Marigold Parade - 2014

We had our windshield wipers going all the way to the parade site, but I don't think a drop fell during the actual event.  In any case, nobody seemed at all concerned about the prospect of a little rain on the parade.

I wore my skull mask most of the time I was making pictures.  I added a few flowers to lighten the mood a bit. No one was shocked by my appearance, but I think it did give me a little more freedom of movement.

The theme of this year's event was "El Agua Es La Vida, No Se Vende Se Defiende".  So, the weather was appropriate, and it made the photography a little easier as well.

Quite a few causes and social issues were represented in the parade, but I didn't identify any actual politicians in spite of the nearness of the election.

Getting in the Mood

With the Day of the Dead fast approaching I decided to revisit some of the local historic cemeteries.  I've been to many of them and have often made pictures of them with my old film cameras.

All of the old graveyards were originally associated with churches, but time has cut that connection in many cases.  Many of the old churches are gone, and many of the cemeteries have been buried under housing and commercial development.  San Felipe de Neri Church in Albuquerque's Old Town Plaza is a good example.  There are some known burials on the grounds, and likely some under the church's floors as well which may date back to Albuquerque's founding in 1706.

San Felipe de Neri -- Certo Dolly Super-Sport -- TMAX 400

A survey report of local cemeteries made in 1999 shows that there was a San Felipe Parish Cemetery located just a few blocks from the church and in use from 1854 to 1869.  The report notes that "... the Jesuits sold this cemetery to John Mann for his market garden in 1892.  He planned to level the ground to accommodate his irrigation ditches, but agreed to move any bones he turned up to a common grave in the new cemetery.  He ultimately plowed up two tons of bones, which were moved to the Santa Barbara Cemetery..."

No visible traces of the old Parish Cemetary remain; the site is now occupied by the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and the Explora Science Center and Children's Museum on Mountain Road.  (Coincidentally, our house is just south of Mountain and directly across the street from the historic Mann House.)

There a quite a few Day of the Dead events that take place over the course of about a week in Albuquerque.  The biggest is the Marigold Parade in the South Valley, scheduled this year for Sunday, November 2nd.  I've made pictures of the parade participants for the last several years and will likely do so again this year.

one more marigold

Marigold Special

The little Kodak Flash Bantam represents one of the all-time high points in camera design.  The designers took the best aspects of 50 years of small camera experience and combined them with the 828 roll film format to produce a camera of unparalleled compactness and full-featured quality.

To shoot the Day of the Dead Marigold Parade in Albuquerque, I loaded a strip of 35mm Tri-X into the Bantam by taping the film ends onto the little 828 reels.  The frame-counting window was covered with black tape, and some black paper behind the pressure plate also helped to keep the window light-tight.  I rated the film at 200 ASA for development in Ilfosol 3.  The Tri-X is not as forgiving of exposure errors as TMAX, but it can produce very nice sharpness and tonalities when you get it right.

The Beautiful People

In the Waiting Room

más muertos

20th Annual South Valley Día De Los Muertos Marigold Parade

Photographing events like this parade is always something of an emotional rollercoaster for me.  When I first come on the scene, everything seems chaotic and unphotographable.  I wander around in somewhat of a panic state until I manage to get a picture of the first thing which catches my eye.  That seems enough to connect my eyes to my brain, and I am able to start finding subjects and themes to explore.  I get a bit manic at that point and tend to make a pest of myself, poking my camera in people's faces.

Back home with whatever pictures I've harvested, I often get obsessed in thinking about all the pictures I missed.  Depending on the quality of the results I've gotten, that obsession might last through the night.  Usually, by the next day I've found some images I like well enough to show.

As always with the Ansco Panda box camera, I like these pictures.  I think it is partly that the Panda always surprises me by making pictures better than I expect.  I often miss a few shots due to camera or subject movement, but most of the images have a sweet spot that can be enlarged to surprising size for a picture made by a simple meniscus lens.

My obsessive phase was lengthened a bit when I was processing the pictures.  About half-way through the Panda shots, my ten-year-old scanner stopped working.  On lifting the lid I could clearly see through the window that the drive band had come off the capstan.  Luckily, if improbably, there is a Yahoo group for the Epson 2450 photo scanner, and I was able to figure out from that how to open up the thing for repairs.  Took me a couple of tries, but it was also a good excuse to get the underside of the glass clean, and the scanner seems to be working for now.  Hard to say how much longer, though.

Well, to top it off, my barber who doubles as my wife informs me that the hair on the back of my head is getting thin.  Also, I find myself at times carrying around three pair of glasses.  So there you have it.

El Día De Los Muertos

Derby Disappointment

Not all projects work out as hoped.







I shot a roll of film in my Foth Derby at the Day of the Dead parade. All the images were misframed and a large portion of the negative strip was black. I believe the problem lies in my efforts to use 35mm film strips rolled up in 127 backing paper. The process worked ok the first time I tried it, but the last two attempts have been failures. My guess is that the film is buckling and interfering with the movement of the camera's cloth focal plane shutter.



One company, Efke, still makes 127 roll film, but the price is now close to $10, and I'm not willing to lay out that kind of money even though I'm very fond of my little Foth Derby. If I can figure out how to properly roll up some 35mm film inside the 127 backing paper I have saved, I can shoot a roll for a couple bucks. I'll check around the net to see if there are any good hints available on using 35mm film with 127 backing. I may also break down and buy one more roll of Efke just to make sure that there is not some other source to the problems I am seeing; I'll be out the ten bucks, but the backing paper can be re-used many times.

Another possiblity I'm mulling over is to acquire a film splitter that would let me produce 127-format film from 120 rolls. Goat Hill Photo has a model for $35 that looks like it would get the job done.

El Día De Los Muertos

The yearly Marigold Parade in Albuquerque's South Valley celebrates the Day of the Dead.



It was a nice excuse to try out my newly-acquired Ansco Panda, a diminutive plastic wonder that produces 6x6cm images on 620 rollfilm.



The Panda is constructed with a wrap-around-style film frame which reduces the dimensions of the box camera to the smallest possible size. A curved film plane helps image sharpness, and a short 50-60mm focal length means you can get everything in sharp focus from six feet to infinity.











Below are all the cameras in my collection that require the use of 620 roll film. The Vigilant on the left and the Monitor on the right yield 6x9cm negatives, while all the rest including the Panda produce 6x6cm squares. While each of these cameras is capable of producing excellent images, the most surprisingly good is the ultra-simple Panda, which is hardly larger than a Baby Brownie.



The 620 format has been extinct since the mid-'90s, but it is possible to use 120 film in the 620 cameras if you trim down the rims of the 120 spools or re-roll the 120 film onto the old metal 620 spools. On my vintage cameras web site you will find a page on trimming 120 spools and another on my blog illustrating re-spooling 120 to 620 reels.