Photos: Abandoned Architecture

I got a good deal on negative scanning from the local film processing shop that's been my favorite of the late. I discontinued having my films processed at the other shop (the one that gives free pro-image for every processing and contact printing job ordered) upon my discovery of another kodak shop that sells kodak pro-image in boxes of fives (at PhP 80.00 each roll--roughly $1.50).

With the option of cheap scanning i had my 20 rolls of negatives digitally scanned. I was charged PhP70.00 for burning fee of everything, and i think some PHP10.00 for scanning of each roll of negative.

With my 19-month worth of pictures digitally converted i was able to make a sort of collection of my small projects, one of them is the collection of pictures on abandoned architecture all over Iloilo City. They're not much as i'm still a little apprehensive about trespassing in these abandoned spaces.

Keith discovered a blog of an urban ex named bradley garret who built his post-grad academic life around this terrific project:
http://www.bradleygarrett.com/blog/

and the link to the blog he dedicated to place hacking: http://www.placehacking.co.uk/

(given my inexperience, i'll still admit urban exploration will be very difficult with film cameras but who knows.)
someday, i'll do this, too.


and to the pictures:

FIN.

list of putograpers

1. http://www.julianroeder.com/workdetail/THE+SUMMITS/18
2. http://www.taylorglennphoto.com
3. http://www.christopherchurchill.com/
4. http://www.thomaslockehobbs.com/ - american photographer in argentina. uses medium format range and others. basta film.has a great blog: http://thomaslockehobbs.wordpress.com/
makes me wanna go to argentina. patagonia. somewhere latin.
5. Mariano Brizzola, flicker: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marianomio/ - 35 mm guy.
6. Luis Carlos Towar: fine art of photography, hisamuch: http://luiscarlostovar.com/
7. Adrian portugal: http://www.supayfotos.com/ingles/adrian.html, from Peru.
8. Alejandro cartagena:  http://www.alejandrocartagena.blogspot.com, his blog and this, his photo site: http://alejandrocartagena.com/
9.

Rules and Instructions.

i bought these beauties in Digby, Nova Scotia when i visited last June.
i saved up all my money thinking i'd be able to get a wide-angle lens for my husband's minolta (only to die of heart-attack from the quoted $325-dollar price of the 24mm minolta wide-angle at Downtown Camera). I gave up when i left Toronto for Halifax and focused on splurging at the mountain equipment coop instead.

but if it something is meant to be it will be meant to be and indeed the camera presented itself to me. Arriving in Digby, we were treated to lunch to Mariner's restaurant which is just beside a vintage camera store--possibly the only camera store in downtown Digby. The moment i saw the minolta log i already knew the store's a goldmine.

Hurrying form one appointment to the other, i didn;t have time to check out the store ASAP and when i finally had the chance, i was 2 blocks away and had 30 minutes to spare. i ran like hell, missing my lunch and burning my lungs in the cold, dry Digby air. There, i found an olympus om2 (with normal lens (50mm) and a macro) and a yashica t4 (Mark, the owner of the camera shop said it was a $400.00 camera when it first came out) for my 5 year-old son, all for $30.00. Olympus OM2 with everything on it cost me $20 and the yashica cost me $10--that's including the 15% tax.

I could have gotten a pentax (with 50mm lens) with it but when i was about to pay for it, the shutter locked and Mark didn't really feel like giving me a bad merchandise. He knew it would cost me a lot of money to have it repaired, maybe more than what i paid for purchase. If I told him i would buy it for collection's sake but with only 10 minutes to spare, i forgot all about it. Also, i was thinking of how small my luggage was and how heavy bringing two cameras in my handcarry baggage would be.

The OM2 survived the 24 hour travel time, 4 flight transfers and changes in temperature/humidity. I didn't touch it for a month.


and when I did, it was for a funeral.
My husband's grandmother living in Guimaras died. The OM2 was my camera of choice to bring over the island because:
1. it is smaller than my sr-t, more "girlish"
2. it is easier to hide (good for people like me who love taking pictures but don't wanna be seen with a camera strapped to their necks)
3. it is light weight
4. it is not heavy
5. weighs like a feather compared to my sr-t.
5. did i already say it is lighter?

But my minolta is one jealous girl. She was just too great for anything; she was beyond compare. The fact that she can be operated without batteries totally destroyed the OM2 to me.

