For such a simple critter, cancer magister, or the ubiquitous Dungeness crab, has quite an intricate body structure. Symmetrical. Articulated. Star of the silver screen as an angry alien or loyal friend to a beautiful mermaid. A perfect piece of biological engineering. They spend their time scurrying across the seabed feeding on drifting shreds of spilled shark kill or decaying fish that drift their way. Along with shrimp, they are kind of like the ‘Roomba’ of the sea.

This company of crustaceans were on parade in a fish vendor’s case at the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. Soon be be a batch of crab cakes or the principle element of crab rangoon, they stand ready for tonight’s seafood buffet.

This group portrait was taken with a Mamiya C330 twin lens reflex camera loaded with Kodak Plus-X shot at par and developed in Acufine for 3 minutes.

Tags: monochrome, Mamiya TLR, Plus-X

No matter how big or small dogs are, they all share a very important trait. Appetite. They all love to eat. They especially love to eat what their human companions are eating at the time.

Gizmo is no exception. No matter what it is, he’s willing to try. From meat scraps to broccoli or carrots or even roasted seaweed he’s a ready taker. Peanuts are a favorite, but if he could speak for himself I’m sure he’d say “I’ll have what he’s having.”

One of my few digital photographs captured with a Fuji Finepix S2 Pro and a 24-85mm Nikkor lens.

Tags: Color, portraits, fuji finepix S2 pro, Digital

The family dog is a popular subject, probably because they are always available for a shoot and just so darned cute. Dogs are the perfect model because they need no makeup and little coaching while working for peanuts, or cheese, or even a piece of salmon.

After mounting a Lensbaby lens on a Nikon FM2, I discovered Gizmo carefully watching one of us eating a chip, or a sandwich, or something else that he knows he would like. The Lensbaby is a bit unpredictable but that is why I like it. There is no auto-exposure. There is no auto focus. The only way to focus the lens is to move the flexible lens barrel until the ‘sweet spot’ is focused in the viewfinder. Sometimes the final image comes as expected, sometimes not.

In this portrait, I focused on Gizmo’s eyes leaving the rest of the image to chance. The Lensbaby uses discs that change the aperture from f/2.8 with no disc to f/16, which is the disc with the smallest opening. Changing the discs changes the depth of field, or the range of distances that come into focus on the film plane. For this shot, I didn’t use an aperture disc so most of the image is out of focus except for his eyes. The result is a portrait that clearly suggests ‘dog’, but draws the viewer to those big Shih Tzu eyes. Sparkling catchlights add dimension to his face.

Adorable.

Tags: Nikon, monochrome, Ilford HP5+, portraits, lensbaby

Dogs have personality. Some are easy going affable types. Some are high strung and high maintenance. Ours is a “mommy’s dog”. Being a rescue critter, he has issues. For the first few months that we had him, he thought my arm needed more scars. He was scared, anxious, and likely abused by his former owners. We did our best to calm and discipline him as he became part of our ‘pack’. His portraits say it all. He still has a problem with FedEx and UPS drivers. All snarls and teeth, he hides behind his “mom” during the performance. I don’t think we will ever break him of that.

My portrait gallery shows a few of his moments. My favorite is captured in this monochrome print. I used Kodak Plus-X shot with a 50mm f/1.8 lens mounted on a Nikkormat FTn and developed in HC-110 (dilution B) developer.

‘Smile!’

Tags: monochrome, portraits, SLR, Nikkormat FTn, Plus-X