Redo

 I got this Vello 35mm & 120 Film Digitizer for Smartphones from B&H.  It is a lot faster than the old flatbed scanner I used for a long time, and I think it produces scans that are just as good as I got from the flatbed.

I used this outfit recently when I wanted to rescan and rework some old pinhole images.  I thought some previous scans made by just hand holding the iPhone 14 were not bad, but the Vello's film holders and the device's vertical and horizontal adjustability makes the process easier and more precise.

 

I used GIMP for photo editing of these pictures.  It has most of the same tools as Photoshop and it is free to downlaod.  There are apps which allow image adjustments on the iPhone, but I am more comfortable just importing the negatives to the photo editor and doing the inversion to positive and other adjustments there.

Refocusing

Each third Thursday the Albuquerque Museum stages a big free evening event featuring live music, multiple exhibitions and various performances.  This one included a young woman walking around on scarily tall stilts.  What I mostly came for this time, however, was the opportunity to learn more about the public school photography program which puts on the yearly Focus On Youth exhibition.  The handout we got at the door read:

Meet the Artists

5:00--7:00 p.m

Meet student artists and hear about their work and creative process.

 When we arrived in the gallery there was just a guard and a couple visitors viewing the pictures.  We decided to get something to eat in the museum's restaurant and then. returned to the gallery a little after 6:00.  By then there were quite a few people viewing the photo prints and I found three students standing beside their entries and ready to talk about them.

All three of the students had single prints in the "Non Digital" sections of the exhibition, which in this case meant film-based analog photography.  The first that I talked to shared that his camera was a Pentax slr which he had gotten from a thrift store for twenty bucks.   That was a nice conversation starter as I could share that I had bought a Pentax in 1969 which was my only camera for about twenty years.

All three of the photographers I spoke with showed pictures featuring people.  The first fellow with the Pentax had made a nice portrait of a female friend.  One young woman did a self-portrait using a hand-held simple camera, and another did a picture of a "best friend" at a distance.  All three in discussing their class experience focused mostly on working in the darkroom to make the final prints.  All expressed favorable opinions of the course experience and the preparation and expertise of their teacher.

I tried to elicit information about course content regarding photographic history and styles specifically referring to books, films and exhibits, but nothing came forth on those subjects beyond the students' own self-directed inquiry.  About all I could safely conclude was that the students had gotten a good introduction to darkroom fundamentals and that the experience was overall satisfactory.

All three students I spoke with were from a single school and had the same teacher, so that left out a lot of what I was hoping to learn about the program which appears to be active in most or all of Albuquerque's high schools.  The presence of at least one of the staff would have filled in a lot of blanks.

It seemed particularly unfortunate that there were no young photographers present to talk about the digital work on display since that is clearly  the dominant mode now and for the foreseeable future.  Here, for instance, is a picture by a young photographer who I would very much liked to have talked with. 

And here is the credit beside the print:

That a picture of such technical excellence and emotional impact can be produced by a ninth grader seems extraordinary to me and demanding of some careful consideration.

While I was viewing the Focus on Youth exhibition Margaret was in the auditorium at the Youth Panel: Border Doors Project where the program announced "students discuss the stories and the ideas behind the Border Doors project."  She said it was an excellent presentation.  Perhaps next year the photography students might be given the opportunity to do something similar.

Perspective

Much of the appeal of pinhole images for me resides in the great depth of field afforded by the small aperture of the pinhole.  The novelty of the images thus produced is due to the fact that our eyes do not have the capacity to maintain sharp focus fron inches to miles in a single glance.  Images of that character can be produced by sophisticated lens design and at great expense, but the direct simplicity of the pinhole yields unassailable authenticity.

A Bright Future

 I look always look forward to this yearly exhibition at the Albuquerque Museum.  It is a delight to see what excellent photographic work is being done by these high school students, and this 2026 show may be the best yet.

 The compositions were uniformly sophisticated and the execution to the final prints was near faultless.  I especially liked this imaginative panoramic collage by Ava Greenwood, Cibola HS, Grade 11.

 The exhibition was divided into "Digital" and "Non Digital".

 

I was not surprised when I overheard a visitor ask "What is Non-Digital?".   Was this referring to digital as opposed to film-based analog photography?  Does the Non-Digital term include the reproduction of the image using traditional or alternative printing methods such as cyanotypes?

My only complaint about the Focus On Youth project is that there is little in the way of explanation of the instructional and technical processes that contribute to the success of this excellent annual show.  It would be nice to see that kind of additional information included in a thorough online presentation. 

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UPDATE

The monthly Third Thurday event will feature the Focus on Youth exhibition. 

Rustic Repast

 Thursday morning found us eating a breakfast of blue corn pancakes at Bike In Coffee.  I made a few digital shots for the color and used my half-frame Olympus Pen FT for black & white.

 Getting to the end of a roll of film with a half-frame camera is always something of a challenge.  This time I rolled half the Kentmere 100 into a reloadable cartridge, and still got forty shots.  Even that tactic took me a couple sessions to complete.

