Under (and over) the bridge again…

(Please click on any image (highly recommended) to see them all in an embiggenated slide-showy-thingy….)

Sunday Softies….

…from the garden…after the rain…

(please do click on an image to get a better view and start a slideshow thingy)

This is the door

 

this is not spoken word.
these are words, 
spoken.

~

this is not slam,
this is the door.

this is the window.
this is the glaze.

this is the breeze
brought across your skin.

this is the wind on the water and
the breath on the surface.

this is the ripple.

~

this is the breath of the earth
brought to the sky.

this is the surface 
where the landscape is seen.

this is the landscape 
where we all wander.

this is the place 
where we all are lost 			
and 
this is the only place 
where we will ever find each other.

~

this is living a vibrant adage.
this is living on a verdant ledge.
this is living on that vibrating edge.

~

this is not my body.
this is my voice.

this is vibration brought into being.
this is my mind pushing a column of air,
somewhere.

this is sound shaped into meaning.
this is me breathing, in you.

this is muscle and cavity, moving.
this is diaphragm, lung, larynx, tongue, lips and jaw.
 
these are my words in your mouth.		
this is my world 
in the mouth of your mind.

~

this is not performance, 
this is incantation.

~


this is where body touches mind.
this is where meaning is born
and this is where meaning dies.

this is not finding meaning in a story.
this is making a story mean something.

this is not seeking meaning. 
this is living meaning
and this is making all these things mean something.

this is not seeking, 
this is making.

this is mind making myth.
this is myth-making mind.
this is making myth mind.
this is myth making mind 
and
this is making me (into) a myth.

~

this is not ritual,
this is invocation. 

~

this is not some 
thing,
this is something lived.

this is some but not all.

this is the sum.
this is the current.
this is the slow movement of mind
and 
this movement is not mine.

this is the company of misery.
this is the beat of the beaten.
this is the brand of the new.

this is the spent cartridge,
the smell of sulphur
and a cloud of rust
in a sepia sky.

this is blood sucked 
straight from the sand.
this is the tatters 
of the temple’s torn curtain.

~

this is pure speculation.
this is mind ore.
this is the whore of the mind
doing its helical mambo.

this is me 
fucking me.

this is what it means.

this is what “it” means.

and

this is all there is.

this is all there is.

this is all there is.




~~~~~

(I began this piece sometime in 2015 and have tinkered
with it on and off ever since. As happens often with me, 
I get tired of looking at things or I don't know what else
to do with them and so I abandon them here....

“Poems are never finished – just abandoned”
—Paul Valery)

Saturday Psychedelia (…which, um, alliterates homophonically but not homographically…or something like that…) in Black & White…

Because I think psychedelia can totally be monochromatic. And so does Alan. I mean why should achromats be excluded?

These were actually originally shot on color film (yes, expired) but the scans came out mostly crap so I converted them to black and white in Silver Efex Pro.

All but the first are double (or triple) exposures with Lensbaby optics (the double glass, I think) on a Minolta Maxxum 5.

Brick City Aside: Leaving….

….beauty behind…

Mild-Life Crises: Wednesday’s Whacky Workshop, a Tutorial

…or…

How to Make Sprocket Hole Images (the old-fashioned way)

…or…

Putting the Wrong Film in the Right Camera

…or…

Putting the Right Film in the Wrong Camera

In case you were curious how images like the one’s in this post and this post were made….

You start with a camera that was intended to carry and expose 120 film (preferably one you’re not too worried about harming in the process…). You can also use a camera made to take 220 film, but I haven’t tried this….yet.

Enter, the Seagul 4A, a Chinese knockoff of the German-made Rolleiflex TLR (Twin Lens Reflex — one lens for viewing and framing, the other for exposing the film) introduced in the late 60’s and believed to still be in production. As you can see mine went around the block a few thousand times before I even got it. I got mine off eBay for about $70….I think….it’s been about twenty years….

If you’re not familiar with different types of film, 120 film, as can be seen here, is quite a bit larger than 35mm film and in this camera creates a square, 56x56mm image, 12 per roll,

Here is how the 120 film is normally loaded….

Opening the camera back (luckily for me, they kindly added an “O” and a “C”….)

First the empty spindle (from the previously shot roll of 120 film) has to be moved to the “take-up postion”

Next, the 120 (the “Right Film”) is loaded…

The tab on the end of the roll is inserted into a slot in the take-up spindle (which can be seen in a couple of the images in the previous set) and then wound on just a bit with the film-crank on the side of the camera (just to make sure it’s caught) before closing the back (I forgot to get a shot of this bit….)

When the roll is done, the film is removed from the take-up position. It has now been rolled up onto the spindle that was moved from the lower position which is now empty and ready to begin the cycle all over again….only THIS time……

~

The process for loading the 35mm film (the “Wrong Film”, still in its canister) is pretty similar with just a few adjustments….

Adjustment #1–the 35mm canister isn’t held in place like the 120 roll by the spindle-pin (I really don’t know if that’s what all these parts are called….I’m just making those bits up as I go…) SO Mr. Opposable Thumb is put to work. This can be a bit tricky as the film, having been wound up for a while (in this case quite a while–about 15-20 years), is trying rather persistently to roll back up.

Adjustment #2–the hack/mod-freak photographer’s second secret weapon (after electrical tape): Little Circles Cut Out Of Corrugated Cardboard. This holds the canister in place and helps to keep the film (Hopefully!) centered behind the lens during shooting. The film is then wound onto the take-up spindle as before, although this time with a bit more fiddling, a bit more cursing, and possibly some of the aforementioned electrical tape…or just plain scotch tape.

Adjustment #3–kind of hard to get a picture of this bit, but the 35mm canister doesn’t really fit into the camera…so you kind of have to step/sit/lean on it to get it to close tightly. And even then….I’m waiting for the day that a roll comes back with light leaks on it…or completely ruined from the back not closing all the way…but….so far, so good….

And….Adjustment #4…….

….As can plainly be seen in the above photo, the camera has to be opened and the film wound back into the film canister in complete darkness. The 120 has a nifty paper backing which allows the photographer to forgo the dark room and change film whenever and where-ever they like, but 35mm wasn’t really made for this sort of thing, so….

And there you have it….

One roll of very expired Kodak 100, color print film, hopefully with groovy sprocket holes and film-edge markings….provided the film is still any good….and provided I exposed it correctly (the Seagull 4A has no light meter) and provided the camera hasn’t sprung any light leaks and provided I can find somewhere to get it developed….anyone got any recommendations for a good through-the-mail developer who will do specialty processing?