The Devil Made Me Do It

We’re heading out on a long road trip in September that will include a search through the Mississippi Delta for some historic crossroads. You’ve likely heard the song Crossroads by Eric Clapton’s Cream. That’s a cover of a song by blues legend Robert Johnson, who, legend has it, sold his soul to the Devil at a crossroads in exchange for his unmatched guitar talent. In the Cream song, at the end, you’ll hear Clapton say “I’m standing at the crossroads/Believe I’m sinking down.” That line is direct from the original and that’s Hell he’s sinking down into. 

Some of the story is verified fact, some legend, some….who knows. Robert Johnson was in fact a guitar player at a young age. He played around the Delta in the early 1920’s, including the Dockery Plantation which is kind of the birthplace of blues music. The older men there, Charlie Patton, father of the blues, among them, made fun of him because he wasn’t very good. He got angry and left, on foot, not to be seen in the area again for months. When he came back, he was one the best, if not the best guitar player anyone had heard. That much is fact, corroborated by blues histories who spoke with those who were there. 

Robert Johnson in 1936

Then the legend begins. The idea of meeting the Devil at the 

Crossroads has a long history. In the part of Africa where many of the enslaved people of the Delta had roots, the Trickster god in their pantheon is called The Dark Man. He was the only of the gods who was unpredictable. Praying to him might get you want you wanted, or not. He was associated with places where paths or roads crossed. In America, as the Africans were introduced to Christianity, The Dark Man was a natural fit for The Devil. And so we get the Devil at the Crossroads. A story in the Delta held that you could bring your guitar to the crossroads just before midnight and play. At midnight, the Devil would appear, take your guitar from you, tune it, play some, and hand it back. From then on you’d have great skill as a guitarist, but your soul belonged to the Devil.  This is what many people thought was the source of Robert Johnson’s talent. As an entertainer who depended on a certain degree of notoriety to draw audiences and make his living, Johnson did not discourage the story.

You can believe that or not. But after he became a great musician, Johnson never rested. He never lived in one place and never stayed in one place long. He traveled all through the Delta and the South, up to St. Louis and Chicago, and even to New York and Canada. It’s hard to listen to him sing “Hellhound On My Trail” and not at least entertain the idea that he did in fact believe he was trying to outrun an evil fate. He certainly lived like it. 

The actual Crossroads involved in this story were never specifically nailed down. The “official” spot is the intersection of highways 49 and 61 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. There’s a big sign marking the spot, and I’ll certainly go and get some photos, but it’s a busy intersection and today features such things as a Sonic drive-thru. 

We’ve also tracked down some other possibilities, much more out in the country, and these are what led me to my Devil Made Me Do It purchase of a new-to-me old lens. The Delta is very, very flat. These crossroads are dirt roads through mainly cotton fields. I thought that to capture them the way I’d like required a wide angle lens, so I found a 24mm Pentax for the Spotmatic at Roberts Camera (https://robertscamera.com/) used gear site Used Photo Pro (https://usedphotopro.com/ )for about $60. Buying from them was a breeze, it came quickly packed safely and in great shape. I can’t wait to try it out here then take it to the Crossroads. 

I hope to come back with my soul intact. But if when I return, I’m all of a sudden shooting stuff to put Ansel Adams to shame, you’ll know what happened. 

Nostalgia & Progress: 50 Years of Walt Disney World Photo Project

 This is my first attempt at an organized, thought-out photo project, and I’m super excited to dive into it. To understand this, you’ve got to understand that I’m a Disney Geek. My family went to Disney when I was growing up quite a few times. My parents took the Lovely and Talented Lisa and I to Disney World as a graduation from college present. Lisa and I have taken John as often as we could, and have instilled a love of Disney in him as well. Disney to me is all wrapped up in the best aspects of nostalgia, but at the same time the fun of it still comes from its constant change as they push the boundaries of what is possible in immersive entertainment. But that’s getting away from the point, I was talking nostalgia.

I remember most of the trips we took to Disney well, some less well, and one not at all, because I was not quite two. Some of what has kept these earlier memories so vibrant is the photos my dad captured along the way. I have my dad to thank for much of my love for photography. He always had a camera, and he had it out at not just the “special” times, the birthdays and holidays and vacations, but at the regular times. Looking back on those photos, the ones of just random weekend car rides and everyday stuff mean the most. Most of our life is not holidays and vacations, right? He definitely took the camera on vacation, too, but he took his “regular times” eye with him, I think. There are posed photos in front of things that represent where we were of course, but there are also others that just seem kind of random. And I love them. 

