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Printing Big
13th September 2022
Large Size Prints Without a Large Price
Some call me “old school” but I’m not a big fan of showing pictures on the tiny screen of my cellphone.
Quite often I print some of my favorite shots onto photo paper. With my Epson ET-3750 Printer I’ve made hundreds of 4″x6″ prints and dozens of larger 8-1/2″x11″ enlargements. In the two years that I’ve had the ET-3750 printer I have never had to change an ink cartridge. The printer’s large EcoTanks are refillable making the cost of the prints very affordable.
Every so often I’ll take a picture that I’d like to show off – meaning print a bigger enlargement. Earlier this year I found out about the Epson ET-8550 EcoTank that handles paper up to 13″x19″ at an affordable $600 price.
Here’s a few short steps for setting up the printer for use.
As you can see I’ve been able to make a bunch of big enlargements – at a reasonable price.
The ET-8550 has other features other than its large print capability.
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Wireless connection to your Mac or Windows PC
Two-sided printing
High resolution document scanning and copying up to 8-1/2″ x 14″
Handles variety of papers including glossy, matte, texture, cardstock
For those of you who like to print big – this is an affordable and capable printer.
Appreciating Scale
10th September 2022
We’re Mere Specks on Earth
I grew up in the New York metropolitan area and didn’t get to travel to the more remote areas of our country until later in life. To me, the skyscrapers of New York City were about the tallest or largest scenery to which I was accustomed. That changed after college when I visited my first national park – Yosemite. Since then, I’ve made been lucky enough to visit many more.
One thing that I encountered early on and continues to amaze me to this day is the extensive amount of our country’s tracts of land. Look as far as your eye can see and there’s plenty more beyond. From a distance, gaze at a geologic feature or land mass and you may not comprehend its size until you draw closer. In short, it’s the scale of these features that are astonishing.
As individuals, our size is insignificant compared to the earth’s magnificent landforms.
Below are a few photographs that try to illustrate scale.
The scale of many of nature’s wonders is so humbling to me and affords me the chance to record them on film (so to speak).
Written by:
Arnie Lee
An Unexpected Image
03rd August 2022
A Miscue Turns a Photo Into a Favorite
During the 60’s my favorite pastime was photography.
Having only an after school part time job, I used used many techniques to make an expensive hobby more affordable.
I remember buying 100-foot long “bulk film” to reload 35mm cartridges into shorter five foot 36-exposure lengths. This was enough for 18 cartridges of film – enough for the summer season for about the same cost as buying 6 individual rolls of Kodak or Ansco film.
Next I learned how to develop my own film. I constructed a small darkroom in my parents’ basement where I would hang the still-wet film on a clothesline to dry. Not long after I earned enough to buy an enlarger. Wow, I was in photo heaven. The enlarger let me make my own prints and I would patiently watch the image slowly appear (under a safelight) in the developing solution. I was having all of this fun for a fraction of the cost of sending the spent film to my local photofinisher.
Mine was a hobby was like that of many others where you just seem to keep spending your earning for the latest gadgets – easel for holding photographic paper, new developing trays for bigger enlargements, paper dryers for drying prints, color drum for making color prints, etc.
Perhaps you can now see that my association with photography goes back a very long time.
From all of those years spent in the darkroom in the 60s and 70’s there is one event that I remember well. It was a darkroom miscue that had a happy result.
But first a quick intro to how to develop a roll of 35mm black and white film:
In a dark, lightproof room, you remove the exposed film from its cartridge and slide it onto a metal reel. The reel is placed into a stainless steel tank with a specially designed top which lets you complete the development in normal room light. Pour the developer solution into the tank for a designated time – usually 6 to 8 minutes and then pour the developer solution out of the tank . Next pour plain water into the tank for one minute to halt the film development and discard the water. Then pour in the final solution called fixer for 5 minutes. This desensitizes the film from light and makes the image permanent. Now it’s safe to remove the film from the tank and give it a final rinse wash in water for ten minutes.
These operations are done with all of the liquids – developer, water and fixer – at a temperature of 68 degrees F. On one occasion, I inadvertently washed a developed roll at a colder temperature. I wasn’t paying attention and unknown to me at the time the final rinse water must have been a lot colder.
I removed the film from the reel and hung it on a line to dry. But when I finally looked, several of the frames looked very weird.
Sometimes a mistake turns into a favorite.
Written by: Arnie Lee
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