Ballistic Photon

E100G

Sun, 12 May 2013 03:54:00 -0500

Central Camera proved itself to be shockingly useful when I found boxes of E100G(discontinued as of last year) in their cooler. The discontinuation of E100G was extremely upsetting for me.

This brings me to something I’ve thought about a lot. Every time I mention color film, especially that I enjoy E100G, people start frothing at the mouth about Kodachrome. Then I have to do the whole song and dance about how, yes, it’s a tragedy that Kodachrome is gone. It represented the golden age of film photography and lasted for 75 years. The death of Kodachrome was very representative of the state of film photography in general. It’s a sad thing, Kodachrome was a beautiful film, but so was E100G.

I could have shot Kodachrome if I wanted, though it was discontinued by the time I started shooting film, but there were other reasons why I didn’t really care to shoot it even if I could. Here is a long-winded explanation:

Kodachrome was K-14 process, which was extremely complex and required tons of equipment to develop, which also meant that it was very expensive for labs to develop Kodachrome, especially as film started to become less and less common. It was also tremendously toxic. Also the chemistry was not something an individual could buy. Only specific labs could get the chemistry from Kodak.

Long before I started shooting anything at all, few developers in the world were still working with consistently fresh chemistry for K-14M(the final iteration of the K-14 Process). Film sales were plummeting and labs were closing down all over the country as a result. Labs were increasingly unable to use all their chemistry for K-14M before it began to expire, which meant that many labs began using replenisher to slow down the expiration until it was cost-effective to obtain new chemistry. Most photographers had also switched over to E-6 Process film.

As time went on, the development results of Kodachrome became more and more inconsistent because of labs using replenished chemistry. People say this isn’t true, but that’s because they’re not thinking about when there were still lots of labs developing Kodachrome. Eventually the amount of labs around the world doing K-14 Process began to diminish, which meant that the remaining labs got more film to develop, which meant they could keep fresher chemistry and the results became more consistent again.

However, I started getting photography around 2009, the same year that Kodak stopped making Kodachrome. The following year, the last roll of Kodachrome was developed by the only lab in the world that still developed K-14.

Too Long; Didn’t Read version: I didn’t shoot Kodachrome because it was pretty much dead by the time I started taking pictures. One lab in the world was developing Kodachrome, and some rail foamer took $15K of his fathers money so that they could develop 1851 rolls of nothing but train pictures. Yes, I said 1851 rolls of train pictures. Also because I just preferred the characteristics of E100G. Kodachrome was beautiful, the colors were lovely, the images were soft and idyllic, which was never the look I was going for.

Testing out the Radian motion timelapse device.

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:13:20 -0500

Testing out the Radian motion timelapse device.

And then I forgot my wallet at home

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 20:41:00 -0600

And then I forgot my wallet at home

Me gpoy 2013 whatever

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 22:41:34 -0600

gpoy 2013 whatever

http://soundinsect.com/ This is my other and far more exciting blog:Shockingly, it’s not a...

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 14:06:25 -0600

http://soundinsect.com/

This is my other and far more exciting blog:
Shockingly, it’s not a porn blog. I post sci-fi/cyberpunk/architecture/fashion/design and other related things. Go add it!

This is me wearing a mismatched scarf and coat. Unfortunately, I...

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 16:50:10 -0600

This is me wearing a mismatched scarf and coat. Unfortunately, I was picking up the coat the scarf goes with from a friend who I had accidentally left it with. These things matter to me.

Now it’s time to begin the conceptualizing of a new project will likely involve a years worth...

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 04:09:17 -0600

Now it’s time to begin the conceptualizing of a new project will likely involve a years worth of work.

If you know anyone who is struggling with depression and/or suicidal ideation, please get them help....

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:25:59 -0600

If you know anyone who is struggling with depression and/or suicidal ideation, please get them help. I just lost a great friend who was a wonderful person and the world is a lesser place without her. I knew she wasn’t well and I fear I didn’t do enough to help her. Now she’s gone forever and it cannot be undone. Idiots call suicide selfish, but the reality is that I cannot imagine the emotional pain that drove her to this.

Again, if you know anyone who is struggling, please help them.

Goodbye, Nikky.

Photo

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 17:55:00 -0600

Photos of myself and colleagues during 2012. This has been an...

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 21:04:54 -0600

Photos of myself and colleagues during 2012. This has been an interesting year.

I desperately need to acquire one of these bags from ONA. I...

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:51:30 -0600

I desperately need to acquire one of these bags from ONA. I think I will do so next month.

Photo

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 18:56:48 -0600

A few screenshots from my presentation on November 29th for the...

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 23:02:00 -0600

A few screenshots from my presentation on November 29th for the Chicago Photographic Society. I spoke about composition to over a hundred photographers. Instead of talking about composition in photography, I showed examples of composition in cinema. While they are quite similar, composition in cinema is more complex and I felt it was removed enough that it would force people out of viewing it strictly within the framework of photography.

Just a couple of older photos of myself.

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 17:08:18 -0500

Just a couple of older photos of myself.

I randomly select frames from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner...

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:41:00 -0500

I randomly select frames from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and overlaid the Rule of Thirds onto them. The results are pretty stunning and you can see how finely crafted these shots are. While not every shot conforms to the rule of thirds, as it is not absolutely necessary, the framing is consistently outstanding. This film is rare in how multiple subjects, environmental/architectural detail, negative space, and the use of light play such a critical role in the cinematography.

I made this from every twelfth frame of the film Alien by Ridley...

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 02:43:04 -0500

I made this from every twelfth frame of the film Alien by Ridley Scott.

I made this from every twelfth frame of the film Blade Runner by...

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 02:37:29 -0500

I made this from every twelfth frame of the film Blade Runner by Ridley Scott.

This film was so visually stunning. It is unfortunate that...

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 04:05:43 -0500

This film was so visually stunning. It is unfortunate that Lindelof is not up to par with Ridley Scott, but this film showed that Ridley Scott is still one of the greatest masters of mise en scène.

After today’s video work is done, I’m going to start to familiarize myself with Nuke....

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 10:53:20 -0500

After today’s video work is done, I’m going to start to familiarize myself with Nuke. I’ll continue working in After Effects, but sometimes Nuke and a node based workflow would be my preference.

One more from today.

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 03:14:00 -0500

One more from today.