Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

Who’s suffering withdrawal due to a confluence of circumstances making it nearly impossible for her to go out and shoot, and crummy weather with lousy skies when she can.

(Eat your heart out.)

Okay. Let’s load up and hit the … trail. I guess.

Air Conditioner’s been off and on out of commission for the last few days, cutting out my darkroom time. Yes, I CAN print when it’s 98 degrees and the chemistry is likewise, but it’s not pleasant, it’s not much fun, and no one’s paying me for it — so why would I want to?

But it’s fixed now, and it appears to be holding, so last night I was finally able to get in and develop a couple of rolls of 120 that had been sitting in the fridge for a bit.

This is from one of Houston’s more open secrets, the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center in Memorial Park. It’s a nice place to go for a walk in the woods, provided you’ve got a couple of gallon buckets of mosquito repellant handy.

I usually do.

I’m not totally satisfied with the scan here; I’m still getting the process of scanning B&W from negatives sorted out. I’ve some good books and some very fine mentors and I can get things usable given a little time, but I still prefer the look of a scan from a print, because I’m better in the darkroom than I am in dealing with levels and curves and such in Photoshop. (On the other paw I haven’t spent twenty years or more DEALING with Photoshop yet. There’s a lot more here than I’m getting.)

Second shot to post this morning is from a trip a few months back out to visit friends in Terlingua, out in the Big Bend area of West Texas.

This is the Rio Grande seen from the west side of The Big Hill on the River Road, to the west of Lajitas, going out towards Redford and Presidio. Most of the frame is Mexico; everything to the left of the river.

Says here at the weather page for the area that I’m in for some interesting weather today. At least it won’t be miserably hot. Think I’m gonna hit the streets. Coming with?

And I’ve been up to my idiot eyeballs in a lot of changes here at the shop…
but I’m hoping I’ve got things turned in something like the right direction again. (said the same thing last year about this time. I know. It’s been … not fun. I’m a little slow sometimes.)

Anyway yes, CommieCam arrived and works, and it’s kind of fun and a curiosity and nobody knows what the heck it is. So, being me, of course I had to break down and buy another lens, just … Yupiter-8, Russian copy of a Zeiss 50mm Sonnar, and I’m going out with it later this week.

This is with the Helios-103 lens that came with the Kiev. (FP-4, 1/15, f2, available dark at a coffee shop)

It’s not at all a BAD lens and I’d probably be quite happy with it, but by repute the prewar Sonnars were/are a whole other level of portrait lens, and so I have to try one. By the by both the new lens and the original camera came from Yuri at Fedka who’s got an excellent reputation, which my experience would seem to bear out.

More pix later. Or sooner. I’ve a couple more I’ll possibly put up tonight or tomorrow depending…

As soon as it stops raining, let’s hit the streets.

Say what you will about Houston, we have some stranger things going on from time to time… like teams of people in dragon boats, basically war canoes with fancy figureheads, paddling down the bayou. It’s a big festival, right at Allen’s Landing in the very heart of downtown, and depending on what else is going on it can draw a crowd… and it’s just not something you see every day.

It’s kind of fun, just a bunch of people out for a casual drift down the bayou….

Or maybe not.

Lock and load; let’s hit the streets.

Went to a sort of informal car club gathering the other night, and got my first look at the new US version of the Lotus Elise. It’s… different. And since I had my ditcam with the 17mm Tokina lens on it, I had to get a different sort of shot.

It’s a happy car. Looks like it’s probably about twelve kinds of a blast to drive, too. Can’t say I want one now, but there was a time I’d have been working my arse off to find money for one of those… maybe not in the GMAT red, something like a nice traditional SilverGrey or even BRG… yeah. That’d be cool.

Lock and load; let’s hit the streets.

but that’s partly due to the fact that it’s what I happen to have scanned. I’m working on several other things too…

so there will be other stuff soonish.

Sorry for the delay; what with one thing and another, new computer, new camera, illness in the family, it just went weirdish for a while. I’m fairly sure (watch me stick my whatnots in the wringer here) things have stabilized at least an eensy bit here…

so let’s get back to the pictures….

Formosa Evergreen Dancers, a seniors group, in performance at the Chinese Cultural Center here in Houston, some time back. Normally I like my horizons level but once in a while I go weirdo on you, just without warning. It can happen.

It’s a big world out there. Lock and load; let’s hit the streets.

Someday I’m going to get some really good shots of dancers. Until then…

Lock and load; let’s hit the streets…

Okay, I can hear it now… “Rys, why are you showing us footprint pictures?”

It’s like this, folks… that’s a footprint in SNOW, and it’s on MY BALCONY. In HOUSTON. There’s SNOW sticking to things in HOUSTON. This is a once-in-a-gazillion-years event. It don’t happen.

So. Pictures.

If I can, assuming there’s not too many bent automobiles on the streets tomorrow morning, I’m going to go out and grab a few shots.. but there aren’t probably ten people in Houston with tire chains or snow-driving experience, and while I’ve driven in snow a little I don’t have chains either, so it’s a chancy thing and will depend heavily on circumstances. I’ll try but I may wind up hoofin’ it….

Lock and Load… let’s hit the streets.. (Gently, please, it’s a catchphrase, not a driving tip…)