MOVVEEEEEDD

I moved AM BECOME DEATH over to kevinconvery.com ! From now on go here:



(click)

http://www.kevinconvery.com/ambecomedeath

i convinced the girl at CVS to cross process a handful of film I had been putting off developing. Once again I received some dirty looks when I picked them up. Often times I shoot so much with my T4 that I forget what is on rolls and have them processed at pharmacies and end up having photos of my friends naked doing inappropriate things. I've been busy lately putting together a new portfolio (I have some pretty awesome stuff in the works. Should everything go as planned I'll be walking around with a smug little smile for a week or so. But that's another day's conversation.) and I've been neglecting a lot of other things...like scanning and posting on this blog.

I switched kevinconvery.com to a new server a month or two ago when my previous server went belly up without warning. My new server seems pretty reliable and they offer a lot of other fun services like Wordpress. Nothing against blogger but I'd rather have the website and the blog in the same place. In the next few days I'm planning on switching this blog over to wordpress on kevinconvery.com/blog instead of a redirect.

I apologize to the handful of people that read this but I won't be posting any photos today just some nonsense.

Things to look forward to:
-Sure Juror's new album, The Yardgobbler, will have a 20 or so page PDF full of fun artwork and photos by myself and jon/drew/alex

-upcoming new 'serious' work (overly sexual, film noir, mildly creepy. I'm excited. I'm buying a smoke machine.)

-putting together a book of fun stuff with Jonathan's help. (don't expect this anytime soon.)

-My friends and I are in the beginning stages of writing/filming a series of shorts for the internet not unlike a television show. More info as things come up.

-Friends of Project Basho show in a month or so. I'll have a handful of prints there and hopefully it will be the new stuff. More info blah blah...

/ramble

-k.

Al and Jenine

my buddy, Al, from Basho brought in this Howard Schatz portrait book a couple weeks ago and was showing it to Yoshi and I. He was really excited about it saying he wanted to start doing portraits similar to what was in this book. It was all high-key black and white shots of actors and other famous people. Yoshi flipped through it and completely shut Al down. "Ah, these are ok...you should look into Avedon." I agreed and brought in a handful of Richard Avedon books for Al and he really got into them. Saturday we got together at Basho and I showed Al how to do high-key studio lighting. I had a blast. I brought Jenine along to pose for a couple pictures and Basho's book keeper Brandi came as well. I forgot just how much I enjoy doing this. Richard Avedon is the possibly 90% of the reason I shoot mostly large format.


Technical crap: Nikon 450m, B&J 8x10, Arista Ultra 100, Pyrocat HD.

4.26.08

Adventures

Note: I'm in love. The Yashica T4 is the perfect everyday walking around camera. These are from Jesse and I's adventures in Southern New Jersey. I'm going to start a summer project photographing the trashiness that is Route 322 in South Jersey.

Jenine

I really needed to shoot something so I asked Jenine to sit for me.
Nikon 450M f/9, Fuji Acros 100, B&J 8x10, Pyrocat HD @ 68 degrees for 6 minutes and 45 seconds.

THAT KID HAS A FUCKING GUN

Yashica T4, Iflord HP5...

Los Angeles, you are doomed. Part 1

My dearest sister, Elizabeth, took me to Los Angeles for the first week of March. I had a blast, I've never seen the left coast and I got to spend some quality time with my sister which never happens. The children Convery are very busy...all the time. Due to business plus the passing of my beloved friend David I haven't had time to do anything really. So I'm finally getting around to scanning all the negatives I shot in LA. This is a two part entry. Part one is to get you wet and part two for you to marvel at my vacation photos. Below is a scanned contact print, click it to enlarge.

