Dorkroom updates, and burnout.
Over the last few months, and particularly the last 2 weeks, I pushed a few major updates to Dorkroom, and I figured it was time to go over them! It's been a little while since I wrote a newsletter, and I'll explain that a bit in the last section.
Camera Lens Equivalency Calculator
This is yet another calculator that exists on other sites, but I wanted a nice interface and preview for the calculator and other sites were lacking in that department.
This calculator helps you figure out what the equivalent focal length of your lens is on any given format. The base point of reference for lenses is full frame sensors/35mm film (36x24mm), but this calculator lets you compare between any format you'd like. It doesn't currently factor in depth of field/aperture changes, as I think that's something that can be more easily inferred while out in the field shooting, but let me know if that's something you'd like to see!
This page leverages the data I already had inputted into the database for the API I made for the site. A lot of the data comes from the pre-existing Film API, but I've added some further information and hosted the images instead of hot linking from stores like B&H. It displays most films that are popular, but it is crucially missing some newer films, such as the latest Harman Phoenix films.
One particularly cool thing: clicking on a black and white film and revealing its info panel can take you straight to its development times on the development recipe page! I am, however, still working my way through adding all the official times for the most common still-produced films.
If there's any film that's missing from this database or if there are changes I should make, let me know!
I upgraded the look and feel of the development recipes page quite a bit.
All official development times (that is, times listed by the manufacturer in their official datasheets for the film) now have a manufacturer-colored check mark next to the film name. When more unofficial times get added to the database, this will be helpful for visually sorting out what times are officially recommended by the manufacturer and what are custom times made by the community.
Additionally, any recipes that have different temperatures from 68°F/20°C will have a different color text for the recipe's temperature. Same goes for push/pull recipes, the ISO will be a different color when anything other than box speed.
There's also been some general updates to the filtering and sorting. You can now filter by ISO, and most importantly by box speed ISO, and hide/show your favorites and custom recipes.
I'm pretty pleased with it!
There's been some other small updates to the site (formatting, styling, language changes), but the above 3 are the most notable and what I'm most proud of right now.
Burnout.
A lot less fun than that video game series.
Regrettably, I do feel the need to inform you, the readers of a photography-related newsletter, that I am rather burnt out on making photographs.
I haven't finished a roll of film in a few months, let alone developed one, and I'm not pulling my cameras out of my bag nearly as often as I used to. Am I upset about this? A little bit, yeah.
I've been focused a lot on the technical aspects of film and darkroom stuff lately, and not so much on doing any actual work of my own. Making Dorkroom has me researching a lot of things about this craft, and a lot of it is really interesting and full of nuances, which I find really interesting! A lot of what I've been doing at work lately has been experimenting with our scanners, color correcting color negatives, and trying to optimize workflows.
I think a lot of this feeling comes from being too engrossed in my work at work to make my own work outside of work. There's a number of things going on administratively behind the scenes at the Photo Center that's making my motivation for photographic things completely evaporate, as well as my motivation for doing non-essential upkeep. All these extra tasks I talked about above have been because I need something to do during our down time, and I like being helpful.
While I'd love to talk about these administrative on-goings that have me down, dishing out dirty laundry in a public way isn't really my style. Rest assured, the Photo Center will always be a great place to make photography with a great community, and it would be difficult to have it be anything else. Unfortunately I have to admit that, as a result of many of things the things I'm alluding to, I'm currently looking for a new job for a variety of reasons. Maybe in photography/art, maybe not.
I'd like my motivation to come back sooner rather than later. I'd like to have something new to put in our Member, Staff, and Volunteer show this year, regardless of whether or not I'm staff or member at that point.
If any of you have any wise words about fending off both creative and professional burnout, I'm all ears. It's a problem I've dealt with a number of times over the years, but right now feels like the worst it has ever been.
I'll keep working on Dorkroom though. It's a project that I love seeing progress and I can't wait to feel like it's feature-complete and bug-free enough to show it off to the wider world.
Until next time, hopefully with a bit more motivation!
Aaron
A good song!