Last week I saw a social media announcement about a Kickstarter project, the goal of which is to start a company to manufacture a 4X5 positive/negative instant film to fill the void left when Polaroid discontinued its Type 55 film (along with all of its other film products—immediately after which it became a Zombie corporation. Anyone heard the name Polaroid lately???)

The project is called New55 and has been in development for over three years. The new film will not be exactly the same as Type 55, but from what I’ve read on their blog, it could end up being better in some ways. For one, they feel they’ve been able to achieve a good negative and a good print from the same exposure/development time, something Polaroid was not able to do. The ISO speed of the film will also probably be higher than Type 55, perhaps as high as 400.

The Kickstarter project is attempting to raise $400,000 (!) to fund the manufacturing start up costs. It’s an ambitious endeavor, but, if a lot of us who have long lamented the loss of so many great film products over the years are willing to step up and support the project, it has a good chance of succeeding. And I believe that, if the film actually does come to the market, there is a niche that it can fill and so it should be profitable for a long time.

Several of the images in my portrait gallery on this site were shot on Polaroid Type 55 and you can read my rant in this blog, here and especially here, when I found out it had been discontinued. It was one of my favorite films for black and white portraiture because of its fine grain and unmatched tonal scale. And the groaddy edges caused by the film packet were also very cool.

So buzz on over to the New55 page on Kickstarter and contribute to the revival of an important bit of photo history—and hopefully, its future as well.

Laura Balliet, of Akron, came in recently to print one of her nautilus shell photographs. She selected the William Turner paper, by Hahnemuhle, a 310gsm 100% cotton textured art paper. Check out the smile as she viewed the final result.

The big news this year is the installation of a large-format printer in my home studio. The Epson 9900 with the high dynamic range UltraChrome HD inkset is up and running and I’ve been making numerous test prints on a variety of fine art papers, canvas and other media. I’ll soon be officially launching a boutique printing service for photographers and artists who want the best available quality printing on media up to 44 inches wide by lengths up to 150 feet.

While I can and have made commercial banners, posters, etc., this venture is not going to be based on the business model of a commercial printer or photo lab. Artists and photographers who are seeking the ultimate in print quality will be able to work together with me to achieve the best prints possible on any of dozens of papers and other media types. I believe that digital printing can be as much of a craft as any of the traditional methods and, so far, my test prints and the few early projects I’ve completed bear that out.

While it will be a few more weeks before the doors officially open to outside customers, there’s no need to wait. You can let me know what you would like to do and I’ll work up a custom quote.

I recently completed an illustration for a book cover for David Silverberg. His book 10 Models of Teacher Evaluation, with co-author Linda O. Jungwirth, was just published by Rowman & Littlefield of Chicago.

Laura Balliet and I produced several covers for David’s STEPS series of teacher guides in 2008 and 2009. There are posts here that show those covers should you care to scroll back that far.

This illustration attempts to make a subtle and non-threatening reference to evaluation of teacher performance based on standards-based measurement.

OK, so we did miss the show…but we finally made it to Woodstock!

A long weekend in the Catskills included a Sunday afternoon excursion to Woodstock, NY. Whatever the town was like in the ’60s, today it seems to be a bustling arts and tourist mecca that was packed with people and cars. There is plenty of memorabilia referring to the music festival that made Woodstock famous and a wide variety of more contemporary goodies as well. It’s definitely worth a look if you’re traveling in the Catskills.

The Ohio State University Agricultural Extension Service sponsors an annual event called the Farm Science Review which is located in London, Ohio. I learned of this by happenstance while helping my students, Kesley Lynch and Jaeryn Flanik plan part of their project of photographing towns in Ohio that are named for cities in Europe. I expected this event to be a modest sized trade show with some educational seminars and lots of food vendors—much like a county fair, but without the carnival rides and games.

However, this is a HUGE event with a trade show that included every kind of farm equipment and technology currently on the market, and a few things that are, shall we say, “out there.” Imagine a control system that will drive a tractor over a field automatically to plant or harvest crops using a GPS guidance program with no operator intervention.

Seminars and demonstrations included everything from bee keeping to full scale demonstrations of plowing and harvesting equipment. The event site covered over two thousand acres which provided ample space for field demonstrations, the equipment show, and parking for what looked like about 10,000 pickup trucks (and a few cars as well). The main exhibition area was laid out in a grid of nine “streets,” each about a quarter mile long. A pair of good walking shoes is highly recommended.