Shooting Kodak Tri-X 400 at 3200 ISO

At the moment my default in shooting black and white (B&W) film is pushing what's typically a 400 ISO film two stops to 1600. Even when I'm shooting outside with plenty of light to justify the 400 box speed, I still push that emulsion-coated plastic those two stops. That extra sensitivity keeps me from shooting wide open on my Mamyia RB67 and instead lets me stay closer to the faster end of my shutter speeds – 250 & 400 – as well as having a deeper depth of field. There's also the ongoing fantasy that my family and I still live in Brooklyn and those grungy and grainy Lower East Side photos I'm pretending to make are just a short train ride away.

This past Friday afternoon I headed out to the OKC Fairgrounds to try and make something. There's seemingly always an event happening out there, and this past week started the 2024 Oklahoma Youth Expo (OYE). According to their website, the OYE is the "World's Largest Youth Livestock Show." Something like 7,000 4-H and FFA members and their 13,000 head of cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats. Pro-tip: The pig barn smells the worst.

The exhibition barns are ginormous, but the lighting always sucks. There are all kinds of weird light fixtures to try and match, so this made for an easy choice to use Kodak's Tri-X B&W film. It's also weirdly dark, so a great excuse to push that 400 box speed film much more than I would normally.

Try as I might, I couldn't find much of a consensus regarding the developing time for pushing Tri-X 400 three stops to 3200. It's also surprisingly difficult to keep my developing chemistry at the recommended 68° F considering the temperature of my house, so I've always developed my B&W film at 75° F via a Sous Vide machine.

Massive Dev Chart has been my go-to for quite a while, but seemed like it contradicted itself with its push processing. On one page they mention an 11-minute development time to push Tri-X to 3200 using D-76 at 68°, but then elsewhere they elude to a 27-minute development time. Then I found a somewhat official-looking PDF at what looks like a Kodak website laying out yet another approach to developing Tri-X film. They break down the development time according to temperature and push processing, but they were nowhere near the same development times I'd gotten used to over at Massive Dev Chart.

That's when I built out a spreadsheet – shocker – based on Massive Dev Chart's figures and their standard developer push processing compensation advice: +1 stop = x1.5; +2 stops = x2.25; +3 stops = x4.5. That ended up being 20.5 minutes in a stock D-76 solution while agitating the film development tank every 30 seconds to push my Tri-X 3 stops; essentially almost an entire episode of Rick and Morty per roll.

In the end, I decided none of us know what we're doing and we're simply making this nonsense up as we go. Next time I might use that official-looking PDF from Kodak. Still, I ended up with a handful of photos I dug from those two rolls of B&W film. Surely they'd most likely been better used by someone who knew what they were doing and saved me $20 plus the developing gear and chemistry used. If nothing else, I can use the "it's a vibe" phrase with the nonsense I made.

Strikes, Skaters, and Street Photogs

This starts week six of the fall semester's first class module. It's early still on Monday morning as I'm writing this and I should already be starting on classwork for the week, but here I am trying to force some kind of graduate student, family- and work-life balance. Honestly, I should be pushing for more of a focus on my work considering how little attention it's been getting since starting my MBA. With that in mind, here are a few hot takes from recently.

Huge news came out last night about a tentative deal being reached concerning the WGA strike. The New York Times reports that the screenwriters guild reached a deal with studios and that they got most of what they wanted.

“We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional — with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership,” the Writers Guild’s negotiating committee said in an email to members.

Conspicuously not doing a victory lap was the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of studios. “The W.G.A. and A.M.P.T.P. have reached a tentative agreement” was its only comment. - nytimes.com

While this is great news, the industry is still being impacted by the SAG-AFTRA strike and there's not much happening on that front.

On a personal level, I can't point specifically to how these strikes have hit me directly, but by simply being in the industry I know they have. Friends of mine are on those picket lines in New York and Los Angeles, and the impact on the crew that haven't been working during this time has been rough. I had a phone call a couple weeks ago with the CPA we still work with in New York and he mentioned how this has been a terrible, terrible year for his clients in the entertainment and production industry – me and my family included.