Dad shot on slide film and those early slides of our earliest trips to Walt Disney World have come under my care. I’ve scanned them all, but still have a screen and projector that, as far as I know, still work. The look of slide film, and I think this was specifically Kodachrome, just says “childhood memory” to me. I went looking through these old Disney photos when we decided to make a trip for Walt Disney World’s 50th birthday. I gift to thinking how different it looked then, but at the same time how much the same. Nostalgia and Progress were in those images. 

I got to thinking it might be cool to try to recreate some of those photos, to go to the same places and seek the same angles and framing and see that mix of nostalgia and progress. But I didn’t want to step in too much as the photographer. I think that taking those photos with a modern DSLR would be just jarring, and probably say more about the change in technology over the last 50 years than the story of nostalgia and progress I’m trying to tell. So I bought a 35mm slr film camera that was made in the mid to late 60s, something that might very well have been carried by the tourists during those first years. I can’t get my hands on Kodachrome any longer, it’s not been made in over a decade, but Kodak did re-release another slide film. It’s not the same look, but slide film is distinct from negative film and I thought this would get me closest. 

I’ve gathered 15 images from dad’s collection, only two of which feature me or my mom. They are scenic shots, and some of them a bit random. I asked my dad why he was taking photos of the rest rooms on Tom Sawyer Island and he said he had no idea. But he did, and so will I. I’ve chosen images of places I am fairly certain I can get to and put myself in the same spot as dad. I’ve checked Google Earth and pinpointed as best I can where he was standing. I feel like I’m ready.

A truly epic view of the restrooms on Tom Sawyer Island, from, I think, the fort. 

That’s me in the red overalls and yellow shirt. I may have someone else shoot this and try to ride that horse again. 

I began this thinking it was a tribute to Walt Disney World. But the more I look at these photos and the more I think about it, the more it becomes a tribute to my dad. Thinking about him walking around the Magic Kingdom with my mom and little me, camera swinging on his neck, shooting things that struck him reminds me of just how much he has given to me. And when I think that just a few years before he was walking around the jungles of Southeast Asia armed with much more than a camera, well, I just hope that someday I can grow into the kind of man he is. 

I hope this works out like I’m envisioning it. It’s a little squirrelly working on film and not knowing until you get photos back from a processor what you’ve captured. But I have high hopes. I mean, it’s Walt Disney World, it’s the Magic Kingdom. I feel like Walt would approve.

One big difference will be the missing Sky Ride. 

Pinocchio Village Haus doesn’t really look any different today

Lessons From A Greensboro Road Trip

 I had the best time with the cameras in Greensboro. With the Lovely and Talented Miss Lisa in classes all day, I was left to my own devices and I took the chance to go to all the places and see all the things. Well, maybe not ALL, but quite a bit. 

Downtown Greensboro Photowalk

My first full day left to myself, I headed to downtown Greensboro for a photo walk. I got there fairly early, maybe 8:30ish, so it was very quiet. The buildings there are a funky mix of turn of the century brick with a little Art Deco thrown in. 

Greensboro’s Flat Iron Building on CineStill 50D

Cool curved wall on this old service station on ProImage 100

I packed my sling camera bag with the Eos-R with one lens, the 35mm f1.8, the Petri 7S and the Holga 120. Everything fit nicely and was pretty easy to get at. I was testing the idea of shooting film and digital on the same trip as well as limiting myself to one lens for the Eos R. It turned out I really enjoyed having three cameras (and my iPhone 12 Pro, which is kind of a bad ass camera itself) at my disposal. 

What surprised me was was how little I reached for the digital camera. I was having so much fun with the film cameras that I rarely pulled it out. When I wanted something that I could send to Lisa or John or share on social media, I used the phone. It’s not that the digital camera isn’t fun any more, it’s more that I just didn’t feel I needed to use it that morning. I found that being free to just use what struck me as the most fun at the time was pretty great.