Pinhole Day & Beyond

On Sunday I loaded my pinhole camera with Kentmere 100 and went to the Albuquerque Veteran's Memorial where I met up  with three other New Mexico film photographers.  We got off to a good start with coffee and donuts thanks to Joe Van Cleave.  I managed to. document breakfast,  but the rest of my pictures there did not amount to anything worth sharing.  That was not surprising as I never seem to perform well with the cameras when there are other photographers in the immediate vicinity

As I told Joe,  I was reminded of the Optimist's Creed which I recalled from my childhood:

Since I only used half the film roll at the Veteran's Memorial site I took the camera a few days later to Old Town to finish up the roll, and I had a bit better luck with the pictures.

I usually process Kentmere in PMK Pyro,  but I decided to develop this time with Rodinal at 1:50 dilution.  I thought it turned out pretty well, so I may try the same combination again.

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Joe Van Cleave posted some nice work recently from his falling plate pinhole camera on the 35mmc website. 

A Bentzin Folder

I had just one roll of 120 Kentmere in my refrigerator so I dicided to use it in my Bentzin Primar folding camera which I had used only once before since its acquisition in 2018.  I bought the camera on ebay because I had been very impressed with the quality construction of my Benzin plate camera.  The camera's features are an interesting pre- and post-war mix.  The Compur shutter and the uncoated Meyer Gorlitz Trioplan lens definitely look  to be from the 1930s.  

 On the other hand the self-erecting feature and the plastic advance knob are typically found on folding cameras made after 1945.  This camera also has two ruby windows on the back, indicating an option of getting sixteen frames from a roll of 120 film.  However, my camera did not come with the half-frame mask which would enable that choice.  The Bentzin looks like it was little used, including a faultless bellows and no Zeiss bumps in the covering.

 Being a Friday morning, the old guys and their restored classic cars were available in the Plaza Vieja to help with camera testing.   

 

 

 One of the old guys had come for his last ride.

 

For a three-element lens, the Meyer Gorlitz Triplan lens delivers impressive performance.  I have the same lens on one of my KW Patent Etui plate cameras and on my Certo Dolly SuperSport, and they make images as sharp and undistorted as the four-element Tessars.

I remembered that the Rada rollfilm adapter for my  Bentzin plate camera came to me with a thin cardboard mask for half-frame images.  It does not quite fit in the Bentzin folder, but it would be just a few moments work to cut one to fit.

A Kodak Mystery

I went late one recent morning to the nearby Tiguex Park with my Kodak No.1 Autographic Special.     After 10 o'clock the New Mexico sun is often an impediment to getting pictures I like, but on this day there was a helpful slight overcast.  As I worked my way through the eight frames of the Kentmere 400 film I listened to the persistent complaints of a critic up in the cottonwoods, a Coopers Hawk.

I am a bit out of practice at using the camera, but as always, the uncoated Tessar lens yielded images with a unique look. 

 

From when I first acquired this old Kodak in 2007 I have always regarded it as the most interesting camera in what has now become a rather large collection.  The camera's design, materials and construction were all state-of-the-art a hundred years ago, and it still remains a practical and competent performer.  

What prompted the rescue of the No.1 Special from the display cabinet on this occasion was an email from Scott Rust:

" Hey Mike - I'm curious to see what you think about this one! Early model? Late model? Special order? Is the back a transplant from a different camera?

It's been fun trying to figure it out, but I've hit a wall on any additional information.

I found this on Craigslist probably 7 years ago - seller left it on their front porch and I put $10 under the mat - very clandestine now that I think about it. Maybe it's some sort of geeky nerd illegal photography syndicate fencing unauthorized modded cameras.

At any rate, that mask was a big surprise when I looked at it earlier this week. It'd been there the whole time but I didn't notice it and assumed the camera was a 6x6. 

LMK if you want any additional shots. 

Scott "

 Scott included some photos of his camera which looked much like my 1915 model, but it had a number of different features, the most significant being two ruby windows on the back, and a 6x6 mask to enable the option of getting twelve square images from a roll of 120 film.

 

 

Scott, in a subsequent message, also gave me a link to Pacific Rim's collection of yearly-issued Kodak catalogs which included the twelve years during which the No.1 Autographic Special was offered by the company.  None of the catalog illustrations or descriptions show or discuss the unique dual-format features of Scott's camera.

 

So, we would both be interested in finding additional information about this interesting variation of the Kodak No.1 Autographic Special.  Scott can be found at the Bluesky site were he posts about his camera adventures, and there is also a link there to his photographic work. 

 

1915

Santa Fe

 After our visit to the Obscura Gallery we drove to the center of town and took a brief walk near the Art Museum.  I snapped a few shots with the Olympus Infinity Stylus on the way as I wanted some more images made in good outdoor light to subject to iPhone scanning.

 

I was happy with the cellphone scans, but am still struggling a bit with the GIMP photo editor to get consistent results.  I'll work on that and also try to come up with some kind of support for the camera to smooth the work flow.

Scanning a roll of film with the old flatbed was a half day process, so the time saved with the cellphone scanning seems like a real gift. 

