Friday, March 10, 2006

Bells and Whistles

You'll note the flickr image and link on the right. I figured my photos were underutilized, and with the most recent additions from the Chicago trip, my meager collection is shaping up. If only I could figure out how to make it cycle through my photos.

I'm taking a course on architectural theory that I find incredibly difficult. It's for the MArchs and not for PhD students, but I am required by my program to take a design theory course. The major semester project is a pair of posters in which students must visually represent and contrast two books on ecology. It's rather challenging and particularly so because I am totally incompetent with Adobe Photoshop. Basically everything the architecture students slapped on the page (or seemed to slap on the page) looked totally scrumptious and seemed fit for publication. God, I need to develop some visual skills.

In that vein, I've bought a large format view camera (Toyo G 4x5) and am slowly assembling the appropriate accessories and hope to be busting out some decent photos soon. Last summer, working at HABS, I got to go out with James Rosenthal on some shoots of Greenbelt, MD. (I worked with Jack Boucher, too, but didn't do any shoots with him). Having read some of John Stilgoe's early work on landscape, I had been primed for view photography (as well as landscape painting). This summer a chief project will be relearning basic optics -- the excruciating interdisciplinary education of Dale Winling continues.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why don't you just go with a full frame dSLR with a tilt/shift lens instead? Much more portable, easier to experiment with with instant feedback, and since you're ending up in the digital world anyway, a file that's ready to use without going through all the intermediate steps of film developing, proofing, and scanning.

10:58 PM  
Blogger Dale Winling said...

I'm not ready to give up on film yet (much like I'm not ready to give up on paper, the greatest information medium ever developed). One of the beautiful things about non-digital/electronic stuff is I know how it works and generally how to fix it.

Also, I could never afford the equivalent quality/resolution digital version.

11:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was of the same mind until I realized that the cost of my consumables in the form of film, developing, proofing, and scanning was increasing to the point where a single trip ended up costing me the equivalent of an entry level dSLR (that would be 14 rolls of 35 mm Fuji NPH with developing and scanning costs at a pro lab that I trust). And then, only a fraction of the photos were usable. So I switched. My 6x6 MF camera is also "retired". I'll probably take it out every once in a while for fun, but 120 film is getting expensive to process, and 220 is getting obsolete.

2:34 PM  
Blogger heidi said...

I would really like to see an essay appear on your blog sometime in the near future entitled, "Paper: the greatest information medium ever developed." Mostly because A) irony isn't dead, and B) mostly because of A. And I think it would be interesting. Go to! (in your free time, of course).

7:19 PM  
Blogger Dale Winling said...

Dood, my Urban Oasis 'zine is flying off the shelves 24-7, so there's nothing ironic about it.

9:24 PM  

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