3.16.87-3.15.08

It has been an incredibly surreal two weeks(I can't believe its been two weeks). One of my best friends, David Blakeslee, passed away early Saturday morning March 15th. I received the news Saturday evening when I got in from work and life has just been muffled since. David and I have been friends since we were 14-15 years old. We've gone through a lot together; the good, the bad, and the devastatingly ugly. David is possibly one of the best musicians to have picked up a guitar or taken a seat at a piano. He was immensely talented, creative, and kind. If it wasn't for David I surely wouldn't be who I am today. Having been fortunate enough to be close with David was a blessing and I regret nothing we have done or did not do together. I wish he had the strength to carry the cross he was burdened with in life for he had so much to live for. I love him very much and miss him greatly. Every day will be a reminder of him and everything I have done and will do is going to be a direct result of being a part of David's all too sort time with us. Rest in peace, my love.


The above image is a reproduction shot I did for David's parents. This is a self portrait David did sometime during the summer of 2007. Acrylic on drywall, roughly 20x24"

Time : Contemporary Collotype Exhibition

In collaboration with FOTOSPHERE in NY and Benrido in Kyoto Japan, we are excited to announce the upcoming exhibition "Time: Exhibition of contemporary collotype prints." The show will open with a reception on Thursday, March 13 as a part of 2nd Thursday Openings in the area. The reception will be open to the public from 6 to 9 pm. The exhibition will run through April 27th.

The exhibition demonstrates the intricacy and sensibility of the process. The participating photographers include:

Emmet Gowin
Eikoh Hosoe
Graciela Iturbide
Koichiro Kurita
John Pfahl
Ryuji Taira
George Tice
Arthur Tress

For more information, please visit the accompanying site which introduces the details of the process.

Related Links:
Time: Exhibition for Contemporary Collotype Prints
2nd Thursday Gallery Openings

The show is at Project Basho:
1305 Germantown Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19122

It's northern liberties-ish, half a block from 3rd and Girard Ave.

Its free, its awesome, everyone should attend.

Seriously, the last month feels like all I have been doing non stop is helping Tsuyoshi with this show. Its been an awesome experience and I'm really excited for the opening. After today's day of work things have really come a long way toward materializing. Come, it means the world to me.

nudes 3/1/08

Saturday I shot some nudes at Space 1305, Project Basho's new photo studio. It's just about up and running. Tsuyoshi and I had been doing little things here and there the last couple weeks. I suppose I am the first person to have shot there.



I returned to Project Basho on Sunday to process the negatives and make some proofs. It came out alright.

Technical garbage:
B&J 8x10, 14" Ektar Lens shot at 1/50th at f/22 1/2 on Ilford FP4+ processed 11 minutes in Edwal FG 7 at 20 degrees C. Below - scanned 300 dpi Epson 4990.

Plaubel Makina 67

Tsuyoshi of Project Basho and I were talking about 2.25" rangefinders a few weeks ago and I was basically complaining that I only want one for just an everyday point and shoot and wouldn't use it for serious work so I can by no means justify spending more than a grand on a camera of this type. I'd really like a Mamiya 6 or 7 but refuse to pay well into the thousands for a USED system I won't use often. Then out of no where Tsuyoshi drops a bomb on me, "Ohhh kevvvviiinnn, I have a 6 by 7 rangefinder you can borrow it." Awesome. Turns out its a Plaubel Makina 67, the fucking camera I used to sweat when I was in college!! I would have bought one years ago but they don't come up on eBay too often and when they do they go for way too much.

Last Tuesday I went to Jon's while the boys were recording and tested out the Plaubel 67. I shot 4 rolls of film - 3 Provia 100(still unprocessed...) and one super outdated roll of Tri-x 400. I used a Nikon speedlight bounced off of walls and the ceiling. All photos below shot at 1/125 f/8-11ish. Processed ten minutes, 20 degrees C, Edwal FG-7, scanned @ 300dpi with Epson 4990 slight crop and level adjust.





Overall I really enjoyed the camera, it was simple to use, the viewfinder was bright and the rangefinder produces tact sharp negatives(looking under a 12x loupe). The best part about the camera I think is the 80mm Nikkor with the leaf shutter. I shot a test roll to see how well it preformed hand held and I was able to get a sharp image at 1/8th f/2.8!! Try that with a slr.

