Recent eBay sighting.
A spring loaded toy gun in the shape of a human finger! And just look at all of those cool bullets!
If this thing was even in the realm of a reasonable price it’d be on its way to my home right now.
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Fort Wayne Detroit
Over the weekend Audrey and I went to Historic Fort Wayne to walk around. There were maybe five other people there, which was great. It was easy to stay far away from everyone.
I think Fort Wayne might be Audrey’s favorite place in the city. It is a really interesting place that doesn’t get much attention. The main fort was closed, so we couldn’t walk around the in the cool tunnel/fort, but the grounds were open. There are many other structures on the grounds, old barracks, an old theater, hospital and other assorted abandoned military buildings. Most of it is in pretty terrible shape and many of the buildings are completely falling apart. It is a great place to take photos.
While we were walking around I shot a roll and a half of film through my Olympus PEN FT. The half roll was some Kodak Gold 200 which I haven’t developed yet. The whole roll was some black and white Ultrafine Extreme 100, a 100 ASA film. A few weeks back I bought a 100’ roll of it to bulk load. For the last year or so I’ve been shooting mostly 400 speed Arista EDU film, which is pretty heavy on the grain. The PEN is already a pretty grainy camera, because the negative is so small. I also usually develop in Rodinal which is a fairly grainy developer. So , I thought for my next batch of film it might be nice to try something with finer grain. I also switched to a slightly finer grain developer, Kodak D76, for this roll. These shots are a smoother than what I’m used to seeing with Arista EDU 400. I also metered a little differently than I typically do, overexposing by a stop or so to try to get more detail in the shadows. I’ve got over a dozen more rolls of Ultra Fine Extreme 100 in my film fridge, so I’ve got plenty to experiment with.
Detroit is a city filled with abandoned, falling down buildings. They can be very beautiful. But, I have an ethical problem with suburbanites, like myself, coming into town and photographing the “ruins.” It feels like exploitation. Anyone who comes to town, photographs a bunch of abandoned structures, and then goes home and does not have to face the day-to-day realities of those buildings and the circumstances and systems that created them seems to be on some ethically rocky ground. They aren’t tourist attractions. But, the structures on the grounds of Fort Wayne weren’t private residences or businesses, they are military government buildings on government land. They are literally a tourist attraction. They are military ruins, I felt ok I photographing them.
Anyhow this is only the second place we have gone during the entire pandemic. It was nice to go somewhere, almost like things were normal. Almost.
Baseball in the Age of Social Distancing
I took this photo of Austin Jackson practicing social distancing in the Comerica Park outfield way back in 2013. I was really obsessed with baseball that year. I’ve lost my fanaticism for baseball but I’m still a casual fan. I’ve enjoyed the 5 or so games I’ve watched so far this season.
Viewmaster Camera
The most unusual camera I possess is the Viewmaster Personal Stereo Camera. I purchased it in 2004 as a reward for my hard work in a crankshaft factory during the summer. The camera can take tiny stereo images on 35mm slide film, which are then cut out and placed into special holders for use in a Viewmaster viewer.
I
ran a roll of slide film through the camera when I first got it, but never developed it. Since then, it has remained a novelty item on my camera shelf until recently. Thanks to having plenty of time due to the pandemic and an abundance of bulk-loaded 35mm film, I have finally been able to try it out. I've been taking it on walks and bike rides around town to capture images.
Each frame of the Viewmaster is considerably smaller than the standard 35mm frame. The two stereo lenses shoot along the top half of the frame until the film has been fully spooled out of the cassette. Then, the small knob on the front of the camera is turned to move the lenses down to shoot on the bottom half of the frame as the film is shot and spooled back into the cassette.
One of the camera's interesting features is the EXPO-SURE exposure calculator on top. Once you set the film ASA, you can adjust the shutter speed and aperture until the subject's darkness and environmental conditions align, negating the need for a light meter.
I use standard black and white negative film instead of slide film, since I'm not creating Viewmaster reels. I scan the film with my flatbed scanner and combine the left and right images in photoshop to create anaglyph and crossview images. While the anaglyph versions are entertaining, I prefer the crossview images, which take some practice to view but appear cleaner and do not require any special glasses. A smartphone is ideal for viewing crossview images because you can move the image back and forth to get the correct eye distance, like a 21st century stereoscope.
Bug Photos
Just a couple of pictures I took of some bugs. I found these during my recent digital photo organization project.
Life on the Open Road
I see this GMC RV parked pretty often at the neighborhood auto repair shop.
Bottle House
The pandemic has given me time to do things I’ve been putting off. One of which is cleaning up my digital photo collection a bit. I came across these photos I took five years ago when Audrey and I had gone up north for a small weekend vacation. This is the Kaleva Bottle house. It is as the name says, a house made with glass bottles. I think we drove by this on a Sunday, so we didn’t get a chance to tour the inside.
