When I was at Jeff and Amy's mom's house in Aiken for Thanksgiving, I came across an old Super 8 silent film camera in the room where I was staying. I asked their mom about it, and she said she couldn't imagine why she'd ever need it again, and that I could have it. That was an unexpected turn — I've been wanting to buy an old film camera on eBay for a while now, but could never bring myself to spend the money on it.

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I've finally started working on processing those 30 sheets of large format film I shot with the Pink Cow back when Andrés and Amy were here last month. Enough time has passed that I've forgotten what I took pictures of, so it's like a sense of discovery to pull them out of the tank and go, "Oh, yeah! Awesome!"

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The camera I've been building for a month and a half is finally done. There's still a few cosmetic things left to do, but functionally, it's complete. In honor of the original, named the Pink Panther, I hereby christen mine the Pink Cow. I'll need to paint a little logo on it somewhere :)

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For the last year or so I've been hosting a website called http://www.colorador...ridgebackrescue.org/ (longest domain name known to man) on BinRock for an organization that my friend Scott is involved with. I've never met Sally, the woman from the organization who actually owns the domain, but I understand she's a sweet woman.

Today I received an unexpected package in the mail which confirmed that fact. Apparently, as a way of saying thanks for hosting her website, she sent me a case of Guinness. Heehee. I'm so easy to shop for :)

Now my refrigerator contains milk, Guinness, and film. The essentials for a healthy lifestyle.

Inspired by some conversations on the photo.net forums, I decided to try to hack together a handheld 4x5 large format camera using parts from various old Polaroid Land cameras from the 1960s. Polaroid long ago discontinued the film for these cameras, so they're available really cheap on eBay. To most people, they're pretty much worthless except as a collectors' item, but with a little fearless application of a Dremel tool, they should quickly find themselves back in useful service. The resulting camera will not be a beauty queen — the main ingredient will be glue — but it should result in something only slightly less portable than the Holga, but with much higher quality results, and for roughly the same total investment (about $20).

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Today I shot and developed my first large format photo. It's not a terribly interesting image — just a shot of the backyard — but I was pretty sure the film was ruined, so I didn't want to put too much effort into it. Surprisingly, it's actually quite decent.

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Back around the beginning of January, I was at the local photo lab/camera store, and I asked if they had any used large format cameras. They actually had several, although most were in the $3-4000 range. One, however, was an old Graphlex Crown Graphic, which was closer to my price range. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for (this camera was designed for newspapermen back in the '40s, so it's oriented more towards being used quickly rather than creatively), but they only wanted $300 for it, whereas the one I really want, a Shen-Hao, would cost around $1000 to get started with. The Crown Graphic had a cracked ground glass (the viewing screen you use to focus the image), which costs about $50 to replace, but they said they'd include that in the price. Still, in the end I decided I wasn't ready to spend even $300, so I put it from my mind.

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Today I finally developed my first roll of film. It took much longer than I expected; based on what I'd read, I was expecting to spend about 30-45 minutes. Actually, I started around noon and finished at 6:30pm. Of course, about four of those hours were spent mixing the chemicals from their initial powder form, which only has to be done once every few months. Also, I took my time with every step, carefully washing every container and funnel between each use to avoid contamination, and rereading instructions repeatedly to avoid mistakes. I guess it's similar to the way my first engine swap took me three weeks to complete, but the second one was done in a weekend. I imagine the next roll of film I develop will go much faster.

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Last week Marc, Andrés, and I went over to Michelle's house to see the four short films she made last semester at NYU. These were her introduction to shooting on film — all her projects so far have been shot on video. This semester she was allocated eight rolls of black & white 16mm reversal film to be used over the course of the semester. All of her films were really good, but I especially liked the one she made for her final project. She really has a lot of talent and great creativity. I'm constantly impressed with the ideas she comes up with for her movies.

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Although the medium format film I brought along for the Holga is ASA 400, I've been requesting that they inspect it by hand just to be sure it wouldn't be fogged by the X-ray machines. I've read people mention that they'd had film damaged despite the airlines' assurance that anything below ASA 800 is safe. If it were just one or two rolls, I'd have taken the risk, but this is 15 rolls — something like $35 worth of film, so I figured that just to be safe, I'd ask them to inspect it by hand.

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