"Cold comfort for change"

Exp: 50mm @ f/8 - 1/250th

Film: Ilford Delta 400

File: 11-12

At: -/ 1.30

On: RC Ilford Grade 4 pearl (matte) 8x10

They say that it is the job of any artist to to document their place in history, which is what I had in my head when I decided I wanted this picture. This was the first of these I've seen in our neighborhood in a long time, and I was intrigued by this story. How much did they have to concede in order to sell? They obviously were happy at this house, who puts a statue and a plant out if they aren't? We're happy where we are right now, so like most people, we feel like it would be crazy to move, and give up so much potential future equity while the market is only just recovering. And recovering it is, slowly but surely if this photo is any evidence. But people will always desire to move ahead and forward, even if it means giving up that which was familiar and comforting.

As I go it's becoming easier to visualize what kind of a picture I want, and get it on a negative with one or two exposures. This was my goal all along with film photography, and I'm still finding that the added expense of film doesn't justify a much more expensive digital camera.

It took me a while to get to making this print, even though I've had the negative for a while because I took some extra time to construct a light trap for our bathroom (my darkroom) door. This is just a frame with handles on it that fits around the door. It's covered in a special black-out cloth to keep out the light. This worked great, except for one unexpected side effect. When you set up a trap like this, it also makes a pneumatic seal around the door. When I fired up the bathroom fan for ventilation, there was enough negative air pressure to cause the frame to fall inward, on me.