Success!

I just made my first platinum palladium print. I must say that for just taking a B&W image and making it a negative in Photoshop, it didn't turn out half bad. I guessed on the exposure time. started with 5 minutes and then checked it. I decided to give it one more minute for a total of 6 minutes. Pouring the developer on was fun. My wife was there to enjoy it with me.

That one was for fun now comes the work of testing and celebrating everything. figuring out my exposure times and perfecting my brushing on of the emulsion.

Everything is cleaned up. I think this deserves dipping into the good Scotch tonight.

Platinum update.

Its been a little over a month since my last post. A lot has happened since them. My supplies arrived from Bostic & Sullivan. I have completed my UV light box, pictures to follow. At one point I was reading 3 books on Pt/Pd printing and every little bit I could find on the internet. Needless to say I did get a little burned out for about a week. My brain turned to mush for a couple of days trying to cram as much information as possible. But all that is behind me now and its time to start doing! So in the next couple of week I plan on getting things set up and start making some test prints.

Platinum Printing

I am discovering in myself that I am as much a photographer as I am a printer. I have written in the past about my love for the print. The tactile qualities that come with holding, feeling, seeing up close the image on the paper. The ability to see an image in all its glory, matted and framed, hanging on the wall. Well in my printing quest I have been doing some research into Platinum/Palladium printing. For those who are not familiar with the process href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum_prints">


I have read several articles on the internet as well as a few books. It is time to start making prints. My supplies are on order and my plans are drawn for building a UV light box. So over the next couple of months I will be trying my hand at Pt/Pl printing. As much as I can I will update with what I have found works as well as what does not. I’m sure I will have more of the not’s at first. If anyone has made PT prints and has any tips or tricks that could help me along please feel free to drop me a note. Wish me luck.

Taken in Maui back in January.

Birth of a Lens

Ever wonder how your camera lens is made? Check this video out over at Canon. http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/tech/l_plant/index.html Pretty cool. I like the giant tray of molten glass. Hard to believe they get such good lenses from such rough beginnings.

Drobo Update

Well my Drobo has been up and running for a few weeks now. I wish I hade more to say other than it just works. It takes care of everything for you.

I installed the 2 1Tb drives that it came with, pretty strait forward. The software that comes with it instructs you to format the drives. This went pretty quick. Then you are ready to go. That’s it. I than went and made sure that I had my photos and my Lightroom catalog backed up on my old drives. Once that was verified I went into Lightroom and chose the option “Export as Catalog” and let it do its thing. This took some time! I do not have firewire 800 on this computer so everything has to go through a USB connection. Next computer will have to have the firewire, they say it’s pretty quick. Once the catalog was exported I just showed Lightroom where the new catalog was and it made that catalog the main working catalog and all was done. Man I love it when things work!!!

The Drobo is constantly backing up my data with out me having to do anything. With the 2 1Tb drives installed it actually shows up and just under 1Tb. It uses the other drive as a back up. If I installed other drives it would similarly break them up to have working and backup spaces. So I’m back in business and feeling better about my photos not disappearing. Now I have to work out an off sight backup plan. I will let you know what I come up with.

Drobo

After a little hiatus I’m back!

For those of you that know me or have read this blog you know that I preach Back Up Back Up and Back Up again your photos. Like most things today hard drives will fail.

The other day I was shutting down my system and my main hard drive that I keep most of my images on would not power down. The next day when I turned on my computer I got an error message about the drive. I still wouldn’t power down. The computer wouldn’t recognize it. That’s when I got a big lump in my throat and hoped for the best. I physically unplugged the drive to get it to power down. Waited a few minutes than plugged it back in. The drive started acting normal again and the computer was able to see it! Close one.

Now I did have all my data backed up onto another drive so if it totally bit the dust I wouldn’t have lost everything, but still scary.

So knowing that both my drives were getting up in years and also that once a drive starts acting funny it usually doesn’t fix its self I went ahead and ordered a Drobo. What’s a Drobo? It’s a data robot. What’s a data robot? I won’t get to technical but it’s a device that holds multiple hard drives and backs up your data between them. If a drive fails you just install a new hard drive and it automatically fixes its self and backs up your data. Check them out at http://drobo.com/

I went with the 2 terabyte model. I figure I can increase my storage as needed. And with the price of storage constantly dropping it won’t be long before my Drobo gets some new hard drives to back up my images.
I ordered mine from B&H http://www.bhphotovideo.com/ because they have good service and prices and they had free shipping. When it arrives I will post how