Numbers

Lili

Hall of Famer
Location
Dallas, TX
Name
Lili
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XZ-1
 
So I did this thing in January, that spilled over into February... it was a project with friends to "do something craft-like" every day in January, to document that art-making daily, with the goal being an eventual "art show" if you will, where everyone shows off what they did. I decided to shoot film, and originally my goal was to do 1 shot per day, all 31 days, and each day I'd shoot tha calendar day's number (1, then 2, etc) til I was done, with 5 extra shots to act as insurance along the way.

then I discovered how hard that is, how uninspired I can be some days, and how little I really knew about how hard it is to make ANYTHING interesting out of "shots of numbers." I tried my damnest to NOT make a completely boring photograph, but of course I failed.

So what wound up happening was this: I shot most of the numbers in January on a roll of TMax 400. Then the lab lost it and returned someone else's prints from a German vacation. Then they found them again. And I realized that some weren't usable (usually number too small to see), and that I was missing numbers still. So I used a roll of Ektar 100, along with other normal picture taking, to fill the gaps. Even that still left one or two gaps, which I then used a roll of Velvia 50 to fill. And I wound up liking a TMax3200 pic from a previous roll taken in December for the number 1 better than my "official" 1, so I used it instead. Here's what I wound up with...

1. TMax 3200. Taken at about midnight in Harvard Square in 20F weather, hands were positively frozen by the end of that roll.
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2. Tmax 400. Harvard Square, lunch break.
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3. Tmax 400. Harvard Square, lunch break.
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4. Tmax 400. A gas station down the street from my house always has a few cherry old cars at it. I was biking to the grocery store, stopped and took this, then kept going.
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5. Tmax 400. Breakfast with The Girl, on a Saturday.
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6. Tmax 400. Back of a 97 Fender Telecaster Deluxe Plus in swamp ash. These are the string ferrules, by which the strings are loaded up through the bridge.
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7. Tmax 400. Harvard Business School campus.
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8. Tmax 400. Harvard main campus has the addresses worked into the iron of the fences and gates.
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9. Tmax 400. Omellete breakfast, another Saturday. Wife’s idea.
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10. Tmax 400. Bike wheels looked like a 10 to me…
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11. Tmax 400. Shoe rack in the closet had 11 shoes on it… good enough.
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12. Tmax 400. 1966 Fender Tremolux head, inputs 1 and 2.
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13. Ektar 100. Harvard boat house has 13 windows. And the old 1969 rokkor 55mm f1.7 was the perfect focal length to get it cropped this way from standing on the bridge.
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14. Ektar 100. Boutique guitar shop near home where I got an amp repaired. I even told them about the project, because I was combing over all the old amps looking for numbers I needed. “You need a 14?” Yeah why? “Go outside and look at our street number!” Bingo.
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15. Ektar 100. Back of a custom amp I made. I didn’t want to use this shot, especially since 16 is also the back of this same amp, but I couldn’t come up with a better one somehow. Plus it was the beginning of the roll, clearly. Still, it looks kinda neat. That switch knocks the amp down from the full 15 watts to 7 watts to make it a little quieter.
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16. Ektar 100. 16 ohms, same amp.
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17. Velvia 50 slide film. Near sunset, biking through Kendall Square to pick up my daughter on my bike. Have to get her by 5:30, was looking at the clock tower to see how much time I had, and then it clicked – it’s 17 after and I need 17. Pull over, dig out camera, shoot, and continue.
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18. Tmax 400. Parking meter, Harvard Square.
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19. Tmax 400. Mt Auburn Cemetery, two different people buried in one tomb, both died at 19 years old. I was getting desperate for some of the harder numbers and I knew the cemetery would have them. You can find 1-9 all day long, but the high teens and 20’s you have to work for.
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20. Tmax 400. Clearly I was hedging a bet here – could use this for either 15 or 20.
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21. Tmax 400. Walked out of a work meeting at the big hotel nextdoor, looked up, counted, “I need that!”
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22. Ektar 100. I need a 22, I need a 22, I need a 22… “Hey punkin, hold up your fingers like this.” –click-
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23. Tmax 400. Road sign close to home.
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24. Tmax 400, harvard square, lunch break.
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25. Ektar 100. Good friend at work, in his office.
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26. Ektar 100. Harvard Square. At this point I was down to it – time was about gone for January, and I had already used this trick for a later number, but I was desperate. I told myself I’d take a different, better “26,” but none ever came along. Like I said, this is hard work when you’re a hack and a novice.
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27. Tmax 400. I have this awesome book about the elements.
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28. Ektar 100. This was the first of the two clock tower pics, and this one’s harder to read and not quite as good. But I was desperate… I needed a 28 and I was already on my second roll of film. Getting this exposed properly where you could see the hands and yet still get some cloud detail was tricky – I cheated and used the Fuji X100 to get the combinations dialed in somewhat.
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29. Ektar 100. This was the first time I did the “crosswalk counter” trick. Posed, metered, waited for the light to change, and shot when it hit the number I needed. This is Central Square.
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30. Ektar 100. 30 minute parking… I was getting desperate.
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31. Tmax 400. One of the first shots I took. I had this idea, and just went ahead and shot it at work.
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