• a variety of fine pickles •

how adorable is my family!?

hasselblad 500c, shot on ilford delta 400 120 & processed at home.

hasselblad valentines

well, i'm a complete freaking dumbass.

a while back in january, i was grousing that there was something wrong with the negatives i was developing from my hasselblad. all of the negatives i was shooting with my hasselblad were turning out completely clear - blank. nothing. i shot three rolls and all 3 were identical - nothing at all on them.

well, i'm here to report that it's not the camera. it's the camera operator. i am a monumental dumbass. i figured out the issue, and i'm not even going to say what it was, it was so freaking stupid. i can't even believe it. that's what i get for getting myself a hasselblad and NOT using it like i should have been since i bought it. no, it wasn't the darkslide. it wasn't the shutter. it wasn't the mirror. it wasn't my darkroom chemistry. all of those things are working like a damn DREAM. it's me. me, me, me and only me. i am STUPID.

and now that i've beat myself up over it for the last hour or so, i'm off to take pictures that will actually turn out.

god, i'm an IDIOT.

well, crap.

i had a hankerin' to get outside yesterday and take some pictures, so i loaded up my hasselblad with black & white film and headed out.

i went to temple lake park and took photos of the beautiful surf coming in against driftwood, along with a roll and a half of other photos of people fishing against the 3 o'clock sun, the pebbles at the shoreline, etc. lovely. then i headed over to the train depot to get a few pictures of the old steam engine that's part of the downtown train center, some of the awesome old buildings in downtown temple and i topped it off with some action-y photos of some punky locals taking advantage of temporary warm weather at the local skateboarding park. there were lots of ramones t-shirts and chucks. love.

i got home and developed all three rolls of film and voila! NOTHING. all three rolls were completely blank. all that was visible were the frame numbers. WTF!?

i'm crossing my fingers in the hope against hope that the issue is NOT with my hasselblad; in fact, i'm pretty sure it's my developer. i haven't developed any film in several months (too busy with etsy and have been using only my digital SLR) and my developer has probably gone off. i hope. just in case, i'm going to shoot a roll or two of C41 and have it developed in a lab. and if those rolls come back with nothing on them, then i'll know that the issue is with my hasselblad.

and it better NOT be.

or else.

i don't know what else exactly, but it won't be pleasant.

congratulations, mr & mrs gildon!

congratulations to my sister megen and her new husband kirk!

the wedding was a success! we had a few bumps in the road mainly because i was in the hospital the week before the wedding and didn't get to rehearse. but other than a few "uh-oh" and "oops" moments, it was absolutely beautiful.

my back yard was lit by twinkly christmas lights wrapped in yards and yards of tulle, and beautiful wrought iron torches lit the path that megen walked to the altar, and there were silver paper lanters hanging in my apple tree. my back yard was definitely transformed and i thought it was just beautiful.

my house was packed full of people; so many people that at times you had to elbow your way through the crowd just to get where you were going. i loved having that many people in my home! the food was fantastic. my mother really outdid herself with the stuffed mushrooms and the pork loin and i heard the groom's cake, a german chocolate cake, was out of this world.

dylan looked so handsome in his suit and tie and little kirk and gracie were adorable, little kirk in his suit and curly hair and gracie in her little black & pink frock with curly pigtails. she was dressed to party.  and my cousin will was there with my uncle butchie & aunt dyan, and kirk, gracie & will played all night, running up and down my hallway and laughing. adorable, the pitter-patter of little footsteps in dress shoes.

gracie sat on uncle butchie's lap and ate wedding cake. actually, true to mcgee woman form, she ate the icing and left the cake on the plate.

some of my favorite photos from the wedding:

the matron of honor, tina; the bride, megen; the maid of honor, my sister kristen. this photo is way washed out due to the flash i used, but there's something i just love about it.

megen, cloistered away in my bedroom trying not to be nervous before the wedding. she was wildly unsuccessful.

my mother awaiting a dragon to land on her finger, gracie peeking in a box and dylan getting busted picking at the reception spread.

my back yard as the sun was setting, and my good friend craig standing on my deck. i was standing behind where the wedding was to take place, in front of the oak tree tied with tulle. another photo plagued by lighting issues, but again, i just love this photo.

the bride and her bridal party acting like goofballs.

megen said she learned this pose on america's next top model.

my nephews dylan and kirk junior in his daddy's arms. kirk made such a dapper groom!

my little sister. she's married now. :)

i  have to say a very heartfelt thanks to some wonderful, amazing people without whom this wedding wouldn't have happened:

amanda, you are the hardest working woman in the wedding business. sit down!
craig, you're my bitch and you're damn good at it. your help was immeasurable and hilarious and kept us all from cracking under stress. you know i love ya. new york, this is your last chance!
tina, i didn't even have to ask you to jump, you did it on your own.
fosheezee, where would i be without you?
scotty & chris, amazing hair. fabulous lighting. world class bows. it was like a wedding on broadway.
bino, i'd lay my life down for you, chola. thank you for EVERYTHING. la raza!
doel, you're now a master of all things electronic and you're awesome in a pinch!
marcus, what can i say but it's not the first time you've been there for me...
megs, you shouldn't have had to lift a finger but you did anyway.
nash & kirk, you guys turned my yard into a wedding wonderland!
mom, you rock, plain and simple. we'd all be starving if it weren't for you and your amazing kitchen-witchery. nobody does it better than you, mom. nobody.

