playing with blocks

Sinar F2 w/ 210mm f/45; 13.7 seconds; Delta 100

The last b&w 4x5 sheet film to be exposed and processed at a commercial lab in the US? Apparently Dodge-Chrome - who has developed my sheet film for years - has ceased doing chemical processing. What now, Brown Cow? We're on a septic system, and the internet says don't dispose of film effluent into one. I believe it. Let the liquid evaporate, dispose of solids at the appropriate waste authority?

Ricky Maynard in Virginia

A rather fascinating exhibit is currently at one of our local museums, the Kluge-Ruhe space. Here is some info about this show of photographic prints by Tasmanian native Ricky Maynard. I'm not certain that he works exclusively with a large format camera, but Ricky did tell me at the show opening that his landscape work is often done with a "5 x 4." He spoke about the difficulties of working with a bellows camera in the frequent winds off the Southern Indian Ocean. The portraits of native elders from Queensland are fabulous images of people we rarely see in these parts, despite our cosmopolitan proclivities.

Most of the images in the current Kluge-Ruhe show can be seen here.

A 2 part video about Ricky's "Portrait of a Distant Land" project can be seen here and here. Interesting to see a large format landscape photographer go about his work. Turns out, he works mostly with an 8 x 10 Ebony, and does all his printing in a wet darkroom.