What's been on my mind lately? Read on...
I really enjoyed this fascinating article from the Times about a psychology experiment performed on the subway. That’s my kind of science…
I also got a kick out of this (well annotated) collection of bad high school senior portraits. Good stuff.
Finally, here’s one of the best of the pictures I took recently in Ithaca – check it out. Still haven’t gotten the medium format pictures printed or scanned any better, but I will soon.
I managed to avoid visiting Electoral-vote.com for almost a week after hearing about it from Rif. Unfortunately, I’m now addicted, and will probably lose sleep on a nightly basis worrying about who’s gonna win.
We had a great time camping this weekend at Beartown State Forest in Western Mass. Although we managed to get a campsite without one, reservations are recommended – especially nice looking are sites number 8, 10, 11 and 12. Surprisingly absent out there, however, was much in the way of wildlife. We saw no big birds and no mammals bigger than chipmunks.
Good news: the light leak in the Rolleiflex is completely gone! Apparently, the detective work paid off and it was exactly as I suspected (the second red window on the bottom of the camera). The pictures from Ithaca look spectacular!
Zona did a great job with the development, and the four hour turnaround time is much better than the five days the place in Davis Square takes. It’s tempting to find a local darkroom where I could make my own prints from the negatives, but I think that’s more than I want to get into right now.
Unfortunately, I didn’t actually get prints made (Zona wanted another three days to do that, and I was impatient), and my negative scanner doesn’t scan medium format negatives, so the only images I have are from putting the negatives on a flatbed scanner. Gross as they are, you can see them here, and at least get a sense that they’re better than before.
[ A note to the nice band I took pictures of at the Ithaca Farmers Market: I’ll probably get some prints made eventually. If you want copies, drop me an email with a mailing address. And the scanned in version above really doesn’t do the pictures that include you justice – they look great! ]
From the man who brought you Defective Yeti, a new website was recently born: Tricks of the Trade. Matthew Baldwin collects tips from all sorts of people and posts them to the website, a la his article at The Morning News.
You can check out the trick I sent in, posted today (September 7, 2004) under the category “Engineer”, here.
It was a whirlwind weekend of weddings, among other things. Both my cousin Rebekah and college housemate Amanda were married on Sunday afternoon (at about the same time, not to each other, about 300 miles apart). I spent the better part of the weekend in Ithaca, swimming under waterfalls, visiting the Farmers Market, and touring lower Cayuga Lake.
I took a bunch of pictures at the market (and elsewhere along the way) with the old camera – those photos should be up here in a few days. I’m hopeful the light leak issue has been solved.
On Sunday, I made my way back to Boston for wedding numero deux, and en route discovered a great restaurant in West Stockbridge, MA called The Village Oven.
It’s likely to be a busy frisbee week as both Fall Hat League and Fall Club League start up. I haven’t exercised enough lately, so I’m pretty excited.