play like the one person in the room can give you an album deal

After a month or so of no gigs I managed to pick myself up The Cassette Kids supported by Red Ink and Canvas Kites at the Northcote Social Club in Melbourne. I had hardly used the 5D2 and 50D since I got them over a month ago so was keen to give 'em a wirl. Took a new combo with me tonight: 70-200 2.8 on the 5D2 and 10-22 on the 50D.. it worked pretty well although I may go back to the 17-35 2.8 on the 50D next time, the 10-22 is good but at f3.5 to f4.5 it was just a little bit too slow.

I got there to watch Red Ink play to me, a bar person, the light guy, sound guy and what I assume was a girlfriend- but they didn't hold back and put on an awesome show, catch these guys if you can. 2nd was Canvas Kites - and I wasn't really feeling it - the light was shit but there was also fuck all energy coming from the stage.. maybe an off night...

Cassette Kids were initally upstaged by a very drunk couple in the front who basically, without mincing words - fucked up the first three songs with their bad dancing, clapping out of time and generally just being too drunk - all sorted out with a loud cheer when they got booted out..

anyway.. onwards and upwards.

As usual, I learnt everything about gig photography from this guy

And I didn't have to pay for the gig because of these guys

And I have lots of photos here!

I'VE HIT THE BIG TIME!

I have been asked to contribute to a friends website about photography...
which is awesome apart from one thing: I secretly know diddly-squat about photography and until now I have been able to get by on a lot of smoke and mirrors and taking a shit-load of photos.

Honestly, as soon as someone mentions anything slightly technical about taking photos, my eyes glaze over and I sit there and try to perfect sleeping while still looking interested. I mean, yea, there is stuff that I have picked up along the way, and if you put me in a cage and poke me with a hot poker I may be able to tell you some of them - but most of what I do is on the fly. It took me two years to be able to remember that the small aperture number meant a more open lens hole thing.

Anyway, if I become famous, expect to be able to subscribe to my blog for 48 easy payments of $33.00 excl GST

Oh yea.. .the site! check it out - I'll be learning as I'm typing, that's fer shure!!!

click here, to be teleported to the site

the pick pop processing party blog

Just kidding... what a stupid name.

About 5 months ago I went out and brought a bunch of stuff so I could start developing my own B/W film from my Holga camera. Being fairly lazy, it sat in the cupboard till this morning when I thought I'd give it a go...

It hasn't turned out perfectly, but I was pretty happy with it considering it was my first attempt - I also wanted to see how slack I could be, learn from my mistakes etc etc

I had:

• My developer (Kodak T-Max Developer)
• My fixer (Ilford Rapid Fixer)
• My film (Kodak Tri-X400) in it's developing (Paterson) tank
  (don't get me started on putting the film onto the rolls, just google it), it's like trying to find the hooks to a girls bra as the father is walking the stairs with his shotgun.
• My measuring things and a thermometer.

I used this site to determin developing time and dilution specs.

I figured out from that site that I had to:

• Develop my film for a total of 10mins and 30 secs
  @ 20 degrees C
  

• Agitate for 30 seconds as soon as you put the developer in, then once every minute for 10 seconds (on the developer bottle it said once every 30 seconds for 5 seconds - I am guessing there is a difference, but I went with the website).

• Dilution according to the website was 1+9 and on the developer bottle it was 1+4
  (again, and only for consistency, I went with the website)
  My developing tank is 500ml so I needed 450ml water to 50ml developer.

After the time was up, I emptied the developer and got my fixer out - dilution specs for this was 1+3 so i needed 125ml of fixer to 375ml of water (@ 20 degrees C) I have since learnt it should have been in there for up to 5mins... after I emptied the tank I needed to wash the fixer off, and this is how I did it.

• Filled up the developing tank with water (again at 20 degrees C) and emptied the tank
• Filled it up again and agitated 5 times, empty the tank
• Repeat again, but agitate 10 times
• Again, but agitate 20 times

Oh yea... I was shooting 120 film using my Holga CN camera