ILPhoto Gallery (a thread to show off your pictures)

Thanks everyone!
The Rollei is really a whole lot of fun, and I'm telling myself now that I do not need any more 35mm cameras. At. All. I think the Rollei has got to be the last one in, and I can start shedding those that I don't use much anymore.
The advance crank swings back on its own just fine. It's also one of the more pleasing advances I've used. There is a really satisfying final click when you've pulled it out all the way. It's not smooth like a Leica, but it is fun to use. Plus, left thumb!

Dayo, I'm curious: are you not posting to flickr anymore? I know you're on to developing and making prints now. Do your pictures no longer enter a computer?

flickr was never my main publishing station - I have a tumblr but I am thinking about deleting it. my goal is to set up a website but I'm not sure how I'll go about doing that.

my tastes towards my own work are also changing, right now I am slowly going through all the stuff I shot last year, selecting new photos I missed and scratching photos that I don't like anymore. it's an involving process! I still scan everything I develop... it's just not stored online

some nice stuff y'all

Yeah gotcha... I liked your photostream so was just wondering! Can I ask where the tumblr is?
I still have nothing but flickr. Keep trying to start a website but am apparently too lazy or distracted.

i started scanning photos recently, never having wanted to expend the effort before, & have been so pleased with having digital copies of everything; i include one when i e-mail a friend, etc, it is nice. i put some things on flickr & though i think it's super-neat and ergonomic there was something i didn't really like about it - i think maybe i felt bad for the ones that didn't get looked at?, or were better at full size? - so i made a website in html that is just a long white page with the photos, at about-screen-size, fairly well spaced (kinda inspired by unchanging window <3 <3 <3).

mentioning all this because though i think there are some really neat & effective presentations of work online (like for example), it's hard to compute what is actually best for the photographs, & it feels like it's still being figured out, a little (i think i've heard that the history is a little more complicated, but isn't there that thing about the americans being the first photobook to frame shots in abundant white space, rather than trying to just cram as much onto the page as possible?; sorta like that). but it is nice just to have things visible online in the first place.

yeah the question of how to present one's work is pretty tricky.

most photographers default to something flash based. I happen to like the nytime's lens blog flash site because it's quick and snappy and has a full screen mode. most other flash websites piss me off.

I am wondering what the best way to go is with designing an online website. I am tending towards giving the viewer as little choice as possible. why give them a table of thumbnails where the picture is hardly visible? bigger is generally better, pictures change dramatically as they are sized up. I like the websites that are just simple HTML sites where you have to scroll down - feels like the photographer has more control over how you see her photos.

I am bugged by websites that use horizontal scrolling, like alec soth's website. I am not convinced that that is a more natural way of paging through photographs than the vertical scroll. maybe they think that it better approximates a photobook? I don't think, as computer users, we have a built in sense of space for horizontal scrolling - vertical feels much more natural.

a simple html based layout is also nice because you naturally know where pictures fall in the series, can scroll back anytime you want to. you cannae do that w/ most flash based websites

I think editing and presentation is the hardest part of the whole process of photography. less is more

why give them a table of thumbnails where the picture is hardly visible? bigger is generally better, pictures change dramatically as they are sized up. I like the websites that are just simple HTML sites where you have to scroll down - feels like the photographer has more control over how you see her photos.

yeah i think what's good & appealing, & feels attuned to your viewing process, about flickr, eg, is the way in which you navigate between different groups of photos, rather than the actual consumption of content; being able to seamlessly flow between the thing you started looking at, someone else's similar set, something shot on the same film, the taste of someone whose shots you like. it isn't good for a, maybe not necessarily 'narrative', but kind of intentionally impact-ing group of pictures you want to order and display & phrase in a certain way, it can just seem like a kinda facebook assemblage or travelogue. limiting choices otm! & yeah seeing things big is huge. most of the things i've got around to scanning are just the kind of fetishistic explorations of grain i have from using velvia or w/e, because it's texturally interesting to look at on screen, feels sort of different to me than seeing well presented, clear shots.

i think i agree about the innate unnaturalness of horizontal scrolling but i can still handle it, i know a few sites that work well that way. btw i was just flicking through the ruinista site i linked above, from a leica user, the pictures are great, that neat combo of making you want both someone's camera + life.

another plus about relatively unadorned, html sites is that i think there's something to utterly decontextualising your photos, like what was good about 9eyes or, maybe w/slightly more info, unchanging window. not having the affiliated acknowledgement of how they should be received or who you 'are' or what you're aiming for. this is a weird + not very good photo but it is cool for the fact that it is elliptical, i think, and i think things being visible without too much baggage aids their impact.

