I was looking through the archive for a particular grainy, black and white shot I made of a ’57 Chevy at a Goodguys car show years ago. Searching “chevy” on my old Mac brought up a ton of results.
After initially selecting around 50 shots, I whittled it down to these 27 photos made using various film and digital cameras, taken at car shows I’ve attended over the last 15-16 years.
Hope everyone’s safe and warm.
I passed by this sign at least twice a weekday, to-and-from work for 15 years, as I navigated the El Camino Real. Such a cool old sign.
I checked Google Maps Street View and it appears that as of November 2019, the sign was still standing, but the neon’s been removed. Too bad.
I’d heard that it was going to be taken down. If that happened, I hope someone save it.
I made a special trip at night to get a shot of the neon lit up.
I was given this old Argus Autronic I by a friend, who tells me it belonged to to his dad.
It was produced between 1962-65. 50mm ƒ/2.8. For a 35mm camera it is huge. And it’s pretty heavy, weighing in at 2.77 lbs, including the fan-flash, half-case, and strap.
He also gave me the original manual, a bit tattered but intact.
First thing I did was open up the back, crank the film advance and checked to see of the shutter opened. It didn’t. I tried a few more times, could see the the shutter leaves moving, but no light was coming through. Bummer.
I’m gonna make a wooden stand for it, counter-sink a hole on the top of the stand to accomodate the case knob – so the camera sits flatly on top of the stand – and another hole on the bottom of the stand for a short 1/4-20 bolt/washer to secure it.
I’m thinking I’ll decopage/collage the manual pages to the stand and glue a chunk of felt to the bottom.
It’d be cool to find an old, unused M-base flash bulb, as I’d want to open up the fan-flash while on display and having a bulb in it would be a nice touch. I’ll check eBay.
Very cool.
The Shitty Camera Challenge is happening soon. It’ll be a little different than last year, I think, as it’s being touted as the “Quarantine Special” this time ’round.
It lasts from June 1 to August 31, 2020. Not exactly clear about when to post, but I’m sure that’ll all get figured out as time progresses.
I looked on eBay to see if I could find some camera that’d be adequately awful to use, but found zero inspiration. I was about ready to throw in the towel.
Larry found it in the garage when they moved into the house…
Fiddlin’ in the studio I came a cross a handful of old 120 spools, mostly plastic, but one of them was metal. It has the words “KODAK FILM” embossed on both ends. Pretty cool.
It reminded me that I have a 50th Anniversary Kodak Brownie that a neighbor in the old ‘hood gave me. That old thing had a roll of Verichrome Pan in it, which I developed using D76. That’s where the spool came from.
Of the three pictures that turned out (see top of post), two looked to be from the seventies and one looked earlier, maybe late fifties or early sixties.
Larry found it in the garage when they moved into the house, held onto it until late 2007, when he gave the camera to me.
I also have two rolls of expired film to use, a March 1968 expired roll of Verichrome Pan plus a June 2008 expired roll of Plus-X. The camera shoots ~6×9 so I’ll get 8 shots per roll.
I’ll probably rig something up so I can compose and shoot horizontally…
Today I dusted it off and cleaned the, uh, viewfinder. It’s really not much of a viewfinder, honestly. I’ll probably rig something up so I can compose and shoot horizontally… you know, landscape.
The little red window that’s supposed to show the picture numbers has faded to a fairly transparent orange-ish yellow, so I made a little flap out of a piece of gaffers to cover-up between advancing shots. Should help.
I think it’ll do. Funky, fun, and free.
I’ve been playing with art a bunch this winter. Paintings, collages, and even a little monotype. You can see my efforts on Instagram.
One of my fave resources for collage material is magazines.
There’s a store in Cedar Park that sells used books, and back in the corner of the store they have a set of shelves with all kinds of magazines. Mostly newer publications, but there’s a handful of cubbies with National Geographic mags, some dating back to the 1960s.
I picked up a few issues – a range of years – a coupla’ weeks ago, and while I was in my studio I started flipping through the 60s issues and noticed a few ads for cameras.
Pretty cool. Check ’em out…
Olympus Pen F – Vol. 126, No. 1 / June 1965
Hasselblad – National Geographic Vol. 128, No. 3 / September 1965
Kodak Instamatic 800 – National Geographic Vol. 126, No. 1 / July 1964
Olympus Pen – National Geographic Vol. 126, No. 1 / July 1964
Honeywell Pentax & Konica Auto-S – National Geographic Vol. 127 No. 6 / June 1965
Russ Morris. Slightly Obsessed With Photography since 1964. 