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  • phillipsumner: Finally ordered my Canon 7D! Luckily, I waited for the $100 instant rebate! March 10, 2010
  • phillipsumner: @AfroditeXig Thanks for the #FF love! March 10, 2010
  • phillipsumner: Moral conundrum: Buy the Canon 7D from a great local camera store for the same price as B&H, but add $150 sales tax, or get it from B&H? March 10, 2010
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  • New(ish) Camera
  • Seasonal Affective Disorder
  • Cooking for the holidays…
  • Delicious and Refreshing
  • More Old Pics…

New(ish) Camera Written on February 13, 2010, by Phillip Sumner.

This past Christmas, my wife got me a wonderful gift. It is the Blackbird Fly camera. It’s called a toy camera, I guess because it’s made out of plastic. Also, there are no f-stops. You choose cloudy or sunny on the dial located on the plastic lens. It’s a TLR (Twin Lens Reflex) camera that has a viewing lens, and a separate lens to take the picture. There is no viewfinder as such, you simply look down into the camera to focus and compose your shot. This is my third TLR camera, but my first 35 mm TLR. My other two (a 1957 vintage Ricoh Diacord L, and a Russian made plastic Lubitel 166) were both Medium format.

I haven’t taken this camera out on it’s first photo adventure yet, but I am looking forward to some great grainy Lomo-esque images! I love me some film!

Seasonal Affective Disorder Written on February 9, 2010, by Phillip Sumner.

It’s been a cold and cloudy week or so around these parts.  But today the sun is shining!  And just in time, too.  I was on the verge of contracting SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder).  I have never had a disorder, and don’t want to start now!  It’s been too cold (or I have been too lazy, draw your own conclusions) to get out and take any pictures lately, so todays shot is from a few years ago.  Makes me colder just looking at it!  Hope it’s warm where you are…

Cooking for the holidays… Written on December 25, 2009, by Phillip Sumner.

Enjoyed eating and cooking some wonderful things over the Holidays. Hope yours were great! Happy New Year!

 

Delicious and Refreshing Written on December 8, 2009, by Phillip Sumner.

Phantom sign restored in Sapulpa, OK

More Old Pics… Written on November 28, 2009, by Phillip Sumner.

I guess the theme of this post is automobiles. Specifically, good old Detroit metal.

Some old shots… Written on November 27, 2009, by Phillip Sumner.

In an effort to update this blog more regularly, I decided to peruse my hard drives and post some old shots. This is the first of these posts. Hope you enjoy!

“Rumble Fish” Redux Written on November 12, 2009, by Phillip Sumner.

There are two things I really love.  Movies and photography.  Around the time I got my first camera (see me getting film for said camera here) Francis Ford Coppola was shooting a couple of movies in the Tulsa area, from books by the great S.E. Hinton.  One of those films, Rumble Fish, featured some key scenes shot right in my home town of Sapulpa.  I was 10 years old in the summer of 1982.  My friend’s uncle took us down to Dewey Street in Sapulpa to watch a movie being shot.  That was the beginning of my love for filmmaking, and the spark of my desire to become a filmmaker.  The scene that was being shot that hot summer night involved a conversation on a fire escape between Matt Dillon and Diana Scarwid.  We were so far away that we couldn’t really tell what was going on, but I still have a vivid image of that night in my memory.

As a history buff, I have long been intrigued by “then and now” type photographs.  I set out to take a few “then and now” pictures from the film Rumble Fish, just to see what’s still around, and how it looks 27 years later.  Some of them I tried to match as closely as I could to the film (using screen captures on my Blackberry as a guide). Others I tried from memory.  Below are the results of this experiment.

The next one was a bit more difficult to find.  For years I had wanted to find the location of this shot.  It took lots of driving, and looking at satellite images on Google Maps to figure out that this shot was on a stretch of Cincinnati Ave that is no longer a thru street.  It is now a dead end street behind a fertility clinic at 15th and Boston Ave.

After Rusty James meets Patty as she gets off the bus on Cincinnati Ave, they walk down the street towards 15th. For some unexplainable reason there is blowing black and white smoke in this scene. That has never made much sense to me, but who am I to question the genius that is Francis Ford Coppola? This part of the street is now part of the parking lot of the fertility clinic (formerly Luby’s Cafeteria).

The next stop in our tour of Rumble Fish’s Tulsa is Parish of Christ The King Church at 16th and Quincy Ave.  This was Patty’s school in the film.  Matt Dillon, Nicholas Cage (sporting a crazy blow dried pompadour and his natural crooked teeth), and Chris Penn walked right down the middle of 16th St. as school is letting out.

And finally, the scene I saw being filmed that night in Sapulpa.  I took this one a few months ago, so I obviously have completely the wrong angle.  Some day I will try to get the proper shot.  But, since I mentioned this scene, I had to include it.

That’s it.  Hope you enjoyed the trip around town courtesy of Francis Ford Coppola and S.E. Hinton.  Feel free to leave a comment!

Some Home Developed Black and White Written on November 3, 2009, by Phillip Sumner.

It’s been a long time since I developed my own Black and White film.  But a couple of months ago I decided to do just that.  I took some expired Ilford Pan F Plus film out and shot it in my Pentax P30T. I spent the afternoon in Downtown Tulsa, and some quality time in the backyard with our faithful dog, Kelso.  Here are a few of my favorite shots from that roll of expired film.

My Photo Zine Is Here… Written on July 14, 2009, by Phillip Sumner.

I have decided to finally compile some of my photos into a zine. These are some of the photos I have taken over the past 10 years or so. I am really happy with how they turned out. It has 22 pages of color and B&W photos. You can order one right now for the low low price of $15 plus shipping. You can even click below to purchase:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=6803400

Lamenting the (all but) Complete Death of Film Written on June 21, 2009, by Phillip Sumner.

I have been going through an old shoe box of family photos from the 1970’s.  There are some great shots in there (and some terrible ones) and they each bring back wonderful memories. But it got me thinking about the future of “family photos” in the digital era.

I don’t know about you, but I rarely print any of my digital photos.  I think a lot of people are the same way.  I think this makes the traditional family photo album an endangered species. And that is really kind of sad.

Here are a few gems from my past:

It would be a tragedy for these types of photos to be relegated to computer wallpapers, and archive CD-ROMs .  But I am afraid that is what will happen to many family photos in the future.  I guess I should start printing more pics.

Do you print many of your digital photos?  Leave me a comment and let me know!

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