Picked up a roll of Rollei “Blackbird” film on a whim during my last trip to Peace Camera. I thought it would be fun to try in our Blue Ribbon wide-angle pocket camera, which has no controls for aperture, shutter speed or focus — you just point it at stuff and hope for the best.

Phooey, I said later, after returning from adventures in New Hampshire, our neighborhood and at Penny’s garden: For whatever reason, I assume because the film wasn’t actually 100 ISO at all, there was barely anything on the negatives, even the stuff I shot in bright, blinding sunlight.

The picture of Veda atop Rattlesnake Mountain was a particular disappointment. I remember so clearly being so proud of us for making it all the way up, and so reassured by the reward of the view. Photographically speaking, though, all I’ve got to show for it is a dark, blurry frame in which you can just make out her little kneecaps.

Oh well. Time for more experimenting.

My little nephew Eli was this week, our friend Sarah Noel’s was yesterday, Penny’s was two weeks ago, her Grandma’s was… last weekend? …Mom’s was on Sunday, and surely there are others.

I’d really like to become better about observing occasions. This year we did get to celebrate with Mom by taking her out to a lovely dinner at Market Restaurant here in Raleigh, followed by a tasty and aromatic stop into Escazu artisan chocolates next door.

The following Friday I took Penny to Watts Grocery in Durham for *her* birthday dinner, so I tend to eat pretty well this time of year.

But still. In the future I want to show up at the door, in person, with a cake and some candles. For Penny, of course, but also for as many friends and family members as I can manage. It’s pretty important.

The negatives came out clear where the sun shone, opaque in the darkest shadows, and flat enough to scan easily.

More importantly, this (plus color, I suppose) is exactly what Sunday felt like to me.

Currituck County from 2000 Feet from Colin Dullaghan on Vimeo.

I’ve always wanted to fly. And for my birthday, thanks to my lovely wife and Kitty Hawk Kites on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I did.

The tow plane took us up to a couple thousand feet, above the clouds and everything, and then cut us loose so Jonathan could give me a mini-lesson on how to control the hang glider, then show me some more advanced tricks. I couldn’t stop grinning, or waving to Penny and Veda on the ground.

A word of advice, if (when!) you go: When the instructor asks if you like roller coasters, the correct answer is Yes.

So Veda has really taken a liking to old Michael Jackson songs. I think it’s the voice, partly — when he was 11 (and 31, truth be told) he did sound somewhat like her other favorite musician, which would be Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks.

And in the car today, on the way to check in on a friend’s cats while she’s away, as I played the audio from a YouTube clip of an old “Rockin’ Robin” performance over the car speakers, Veda had some new questions about Michael Jackson:

What color is his hair, again?
It’s black, kiddo.

And it’s curly, like mine?
Even curlier, actually.

Oh.

…Can we go visit him sometime?
No, sorry, probably not, kiddo.

Why not?
Uh, he lives a long way away.

I like traveling a long way away… that means I get to watch movies!
Well, yeah, that’s nice too.

(At this point I’m trying to think of a way to change the subject, feeling a little uneasy about referring to him in the present tense, and running through all the snarky jokes in my head that people like myself would ordinarily make: “You’re going to take your kid to visit Michael Jackson?! Have fun at Neverland. See you when you’re filing a lawsuit.” Meanwhile, she’s in the back, listening to the tweedly-deedly-deet chirping and imagining someone she can be friends with.)

Does he have a sister?
Actually, he had- I mean *has* two: Latoya and Janet.

I have a cousin Gianna!
No, *Janet.*

Oh. Does he have parents?
Yes. A mom and a dad.

Does he have birthday parties?

***

It’s here that she gets me. The innocent assumption that he’s a kid, just like her, which for a little while he was, contrasts so sharply in my mind with the scandal, the snark, the rumors and the jokes that I’d come to associate with Michael Jackson. Suddenly, and overwhelmingly, I don’t see him as a tabloid headline, a plastic surgery disaster, a reclusive superstar or even the emotionally stunted product of a colossally weird childhood and questionable parenting. Suddenly, as he sings with his brothers at age 11, and my little 3-year-old bops her head and looks up at the sky out the window, he’s just a guy. And he probably did have birthday parties. And I bet he liked them a lot. I bet he would’ve liked to have more of them.

Even if she wouldn’t have been invited.

I thought I was teaching Veda about a new little corner of our shared pop culture, but instead she was teaching me about compassion.

She spins us right ’round.

Via Flickr:
Inspired by the amazing efforts of one Cary Norton, who constructed a working large-format camera out of legos and snapped one incredible picture of some woman named Ashley, I attempted to replicate the effect I loved so much in his picture with my own equipment.

The fine fellows in the medium format forum at Photo.net clued me in tremendously on how to get started, and here’s (sort of) where I’ve ended up so far.

They generously shared so much new information and new ideas that I just had to do some tinkering, so yesterday morning I attempted to incorporate some of what they said into a test shoot with my favorite subject — my endlessly patient wife.

Since one fellow clued me in further to the magic of diffuse sidelight, and because on this rainy North Carolina morning we had just about the right kind of effect, it seemed, I decided to take full advantage of "garage door light" in a literal sense. Our garage faces more or less east, and we do indeed get some great morning/early-afternoon light through the frosted panels toward the top of both doors.

So after moving aside some bikes and strollers and the like, I took another guy up on the suggestion of the 180mm, and numerous others’ urging to use slow film and a tripod. As for a subject "lit well," I wasn’t quite able to accomplish that, as I’m still acclimating to my flash and relied here on just the natural light and a white foamcore panel leaning up against a kayak at camera right. (Couldn’t find my reflector disc.)

Looking at the results, though, I think it’s apparent that they all gave great advice on lighting and composition (the dark background was supplied by a deflated blow-up mattress thrown over some stacks of storage bins, by the way).

Still, at least looking at this Polaroid test shot, I’m thinking I agree with one John A, who said camera characteristics were awfully meaningful in the shot I loved from the the Legotron. The light leaks just aren’t there, though I may be able to try faking them digitally I suppose.

One chap astutely opined that what I was liking (perhaps) about the Ashley shot was that it had that fine-grained look of big-negative imagery, but combined with an imperfectness that’s quite appealing. I think this shot, even on Polaroid, is still coming off comparatively "perfect and technical-looking." Maybe some of the other suggestions I got — vaseline, condensation, camera shake, filters, etc — will help in future experiments.

Oh, one funny thing: One fellow joked about Large Format’s benefits — mainly camera movements like tilt and shift — being offset by the fact of those photographs taking longer to set up. In my case, what Lope and I pulled off in the garage may have been a *little* quicker than futzing around under a dark cloth, but with my amateur antics and tentative technique, not much! I already felt I was taxing my subject by asking her to hold still for a full second… (Opening the garage doors brought it down to only a 1/4-sec. exposure, which isn’t such a challenge.)

As to the "long tonal range film" suggestion I heard, what you’re seeing here doesn’t quite qualify — it’s just the Fuji FP100B I had loaded in the Polaroid back for the RB. But this was just the test shot, and I followed it up with a (7×6, rather than square) exposure on real film afterward (Provia 100, actually). Looking forward to seeing how it comes out.

The whole process has been educational and fun so far, definitely. I wish I’d undertaken this process of trying to replicate an inspiring shot a long time ago.