Changes are still rolling along around here. Just riding the rollercoaster, trying to be the best daughter, mother, partner, human, all of that, and continue to nurture my creativity and my soul. I’ve said more times in the last few weeks phrases like “I won’t go down with the ship,” and “I won’t let this break me.” Dramatic, I know. But we get so comfortable in our phases and it stings a bit to get pushed out of them. Or maybe that’s just me, and I’m a bit selfish.
Anyway. In late October, just after I got back from Iceland, I spent a weekend at the cottage while my husband, son, and a few of their biking friends took part in a race in a town just a few miles from here. That weekend, my son’s girlfriend (who is like a daughter to me) and I spent a few hours out on the dunes of Silver Lake. This is truly one of my favorite places to photograph and it simply never disappoints. Open landscape, windswept dunes, ghosts of trees from centuries past, living and breathing dunescape. I don’t have the negatives in front of me, but I’m pretty sure it was T-Max 100, maybe expired.
And now I can’t remember if it was that same weekend, or a later weekend, that I shot this odd roll of Lomography Lomochrome Purple on the backroads and at the market near the cottage. I love this film and I have shot it a fair bit, but this one was different…
There are little green flecks in it, not totally visible in some of the images but definitely there in all of them. This roll wasn’t stored very well and traveled with me to and from Iceland, so maybe something went wrong with it somewhere? Odd, but that’s okay.
So, yesterday was Thanksgiving and it’s been a bittersweet several days. My family has been in and out and I am beyond thankful for time I get with my kids. But I am struggling to be what my dad needs and still be myself. We have been home and at the cottage. The waves and wind on Lake Michigan soothe me but I think they are unnerving my dad. I don’t know what’s next. I just don’t know what’s next.
More from these two rolls here. (Edited this last sentence because while writing last night, I apparently accidentally pasted a link to a concise answer to a grammar question I was asked rather than the link to my flickr album. Oops.)
Lake Michigan, Mamiya M645 and Kodak Ektarsun rays over Lake Michigan, Mamiya M645 and Kodak Ektar
A few weeks ago, before my dog hurt her leg and before I even began to realize that holidays are coming and winter is coming and the days are getting short and there will be snow soon (in fact, it’s snowing as I write this and it’s really beautiful), I was gifted two cameras and I couldn’t wait to use them. So I did use them, on the west side of Michigan, to document the then-colorful leaves and other fall-type stuff.
woods in west Michigan, Mamiya M645 and Kodak Ektar
wooded trail, west Michigan, Mamiya M645 and Kodak Ektar
The Mamiya M645 was easy. It is actually quite a bit smaller than my beloved Bronica SQ-A, and I already had experience with my son’s Mamiya 645 1000s. The differences are that the 1000s has a shutter speed up to 1000 (mine only goes to 500), and it literally eats batteries–to use it, you have to pop the battery in before you take a photo and then pop it out again and carry it in a warm pocket. If you are out and about with it and forget to do this, the battery will croak mid-roll. There’s no meter, but the shutter relies on the battery and will stay open if the battery is dead. My M645 seems to have no battery issues but the foam seals are pretty crusty and I did get some bits on some of my images. I might try to replace the seals myself if I’m feeling crafty over the winter, but it’s certainly usable for now.
branch, Lake Michigan, Mamiya M645 and Kodak Portradriftwood, Lake Michigan, Mamiya M645 and Kodak Portra
Anyway, I may have to underexpose a tiny bit with the M645 as more of my shots seemed slightly overexposed, especially on the beach. But, I couldn’t be more thrilled with this camera and I’m happy to have a non-plastic camera (don’t get me wrong, I love my toy cameras) in the 6×4.5 format. This camera will be in regular rotation.
Lost Lake, Mamiya M645 and Kodak Ektartree stump, Mamiya M645 and Kodak EktarLost Lake reflections, Mamiya M645 and Kodak Ektar
The Mamiya C220 is a different bird altogether. A TLR (twin lens reflex) with a standard waist-level viewfinder means you hold it at around chest or waist level and look down into this beautiful piece of ground glass that makes you feel all swoony and happy because something about it just looks like you’re about to get the most gorgeous, dreamy, lovely image ever.
old well in dunegrass, Mamiya C220, Fuji Acros
Except that you’re looking at your image flip-flopped, as in right is left and left is right, and if there’s a horizon your brain has to do all sorts of work to figure out just the right way to tilt the camera and your body so that the horizon is straight (if you like straight horizons, which I really do), and then if you’re close to your subject (which you can be very close with a TLR) you have to take into account that you’re framing by looking through the top lens, and the lens that actually captures the image is two inches lower than that, and so your brain just explodes because it’s not used to all of that.
fall, backroad in west Michigan, Mamiya C220 and Lomography f2 film
fall, backroad in west Michigan, Mamiya C220 and Lomography f2 film
So, I know that you probably shouldn’t test a new camera with experimental film, but I seem to have a knack for doing just that. The color roll I shot through the C220 was Lomography f2 400, which the folks at Lomography aged in wine casks for 7 years. There is a red/pink line that runs down the right side of all of the images from this roll, and I think it’s the film rather than the camera, because the few shots I got from the black and white Fuji Acros I tested did not have this line. (I only got three shots from the Acros roll–I hadn’t quite figured out the sensitivity of the film forwarding crank.)
close up fail, Mamiya C220 and Lomography f2 film
So, the M645 is easy and familiar and wonderful. The C220 challenges me and is going to take a lot more practice, but I’m all in. The C220’s foam seals are also pretty deteriorated, which may account for some light leaks on the edges of some shots.
