Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey"

There's been a lot said about Christopher Nolan's new movie "The Odyssey." I've been watching different stories about how it was shot. Here's a 4 minute clip from "60 Minutes" from Facebook:

Direct link: facebook.com/reel/1629829631643231

And here's a longer 9 minute version from YouTube:

Direct link: youtu.be/1GEqDZ3hQSo?si=XJsIHU4pharV03wv

Medium Format vs 35mm vs Digital

6?!?... it's more like 2 in each situation for me...

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!

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

Successful Student Film Processing!

We had a great few days in the darkroom recently. Over 2 days, we had a 100% success rate with 11 rolls processed!

A lot of tanks drying.


The final 2 rolls being washed.


11 rolls drying until next class!

Insta-Worthy Medium Format Shots

I explained what was happening in my last blog post in a recent social media post:

Last month, I did a medium format film / camera demo in my Photo II / Advanced Photo class. I sighed and mentioned a “trend” of not actually shooting with the camera, but instead pointing the camera at your subject and then getting a photo of the ground glass with your phone. After the demo, many students made photos of themselves in that manner using my cameras. 🙄🤷🏼‍♂️

This morning, I stepped outside and tried it myself for the first time (with an old Mamiya twin lens reflex), and made photos of our flowering tree and a pair of tulips in our garden. My students would be proud… I think…

Here were my 2 attempts:

[click each image to enlarge]

See my students doing this in our classroom in my last post.

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."

PhotoFlo 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!

Yellowstone with my Canon AE-1

Back in October, my family took a 6-day, 2500 mile road trip through North Dakota, into Yellowstone, down through the Tetons, and back home through South Dakota. I brought some film that expired in 2013, and I shot it with my Canon AE-1 Program that's older than me that I've had since I was 17 years old. The resulting images are somewhere between "art" and "touristy" photos (I think)...

[click each image to enlarge]

Just outside of Yellowstone's east entrance.




Along the shore of Lake Yellowstone.


A classic: Old Faithful.


Walking among the pools in the Upper Geyser Basin.






Moments after a close encounter with a bison!


My boys on a snowy hike...


... working our way to Mystic Falls.




Overlooking Grand Prismatic Spring.


The lower half of the 200' Fairy Falls.


Pulling out of Yellowstone on a snowy morning.


Starting a hike in Grand Teton around Lake Jenny.


Hidden Falls up in the Tetons.


My family starting their way down from Inspiration Point in the Tetons.


A frosty final morning in Grand Teton.


Like the image of Old Faithful, here's another common pic: Sylvan Lake in South Dakota on our way home.

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!!

Film Processing

We've had a few successful days of processing film in class this week:

Direct link: https://youtube.com/shorts/qkg7V4OjfbQ?si=5inWKXCouZtxjxFx

Successfully Processing Film

Last week, I posted about handing out 35mm cameras to my Photo I students. Today, we processed film! We had a 100% success rate for these students processing film for the first time. 🎉📷❤️

I love it when the "drying sink" is overflowing!

Processing Film

A few weeks ago, we had a very successful day in the darkroom. We had 2 groups go through and process film, and everyone's turned out. Here's a quick short I shared @PhotoStenzel on Instagram:

Direct link: youtube.com/shorts/DPgOlHa_FoY

Here are 2 videos from last semester in the darkroom of my boys making their first darkroom prints.

Film and Paper Order!

Here's around $800 of B&W film and paper sitting in my office for my 3 courses at Concordia University this semester:

70 rolls of film and 38 packs of paper!

Last Day Teaching Film?

I just posted this:

North Shore Holga Photographs

It had been nearly a year and a half since I last got out my Holga. But when the boys and I took a drive up the North Shore 10 days ago, I had to pack a few rolls of film. Here are some images made as we headed north along Lake Superior.

[click each image to enlarge]

Gooseberry Falls.


Black Beach (with my boys climbing those rocks back there...)


Sugarloaf Cove.


The backside of Sugarloaf.


A windier day at Sugarloaf Cove (we stopped there twice).


A gale warning in Grand Marais


A few waterfalls along the Cascade River.


My Holga all taped up between outings at our Airbnb.