Testing The Limits

While the Anscoflex II offers some control beyond that available from other simple cameras, the possibilities are still considerably less that those offered by more sophisticated designs.  The control features of the camera must also be used with some care and discretion.

What I found while working through the twelve available frames on some Kentmere 400 was that the close-up lens and the yellow filter cannot be simultaneously employed.  So a close-up with the filter compensating for bright sun with fast film is not an option.

I also found with the ruby window removed for improved frame numeral visibility that I needed to carefully avoid exposing the film's paper backing to any hint of direct sunlight.  The first half of this roll of film looked good in terms of exposure, but there were some washed out frames further down the roll.

So a deliberate and thoughtful approach to using the Anscoflex II along with stationary subjects enhance the likelihood of success.  I found that trying to grab shots of our active dog out in the yard was a bit beyond the boundary of success.

Plants & Animals

 Albuquerque is having fine Fall weather.  Daytime temperatures are in the 50s, while the nights are cold enough to cause the mulberry trees to lose all their leaves.  I spent the week walking around with my Olympus  Pen-FT, visiting the botanical garden, the riverside forest and the Rio Grande Nature Center.

The local wildlife rescue group put on their yearly education event to give visitors to the Nature Center an opportunity for a closeup look at the area's common raptors, a Kestrel, a Red-Tailed Hawk and a Great Horned Owl.  All three had wing injuries preventing them from living free in the wild, but they were all healthy looking and well behaved.

Friday Morning

 Ate breakfast.  Walked the dog.  Margaret went off to have breakfast with a friend.  Nothing left to do but to head for Old Town with a roll of Fomapan 100 in my Voigtländer Brilliant.

I asked if I might take a picture of this fine looking Scottish Deerhound.  The owner agreed, but insisted the picture be made in the shade as she said he would  not stand still on the sun drenched sidewalk.  I would have preferred to picture him in motion as his gait was incredibly buoyant; it seemed he might suddenly float off the pavement.

Greatest Hits!

 My currently limited mobility has put a crimp in my photographic style.  Rather than just run film through a camera to no good end, I thought I would try something different for a while.  My software and my skills have seen a little improvement over the years, so I thought I might rescan some stuff from years past as a check on my progress.  I also have a lot of small deckle-edge prints from the pre-digital age which I'm going to scan for the first time.  To start off, here are a few thoughts on my most productive camera of all time.

A Pentax Spotmatic was the only camera in our house for about twenty-five years.  That's it in the upper left of the photo along with a later model and some lenses which came along a quarter century down the road.  For all that time I only used the lens that came with the camera when we bought it slightly used in 1970; it was an amber coated Super-Takumar 1.8/55.

At the time we bought the camera I was still playing with the idea of being a free-lance photojournalist.  I bought a radio scanner which I installed in my '49 Studebaker pickup and chased fire engines around San Francisco.  I managed to sell a few pictures to the Chronicle and the Examiner and pedaled a few to the wire services as well.  One of those of the car squeezed between two trollies on Church Street ended up on the back page of Life and a couple other photo magazines.  

None of that provided much of a living, however, so I eventually came to my senses and got a job as a social service caseworker for the City's welfare department.

One of my city job assignments was working a late shift at the San Francisco General ER.  That gave me some time during the day to get out to San Bruno Mountain to take pictures of the hawks and owls and to exercise my Saluki's.  I also got interested in falconry, and first trained a Kestrel and later a Red Tailed Hawk for hunting jackrabbits.

Gemma and her pup, Xenophon

A baby in the nest high up in a eucalyptus.

My first Red Tail

I had good times hanging out in photography blinds on the mountain south of town.  Our two daughters came along.  My best coursing dog was hit and killed by a car.  I was getting older and hadn't done a lot of things I thought were important.  So, we loaded everybody and the Pentax in a Ford Econoline van and took off for rural Idaho. (To be continued...)

Housemates

 The dog heads for the closet whenever I bring out a camera.  I coax her out with a treat and then have to allow her up on the couch to get her to pose for a photo session.

The cat is not much bothered by me chasing her around the house with a camera, but at age fifteen she doesn't get above floor level, so finding good lighting has gotten to be more of a challenge.

This whole roll of Kentmere 400 looked underexposed.  I think the bottle of HC-110 has gotten tired, so I'll open a new one for the next session.

Greyhounds

I am always thrilled to come across greyhounds anywhere.  On Sunday, I went to Hyder Park in Albuquerque to see a gathering of greyhounds sponsored by The New Mexico Chapter of the Greyhound Adoption League of Texas.  Most are former track dogs rescued by the organization.

When I encounter greyhounds in the city, there is always a touch of sadness to the occasion for me.  Most of the adoptive owners I come across treat their dogs like porcelain dolls; they seem afraid they will break their pets if they don't handle them just right.  So, the dogs never get off a leash when outside and they never have a chance to run full out.

Now, to be honest, the dogs never complain about such treatment.  Greyhounds always seem perfectly content to lounge around the house, and to walk sedately beside their owners in city parks.  They are almost never belligerent  toward other dogs or people when in public places.  My guess is that a lot of adoptive owners interpret this gentle and compliant behavior to a sense of gratitude for being rescued from desperate and sometimes cruel circumstances.

What gets overlooked in the well-intentioned rescue process is the real history of the breed, a tradition of selecting traits of stamina, agility, sharp vision and group compatibility that goes back thousands of years.  Over that vast span of time the greyhound was molded to the purpose of chasing down small to medium-sized game animals.  Since the dogs were hunted at least in pairs and often in large packs their aggression had to be finely tuned to focus on the prey and not on their fellow hunters.  So, the sociable character of the greyhound which makes them so appealing today as pets is really the result of rather ruthless culling to eliminate any behavior which would interfere with a perfect hunting strategy adapted to coursing across the deserts and steppes of Asia and the Middle East.

The physical, mental and character traits of greyhounds which made them perfect hunters also made them perfectly suited to competition racing, and the breeding and training techniques for the track are essentially identical to the ancient customs.  The racing industry has come to be held in low regard in recent times; it is seen as exploitative and callously cruel in many cases.  While there is no denying that dark side of dog racing, it is also seems important to acknowledge that it did keep the breed viable to the present day.