Tying this nonsense back to my MBA work, I'm six weeks deep into a Negotiations course. We've yet to discuss these entertainment industry strikes, but I'm hoping our professor at least mentions it in tonight's class. My other class this module has focused on Marketing Management. That class in particular has been busting my chops about how little attention I've been giving to the customer-facing aspects of my own small business efforts. So with that in mind...

A couple weeks ago I snuck off to the Skate the Plaza event here in Oklahoma City. I'll mention upfront how it's obviously low-hanging fruit to snag photos at events like this. There were tons of people there and probably as many photogs as skaters all hoping to do something interesting and impress the right people. Still, super stoked about the few images I did make in the process. Again, I've been insanely focused on grad school knowing it'll help me on the business end of my creative work, but in doing so I've unfortunately neglected the actual creative work itself. At this point, I'm just happy to get some time in behind a camera.

The last hot take for this post is a documentary series on street photographers released this week, Wrong Side of the Lens. I actually reached out to the series creator, Josh Ethan Johnson, almost immediately after just seeing the trailer. Later that night St. Anne the Wife and I watched nearly the entire series and realized just how much bigger of a deal it is than I first expected.

Super excited to see a project like this, especially in how it was released on YouTube instead of one of the major streaming platforms considering how good it is. It's got my mashup of creative passions, fierce independence, and business school superpowers going nuts and hopeful for the future.

 

Updated: Jan. 31, 2024
Bit of an update on Wrong Side of the Lens. I've had a chance to connect with Josh Ethan Johnson on his project several times over the last few months and he seems like a good dude doing some interesting work. He's launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise some production capital for future seasons of the project that I'd certainly love to see. Here's his fundraising video and that GoFundMe link so you can help support the art kids making the work you enjoy.

Talking to Strangers

This past week was the beginning of this year's regular state legislative sessions here in Oklahoma. Monday morning had a sizable crowd of Trans rights demonstrators outside the Capitol building. Then on Tuesday there was another crowd there, this time they were Pro-Life demonstrators listening to a speaker under a banner that read "LAWS TO MURDER BABIES ARE MADE HERE." The crowd had dissipated before I could get back out there with my camera, but I did make it inside the building for the Homeschool Oklahoma Capitol Day 2023.

Talk about whiplash between the two days worth of demonstrations. That and the differences in the weather that helped make for two completely different looks. I'm always interested in people and the things they're passionate about, but honestly I should've been home working and/or studying those two days. Instead I was down the street at the Capitol building with my old camera, more expired film, and just talking to strangers.

At the Trans rights rally on Monday, I finished out a black and white roll of Ilford HP5 that I've still got to develop, but then I switched over to a roll of Kodak Vericolor III that'd expired in 1998. I'm especially proud of a handful of those images as well as getting to meet and interact with some of the peaceful demonstrators who some conservatives are calling a "mob" that had "stormed and occupied" the Capitol.

"The protesters gathered to oppose a group of bills that target gender-affirming medical care. Some of the bills would completely bar minors from receiving transition-related care, including one that would prohibit such care for people up to 26 years old. Other bills would bar providers of gender-affirming care from receiving public funds." - "Peaceful protest or a trans 'mob'? Oklahoma demonstration riles the right" – NBC News

Tuesday's weather wasn't helpful, especially because I'd loaded a roll of ISO 160 Kodak Vericolor that'd expired in 1987. In compensating for how old the film was, I'd need to plan for a loss of one stop of light per decade, so that ISO 160 film would need to be exposed at ISO 20 and I'd still be shooting nearly wide open on my camera lens (f3.8). Even then I decided I'd need to push the film two additional stops in the developing process. Honestly I'm surprised I got anything out of this roll of film that was nearly as old as I am.

