So, there I was, knee-deep in the bay, with water soaking into my camera gear. I returned to that point in time repeatedly over the next day or two. I could go back, without wanting to, and relive the experience, complete with the smell.

I've been noticing some people finding my page on Google searching for more detailed information about the 383 Super. Since the 383 Super is a reasonably priced manually-controllable flash, suitable for both on and off camera use, it's experienced a little bit of a resurgence in recent times. Vivitar has responded as well by putting the 285 back on the market.

If all of the film cameras stopped working tomorrow, there's plenty of decent digital cameras to switch to. I don't have 10 years worth of film in my freezer and powdered developer stocked in my closet, at best I've got a few months worth, I don't want to have tons of nasty old expired film. I want to have room in my freezer for some frozen goodies.

I'm going to write out a proper entry about my exploration of IR film as part of my series black and white and how I explore it. But I'm in the midst of information to share, so I'm going to share my thoughts and news now and worry about writing out a proper chronology of exploration later.

I've noticed that I suddenly have a lot of AA battery powered photo gear. There's the A95 which serves as my light/flash meter and photographic sketchpad that takes 4 AA batteries. There's 2 Sunpak 383 Supers and a 1 Sunpak 144PC, and each one takes 4 AA batteries. There's the kinda cruddy Sunpak Digital Flash that is now just used to trigger slaves off of my RB67 that takes 2 AA batteries. Finally, there's the Quantaray QS-1 that takes 2 AAA batteries

The Quantaray MS-1, backgrounds, umbrellas, and models

I've been in a bit of a funk since Sunday morning when folks noticed Silverprint's post about HIE (High speed IR) and EIR (Ektachrome IR) being discontinued. At least this time, somebody gave us warning about it. Naturally, it wasn't Kodak. Folks called Kodak. The first to call got positive news that it wasn't discontinued.... but everybody else was told that the last cut is next month.

One concept I hold very dear is the concept of being a guardian of our culture. Most of the time, this is a thankless, underpaid, and generally difficult task. Many excellent artists fill this role, but most of them don't make a good living... or even a living at all.. doing it.

I feel that every guy has this misapprehension that asking a girl to pose nude is like coaxing a girlfriend out of her clothing. Or that there must be a sexual connection between model and photographer. Really, the whole public perception of this sort of photography is very skewed.

My first look at Efke IR820c

I went to New York City lately on vacation and shot a bunch of film while I was there, wandering the streets with three cameras.

We have reached a new stage with Kodak, and I'm not pleased about it. With prior film discontinuations, Kodak gave advanced warning that a film was going to be discontinued, perhaps with a suggested replacement film. Now, we're faced with films being discontinued without the courtesy of advance warning so we can calibrate our process for a new film or alternatively stock up to complete a project while there's still film to be purchased.

Some notes on film, some cool and not-so-cool stuff out of PMA, and a few more tidbits.

Despite my film-shooting bent, I do like to keep up with the digital scene as well. This is all rampant speculation based on the available facts, given that nobody's dropping any expensive loaner hardware on my doorstop anytime soon.

I'm going to write a series of articles about photo archiving in the digital age. I'm at an interesting position to talk about these issues. I am professionally a programmer with more than a passing familiarity with imaging algorithms as well as a photographer who has displayed his work in art galleries. My wife is in the process of finishing up her masters degree in Library and Information science and has a degree in History...