i know there are people i'm missing and they definitely deserve a huge thanks... if i left you off of this list it was completely accidental, and thank you very much for helping make my sister's wedding day so very special!

aaaaaaannnnnndddd scene.

the air that i breathe

a little sumpthin' sumpthin' from last night's show. one of my favorite songs originally by the hollies, and covered by everybody from the everly brothers to olivia newton john to simply red to della reese to kd lang.

and now, i suppose, me.

Download the_air_that_i_breathe.wma

my awesome band is fred fuller on acoustic & vocals, greg whitfield on acoustic & vocals, laron tubb on keyboard, david scafe on drums and jerry burns on bass. fred, greg & i worked this song out at greg's house last weekend; the rest of the band just followed along without the benefit of any sort of rehearsal - and they did pretty darn well.

i hope you like.

fred fuller's martin guitar


the incredible greg whitfield

fred fuller. one of my best friends.

i. can't. believe.

how deeply i've already fallen in love.

the lens (150mm f4 zeiss sonnar) arrived yesterday. i was chomping at the bit for the rest of it to arrive, which was today. this could be used as a method of torture; send a hasselblad in two different shipments, a day apart. the body & back arrived today while i was at work. i fully expected the body & back to have dings and dents and peeling leather and brassing, because i bought it in "bargain" condition, which is something like 70-79% of it's original condition. i was amazed and delighted to find a nearly pristine body and only a marginally "bargain" quality back! the leather on the upper lip of the body (where the "hasselblad" name plate is located, just above the lens) is only very slightly loose, and only on one side**. the rest of the body is near perfect. the back shows some signs of being loved and used, but is still in fantastic condition... much better than i was expecting!

i read, reread and read again the instructions to put the three pieces together without locking up and seizing the camera and took a whack at it... and i did it right, first time out of the chute.

it was meant to be.

i loaded a roll of fresh film into the back and like any photographing trooper with a new camera would do, i headed outside to shoot my very first roll of film in my brand spanking new hasselblad.

i walked up and down the street in front of my house looking for something, anything to take pictures of, knowing that these would really just be for me, and that they were mostly just so that i could experiment with the settings on the lens; the shutter, the exposure, the aperture...

i chose my first subject matter and looked down into the crystal clear ground glass viewing screen and twisted the focusing ring on the lens, watching the image become sharper and sharper. and then sharper. wow. i put my finger on the shutter release...

kathunk - thwump!

it was the most incredible, glorious sound i've ever heard a camera make.

so i did it again and again, until i was out of exposures.

i didn't develop the film tonight, and i probably won't. i'm just too tired, dispite my excitement. getting older means you can't stay up all night long the night before christmas anymore, and i can't stay awake all night. i just don't have it in me tonight. tomorrow night is out as well, as is saturday night... but sunday. ah, sunday. i'll be in the bathroom developing negatives if it's the last thing i do.

and of course i instantly reloaded the camera. so i've got to take more pictures...

**i had planned, depending on the actual condition of the leather, to get a new suit for my new hasselblad here; true to my style, i wouldn't go original black, either. something a little more bold. whaddya think? spring green? cardinal red? lavender lizard?

well, i can't believe i actually did it.

after years and years of coveting and lust i finally did it.

i bought a hasselblad.

i tossed and turned and fought with myself and my camera demons, but in the end the deal was too good to pass up. so maybe i'll have to tighten the purse strings a bit for the next two weeks... i should be doing that anyway, right? and not too terribly; i did get a great deal on it.

it's not new. it's probably got a ding here or there, and maybe some brassing... maybe even some other minor cosmetic abnormalities, but i don't care. it's nothing that will affect the quality of the camera or the quality of the photos that it helps me produce. i couldn't be more thrilled unless someone had just handed it to me.

mine won't look exactly like the photo above; that's a newer model than mine. different positioning of the winding crank (mine is on the film back instead of on the side) different lens, and probably not quite as shiny. other than that, the differences are completely negligible. and, it's still a hassie.

here's the lens i'm getting:

i got a hasselblad 500c with a 12A film back and a zeiss 150mm f4 sonnar lens. i opted for the 150mm lens instead of the standard issue 80mm lens because i have an 80mm on my mamiya. if i want an 80mm lens for my hasselblad, i can buy one later. right now, i wanted a little more room for distance.

hasselblad is the camera. it's the highest of the high end medium format cameras. it's the camera that all other medium format film cameras aspire to be. it's the one i've always wanted. if i didn't make it abundantly clear earlier, i couldn't be more thrilled.

here's a very famous photo taken with a hasselblad - it's buzz aldrin on the moon.
enjoy while i wait with baited breath for wednesday to roll around...

i can't wait!!!