Those of you who know my family, know that we play a whole lot of gin.

Usually one of us has a deck of cards on his or her person, and given a few spare moments, we’re likely to break them out and play a hand or two of gin. This happens most often just before and just after dinner, particularly if we’re eating out somewhere. If you turn over the paper materials left in our car after a vacation — the maps, tickets for dive excursions, newspapers from state parks — you’re likely to find lists of numbers surmounted by E, J and A. E’s number is usually the largest one. Recently, we had the bright idea that we’d play until we reached 10,000 points (a normal gin game ends at 500, and that can represent two hours of play). After a month or so, we’re about to break into the 2,000s. I am not, and have not yet, been wining.

Gin, it turns out, is like many card games in that it is a child descended from a long parentage of card games which reach back past the times cards took the form of suits we recognize now. Gin, though, is particularly interesting because it’s lineage as about as diverse as it gets. Seriously, gin makes fusion sushi involving bacon and cream cheese look traditional.

Gin is actually gin rummy. The rules are here, and if you don’t know how to play you ought to learn — there are few better two person card games. Gin came about as a simple version of rummy which moved quicker and, I suspect, was probably easier to play when drinking heavily. In this sense, I imagine gin to rummy is somewhat similar to the way pinochle is to bridge. I don’t know how to play bridge and can just barely play pinochle so chock up my being wrong to ignorance rather than malice if you’re a pro bridge player and find yourself reading this. Really, bridge is probably a wonderful game.

It’s when you go further back from rummy that gin’s roots become particularly interesting. Rummy has a number of variants all of which come from the proto-rummy: Conquian. Conquain is a much older game, probably coming from 17th century central america. The gameplay is fairly similar even to gin, though the demands of melding (which you can ignore and still enjoy this story should you be unfortunate enough not to have played gin) are higher and the game lasts longer. The name “conquain” which could be an adaption of the Spanish “con quien” meaning “with whom” or it could be “kon khin” a mysterious chinese card game which is related to Khanhoo (much less mysterious). And Kanhoo is itself considered a card-based form of Mahjong — possibly developed 500 BC by Confucius. So maybe gin originated with in 17th century central america or maybe Confucius cooked it up nearly 2000 years ago.

Who knew?

There are mountains and then there are mountains, though. Even before I’d run my first 100, I’d heard about the Hardrock. I don’t remember who suggested this to me, but it has held up to my observations: ultrarunners tend to fall into two camps, those enthralled with Hardrock and those enthralled with Badwater. Badwater is a run through hell. 135 miles through the heart of Death Valley with temps so hot you have to run on the white line to keep your shoes from melting. It’s never appealed to me in the least.

Hardrock is a 100 mile loop starting and ending deep in the Rockies in Silverton, Colorado. It never drops below 7,600 feet of elevation and crosses 13 passes in the 12,000 to 13,000 foot range. It tops out on Handies Peak at 14,000 ft and has a total of almost 34,000 feet of elevation gain. Mt. Everest is 29,000ft tall. You have 48 hours to complete the race, and the average finish time is 41 hours. The finish rate is actually surprisingly high, but that probably has to do with the entrance requirement: you must have run another hard mountain 100 within two years of signing up.

From the first time I heard of it, I knew that one day I wanted to run Hardrock, and I told myself once that I’d do it before I turned 40. While the challenge is certainly part of the allure, it’s certainly far from the sum total of it. Badwater, not to mention some of the other crazy runs like the Barkley, would probably be significantly harder. I think the real allure of Hardrock for me has to do with the promise of seeing 100 miles of scenery like this (seriously, take a look at that amazing photography) on foot, for two days straight. If you’re going to ask your body to do some crazy things, you might as well have some breathtaking scenery to look at when you’re doing it.

So, while running the River to River relay race last weekend, it occurred to me that if I want to try Hardrock before I turn 40, I am nearly out of time. I’m a pretty long way away from 100 mile shape, and assuming I am able to pull off a qualifying 100 next year, I basically have two chances to make the Hardrock lottery (yes, once you’re qualified, there’s still a lottery process as well) before I turn 40. That means I need to get on it.

