It’s been a long time since I’ve updated here. I promise I’m going to try to fix that. First off, we have a set of images I shot over the course of a couple days in New York City. I brought two cameras – my Nikon D7000 and Minolta SR-T 101. It turns out that I needed a vacation from my DSLR, so I carried around the Minolta almost exclusively. I am pretty happy with what I got. The meter in the camera is more accurate than I thought. Anyways, rather than muse about film, I’m just going to show you the images. Jump past the break for the full set, and as always feel free to click through to full-size images.

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This weekend Bloomington played host to the Lotus World Music and Arts Festival. Lotus is an amazing weekend of music, art, and culture. I was on hand Friday. For the sake of brevity, I’m focusing now on two bands: the Movits and Bomba Estéreo.

I’ve been a fan of the Movits for some time. The band is an indescribable Swedish outfit melding hip-hop with swing in a way that has to be heard. The energy this band brings to the stage is truly phenomenal. Bomba Estéreo was new to me. This self-described “electro tropical” group hails from Bogota, Colombia. Again, the energy was crazy. The set was essentially a rave.

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Who doesn’t like a good music festival? Audio Scenery is an Indiana University club that puts on festivals to raise money for local charities. I spent enough time at the September 17th fest to see two bands: the Main Squeeze (the first half of this gallery) and the Best Friends. I’ve known half of the Best Friends since high school, and am impressed by the music they’re making. The Main Squeeze, though, absolutely blew me away. I’ve been a fan for some time, but this was my first time seeing them live. The sheer musicianship in the band is staggering. These guys deserve to be huge.

As always, the images look better large.

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When a bicycle is parking illegally or abandoned at Indiana University, it is impounded by Parking Enforcement. Twice a year Parking Enforcement auctions off impounded bikes that have not been reclaimed in six months. Students and community members alike gather to buy bikes at low prices.

I picked up this assignment thinking it would be an easy one, and that bicycles look cool. The event turned out being more interesting than I expected, and I was very happy with the pictures. The lighting was not great where the bikes were being kept, but the area where the auction was taking place had interesting light. Here’s what I got. Check out Monday’s issue of the IDS for color images.

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Recently, my friend gave me an old Minolta SR-T 101 film SLR. I’ve never shot film, but have long wanted to pick up an SLR. The camera was mostly in working order. I picked up a 50mm f/1.7, cleaned out the old, corroded mercury battery, and managed to find a new battery that (kind of) made the light meter work. I bought up a cheap roll of Fujicolor Superia 400 and started shooting. I used about a third of the roll just playing around before I got the light meter working, a third walking around the neighborhood after I found a battery, and finished the roll on assignment this morning.

I’m remarkably happy with the results. Despite my lack of faith in the light meter, exposures ended up decent. Thanks to the big, bright finder and well-designed focusing screen, most of the images were pretty well-focused. Shooting the roll was a lot of fun. Film certainly isn’t going to become my primary tool any time soon, but the experience of shooting with a film SLR is a great one.

The only problems I have now are the slightly inaccurate meter (which should be fixed with a different battery) and the black bars across the top of the frame that I didn’t notice until just now before I typed this. I have no idea what that is. A problem with how I loaded the film, maybe?

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