dear bird

photos from the LBJ Presidential Library

February is over! I can't believe tomorrow it will be March. Since I dedicated a whole week to Valentine's Day, I thought it would be nice to post about a last minute assignment that I worked on that week. On Feb. 13, our Supervisory Archivist Claudia Anderson talked to press about the 1934 courtship letters between LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson. The letters have been released to the public, check them out here if you're interested.

the things i love: my valentine

I couldn't resist... It's Valentine's day, and one of the things I love most is my valentine... Kyle. He is the greatest valentine ever. This was his card to me...

Here is a picture of us on our location scouting adventure on Lady Bird Lake a couple weeks ago.

Lady Bird Lake - January 26, 2013 

the things i love: film

In honor of Valentine's Day, I'm going to celebrate all week with a mini-blog series, "The Things I Love." The first one, of course, is film! But not film as in the movies, I'm talking about the physical celluloid film.

FILM: a thin sheet of cellulose acetate or nitrocellulose coated with a radiation-sensitive emulsion for taking photographs

Although digital photography has come a long way, it still does not compare to the quality of film. You can't get the same subtle variations in the shadows and highlights with a digital camera as you can with a roll of Tri-X or Kodak Kodachrome. Luckily, Kodak still makes and sells Tri-X, and hopefully it won't go away until long after I'm gone. Digital comes close with the capability to shoot RAW images... but you still have to edit the photo afterwards to get anything close to what is already on the film negative.

Another thing I love about film is the process. There is just something about waiting in the darkroom to see what you've got that makes you a better photographer. I love that shooting film is a chemical process and part of the art of photography is the science.

Kelsey - December 2010