Out of the ten shots I'd made on that old roll Tuesday, the only two worth looking at were a couple portraits I'd made with a man named Steven Hess. I'd been loitering outside the Capitol building and just hoping someone interesting looking would walk out in the rainy weather. This dude and his fantastic looking beard walked out and he and his family were taking pictures on the south stairs. I waited for them to finish up and then I approached and started a conversation.

"Hey, I really like your beard. I think it looks great. Would you mind if I took your picture?" "Sure."

From there I scrambled to get a light reading using an iPhone app and we made some small talk. He's a bit older than I am, but turns out we had both gone to the same high school. More than that, we'd both taken photography classes there, so we most likely had used the same darkroom way back in the day. He asked if I'd send him a copy of the photos if they turned out and he gave me his number. We ended up texting back and forth for nearly an hour that night after I'd developed the film and sent him the files.

I got to have similar quick conversations on Monday with a few of the Trans rights demonstrators. I'd posted some of the images I'd made that day to Instagram and was able to share and connect with a few of the people I'd met at the rally.

I've for sure made pictures over the years of strangers out in public with long lenses and without permission, but it's something else entirely to walk up to someone you don't know and ask them to be vulnerable with you for just a moment.

That Same "More"

I'ma let you in on a little secret: I'm kinda feeling like one of these three photos at the moment. They're all from the same roll of black and white film I'd shot in downtown Tulsa last month.

There's the gorgeous, tall, and gleaming building that, I'm assuming, is filled with highly qualified and credentialed professionals. They're the ones who, I'm guessing, wear suits and ties to work everyday. Not sure if there's white-shoe firms here in Oklahoma, but I'm guessing they'd be in a building like this.

Then there's the shorter, stockier brick buildings with the ornate trim on top. I'd guess the people working in these buildings are no less qualified than the armies of people working in that first building, but I'd guess it's a bit more business casual. There's probably whiteboards and dry erase markers scattered around the open floor plans with row after row of iMacs. I'm sure there's a few old school law or accounting offices mixed in there too with bad lighting and worn out carpet.

Finally, there's this lunchable sized billboard / light pole hybrid on the edge of downtown. No clue what's on the other side, but it's probably something like an ad for a pot dispensary or a lawyer who's most likely not working in either of those other two buildings. I'd assume both of those lights work seeing as how the glass isn't broken out, but you can tell that whole thing has seen better days. It could use a coat of paint, but it seems pretty low maintenance and is doing the thing. It's like that Simpson's meme of Homer in his underware, looking fit and trim, standing in front of Marge, but the reverse shot has all his back fat pulled back tight with a chip clip and straining rubber band.

That's me at the moment. I'm that light pole pulling double duty with those budget ads on my chest trying to prove that I'm suppose to be here.

What the actual fuck am I doing? How is it that I'm choosing to focus two years of my professional life as a creative in pursuit of a graduate level business degree? I've got this repeating memory bouncing around in my head of a conversation I'd had with a filmmaker I absolutely admire. I'd gotten a chance to talk to him during a conference years ago and told him about wanting to get an MBA one day. He looked at me like I had hot turds smeared on my face. "Why wouldn't you go for something in cinematography? At least something film related..."

Honestly, I'm super stoked about it. Even shitty magicians can be impressive if they have one trick that catches you off guard.

My MBA classes at the University of Oklahoma start later this month and we've already had a couple different interactions as incoming students. I'm already inspired by the people I've met and most of us are coming from very different careers and walks of life. Along with the business, finance, and economic professionals I'd expected, there's a surprising amount of incoming MBA students in my cohort who are medical doctors, engineers, lawyers, and those with military backgrounds.

In the conversations I've had so far with other incoming students, one was with a young pediatrician and his wife who were from Toronto. We got to the "So why you getting an MBA?" part and he talked about feeling creatively choked off with the restricted nature of his work as a doctor. He's hoping the additional education will open up other opportunities down the road. Some of the others planed to move into more leadership focused roles within their companies or captain their own entrepreneurial ships.