A sagardotegi is a Basque cider house. For a minute, let’s pretend that you’re a 16th century Basque landowner. In the late winter or very early spring, you and your landowning buddies might get on your horses and visit one (or possibly more) sagardotegi early in the day with the mission of buying a bunch of apple cider to fill your cellars for the rest of the year. The cider, freshly fermented over the winter, is stored in massive casks in the ciderhouse. Cider is not nearly as tasty without food, so collectively your group brings a whole bunch of steak from your freshly slaughtered cows. You hand the steak over to the owner of the sagardotegi when you arrive, he hands your bunch some cider mugs, and then the fun begins.

Basque cider is still — not bubbly — so instead of being poured from a pitcher, each of the enormous casks has a nipple on the side which will shoot a jet of cider 10 feet or more, to be caught skillfully in your glass across the room. This aerates the cider giving it a bit of fizz. It also makes a mess, so quickly all your fancy landowner dignity is down the tubes.

You return to stand at your tall tables (without cider, you should’ve drank that on the way back when it was still fizzing) to find giant plates of cod omelet, but soon someone shouts txotx! (pronounced chuch), which basically means “drink!” So you all get up again and travel to taste another barrel of cider. This continues: trips to the cider barrels followed by feasting. The sagardotegi owner cooks your steaks at some point. You drink more cider. You have some dessert sometime later in the afternoon, probably nuts, quince and soft cheese. You drink more cider. There may or may not be some singing and dancing. Eventually, you’ve tasted everything (thrice), you pick your favorite, buy several casks of it, and head home. Not a bad day.

Sagardotegiak still exist. From what I can gather, most now resemble something closer to a steakhouse with traditional seating as opposed to the traditional standing tables and food supplied wholly by the restaurant (no more bring your own steak). They also occasionally forgo the casks to pour cider from bottles. Here’s a description of one like that. That said, it might be just a matter of poking a little deeper to find the more traditional ones (that’s a very good read by the way).

Wikipedia reports that most sagardotegiak are located around Hernani and, particularly, Astigarraga. Google streetview is pretty spotty in this area outside of the towns (which is clearly not where the cider houses would be), so I didn’t manage to spot one poking around. I tried to find someone online willing to divulge a list of locations for the more traditional sort, but I had no luck. In fact, information about the cider houses is very scarce in general online. I suppose one of us is going to have to go take a look and report back.

photo by Jon Urbe

I suppose everyone must have an idea for the ideal retreat, the happy place your mind wanders when it needs a break. Since I first read about it, Tuvalu has been mine.

It’s undeniably beautiful, a little sliver of sand and trees in the middle of ocean and sky displaying every shade of blue. It’s narrow enough that both sunrises and sunsets over the ocean are visible from most of the island.

It’s exceptionally remote without being inaccessible. You can probably fly in and out from Fiji, though sometimes the flight doesn’t happen for weeks. Don’t bother trying to use Expedia to book a flight to Funafuti. Every three or four months a government boat travels between the two islands, and occasionally other sea craft visit. If the main island is too crowded for you, you can hop one of the cargo ships that visit every few weeks and get deposited on one of the outlying atolls, many of which are not inhabited. Somebody will eventually come pick you up.

The island culture is charming. There is sport, including an islander variation of cricket. The food sounds yummy: simple, consisting largely of breadfruit, rice and various seafood. Festivals feature traditional dance and music.  So basically, you’re not going to be distracted from what you’d probably come here to do: lay in a hammock and contemplate the sea for days on end.

Despite all that nice stuff, Tuvalu is facing some grave problems due to global climate change. Rising sea levels make the increasingly more frequent violent tropical storms do even greater damage. Ironically, the other major problem the islands faces is a lack of fresh water due to long droughts  between stormy periods. Here’s a particularly good article on the subject. If the idea of a country becoming uninhabitable due to climate change seems far fetched, think again: earlier this year, nearby island nation Kiribati began a formal plan to move the nation’s inhabitants to Fiji. Kiribati is much larger than Tuvalu.

Okay, now for some links. Of course, the wikipedia page is always a good place to start.

For some general logistical information about getting to and staying in Tuvalu, this site is helpful.

Whatever you do, do not miss Andy Browning’s blog. He’s a representative of the Scouts that’s living in Tuvalu for 9 months (beginning last December). Here’s the first post from Tuvalu.  His blog is the only one I know of being currently written from Tuvalu. It’s very good reading, though as you might imagine, it challenges my tendency to think of the place as Utopia (I’m not sure any actual place could really live up to an imagined Utopia that you’ve never actually visited).