I don't consider flickr to be an ideal venue for my pictures, by any means, but I just use it because it is sooo easy and it also gives me an opportunity to throw some pictures up and just kinda see what hits. Knowing that what hits on flickr is affected by the nature of the website. Like, if I have a photo with an attractive subject centered in the frame and close to the camera, it will do a lot better than a photo that is loosely composed of many small details. I wish that flickr defaulted to a larger normal viewing size, and I wish that they'd allow some more of the interface to disappear, but that's not really what it's about I suppose.
I think that when I do finally get around to doing a website, I will do something simple and scrolling. Large images yes, but maybe not so much white space between them. I like the way that on, say, tumblr, each image is kind of enhanced by the images that surround it. I like the mass of pictures.
I'm finding editing to be very difficult, but also very fun! Like, I've got a lot of pictures that I'm not that thrilled with on flickr but feel kind of bad about deleting (especially if they've been favorited). But if I make a website I get to include the best of the best and that is very satisfying.

Also: do not like flash-based albums! No page-turning metaphors please! I don't want to have to click each and every time I want to see a new picture.

I wish that flickr defaulted to a larger normal viewing size, and I wish that they'd allow some more of the interface to disappear, but that's not really what it's about I suppose.

oh!: should've mentioned this, which a friend uses: http://ihardlyknowher.com/
you end up with a short url that, provided it's suffixed with /big, i think, gives you the kind of minimal, large-framed set of images i was talking about. i am pro- the customisation of html but it's pretty much the thing i was shooting for, it might be a good fit for you?

flickr "OH THE CRISPNESS OF FIELD IN THIS NUDE IS EXQUISITE" letches are maybe a good argument against it, also.

yeah eg: http://ihardlyknowher.com/chromogenic/big

OK I like this!

I really like that, too. It's not really too different from the tumblr theme I've been using for the past few months: http://millsner.tumblr.com/

OK I like this!

― lou reed scott walker monks niagra (chinavision!), Thursday, September 8, 2011 9:42 AM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark

ditto! i haven't been doing much photography lately due to cares, but yeah, the "see what hits" part of flickr is p nice. sort of surprised that they haven't made it easier for ppl to customize how their photos are presented, though? i mean, you can do slideshow, i guess.

oh i guess IHKH does just that

chinavision i really like your photographs.

Thanks!

don't use flash and don't use horizontal scrolling

markers do you know how to design a photo website

something about being back in the US makes me want to shoot color again. but only in MF.

markers do you know how to design a photo website

― dayo, Thursday, September 8, 2011 6:21 PM

no

it's a difficult problem though

yeah I feel there are very few good photo websites out there

there was one I liked a lot but he changed his format

I do like the tumblr layout in general but I feel that it's not good because of the need to update all the time to stay 'relevant' to people who subscribe to you

something about being back in the US makes me want to shoot color again. but only in MF.

― dayo, Thursday, September 8, 2011 6:21 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

I'm really startin to feel alec soth's aesthetic, maybe that's why

...MF?

medium format. the smooth tonality in soth's pictures is pretty incredible, pretty sure you can't get that in 35mm.

I also notice it's a trend in portrait photography - take someone out to somewhere on the beach or in some sublime part of nature on a cloudy or overcast day, when the sky acts like a giant softbox. you get these gorgeous results that I'm never sure if they radiate from the subject or the weather.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6068/6128471043_bc0066dde6_z.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6208/6128473297_609907c299_z.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6188/6129028362_f1d645abf3_z.jpg

last one is great! and it looks like maybe you should get a TLR, haha

thanks dude! i had to look up a TLR---what makes you say that?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6085/6128649773_5a84333ffe_z.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6074/6129200066_45566973ab_z.jpg

think these might be reposts but this is the first time i've been in LR for like months, so w/e

because it seems a square crop is your preferred choice! haha xp

square crop looks neat. i don't think i'm schooled enough to know better than just thinking square = medium format.

those alec soth pics are great. in terms of their 'look' i think they have a kinda good take on what things look like now - some of the bold, deep, spectral quality of eggleston's colours, or something old, but with some of the bleached out discolour of new/digital stuff, without getting too tumblr-wave or whatever that whole school's called.

ha, yeah, i guess i do go for the square crop a lot :-/

I had notions of getting into medium format, but now that I've got the combination of the Leica, really really cheap development, and a 35mm scanner, I don't want to mess with a formula that works. It's actually very cheap for me to make pictures right now and I think I need to keep it that way for awhile.

what do you guys use for scanners, out of curiosity?

