Knee high by the Fourth of July.

Or an example of the relative height of maize as compared to the lower extremities of able bodied human beings on the fourth day of the seventh month of the Gregorian calendar.

The wife & I, trying to remember any semblance of normalcy, drove all around the area farms yesterday looking for knee high corn, given the titular colloquialism. To our surprise, we discovered most of the corn was already way past chest height.

After almost giving up on the concept, we found this comparatively stunted crop in a nearby community garden.

The image itself is kind of an inside joke. I have a habit of butchering colloquialisms. Such as “six of one; half dozen of another” in regards to equal quantities, becomes “half of one; six dozen of another,” but still used in the original capacity in a manner of attempted ironic humor.

“Knee high by the Fourth of July” entered our lexicon as “ankle deep on a rainy Thursday in the third week of April” or “hip length on the 17th of June” or “up to your armpits in August” and other such variations of nonsensical meaning.

My wife & I often bat these pseudo-sayings around without regard for our audience, sometimes leading to semi-awkward explanations, akin to the one you’ve just read.

Palm Fronds, O'ahu, fBHF on expired Ektachrome (1990).

As I twittered (tweeted, twooted, twinkled, twunctated or twhat-have-you) yesterday, I’ve finally finished scanning all the 120 rolls from my December trip to O’ahu; now I face the Herculean task of processing the rough scans into pretty pictures. At first glance, there are several frames that have caught my eye that I can’t wait to return to later.

The fact I at least finished scanning two consecutive projects (HolgaHike & O’ahu 2009) is progress, in more than the immediate literal sense. I should try to explain.

I’ve been loosely following The Art of Waiting project. The concept, as best I understand it, is that several photographers go out & contemplate ‘waiting’ in their work; then, they themselves (and the audience), have to wait until next year to see the fruit of their labors. I said “loosely” following, mostly because their concept hit a little too close to home: part of what they’re doing as art, I’ve been doing for years out of sheer procrastination.

I have a backlog of twenty-some-odd rolls of 120, some dating back to 2007 and most before I started labeling my rolls with location/camera/date information. So I have a shoe-box’s worth of my mysterious past awaiting to be discovered. Perhaps, instead of feeling traces of guilt about neglecting the past, I should mentally justify my procrastination as ‘art.’

If my negligence was on purpose, then what I’m really doing is just ‘aging’ those rolls, like one would with a fine wine or cheese, to be appreciated at some later date with pinkies out.

Or not.

So the fact that I’m close to completing a project or two, means I can start another with a clearer conscience, which is progress.

Waikiki Morning, O'ahu. fBHF on expired Ektachrome (1990).

Anywho, here is some more recent Hawaiian ‘wine,’ fresh from the box (camera).

The wife & I were strolling along Waikiki beach (as one is wont to do in Waikiki) in the morning on the way back to the hotel from a sunrise breakfast at Duke’s (great view, good coffee, terrible eggs Benedict). The beach itself was still mostly abandoned due to the early hour, so it felt like we had the entire shore to ourselves, which, in & of itself, is a somewhat rare thing in Waikiki.

It was serene.

An amusing aside about Duke’s: our relatively youthful waiter noticed my BHF sitting on the table as he took our drink order; first he asked what it was and then inquired how many mega-pixels it had….

Wood Swamp, Beaver Lake, Baldwinsville, NY. Holga on Ilford HP5+, developed in Diafine.

Alas & alack, it just wasn’t meant to be…

I didn’t submit my Holga Hike image in time due to a mix of FedEx fumbling the delivery date of my fresh developer, family visiting for Easter and a misinterpretation of a vague deadline.

C’est la vie.

The good news is Randy from HolgaMods assures me that he’ll be running another Holga Hike in the Fall. So hopefully I’ll have better luck with that one.

At the very least, I was able take my wife on a lovely nature walk around Beaver Lake, while enjoying the beautiful first day of Spring; that was more than enough of a reward in & of itself.

Oh, and I also ended up taking a couple of photographs as well (all images taken with a Holga on Ilford HP5+, developed in Diafine):

Bush

Fallen Leaves

Sapling

Trees above

Waikiki Sunset, taken with a flipped lens BHF, Kodak Ektar 100

Another image from my trip to O’ahu this past December. My wife & I were hurrying along, trying to get from the hotel to the House Without a Key for cocktails, after spending a little bit too long at the beach that day. We had just started our mile-long stroll when I startled my wife by suddenly running out into the middle of the street, just to capture the scene relatively unobstructed with my favorite blurry-cam.

Of course, my wife chided me for violating the “No running out into traffic while in Hawaii” rule, but I think the result was worth it.

NY 86, near Lake Placid, NY.

Ausable River.

High Falls Gorge.

All taken with a flipped lens Brownie Hawkeye Flash, Rollei Retro 400 developed in Diafine.