My dreams of Tuvalu have always revolved around sailing there. This is a wonderful sailing log from a couple who stopped for a month and experienced many facets of Tuvaluan life.

Here’s a good description of local cuisine.

You have a few negatives and now you’re ready to make some prints. It’s worth stating that prints made in this way are substantially different from those made on your printer or 1-houred from Walgreens. When you’re making contact prints, each is unique and bears the mark of the process which made it. That uniqueness is part of the charm of these, I think, but you have to get accustomed to the fact that it’s impossible to make two identical prints. It also takes a whole lot longer. I usually pick three to do in one printing session. Your level of patience and efficiency will influence this.

When you’re deciding which negatives to print, particularly at first, pick the best exposed ones — they’re much easier to print well. When you hold the negative up to light, you should be able to easily see the subject and it shouldn’t be mostly clear (underexposed) or very dense (overexposed).

Now we’re ready to print so go ahead and turn your bathroom back into a darkroom.

1. Put your three photo trays in the tub. From left to right they will contain: developer, water, fixer. Mix up your developer at 1:9 ratio this time. I usually do 2oz of developer and 18oz of water. That’s enough volume for what I normally print in a session. If you use the Ilford fixer I suggested, mix it at 1:4 (so 6oz and then fill to 20oz) and put it into the right tray. Add 20oz or so of water to the middle tray, and you’re set to go.

2. Get your darkroom dark. This time, bring along your lamp with the red bulb. You can leave that on all the time, as the red light won’t expose the photo paper. That said, I’d avoid letting the light from the lap fall directly on the paper. I’ve found that some of the cheap read bulbs emit enough white light to fog paper.

3. Put your negative between the glass and board of your makeshift easel.

4. Get a sheet of photo paper from the pack and cut an approximately 2″ strip from the short axis of the paper (the 5″ side). Put the rest of the paper back in the pack and reseal it. Make sure the black plastic bag inside is properly folded. Exposing and ruining a whole pack of paper because you forgot to close it is no fun (trust me).

5. Lift the glass sheet and slide the strip of photo paper under the negative with the shiny side of the photo paper up. Then lower the glass, sandwiching the two together.

6. Turn on the bathroom overhead light for 5 seconds (you did close that pack of paper properly, right?). Take a scrap piece of thick, dark paper and cover approximately 1/4 of the negative. Turn the light on for another 5 seconds. Now cover 1/2 of the negative with the paper, and turn on the light for another 5 seconds. Repeat again with the negative 3/4 covered.

7. Take the strip of paper out of the glass sandwich and place it face-down in the developer. Leave it there for 2 minutes, rocking the tray to agitate it every few seconds. Remove it from the developer, shake it off, then pop it into the water bath. At this point, I usually run my fingers over the print side of the paper. When it doesn’t feel slimy, the developer is washed off. Then pop it into the fixer for one minute.

8. Pull the test strip (because that what it is) from the fixer and turn on the overhead light. What you ought to have is a cross section of your negative with four distinct bands of exposure. If you’re lucky, one of those bands will be close to how you’d like your final image to look. If that’s the case, note the exposure and move on to the next step.

9. If the test strip is underexposed (i.e. the image is too light) even at the longest exposure, you’ll have to make another strip starting with 20 seconds. If the strip is overexposed (i.e. even 5 seconds is too dark) then you have a slightly more difficult problem as this means that your overhead light is too bright for the task. You could switch the bulb to a lower wattage one for printing, but that’s a pain. I like my bathroom bright, so my overhead lamp is too bright, and my solution is to use a small lamp to do the printing. This ends up being pretty dim, so my exposures are more in the 40 second range.

10. Now that you’ve determined the correct exposure, you can make a print. Take another sheet of paper from the pack, put it on your makeshift easel with the negative on top and replace the glass. Close your pack of paper. Turn on the overhead light for whatever length of exposure you determined is correct. Develop the print just like test strip. Voila! Magic.

You’ll notice that your prints are mostly black and more than one image shows up (as opposed to those I posted photos of which are white except the image). You can get that effect (as I’m sure you’ve figured out) by blocking off the rest of the paper during the exposure. I use thick black cardboard, but you might get creative and make a mask of some kind.

