Photo geekery. ACTIVATE!

So. Much. Photo conservation.

We just got back from a weekend of photo geekery! The Photographic Materials Group of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Artifacts hosted their bi-annual winter conference this past weekend. Professionals from all over North America and Europe came to present and discuss issues and new discoveries in photo conservation. Phenomenally boring to most people, but super fun for us!

Eight of us drove up for the two day conservation road trip. The PMG was nice enough to host a gala as well, which was held at the Museum of Nature in downtown Ottawa. It's a beautiful old building that has had a recent renovation to include a lovely reception hall. We were treated to some very nice catered finger food and a bar! The museum was also in charge of the table centre pieces, which we played with after a while.

RAAWWWWWWWRRRRRR!! (Ooo, crackers!)

As it turns out, conservators like their alcohol. not only was the free-ish bar stocked with nice wine and beer, they had had a Vodka luge made for the reception. That would be a vodka dispensing ice sculpture.The older guys were frequenting sneaking shots when the bar tenders weren't looking. Quite the fun evening.

We also learned a very interesting way of dealing with unexpected disasters in the conservation field. I may have to carry holy water and a rosary in my tool kit from now on. Note the word "again" at the bottom of the slide. This presentation was a retelling of how things can happen without any warning in the preservation process. 

For now, however, back to Toronto, back to school and back to work. And back to home cooked meals... except that my roommate and I ordered sushi the Sunday night I was back. It was glorious. I have had home cooked since, and will post soon.

Runny Eggs

As I sit here at my computer, writing this blog to put off doing more research about 20th century cameras used by professional photographers, I look at my lunch and realize that I really need to work on how to cook eggs.

I love diner style breakfasts with runny, sunny-side up eggs, loads of hash browns and ham slices. I try to redeem the lack of nutrients and vitamins by having Oj or extra fruit with it. Either way, I love cheap, greasy diner breakfasts.

Sadly, I have a hard time cooking them myself. I guess not having the flat, griddle surface that diners have might be my first problem, but I suck at cooking eggs in general. I can hard boil them, and that's about it. My scrambled eggs are a little weird and I can't do sunny-side up eggs without them exposing at one point or another. None the less, I will still try, I hope it's down to practice and a decent frying pan. Today's attempt was going fairly well until the last flip where the yolk started to rip, and moving it to the plate was the breaking point, as can be seem. Tasted really good though, and I was really happy with my potatoes and onions.

In other news, CONSERVATION ROAD TRIP!! Eight of us from my Master's program are going to the 10th Biannual Winter Meeting of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works next weekend! Not only have we lucked out that the conference is focusing on photography this year, it's happening in Ottawa and not in the States like previous years. We've all scrapped together our pennies for the conference fees, hotel and the rental cars, and we're hitting the road on Thursday night for the drive to Ottawa.

Professionals from all over North America are giving lectures and workshops about preservation issues in photography, and it's being hosted by the National Gallery of Canada, Library and Archives Canada and the Canadian Conservation Institute.

I am ready to thoroughly geek out for two days.

Also, thank you to our Chemistry professor, Chris for not being understanding about us missing class on Thursday to go to the conference, but for actually encouraging us to go since it's a great opportunity. Thank you Chris, you're amazing.