So what didn't i exactly like--batteries or sans batteries can't really destroy the reputation of a camera.

well, 2 shots into the whole 24 frames and it conked out. I woke up at 3am on the day of the funeral to nurse a sore throat and couldn't sleep i decided to test the camera. i shoot and it died; the shutter locked; it remained open just like that and i had no idea what the fuck went wrong. it tested well a month ago when i tried shooting it a couple of frames using it.

i tried detaching the lens, nothing happened. i opened the back of the camera, tried rewinding the film and nothing happened (except that i did expose 3 frames by opening the back of the camera). i tried doing the b settings and tinker with some more buttons and nothing happened. As an evolved dodo, i know that in times like this, there is really nothing to do but google. But I left my viao at the office and though my husband has an internet-ready phone, i practically turn into a luddite when i touch one. There was a computer in the house that is open for everyone to use but i am not very comfortable using other people's computer. besides, it's got a weird search engine app on it that drives me crazy. Then again, i didn't have a choice but to use it. From what i learned from google, OM2, being a super-mega-electronic-automatic-with-first-of-its-kind-off-the film-metering-capabilities-and-two-decades-younger-than-my-sr-t-101 is, i'm so disappointed, a battery guzzler. It requires silver oxides, the way point and shoot digicams, when they first came out, required super-mega-energizer-lithium batts for extended life. The alkaline LR44s that i use for my minoltas, the kind that i can easily get here in Iloilo does not live up to OM2's state of the art needs. (Mark, the camera shop owner said i could still use my LR44s but i sort of forgot to ask him about the draining rates of the LR44s with this cam and it turns out LR44s are useless for this--they drain easily.) The verdict: the camera is useless without the batteries. if you use the om2 with its batteries nearly drained the shutters will lock and remain so until you replace them batts with fresh ones.

eh.

the waiting kills. i had to wait for my husband to be up before i could ask him to fix the thing for me. he was still snoring, as the rest of the world, at 4 am.

i waited. i sipped the lukewarm tea. i read my Granta. i browsed through my August issue of Nat Geo (featuring the pine ridge project of one of my favorite photographers aaron huey).i read again my Granta. i decided to lie down on the rattan sofa. i read again my Granta and remember, shit, I hated my husband yesterday so i shouldn't be talking to him. and that goes with not asking him to do something for me. heh.

but i might for the sake of photography.

No. i still hate him so i am going to need to wait until iloilo so i can have this thing fixed. get me some silver oxides.

And then there was a scream from the room and our 5 year old has awaken, looking for me. He found me at the balcony wrapped in flannel blankets and the useless camera by my side. he asked what i've been taking it with. i said i wanted to take the picture of the gamblers down below from where we were. he asked where his camera was and i said i forgot to bring it with us. he said he also wants to take pictures of his friends.

he asked if he could have some chocolate milk.

I said he can if he'd drink some water first. he nodded and flashed a grin. toothless.

so i gathered my things and went down to the kitchen just as the gamblers were packing up to go home and return to their daily lives.

photo post: minolta x-700 with kodak pro-image 100

Taken in February 2012 using minolta x-700 using kodak pro-image film iso 100. 

First time to use a camera set on aperture priority and i found it quite enjoyable. 

but i'm fooling myself, because fact is, i was just trying to escape from the heartache from a smash lens. yep, that is right, i dropped my sr-t 101 and smashed the rim of the very beautiful 58mm rokkor lens. it took me 6 months to find the courage to use it again. 

Studio Practice. 

Iloilo Provincial Capitol.

Iloilo Provincial Capitol, too.

Atrium foodcourt at 4 in the afternoon.

Electric post across Atrium.

Gogol and Me.

Gogol and father.

Central Philippine University guest house.

Central Philippine University's Anna V. Johnson Memorial building.

CPU's Henry Luce Library. 

Central Philippine University's football grounds.

Central Philippine University bollards.

Central Philippine University bollards 2.

Anti-mining conference attendance.
Inside Central Philippine University's Rose Memorial Hall.

CPU covered chat areas.

How to make a face.

Man portrait 1. 

University of the Philippines High School in Iloilo facade.

University of the Philippines Visayas, the pre-war Iloilo City Hall.

A hobbit walking the UPV College of Management hallway, summertime.