Also, developing prints face-up is generally not a good idea if you’re using a cheap red bulb, as the chances of fogging the print are larger. That said, you should try a few face-up. Seeing the image that started on the ground-glass of your camera focus screen materialize on a sheet of paper is awesome.

11. Keep your prints in another tray of water while you’re printing. After you’re finished, run the tray and photos under cool water for 10-15 minutes. There are a number of ways to dry prints, but I tend to just lay them out on a clean countertop overnight. They’ll curl as you can see in the gallery. If you’d like them flat, you can press them (once dry) under a dictionary or stack of books.

And that’s it! If you’ve decided to make some prints following these directions, don’t hesitate to ask for clarification or help.

I’ll confess, developing film has always seemed like a chore to me. Maybe it’s because it tends to happen in the evening after a day of shooting (fun) and involves lots of waiting and looking at a timer (not fun) and the magic all comes right at the end. You might consider a glass of wine to make it more bearable, but wait until after you’ve loaded the film into the canister. You’ll want to be very sober for that step.

If you’re coming from the world of digital and have never (or can’t remember) how developing works, you can think of it as being something like the initial post-processing work you do on your digital photos. Things like water temperature, ratio of developer to water, amount of agitation, all make changes in how your negative turns out. This makes it a little more precarious. Once the film is developed, it can’t be developed again. When you print later, you’ll screw up a print now and again, and there is really nothing lost other than the paper and your time. You can always print the negative again. If your film isn’t developed right, though, you lose the images. I’d suggest two things to deal with this (if you’re coming from the land of digital) burden. First, make notes for each roll developed including water temp, time in the tank, developer ratio, and anything that doesn’t go as planned. You really should do this when printing too, but it’s imperative if you’re going to develop much film. Second, learn to embrace the precarious in your process as it does good things for your photography. Magic doesn’t happen if there isn’t a chance for loss.

Let’s develop film.

1. Gather developer, fixer, film, tank, and scissors.

2. Turn on the tap water and let it run for a moment. Then adjust the temperature to 68F, measuring it with your thermometer.

3. Mix up your developer at a ratio of 1 + 19. For most tanks, you’ll need about 600ml of developer to cover the film. That means 30ml or so of developer and the rest water. 30ml is about an ounce, by the way.

4. Mix up your developer at a ratio of 1 + 4.  150ml of fixer and the rest of the 600ml in water. 150ml is about 5 ounces.

Now you need a dark place to load your film. Not kinda dark (that works for printing) but DARK. The tiniest bit of light around the edge of a door will ruin your film — seriously. One option is to get a changing bag. I started developing film using a darkroom, so I never got accustomed to using a changing bag. I probably should give one a try. Instead, for years I’ve waited until it was dark and then sat on the floor of my mostly dark bathroom with a very dark, thick blanket over my head and loaded the tank there. It gets hot doing it that way, but it does work. Also, people might make fun of you.

5. Okay now, load the film. Volumes can be written on this, but you’re better off just watching a video. Yes, this might be the most difficult part of the whole project so expect it to be hard. Before loading your real film, you should practice with your spare roll. One very important note: if you’re using a plastic reel and tank (which you ought to be) the reel must be bone dry. If there’s moisture on the reel, the film won’t slide properly and life will become difficult.

6. Stop grumbling. It wasn’t that bad. Pour that glass of wine.

7. Timer ready, pour your developer into the little hole on the top of the tank. Close it, and start the timer. Whack the tank on the countertop twice sharply (it gets rid of the bubbles clinging to the film), then shake it gently for 10 seconds. Each minute, shake it again for 10 seconds. At the 5 minute mark, open the little top of the tank. At 5.5 minutes pour out the developer and immediately fill it with water, shake it, and dump the water, repeat two more times.

8. Pour in the fixer and start the timer. I leave the fixer in for about 5 minutes giving it a shake ever minute. Dump out the fixer and open the (big) top of the tank.

Time for magic. If you shot the whole roll of film, you’ll be able to see the last negative on the roll at the outside of the reel. What you really should not do is unroll the film because you’re excited and want to see what you’ve made. Getting wet film back onto the reel is nearly impossible and it creases much more easily at this stage. Trust me on this — I’m impatient. In just a few minutes you’ll be able to gander at it in adoration for hours.