Virtuosos

 We drove up to Santa Fe to see an exhibition of the works of Ansel Adams and Paul Caponigro at the Obscura Gallery.  Our map app drove us around in circles for a while to find the place, but it was easily recognized with its small herd of horse sculptures in the yard.

The gallery is a small adobe with two rooms devoted to prints.  There were quite a few by both Adams and Caponigro and some other well known photographers; all were originals produced and signed by the artists.  Print prices ranged from about $3000 and $10,000.  Among the prints in the back room there was a big photogravure I had not seen before by Edward Curtis.  The gallery owner was busy on her computer and her phone during our visit, but she was welcoming and willing to discuss the photographers and their work.

 I had only seen Caponigro's work before in books and online, so I enjoyed seeing some actual prints.  I can't say, though, that the prints produced an impression that seemed greatly superior to what one can find in good reproductions in print.  In fact, Caponigro seems to have produced his pictures with the intention of presenting them primarily in book form.  I only have the small Aperture book of Caponigro's phtographs, so I will look for some of the bigger books such as Master Works from Forty Years or The Wise Silence.

Those eye-watering prices made me conscious of the fact that I really know very little about the economics of galleries.  It seems that nearly every other building in Santa Fe is an art gallery; the competition must be fierce.  I imagine that walk-in sales must represent a tiny portion of the total.

 After visiting the gallery we drove across town to get lunch at a breakfast/lunch place called Cafecito.  We had some good empanadas with a pot of mate and an excellent slice of baclava for desert.  So, a nice day in Santa Fe which I hope to repeat in the near future.

Cellphone Scanning

The real craftsmen among my film shooting friends have been digitizing their images using digital cameras for long time.  I have been using an Epson 2450 flatbed scanner for about twenty years to make images I can share online.  

Having recently acquired a newish iMac computer I was faced with having to upgrade some software to continue using my old flatbed.  It seemed like putting money into keeping my old scanning technology going was not the wisest course.

Spending hundreds on a digital camera was also not very appealing, so I decided to see what I might be able to do with my iPhone 14 as a scanner replacement.  The only additional piece of equipment  I decided to get was a cheap LED light pad. 

To use the setup I put negative strips into the negative carriers I had been using with the old Epson scanner.  I covered the exposed light pad surface to avoid light on the phone camera lens.  In making the exposure I just handheld the phone and zoomed in from about five inches to fill camera screen with the image.  Here for comparison are the images from the Epson  flatbed and the same images from the cellphone:

Yashica-Mat     Flatbed

 

Yashica-Mat     iPhone 14

Leica IIIa     Flatbed 

Leica IIIa     iPhone 14

I'm pleased with the outcome of my little experiment.  It seems to me that the quality of the iPhone scans is equal to what I can get from the old flatbed, and the time required to make the cellphone scans is an order of magnitude better.

Black & White

  I always look forward to visiting the yearly Black & White exhibition at the New Mexico Art League gallery.  As the announcement says, it features black & white drawings and black & white photographs.  About half of the pieces are photographs, and both the digital and analog offerings are generally of very good quality.  All of the art is available to view online.

I am always a little surprised to find new to me analog talent given my years in the city.  In this show it is Kirk Conrad, who has a considerable body of work including two nice film-based pieces in the current exhibit and much more on his website. I was impressed by his style, and his compositional and technical skills.
 

Dan Shaffer is a regular at the B&W shows and he also turns up at most of the other exhibition opportunities in Albuquerque.  I thought his pieces on this occasion featuring some shadow pattern work were particularly nice.

Among the digital photographers I was particularly impressed by the work of Dallas Pottinger, Lisa McBride, Thomas Fore and Virginia Mahan.  I liked Radka Toscova-Tenigan's Dragonfly, but I thought he went a bit too far with digital enhancement in his Five Goats which produced some unpleasant background textures; perhaps over-sharpening?

I'm looking forward to returning to the gallery for the Meet the Artists reception, March 21, 3 PM to 6 PM.  Being able to view the actual prints is a much more satisfying experience than looking at the online reproductions.

 Perhaps I'll try to drag along some of my camera-toting friends.

New Mexico Art League - 3409 Juan Tabo Boulevard NE

A Second Look

About ten years ago I put together a thirty-page book, using Blurb, about pinhole photography.  I ordered a copy for myself to see what the book looked like, and I decided I did not really like the outcome.  So I deleted the project.

Recently, I happened on my copy of the pinhole book in my bookcase.  Looking at it again I decided that  I did like it after all.  However, I felt I had fully satisfied my curiosity about self-publishing with my previous book about box cameras (Out of the Box).  So, rather than producing a hard copy, I decided to see if I could reproduce the pinhole book as a stand-alone page on my blog.

Pinhole Narratives, is now available online.   There is a link to the book in the menu near the top of my Photography & Vintage Film Cameras blog.  Click on that menu item there, or just click the book title in this post.

An advantage of posting the book online is that it can be easily edited and updated.  Some of the text and photos were used over the years in blog posts.  I can see some book sections now which could use a bit of polishing, and I may add some additional illustrations.   I'm sure there are other possible improvements, so comments and suggestions are welcome. 

Fog in the Sandias

Clouds