Well-seasoned 20th-century film.

In negotiations with Photo Opp about compensation for conducting a workshop, I cleverly got them to agree to give me a sealed, five-roll box of 220 format Kodak Pro 400 MC, which I knew was in their freezer.

It had expired in November 2000. I've used quite a bit of outdated film, some another decade older than this. My general impression is that it's fine. It may be a little slower, maybe lower contrast, and might exhibit some color shift. You could correct those changes printing with the right filter pack (which would be expensive to experiment with). It's pretty simple with digital color editing tools.

Included in the box was an ad for Kodak's new series of professional color films, Portra. There was a table recommending which of the new films to replace the Pro 400 MC with - Portra 400 NC, which happens to be the film I previously had used last year in 220 format, which was discontinued in 2011 and wasn't even in the foil wrapper when I got it. 

The professional 220 format gives 24 6x6cm exposures, twice the normal 120 format. In order to squeeze that much film on the same reel, there is no opaque backing paper, so your camera has to be particularly light-tight. I had completely lined my Morton camera with old backing paper to accommodate that.

That also means no numbers to tell where you are. Those previous experiments led me to advance the take-up one and a quarter turns for the first 8 pictures, one and an eighth for 9-16, and a single turn for the last third, measured by a white dot on the winder.  (The circumference increases as you put more film on the take-up reel.) That worked great. The full 24 pictures and no overlap. I kept track in a little notebook.

I rated it at ISO 200, but I wasn't any more careful about timing the exposures than I usually am. 

The contrast mask on the negatives is a little darker than usual and almost purple rather than the orange base most color films exhibit. Is that the age of the film or a feature of professional color films? The scanner software didn't have any trouble bringing me close to the right color, although I'm not too worried about correct color as long as it's not too distracting. Most of the exposures done in daylight haven't had any color correction at all. Despite the need to pack all that film on the same reel, it's got a substantial film base and the negatives dried flat enough to get in the scanner without tape.

Trying to expose for the shadowed side in the morning, this blossoming crab got pretty overexposed. Like most fast films, it gets noticeably more grainy when it's overexposed.

Testing out the blues with just touch of green and gold.

Combining daylight and incandescent.

Looks like an Orange amp to me.

The Toad Witch surveys the dining room. Most of this was incandescent balanced LEDs and the film responded as warmly as you might expect for daylight film.

The white crabapple in the back.

The pink crabapple next to it.

Thorns and ribbons to keep them out of my hair.

Some shadows under the hydrangea.

Under the lilies of the valley.

The Wisconsin State Wildflower.

Abstraction with weeds, hay under netting and crumbling asphalt, in the front of the house.

A dazzling display by the lilacs.

New white equipment is a good test of the color balance.

The loveseat, enlightened by a sunbeam and literature.

Another very warm response to warm white LEDs.

Out to the lake again, overexposing another eastern sky in the morning.

The overexposed, less detailed background, blurred by the wind, gives a good impression of shallow depth of field.

Foreboding sky over Menomonee Drive.

Behind Oshkosh.

I've always thought this church was odd because of its almost square footprint with the entrance on the corner. I never realized it had the indentation on this side.

In one of my previous experiences testing whether a bunch of old film was worth using, I used flat, grey architectural elements to assess color accuracy. Have I mentioned recently that my camera has a square format?

As part of their "Community Oriented Policing" effort, the small storefront at 101 Algoma, just across from Opera Square, has been occupied by the Oshkosh Police. I thought about doing a picture if no one was there, but when I saw this K9 officer surveilling the area, I went ahead and took my chance. The two human officers never looked up from their computers.

In the only other time I got 24 exposures from a roll of 220 film, the last frame was severely cropped by the end of the roll. I didn't want to put any effort into that last picture, so I decided to make it easy and document my Wisconsin bona fides wearing shorts and sandals in 65-degree F temperatures. 

Looks like I can use the other four rolls without concern, and there's another box back at Photo Opp.

Morton has two .25mm pinholes, on the axis and 11mm above it, 30mm from a 6x6cm frame. The film was developed in a Cinestill powder C-41 kit. Paterson adjustable-width reels are designed to take 36-exposure 35mm rolls, so there's no problem getting the long roll loaded.

