Happy Accident?

Hi all:

Well, it certainly has been a while! I didn't realize how long it had been until I logged on and saw that my last post was at the beginning of February! Sorry for the delay guys - things got really busy all of sudden, which I suppose beats the alternative!

A little Social D. for my blogging pleasure today. Not necessarily because I had a craving for it, but mainly because the headphones I had in my computer case are crap and I needed something loud enough to register on these things!

So, in my last post I talked about shooting a roll of film per month. Since then, I've actually shot 3! How's that for exceeding one's goal? They've already been processed and it looks like there's some good stuff there - I've got the images with super-scanner/imaging guru Tom A., and I'll probably have 'em back in a week or two.

Funny story though - the film I shot was from a batch of expired stuff my friend Brian sent me. Brian was an independent producer until recently (he just got a new gig) and I served on the PACA panel with him this past fall. While at the conference he mentioned that he had a bunch of old film in various formats, and asked if I would like it. Free film? You don't have to ask me twice!

Well, the film showed up a couple of weeks ago, and when he said expired, he wasn't kidding. I'm guessing some of it was 10 years old - I didn't even recognize some of the packaging, which leads me to the funny part of the story. I saw he included some 35 mm. T-MAX film in there, which I was excited about - so I shot a roll of it, but after rewinding it (which I have to do by hand in a darkroom, since my antique plastic camera has no rewind mechanism), I pulled it out of the camera and noticed it was not Kodak T-MAX, but rather Kodak COLOR-MAX! For the first time in my career, I didn't know what was in my camera.

More importantly, this was the first time I shot color film through this particular camera. But, as I said earlier, it processed fine despite the age, and some of the images looked good, so we'll see what happens. Up until now, beginning with b/w film has been a crucial part of my latest body of work, but who knows where this little wrench in the plan will take me? Worst comes to worst, I can always convert them to grayscale if need be.

On the gallery side, I dropped off some older work for a new show at the gallery in Easton, PA I mentioned in my earlier post. Who knows - maybe they can do something with them. I still like all of them, which for me, is a rarity with my older work. I also broke my rule and approached a new gallery in Miami about my latest body of work. They're not actively seeking new artists, but the director liked what she saw and she wants a price list and some JPEG's, so I'll probably oblige. Things like that have a habit of coming full circle eventually. Still no news from Chi-town on the group show this month that I was supposed to be in. I'll probably need to bag it if I ever do actually hear from them.

In other news, I was in NYC this past Tuesday to do some networking, and spent some time with my pal Kim - a talented photo editor, photographer and all-around cool chick. She just started a blog too, so check it out: http://putitonyourkite.blogspot.com/

Other than that, just trying to stay sane with all these strange weather swings and a house full of sick people. Happy March and more to come soon!


-Marc