Entrance to the computer lab, UPV College of Management. A hobbit knocking.

Gogol and classmate, at a PTA meeting.

Gogol and sundae.

Sundae.

Parking Lot.

Jaro Belfry by UCPB.

Jaro Cathedral.

Gogol and drawing friends.

Gogol and the sketchbook.

Gogol and drawing friends.

Man portrait 2.

Villanueva Building, Iznart Street, Iloilo City.

Villanueva Building, Iznart Street, Iloilo City.

Villanueva Building, Iznart Street, Iloilo City.
too close to the film leader.

why we do what we do.

I notice, it's almost become a pattern. Whenever we send the kid to my parent's, Keith and I would nurse our misery with books. Last night was no difference. Manila has again asked our nanny to come to her arms. For the nth time, my love-hate relationship with Manila was reborn. I hate you, Manila.

Rooftops.
(Kodak ProImage 100 and Minolta srt-101, 58mm)

We don't know anything better than to nurse our heartbreaks and the missed feelings with trips to bookstores. I remember leaving a then 33-month old kid to Keith for a conference in a lonely, sugarcane-farming, laid-back, rustic city. I ended up hoarding the architecture books in the only mall (and amazingly with a bookstore) of that place. It didn't surprise me when he asked to come by bookstore while i was preparing to leave the office just as the dusk settled. He wanted to see if the book Transparent Plastics was still available. He was set on buying it, expensive as it is (to our second-hand book standard). As the locks latched, he wondered aloud if the kid and his grandparents have reached home.

we bought the book.

and had dinner at a local pizza shop.

since we were in no hurry to go home, "We should take a few shots of General Luna at night," Keith suggested, excited. Exciting.

empty skywalk.
(Kodak ProImage 100 and Minolta srt-101, 58mm)

and so, the General Luna walkathon stretched to Forbes Bridge. Forbes Bridge stretched to Luna St., near the St. Clement's church because Keith wanted to shoot an architect's house. Then St. Clement's stretched all the way to West Visayas State University, and i so badly wanted to pee, so we decided to drop by McDonald's so I could use the toilet and because i am a good girl, I bought drinks in exchange for toilet use. Slurping the coke float, we agreed towalk the rest of the way home since we are already in Jaro (as McDonald's lies near the district boundary of Lapaz and Jaro).

"In our usual pace, I'm estimating about 30 minutes walk," Keith said. And slurped the rest of the choco sundae and vanilla ice cream floating in P20.00 worth of ice and watery coke.

And he was almost right. in more or less 30 minutes, minus the pauses to take pictures, we reached our house. He finished his roll of 36 frames in less than 24 hours. we made plans to have them processed the next day, but where to? We agreed on the friendly service of Charms (along Iznart Street), and the 36 shots Kodak ProImage 100 free films.

"But we will have everything printed."
"Everything, including underexposed ones?" I asked.
"Including underexposed ones."
"Even if they're all black?"
"Even if they're all black," he nodded.

Skywalk near DOT, Iloilo City
(Kodak ProImage, minolt srt-101, 58mm)

The walk was energizing.


------

My father shakes his head and laughs at us. The way he shook his head and mocked me when I told him i wanted a degree in Arts. Film is a waste of money, and you will never get rich that way. All photographers now have converted to digital, and then wedding photography. that's the way to do it, he says.

I will never do wedding photography because weddings are against my religion.

Cinema Exmundo.
(Kodak ProImage 100, minolta srt 101, 58mm)

------

"She drifts from one job to another. That's what she always does," an overheard description of me. But I am a Sagittarius and you're a bored coward. Big difference.

Lozano Hall, University of the Philippines Visayas
(Kodak ProImage 100, minolta srt-101, 58mm)

------

MY armpits sweat inside the humid air of Charms. The developing lady told me i will get 1 free roll of Kodak ProImage for every roll of film i send for processing. Kodak ProImage has been phased out. The free rolls they are giving me will expire in 2012. 2013 will be the year to shoot expired films, then.

Demolition near Jaro Plaza
(Kodak ProImage 100 and Minolta srt-101, 58mm)

We're thinking of building a dark room when we get a permanent place.

It's gonna be good. It will make us feel better. We're going to have a good time.

and then.

and then?

and then, that's it. You don't have to explain good time.






Fin.