I got back from my trip to the Big Bend area of Texas, which is in southwest Texas. I did take some photos in Big Bend, including Holga photos. I shot 6 rolls of film with the Holga. And I took about 300 pictures with my digital Canon G12–or as they say–captures…
The trip was good, we made it to Marfa, Marathon, Alpine, Terlingua and Presidio. We didn’t spend too much time in Big Bend Ranch State Park, because of some poor planning on my part. It’s a drag because I wanted to hike and check out the various back country campsites for future camping. I wanted to camp here, but all the spaces were reserved.
We went at one of the busiest times of the year, but it was still pretty quiet all around the Big Bend region. The busiest spots were the trading post in Terlingua and the Border Patrol check points south of both Marathon and Marfa.
As with every trip to my favorite part of Texas, we found some new stuff to explore, two of the places revolved around water – a rare thing in this part of the country. In Marathon, Texas we followed a road out of town and ended up at Post Park, which has a spring fed pool and was built in the 1930′s, so it’s a little funky, but I really liked it.
The second water hole we found was at the end of the pavement 25 miles down the road. I was hoping to drive the back way to the state park but that didn’t work. After 25 miles the road turned to dirt and the washboards were so bad that after about 5 miles my Toyota Corolla would have fallen apart in a heap. So we stopped at the end of the pavement to look around. There was a spring fed pond, with a steer drinking from and a large railroad water tank and a picnic table and a stone barbeque. All basically in the middle of nowhere. It was a pretty fun discovery.
Yesterday I took pictures at the Capitol 10k in Austin, TX. The race attracts of 20,000 runners and is one of the biggest in the country. My girlfriend ran it last year so I knew the layout and finish area which made figuring out where to shoot much easier.
I rarely shoot people and it has been many years since I really shot a lot of pictures with people in it, but it is something I like. It’s interesting using a digital camera because you can look at the back and frame the shot but you don’t really have to bring the camera up to your eye which of course means you’re taking pictures (also my Canon G12 covers only about 80% through the viewfinder, so it’s kind of useless…).
What also surprises me is how close you can get to people when they are really focused on something.
I love it when photographers take Holga photos for serious photo stories. Although the Holga wasn’t photographer Mark Ovaska’s first choice, but it turned out to be a good one. Here’s an article about his picture taking in Peru. And here is his Photoshelter account.
It’s South by Southwest time here in Austin, Texas and things get pretty crazy this week. I was at a show with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and something struck me–the large number of people taking pictures with iPhones. You might know I have a bit of an issue with digital photography–like I don’t hold it in the same high regard as I do traditional or analog photography.
I was just thinking about the millions of crappy pictures being taken with the iPhones and not to mention a good portion of those are probably being taken with the Hipstamatic app or some similar digital equivalent. But now the more I think about it, the iPhone is just a much more expensive version of the instamatic cameras. I guess I have to face it, there are very few places to get film and fewer places to get your film developed and printed.
So while I don’t really like those type of pictures, I realize they have there place.
Big Bend photo trip! This Saturday my son and I are going to Marfa, Texas and Alpine, Texas and Big Bend Ranch State Park. It should be a really nice time. A little cold at night for camping but us Texans will try to survive it. We have only been in Big Bend during the summer when it is smoldering hot and not many people around. This will be during spring break and everything is full up, so there might even be traffic jams at the one stop light in Marfa!
Naturally, I’m bringing the cameras! I’ll be able to post digital pics right away, but since I’m on the very slow train when it comes to my film development, it might be awhile before and holga images show up here.
Chihuahuan Desert - Big Bend Texas - Holga camera
This isn’t a new one, it’s from a few years ago.
I just put up five of my holga photos at End of an Ear record store in Austin. The show is put together by Tim Kerr, we were both in a band called the Lord High Fixers. Tim paints really great pictures. I don’t think there is an opening for the show, but it will be up through SXSW, so that will give them some exposure.
