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In the Darkroom

A collection of 33 posts

2020

Manifest

I know I’m not alone in wondering this. Can we manifest things? Don’t worry – you are at the SBHOPPER blog. I know I don’t get cosmic very often. I have not dropped acid. I really don’t even know what acid is. LSD? Timothy Leary stuff? I

Capitol Hill Seattle

Testing, testing, 1...2...Taylor Swift

There are scientific studies, and then there are SBHOPPER studies. SBHOPPER studies should not inform thinking, actions, or policy-making. Trust me. I entered one of those baking soda + vinegar volcano eruptions into a grade school science experiment. You can’t call it a science experiment when the chemical reaction is

BBC Merlin doesn't pay to be a commoner

Quarantine Watch: Merlin

I need to think of a new title. Quarantine doesn’t seem accurate. Isolation, perhaps? I’ll try to keep this one short. It is very early in the morning. I can’t sleep. I think something in the Test Kitchen decided to remind me that I’m an amateur.

Black Lives Matter Seattle protest march

I blew it...again

Morale is low. I left my apartment late in the afternoon yesterday and walked downtown. I wanted to take photos of yesterday’s marches. I didn’t look online to see where the marchers were. There are bread crumbs everywhere. People walking with signs, police on bikes riding by, and

Canon FTb COVID

Let it come down

Thank heavens for this cooling rain. Right now I would love to have a balcony or a screened porch. A plane just flew over, and the sound was jarring. I don’t know the stats, so I’ll use blogger stats – the volume of flights has decreased during COVID to

Canon FTb

Hot in the City

I ventured out today. My legs and camera bag carrying back implored me to either never do this again or take steps to ensure that it gets easier. They also suggested that I should have chosen one path or another when it was cooler out. It’s hot. My Arizona

Film Photography

Hmm, something's not right

I just got back a roll of Kodak TMAX 3200 that I shot with a Pentax K1000. I did something wrong. The grain is off the charts. I shot some of the photos in lighting that I didn’t expect to work at all, but I was surprised by the

Capitol Hill Food

Lightroom: Sharpening

I’ve read a lot of complaints about how Lightroom renders RAW (RAF) Fujifilm files. I think the main complaint is that the sharpening causes little squiggly worms. I didn’t notice until I looked for them. After that I think I panicked and overcompensated. For a while I was

Correcting Distortion in Lightroom

Voodoo Doughnut

I’m not a doughnut person. I can understand why people like them, though. Obviously, they like how they taste. But doughnuts are also fun. There’s a lot of creativity, art, and food know how that goes into them. Are you familiar with Voodoo Doughnut [https://www.instagram.com/

Capitol Hill

In the Darkroom: Sharpness

I’m not really in a darkroom. I try to keep posts organized with categories. This post will probably only interest people who shoot with Fujifilm X cameras. It might not even interest them. But I’m doing a little processing test and figured it might be handy to have

Acros 100

On the Streets: Indian Summer Vintage

One of the many things I love about Capitol Hill is the wealth of small, independent shops. I always like walking past Indian Summer Vintage and seeing the window displays. I think the shop gets a lot of its items from estate sales. One can’t help but imagine the

Film Photography

Focus problem with Olympus XA

One of the many things I like about shooting film is the anticipation and excitement that sets in the moment you drop your rolls off at the lab. Everything else seems to move so fast these days. If we can’t have it instantly, we get frustrated. I’m not

Arizona

A few more from Jerome

Last December I visited my family in Phoenix for the holidays. I went to Jerome for a few days. I took a few photos with my Hasselblad 500cm, and I finally finished the roll. I’ll add the photos below. I still get a little confused working with digital copies

Cropping in Lightroom

The Crop

This will be a quick post. Last night I went to Nacho Borracho to hear a friend’s DJ set. Great music with an added benefit – she’s a great photographer, and I like hearing about what film and cameras she’s shooting with. (I wanted to use films there

Capitol Hill

Adventures in Time Lapse

I should really be doing my taxes. Instead, I’ve been on a mission to learn how to do time lapses. I should preface this with a warning – you won’t learn much about time lapses by reading this. These are primarily my notes from going through the process of

Editing perspective in Lightroom

On the Streets: Differing Perspectives

The following images are technically the same photo. I’m curious which one people prefer. “They’re all lousy” is an acceptable response, but I’d still be interested in hearing how people react to perspective shifts. The next time you look at architecture photography, have a look at the

Adobe Lightroom

On the Streets: Warm Day in Seattle

Seattle went from cold to hot this week. Yesterday I was downtown to retrieve a credit card my visiting brother-in-law had left at a restaurant (thanks for dinner!). It was nice being out in the sun, but I’m hoping we get a gradual transition to summer, with a chance

Capitol Hill

On the Streets: Capitol Hill

Last night I saw Pebble n the Crick play a show at Belltown’s The Crocodile. I like that band. It was a beautiful day and night weather-wise, so I walked to the show and back. Back in Capitol Hill, I passed that strange little concrete park at Denny and

Busking

Editing: Premiere Pro

I was late (very late) to the video craze, but I need to catch up. At least with the basics. I’m a freelance photographer with an unfortunate emphasis right now on free. (Worst choice ever for a job description by the way.) My primary interest or focus is photojournalism,

Adobe Lightroom

In the Darkroom: Lightroom

If you take photos, you’ve probably thought about your approach to backing up your images. It’s challenging, and I haven’t figured out my ideal solution. I haven’t worried too much about it because I do have backups, and while I don’t want to jinx myself

Capitol Hill

On the Streets: Cornish, Rainier, and Lightroom

I took my Fujifilm XT2 and 10-24mm lens out the other day to get some practice with it. I think it’s a great lens, but I’m not confident with it yet. I think that anytime you get below 16mm with the XT2’s 24.3MP X-Trans™ CMOS III,

Capitol Hill

In the Darkroom: Editing in Lightroom (quick post on leveling)

I have to make this a quick post. Most of you who work regularly in Lightroom or Photoshop already know about all of the leveling features in the Develop module. I thought I had a pretty good grasp of those features, but I find with Lightroom and Photoshop I learn

Bait Shop

On the Streets: Capitol Hill Clipping

There was some great evening light in Seattle yesterday. It’s been cold (really cold for Seattle) and clear this past week, with some incredibly blue skies. Yesterday was different. The sunset bouncing or reflecting off the grey clouds created a soft warm glow that was a little eerie. It

Black and White Photography

Vintage: Second Attempt at Leica IIIA

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season and that we can look forward to a better 2018. I wasn’t thrilled with 2017, but there’s plenty to be grateful for. I’m home visiting family in Phoenix through the New Year. I brought my grandfather’s Leica

Film Cameras

Leicas Revisited

About a year ago I posted some photos of my grandfather’s old film cameras. I think I’ve correctly identified most of them: Leica II (black), Leica IIIA (silver), a Rollei Baby, and a Beauty Super II. I took the Leicas into a very good camera shop and asked