August Adventures with Little Guinness.

Out of curiosity one day, I checked to see if Walgreens still carried film. They had two rolls so I purchased one to encourage them. In anticipation of adventures when Andy and Kristin visit, the speedy Kodak Ultra-Max 400 went into Little Guinness. 

Out to lunch at the Fox River Brewing Company.

A pleasant place to eat out on the riverside at the price of having to drink your beer in a plastic glass. Salmon Tacos and Fries.

Levon Bliss' "Microsculpture" was at the Paine Art Center. He takes focus stacking to a new extreme to get images of insect specimens, some of which are centuries old, with perfect depth of focus far sharper than you could get with a small aperture alone. 

Some selections from the Oxford University Natural History Collection, including one or two of the subjects of the photographs, were on display in the small side gallery.

"A Cabinet of Wonder" by Jennifer Angus was in the Gothic Gallery consisting of arrangements of insects and other biological specimens in bell jars and other theatrical arrangements.

In the Family Discovery Area in the basement were specimens encased in acrylic which you could look at with a pretty nice Leitz microscope.

Nothing about bugs in the dining room.

Along the driveway in front of the hedge.

After Vladimir Putin made doing his academic research impossible, my former colleague Karl Lowenstein retired early and founded Sturgeon Spirits, making a surprising variety of vodkas and gin. We visited for one of their signature cocktails in their tasting room with the production floor prominently featured behind the bar. This seems to be almost a requirement for craft distilleries and microbrewerys.

Out to lunch again, selecting pizza at Parm.

The flat bread for our appetizer getting baked in their fierce oven.

Red Pepper Hummus atop the flat bread.

Later afternoon stop at Fifth Ward Brewery.

Two flights to sample the latest brews.

The table on the lanai ready for Sarah's spectacular brunch.

The best Eggs Benedict anywhere in the world. As though to reflect this perfection, except for spotting out dust, this is a totally uncropped, unedited image. That doesn't happen often.

They're so good it's kind of a transcendent psychedelic experience.

This is where the fast film really pays off. It only took half a minute to make these exposures before digging into the Eggs Benedict.

A week later, on a trip to Madison to drop off a picture at a juried show, which I've already posted a few medium format pictures from, brunch just across the street from the gallery at Cento, a nice Italian restaurant.

As an alumnus of Catholic elementary and high schools, I couldn't pass up Eggs in Purgatory. Spicy enough to atone for venial sins and very tasty.

Stopped in to the Contemporary Art Museum.

The last time we were on the roof it was a quite nice restaurant. Now it's a sculpture garden where they show movies at night.

Overlooking State Street with the historic Orpheum Theatre across the street. Now mostly a live venue, it use to be a cinema with a restaurant and full bar available while you watched the latest movies before it became a trend at cineplexes.

The Contemporary Garden extends over the Overture Center with this ornate tower remaining from it's original life as the Capitol Theatre.

The transparent stairwell at the Contempary.

A nostalgic stop at Soap Opera.

We've never gone on the official tour of the Capitol before. As we moved from room to room, all around the Rotunda and the Galleries, there were two very cheery Quinceañera photo shoots with matching attendents and their dates and associated relatives.

The elaborately decorated hearing room with fossiliferous, book-matched stone paneling. Plenty of time for an exposure as a five year old questioner took at least twenty seconds to consider every word of his inquiry about the fossils which the guide very patiently waited for and gave a serious answer.

Across the Rotunda from between the stairs.

We stayed at a restored historic hotel, The Ruby Marie. Like a lot of vintage buildings, the entrance is now facing the parking lot rather than the street.

I often wonder why the hotel air-conditioner industry can't somehow make a machine that won't be mistaken for a jet engine. Otherwise it was very nice.

Where Highway 151 turns from John Nolan Drive into Blair Street, as it intersects with Williamson Street, as they all cross the railroad track. This was probably a great place for a hotel in 1873. Lake Monona is just visible to the right.

Their little breakfast cafe is closed on weekends so complimentary breakfast is two doors down at The Come Back Inn, which I think deserves the sobriquet "Dive Bar."

A few weeks later U Club held a last-hurrah-unless-anyone-wants-to-keep-it-going soiree.

Because of all the latest catering event restrictions on campus, it was held at the Culver Convention Center instead of the cozy Pollock House, with Food Service refreshments instead of home made appetizers and a full bar. If this is as big a crowd as you can get on Friday with free beer, wine and hors d'ouvres, I think this might be one of those old collegiate traditions that could be out of date. I kind of miss it but it gets a little weird when I find myself in the middle of a university politics discussion again.

