last rest stop

Untitled, a photo by Hilary (curioush) on Flickr.

at the end of a long drive
Illinois

It's a bird

Untitled, a photo by Hilary (curioush) on Flickr.

3, 2, 1 & Chain of Rocks

You know how people will do the dumbest things for love? Well, I'd never do that. That's dumb.

I will, however, do dumb things for photographs! Boy howdy.

I needed to finish a roll of film for my film developing class this past Tuesday.

On Sunday I awoke to light rain outside. Looked at the radar, thought it looked like it was going to clear up for a good while, drove to the Chain of Rocks Bridge, which is an old alignment of Route 66, now a pedestrian and bicycle bridge. I got about 2/3 of a mile onto the bridge when the skies opened up and the rain began to pour.

But I got like four photos -- including this one above, so you know, totally worth it. And -- this is from the very first roll of film I've ever developed. Hooray! I've done it!

The sale? In my Etsy shop? Just three -- 3 -- days left!

Phooey!

 

Turns out that the blank roll of film was NO problem, because my film developing class, which was supposed to begin tonight, has been canceled. So now I've got to come up with a new plan to learn the process. More than a few folks have told me that it's fairly easy, but I'm more of a learn-by-doing than a learn-by-reading type, so I was hoping to have the chance to try it out with instruction a few times before I attempted to tackle it on my own. Anyone local who has ideas on somewhere else to take a course in this?

The photo above is one of the handful of digital photos I took on Saturday's excursion. The Knotty Pine Inn and Motel is in Breese, Illinois, on Old Route 50. I had fried chicken there.

Oh, before I forget!: I am super excited to be participating in the Cherokee Street Open House on Saturday, April 4. Mike from Foam* has generously offered to let me have some photos on display the day of the open house. My first solo show! Yay!

If you are in STL that day, won't you pretty pretty please come by and see me? It would mean the world to me. Holler at me for details. I promise to continue to harrass you about this until it's over.

Love,
Me


*do you know about Foam? It's going to be a coffee and beer place (but way more than that) opening at the corner of Cherokee & Jefferson, right where the statue is. Got to take a peek in it the other day and the work that's in progress there is way cool. Come take a look!

Avon calling

Avon
Originally uploaded by Hilary (curioush)

As I type this I can see some neighbor kids wheeling a basketball hoop out into the alley for a little pick-up game. I don't think I've seen them do that yet this year. It must really be Spring!

===============
I've signed up for the black and white film development classes that I mentioned in this entry. Yay! Thanks again to my friend Darren for inspiring me to finally take action.

Classes start this Tuesday. I get all nervous when I think school, so I'm hoping that this isn't going to be as school-y as regular school.

Not sure how quickly we're going to be getting into the darkroom -- this is a five-week class -- but I thought I'd better get a couple of rolls of black and white film shot first before class starts in case we are supposed to be developing right away.

I haven't had occasion to really get out of St. Louis much lately, so I decided to take a drive on US-50 in Illinois yesterday. I take US-50 in Missouri every chance I get, because it is way more pleasant than the the major highways, and it's got a lot of charm. But I haven't been on it on Illinois much, if ever.

Yesterday seemed like the perfect day to get in the car and do some exploring in Illinois. Fill up a roll or two of film. Win-win. I saw some neat places! Got a whole roll of film filled! Snapped a few digitals and Holgaroids too, but my main focus (haha) was on getting some black and white photos.

Except. When I got home last night, all happy to have gotten some shots that I felt pretty good about, I went to rewind the film and. Nothing. It wouldn't rewind. Because as far as I can tell I must have done something wrong in the first place when loading the film and I actually took no photos. Doh!

I guess I'll wait and see what happens when I try to develop the film in class, but I'm not too hopeful on this one.

This is one of the digital photos I took (haven't scanned the Holgaroids yet) of the Avon Theater in Breese, Illinois. Breese is a really cute town -- as were the others I passed through along the way. Will definitely have to make another trip there. And practice my film-loading technique.