Lugubrious Drollery

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Weekend in Black and White: Madonna

More black and white photos at:

Friday, March 11, 2011

Adventures With Acme, Part 5

In previous posts (see links below), I have chronicled the trials and tribulations of owning a vintage plastic camera. It's been over a year since my last post on this topic, so an update is long overdue.

In order to minimize light leaks, I have added some gaffer's tape to cover the red window on the back. This can be peeled back when winding the film. One lesson I learned is that the adhesive on the tape can pull the red window out of the camera, so I added a small piece of tape to the back of my makeshift cover. The two pieces of tape are placed with adhesive surfaces together, so the red window will no longer get pulled out.

Another problem I encountered was the locking lever on the bottom of the camera being inadvertently moved to the "Open" position, allowing the back of the camera to fall off. I solved this with another strip of gaffer's tape applied to the bottom of the camera. It can be peeled back for intentional opening of the camera.

My most recent misadventure with the Acme involved faulty winding of the film. I could get the film to advance, but it didn't feel right. When I opened the camera, the film was wound loosely, and the piece that holds the take-up spool in place fell out. I had some stuff called Sugru in the shop. It's a putty-like substance that cures into a silicone material that is marketed for fixing things you might otherwise throw away. I used this to hold the broken piece in place and to reinforce the corresponding piece on the other side of the mechanism.

So now the Acme is ready to go again--till the next malfunction.

Links:

Adentures With Acme, Part 1

Adentures With Acme, Part 2

Adventures With Acme, Part 3

Adventures With Acme, Part 4

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Monochrome Weekend: Sky

Captured with a Superheadz Digital Harinezumi 2++

More black and white photos at:

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Skywatch Friday: After the Blizzard

I took this picture of blue sky while walking the dogs today. It's rare we see such clear, blue skies in northern Indiana in winter.

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Abstraction

Through the photo-sharing site Flickr, I got in touch with Bill Dunbar, who is married to a distant cousin of mine in Elkhart, Iowa. We have collobarated on a few photographic projects. I expose a roll of film, rewind it, mail it to him, and he does a second set of exposures on the roll.

Three pictures from one of our projects appear on the "Group Exhibit: Abstraction" page in Issue 45 of the online fine art photography magazine, F-Stop. Bill made his exposures in Iowa using a 1946 Argoflex E, and I shot in Indiana, using an Agfa Speedex B2 of unknown vintage. The film was Kodak TX400, developed in Diafine.

Lantern and Leaves

Lute

Trees

Monday, January 31, 2011

Digital Harinezumi 2++

Just before leaving for a recent trip to NYC, I discovered a new way to take less than perfect pictures. I like my 12 megapixel Nikon digital SLR. It takes beautiful, focused, automatically-metered pictures--but they're not very interesting. Till now, to get interesting pictures, I've resorted to vintage film cameras or new plastic "toy" cameras with poorly-made lenses. This approach requires developing and scanning negatives, and is labor-intensive.

With the 3 megapixel Superheadz Digital Harinezumi 2++, which I bought in Greenwich Village, I can eliminate the film and get what I consider to be appealing pictures. I can also capture video reminiscent of old Super 8 home movies.

I had to work this past weekend. Sunday was a slow day, so I wandered around the hospital and took some photos. Since it's a Catholic Hospital, religious symbols are everywhere. In a bow to tolerance, the chapel even has Islamic and Jewish prayer rooms, with the appropriate symbols on the doors.