9. Wash the film. Leave it in the tank, and run it under at about 68F water (it’s not critical now) for 10 minutes. I like to empty the tank a few times over the span of time.

10. Dump the tank again and fill it up with water to just cover the reel. Remove the reel. Put one (just one) drop of liquid soap in the tank and swirl it up with your finger. Dip the reel back into the tank for a second, and then take out. The soap acts as a wetting agent and will keep spots from forming on the negatives.

11. Take the film off the roll. Notice the magic that has happened: you have images. Neat, huh?

12. Hang the film to dry. Binder clips suspended from string work well. Try to do this in a place where there isn’t too much dust. In a couple of hours when it’s dry, cut the strip into four pieces (3 negatives each), and they’ll fit nicely in a standard envelope. I label the envelops with date, location shot, film type, and developing details.

13. Congratulations, you’ve done the difficult part. Making prints is much more forgiving and fun.

Ansel Adams devotes an entire book to each of the photographic steps, but he was trying to help you become an excellent photographer (and printer). My aim is much humbler: sharing with you how cool making photos using a wholly material process can be. With that in mind, I’m going to skip anything related to subject selection, form, etc and stick to the process of actually making a negative. First we need to take expose some film.

1. Load your camera with film. If you bought the Holga, it has instructions. If you have a TLR, there are a bunch of video how-to’s here. In general, loading and unloading film should be done in a shaded spot.

2. Find something nice to shoot. Medium format is vastly slower than your digicam, so you might want to start with a thing that doesn’t move. Definitely skip people. HP5+ is fast (sensitive) film, so to avoid extremes in aperture or shutter speeds, pick a cloudy day if you’re shooting outside (which you probably should be).

3. Meter the scene with your digicam. This can be done in a bunch of different ways, but here’s a quick one: Set the ISO on your digicam to 400 (that’s the ISO of your film). Pick “aperture priority” on your digicam and set it to a reasonable aperture — maybe f/8 if you’re shooting a landscape sort of thing. Half-press the shutter button of your digicam while looking through the viewfinder. You’ll see the aperture (f/8 or whatever) and a film speed — probably 1/250 of a second or so if you’re shooting outside during the day. Now set the dials on your film camera to f/8 and 1/250 and take the shot. If you wait and the light changes appreciably, just meter again.

One caveat: your digicam probably has a top shutter speed in the 1000s, but most older medium format cameras top out at 1/500th of a second. If your digicam is telling you that you need a speed faster than your film camera can handle, you need to stop down the aperture — if you’re at f/8 try f/12 or even higher. Also, if you get an old enough film camera, the speed and aperture settings may be slightly different than the scale used in your digicam. Just round to the nearest shared number. And don’t sweat it, film is forgiving.

4. Repeat steps 2-3 until the roll is finished. I get 12 shots for a 120 roll with my camera, but don’t be surprised if you get some other number. One interesting thing to note: on my Seagull camera, it’s quite possible to make two exposures without advancing the film because advancing the film and cocking the shutter are two different tasks (no fancy crank that does both for me). You’d think this would mean I’d end up with double exposures all the time, but actually double exposure fears causes another problem. If I can’t remember advancing the film before I make an exposure, I go ahead and advance it again. I have tons of negatives with empty frames because of this. See all the fun stuff you miss when you don’t use film?

5. Unload the film. It’s best to do this out of the sun. Lots of videos which show you how to do this here. If you don’t plan on developing the film in the next 24 hours or so, put it in the refrigerator until you’re ready — it slows down the deterioration of the exposed film.

You now have an exposed roll of film and you’re ready to get to the magic stuff. Next post: developing your roll.

If you haven’t ever gone from idea to print with all the steps along the way, you should. In particular, you really ought to do this if you’re a digital photographer and have never touched film. Digital photography is a wonderful thing, but photography is magic and you really should experience that.

In the next few posts, I’m going to give a recipe for making some really nice medium format contact prints for less than $150. The cost is largely dependent on how much of the stuff you have laying around, and how resourceful you are but my guess includes the price of the camera.

Here are a few photos of some I recently printed, and here’s a scan of one. They’re small — printed on 5×7″ sheets of fiber-based photo paper (as opposed to the plastic-covered kind). I like to leave them unmounted. The fiber paper has a tendency to curl when left unmounted so the overall impression they give is intensely material — the opposite of digital photos viewed online.