Last week I finally got around to developing some 120mm film, or at least rolling the film on the reels in preparation of actually developing the film. I got everything together and in the developing bag. I also had an audience–my son and girlfriend sat around me to watch. It’s been a few years, but I felt it would be like riding a bike–no problem.
Of course, it was a problem. I was very careful, but as much as I tried, I could not get the film to roll on the reels. I tried both reels and I tried both rolls of film. Since I had an audience I had to try to keep my composure. But inside I was freaking out. I could not understand why I couldn’t get the film to go. I have done this hundreds of times. I knew I’d be rusty but not this rusty.
Eventually I gave up. There was no way the film was going to go on the reels properly. When I pulled everything out of the changing bag, including two now exposed rolls of film, I checked the reels. They were not straight! There is no way in hell you can roll film on to bent reels. The big problem is that I bought them from Freestyle Photo a few months ago, so they were brand new.
I emailed Freestyle, just to let them know and to see what they would say. I didn’t think I would get a refund. But I did think they would respond to my email and explain that the exchange period had expired and apologize for selling crappy products. Nope. No email response from Freestyle. They do have Hewes reels that are better and much more expensive reels, but I’m not sure if I’ll get them from Freestyle. I really like their philosophy and I buy from them when I can, but this is really bad customer service. And Freestyle has the best price on the Hewes reels – I’m torn…
Lily Pads, Austin
Last May I bought a Canon Rebel T1 (or something like that) with a 50mm lens. I was a good deal, and it was plunge into digital photo. I ended up returning the camera because I didn’t like the angle of view with the lens and sensor combination.
In November I bought a Canon G12, which I really like, especially the zoom lens because I can shoot wide angle with it! Recently I came across the SD card that I had used to shoot with the Rebel. Well I checked out the image quality and it is really nice–much better than the G12. It’s good for me to know because I have been thinking about getting a DSLR again, because the G12 does have its limits.
The shot above is with the Rebel.
Since I’ve been shooting in color and with a decent digital camera, and since I got accepted into a couple of stock agencies, I have had thoughts about trying to get some of my pictures into microstock photo agencies. I guess I thought if I take enough pictures that meet their standards and get accepted, I can make some money. I know the pictures they are looking for are not the kind I normally take, so I thought it would be a good challenge. But after submitting work to a few microstock agencies and getting hardly any accepted I have quickly abandoned it.
One of my few microstock images...
Also, I know this is not the kind of photography that I want to do. So really, why do it. If I was already making a decent amount of money from shooting stock, that would be one thing, but I’m not. And the other thing, I probably can’t take perfect, pretty pictures like microstock places want.
I still am getting stuff accepted at Alamy, which is a more traditional stock agency. My plan was to take lots of pictures and get a bunch of files on their site, but the quality control process is very inconsistent there – sometimes it’s fast sometimes it is slow. But I’ll just keep shooting and submitting.
Anointed Hands Barber Shop - Lockhart, Texas
City Market BBQ - Luling, Texas
City Market BBQ - Luling, Texas
Sausage Links, City Market BBQ - Luling, Texas
My son and I went to Lockhart, Gonzalez, Luling and Shiner yesterday for a little exploration, bbq eating and picture taking. It was a great day and the bbq was great as was the beer at the Shiner brewery!
Since I’ve been accepted to Alamy, I have been shooting a lot of stuff that I think will get accepted there. I have also submitted images to a few microstock agencies–we will see if any of those get accepted. I’m also not sure how I feel about selling image downloads for cheap. I guess it’s kind of like music downloads for 99 cents. If I don’t get photos in at any of the microstocks I don’t think I will be heart broken.
I think the pictures I like best were from the City Market BBQ. I took those with the Canon G12. The lens is okay on it, but for available light it’s so-so. I don’t want to shoot higher than 400 ISO since I’ve read that you can start to get noise if you go higher, so that is a little limiting. Technical photo crap aside, I do really like all the patina and stuff and smoke. An old Texas BBQ is a beautiful thing.