Seems like everyone I'd talked to so far wanted more than what they had at the moment. Even though I'm still feeling like I snuck in the side door, I'm no different in wanting the same more they each talked about.

Washington, D.C. with the Cherokee Nation

So about last week...

I'd gotten a last minute call from the Cherokee Nation about a shoot they were doing in Washington, D.C. A Cherokee citizen, Dwight Birdwell, was being awarded the Medal of Honor for acts of heroism during the Vietnam war. He was one of four Vietnam veterans being honored at several events throughout the week and the Cherokee Nation was out to make a feature for their Osyio, Voices of the Cherokee People series.

We filmed quite a bit with Dwight Birdwell as well as a few of his Army buddies who were actually there that day in January 1968 when Birdwell helped drive back as many as 1,000 enemy troops during an assault on a Saigon base. Spending time with those veterans, hearing their stories, and seeing them find the names of their fallen friends on the Vietnam Memorial wall was incredible. As difficult, frustrating, and exhausting as this job can be at times, experiences like this past week in our nation's capitol help make it worthwhile.

Beyond getting to meet and hear the incredible stories of these actual heroes, the highlight for me was getting to visit the White House. This was the first time I'd gotten past the heavy metal gates and actually into the building. The Cherokee Nation producer/director was cleared as a guest for the event, but the sound recordist and I weren't supposed to have gotten in at all. We somehow got cleared for entry and were corralled in with the rest of the media in the White House Briefing Room and then escorted to the East Room for the event. As the Secret Service walked us through those historic hallways and into the largest room in the White House, I tried to absorb whatever I could while also pretending like I was supposed to be there. By all means the White House is one of the classiest places I've ever been and I was furiously trying to remember the building layout by way of all the time I'd spent watching The West Wing.

The East Room was packed with invited guests and the press was kept at the back of the room behind a rope line. Thank goodness my Oconor tripod legs extend as high as they do, otherwise I'd have been blocked out by all the other media who've been there before and thought to bring their own step ladders. I was able to wedge myself in-between a still photog from the New York Times and another agency I'd never heard of. Good Lord too you'd better believe I made sure that little red record light was on when it needed to be and that my image was as sharp as I could make it. None of this "double-clutch" nonsense that keeps people on my side of the camera awake at night.

Washington, D.C. is a wild place to be during the July 4th holiday. It was crawling with people and security was even tighter than normal. We had a good deal of downtime and I was able to go hunt down the rubber stamps I could find, wander around with my still cameras, and live that luxurious life of eating take out on top of washing machines at laundromats. Georgetown University is something else and I found out why random tourists were laying down to take awkward photos on a crazy steep staircase. I also stopped by Bridge Street Books to pick up a copy of Ready Player One and a book about debt over the last 5,000 years which I'm sure Saint Anne the Wife can't wait to hear me talk about.

I've done the whole National Mall thing before, but never made it to the other side of the U.S. Capitol and out to the Supreme Court building. Considering all the news lately I made it a point to visit the place where a lot of the sausage gets made by nine fancy lawyers who aren't voted into political office. The day I was there with just my stills cameras was pretty tame. There were a few pro-choice activists with signs just outside the newly installed barricades. The next day was July 4th and I was back out at the Supreme Court building with our sound recordist to film "Washington, D.C. b-roll" for the Cherokee Nation. We unintentionally wound up in the middle of a spat between a large group of abortion rights activists and a handful of pro-lifers looking for a fight.

A white, brown-haired, college-aged girl in a blue dress walked right up to the edge of the abortion rights activists and held up her "We Won't Stop at Roe" sign. In the time it took for the dude she was with to take a few photos, she quickly got mobbed by the other side, creating even more fodder for r/LeopardsAteMyFace. I didn't see any punches, but it got rowdy and I remember seeing her sign getting skewered by the tip of a small American flag just before someone ripped it in two.

Pretty quickly the nearby U.S. Capitol Police got involved and stood between the two groups who were still yelling at each other. Within minutes those Capitol Police grew by about a dozen more, and then another 2-3 dozen officers. It wasn't like they were siding with either of the groups, but it was obvious they weren't playing around.