So, what I’m offering is a recipe. Like making a marinara sauce, there are many other ways of doing this. Like my marinara sauce, though, it’s pretty good.

Here’s what you’ll need. I’ll adjust this list if I run across more things.

Materials

1. A medium format camera. This is the most expensive item, of course, but it’s probably not as expensive as you think. If you’re shooting to stay under the $150 mark for the project, you can get a Holga 120N from Amazon for $30. You’ll be making contact prints, so the quality of the lens is almost irrelevant. If you want to spend a bit more, you can get a genuine TLR-style camera from ebay (or craigslist) for $60 — Seagull branded ones are common and cheap. That’s what I do all of my medium format photog with these days, and they work just fine.

2. A roll of 120 film. Use HP5+ and be done with it. Buy an extra roll to practice loading the film tank.

3. A light meter. You probably have an SLR (digital or otherwise) if you’re reading this far, so use that. Set the ISO to 400 (that’s what your film is rated).

4. A dark room with running water. Bathrooms work perfectly. If you have a window, wait until it gets dark and hang up a blanket over it.

5. A film tank.

6. Something to measure liquid. I use a graduated cylinder, but that’s because I have one. I used a measuring cup for years.

7. Four plastic trays capable of holding 20oz of liquid and at least 8×10″. Disposable ones work just fine.

8. Developer. You can use it for both film and paper. Trust me.

9. Fixer.

10. A thermometer. A meat one will work just fine (that’s what I use).

11. A timer. A watch will work, but a timer app on your smartphone is better.

12. A red party-bulb and a lamp to put it in.

13. Some sheets of 5×7″ photo paper. I highly suggest getting fiber based (as opposed to resin coated). I tend to buy these in packs of 100 because its vastly cheaper, but smaller quantities are fine for checking things out.

14. A simple glass frame like this. You’ll use this as a makeshift easel for printing. You just need the glass and back — you can toss the clips.

I posted links to places online to illustrate what you’re looking for and an approximate price. When you’re ready to buy the photo stuff, make sure to check if there is anyone locally that still sells wet darkroom materials. If you can find a store that does, they probably need your business more than amazon does.

Next time, making a negative.

I’ll save a few of the more involved items for later and start with a concise one: noctilucent clouds (noctilucent is a fun word to say aloud.) Occasionally, after sunset, clouds close to the eastern horizon will suddenly begin to glow brightly — usually a ghostly white. The phenomenon is caused by the sun, well below the horizon, illuminating extremely high clouds. Noctilucent clouds are usually seen closer to the poles where the upper atmosphere is colder (and makes the high-altitude clouds frozen and more reflective), but apparently climate change is broadening their range. Best of all, they’re super pretty.

Here’s the wiki page on them.

Also, take a look at an image search  – lots of very cool examples.

The photo is by Martin Koitmäe

The example I’d use to get them going was this: sometimes, on a clear evening just after the sun sets, there are bands of color that wrap around the horizon. Furthest down, the sky is a deep purple, and between the dark purple and the normal sky blue is a band of orangey pink. I’d point out that this wasn’t the sunset itself, the bands were even around the horizon. Most had seen the phenomenon. I’d say “okay, I have no idea what that is, or what causes it, but I’ve wondered about it for years. Shame on me. You pick something like that, and that’s your essay topic.” And I wasn’t being theatrical: I really didn’t know, despite having tried a little poking around myself — google wasn’t nearly as useful back then.

Twelve years later, I’ve stumbled on the the name of this phenomenon. My students, I am sure, would be quick to point out that I was too lazy to follow the prompt that I made them do, and I suppose that might be true.

It’s called “The Belt of Venus” or “Venus’s Girdle” (not the jellyfish) which is fittingly pretty. Here’s the photo of it that I found (scroll over to the right side for the best view). The purple band separating the pink glow from the horizon is actually the shadow of the earth on the atmosphere. Basically, the belt is the setting sun illuminating the atmosphere and casting that shadow — that’s backscattering.

Unlike lots of astronomical phenomenon, this one is pretty easy to spot. The next time you’re outside when the sun is setting, look the other way. I always have the best luck when the air is crisp and cool (the weather now is perfect).