Street Lust

Some good times were had at the halloween parade that the east village started some 30 years ago. It made me wish it could be a masquerade all year round. I love the playfulness and joy of the festivities. I love how it brings the social vibes to life - and people feel encouraged to interact with one another - to celebrate life... and the pursuit of happiness... and time off of work.

Tonight i was invited by my friend Alan to go to the Halloween parade. I had a pretty good time and learned some great new things about fuji film and my automatic flash. I'm really encouraged tonight and i really needed this experience with film to gain my confidence in the medium. I'm more into film now than ever after tonight. It makes me glad to have been so devoted, and it takes devotion - especially this day and age.

I was happy with the quality that the 400 speed fuji film yielded. I bought the film from adorama in manhattan and the film was kept chilled. I have yet to try the 800 and 160 speed but i have rolls of both in the fridge here.

I used my dad's 1967 nikkormat ftn 35mm that he pretty much gave me, and a 28mm 2.8 lens i bought a while back. I've been pleased with all 3 of my lenses to this day very much so far. you can click on the above pic for more detail.



The problems i ran into tonight after the fact, are that i burned the film with my flash being too intense. I should have stopped down and sacrificed background ambience but i really wanted the b/g to look important so i didn't risk it - i was WRONG to do this and I have learned a little more about my flash. If it says to set it at f4. set it at f5.6 and compensate by dropping the shutter down a notch. This gets really scary in low light... when the shutter gets down below 1/30 - and its something i have been meditating on... however i fixed it in photoshop.

My flash has a setting that drops it to a fixed gn of 10 which is 1/8 of the full power. I'm thinking of using this knowledge to lower my flash level and let me open up my apeture a stop more. I might keep handy a neutral filter to calm the flash down a bit - or maybe a warming filter and kill a couple birds at once.

furthermore............

I found a red gel just laying ont he ground tonight - only in nyc does something like this happen on any random day. so i put it over my flash for some shots = goin to get those developed today.


and....

I want to thank alan for all the incredible wonderful support and friendship he has extended to me! thanks alan! you have been a great huge positive intervention in my life lately.

that's him there! he also is my legal advisor and professional listener.