Chris Pugh Photo

Peace Be With You

chrispugh — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 14:25:15 +0000

One thing I like about my new job at the Ukiah Daily Journal is that every day I get to photograph something different and yesterday was a great example of that. For the past 38 years, Parducci Winery in Ukiah California has held an annual blessing of the grapes.

I’m not a religious person but I can appreciate the heritage and the tradition of an event like this. I was happy to have the opportunity to photograph it for my job. At the end of the ceremony several people walked up to me to shake to hand and to say ‘peace be with you.’. Hopefully this years harvest will be a good one, California has suffered through a very serious drought. Later this month I’m hoping to head out into the vineyards to document workers picking grapes. Look for that soon.

Blog Fall Down, Blog Go Boom

chrispugh — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 15:20:13 +0000

Sigh. I don’t know what I did but I totally broke my blog two days ago and lost almost everything I had on the site. I have backups of some of the content, and I’ll try to add some of it back soon, but for now though, I am just going to keep things simple. I’m Chris. I’m a photographer. I write about random shit.

Moving on.

Breaking News

chrispugh — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 15:38:11 +0000

Things have been pretty quiet on the field notes photography front and for this I must apologize. However, I do have a good reason for my brief and unannounced disappearance. You see, I have taken on a new job as the “Chief Photographer” for my local newspaper which has kept me pretty busy for the past couple of weeks. Now that I am starting to feel a little more comfortable in my job, its time to get back into the swing of things and get back to working on my new film photography addiction.

Here is my current plan. The podcast will be starting up again this week. I’ll be talking about a new camera that I recently bought and how much I love it. I also want to talk a little about shooting color film and what my plans are for that and how I plan to develop my film. I also have a couple of small book projects that I am trying to finish up, so look for those soon as well.

So as you can see, I have lots of things going on but I just haven’t had time to talk about them. Project “blog reactivate” has begun! Let’s do this!

-c-

Field Notes — 006 — Going Wide

chrispugh — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 22:49:40 +0000

Field Notes – The Digital Podcast About Analog Photography.

Episode #6 — Going Wide.

This week on Field Notes I take a couple of steps back to talk about a wide angle perspective on my film photography project.

Shoot Film Co. — shootfilmco.com
Mike Padua — instagram.com/themikepadua/
The 35 mm ANR Insert for Epson V600 — http://www.betterscanning.com/scanning/insert35.html

My name is Chris Pugh and I make podcasts about analog photography. I’m an editorial and commercial photographer based in Northern California. I am the founder of the Ukiah Photography Club and outside of photography I am known for my love of loose leaf tea, locally brewed craft beer, 80’s heavy metal music, and useless trivia knowledge.

Twitter: twitter.com/chrispugh
Instagram: instagram.com/chrispugh
Facebook: www.facebook.com/chrispughphoto
Website: chrispugh.com

Thanks for listening – if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends!

Shooting a 52 Year Old Camera

chrispugh — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 16:59:08 +0000

Last week I picked up and old Yashica Minister III on an online auction site which was delivered a couple of days ago. When the camera arrived I was a bit bummed because the leaf shutter inside the camera appeared to be not working but after firing off the shutter about 20 times in a row it began to work again. I’m guessing that this camera has sat on a shelf for most of its life because it’s in pristine condition and doesn’t have any noticeable wear on the exterior of the camera body.

I’m planning to do a full review of the camera soon so I’m going to keep this short. After I got the camera working again I immediately loaded a fresh roll of Kodak Tri-X into it and took it out for a spin. It was a rainy day here in California, very strange since we are in the middle of July, so I just drove around in my car looking for interesting things to photograph and you can see a few samples above.

It’s amazing to me that a 52-year-old camera can still produce photographs and a question that popped into my mind while shooting this old guy was if my Canon 5D Mark II will still be able to produce images in 52 years? I seriously doubt it.

Field Notes — 005 — No Camera Love

chrispugh — Fri, 10 Jul 2015 00:04:51 +0000

Field Notes – The Digital Podcast About Analog Photography.