Afterward I dug through Instagram and found the girl in the blue dress along with several other posts from the event. Her recollections aren't what I saw and she for sure leaned into being the victim online. It's not worth giving her more attention, but I'm sure you know how the internet works and can find her yourself and the conservative merch she's selling on her website. I'm always down for protests, but simply looking for a fight is something else altogether. No clue if the footage I shot of the spat will actually see the light of day considering I was there for something else entirely.

"The Patriarchy Smells like Hot Dog Water"

Woof. So last Friday and women's rights in the U.S. huh? Growing up I'd never planned on becoming an active protester, but here we are. I'd also never imagined I'd be on this side of the fence considering my evangelical Christian upbringing, but again, here we are. Quoting one of the protest signs I saw yesterday at the Oklahoma state capitol building, "The Patriarchy Smells like Hot Dog Water."

Phones across the country melted just a bit more than normal as social media caught on fire following Friday's news of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. There's plenty of extremely qualified and insightful writing out there on what's happening, so I'll let them handle the facts. The best I can do is let you in on what brings this nonsense home to me.

Before this weekend, I'd assumed I knew women in my life that've had first hand experience with abortion, but more than I expected came forward with their own stories. Friends of mine posted about their abortions and how they chose to end their pregnancies due to medical as well as personal reasons that certainly aren't any of my business.

My Christian faith is still important to me, but I know that our country is filled with people and faiths different than mine. As people of faith, why should we expect others to respect our beliefs when we don't respect theirs? I'd found it incredibly helpful seeing a social media post from U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about "beliefs are not facts."

"...beliefs are not facts. The belief that abortion is murder is a subjective one. Banning abortion violates the religious views of many. Judaism, Islam, and many other faiths and philosophies have widely ranging, different takes on the matter. Judaism, for example, not only condones abortion but insists upon it in for cases where a mother's life is at risk... So banning abortion raises real first amendment violation questions."

What's happening in right now is wrong. I'm struggling to express how I feel, but I'm upset. I'm frustrated. I'm angry and I'm sad.

“What’s happened is not about religion, or morality or unborn babies. It’s about politics.” - Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood (How Did Roe Fall?, New York Times)

There's been protests across the country since Friday. Oklahoma is frighteningly conservative, but there was a solid showing of protesters on the north lawn of the state capitol Sunday afternoon. I'd come to not expect much from Oklahoma City protests, but yesterday made me proud. I've not seen official numbers, but I'd heard someone estimate nearly 1,000 people showed up.

Anne and I took the boys to the event because we think it's important they see their parents as active and visible participants in standing up for what they believe. I remember going out with my mom when I was young during the Oklahoma teacher strikes back in 1990. Tiny Tanner was more stoked about being out of school for a few days and had no idea what those frustrated teachers where actually doing, but I remember it. Protesting doesn't seem practical, but the further into it I've gotten over the years the more I believe in it and see the strength of its long game. Knowing I'm not the only one frustrated with what's going on brings me hope. Showing up and being visible is important.

Developing Black & White Goodness

Freakin' black and white film photography has been good for soul lately. Not caring about the color temperature around me matching the film in my camera has been a nice change, plus I'm also diggin' the fact that a roll of Ilford HP5+ is nearly half what I was spending on Portra 400.

My first legit experiences behind a camera go back to high school me. Back then I spent most of my time in the band room and/or trying to keep up with my honors classes, but then there's that one photography class I took that ended up being the most related to what I do for a living. Not sure where I got the camera, but we shot our assignments on 35mm black and white (B&W) film that we later developed and printed in the school's darkroom.