The Holga and Tri_X make this look like it could have been taken 100 years ago

This just seems to cry out for B&W

I used Kodak ProImage 100 and CineStill 50D, both color films, in the 35mm Petri and one roll of tried and true Kodak Tri-X 400 black and white and one roll of Lomography Color Negative 400 in the Holga. I learned that slow speed (low ISO) films make the Petri more fun to use. I was a little nervous of the CineStill 50D because 50 is a lower ISO than I’d ever tried and I was hoping it would work ok. There was no need to worry, at least not on a sunny day. The CineStill was maybe even a little over exposed sometimes, I guess because I was afraid I wouldn’t give it enough light. I’m still thinking about how much I like that film, I’ll need to try some more and try to expose it correctly and see what I think. The ProImage was terrific. It let me us lower f-stops and slower shutter speeds than the 400 and 200 ISO films I’ve been using. And I like the colors and tone of the film. It’s definitely a keeper.

These colors! Disney, here we come!

These two are ProImage 100. I love these colors as well

Tank Museum

The following day the boy and I headed to Danville, Virginia to see the Tank Museum. I took the same three cameras and lenses. I put a roll of Tri-X 400 in the Holga and I had to fire off some random photos to finish off the CineStill 50D so I could replace it with the Film Photography Project’s Kodak Vision3 500T, a movie film made to shoot indoors under artificial light. I’ll write more about developing that one, it’s tricky, but in the end the results weren’t bad all. It handled the indoor lighting well and the Petri also handled everything just fine. The Tri-X, though, did not do well under that light in the Holga. I think being limited to f11 just wasn’t enough light. Nothing on that roll came out. But that’s how we learn. 

It was REALLY dark in here, but this still came out ok

Not terrible, but not great

Again, not so bad. 

The Grandover

Between adventures out and about, I took walks around the resort with all three camera and a variety of films. This was where I truly found the joy of having all these options. The Eos R gave me truly beautiful images and knowing I could capture something stunning was fun.  I’m still finishing the roll from the resort in the Holga, but finding shots that played to its quirks was a blast. The ProImage 100 images from the Petri were perfect in their own way, and were just what I was after when I shot them. Switching between the three, and deciding when and why, was fun in itself. As I learn more about the cameras and film stocks, this whole adventure gets more fun as more options open up. 

ProImage 100

Canon Eos-R 

Disney Plans

As a practice run for our Disney trip this trip was great. I’ve found I’m perfectly happy with one, good quality, mid-range lens. For Disney we’ll take the Canon 60D and the 50mm, and I think we won’t miss having a zoom or a telephoto. I’ve settled on buying a bunch of ProImage 100 and Lomography 400 for the trip, those two film stocks proved themselves to me. I’m settled on carrying all three into the parks, though I may switch to a regular backpack rather than the sling as the sling kind of gave my back fits after half a day of walking around. I’ll be bringing a pile of film again because I absolutely love starting the morning choosing what to bring from a wide selection. It’s going to be a Magical trip! 

Road Trip!!!!!!!

 It’s been soooooo long since we went anywhere for any length of time. We’ve done some fun day trips and we’ve been on a couple overnighters to go see the boy, but we haven’t proper been away since before The Plague Times. Tomorrow morning, though, we drop the News Hound off at Pet Camp and head to a fancy resort in Greensboro for four whole nights! It’s not quite really a vacation, though. It’s the annual conference of the North Carolina Association of Municipal Clerks, during which my lovely bride will become the new president of the Association. I’m very proud. I’m also really happy I get to tag along. Lisa will be in classes all day, so I will actually have a bit of vacation time. Naturally, I’m planning to use it to play with cameras.

We’ve been to Greensboro enough that I have a start of an idea of some things I need to see and hopefully shoot. The city has a fun little downtown area that we’ve mostly just driven through, so exploring that is high on the list. Greensboro prides itself on its green spaces, too, so I have some gardens and parks and trails on my list as well. It’s supposed to be sticky hot, but partly cloudy with just a chance of thunderstorms rolling through, so should be pretty good photography weather. And since Lisa’s classes start early, I can easily get my butt out for morning light and come back to do some magazine when the light is harsh (and it’s super hot.) That’s the plan anyway.

I’ve not been anywhere on photo safari since I began messing about with film photography, so I was’t sure what I wanted to bring. After thinking about it a it, I settled on pretty much everything. I have a good sling camera bag and also a fairly large backpack, so I have the room. I’ll leave the Brownie at home because folding it is a little iffy, but I’m bringing the Holga and the Petri 7 and the Eos R. I have the two RF lenses as well as the telephoto and the wide angle zooms. I figure I can look at the day’s weather and where I’m going and pack the sling with whatever I’ll want for that trip. Or throw the backpack in the car, who knows? But as far as cameras and lenses, I’m pretty well covered.