Little Guinness has a .17mm hand-drilled pinhole 24mm from a 24x36mm frame (a square inch and a half). The UltraMax 400 was the ninth roll developed in an Arista.edu Liquid Quart C-41 kit.

One lousy square inch of film

Last week there was a post on the very sparse Pinhole Photography forum on Photrio by someone who had rigged a pinhole over a tiny 110 format cartridge. It was his first pinhole attempt and wanted exposure determination advice. There were several helpful, if nitpicking posts, but then we got to the inevitable: "I dare to warn, you will be dissapointed with that format." and that this opinion "comes from well founded experience. It all comes from science - the wavelengths of visible light, how pinholes interact with that light, and the role that diffraction plays." In other words, sharpness is what makes a good photograph. He never says anything about his opinion being shaped by Art.

I admit that I had already exposed half a roll in The Manic Expression Cube with it's measly one square inch negatives, and since this camera often gets placed in odd places pointed less than accurately, is often cropped to less than that. So it was the perfect opportunity to explore the hypothesis proposed by another commenter: "110 is definitely not a pinhole format." That commenter went on to say "Blowing it up a thousand times might create a one of a kind output. But I don’t see anything to be learnt about pinhole with 110." I've often told people to think of my pictures as four foot square prints so maybe he's on to something there.

These negatives at 24mm square are a bit bigger than 110's 13mm × 17mm, and even the most severely cropped aren't quite that small, but let's see if we can learn anything.

The pumpkin depicted with it's flower still attached in my last post is getting quite big.

The big one is getting quite orange.

The pumpkin vines have taken over not just the raised beds, but the entire garden.

We are awash in blossoms. If I had a deep fryer, I might try eating them.

They're everywhere.

In all states of opening.

The theme for the Fox Valley Photography Group this month is Wildlife. This bee was almost in the sunshine, but with ISO 100 film, the exposure was still a few seconds. 

In a little more direct sun.

 

We're starting to see more of these sprouting beneath the flowers.

Some are multicolored gourds.

Some have fins out the sides.

Some are all green and quite knobby.

Sticking the camera on a tripod under a plant with several very stubborn vines in the way results in some compositions that are very different than what I intended but maybe.....

Throw in some flare and overexposure for good measure.

The vines have reached all the way back onto the crab apple trees.

Pumpkins and gourds are intertwined and attached to everything, some of which still seems to be growing among them.

A color close up.

The tomatoes are just starting to ripen.

They have been producing as much as we can keep up with eating.

One lonely habanero glows underneath the vines.

Our new neighbor asked me to look out for an orange ball that his dog had lost which was quite a favorite. I found it poking out from under a large hosta. Looks like it's already been replaced.

How did a seventy-five-year-old man get in our garden?

It's not visually apparent, but this is down the garden path.

A very good year for hydrangeas.

Phlox, black-eyed-susans, and hydrangeas.

A wiegela blossom, just a smidge smaller than an inch, holding very still.




A cluster not holding particularly still at all in one those odd compositions.

Another random composition of a single rose on a bush that dominates the east end of the path.

A dahlia next to the driveway.

Elwood's mutes on a new island in the middle of the pond. What do you suppose that wiggling highlight behind the rocks is? This is about a minute long exposure.

A fruitless wild grape making a swirling climb up the white pines.

Papyri and petuniae between the shadows of the oaks.

The hydrangeas in the front are doing similarly well.

One of the mandevillas got knocked over in a storm and left blossoms on the driveway.

My corner of the couch with the new side table for the scanner, which also has several drawers and USB charging ports.

The charging case for my birthday present. Pretty hip, eh?

The Buddha's new corner in the evening sun with one of the home theater speakers, recently under control of the remote again when Andy and I spent two hours figuring it out after we got a new Apple TV and switched our internet provider to TDS last year.

He seems happy with his new perch.

Cathedral, a game about medieval urban society.




The blazing projection through my new larger spectacles. Since this post began considering negatives of 110 format, it's appropriate it ends with a smaller one, just 12mm square. Half of the last frame was the tape holding it to the reel so this is just one quadrant of the negative.  

Not a bad shot of the scar on my knee.

The Manic Expression Cube has a hand-drilled .17mm pinhole mounted on an adjustable rising front with 6mm of travel, 24mm from a 24mm x 24mm frame in the metric system but it's a cubic inch in Wisconsin. The film is Lomography 100, the eighth roll in an Arista.edu liquid quart C41 kit.