I got some 120mm film back, and as soon as Chris has the time to scan it I can show you! I’m so excited!
In the meantime, here are some more frames from my marvelous time in Los Angeles. I cannot express enough how ENORMOUS but awesome it was.
Tag Archives: Film
Flora
Going South to California I was astounded by all the green.
Montana is essentially covered with mud, ice, or snow for 6 months of every year and the field of color around me seems to dim. It was almost shocking to feel warm green grass on my bare feet on a lawn in early March! My time there was spent marveling at all the growing things- orange trees, birds of paradise, succulents and cacti taller than me. Of course, I was allergic to it all, and quickly had to go on Benadryl but that didn’t matter.
Being around living things, whether they be flora or fauna, will always be my favorite. I love nature and all she has to offer, and it seems like every surface was teeming with something! There were dozens of bees swarming over the birds of paradise, having a feast, and there were wasps bothering you at breakfast.
Also side note: The squirrels at Scripps were enormous. About 3 times fatter than the Montana ones (which are downright scraggly creatures). They were sleek and bold and ate so well! As a result, there were some gorgeous and sneaky hawks perched in places you wouldn’t see right away that would quickly swoop over the bushes towards their well-fed prey. It was really neat to be sipping coffee outside the dining hall and see a bird of prey just come down so silently. I loved it.
Now I’m back in the land of ice, snow, and mud, dying of a cold in my bed. My car is dead from something (battery hopefully) and I might be medicated up to my non-existent gills but I don’t think I’ll forget my lovely foray into such a warm, lush place.
Heading West soon!
In three weeks or so I’ll be on an airplane again.
Thank goodness!
Without travel I feel as though my soul shrinks. Or is warped, at least a bit.
This time I’m going somewhere I’ve never been: Los Angeles!
My thesis piece is there- a beautiful enconchado that I will do a post on soon!
I’m staying with good friends Chelsea and Comrade Kate and the last time we all were together in a city was a roadtrip through Montana, Idaho, and Washington to Seattle and Olympia. Harlan tagged along and upon getting to Seattle declared, “I hate cities!” at which point we all wondered why he had come along to a trip to a city. Nonetheless, we had a blast, eating our way through seafood and staying with Chelsea’s wonderful grandparents.
I’m excited to see these two soon in an entirely foreign environment to me!
I haven’t died!
I’m here. STILL! I built a website, but am having a horrid time buying the domain name I want and NEED so…I’ve been doing that.
I finished finals, I’ve been with friends and family. I got 2 rolls of film developed from MONTHS ago, it was very neat to see some of the frames I’d shot that I’d forgotten about!
There’s a few from Chico when I went with Chris and we took a backwoods drive, a few from car camping and eating chili on cold mornings around a fire he built, a few from my sister and I on Thanksgiving, and pie, and dogs. I haven’t been photographing as much but this is changing! I swear!
I hope your holidays were magnificent! I got asked quite a bit yesterday at the bank and at the photo center if I got a good amount of stuff- which felt so odd. I’m not going to pretend I’m the most selfless person ever, but it would be nice to talk about family and the moments, not the stuff! What was your favorite moment over the holiday season? Do you have any glorious plans for New Years?
ALSO: Even though I haven’t been able to get my domain name, here is the link to my current website: http://krop.com/somethingdutch
Please visit- all feedback is welcome! Thank you, lovely readers! I’ve reached over 500 followers with this blog, which means SO MUCH. That number may not seem very large but to me it’s awesome to think that 500 people out there thought enough to follow.
New format and lovely memories
Hello lovely readers! I’ve been ignoring this blog. I’ve been really into cleaner designs and I realized that instead of looking to make a new site when I had loved this one for so long I could literally just find a new theme. 10 minutes later, BOOM! It was done. Without an actual boom sound, of course.
What did I do today? I ate lots of candy. I chopped wood with a hatchet in a cashmere sweater. I took pictures and had a milkshake. I sat in front of a fireplace. I ate pie. It was glorious. I also spent time with a warm sleepy Labrador and my lovely famiglia.
However, since I’m a slave to film (i.e. haven’t invested in a good DSLR/have no money/when I have money it goes to rent and food not cameras), any pictures of pie or candy or whatever else I took pictures of will have to wait. For at least a week. CVS swears they can get it to me in a week. Hmmm….