Paper Negatives

"Hey, Kevin, why do your photos look so fucked up?"
"Fucked up how? Content?"
"No, they look fuzzy. You know, weird."
"Oh, thats a paper negative."
"ah, ok?"
- people walking by the color lab my last semester at Antonelli.

Paper negatives are fun, they look neat, they add some crazy textures to your photo. They shouldn't always be used as I think it varies from photo to photo. I'm not going to explain how to do it, you can Google 'paper negatives' on your own. I will, however, show you how to cheat at paper negatives. I stumbled upon this the other day.

First, start with a negative(you know, from real quality cameras.Preferably a big one too, 2.25" and above). The picture I'm using is almost two years old and is from the Schiele series I did before I graduated. This was excluded from the series for a number of reasons. Mostly because of my own carelessness composing this shot. I've come back to this negative because I really enjoy just how perfect my friend Amanda hit this pose and her face is exactly what I wanted. Here is the negative scanned at 1200dpi on an Epson 4990 Photo scanner(just scanned, no work - hence dust.):


Once scanned and corrected and cropped and blah blah blahed this could be an ok picture.

First, we are going to rescan this negative. I used the film area guide so I could do a full frame scan of the 4x5" negative. But before I close the lid to my scanner I'm going do something a little crazy. I'm going to place a piece of plain white printer paper over my negative. I know, I'm insane. Why hell would I do that? Because!

Look at all that grainy texture we just added! It's almost like a paper negative!

Now this doesn't change the fact that its kind of a mediocre image. Time to crop, lower saturation, adjust levels, and throw in some curve adjustment. Add some light toning too.

Final product:

An image that is better than mediocre! Something I'd consider hanging on my wall.

Now that you know how to cheat making paper negatives I suggest you go fucking nuts. Get anything that isn't completely opaque and throw it in your scanner. See what types of texture and patterns you are able to cast on your newly alternative image.

Heart Show

Jinxed Clothing's Myspace


Jinxed Clothing in Philadelphia will be having their second annual Pre-Valentine's Day Heart Show. Over a shit load of artists are given eight inch wooden craft hearts to do whatever it is they please. All hearts are for sale for under $100. I had this really awesome idea to build my heart a set of electrical wire ribs and a spine made of moss. I went up to Antonelli a couple weeks ago and set everything up and was shooting with my 8x10 hoping to make some contact prints and then some Polaroid 809 prints. I shoot about 6 sheets then I start to shoot the polaroids. My first prints comes out horribly over exposed so I check out what setting are on the lens and it turns out the iris blades on my Kodak 7.5" where stuck open at f/6.3. This means the 6 sheets of film I shot were over exposed as well. Shit. So it didn't pan out the way I wanted it to. However, I found the time today to set everything up and give it another shot only this time I'd use my Bronica SQ system.




It didn't turn out the way I had imagined it and am not found of it for the Heart Show. My new plan is to use Rockland's Liquid Emulsion to print a nude I shot on the wooden heart. I'll post that once I finish it.
Tri-X 320, HC110-B, f/22 @ 1/250

I also found on the roll of 220 tri-x I used to shoot the heart, ANOTHER dead deer!
Enjoy.

Foto Fobia

I use Google Analytics to track site traffic to kevinconvery.com. I was looking through the traffic sources and I came across a blog that has been diverting viewers my way. I checked out the blog and was interested in a number of photos they had posted. They also have my website as a top link! I thought this was great that a group of people I don't know enjoyed what I do enough to link me. The photo above is an example of the style of work they seem to focus on. If you have a chance check them out! ffobia.blogspot.com

I have a decent update coming by the end of the week.

Hello

So I'm trying my hand at blogging, again. This will be to some extent a personal blog for friends and strangers. The focus will be new photographic works as they are completed for people to comment and critique. Also, this will be a venue for photos I've taken that I enjoy but wouldn't fit into any kind of portfolio. I'm going to try something new by taking some 'behind the scenes' type photos from my more serious photo shoots. Finally, there may be frequent photos of just random shit - like friends and I doing stupid things.

SO! I'll start it off with some random dead deer!





This was underexposed about 1 stop.
Polaroid Model 250
Fuji FP-100B.