This is a Twin Lens Reflex camera with the top lens for the viewfinder and the bottom for the picture. It shoots medium format (120) film creating 6×6 cm negatives. The results, assuming this thing works, would be like going from watching TV on basic cable to watching it in high definition. So here I go with the true square format, and I should have my results back by the end of the week - but they’re only being processed, not scanned. If they actually turned out alright, then I plan to have the negative strip scanned to CD so I can post some frames on the web. Here’s hoping, because this has the potential to really kick up the clarity and detail of my pictures…

I’ll spare everybody the gory details on the camera such as the specs and such, but if anyone’s curious, I’d be happy to entertain any questions about the TLR in the comments.

For a cool 78 million clams, you could have your very own. Torpedoes not included (I think…).

That doesn’t mean that anything’s probable. The media will try to preserve the illusion of a toss-up; you’ll keep seeing “Obama Leads, But Voters Have Concerns” headlines. But when Democrats are winning blood-red congressional districts in Mississippi and Louisiana, when the Republican president is down to 28 percent, when the economy is tanking and world affairs keep breaking Obama’s way, it shouldn’t be heresy to recognize that McCain needs an improbable series of breaks. Analysts get paid to analyze, and cable news has airtime to fill, so pundits have an incentive to make politics seem complicated. In the end, though, it’s usually pretty simple. Everyone seems to agree that 2008 is a change election. Which of these guys looks like change?

This explains almost exactly (though not entirely) how I feel about the media’s approach to this election cycle. Could it really be a close race? Maybe. But if it wasn’t you’d hardly know. Remember when it was practically fact that Obama had knocked Clinton out of the primary race, but the media still clung to every last vote as if there was some chance Hillary would find a way?

I think Grunwald’s right - unless there’s some dramatic mistake or world event or who knows what else, this election looks pretty locked up for the junior senator from Illinois. But a done-deal doesn’t make for good ratings or page views or sales of those dreadfully partisan books (from both sides) you see in the center tables at Barnes and Noble during election season.
(via Gruber)

Ghislain Poirier - Hit & Red (official) from departement on Vimeo.

“Hit and Red” comes from Montreal musician Ghislain Poirier who seems to specialize in bumpin’ beets.

I’ve been trying to sort out my thoughts on creative processes for some time now, and I’ve particularly attempted to reconcile my perceived creative impotence with the strong creative urges I feel. Well I can tell you now that I still haven’t sorted out said thoughts, but I figured starting some writing on the topic would be as good a springboard as any to get some of these ideas out of my head. At least after this I can look back on what I wrote and start to filter through that which sounds inane, unclear, or nonsensical and refine my understanding. Here I go, diving right in.

From my earliest memories (hinted at in some earlier posts, no doubt) there’s been this great struggle in my mind between the left and right brain, the creative and the academic. By the age of four I was building Lego objects, and identifying dinosaurs by their right names at the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. As I continued through childhood I could just as likely be found drawing aircraft and cartoons as watching Mr. Wizard. It wasn’t until I was in the middle of high school that I felt I might need to choose between the two sides of my personality (an errant notion, to be sure, but what I thought none-the-less). I figured I could keep my creative inclinations as hobbies while I pursued more “practical” roads in the sciences, so by my junior year I decided engineering was where I was headed.

From the start, though, I stuck with right-brained activities in college. I may have abandoned drawing at this point, but I still played guitar and had recently discovered an affinity for singing. Though I changed majors to information systems halfway through school, I kept playing music, and my introduction to Valerie (before she was Mrs. Warshaw) also opened my eyes to the beauty of architecture, design, handcraft, modern art, and so much of the visual spectrum I’d missed out on. By the time I’d graduated and entered the work force, a great deal of my attention was absorbed by the products of artistic expression, be it theater, painting, music, or furniture design.

But something still felt like it was missing…

You see, participating in artistic pursuits doesn’t equal creativity. The ability to play the guitar is not the same as the ability to write music forthe guitar. Appreciation for photography is not the same as having an eye for visual composition. Now a new layer of complexity had come into focus for my artistic frustration. I not only wanted to be immersed in the world of creativity; I wanted to create.

The problem is, as I see it, my lack of real creative ability - at least so far. My attempts to realize songs or lyrics failed miserably in the form of cheesy rhyme schemes and trite chord progressions. My feeble adventures trying to return to pencil drawing did little more than to remind me of the chasm that separated my skill from real talent. Now I play at photography, but I have yet to see how that plays out. We’ll see. I still haven’t taken any pictures that mean anything. Most of my work to date may as well be snap shots taken with a quality lens.

All of this makes me wonder what it is that develops into expressive ability within artists of various types. Is it poverty? Hardship? Mental instability? I’ve had a pretty easy life, so perhaps…No, certainly it’s no list of causes so simple, but it’s tempting for me to associate artistic greatness with suffering or heartache.

The funny thing to me is how this post itself serves as evidence to my point. You see, I’d intended to somehow connect my creative tendency with my history and my experience of certain art forms, but instead I’ve spent half the writing on my formative years and self-consciously abbreviated the real crux of what I wanted to say. At least I can say that prose was never one of those creative pursuits which I, well, pursued.

Anyway, I’ve written over 700 words already - far longer than my average post - so I’m sure many of my readers have lost interest by now. At any rate, I’ll never give up my search for real artistic experience, and if I’m lucky, some of it may be my own.

There were only four of us students tonight, and I was one of only two who’d bothered to have fresh negatives. So while I spent much of the session making some prints (after a contact sheet, of course), the other students mostly played around with photograms and rudimentary solarization. The teacher sat outside the darkroom reading a book.

No assignment (no surprise), but we’re apparently to look out for an email from the instructor tomorrow. Two Mondays left, and I can put this half-waste of a class behind me and start looking forward to the spring when I hope to take an intermediate class somewhere.

And for the two of you who know what I’m talking about, keep yer collective trap shut

This glorious animated short not only features one of my favorite Sigur Rós songs (Takk…’s “Hoppípolla”), but highlights a sweet blend of traditional stop-motion handicraft and digital artistry. Carlos Lascano describes the process (and is gracious enough to include photos) on his website.

I’m no Luddite (and in fact, I’m a gadget freak), but part of me will be sad to see the eventual disappearance of the tangible implements of photography, an art form (in its practical incarnation) younger than these United States.