Broken, Pt. 3

Somewhere in SLC.

You

Find Your Note

My N65 is pulling the film through weirdly, resulting in some lines on my negatives, which often doesn't enhance the image in any way. Therefore, the N65 is taking a leave of absence while I consider my options. With Allen's Camera already willing to muck up my scans by not cleaning their scanner properly (they tell me it's really hard to keep it clean, which I don't doubt; but they're supposed to be pros, so I have no sympathy for their hardships), the lines are one challenge too many.

Still, despite the lines and dust, I thought this one turned out alright.

Nothing but You and Me

On flickr

I Will Break Your Fall

Kodachrome

You should go here sometime. But beware of the locals.

A Visit to Tiny Telephone

Tiff and I were fortunate enough to attend John Vanderslice's special performance with the Magik*Magik Orchestra at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. The concert included the entire White Wilderness album, a lovely collaboration between JV and Magik*Magik, just released this year. They also performed orchestral versions of many JV songs from his backcatalogue. It truly was a unique concert experience, and though I seem to say that with every Vanderslice show I see, this concert really did stand apart from those other fine shows. But the memories didn't end with the concert, for near the concert's end Vanderslice invited the audience to a free tour of his recording studio, Tiny Telephone, the following morning. Naturally, Tiff and I wanted to go, and since we had the whole next day available to us, we went. (Luckily, it didn't take much to persuade Mom to come with us.)

  John Vanderslice - Sea Salt by IndieRockReviews 

The tour of Tiny Telephone was a wonderfully memorable experience for a few reasons. First, it further solidified my deep admiration for John Vanderslice as a musician and person. He's a good person with remarkable talent; the genuine article, as they say.

Second, I learned a lot about sound and recording that I hadn't really thought about much before. Sound is cool and recording an album is a really complex process - at least it is when you wanna do it well. Tiny Telephone encourages analog recordings rather than digital, and for good reason: too much of digital recording is crap. New digital technology should be awesome, but most of it isn't. Unfortunately, our new technology has mostly made studio recording lazier, which only encourages lazy listeners - we get used to hearing poor quality recordings and lose our ear for good sound.

Third, I was charmed by Vanderslice's account of the development of Tiny Telephone and the small community of artists neighboring the studio. According to him, the neighborhood used to be a lot more dangerous than it is these days. The change came in part because of the small artist community that filled in the collection of shabby-looking back alley buildings where Tiny Telephone is located, inviting a much safer atmosphere. Additionally, the once-dangerous park next to Tiny Telephone received a skate park from the city, which has helped reduce crime. Maybe other parts of the country have gotten over the stigmas against skaters and the narrow beliefs that artists don't contribute to society, but in my community some of these naive beliefs still prevail. But the neighborhood where Tiny Telephone resides seems to show that artists can do a lot for a community and having skate parks (and other similar community amenities) doesn't increase crime, it reduces it because kids,and adults, have a place where they can gather and engage in constructive activities rather than wander around with nothing to do but get in trouble. This story was a modest example of community action to improve the neighborhood; something we could all benefit from.

There's much more I could say about my visit to Tiny Telephone. But for now I'll just show off some of the pictures I took while there. Vanderslice was kind enough to allow me to snap some photos and I was rather happy with the results.

Note how much the dude in sunglasses looks like T-Bone Burnett.

Thanks to Mom for taking this picture.

 

For more on our visit to Tiny Telephone, check out Tiff's post at The Art of Place.

Broken, Pt. 2: San Francisco Edition

What better activity when visiting San Francisco for the first time than taking pictures of cracks in the walls?

Storm King Ranger Station

Broken

Provo Canyon Walk

Allen's Strikes Again

Scrolling through two rolls of freshly developed film was going well, and for a moment I thought that maybe Allen's Camera hadn't screwed things up (again). Foolish me, I jumped the gun (again).

Notice not only the nice line across the image (a problem with the file, not the negative), but also along the left side where you'll see a sliver of a different image. I know they have monkeys working there, but this just seems ridiculous. Do they get away with this just because they're the only place in town that does anything with film anymore? Both of the issues with this picture could be solved fairly easily by training their high school hipster staff to not only scan images properly, but to also double-check their work before asking for your money and thanks.

This is a ranty post I know, and probably not what anyone wants to read. I guess I just wish that someone would come along and open a camera and film store that actually knew something about film. Or even easier than that, why doesn't Allen's just improve the quality of their work and stop pissing on their film customers? If they don't care about film, then just be Inkley's and sell digital cameras and picture frames.

I'm done now; gotta return to Allen's and get them to do it right.

Modert Art Deux

Upon closer examination and some contrast adjustments, it appears that I captured an apparition.

But I'm still not sure what Allen's Camera did to it.

The original.

Modern Art

Sometimes when you let Allen's Camera develop your film you get pictures like this:

I'm still not sure what to think.