Forms of memory and vegetation

The deadline for submission to the Pavlovka Pinhole Festival in Kyiv is soon. The first year I knew about it was the fateful 2022, when the call for photographs had already gone out with the theme I, Bridge-Builder. There was nothing I could think of that I had done that fit, and didn't want to trivialize the heroic statement that exhibit became. The next year was The Mirror. I sent three pictures that I thought were more than simple reflections. Last year, for Habitat, I took the cook's approach and submitted pictures of food and its preparation.

This year, the theme is Forms of Memory. When I heard that, I thought of these four photographs. I didn't contemplate the theme and develop the scenes. They just popped into my head. Hopefully, they're not too obvious.

Sarah's diary and writer's supplies. The pen didn't want to sit on the open book with the nib up. Sarah tried several positions, and then once, when she removed her hand, like magic, it stayed there as I aimed the camera and made the several-minute exposure.

Cooking tools. The other end of the six-inch chef's knife at the top was in last year's festival.

My steel knees.

Analog wave forms and Digital bits. 

Now I have to pick three and come up with a few lines connecting them.

Another purpose for this roll of film was to prevent getting a reputation as an outdated film blog, although I did just buy four more rolls of film, expired just after the turn of the Millennium. This roll is fresh, always frozen, humble Kodak Gold 200. 

Fresh, and one expired, fruit by the window. A little infinite depth of field fun.

Several days later, as I was preparing a tomato for Marcella Hazan's Chicken Fricasee, I was inspired to photograph these two remaining Constiluto Genoveses. In the fading light before it rained, the exposure was ten minutes. I went back to cooking and forgot about it until I went to set the table after an hour and a half, when the weather had cleared. It is possible to overexpose color film. This is about the best that could be done with the very dense negative. It's interesting how the spot in deep shadow in the center is about the right color.

A bounty of peonies waits to blossom.

A still day presents tempting opportunities for the pinhole photographer. A daisy with dewdrops holds perfectly motionless for a close-up.

Even among such formidable competition as the ferns, the invasive snow-on-the-mountain sneaks into the center of interest.

The Virginia Waterleaf is another that dominates No-Mow May. In several weeks it will entirely disappear.

My luck with the wind runs out when seduced by a peony bud lit with its own sunbeam.

The rose vines that have covered the arbor for the last few years failed to revive this year. Their vigorous growth last year made it dangerous to walk under the arbor. I cleared the vines without losing any blood! Now we're in an escalating arms race with the bunnies to get some morning glories established.

The Little Mutant has a .27mm pinhole on the axis and 11mm above it, 45mm from a 6x6cm frame. The Kodak Gold 200 was developed in a Cinestill liter powder C41 kit.