The fact I really don't know if the images I'm trying to make will actually turn out or not is pretty great. My 1970's era Mamiya RB67 Pro-S smells like an old car and doesn't have a light meter. Sometimes I'll do test shots with my DSLR to dial in shutter and iris settings. Sometimes I'll lean into my handheld Sekonic light meter to do the thing, but then again shooting film is all for naught if you screw up the developing part. I've got a growing binder of color and B&W negatives I've shot since getting my film camera and can honestly say there's only a handful of images in there I'm proud of. In our world of instant gratification, forced patience is a good thing.

Back in May I was in New York to film an abortion rights protest and came home with five rolls of Ilford HP5+, some powdered Kodak D76 developer and fixer, plus a small bottle of concentrated Kodak liquid stop bath. I'd had a good experience with powdered C41 chemistry before and knew the powdered form would have a longer shelf life. Plus I didn't want to chance big bottles of liquid spilling out and destroying the other gear and actual livelihood packed away in my checked gear cases while in transit.

For my C41 film processing, I already had a Paterson developing tank, dark bag, and some other misc. bits. I keep my color chemicals in one liter dark amber glass bottles, but opted instead to get those accordion style plastic bottles for my B&W goodies. So far I'm more impressed with those plastic bottles seeing as how they're less likely shatter and they can squish down to keep out excess air (and oxidation) to help extend the chemistry's shelf life.

Most of the internet told me not to try and break up the dry chemistry batches into smaller quantities, but they're not the boss of me. A couple other rebels let me in on their secrets and I too broke up my gallon batches of D76 developer and fixer. Make sure you're prepping your chemistry in a well ventilated area so you're not losing a lung like this hero. Be smart too and wear rubber gloves, a mask, and avoid doing this nonsense in the same place where you prep food.

There's tons of B&W developing tutorials online. For some reason they all seem to not get along or agree like those nice hipster kids doing their thing with C41 color developing. I kinda mixed and matched what I could find considering the film stock and the chemistry combination I'm using.

DEVELOPING B&W FILM

ALL CHEMISTRY NEEDS TO BE AT SIMILAR TEMPS

PRE-SOAK
Agitate for :60
Dump out
Rinse
Dump out

DEVELOP (stock)
Agitate first :30
Invert 4x every :30 & tap out bubbles
Developer back to storage container for reuse

STOP BATH
Agitate for :60
Stop bath back to storage container for reuse

FIXER
Agitate first :30
Agitate & invert every :30 for 5 mins & tap out bubbles
Fixer back to storage container for reuse

RINSE
Rinse film for 5 mins with room temp water

DEVELOP TIMES (STOCK)

Ilford HP5+ & Kodak D76

ISO TIME TEMP
400 5:05 75° F
800 7:07 75° F
1600 9:29 75° F
 

The one thing most agreed on was using The Massive Dev Chart website to work out and match up developing times and temperatures. According to the website, you're supposed to process Ilford HP5+ at 68°F with your Kodak D76. But it's summertime here and during these months our house never gets below mid-70°s. Again, thank goodness for Massive Dev Chart because it's got a conversion option to help do what you need done. I'm using my developer at stock vs. diluting it – at least at this point. I'd shot a couple of my rolls at the box speed 400 ISO, then the others pushed to 1600 ISO. Again, Massive Dev Chart came in clutch with the help in developing.

Another thing I found out in doing my B&W goodness is that my scanner is jacked. I've got an Epson V600 that I've been using for a bit, but turns out I've also got the magenta line curse like a ton of other people on the internet. For the longest time I thought my film back was scratching my negatives. But no. It's thanks to supposedly dirty sensors that this dude on YouTube was able to fix. I did the thing and cleaned the sensors on my V600, but it didn't help like it did the other film bros lurking in the video's comment section. Looks like I'll have to reach out to Epson and work out warranty stuff.

Electrical Fires and Actually Working

I may or may not have had to deal with a small electrical fire this morning, so there's that. Late Saturday afternoon Oklahoma County was under a tornado warning and I'd unplugged my computer and server setup just incase things went absolutely south. It's storm season here and you grow up learning to pay attention to the weather. Luckily the storm petered out by the time it was close enough to us to have done any serious damage, but the power in our neighborhood went out for a few house.

