Week 26 The Year in Review

One of my stated intentions for doing this project was to try out some of the cameras I owned and had never used. While I have done that to some degree (Pentax 67, Nikonos, and the Voigtlander I left in Iceland ) I have also added cameras to the stash that weren’t on the list at the start of the year, thus not reducing the task at all. For Week 26 I decided to try the Olympus Pen EE that I got for next to nothing on Etsy. I bought it in part because I like diptychs and spent a lot of time trying to make good ones in the darkroom back when I had use of a darkroom. This seemed like a cheap shortcut to the same concept. The EE is the lowliest of the Pen models, with no user controls except to set the film speed, thus being the Holga of its family. I realized after looking at images made with some of the other Pen series, that this was not really what I had in mind but – you bought it, you name it is one of my many mottoes. So I loaded a roll of TMax 400 and started shooting. Unfortunately, I forgot that because of the twin frames, you get twice as many exposures as with a regular SLR. As a result this 36 (72) exposure roll took me quite a few weeks to complete.

I shot in a variety of locations and sunlight conditions, from overcast, to bright sunlight, to shade and/or interior. The best results seem to have been in darker conditions (probably due at least in part to the film) and at closer range. I was pretty pleased with some of the pairings that happened (more or less by accident). The first bunch were taken at a beach near my house on an overcast day.

The next bunch were shot on a sunny day at the cemetery – the same day I took the infrared shots in the Week 27 post. The ones taken in the shade are best.

These next shots, if you blow them up, are really kind of nice. This statue is one of my favorites. It is meant to represent the angel of death and sits over the resting places of Ulysses S Grant Jr and his family. The creator was a famous sculptor whose many beautiful works are mainly in New York. She sits under a very large pepper tree which quite possibly wasn’t there when the monument was erected but which now keeps her in the shade most of the time.

This last pair was taken in my dining room.

I have been working to improve my photography skills as part of this project, so the lack of controls on this camera was frustrating. i was pleased with some of the shots but I don’t think I’ll be taking it out again soon.

As always, all images are straight from the camera, scanned with no editing.