21mm F4 XCD Lens For The Hasselblad XD1 Camera?

With a possible Thai trip happening in early 2022, I have been thinking of purchasing a 21mm XCD Lens for the Hasselblad X1D 50megapixel camera.

I want to return to the dump and to the slum to continue both THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP and THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY. I know I might make some outstanding photos with this lens (love wide angle now) camera duo. I could make high res photos that could be printed at 40 inches for the exhibitions (The Art Centre is promising 2 large shows in 2 rooms). The shows could have both old photos and new 2022 photos in it.

This 21mm lens is too expensive for me to buy new, but I have found 2 slightly cheaper ones used. I know the buy would lead to wonderful, strong photos but I am still frightened. Being a guard limits what you can do. Thinking on this one.

I would hope to do important lasting work with the lens, in the dump and elsewhere. Want to use the lens to make photographs that matter, that have a positive effect on peoples lives. I see so many online photog folk who make such frivolous photos with these XCD blad lens. It is such terrible a waste, rich folks playing with toys stuff. A world class piece of glass can do so much more important work, it should do important work, at least the photog should try. 

The hope would be to buy the lens, shoot it in Asia, then take the camera files and make high end platinum/palladium, silver gelatin, carbon transfer and digi prints. Then place those pints in exhibitions and tell the important stories of the people in the photographs

Here is a nice and informative video made by Steve Huff on the lens. 

Test Video On The lens

21mm F4 XCD lens for the X camera Hasselblad system

16x20 Platinum Palladium Prints For UNB Exhibitions?

Been communicating with the curator at the University of New Brunswick Art Centre about the coming show. I want to see if I can make up some 16x20 platinum/palladium prints to exhibit. I have never made prints that big, so it will be a challenge. Once I finish the room I am painting for Plat/Pall prints, I will start. It should be a joy! Hope Hope!

Working On Wet-Plate, Platinum Printing Room This Week Off

Need to get back studying and making wet plates in studio. Got to finish a room I plan to work from near the studio. Painting this week, then a bit of cleaning and setting up. Hope to be done by weeks end. Then its wet plate time!

Studying Wet Plate, Quinn Jacobsen book, my bible

Latest Photo Thoughts

Latest photo things...Learning RA-4 color reversal steps. It might be fun to try in the big cameras. Also looking at buying a used XCD lens for the digital Hasselblad X1D (they cost a fortune even used).

I would use the lens on my likely return to Thai this spring. I keep seeing the high res digital file photographs I could make with the lens in my mind (always the more buying rational). I would use the lens to make large digital files on the 2 projects THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP and THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, then print them very larger (up to 40 inches) for the coming exhibitions in Fredericton.

This whole making color pics on color photo paper thing is rather cool. This video shows the process and calls it a color wet plate thing. I prefer wet plate, but doing some of these along the way as well, sounds fun to me. I have freezers full of color paper, thinking of trying it with metallic paper. Would shoot it at 16x20 and 20x24. It might be good to have the color option in the field. Thinking of pics on environmental pollution/damage, which is often more disturbing and effectively graphic in color.

RA-4 Reversal Process Steps

Dreamed About Dad

Just dreamed about dad again. In the dream I kept telling dad how much I was going to muss him. How I did it know how I could live without him. And I told him how sad it was all going to be.

Chess Game, FUN!

Gosh I love chess. Been playing on and off since grade 10. Am white in an online game, up by a bishop against a slightly higher rated player, so far so good. Love the history and beauty of the game, the players, the stories, the games.

Hopefully chess can help exercise my mind, allowing me to continue to make photos as I age.

 

One of tonight's games, playing 8 online right now.

Saved About $260 CAD On Silver Nitrate

By buying my 500gr of Silver Nitrate from my supplier in China, I saved about $260 CAD compared to my previous Silver Nitrate sources. Now lets just hope this stuff works!! :) If it does, will probably do a 2000gr buy next time out, the price will be lower as a result of the larger quantity and the money wire transfer costs ($50 CAD) will be the same as this purchase, a double win.

Cheaper Chemicals

Having some luck getting chemistry for wet plate at cheaper prices. With the plan to go as large as35x35 inches, I needed to find a way to get chemicals cheaper. I tend to screw up lots, mostly doing the self taught fumbling around till it works thingy. Getting wet plate supplies a bit cheaper helps. You need to buy larger quantities to for the savings. Larger quantities than most wet plate photogs will use. Hopefully this will work out and help the project along financially, so far it has.

I have bought my alcohol from Quebec, my cadmium bromide/ammonium iodide from India and my silver nitrate from China. Also picked up a 50lb bag of Calcium Carbonate from a local sports supply store.

Will not be able to do this for all the chemistry, but every bit of savings helps. Hopefully this thought/post does not rub some of the wet plate crowd the wrong way, a touchy group in many respects. It just seems smart to save if you can, if the cheaper chemical does not work for you, then you can go in another direction. No doors should be closed, experiment and have fun. Be safe while your doing it.

 

 

Making The Image Selection For The UNB Exhibition Will Be Hard!

Making a final selection for the FAMILIES OF THE DUMP exhibition will be tough. I have7 years of photos and am hoping to shoot more in 2022. Found these on a counter top near my printer today.