I just registered for the winter term of the same film class I took two years ago at a local community college and I really can’t wait to take it again, to be in the darkroom processing film and printing again with all kinds of equipment and tools available to me. I think the C220 will be a big part of my winter work there.
I also learned first from another blogger (who you might want to read if you like photography) that flickr is changing their mode of business. I started using flickr to host my photos because it was (fairly) easy to link them to this blog, and it seems like if I don’t do something like that the space here gets filled mighty quickly and I will have to go to a pricey plan in order to stay here. Flickr was free. But now it’s not. So, I need to make some decisions about how to proceed–pay for a flickr pro account or upgrade to a business plan on WordPress, or just upload super low res images (ick) that take up very little space. When I started blogging it was more about having an avenue for my writing, but then I picked up a camera and, well, things just get more expensive. So, decisions to be made.
It’s so interesting how life changes, and how things you weren’t sure you’d be capable of doing become your reality because, well, sometimes things just go that way.
My sweet Moonie Pie is adjusting. I give her medicine morning and night. She eats, sleeps, and is mostly normal except for the struggle of getting up and down steps, and standing or walking for long. She’s putting more weight on her damaged leg and she’s not unhappy; she doesn’t stew about it or mourn her disability. I started taking her on short walks, just up and down the block and she wants to go further but I know she’d end up in too much pain, so I keep it short and let her stop and sniff for as long as she wants.
A bigger change in my life is that we’ve moved my dad in with us. I don’t know if this is going to be a permanent situation, but for now it is an adjustment for us, learning to live with each other’s rhythms and idiosyncrasies. I am realizing I’m more rigid, more impatient, and more set in my own ways than I would like to be. I’m learning.
Right now, and very suddenly, my world feels rather small. I know it’s a transient feeling, and things will shake out as they will. I’m trying to consider the opportunities in this and let go of my own selfishness. This is life and I’m here to live it. I won’t let the changes upend me.
I do have images back from the rolls of film I ran through my two new cameras, but it’s been a long day and words will have to suffice tonight.
This is my favorite photo I’ve ever taken of my dog, Moonie Pie. This is pretty much how she looks today, although this is from last summer, late August. Well, she’s a bit leaner, maybe. Even a bit older looking. She’s 13 and a half. This was a rare moment that she tolerated me so close to her face with my camera. We’d just walked on the beach and she had been in and out of the water; I dried her off with this old towel on the deck, and it was a beautiful, quiet, serene, warm evening.
As I write this now she is on the floor a few feet from me, whining. Not because she is in pain (although she is), but because she wants a second dinner. This is pretty normal. What isn’t normal is that she spent the morning at the vet, and she did that because yesterday afternoon, after a perfectly normal amble down the beach stairs (which I watch carefully, in case an old leg were to buckle), she felt peppy and started to run and then immediately collapsed and couldn’t get herself back up. When I got her standing, I knew instantly something was very wrong. She wouldn’t put any weight on her right back leg.
I managed to get her back up to the house by hoisting her back end up the steps as she mostly managed with her front legs. The limp was profound. I got her back to the house and gave her a pain med, tucked her onto the couch, and went into the bathroom to sob.
I’ve cried much more today, really having a hard time keeping it together as my mind goes to all that this means. But really, all this means is that it’s what you sign up for when a dog enters your life. Puppies are fun. Mid-life dogs can be sweet, with a few challenges. An old dog needs you to be there when they’re hurting. So that’s what I’m trying to do.
Today the vet did a workup and she ruptured her ACL. They don’t recommend surgery because of her age and her already very deteriorated hips. The options are pain meds, anti-inflammatories, letting her body heal the injury to the extent it can and keeping her comfortable and supported. Mostly, when she is feeling a little bit better, I’ll try to let her be the dog that she is, although I think her beach running days are over.
I don’t know how much longer I have left with my Moonie Pie, but I’m going to appreciate her, spoil her, and kiss her way more than she wants kissing. I’ll try not to be annoyed by her snoring, or her bad breath, or her separation anxiety, or her constant shedding, or her begging, or any other behaviors that are less than lovely.
I mean, I’m no picnic, either, and she’s stayed by my side without complaining.
I dream of sumac and milkweed (and other wild things) 