So, here are pictures of what winter in Montana look like on bitterly cold mornings in backyards and front yards and around town. Things are covered in frost, a frozen sort of fog blankets the valleys, and your world becomes a little more beautiful and brittle. These are from 2010 when I was home from Switzerland for a month. My mother had recently given me her Olympus OM-20 with an f/1.8 lens and I think I made some lovely images.
I’m not a city person but I had a good time in one once.
I am not good at operating in New York. Or Boston. Or most cities. I act like I am- I am merely very skilled at covering up the fact that I am very, very lost. Mostly because once I reach a place with any significant population (i.e. over 50,000) I seem to be consistently bad at figuring out where the hell I am.
My lovely aunts hosted me in Connecticut over spring break this last year and I was able to head into the city several times. Each time was it’s own unique perilous journey. One morning I met Exa at the train station, and I wanted to cry seeing her! Another time I successfully got into the city but was supposed to meet an old friend from high school at a vegan Japanese restaurant.
I was given an address but since at that point I owned no smart phone I merely had to guess. I was almost late, I was confused, and I had spent 90 minutes circling blocks, trying to gauge where I was. Finally, I hailed a taxi and got in. Giving him the address, I expected to feel relief. Upon repeating it though, he says, “Listen, it’s literally two blocks from here dahlin’. I can take you there but you’re pretty much already there.” I refused to walk any further and rode the taxi two blocks.
Another time I went into the city and rode the subway to the Met. However, I was so relieved to finally be on the right line I fell alseep in my giant black rain slicker and woke up in the Bronx some time later after having passed the Met long long ago. Oops. I simply stayed on the train, and waited until I got back down to the Central Park ish area.
New York was lovely. I ate fantastically well- noodles, mimosas, whoopie pies, Italian food, French breakfasts, sushi, you name it! However, my appetite was fueled by the pure ridiculousness and stress of being in New York. I love cities for a jaunt or for a bit but I think I’ve slowly come to realize that heavily populated areas deprive me of the greenery and forests I take for granted. I feel claustrophobic and yet lonelier than ever. I love being able to go into one for a bit to visit museums and hear the multiple languages and see the culturally different but for me there is nothing like getting up and hearing the trees scrape against my window and be surrounded by mountains, or driving for only an hour before I hit pristine streams and campsites rarely visited. I like it when my traffic jam is caused by deer in the road.
Topsy turvy curves of life and changes
Fall is officially here. It even snowed a bit- Montana can be so dramatic sometimes. One weekend it’s shorts and sunscreen and the next you’ve got on wool socks and the space heater nearby.
I finally got my film developed, 3 glorious rolls. Some from mid-August forward, almost a month and a half of adventures!
Included is an evening where grouse hunting failed and a sunset was witnessed from a ridge and we ran through a lightning storm and afterwards ate pizza. Another is a pie I ate alone in a small Montana town after I got lost (which seems like it couldn’t happen but did to me). The pie itself was heavenly, the space was quaint and lace-trimmed, and I read a National Geographic from the 1980’s while I consumed the delicious peach-honey pie. A morning hike solo on the first morning of fall is included as well- it was a beautiful morning that I won’t forget for a long time. I took Chris to the Cateye because I have had lovely experiences there but this time it was so sad. My pie was a dry and rather pathetic thing and although Chris got a huge plate of food it wasn’t really that wondrous. Another night bowling happened and I wore a skirt and knee high socks and did a horrible job and laughed a lot.
Not pictured are dinners made with Kristin and Emily, study sessions in coffee houses, the dullness of work, the lovely cloud movements that hang around the mountains, and the other infinite number of moments where I wish I’d lugged around my camera.
Film
I went to Yellowstone and saw an enormous smoke plume.
We ate cheeseburgers.
I like running my hands over old glass bottles.
A weekend in Pburg of being lost, more lost, and sleeping and eating pie and being with awesome people.
And other lovely life things.
I’m sorry I am not more descriptive. I’ve been devouring books and living and making cake and terrible cookies and trying to not succumb to the ease of making Ramen every night.
Smidgens
Little parts of the Cape.
A sunset in Provincetown, a comedy show with some seriously awesome people, Exa on the beach and candids taken by others. Flower bushes, inns, pale legs, seafood on the gas stove, and poppy bunches.