A small selection of possible photos

Found Some Japanese Photos

Also found these Japanese photos shot in 2017. I have always loved Japanese culture, film, food, martial arts etc. But whenever I have visited Japan I always feel the isolation of it’s people, a kind of sadness that is hard to define. Probably a foreigner not understanding the culture, but a feeling I always seem to have there. That feeling inspired these photographs. I have other files I have never even looked at after shooting them. Would love to return to Japan and make more images.

Hope these can be shown someday, then I will go through the forgotten files.

 

A small selection of the Japan photos from 2017

Quote: Hugh Obrian (Actor And Humanitarian) "I believe every person is createrd a

"I believe every person is created as the steward of his or her own destiny with great power for a specific purpose: To share with others, through service, a reverence for life in a spirit of love."

Quote: Dali Lama

" When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new."

University Of New Brunswick, Art Centre Shows Scheduled for 2022!

The double exhibition of 

THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP

and

THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY

in Fredericton, New Brunswick at their University Art Centre is scheduled for 2022. The work will be seen, the peoples stories told between October 28th and December 15, 2022. I will try fly down to the opening night. Hope I am allowed to do a talk, or talks!

 More to come on these exhibitions, in the months ahead.

UNB ART CENTRE LINK

 Gosh I wish I could get more shows, tell the stories to more hearts and minds, more eyes. 

University of New Brunswick at Fredericton

Silver Nitrate From China

Am going to be able to order my Silver Nitrate from a chemical supplier in China!! Got to love the cost saving there. Will be buying lots of this stuff over the next 15 years. I will test the initial 500 grams soon. Later should be ordering 1000-2000 grams at a time, maybe more. When I am making larger plates, will need lots!

Silver Nitrate Powder, used in the sensitizing of plates

The Glass Paper Weight From George Orwell's 1984

I think of ambrotypes as capturing an object or person INSIDE THE GLASS. When you look through the glass to see the image on the other side it is like that object or person is ALIVE inside the glass. It is beyond perfect, beyond beautiful That is why I am working to learn wet plate. That is the goal, to capture things/people/places forever INSIDE THE GLASS.

It reminds of me of the glass paper weight in "1984" that Winston Smith values so much. Here is the excerpted section of that brilliant novel where he finds the paper weight.

-------The tiny interior of the shop was in fact uncomfortably full, but there was almost nothing in it of the slightest value. The floor space was very restricted, because all round the walls were stacked innumerable dusty picture frames. In the window there were trays of nuts and bolts, worn-out chisels, penknives with broken blades, tarnished watches that did not even pretend to be in going order, and other miscellaneous rubbish. Only on a small table in the corner was there a litter of odds and ends—lacquered snuffboxes, agate brooches, and the like—which looked as though they might include something interesting. As Winston wandered toward the table his eye was caught by a round, smooth thing that gleamed softly in the lamplight, and he picked it up.

It was a heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on the other, making almost a hemisphere. There was a peculiar softness, as of rainwater, in both the color and the texture of the glass. At the heart of it, magnified by the curved surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object that recalled a rose or a sea anemone.

"What is it?" said Winston, fascinated.

"That's coral, that is," said the old man. "It must have come from the Indian Ocean. They used to kind of embed it in the glass. That wasn't made less than a hundred years ago. More, by the look of it."

"It's a beautiful thing," said Winston.

"It is a beautiful thing," said the other appreciatively. "But there's not many that'd say so nowadays." He coughed. "Now, if it so happened that you wanted to buy it, that'd cost you four dollars. I can remember when a thing like that would have fetched eight pounds, and eight pounds was—well, I can't work it out, but it was a lot of money. But who cares about genuine antiques nowadays—even the few that's left?"

Winston immediately paid over the four dollars and slid the coveted thing into his pocket. What appealed to him about it was not so much its beauty as the air it seemed to possess of belonging to an age quite different from the present one. The soft, rainwatery glass was not like any glass that he had ever seen. The thing was doubly attractive because of its apparent uselessness, though he could guess that it must once have been intended as a paperweight. It was very heavy in his pocket, but fortunately it did not make much of a bulge. It was a queer thing, even a compromising thing, for a Party member to have in his possession. Anything old, and for that matter anything beautiful, was always vaguely suspect. The old man had grown noticeably more cheerful after receiving the four dollars. Winston realized that he would have accepted three or even two.----------

The paper weight from the 1984 version of the novel

From The Last Campground, Cannot Wait For Next Spring To Start AMBROTOS KANATA Again! (Update October 1)

Took these as we were about the leave the campground near Dinosaur Provincial Park. The leaves and trees were truly beautiful. Even Dim Sum will miss his cage!

Long Difficult Day (Update September 30)

Long difficult exhausting day. Not much to do for it. This image is on black glass. Funny how wetplate is like that, one day everything works, next day nada.

On black glass

Last Shots Of The Day (Update September 29)

The last panic prints of the day. The light is now gone. The warmth of the day turns to the cold of dusk.

Rushing Plate Near The End Of The Day (Update September 29)

  Plate 9 rather sloppy. Rushing a bit.

Same Exposure As The Sun Was Setting Between Shots (Lady Tree, Update September 29)

 Same exposure time but the sun is setting.