I have some fantastic photos that I’d like to post to the blog, but they are artistic nudes. I don’t want anyone to get in trouble for visiting my blog from work, school, or anywhere else that viewing nude images might be problematic.

Does WordPress have something like the lj-cut tag in Livejournal to allow me to hide the potentially objectionable content and make people click a link to reveal the rest once they understand what it is they are asking for?

As the weather warms up, my mind turns to my iron horse and the places that it will take me this year.

If you’re interested in motorcycles, traveling, and travel photography you might want to follow my new blog at http://ncyonder.wordpress.com/.

Carmen, originally uploaded by viridari.

Some people don’t believe this, but I only took up photography on a serious basis about a year ago. In that short period of time, I’ve met a lot of wonderful people, and I’ve also met a few that I’d be happier to forget.

Carmen is a friend of mine that is also at the early end of her pursuit of photography. We became fast friends and occasionally get to enjoy moments like this involving long introspective conversations that we each come away the better for.

Keep an eye on Carmen’s work. I think she’s one to watch. And I’m very pleased to call her “friend”.

IMG_1910-1600, originally uploaded by viridari.

I had a delightful time today at the JC Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh with some very creative friends. They were all decked out in Victorian era wardrobe, which was complemented very well by the formal garden surroundings.

The Forge, originally uploaded by viridari.

My car is back up and running again. So I took advantage of this beautiful weather we’re having and took a trip down to make a new friend, Eric.

Eric is, like me, an IT professional. But behind his home he has put together a forge where he enjoys engaging in the ancient art of blacksmithing.

I came down to take some pictures, of course, but also to see the forge and get a feel for what I might need to do to learn the art myself. Happily, Eric is quite generous with his time and knowledge, and has offered to have me join in on a workshop series with some other students at his home to learn this art.

No, I won’t be putting down the camera. But I will be picking up the hammer soon.

img244, originally uploaded by viridari.

I’m all caught up on my backlog of medium format film that needs to be developed now. Initially I was pretty disappointed with the quality of the images that were being scanned from the negatives on my Epson V500 flatbed. The images on my HP5+ made Raleigh look more like London with the dingy gray fog hanging over everything.

But based on a little bit of Googling, I found many suggestions to try Vuescan. I messed around with it for about an hour and then happily plunked down the $40 to improve my situation.

The archival scans I’m getting of my negatives out of this combination of hardware and software is really making me giddy. And I’m the last person to be obsessed with megapixel count, but I just have to say it once: it’s kind of cool to have a 198 megapixel camera.

My primary camera these days is a Mamiya C330 Professional with the Mamiya-Sekor 80mm lens. This is a twin lens reflex camera and unlike most other TLR’s, you can change the lens boards on this one. I’d like to have a wider lens for architectural work and some model shoots but otherwise I really have been enjoying the 80mm lens.

This is the life, originally uploaded by viridari.

Seeing how it’s 3:15AM, I’m not terribly with it right now. I just got finished developing my backlog of 120 roll film. There were some nice candids hiding in there, including this gentleman enjoying a gorgeous day at Lake Shelley in north Raleigh.

Yes, I’ve been getting more and more into film lately. Call me a masochist, but I really like the look of it and how the process forces me to slow down.

Clyde Cooper’s BBQ, originally uploaded by viridari.

I can’t help but identify with Clyde Cooper’s BBQ joint in downtown Raleigh.

Cooper’s shabby little two story brick building stands in stark defiance quite literally in the shadow of progress.

While the world is moving from film to digital photography, I’ve gone in the opposite direction. I still shoot digital, certainly, but I find I prefer film these days. And I was one of the earliest of the early adopters of digital, having switched primarily to digital photography back in 1995.

This image was taken on the first roll of film that I developed myself in about 20 years. The last time I went through this process, I was in high school. Much has changed in photography since then. But as I carefully hung the negatives in my spare bathroom, I smiled when I looked at this one and thought to myself that this subversive act of mine, moving back to film, has quite a lot in common with old Clyde Cooper’s place.

While I fully expect the City of Raleigh to condemn Cooper’s joint in the interest of re-assigning the property to a wealthy developer who will put a big bland tower of glass and steel on the spot, hopefully it will be a lot longer before I’m forced to give up the simple pleasures of working in analogue photography.

As I previously alluded to, this picture was from the first roll of film that I have developed myself in about 20 years.  It’s good to be back.  This was the big bottleneck keeping me from working more often in film, as I didn’t want to incur the very high fees from the lab.  Developing my own film also gives me a lot more creative control in the full process.

Vital stats:

Olympus Stylus Epic Zoom 80
Ilford HP5+ 400 (shot at box speed)
Rodinal 1:50 @ 70F for 10m

Carolina Ale House in Infra-Red, originally uploaded by viridari.

I went out over the weekend with mrxdimension to do a good bit of street photography. We met at the Carolina Ale House at Brier Creek to ready ourselves for the long day of walking and he handed me his Pentax K100D to try out.

This was no ordinary K100D, as I was soon to discover. It had, in fact, been converted to pass almost no visible light to the sensor (it will see some light in the red spectrum). Almost everything you see in this image was captured in the infrared spectrum!

There are special properties to shooting with IR that can make it more interesting in some cases than shooting conventional visible light. At some point I’m going to have to have a Canon body converted to add to my available tools.

OK, Charlotte beat Raleigh to being first at something else that is cool.  I can live with that.  We’ll just have to do it better.

I’d love to see people from a number of different interest areas collaborate on bringing Pecha Kucha nights to Raleigh. This shouldn’t just be about photography or art. And then of course is the big question of where.  Charlotte drew over 180 people on its first Pecha Kucha night.  That sort of rules out meeting in the back room at Tir Na Nog.

Thoughts?