Friday, February 25, 2011

On the Irish and Desirable Veggies

Oh, come on. Who doesn't talk about the Irish and desirable veggies every once in awhile?

It's a story I have to tell because I was thoroughly amused by it, and today was a hard day to amuse my unhealthy self. My Art History professor was showing us photographs from Edward Weston, and someone in the class said, "I don't get it. None of his nudes are sexy. They all look like landscapes!" The professor said to him, "Wait 'til you see what he does with vegetables. Have you ever seen a sexy pepper?" What was just as amusing was that I immediately knew exactly what photo she was talking about. How messed up is that?

You can't tell me you don't love this pepper.

On another note, my Photography class went terribly yet amazingly. I snapped 10-12 photos this morning to finish up the roll of film I wanted to develop, and one of them was quite pleasing to me. I've been trying to practice frame-in-frame shots since that's something I've never really gotten into, and I may or may not have gotten a nice one. The problem is that I forgot to print it. Here's why.

First, I should have checked my reels before I went dark. The two sides of each reel were not matching, so they didn't meet up quite right. I couldn't get my film onto those reels for the life of me. Then, I learned that my particular darkroom doorknob was backwards the hard way-- it should be locked on the outside but unlocked on the inside, yet someone opened up my door while I was in there. It was locked on my side, but whoever opened my door a little spilled light all over my roll.

Once I finally did manage to maneuver the roll onto its reel, I began the developing process. My tank, however, decided that it didn't like its light seal, and the thing fell open even though it had been sealed just fine while I was agitating. Once again, my roll of film was exposed to light prematurely. I asked the professor what he suggested, but he said I might as well trash the roll. Twice exposed is pretty much a death sentence, right?

Wrong! Somehow, that roll managed to come out perfectly fine. Talk about luck of the Irish!!! Even Professor Williams couldn't believe it. However, after all this trouble, I'd used up almost all my class time. I spent the rest of it trying to print a few photos from the beginning of the new roll. How stupid of me. They're all photos from the Photowalk post, only taken with the SLR instead. You've seen them!

Instead of posting my photo of the day TODAY, I'll give you one you haven't seen yet. It was taken last year when I was just learning what White Balance was and how to tweak it. Somehow, it's still a favorite of my friends'. I hope you like it, too!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You don't need dark room after loading the roll into the tank rite ??
U r shooting only B&W film ??
I like the tone in the shot.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes mistakes are a learning tool - other times they are magical. This shot is magical. Never would have know it was a white blance mistake. Can you duplicate it?

Sounds like a frustrating day in the dark room and hey, I think that pepper is sexy.

xolexo said...

@thrviewfinder, Right. So when the light seal fell off, the film fell out into the lit room. :(
Yep! The color photography class isn't being offered until next year.
Thank you. :D


@Sandra, Thank you! :) I sure can. I actually use that blue setting more often than not in my room. At the time, I'd forgotten to take it off, and that's what happened.

Yeah, definitely frustrating, but I'm still happy with the results! :) And that pepper is definitely sexy.