Happy New Year 2011

Can you believe it?? 2011! I remember as a young 5th grader thinking about the year 2000...boy that scared the heck out of me back then!! And I was right! Life today is scary!

But on with the fun stuff! ; ) I've been frantically busy working out all the kinks out in the darkroom. I've developed 3 out of 10 prints, all while working out the drying process. I started out using the blotter for the fiber base prints. You have to time it just right - no longer than an hour or you end up with blotter particles all over your print. So I had this ingenious idea for my husband to cut out the bottom of two of the drawers from a print file that I had purchased from the local camera store going out of business. He jigsawed the bottom out of two drawers. Then I went and bought some fiberglass screen material and stapled it into the bottom. If you don't know, fiber base prints need to dry face down on screens, if you don't use blotters or hang them to dry, but that's tricky too. The screens are working great.

Then in the meantime over the weekend, I went online to eBay and found a Seal 200 commercial press and purchased that for less than half of what you pay new. Plus, it's commercial. I don't think I can go wrong with that. Then I can use the press to help flatten out the fb prints and also mount them to the mat board using the press.

Also, as a Christmas present to myself, I purchased the Canon EOS T2i which was on sale at Best Buy. $200 less than the camera store, plus I had a credit there. Haven't spent alot of time learning it yet, but will definitely work that in as I will need to start using the digital for the High Hand Gallery. I've been designated the photographer of the artists' works.

So, yeah, that's what I've been doing! Happy New Year!