This morning I started to plug everything back in for the start of the work week and had a legit cloud of white smoke rolling out from under my desk. A power adapter for an external hard drive had shorted out and the metal part you shove into the hard drive was getting crazy hot, vaporizing the plastic around it. Luckily it wasn't connected to a hard drive at the time and even luckily'er I was able to put out the small fire that'd started. So, technically – I'm assuming – that'd be (delayed) storm damage and not just me being an idiot for having too much plugged in.

The last couple months were focused on applying to grad school and various "adult/parent responsibilities." Now with that heavy lifting behind me for the most part, I've been able to get back to my rubber stamp doc.

The teaser has been updated after some previous notes I'd gotten plus I added a couple new sections. I still don't have a title for project, but that'll come soon enough. I've also connected with a few new people in the stamp world that I'm hoping can help add meat to the skeleton I've already got. And considering how my last name constantly gets butchered, I bought rubberstampdoc.com and rubberstampfilm.com to help make life easier. Those URLs just forward to the webpage I've been using for months.

More and more people have started asking about updates on the project, so I've also added an email list you can sign up for if that's your thing. No plans at this point to do a regular newsletter or anything, but I do know it's helpful to have an idea about a potential audience. I've been thinking too about possible distribution, film festivals, and all that vs. just putting the thing on YouTube and moving on. There's still quite a lot I'd like to do and people I want to interview.

So far the project has been self-funded with business profits and stock footage sales. At times too I've been able extend client related travel so I'm able to land additional interviews (NYC, San Francisco). I've kept production costs super lean by one-man-banding all things, but that becomes a liability soon enough. Ideally I'd be able to hire out audio (priority) and a cam op (secondary) so I can focus on the interviews. Once we get to full-on post-production I'd like to work with a colorist plus someone who knows what they're doing in terms of final delivery. There's also an aspect of animation and graphic design I'd want to incorporate, but I'm not there yet. There's all the things under the hood of a film that no one outside the industry talks about, but you absolutely recognize them if they're not there.

Oh, and I actually finally finished reading that Capital in the 21st Century book by Thomas Piketty. Seriously I've not read something that interesting in a long time. Thick and dense AF, but dang this amateur economist was glued and completely nerded out. St. Anne the Wife asked me to stop talking about it more than one occasion. I also finished Dave Grohl's The Storyteller this past weekend. In a former creative life I was actually a musician and learned to play thanks to listening to hours and hours of Nirvana. There was so much in his book that I related to with his time and experiences on the road. He seriously seems like such a nice guy. I've already started re-reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and I've got a couple other books waiting in the wings. Months ago I'd ordered the 11th Edition of the American Cinematographer Manual and it was finally delivered this past week. I'd also picked up the 4th edition of Directing the Documentary by Michael Rabiger at a used bookstore awhile ago.

This Time of Year

For a bit there I felt like things were going well. Shoutout to this time of year for always keeping it real.

There's normally a good amount of work and stock footage sales coming in the last of the year and 2021 was no different. Then January hits and it's basically crickets while everyone with real jobs is sleeping off their year-end work hangovers. It's not too bad though because January is also normally when those end of year jobs get paid for so there's plenty of cash coming in and no complaints.

But then freakin' February... It's basically Winter's July when no one is working and us freelancers are once again questioning our life choices. My backup plan du jour this time of year is normally wanting to go back to school for an MBA instead of just being alone with my dog all day and doing laundry, taxes, and spiraling into this year's version of seasonal depression.

Things will pick back up like they normally do this time of year. Until then, I'll just be over here freakin' out. I'll also be reading a lot, pretending to take still photos, and procrastinating on the rubber stamp doc I have no excuse to not finish.

Each weekday morning you'll most likely find me at my regular coffee shop scribbling out a daily journal entry followed by a good amount of reading. Lately I've been obsessed with Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" and I'm nearly 200 pages into this 750+ page economic textbook. I'd seen the 2019 documentary based on Piketty's book a while back and wanted to read it myself ever since.