Episode #5 — No Camera Love.

This week on Field Notes I talk about processing some issues that have come up since my last episode.

Flickr Explored Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/cdpugh/183…ateposted-public/

Twitter: twitter.com/chrispugh
Instagram: instagram.com/chrispugh
Facebook: www.facebook.com/chrispughphoto

Accidental Expiration

chrispugh — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 16:16:12 +0000

Two days ago I ended up processing a couple of rolls of Ilford HP5 Plus… A friend of mine had a roll he was wanting developed and I had just finished off a test roll in my Pentax ME Super. I processed the rolls just as I had done before and everything seemed to be ok. When I pulled the developed rolls out of the Paterson tank I noticed that my roll was extremely dark compared to my friends roll. I shrugged my head, hung them to dry and went about my business.

A few hours later I took down my roll, cut it into strips and proceeded to run the negatives through my scanner and noticed that they were extremely grainy. Like more grainy than they should be. I was confused and was left wondering what I had done wrong. I scanned the rest of the roll and then moved onto cutting and scanning my friends roll. He doesn’t have the development equipment so I was doing him a favor. When I started scanning his roll I noticed that everything looked great. His frames had the correct amount of grain and nothing looked out-of-place. Again, I was left confused by what I was seeing.

I fired off an email to a local photographer who shot film for most of his life and he suggested I take a look the temperature of my chemicals and water. I always check the temperature before I develop so I didn’t think that was the cause, plus I developed two rolls in the same tank and only one came out excessively grainy. It was late so I went to sleep and when I woke up the following morning the cause seemed to immediately pop into my head. The roll that I had shot had been an old expired roll of HP5 that was stored in my friends attic for many years. I hadn’t planned on shooting it but I must have grabbed it by mistake when I last loaded my camera.

It’s funny because in the digital world something like this wouldn’t really happen unless I grabbed entirely the wrong camera or something. Oh well, moving on. Time to shoot some more film and keep this bus moving forward.

Taking a Ride on the Rainbow

chrispugh — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 01:00:34 +0000

I know these types of shots are considered cliché but I still find them fun to do and people seem to love them. I guess that’s all that really matters.

This is from our last spring fair and is one of my favorite shots of the evening. To take these kinds of shots all you really need is a tripod and a camera. I’ll type up some directions in the next few days for those who might be interested.

All is Not Right in Film Land

chrispugh — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 18:09:01 +0000

Late last week I developed my very first roll of black & white film in my kitchen and when I pulled the developed film out of the Paterson tank I was excited to see images on the reel. For the past few weeks I have built my development kit and this was finally the moment of truth — could I develop my own black & white film at home in my kitchen?

Well, it worked and I was able to successfully do it, however, one thing that I was not expecting was issues with my camera. The image you see above is one of several shots from the roll and what you see is the shutter curtain being captured in my frame. It appears that my Canon A1 is unusable at this point and I’m having to take a couple of steps back to start over with a different camera by running another test roll through.

So now I am switching over to my Pentax ME Super and will be exploring my options. The ME Super seems like a nice camera but I’m not sure it’s the one for me and I am looking at purchasing a Nikon FM2N sometime in the next couple of weeks. I’ll let you know what I decide to do.

A Few Shots From My First Roll

chrispugh — Fri, 19 Jun 2015 17:49:53 +0000

Here are a few shots from the first roll of black & white film that I self developed at home in my kitchen. It was an interesting experience and I have to admit to be a little nervous before I began. These were shot on Kodak Tri-X at 400 speed.

It appears that my Canon A1 is having some sort of shutter drag issue because several of my frames I can see where the shutter was caught in the frame. It doesn’t show up on every frame, which leads me to believe that the shutter is either on it’s way out or needs to be cleaned and oiled again.

I’m not really sure what to do at this point so for now I am switching to the Pentax ME Super that a friend recently gave me. It’s currently loaded up with some Ilford HP5+ and I’m going to go ahead and run that through this weekend and I’ll probably try to develop it next Monday. Updates and photos soon!