I make photos with my phone that I wouldn’t bother to make otherwise. If I have to go find one of my regular cameras, I just won’t be bothered. These tulips on our kitchen windowsill is one of those photos. I was at the sink below to wash my hands when I noticed how the tulips popped against the night in the window. It took just a few seconds to get my phone out of my pocket, set it to square format, and make this image.
Everywhere else I’ve ever lived, I was able to drive out of my neighborhood without passing a single store or restaurant. Not here. The only two ways out of the neighborhood empty out onto the big main road, which is a long shopping strip. I’ve never been so surrounded by companies trying to sell me things.
I don’t like it. It feels like this neighborhood’s entire reason to exist is to supply people to these businesses. All of us who live here are immersed in commerce.
I photograph this Lowe’s a lot as it is one of the first things I see anytime I walk or drive toward the main road. I made this photograph from that main road’s old alignment, which is now just a connector road for my neighborhood.
Looking through my archives for a particular photo recently I came across this 2013 photo of this attorney’s office in Terre Haute. I remember this day of photography surprisingly well. I also remember how washed out the color was in the original scan. When you aim a camera at a big golden yellow wall, it can fool a meter into thinking it’s seeing middle gray and expose accordingly. A little Photoshoppery restored the color in this one.
Autumn at the farmhouse Minolta Maxxum 7000i, 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5 Minolta AF Zoom Fujifilm Fujicolor 200 2020
At the rate I’m going, my review of the Minolta Maxxum 7000i won’t show up here until January. But I wanted to show you this photo from it now.
Within my subdivision, a few houses still lurk that predate it. This old farmhouse is one of them. I gather that this subdivision was built on land owned by the Ottinger family; was this the Ottinger farmhouse?
The backs of houses Nikon F2A, 50mm f/2 AI Nikkor Ilford FP4 Plus LegacyPro L110, Dilution B 2020
In this neighborhood I live in, it’s remarkable to me how many backs of houses I see as I walk on its streets.
A wide main road makes a semi-circle through the neighborhood and all of the sub-neighborhoods branch off it. Because of the curved, cul-de-sac nature of the sub-neighborhoods’ streets, the backs of many houses face the main road. A fence and some trees make a thin attempt to block the view, but they don’t really work.
The pipelines and high-voltage electrical transmission lines that cut through create gaps between houses, making the backs of many houses more visible. Also, the backs of all of the corner houses are visible just by their nature. Finally, some houses back up to a retention pond, and for whatever reason roads pass right by a lot of them here.
Moreover, it’s against the rules here to build a privacy fence. Three feet is all the taller a fence can be.
The upstart is that a private back yard is hard to come by here.
On the retention pond Yashica-12 Fujifilm Velvia 50
You are forgiven if you think I went out into the country and found some old swimming hole to make this photograph. It’s actually the retention pond behind my house. Directly beyond it is I-65 — the drone of all the trucks makes this anything but a peaceful place.
I sent this film to Fulltone Photo for processing and scanning. They did a fine job with the processing, but I was disappointed that the scans were only 1024×1024 pixels at 72 dots/pixels per inch. That resolution makes good snapshot prints, but any larger than that and things start looking pixelated.
Many labs offer enhanced scans with much larger pixel dimensions at that same 72 dpi. I haven’t been able to figure out how to make my flatbed scanner do that. I adjust dpi to get the pixel dimensions I want, as for my online work pixel dimensions are everything. I recently shot a roll of Kodak Tri-X in the Yashica-12, and scanned the negatives at 2400 dpi. I got images of a whopping 5192 pixels square. That’s more like it — I can crop deeply if I want, and still have an image with lots of surface area to share online.
I have a lot to learn yet about scanning and the interplay between dots/pixels per inch and raw pixel dimensions.