The Cape is quiet and windy and humid. Your sheets feel damp, lightning storms make lovely outlines in your window. The harbor reeks at low tide and the sea gulls ruthlessly stalk the beach goers, eyeing coolers of food. Rose bushes in the beach dunes let off the most subtle smell and the slippery green on the rocks squishes between your toes.
Bits and bobs of Seattle- West and downtown
Little bits of our trip. Emily and I had to navigate downtown. We watched sailboats in West Seattle and wandered around. A gloriously fat pug waddled down near Pikes and a gorgeous Rolls Royce gleamed on a street.
I love Seattle when it’s sunny. I normally go in March and spend some time there but it’s always rainy or cloudy and gloomy. While there is something very peaceful about the quietness of clouds (almost blanketing) I do love sun.
Anyway, I’m so sorry I haven’t been updating a lot- I started my job again, and we’ve got lots of fires happening, so it’s been quite hectic! I hope you all are swell as can be!
Success in a small but significant form.
Today I developed my first ever roll of black and white film by myself. Although I’ve photographed for years using SLRs, and have a keen grasp on the concept of developing (the science, the method of using developer then fixer then a stop bath, etc.) I had never done it with 35mm film before!
Seeing my crisp little negatives come off the spool, with a few bad spots aside, I felt quite proud, even elated.
(Not my negatives, click through for image source)
A city I dearly truly miss: Zurich, Switzerland
It’s a place for day trips, for wandering, for cobblestone streets, good noodles, Luxemburgerli, and gorgeous views. Trams in admiral blue whiz efficiently, the people wander, couples relax on benches, and the Limmat river cuts the city neatly into pieces.
The Kunsthaus stole my heart, and I fell in love with the Grössmunster. Seeing Mondrian on a bare wall and being able to wander in an early morning haze made me feel ethereal and weightless. Regardless of the fact that I couldn’t afford to shop or stop in any of the boutiques, not to mention that my Deutsch is of the most rudimentary sort (I can order food, curse, and ask for things like tickets for the train or how to get to the cemetery), Zurich is still a city that I find myself loving.
The multi-lingual book stores beckoned me, the crowded energy in the Sprüngli cafes, and the quiet walk near the Bahnhofstraße all managed to spin me into a sort of fantasy world. When I miss Switzerland, I miss the crisp spring air of Zurich and the knowledge that I didn’t need to be anywhere, that I could go anywhere at all.
What a place.
I hate gin! Or, Hanging Valley, the hike that ended up being ridiculously hard.
First, let me preface this by saying that I’m in decent shape. Not GREAT shape, but I hike and walk and run and all that healthy stuff.
Ahem. Anyway, Kristin and I had been wanting to hike Hanging Valley for awhile- since about June, in fact. We got up there at about 9:30 this morning after getting bagels, and we promptly found a trail that wasn’t really a trail. Eventually finding the RIGHT trail, we marched. Uphill. A lot.
Hanging Valley is a round trip of 12 miles through dry timber. There is not a lot of gorgeous scenery, and the trail is mostly steeply uphill for the first two miles. For us, it was also really hot- we were literally dripping sweat after about 15 minutes because of the temperature.
Basically, the combination of steep grade, temperature, and our lack of enthusiasm for the less-than-spectacular scenery led to us only making 6 of those 12 miles. The end of Hanging Valley supposedly leads to a 300 foot drop off with views that are breathtaking, but we didn’t hold our breath to find out.
So, if you are in the mood for some serious 12 miles of hiking, go for it! If you’re like us, you might just reconsider…after all, 200 meters down the road is the Trout Creek Trail. Our code phrase for turning around was, “I HATE GIN!”, which we both exclaimed after reaching a point that was dry and depressing.
Celebration
Some pictures from a fireworks show that accompanied a beautiful symphony in late July. I apologize that my blogging has been so sporadic: at times, it hardly feels worth blogging my life.
My life has become a schedule, something I loathe. School starts again soon, though, and I’ll be moving into my cramped tiny apartment bedroom. I’m nervous about living with people I don’t know very well, but am hoping it’s an adventure!
Violettes part deux
Chelsea and Julia served as muses for a photography project focusing on whimsy, poor equipment, and no real set-ups or poses- they just assemble themselves and I photograph. The lighting at times was difficult, but I really enjoy photographing them. Plus, a picture of the three of us came out beautifully! All of us wearing purple, our pale skin and violet looking excellent- I am quite pleased!
This is ultimately my favorite photograph of the two rolls I photographed:
The Photographist 