There's also that medium format camera that's been keeping my attention more than I'd like to admit. I do appreciate a change every now and then to remind me how much I enjoy what I get to do for a living. This time last year I was avoiding how slow my paid work was by learning my way around a drone. This year it's this film camera from the early 1970s.

The beginning of February brought a decent amount of snow for here in Oklahoma City. I knew from last year's February snow to head out to Lake Hefner to try and find some magic. There's a story too about me nearly getting Saint Anne the Wife's car stuck in a snowy ditch for a single photo if you're up for that kind of thing. Also, I went out to shoot a major real estate investment that literally went up in flames (thankfully no one was physically hurt).

In rubber stamp doc news: not much... Late last week I connected with a grad student writing her thesis about a narrow slice of of rubber stamp history I've been drowning in. Kinda wild being able to share notes and contacts over such an obscure topic. Not gonna lie: I'm crazy envious of her being seemingly laser focused on her specific topic while I'm over here trying to grow a crop of wheat and raise turkeys so I can make lunch.

Anyone Have a Map?

“When people are under a long period of chronic, unpredictable stress, they develop behavioral anhedonia,” Dr. Wehrenberg said, meaning the loss of the ability to take pleasure in their activities. “And so they get lethargic, and they show a lack of interest — and obviously that plays a huge role in productivity.” We Have All Hit a Wall, nytimes.com

Personally I've felt like I'm eye-ball deep in this season of some kind of transition. "Eye-ball deep" sounds so much more positive than "drowning," so I'll lean into that optimism for now. It's hard to describe the transition and what's on the other side, but here we are.

A wild part of the time we're in has been a general boredom and lack of interest in the imagery I'm seeing. I'm not sure I've ever dealt with something like this considering what I do for a living and how overly saturated we are with visual imagery. Again, I'm not confident in describing it, but it feels like it's easy to make beautiful images, but they feel incredibly empty. So many things look the same right now that almost nothing stands out. Things just feel so uninteresting. No question that goes for anything I've been shooting, but I'm still trying.

It's been so long since normal that even getting back to some kind of familiar feels off. My first instinct is to mention how long it's been since I've worked, but the reality is that I've been working this whole time. I'm shooting a lot less than I'd like, I'm not behind a camera on as many projects as I'd want, but it seems like that energy has gone into other outlets. The last few months have certainly felt like I've been grasping at straws or simply throwing things at the wall and moving on with what sticks.

Thankfully public and university libraries in my area have started opening up again and I've gone out of my way to get lost in the stacks when I can. The last couple weeks in libraries have pulled double duty with the usual hopes of serendipity plus research into my rubber stamp documentary project. So far I've not found a ton of content around rubber stamps, but that's led me into other avenues of printmaking (linocuts, Japanese woodblock, etc.).

The University of Oklahoma Fine Arts Library is one of my favorite places at the moment considering all the out there nonsense I find and the ideas they lead to. I'd mentioned the Trapped in Oklahoma Instagram account of old Oklahoma underground music ephemera to one of the OU Fine Arts librarians and they directed me to Ephemeral Art. By all means check into Andy Goldsworthy and his natural sculptures.

I keep coming back to this idea of a documentary about rubber stamps. The wall behind my desk is slowly being covered in Post-it notes with ideas and directions all in hopes of getting somewhat organized. I've reached out and connected with multiple artists online and that's led to even more questions to ask and people to meet. What's great is that the more I'm looking, the more I'm finding. The hard part at this point is trying to sift through and figure out what I'll do with all I've come across.

One of the more interesting rubber stamp pockets I've found on the internet is StampZine, "an international rubber stamp assembling zine in the Sanizdat tradition compiled by Picasso Gaglione." Over the weekend I got incredibly uncomfortable and made 20 original rubber stamp prints to submit to an upcoming edition.

I'm just hoping the practice of process will help me during this transitional season. It's not like I have a map.