Jason Hight

Shot a roll of film on the Kodak Rainbow Hawkeye No. 2a Model B (1930-1933) this weekend.

Had to do a contact print as the negative is 6×11cm and my enlarger only does 6×6 negatives.  This is the first time I’ve done contact printing.  Looks like there was some dust and hair on the neg (darn cats), but not a big deal.  Gives it more of that vintage feel.

A few days ago I finally got around to setting up a little darkroom for myself.  Really it’s a closet, about 2ftx7ft and extremely cramped, but it’ll work for now.  All the equipment I got from Craigslist for $20 a while back…some guy just getting rid of a bunch of things – enlarger, developing tanks, misc stuff.  At the time I was mainly interested in the developing tanks and stuff so I could at least develop my own film.

After finishing the darkroom (and moving my office back to the other room), I spent a couple hours in the cramped closet creating my first prints.  Are they spectacular?  Not at all.  Are there improvments to be made?  Of course.  Am I happy how they turned out and excited to continue learning this fine craft?  Absolutely.

These were taken with the 1955 Brownie.  I’m not even sure how old the paper is – most of the stuff in the box I bought is from the 70’s.  But hey, can’t complain.  After looking at the scans, my scanner definitely leaves something to be desired. (the paper is supposed to be white on that second one, yikes —  ok I fixed that problem.)

Continuing my black and white theme is Foggy Day.  Friday arrived with lots of fog floating around the city.  Lucky for me I had the day off.  By the time I was able to get to shooting, the fog was clearing but there were still a few patches of thick fog that you could visibly see moving around.

Favorite of the shoot:

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I’ve grown quite fond of photographing old decayed homes and buildings, especially in black and white. I’ve been meaning to get out to this site for quite some time. This area is just off of the I-25. My assumption is the property is part of the surrounding fields currently being sucked dry of their oil.

Ok so I skipped last Monday – I took some photos but they turned out pretty terrible. This Monday I had these ready to go, but was busy all day at the Rodeo

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Yet Another New Year’s Resolution Post… Everybody else is doing it (er, already has most likely) so I figure I might as well hop on ye olde bandwagon. I’ll admit, I’m a wee bit late on this one. Most people decide their resolutions prior to New Year’s, and then blog about them on or before Jan 1. Being the persistent procrastinator that I am, I couldn’t make this artificial deadline. Heck, here I am blogging about it and I STILL have yet to complete my list. Anyway, here it is, in no particular order (other than the order I wrote it down):

• Shoot more photos. Every week. Or more. Every two weeks if I have a breakout of the Lazy Virus, which seems to happen fairly often.
• Blog more. While I realize I have only one lone follower of this blog (including myself), I figure it would still be a good idea. At minimum, once per week. Again, the Lazy Virus clause applies…I think I need to get some medication for that.
• Shoot more film. I’ve become quite fond of that “obsolete” medium, and really would like to use it more than I have been.
• Mild facelift for this here site. Very minor, just changing a few graphics, fleshing out some pages, etc. Once I get to it, it’ll be cake. Mmm, cake….
• An “ideas” book. I would like to start keeping a journal for ideas I come up with randomly. I’ve got a couple things in there already. I think my biggest issue is keeping it with me at all times. Maybe I should find something smaller that’s easy to carry.
• Reorganize my Lightroom catalog/workflow. This is a biggie. My organizational skills are somewhat lacking in Lightroom, and it needs to change. Since it’s 2010, I think it’s a good time to create a fresh catalog file for the year and start organizing from the beginning. I think part of my problem until now has been worrying about all that old crap that I didn’t want to sort through to keep my organization consistent. Well, problem solved. Just ignore it and start fresh

That’s all I’ve got so far. I’m sure I might think of something else down the road. If I can battle the LV I might even edit this post to add it in. In an attempt to fulfill the first two on this list, I am instituting “Photo Mondays.” My proposed schedule is to shoot sometime between Monday and Saturday, process the photos Saturday – Sunday, and blog them Monday. That’s the goal anyway. And so I’d like to introduce…

Photo Monday, Issue #1

These were taken on Dec 30, and are the last photos of 2009. Of course I just now got around to sorting through them and processing.

Longmont sugar mill:

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There is currently a photo contest going on over on Midwest Photo Exchange’s Facebook page. The theme is holiday lights – this can be regular christmas lights, minoras (did I spell that right?), candles, etc.

So here is my first entry (I can do 3 total). I wanted a calm and somber photo, with a slightly religious theme. A bare Quantaray speedlight is up top pointing down, and a bare Nikon SB-24 is camera left. The snow is just the fake plastic stuff you can pick up at Wal-Mart, and I simply hot-glued a cross from Hobby Lobby to a pillar candle.

I should be getting some lighting accessories this week, just in time for Christmas (birthday/Christmas present)..light stand, convertible umbrella, gels, etc.

So I created a short film to enter the Nikon Festival. After a couple attempts with a small point-and-shoot with a horrendous video mode, I decided to give stop-motion a try.

Here’s the video:

The video can be seen on the Nikon Festival site here: http://www.nikonfestival.com/blog/2009/12/15/thought-process/
If I should be named one of the top 50 in a few days, I’ll need all the views and votes I can get, for a shot at $25k.

And here are the shots I took for the final outcome of the vid:

Setup some good lighting for some low-key/high contrast portraits. Took quite a few of Kailee, and had her take a few of me.

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Kailee was making some winter treats, so I thought I’d use it as an excuse to oil my rusty photo skills. I don’t know why I haven’t been shooting more lately.

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This comes a little delayed. We went to RMNP two times during August, and I just now have gotten around to processing the photos. These are all taken with the Sigma SD-14. I have some film shots, but they still need some work.

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