December 08, 2004
things are alright
I guess so.
Last night was another evening spent at my kitchen sink with a developing tank, my new bottle of hc110, and 15 rolls of film. While the negs were being washed I went through and organized my negative sheets-- about 15O or more. Maybe almost 2OO. On my wall I have taped up decent photocopies of the photos that I have printed and like best. So far there are about 20 from when I started count upon arrival in Japan in August. So I am roughly running a 1 in 1O average of good photos to rolls of film exposed. This is consistant with what I have come up with in the past. Keep in mind this output has been restricted by the fact that I don't print every single frame that I have exposed. This limits my "good" work as there are probably good photos in among all the bad ones, sweet little apples hidden in the mess of all those negatives. Printing everything to 11x14 would be wonderful but I lack the funding for such research. Therefore I have had to come up with more resourceful ways to edit from my negatives...
Senmatsu jr. high has spent a million dollars building a new structure for the purpose of teaching english. On the first floor of Ambition Hall we have a screening room with a new sony projector suspended from the ceiling, and a movie screen that descends from above that is flanked on either side with new bose speakers. At the front of the room we have a podium packed with all sorts of electronic contraptions- a region free dvd player, a vcr, cd, md player and a satellite receptor which brings us cnn and the bbc into the room.
On top of this intelligent table is one of those overhead projector cameras, and it is with this device that I have Found Something Interesting. The camera in the projector can zoom in quite close. In fact, it can zoom in to where a single 35mm frame of film can be projected to a width of almost 2 meters across on screen. On the control panel, there is a button marked Positive/Negative.
With the push of the button my negatives digitally become positives and it gives me the means to screen my negatives like slides with nary a sheet of photo paper involved. When I come across a picture that bothers me I can put a chair in the middle of the room, then sit and think about it for a while.
So you do all of your developing in your room? I was thinking about trying to do some in the bathroom of my apartment after I move in.
That projector sounds awesome.