Ghosts in Tri-X

Circa 1981. Shot with an Olympus OM-1N on Tri-X (and a tri-pod)

Just a little something to show that you can never stash some mementos of your past far enough to the back corner of the attic. This one – a self portrait for a basic photography and darkroom course I took in college – resurfaced today among some outdated atlases, a folio of Escher prints, and my deed to a one-foot square plot of land in Lynchburg, Tennessee.

No mullet, like the ones currently vying for validation over at Emma's place, but lordy lou did I ever need a haircut. And a competent dermatologist. And a fingernail clipper.

My instructor gave me a C+ on this project, noting on the back of the photo that I hadn't printed it dark enough (a shortcoming I've corrected in the version you see here).* The dramatically-lighted result of our assignment to photograph an egg fared much better and received an A-. It was voted Best of the Day by the other members of the class. Maybe it will pop up one of these days, as well.


* Speaking of corrections, check out the more dramatic post-processed version I did for The Dictionary of Image.

Got it covered

While we're on the subject of album covers, check out the fun they're having over at Flickr: The LP portraits Pool.

Mein Großvater

My mother's father – or „mein Großvater“ – wasn't German, technically. He was born in 1902, on a farm in northeast Ohio, to first-generation Americans whose parents came to this country from the Alsace region of France. This was always a little confusing to me, when Grandpa used to tell us that his grandparents came from France but spoke German, not French. Once I got involved with my family's genealogy research, I learned that the Alsatians indeed spoke a dialect of German.*

At some point while Turtle's parents were visiting, the women were playing games and listening to Christmas CDs. “Silent Night” came on, and I was thinking of Grandpa and how we kids used to beg him to sing „Stille Nacht“ to us in his broken German.

The base image is a small photo Grandpa took of himself sometime in the 1970s at one of those automated photo booths you see at the mall. The pocket watch is one that he bought used around 1930 and passed down to me when I was in college (it still runs and keeps perfect time). The smaller blended image is Grandpa on his wedding day, in 1936.

* I admit to taking a certain amount of pleasure in telling people that even my French ancestors were German.

The Dictionary of Image

My first attempts at contributing to The Dictionary of Image (pool) on Flickr.

Roots

Roots
Originally uploaded by FooRider

Contentment

Movement

The inner workings of my great-grandfather's Seth Thomas black mantel clock. It was given to him and my grandmother on the occasion of their wedding and again, to Turtle and me, on the occasion of ours.

Worn

Cashew-nut