A Statistically Odd Cluster of Events

My calendar is generally an expanse of blank squares with an event every week or so. A statistically rare cluster occurred recently, with a week of daily events, two on some days.

The first was the formal installation ceremony of the new Chancellor of the University. When I got the invitation to retirees to march in the academic procession, I casually asked Sarah if she knew where my robe and hood were. She knew exactly where, but it took some digging into the deepest corner of the closet to get them. I never marched at commencement while I was working (I used to do the PA and record the speeches in my youth). It sounded like an odd experience to try. I even wore a suit that I had only worn previously to pose for a picture. I was skeptical I would be able to take any pictures, but ya never know. Fast Portra 800 went into the piercing gaze of the EyePA 30.

Some of my robed former colleagues probably would have been willing to pose, but not without drawing considerable attention to myself. However, after we had stood ready for the procession for ten minutes with another five to go, I asked permission to step out of line to get a photograph.

Immediately following was a public reception. The offerings were not bad for food service catering. Most of this exposure was taken up explaining to the fellow in the green shirt what I was doing - a biology prof, maybe. I had to end the exposure when I smacked the camera, gesturing.

I joined my Art Historian friend, and she introduced me to the Gallery Director, who teaches History of Photography. As we talked about Julia Margaret Cameron and our feelings about working in the darkroom, I pointed the camera and opened the shutter. She watched me and didn't mention it until the exposure was over.

I don't think Chancellor Singh chose the narrow, dark passageway to greet visitors; he probably just got stopped there, and people piled up to talk to him. There wasn't going to be any better opportunity. Maybe I would at least get his brilliant golden turban floating in a misty crowd. It turned out that most of the moving well-wishers in dark coats didn't reflect much light, or stay long enough to block it, leaving the stationary Chancellor relatively well rendered.

U Club occurred later that night, but I also had to take a guitar out to Heid Music, and forgot the camera.

The exclusive gathering at Photo Opp for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day.

The next night was University Open Mic night. Here's my entire set. Pretty strange bunch of highlights from the few remaining bits of chrome hardware on my guitar.

The next day was the weekly underground jam in Hortonville. I made an exposure, but it was ruined by an accidentally opened shutter while trying to haul a guitar, amp and tripod around at the same time.

That evening, a three-session planning event for the Oshkosh Area School District began, which I was triggered into attending by the current political climate. Everyone who registered was sorted into tables to include a broad range of voices in each group. Mine included a high school art teacher, a middle school principal, a mid-sized business owner, a parent of students, a retired education professor I had sat on many committees with, and a retired school bus driver. 

It took place in the large multi-purpose space at the front of the new Menomonee Elementary School. Every effort was made to highlight the achievements of students. During registration and while we ate the contributions of local restaurants, the High School Polka Band played. For an inevitable team-building pep activity, we all stood up and clapped along to a public education-themed parody of a polka, which we were reassured had no reference to beer. In the back corner of the room, I tried to take the opportunity to hold the desktop tripod above them against a column, which kept slipping around. I quit when I noticed the shutter had come open for most of the attempt.

I gotta increase the drag on those shutters, i.e., slide a bit more cardboard behind them.

The music the next evening was provided by the High School Jazz Band. There was a spot for the tripod on a table right in front of the band, and an explanation for the surprised woman whose shoulder appears at the right.

Then a two-day break with no place to go. Oh, that magic feeling.

No high school band on Saturday morning for the final session of the school planning event. I had been outed with my pinhole cameras during a discussion on the Arts, so I brought the full-size tripod.

Tables were combined for the final deliberations. It was a very interesting event. I was rather surprised that MAGA didn't appear at all. Critical thinking and evaluation of evidence, and diversity, inclusion and equity were prominent themes. There was an emphasis on private-public partnerships, not only for internships and learning opportunities, but also to fund special facilities and programs, which our businessman participant said they were eager to do. Wouldn't it be easier just to pay some taxes and let everybody decide what to do with it?

