These were actually taken on July 3rd at a PawSox game, after which we had a bit of additional excitement: Having walked about a mile to the nearest bus stop still in service for the night, we still had half an hour to wait until the 11:32pm bus came. There was a large, semi enclosed area full of benches upon which were seated many disadvantaged looking people. Standing immediately outside the area was a man in a black jacket who was tending to his brand new bicycle, complete with promotional cards still stuck in the spokes. We were standing off to the side, conversing in a semi-circle when the bike-man came over to us. He started to give us a rundown about how he was conducting "informal research" and wanted to gauge our reaction to something, at which point we noticed he had held out a concealed hand underneath his loose jacket. He assured us that it was nothing dangerous or obscene, but that didn't stop any of us from fearing the worst. "No thanks," I said as forcefully as I could muster, which barely seemed to deter him as he kept trying to persuade us to participate. "Please, Leave Us Alone," I said. And he did. He walked away exhasperated as if we had offended him.

I felt a little bad about being somewhat impolite, (though I did say please and thanks,) but it's hard to feel much sympathy for someone who fails to understand that hiding something under your coat in the middle of night and weilding it to strangers could be perceived as threatening.

He got on the bus with us after loading his bike on front, and chose to sit right across the aisle. Luckily he got off before we did and everybody went about their merry way. There were a few other details such as chatty drunk folk, cursing in Hindi, a stolen/lost/found(?) cell phone, and an off-kilter bus driver, but I'll let other people tell those stories.

FLASH FICTION FRIDAY RETURNS TOMORROW! Look out for it.

This week's combination of nice weather, a reduced workload, and the reopening of the Washington Street bridge bike lane have signaled the arrival of what is sure to be an amazing summer. I went for my first extended ride of the season after having un-fixiefied my bike, decking it out with brakes and the glorious ability to coast.

My discovery of the East Bay Bike Path has seriously improved my opinion of Providence, which was already pretty high. It goes through woods, along the water, past mansions and golf courses, and is frequented by friendly, nodding cyclists. I got carried away while on my ride and wound up having to rush back after realizing I had other obligations, but I still managed to snap a few photos. I only made it 15 miles down the road, but plan on going the distance some time soon.

This natural collage of shots is from a roll of half price 125PX. I had been worried that I didn't account for the slowness of the stock, but I still got a fair amount of information in some of the exposures which was assisted by the fact that a lot of them were overlapping.

It had been my intention to have an uninterrupted negative strip without any distinct frames or breaks, but, as has become standard for me, I botched the processing. The negatives slid out into daylight when I was dumping the developer (before having been fixed and made insensitive to light.) I wasn't expecting anything come out, though, and so am pleasantly surprised!

Some of the first mashed up images on the roll were test shots that I didn't expect to come out, but wound up being goofy self-portraits from near the end of Moustache March.

For anyone struggling with a creative rut I highly suggest inserting some element of randomness into your process. Uncontrollable variables often produce happy accidents, and for someone with my (low) level of technical skill, those accidents are often more interesting than anything I could ever intend to produce.

I really love the spooky, looming branches and the way they impose so strongly. They bear down and jut out at all angles, and if you look at it long enough they stop resembling anything organic. It reminds me of blown ink as I first encountered it on Stefan Bucher's Daily Monster, which is ancient news by internet standards. It's still worth a look if you haven't poured over all hundred creatures, and definitely ranks high up in worthwhile internet inspiration alongside things like Exploding Dog.

Up next on the queue of semi-risky expired film stocks are P3200 Tmax, 100 Tmax, and some ISO400 slide film! The local CVS has a couple cartridges of Polaroid 600 film, too, but I haven't let myself buy them up because I feel like I need to have a grand project in mind to justify the $2 per photo.

Let me know if you have suggestions!

- Closet may not be sufficiently lightproof to load and unload 35mm film from the Holga.
- Film may be best when not left undeveloped in my bag for several months.
- Processing tanks with cracks do not retain developer very well.
- Fixer goes in before Fix Remover.
- Cleaning and drying film might be a good process to perfect.

BONUS:
- Scanners are a pain.

Beautiful, if in an unintended sort of way.  Don't you fret, though, because one roll came out and has some nice shots on it.  I'll put some up as I go through them.

People I've spoken to often commiserate with me about how difficult it is to break out of artistic ruts and escape the limitations of one's narrowly defined "style," and in the past I've thought that good solutions are to expand my technical abilities in a medium or expose myself to broader potential sources of inspiration.  Today I realized that it often happens as the result of no conscious effort.  This drawing has tinges of my go-to tendencies in terms of line quality and shapes, but feels entirely new. I feel similarly about my recent prose which has a bit more breath and agility in it, which I think is partially the result of having spent the last two years writing mostly poetry.  Change and growth, while painful, are wonderful when for the better, says Tautologi-Crow.

Identity Control from Crow Jonah Norlander on Vimeo.