Recent Pictures and Projects

Went to see some tulips in Washington for a weekend trip recently...
Saw some very pretty ponys along the way.

Meeting of the Broncos :)

Then on to the tulips

Saw a street artists paints all spread out on the road... How does he know what colour is in which tube???

Bought an old camera from an antique shop... Its a Zeiss and is about 100 years old and is in pretty good condition (lense is not damaged and there are no holes in the bellows)

Its a "plate" camera that was designed to expose images on glass plates... Im going to modify the plate carrier packs slightly and use it to do some direct exposure photography on printing paper. That will get me "negative" images which I will then "contact print" to create positive images.
I did a bit of "pin-hole camera" photography when I was a kid and I liked the simplicity of it. This will be pretty much the same thing... All do it your self whith minimal fuss and no "middle-man" to process the film... Just me and a couple of trays of simple chemicals and a darkened room.
Its not going to happen immediately but it'll be another of my projects for the future :))

And one more project Ive been working on is to build a new bicycle. Ive got an old rigid-frame mountain bike that I commute to and from work with during the summer months... and it works perfectly well as it is. But I saw a very nice lite-weight "track-bike" frame for sale at a bargain price, and I thought I might like something a little nicer to ride :)

Again, Ive been sufing the web and slowly collecting parts to build my "perfect commuter" bike, and its nearly done. The wheel set were very expensive at about $700 but Ive got an internal 8 gear hub on the rear with a built-in "coaster" brake, so the bike will have just a single cable on it from a gear shifter on the handle-bars and no messy external brake levers or callipers... Clean and simple and effective ... Just how I like it :)