The Go Bag

Film left me putting in a little more thought. I’m leaving the slide fil at home because that’s for my Disney Project and I’m not confident about being able to replace any that i would use in Greensboro. The medium format film for the Holga was pretty easy as well. I’m taking three rolls each of Tri-X 400 and Lomo 400, that way I’ll have both color and black and white. I’m thinking it might be fun to load the Holga with color and the Petri with B&W or vice versa, so I always have both as options. That means I’m able to bring some pretty funky 35mm film. I have my Washi “S” 50 ISO sound recording film as well as both the 50D and 500T Vision3 Kodak film stocks from Film Photography Project. I’m also packing a couple rolls of the tried and true Gold 200 as well as two rolls of the very normal but new to me ProImage 100. 

I think that gives me a wide variety of film speeds in both color and monochrome for the Petri. I’m expecting lots of light, so the low ISO stuff should work well, especially in the urban areas. I can go to the 200 for the shady spots in the woods if I end up there. That’s the plan anyway. 

I’m hoping to have the chance to branch out a bit with my subject matter. Not only is it a new city, but it’s also much more urban than even Wilmington, so should offer a different style of shooting than I’m used to here at the beach. If there are people around, I could try some street photography. We’ll see if I get up the nerve. Maybe shooting strangers won’t seem so weird in a city. We shall see. 

And I’ll also always have the mirrorless Eos R with all its bells and whistles and options and a  big pile of memory cards to go along with it. 

I’m looking forward to spending some time just focusing on photography (heh, see what I did there). If all goes well, I’ll be busy in Jeff’s FotoMat and on the computer when we get back. And let’s be honest, this is a dry run for the Disney trip, so any lessons learned will be valuable. It’s all very exciting :-)

That Old Time Film Look

 Ever have an idea in your head of something, creatively, that’s you’d like to bring to life and you sort of bumble your way towards that idea without really knowing if you’re on the right track or not until all of the sudden exactly what you’d been hoping for happens? That’s the feeling I got when these photos appeared on the first roll of color film I developed myself.

I bought the Petri 7S rangefinder camera I used because I wanted to try a rangefinder camera and because I had this notion of recreating the sort of vibe of the vacation photos of my childhood. Having seen how the old folding Brownie produced photos that just have the feel of 100 years ago, no matter what the subject, I thought getting a camera from the early 70s might do the same sort of thing. 

This idea was brought on at least partly by Walt Disney World’s 50th birthday. We are incredibly happy that Lisa and I will be joining a couple friends in the Magic Kingdom on October 1st, the actual 50th anniversary of the park’s opening. I thought it would be fun to bring back photos of the event that had the feel of photos taken 50 years ago. 

So after running a roll of black and white through the Petri and finding that it seemed to be working just fine, I ordered some Kodak Gold 200, a pretty classic-looking consumer grade film, and headed out to see what I could do. Luckily, I live at a vacation spot so taking “vacation pictures” with my old camera and vacation film wasn’t a challenge. 

We headed out to the pier because nothing says vacation like the beach, right? I love the top of these two photos above, but the beach photo was the one that let me know I’d bumbled right into completely nailing what I was after. That could have been taken in 1972. I am so happy.

This is also the first roll of color film I’ve ever developed myself, and it turned out great. I’ll write another blog about the process, but it wasn’t hard at all. And it gave me all of this!

I even tried a few portraits, because what are vacation photos without the people? Focusing the rangefinder close up is weird and takes a bit of time and practice. I’m finding that the exposure meter in the camera is pretty trustworthy, though. I couldn’t be happier with these photos of the lovely Miss Lisa (before and after her first post-plague haircut).

That top one really has me excited. The light coming in is great without blowing out and the out of focus background is just perfect. Managing to get the Petri 7S version with the 1.8 aperture lens is going to prove fortunate, I think. 

Over all, I’m super excited. This little camera will be just what I wanted and I think the Gold 200 will be perfect. I have a roll of Kodak’s more pro-grade color film in there now, so we’ll see how that turns out. It is supposed to give more realistic colors, but that isn’t what I’m looking for in every case. Figuring out which film is right for which project will be a fun experience.