Chris

a gigantic camera with a view camera lens ... seems unnatural today. yes, i know that the medium for which the camera currently uses (e.g., instant pack film) is discontinued by everyone except fuji. don't really care. i surmise 4x5 film will be made for quite some time and the guy who built this thing can change stuff around.

amazing that back in the day (e.g., the late fifties) this was state of the art. amazing.

the fifties weren't that long ago.


i couldn't imagine not knowing this beast was pointed at you. guess the conversation was better.

so .. yeah ... i scanned at all sorts of resolutions. they're not all that bad. i'm not using some uber-scanner either. just an epson.

and, yeah, the borders get all gross if you don't peel the shit away ... all the way. so ... i cropped the natural borders off.

i think it's funny when i see people use some kind of canvas to make it look like it was shot with a 'roid.


it flares a bit shooting against a bright background. i found that whether it's the film or the lens or both or whatever ... shooting a subject with a background with more than a few stops difference .. not the medium for that.

all good, though.


i was surprised that even f/4.7 (the max) could even render the out-of-focus areas so nicely. not only but i was surprised that this gigantic rangefinder could be that accurate in focusing when "wide-open" cough-cough.


i love the look of this old polacolor. grandfather's old cactus. fucker must be as old as dirt. again, it renders the out-of-focus areas pretty damn nicely.


horse didn't give a fuck. i want food. if you don't have food, leave me the fuck alone. ;)


the beautiful "death star." ;)

imagine driving by and seeing some freak pointing that big ass antique camera out of a car window. they probably think i'm crazy. whatever.


our dead friend in the living room wasn't too fucking impressed either. ;)


i liked the line of the people walking down the sidewalk. i think i was on the phone, too, while making this photo.

i've been advised that i don't pay attention whilst driving when i'm on the phone.

i don't think so, though.


the gnome wasn't impressed, either.

i have a gnome somewhere as well. my napolitano-bitch-friend knows about the gnome. ;)


i liked the chicken part of that. the war protests seem almost pointless.

it's another thing about the "i'm-gonna-save-the-world-with-my-photography-thing" too. no matter how many photos are made in darfur, iraq, myanmar (or however you spell that shit place) ... leaders will always wage war no matter what some well-intended photographer shows to the public.

whatever.


this dude was cutting his beard in the reflection of the window. swear.

promise even.

i made a bus wait.

fuck buses. ;)


weird things go on with this camera but i like all of the idiosyncratic things it seems to do. like the aurora Borealis visited l.a. that day. who knows. perhaps it did, right?

whilst scanning i looked near the scanner and saw a stack of 'roids i shot in the 'roid back for the contax 645...

fyi ... fuji polaroids, at least the colour version (100 iso) ... um ... it's really beautiful.

anyway ... the tiny polaroids only covering one corner of what this 110b (b=beast) covers...


there was hella light coming through the window behind her. zeiss, baby. don't think the 110b would have handled that shit.


trueblood's baby.


rudj and liz. this was before the last one. rudj has the same look as c ...


odd.

;)


nhat looking very ... hmm ... most chill-zen dude on the fucking planet i swear.


gandy. was a bit dark of a scan but i was not going to individually adjust it.


and a random cloud.

damn have i done my share of fucking up the environment with all those fucking 'roids.

oh well.

okay ... time to eat! hope you're all well.

cheers from the chillier-than-normal-los-angeles!

UPDATE: in my daily check of photo-donkeys ... i saw this post. seriously, just because you have an mfa or bfa or were the editor of some defunct photo-donkey magazine ... doesn't mean you can make photos. not only ... don't ever be daunted by these kinds of people. all they know how to do is talk; they do not know how to make photos. they only know how to postulate about making photos. in fact, these people aren't even picture-takers.

and .. war in beirut AGAIN? what the fuck.