulled off from where it was mechanically attached to the spool, and not just randomly near the end. But irregardless, her film ended up turning out, and she was super happy that I predicted what had happened before she just opened the back of her camera in the light and ruined her film. It was a good day in the darkroom!

Film Developer in the Darkroom

When I started teaching at Concordia University just over 2 years ago (and managing their darkroom), the previous photography professor met with me and very kindly went through issues like how fast the classes go through chemistry, how much film and paper to order, etc. It was all all very helpful! Thanks again, Cate!

We've been getting to the end of our "cube" of film developer, and I made sure we had a back-up at the start of the semester. So today I was happy to have used up the final cube of chemistry from my FIRST order:

Labeled "Sept 22."

I got out our back-up, and was shocked to see that it was labeled "Sept 22" as well! When I ordered my first batch of chemistry, I was told we went through it much faster than we actually do, apparently!!

Still some older film developer to use up!!

Note to self: we go through film developer QUITE slowly...

Related: here's the post linked above about starting to teach at Concordia University, and here are some shots of that darkroom from 2+ years ago.

Film Processing!

We've had sucess in the darkroom at Concordia so far this semester! Here are 2 pics from processing film a few weeks ago:

Love seeing the happy faces when images appear!

We will be shooting and processing film in a MUCH BIGGER CLASS at the University of Minnesota here shortly. That class started as half of the semester in the digital lab, and has just transitioned over to the last half of the semester in the darkroom. My students have a quick photogram project due on Monday before we jump to film cameras. Stay tuned!!

Start of Fall Semester

The 2024 fall semester is underway! Here's a first day shot from my Concordia University classroom:

And a shot from my University of Minnesota classroom:

I taught in that very same classroom at the U of M from 2005 to 2011, and very little has changed! (Pretty much just the TV instead of projection screen, and the table right in front of the camera has been turned 90 degrees.) I'm back for maybe just the semester to help out with someone's maternity leave. I've been at the U of M College of Design (St. Paul campus) for the previous 5 semesters, but now I'm in the U of M's Art Department (Minneapolis campus) for this class. And here's my exotic shared faculty office at the U:

That's a bike helmet and bottle as I'm trying to bike like I did all of last school year.

And Concordia, we just had our first "nerdy lecture" covering some good stuff:

Happy Fall 2024!!

Students Making Big Prints

Just like we did last year, my students recently made some prints on the design department's 44" printer:

[click to enlarge]

Some eye-catching night shots coming out.






Catching 2 of her larger prints.


Re-printing 2 darker images a BIT lighter to make up the difference
between the glow of the screen and the reflected light off the print.
(Or: prints are always darker, and darker images can easily go TOO dark.)


Comparing 2 larger prints.

I think ALL of these images that we printed in class made it into the Juried Student Exhibition, and 2 of the 5 awards in the Fine Arts category* went to 2 of these photos! Congrats Photography II and Advanced Photography classes!

Come see their work in person in 2 weeks at the Juried Student Exhibition's closing reception: Thursday, April 18th, 5-7 p.m. at the Concordia Gallery, 1301 Marshall Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55104.

* They are split between "fine arts" and "design" for this exhibition. A 3rd student of the 5 awards in Fine Art was a former student of mine, and 3 of the 5 award winners in Design are current students of mine! (But I can't take any credit for that as I'm their photography professor.)

Yearly Spring Break Darkroom Job

A few days ago, this memory popped up on Facebook:

At that very moment (1 year later), I had those Sham-Wows washed and drying on my drying rack in the basement... because that's apparently what I do over spring break. Being my first day back after spring break was today (teaching some Tues/Thurs classes this semester), I loaded up the clean Sham-Wows in the back of my car to use in the lab:

Sitting in a 16x20 tray. Still needing to be folded.

Exhibition Photos from the Concordia University Faculty Show

Here are some pics from the faculty exhibition that I was in a few months ago at Concordia University:

[click each image to enlarge]

Megan, Richard, Hannah, and Erin's pieces in the first gallery space.


Megan and Carrie.


Erin.


Carrie and John.


Entering the main gallery, there's John, a piece by Keith, and some prints of mine.


Keith's work with mine in the background.


Priya and Keith.


Priya and Keith.


Keith in the foreground.






A bunch of my prints behind another piece of Keith's.


My prints were all from the mini State Fair series I had shot the previous summer/fall.






Two larger prints on their own wall.


A selfie to show the scale of these prints - the largest I've made.


My artist statement on the wall.


A view of some of my pieces.






A panoramic image of the main gallery.


Back in the first space.

Related posts:
- announcing the exhibition
- my image on the poster
- a few pics from right before the opening reception
- more pics from the mini State Fair series