I have a Plustek Opticfilm which is great for the price. It is 35mm only though. No medium format, no large format, etc. I'm able to get a lot more out of my negatives by scanning myself. No blown highlights, no washed out blacks that the lab tries to make gray. I scan scan dark photographs as dark and light photographs as light, etc, and I can get away with a bit more overexposure and with using cheaper film.

so dum dum f/u question: is it cheaper to just have negatives developed? or do you do it yourself? and is THAT cheaper/easier? i've never done any kind of darkroom work, but you guys have got me more interested in film stuff lately

for medium format and even some varieties of large format you can use an epson v500 or v700. the v700 is GREAT for medium format and really good for 35mm too. I have noticed a drop in quality and resolution changing to a v500 but the v500 is also 1/5 the price.

the v700 also has some quality control issues ime, or at least with the one I had.

(largely because my dad's got an m6 just fucking sitting there gathering dust....and an m8, ffs....figure i might be able to twist an arm or two and borrow the 6 for a little bit)

xp for color, it's way easier to send it off to a lab. people have used wal-mart as the cheapest way but it can be a crapshoot since sometimes they make you pay for prints. if you can find a local lab that still does color developing that's great. or you can take it to a target or CVS or something and see if they'll just do developing (it's like $1 at target sometimes.)

for b&w, home developing is definitely the way to go, but requires an investment, time, effort, etc. xp initial investment in equipment would probably be anywhere from free to $100 depending on if you got a good deal on craigslist or if you bought everything new.

scanning is probably the most onerous part of the whole exercise - even with a v700 that does 24 frames of 35mm at once, it still takes about an hour per 24 frames.

you also have to start investing in negative sleeves and binders. it's a lot of work compared to digital!

hoh shit, if your dad has a m6 lying around, put on the ski mask and make a visit at night...

well, tbh, the up-front work/expense is the biggest barrier for me, esp since i have a perfectly functional gf1/LR3. still, the slow-pace/DIY part is actually sort of appealing? esp if, at the end of the day, i can still manipulate the images digitally? the main reason i never used my canonet (that is, before it broke) was because it was such a pain/$$$ to get stuff developed and then end up with sorta shitty prints that i couldn't do anything with.

xp ha, nah, i think i can just ask him. he let me borrow the M8 to take to frikkin central africa for a month, i think he'd probably be okay with letting me borrow the other one for a little while.

yeah - I just outlined a way to do it cheaply. if you're only shooting a few rolls every month or so, there are mail order places that will provide you w/ developing + lab quality scans at like, maybe $10-20 per roll?

I have corner store lab just down the block from where I work that does $3 a roll for develop only (I think he actually has B&H do the developing, but whatever), so it's trivial for me to drop off and pick up a lot of rolls, snip them into strips of six negatives apiece and run them through the scanner. When I was dropping off for developing and scanning at a pro lab, a roll of 36 cost $16. Big price difference!
My pro lab was super nice though and I feel guilty about not going anymore. They even gave me a bottle of wine for Christmas!
And scanning is slow. I'm always trying to come up with strategies to make it faster.

I kinda like scanning though. Like I'm a little sad when I realized I just finished a roll, cuz it's fun to see what picture is coming next.

My pro lab was super nice though and I feel guilty about not going anymore. They even gave me a bottle of wine for Christmas!

<3
i do not really have a good lab situation at the moment, i just switched from a kinda indie place that p often fucked up my photos (didn't print some, gave me gloss instead of matte &c) to a kodak branded place (that is p good). i love going to hardcore places, though. the first real, semi-industrial development place i ever went to, i was asking for prints of a roll of ilford delta 3200 & they squinted, sized me up and said, "... but you shot it at 1600, right?"