On Sunday, I was out with some other LF folks taking a visit to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens (one of the least well known parts of the National Park system, very much off the beaten track), shooting some of my remaining Kodak HIE 4x5. I was taking the other folks to see the river overlook when I slipped on some wet grass on a downhill slope. My body went one way, my ankle, a different way. POP! I now have a nasty sprain, my ankle is the size of an orange, and I'm on crutches. The worst part of it...

TheFlyingCamera

Well, I had to take my darkroom out of commission for over a month - I had some waterproofing work that had to be done in my basement, and the workmen displaced the stuff that was stored on the wet wall side of the basement into my darkroom. The darkroom is small when empty - 7' x 8'. With the normal working gear in it, there's a 2 1/2' x 7' walkway between the sink and the enlargers/UV unit/paper storage. With all the stuff moved in, there was NO walkway at all. Then, with the construction work,...

TheFlyingCamera

I found a studio to share outside of my house, finally! The price isn't cheap, but it's a lot better than what I would have paid to get my own space - $380 a month, plus utilities. It is close to public transit, and it is shared with three other photographers. I'll finally be able to advertise with a business address, and I'll be able to have models in to shoot without needing to do government clearance level background checks. Now I just have to move my gear in, and convince the other photographers...

TheFlyingCamera

I'm sitting here at Artomatic, doing my last volunteer shift during deinstallation. The space looks very different with half the art remaining, and little debris piles here and there where people haven't finished cleaning up. Many of the artists who haven't removed their work still have the poems written for them stuck to their walls. There is this "poet" who goes through the show every year and writes a little stanza or two for each artist's exhibit. She deserves a lot of credit for tackling...

TheFlyingCamera

The previous weekend, I did a little wet-plate demo for some interested folks at Artomatic, the big exhibit at which I've got some work hanging. Well, one of the students at my demo went back to tell his college instructor about my demo, and now I've got an invite to repeat it for the college class at Northern Virginia Community College. I might also be teaching/demo-ing platinum/palladium for them. This is really great, as it helps to redeem some of the sting from getting rejected from grad schools...

TheFlyingCamera