blog.mattalofs.com – a late stage photoblog

In the time of corona, our walking radius is much constrained by both common sense and closure of almost anything that would provide for a mid-walk drink or bathroom break. Apart from one or two occasions, we’ve not been much further than a 45 minute radius from the house even if we’ve walked for two hours.

Large poster advertising Uber Eats delivery of Sweetgreen pasted on white painted ply wood covering an opening in a red brick wall. Slogan "Real food to your real life" A quad of smaller posters advertising an album release. — So real.

4 commercial graded stainless steel washing machines seen through the window of a closed laundromat. Reflections of the photographer and partner in the window. — Where are people washing their clothes? Most of the laundromats seem to be closed.

Bilingual notices to "STAY HOME IF YOU'RE SICK" zip tied to a chain link fence in front of a construction site. — The construction workers do wear masks.

A wilting plant sitting on a heavily built table with black iron legs and greying wooden top seen through a window. Reflection of a woman and construction barriers. — I heard last week from a colleague that she had rescued my office plant from a similar fate.

KESTO graffitied onto a while panel truck flanked by receding ranks of new built luxury apartments on the left and a still operating commercial butcher selling goat on the right. — I woke up with the word Kesto in my head yesterday morning and only remembered its origin after walking past at least two Kesto tags this morning.

A masked figure drags an empty two-wheeled grocery cart past a construction site. Advertisements for the build in progress. — Trader Joes does not open until 9 now.

Call me Ishmael. Some months ago – never mind how long precisely – having some money in my pocket and nothing particularly interesting to do with it, I thought I would buy a printer . . . . .

I could probably keep this up, and it would be fitting, as home printing of photographs is an exercise a bit like chasing that white wale; why am I doing it, what I’m hoping to get out of it, it’s all going to end badly somewhere out in cold ocean, adrift.

I’m not new to digital printing. In the distant past, I’ve used various Epson photo printers, including one that I remember costing as much as my Leica, and which died a death of neglecting as ink dried in the tubes or some such thing. I also have some professional experience printing on those giant roll feed plotters that architects use, and once upon a time knew enough to be able to hand edit the Post Script when some bearded academic insisted on printing posters from LaTex. All that experience aside, I’ve never really felt like I’ve mastered the variables having never really understood color management that well and never having been able or willing to spend enough money on consumables to ever really sort out the workflow.

I now have the money, and I know a bit more about color management, but instead of making checklists on how to use Canon Image Pro 1000 (there’s a ‘Graf’ in there somewhere that I’m missing) I’m writing this blog post.

Where is this going? Oh yeah, I also bought a new monitor, a BenQ something other 27 inch 4K 99% of some color scheme model. It was supposed to be able to charge my MacBook over USB-C. It doesn’t. Oh well. And I bought a color profiler thingy, so now I’m in theory very well color managed. I think. It’s a little hard for me to tell as I don’t think my color perception is that accurate. Kate’s is much better, so I check with her when I’m in doubt. Anyway, the prints look pretty similar to what is on the screen, as similar as colors on a reflective media can look to light emanating from some magic window.

Are those oranges quite the same? Is that guy’s arm really that orange (goes out to the construction site to check . . . yep, it is, wonder if the people who printed that fencing had a color profiler thingy).