Opening of the "Eternal Gift", Friday, December 7, in Longview.

A.C. Gentry-designed frame!

At the TCC Photo Gallery, 207 North Center Street, Longview, Texas, 5-8.  Rare chance to see 20+ Langhams hanging in one place.  Some of them from this fall at Canyon de Chelly or Shiprock in August.  Fun to see them in frames.  Prints looking pretty good.  

Fall Darkroom Video.

Rocks.  Trees.  More rocks.  In the darkroom.  Framing some of those prints today.  Really nice.  Took all day to spot, mat and frame four big ones and one small one.

Winter Printing.

  Print in the Fall and Spring to take advantage of water temps.  In the summer it can run up to 95 degrees out of the cold side.  Too hot for the quantity of water needed to print and wash paper.  I look forward to printing season and yesterday went into the darkroom with a fresh 50-sheet box of 20X24. Hard to get more fun than that!

  I can usually print 5-7 negatives in a day, with care.  I'm eager to get a look at some of the new negatives and have a show I have to deliver next week.

This negative had been reminding me that it hadn't ever been printed for a couple of years.  2009 at Clarksville.  Last weekend, as we left the ranch after a hunting session, I drove over and shot a morning shot of the shadow from the same tree.  Then I came home and printed this one.  I have a portfolio: White Trees, of blooming Spring trees.  That got me looking at black trees....and I'm a noticer of shadows....so there you go.

Couldn't wait to see this big.  I think it works.

This had been a raging digital print, but never a darkroom print on real silver paper through trays, et.  Cropped the bottom a little and was careful not to over-contrast it.

You have to be an optimist to point a camera at a rock.  Shiprock, last August.  Shot this for the 4th time.

Canyon de Chelly cottonwood from October trip.

This cleaned up nicely.  I was very suspicious when it printed on the first try after a test strip, though I had printed it small a month ago.

Rock face, CDC.

Seven negatives.  Made for a long day.  First print at 9:30 and finished about 7.  Now let's see how they do in the wall test.

Video alert: Canyon de Chelly up.

Video produced with iphone videos and some bad music.  Katie and Jackson and I.  It's too long and I should have pulled about 10 photos of me and the view cameras, but if you want a peek at the canyon it's pretty good.

New Video up. Shiprock South Dike this last August.

South Dike, Shiprock, 2012  Picked out a nice spot on some tough ground.  Pretty slanty up there.  190 Ektar wide-field in front of a sheet of HP5.

  Photographing the South Dike at Shiprock early on a hazy morning.  Picked out my camera position and then slept on a big split boulder that was almost flat.  Almost.  Just used a little camping pad and a sleeping bag cover.  I'm supposed to be an expert at this and everything was good enough while being ridiculous at the same time.  Didn't want to sleep on the ground because of grit and snakes, plus the packrats.  I was right under the Black Giant which I have always considered home base for Shiprock Poltergeists.  (Just below me was where one tore a perfectly good Fuji 120mm view camera lens in HALF on an early visit.  Then some Navajo kids stole the halves.)  They don't seem to bother me much anymore but it might be because the prefer you to be alone so you carry a sense of paranoia along for the ride.  Had a packrat visitation in the night.  A little distant poltergeisting out in the air over the slope.  (Where are the owls when you need them?)  The last morning we were there.  After this we packed up and headed back to Texas.

Back in the pool.

  Jackson wanted to see the olympic pool in the brush so Katie, me, he and Red Chief went out for a late afternoon look.

It needs the color.

Same shot in black and white.

I was just carrying my iphone again.  Katie was photographing with hers and got some very skillful shots. Jackson had a nice Nikon.  Megan was shooting with her phone.  We peeled the pixels off the scene.  Quite a site to work in.

  

Enlarger Games.

Water crossing the road, Smith County, Texas.

  I've been trying to upgrade and improve my timers, lenses, and enlarging heads to get better results out of multigrade papers.  Ebay is the best source for this kind of stuff.  I'm having trouble with the color of my cold light heads on an Omega D2, which prints up to 4X5 and an Omega D3, which prints up to 5X7.  There are bargains on lenses so I bought a couple- but one of them, so far, is missing a retaining ring so I haven't been able to mount it.  That's a typical problem.  You can find what you need.....almost.  You have to keep looking for pieces and parts.

  I changed heads on the D2 to try and improve the color of the light. I switched from an Aristo Grid head and Zone VI stabilizer back to an old Omega florescent light head.  The D2 was too blue.  I think I helped it.  Hard to be sure until I print a little more.

  Bought a twin to my big Omega D3 5X7 from an ebay seller in New Jersey.  It was a bargain but they had vastly underestimated what it would cost to ship.  Of course I paid in full...but then they started balking when they actually tried to send it.  They won't ship or respond so I opened a case to get money back.  While I was waiting on that debacle I bought a late model Zone VI enlarger with a head set up for 5X7 and multigrade paper.  Its in Oregon.  Many extras.  I think they will figure out a way to get it to me.  The only question is the number of dollars.

  That's a major change from what I was using.  Going to be interesting to get it in and start working.

The Dot at Shiprock.

Shiprock.

Abandoned swimming pool.

  Playing Indian Guide to an out of town photographer and photoshoot.  We were at Love's Lookout and I walked through the brush to look at the old pool there.

Normally a black and white guy but this looks like color images all the way.

The portholes were big lensed underwater lights.

This porthole has one of the best stains there is.

The delicate aqua shades were the real surprise.

Went here as a kid once or twice.  Horrible opaque water and muck on the bottom in the deep end.  There was a retractable shade for a strip across the shallow end.  In it's day it was a very sophisticated place, part of a big amusement park.

I was just touristing with my iphone.  Needs a serious camera in there.

Update:  Getting amazing feedback.  Need to get a digital, level and tripod into there.  Very unusual for this spot not to be defaced with graffitti, so the clock is probably ticking.  On the other hand, I don't have a color portfolio.  Wouldn't this have looked good in Polaroid Type 59!

Darkroom work.

  Plenty of new negatives to print- and many old ones.  Got in the darkroom today for a little 11X14 familiarization with some that I think will be favorites from August at Shiprock and October at Canyon de Chelly.  Used Ilford Warmtone Multigrade and some Harmon Warmtone liquid developer.  I ran a full tray line: dev, stop, fix, fix, Permawash/selenium toner bath, rinse, then into a little Zone VI washer.

  My new, (ebay), Nikon 210 enlarging lens is installed on the 5X7.  First time to get a chance to use it.  Had to rig up a really crude stainless steel wire filter holder but I did and it worked.

Tap water is a blissful 67 degrees.

Working on a print of the road winding through the Cottonwoods on the Canyon del Muerto side.  This will look pretty good on 20X24.

Cell phone files while I was looking at the prints on a sheet of glass tilted up over the fixer trays.

South Dike in the haze at Shiprock.

Morning shadow off the West ledge.

Fun to print though it took a bit to get rolling.  Ran through 14 sheets of 11X14.  Ilford Warmtone Multigrade is a pretty good paper.

  Pulled a Hasselblad negative from 1976 folder of White House Ruin.  Only printed twice before.  Ilford FP4 in HC110 I'm sure.  Off a tripod with my 50mm wide angle.  I'm sure I had a yellow filter on.  I can enlarge this to 17X17 with the 105 Nikon enlarging lens I have on.  I think it will hold together that large.

Final set toning.  Using test strips out of the trash to keep up with the color.

Busy week but hope to get some of them on the wall behind glass to look at quickly.