Update: Fifteen minutes after I posted this, the
buzzer to the apartment rang. It was la poste. They had my 5in1
reflector. I came back up stairs and not five minutes after that, as I
was taking a leak, the buzzer rang again. It was le livraison with my
Elinchrom system. Yea! It's all here and I'm off to visit a new dance
studio to see if I can get a more inexpensive but very serviceable place
to shoot in. Whee... the creativity train is set firmly in motion...
--------
Merde!
Les lumieres, ils ne sont pas ici! I should believe it, but I don't. The French delivery system from ProPhot.fr is not working as the salesman said it would. The lights have not yet arrived. It's going on a week since I placed my order. I might have to go back, ask a few questions, and see if I can't find the warehouse to go pick the Elinchrom system up myself. I don't want to be a Horrible Incorrigible Foreigner, so I might have to see if I can get my Indignant Parisian "on".
Geez.
While kafeching my plight with a friend, he sent along a suggestion. Maybe I should give up all this digital madness and work "real" art. Wet plate collodion. The process is interesting, if not a little convoluted, complex, and potentially explosive. Ether can be that way. Explosive, that is.
To whet my appetite my friend sent along the following video.
Dana Geraths - Wet Plate Photographer from Kia Anne Geraths on Vimeo.
It reminds me of my many years of hauling around very large cameras in search of ultimate image quality. The man in this video showed up at the 2012 Brooks Steamup out in Oregon. I beat him by several years. My first trip to the Steamup saw me hauling an 8x10 Deardorff and lenses and film holders and tripods and dark cloth.
The things I came away with pleased me well enough and there are a few fine palladium prints in storage that I'm particularly proud of.
Alas, times change and the following year saw me carrying a new digital whiz-bang DSLR. Such a difference in approach and such a difference in results too.
Thinking about it, the old alternative process ship has sailed for me. I can't go back.
Sure, it has it's own sense of beauty and grace. Yes, the final results can be pure photographic. But I wonder about the flexibility and I worry that so much process could easily sideline my rather mercurial creativity stream. I'm not sure my wife would appreciate my bringing explosive materials into our small Paris apartment.
So, I sit here impatiently waiting the arrival of my now very late Elinchrom studio lighting system. Between fits of anxiety over whether it'll ever arrive, I dream of photoshoots and creativity and ideas and artistic frameworks of reality. I test my ideas and hopes and dreams against other artists output. I remain anxious to get going on new projects.
I feel like a horse pulling against the reins wanting to get the show on the road.
--------
Merde!
Les lumieres, ils ne sont pas ici! I should believe it, but I don't. The French delivery system from ProPhot.fr is not working as the salesman said it would. The lights have not yet arrived. It's going on a week since I placed my order. I might have to go back, ask a few questions, and see if I can't find the warehouse to go pick the Elinchrom system up myself. I don't want to be a Horrible Incorrigible Foreigner, so I might have to see if I can get my Indignant Parisian "on".
Geez.
While kafeching my plight with a friend, he sent along a suggestion. Maybe I should give up all this digital madness and work "real" art. Wet plate collodion. The process is interesting, if not a little convoluted, complex, and potentially explosive. Ether can be that way. Explosive, that is.
To whet my appetite my friend sent along the following video.
It reminds me of my many years of hauling around very large cameras in search of ultimate image quality. The man in this video showed up at the 2012 Brooks Steamup out in Oregon. I beat him by several years. My first trip to the Steamup saw me hauling an 8x10 Deardorff and lenses and film holders and tripods and dark cloth.
The things I came away with pleased me well enough and there are a few fine palladium prints in storage that I'm particularly proud of.
Alas, times change and the following year saw me carrying a new digital whiz-bang DSLR. Such a difference in approach and such a difference in results too.
Thinking about it, the old alternative process ship has sailed for me. I can't go back.
Sure, it has it's own sense of beauty and grace. Yes, the final results can be pure photographic. But I wonder about the flexibility and I worry that so much process could easily sideline my rather mercurial creativity stream. I'm not sure my wife would appreciate my bringing explosive materials into our small Paris apartment.
So, I sit here impatiently waiting the arrival of my now very late Elinchrom studio lighting system. Between fits of anxiety over whether it'll ever arrive, I dream of photoshoots and creativity and ideas and artistic frameworks of reality. I test my ideas and hopes and dreams against other artists output. I remain anxious to get going on new projects.
I feel like a horse pulling against the reins wanting to get the show on the road.
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