Coming Home Empty

I managed to get out both days this weekend. Saturday, my son and I went to Kua Bay, the place with the consistent wind. Only it wasn't consistent, and for the most part it wasn't there. I didn't even get a kite up until after 11am, and that was iffy at best. I posted some stuff to Flickr and Facebook, but nothing I'd frame and stick on the wall.

Nevertheless, it was fun. I hadn't flown my digital KAP rig in over a month, and it was nice to get everything out, get it all airborne, and take some pictures. But it did hammer home the need for some new places to fly. Cruising the KAP group on Flickr helped, but so many of the places other people are flying simply don't exist here. Scott Dunn did some fantastic urban KAP in NYC, Fanny and Anthony flew at an abbey in France (with permission!), and strange though this may sound, Craig Wilson did some really cool architectural abstracts at a sewage treatment plant. Outstanding photography of subjects that simply don't exist here, darn it!

Sunday I threw everything into the car, and we went for a hike at Pololu Valley. The wind didn't feel right, and I found I'd thrown everything but my rokkaku into the car. There's not enough beach in Pololu to fly the Flowform, so basically I'd shot my KAP efforts in the foot. But a quick rain shower convinced me that was no bad thing. I grabbed my 4x5 bag and tripod, and hit the trail with the rest of my family.

Here's why I don't like switching film on my 4x5. I'm used to shooting one B&W film and maybe one color film, if I felt rich enough to buy a box. Without a color lab on island that'll touch large format film, I've mostly stopped shooting color. I've grown complacent. I expect to have only one kind of film in my bag now.

OOPS!

My first two shots were done on what I thought was 400TMY, but I later found was 100TMX. My third and final shot was on 400TMY, and I'm not convinced it was worth tripping the shutter.

So now I've got a developing nightmare, with four 100TMX shots from several weeks ago, all shot at ISO 100, two 100TMX shots shot at ISO 400, and one 400TMY shot, shot at ISO 400. Three different development times, three times as much time in the darkroom.

ARGH!

But the best part was coming home all disappointed and discouraged, and seeing a new post in Scott Bulger's Blog about not being greedy, and not tripping the shutter unless you've really thought out your shot. It's well worth the read. And for me it was the difference between disappointment in a day's non-photography, and feeling like I did the right thing by not taking pictures.

So I came home empty. But looking back on it, I really did have a good time getting there.

Tom