My calendar is completely clear now, including basement band practice skipping a week, but back at it with a workshop in Wausau in two weeks. During all this interaction with other humans, I got to talk with a lot of people about Pinhole Photography and how a volunteer might get involved doing it with students, at the University, the school district and the Boys' and Girls' Club. I hope someone follows up.

The EyePA 30 has two .23mm hand-drilled pinholes, on the axis and 11mm above it, 30mm from a 6x6cm frame. The Kodak Portra 800 was developed in a Cinestill powder C41 kit.

This always happens at the end of April

Central Street has experienced great trauma in the past year in order to improve the infrastructure under it. Our Merrill Magnolia was often the center of drama as brutal, gigantic machines wrent asunder the earth and concrete. It had two large branches torn off "by accident." (Actual quote from one of the contractors after they left it on the ground without mentioning it.) The roots were severed within a meter in three directions and trod over by worker and iron for months in the fourth. The street paving contractors crudely argued it needed to be removed.

So the least I could do was load a camera and capture it's brilliance blossoming in the spring. Not quite the exuberance experience of the recent past, but a very welcome recovery. It's now successfully putting out leaves to eat plenty of CO₂ to recover, as long as those heroic roots can give it water. The city has planted eight youthful trees along the block to keep it company.

An inadequate attempt to capture the backlit view as you walk by under it. 

One of the torn-off limbs remains in the back yard and made a valiant attempt to blossom, which it couldn't complete. The bud was rather violently shaken by the wind just as I opened the shutter.

And then it was Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day.

A long and heavily promoted event, for both analog and digital practitioners, was planned at Photo Opp in Appleton. No one registered. I had shot my mouth off promoted the idea that you could just show up with a bodycap, and I would make a pinhole for it. That made me obligated to go up there in case droves of people arrived to discover digital pinhole. No one came.

Responsible Board Member and Potions Master Char Brandis was there with me. Fox Valley Photography Group colleague Giles La Rock came with a new 3D-printed pinhole front for a Hasselblad Film Holder he wanted to test. Andrea, an artist from Oshkosh, also came unexpectedly for the analog option and got a very personalized experience from Char and me. She did some very cool photographs. Somebody finally listened to me that they probably wouldn't be close enough.

Everyone got prepared and was off. I found myself alone in the building, by the available light of stained glass windows in the expansive nave. I had brought along the Tiltall-clone Star D tripod I had bought at the Photo Opp sale last summer, which extends to two meters. With the camera that high, with the upper pinhole, all of the front wall could be captured with a level camera. Tricked again by the wide angle, much of the ceiling was also included. There are two strange mergers. The great oculus window hanging by a wire from the ceiling, and perched up in the niche, my curious halo, as I selflessly review submissions to the Pinhole Day gallery.

The basement by available light.

The window light in the kitchen with a foreshadowing of the next frame.

The tripod is a very well-used specimen, and the screw into the camera tends to come loose. Not that big a problem out of the wind as long as no one touches it, but an attempt to wind the film will twist it crazily and require retightening the camera. Somewhere along this process, the shutter reopened and recorded this crazy sequence as I struggled to advance with the camera on the unreliable attachment. 

I went outside for a classic architectural rising front picture with the tall tripod. Again fooled by the 90-degree view, and a bit of the sky has been cropped. The super wide-angle and the slightly less than vertical pole holding the lights give it a bit of a Looney Tunes aspect anyway.

The bowing awning stand and the mural seemed worth a frame. It's a little to the right of what I intended. 

Again, my severe paradoeilia has been triggered, and the right wall appears to be quite shocked at what's going on the left, or is that just a political metaphor? Bricks are always fun in any event.

Another double exposure which this goofy light stand joint seems quite amused by.

I don't know why this reminds me of Man Ray. If I ever give a lecture on Composition, this would be a good example for repetition of form.

And the Sun sets on another Pinhole Day.

I still have frame of color film to look at before I decide what to submit for Pinhole Day. You'll have to check to find out. If you took a pinhole picture on April 26, don't forget to submit it before June 30.

La Paquet Trente has two .23mm pinholes, on the axis and 11mm above it , 30mm from a 6x6cm frame. The film is Kentmere 400 semistand developed in Rodinal 1:100.