Photosensitive » Administrative

A couple of interesting threads, and a question

Jordan — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 02:34:42 +0000

Here are a couple of interesting threads from around the Net –

In the “of local interest” category, a Flickr discussion in the Toronto group looks at where to get medium-format film (with an emphasis on C-41) processed in Toronto these days. Some of the labs that used to be reliable no longer are, whereas others have just plain closed. It’s good to get the “hive” opinion on this once in a while.
Aaron Muderick comments on doing E-6 at home — he has a more reliable setup than I did when I ran the process in my own bathroom, but his motivation for going the DIY route for colour slides is the same.

… and a question: Are any of my readers (I get 50-100 hits a day, so I know you’re out there!) using Ubuntu Linux for serious digital darkroom work — scanning film, dealing with digital photos, etc.? I like the idea of Ubuntu, but the lack of Photoshop is a killer for me. I am comfortable with GIMP for simple tasks, but find it to have half the features and a quarter of the speed of Photoshop when handling identical tasks. In addition, Picasa crashes all the time under Ubuntu, and I can’t get my scanners to work properly. Any ideas?

New and revised static pages

Jordan — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 00:29:26 +0000

Lately, several people have e-mailed me asking for information on how I develop and scan my images. I decided to write up a general outline for anyone interested, and posted it as How I process and scan film. If you find that article interesting, you might want to check out my recently revised article on Easy film developers you can mix yourself (like MYTOL, Instant MYTOL and PC-TEA) or my B&W Processing tips for beginners.

As always, comments are requested and encouraged!

My Day in Photos

Jordan — Thu, 03 May 2007 01:19:46 +0000

A fellow named David Chin from Australia is running a site called My Day in Photos — sort of a “Day in the Life Of” photobloggers from around the world. It’s a neat idea, so I agreed to participate, and documented my April 22nd with the D70s. You can see my contribution here.

Best of Photosensitive, 2004-2006

Jordan — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 04:08:01 +0000

The old Photosensitive.ca photoblog, based on Folderblog, had about 300 photos on it — pictures I had posted over about two years. The Folderblog site is still accessible, but I’ve decided to re-post (and back-date) the most popular photos from the old site into this WordPress blog. These photos — which all received five or more comments from visitors, and represent about 10% of the total — can be seen in the Best of 2004-2006 category, along with the comments they received at the time. You might also be interested in my Flickr set, which has these photos plus others I feel are particularly “worthy”. Have a look!

The question now is what to do with the old Folderblog site. There are a lot of links pointing to it and to picture pages within it, and I don’t know of a good way to redirect them. Any ideas?

Site migration update

Jordan — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 23:34:44 +0000

Things are moving well with the migration of my site to WordPress 2.1 — I’ve “imported” all of my photoblog posts from December 2006 as Flickr-linked thumbnails and am in the process of populating the blog with the content from the former “Photosensitive Words” site. All of the articles should re-direct here now, and once the “Words” posts have all moved over, I’ll dismantle the Wiki (possibly to be re-built later). The only question is how to organize the photoblog function “going forward”. Any comments?

The new Photosensitive.ca

Jordan — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 02:19:02 +0000

After toying with the idea for a long time, I’ve finally made the switch to a new hosting provider and to WordPress 2.1. Please mind the growing pains as I attempt to transfer all my old photoblog and “words” posts to this new format. And please update your RSS feeds!

Happy 2nd Birthday to Me!

Jordan — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 04:43:41 +0000

I started “seriously” photoblogging in November of 2004, and registered my site with Photoblogs.org on December 1st, 2004. I’ve had fun maintaining this site over the last two years — it has definitely pushed me to continuously shoot, process and refine, which is why I started a photoblog in the first place.

I’ve definitely posted fewer pictures this past year than I did in my first year, and (but for a brief period last spring) I also have had fewer comments. Still, I kept up a 2-3 per week posting frequency and I think I’ve put up some very nice pictures, especially this one, this one and this one.

Several other things have changed over the last year:

· I got a digital SLR (but this part of the site has remained film-only)
· I started Photosensitive Words (please check it out!)
· I’ve started using my Flickr account much more
· Folderblog, the software that runs this site, was abandoned by its author and I’ve begun searching for a way to transfer the site onto another blogging system

I anticipate this site remaining largely the same over the next year, though when 2007 starts I may post a little less often. In the meantime, please keep coming, leave comments (they’re what keeps me going!) and vote for me at Photoblogs.org so that others notice and visit too.

Should I sell my Koni-Omega?

Jordan — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 03:13:58 +0000

Many of you know that I own a Koni-Omega 6×7 rangefinder. This is a big beast of a camera, which takes great pictures (especially with the super-sharp 60mm and 90mm lenses I have for it).

I love the pictures it takes, but I don’t love using it. It’s big, it’s hard to carry, and it can be tricky to focus. As a result, I don’t use it very often, and it instead sits on my shelf.

When I shoot MF these days, I find myself going for the Yashicamat TLR more often than not. As a result, I’m thinking the Koni and going to a slightly more compact and versatile system — a Mamiya C330 or C33 TLR. I owned a (poorly cared for) C220 in the past and it took great pictures, when it was focussed correctly.

Am I crazy? Will I regret this move? Does anyone want to buy the Koni?