His mouth is a carnivorous flower

His mouth is a carnivorous flower, originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

I've been holding this one back because its a little riskier, I guess. By which I mean if you take an uninteresting picture of some vines, oh well, but you aren't going to get the, "What the heck was he thinking?"

Yashica FX-3 Super 2000
Yashica lens 50 mm 1:1.9
Kodak Gold 200 film
Shutter 60, fstop 1.9

Cryptosnow

Cryptosnow, originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

Snow on leaves on patio, converted to grayscale and values manipulated in GIMP.

"Blind Spot" serial

I'm about out of pictures, for now. Oh, I took a bunch more, but the rest are mostly throw away. In the meantime...

Back to words. I'm publishing a short story on my website, a little bit each day. It's Blind Spot.

Thank you for the flowers. They were delicious.

Thank you for the flowers. They were delicious., originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

When you only have yourself for a subject.

Yashica FX-3 Super 2000
Yashica lens 50 mm 1:1.9
Kodak Gold 200 film
Shutter 60, fstop 1.9

Vine and drops

Vine and drops, originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

Yashica FX-3 Super 2000
Yashica lens 50 mm 1:1.9
Kodak Gold 200
Cropped square with GIMP
January 2008

Day after the snow.

I would speak

I would speak more than these emaciated words,
Which are finger prints on a window

at moments after i have dreamed

at moments after i have dreamed, originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

Yashica FX-3 Super 2000
Yashica lens 50 mm 1:1.9
Kodak Gold 200 film

Snow on leaves on patio

Snow on leaves on patio, originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

Yashica FX-3 Super 2000
Yashica lens, 50 mm 1:1.9
Kodak Gold 200 film
Winter 2008

Fence and snow

Fence and snow, originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

Yashica FX-3 Super 2000
Yashica lens, 50 mm 1:1.9
Kodak Gold 200 film
Winter 2008

When I decided to make photography a serious hobby, I thought I would be doing all black and white. I've always liked B & W best, and you can do your own darkroom thing pretty easily. When I started really sifting through Flickr, though, I found some photographers whose work I love, who take mostly color. So I decided not to be bigoted. I put a color roll in my camera.

Then it snowed. Ouch! Once I got over being bummed that we had snow and I didn't have B & W film, I went out and took my pictures. Turns out I like some of them.

With this one I'm flying in the face of conventional wisdom. One of the challenging parts to learn of all this is composition. Being a novice, I'm trying to learn the basics. One rule of thumb is don't put your center of interest in the center of the picture. The Rule of Thirds is suggested for figuring out where to put the center of interest.

This is the picture as I took it, and the knot hole is dead center. When I got the prints back and realized I'd done that, I cropped the picture several different ways, with the knot hole in the spots suggested by the Rule of Thirds. Didn't like them as much. I don't know if I'm being obtuse or not, but I like the rule breaking picture better.

Dusk

Dusk , originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

Yashica FX-3 Super 2000
Yashica lens 50 mm 1:1.9
Ilford 400 film
Shutter 60, fstop 2.8
January 2008, 5:30 pm 

Preggy Pic 1 (my love)

Preggy Pic 1 (my love), originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

I love this picture, but then I'm fond of the subject :-) Very quick, a snapshot, really. I happened to have the camera in my hands, and she humored me by posing for a few seconds. I dropped to one knee for a more interesting angle, rushed the focus and exposure, took the picture.

Glimpse of a parallel universe

Glimpse of a parallel universe, originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

Yashica FX-3 Super 2000
Yashica lens 50mm 1:1.9
Ilford 400 film

It was night. Our kitchen window.

I tried to get a similiar picture on the first roll. I made a mistake taking those that is a common mistake for me, not getting close enough to the subject. This roll I got much closer.

This one scanned from contact sheet. I admit that the reflection is more seeable after Photoshop. My introduction to layers. Every picture I scan in gets Photoshopped, but usually I'm trying to adjust it to look more like the original photo. This one I took more liberty with the brightness and contrast, to bring out the reflection more. Jae was a big help with that.

I'm discovering how much different digital images look on different monitors :-( 

Vegetable regulation

I had a dream last night that the state of New Mexico passed a law that all places that served food, any vegetable they offer on the menu, they must also offer in liquid form.

Glory Gone to Seed

Glory Gone to Seed, originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

Yashica FX-3 Super 2000
Yashica lens 50 mm 1:1.9
Ilford 400 film
shutter speed 125, fstop 5.6
4:15 pm, Jan 2008

I like contrasty. This time of the year our sideyard on the North side of the house gets intersting light and shadows in the late afternoon.

Resolution update

In order to keep my honest, public update.

First goal to maintain an average weight of 175 lbs. That one going fine. I've been a little under.

Second (new) goal, exercise at least 20 minutes each day. First couple weeks of January probably only missed 2 days. Then I got a cold which drug me down for about a week. Haven't got the momentum back yet. This is the week, though. Exercised Sunday, Monday, didn't Tuesday, did today.

Greyscale sky

This was a very experimental picture for me. Not obviously good lighting conditions. One of those overcast days where the sky is one smooth grey surface. I positioned the sun behind one trunk of the tree, and took essentially this same picture 5 times with different shutter speeds and aperatures. This is the only one that captured that gradient in the sky.

A people picture

I'm jumping the gun a little with this one. I haven't printed it yet except on the contact sheet. I've scanned it off the contact sheet and enlarged it. That doesn't make for best digital image quality. The thing is, is that people pictures are the most interesting. So here is this one. I guess I'm going to have to change templates so there is more room for the pictures. If you click on the image you'll get its page at Flickr. That one contains technical info about the image, such as film type, shutter speed, fstop.

First picture printed

scout, originally uploaded by Josh Gentry.

First picture I've had printed from my first roll of film taken with an all manual cameral. That also makes it he first roll taken with my Yashica. I'm happy with this one. The values in the picture are nice, with those rich tones that you get on film. It scanned pretty good, but wow you should see the photographic print. Great light coming through that window. When I was setting up for the shot I was intending to photograph the flowers. As I was getting ready to shoot, Scout jumped up in the window. I thought., what the heck, and was lucky to catch her in a good position.

This is our adopted stray, by the way. She jumps in the window when she wants us to let her in.