From the Olympus Pen-FT
I always enjoy the yearly Albuquerque Museum car show, but it is exhausting to walk up and down those long rows of closely packed cars, and the acres of chrome is blinding and often defeats my cameras. I'm more comfortable photographing the cars in their natural curbside environment.
These are the results from two sessions including a stroll in the riverside forest and a walk in our side yard garden to portray Margaret's prolific artichokes.
I was pleased to see that Sunday's paper contained a glossy insert announcing that the Kirland AFB airshow was returning to Albuquerque after a six year absence.
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| Pentax Spotmatic |
Everyone in my family were all aviation enthusiasts, due mostly to my Uncle Jack's military flying career which took him through three wars, including being shot down in two of them. When he came home to recover from wounds sustained in the crash of his DC-3 in Sicily he spent some time recuperating at Fort Lewis and then was given a job ferrying planes around the country. One of my earliest memories is seeing the whole family run outside when Jack would fly over our West Seattle home and waggle his wings at us on the way somewhere in a Black Widow or a Lockheed Lightning.
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| Sarah McIntyre |
Eyes in the Dark
Astrophotography exhibition
The Groove Artspace
309 Gold Ave. SW, Albuquerque
10AM to 4PM, Tues through Saturday to May 30
- There is a nice long article with pictures in todays' Albuquerque Journal about this show that has been organized by photographer Sarah McIntyre. I occasionally see photos made on film of the moon, but as in this show, astrophotographers these days mostly use very sophisticated digital cameras, long lenses and highly precise tracking hardware and software. Entry is free to the exhibit.
(Actually, there is at least one NM photographer who does both analog and digital astrophotography: Shane Ramotowsky. )
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Albuquerque Museum
Sunday, May 18, 10AM - 3PM
The museum website makes no mention of this event. I would have overlooked it had not Margaret called my attention to a note in the paper. Now, I realize that car shows like this one do not necessarily suggest a connection to photography, but for me they do. I think the attraction for me is partly the period design aesthetic that unites my old cameras to the old cars on display. So, for that and other issues, I have used a lot of film over the years making pictures of cars.
There is quite a bit of photography news at the moment in New Mexico and elsewhere, so I thought I would share some of it here as some opportunities will only be available for a few more days.
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PBS Documentary on Polaroid History
Monday, May 19 on the PBS series American Experience. (8:00 PM KNME Ch.5.1) The film written and directed by Gene Tempest and produced by Amanda Pollak will stream for free simultaneously with broadcast on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS App. It will also be available for streaming (with closed captioning in English and Spanish) on the American Experience website.
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Albuquerque Museum
Focus on Youth (May 3 - June 1, 2025)
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| Trevor Martinez, Guitar Highlights, Sandia High School, Grade 12 |
A juried student exhibition of high school photographers and filmmakers jointly sponsored by Albuquerque Public Schools Fine Arts and Albuquerque Museum. The exhibition includes nearly 100 photographs and short films, reflecting mastery across a range of techniques including silver print, digital, and special techniques in photography, art books, and digital film. Focus on Youth brings the ideas and perspectives of Albuquerque’s next generation into the public eye and gives viewers a window into the minds of today’s young adults.
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New Mexico Film Photographers Monthly Online Meeting
Time: May 22, 2025 07:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)
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C A N C E L L E D C A N C E L L E D C A N C E L L E D
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The moderator for these online meetings is Chip Greenberg
No speakers or special topic for this session. Bring images, cameras, great stories or anything else you’d like to discuss.
Out for the dog's morning walk I noticed that the historic Henry Mann house was nicely lit by the low sun. It occurred to me that it might be a scene well suited to the capacities of my Bentzin Primar plate camera.
Back home I quickly checked the bellows for pinholes and then loaded a roll of Kentmere 400. I made a couple quick shots of the Mann house.
It seemed too nice a day to stop with just that. so I headed down to Old Town to see what else I might find to finish off the roll of Kentmere.
The Albuquerque Museum was built in 1979, with the design by Albuquerque architect Antoine Predock.
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All the plate cameras were originally designed to accommodate glass plates, film packs, or sheet film in film holders. Soon after the cameras appeared on the market several companies started making roll-film backs which were a bit more convenient to use than the single-sheet holders. I have a Rada Rollfilm back for use with the Bentzin Primar.
The Rada back loaded with a roll of 120 film can make eight 9x12cm or sixteen 6x4.5cm images with an adapter frame. For the full 9x12cm size I use the odd numerals from 1 to 15 on the film's paper backing which are shown in the right-side ruby window
Back in the days when the plate cameras were originally on the market I'm sure the Rada was easy to use. Today, however, the framing numerals on roll film backing paper are low contrast and can be very difficult to make out through ruby windows. Knowing that, I took along a small flashlight to help me properly advance the film. That, however, turned out to be of little help and I only managed to get six out of the eight possible images on the roll.
Inside, under a lamp, the frame numerals are easily seen. Outside, however, the characters are obscured by glare on the glass and plastic surfaces, and film advance becomes something of a guessing game. The problem is further complicated for me by my old eyes which do not quickly adjust to changes in light intensity. When I visit exhibits in the Museum, for instance, it always takes fifteen to twenty minutes before I can clearly see what is on the walls.
I need a better strategy for advancing film in the Rada. I have considered just removing the ruby window. I think that would not result in any light leak problems because the red color really serves no purpose with modern films, and the windowed compartment presses down quite firmly on the backing paper. I'm reluctant to go to that extreme, however, as I hate the idea of compromising the film back's integrity.
Another possibility might be to use some kind of small hood in conjunction with the flashlight. Just how exactly that would be configured is something I have yet to work out.
Any suggestions will be welcomed.
The gift of a '90s era Nikon N8008s got me to thinking about how someone might be introduced to film photography who comes from a generation that has known only digital. I have suggested meeting that challenge by starting off with the simplest of film cameras. An alternative might be to work backward from the point where film cameras like the N8008s were digital in all but the recording medium.
I test drove the N8008s with a roll of Arista 200 over two days in familiar surroundings: Old Town Albuquerque and the Rio Grande where our dog, Roxie, likes to run and splash in the river water.
The AF Nikkor 35-70mm Zoom which came attached to the camera of course was unsurprisingly excellent in image production. While I have never really warmed to zooms, the very smooth operation of this compact lens and its easy support of frame-filling compositions makes it a real pleasure to use.
I can't justify musing further about the N8008s based on a singe roll experience, so will just suggest exploring the subject further with real Nikon experts like John Smith, aka Fogdog, and James Tocchio at Casualphotophile.
The monthly online meetings of the New Mexico Film Photographers have usually featured accomplished guest presenters invited by meeting organizer, Chip Greenberg. For the April meeting participants were tasked with showing some of their own work and providing feedback to each other. Not having made many photographs recently I decided to just share some thoughts and images about my use of box cameras over the years.
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| Ansco Shur Shot Jr. |
Before replacing the Shur Shot's lens with a pinhole I decided to run a roll of 120 film through it. I was amazed at the quality of the images which had very good resolution. That result got me looking around at what other photographers had done with box cameras, and I was inspired to acquire several more of the simple image makers.
The next box was a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash identical to one I had as a child. That camera featured some additional features and a sleek Bakelite design. I've put a couple dozen rolls of film through the Hawkeye Flash and it made a few of what I consider my best images.
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| Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash |
One of my subsequent acquisitions, a little Ansco Panda, produced even more satisfying photographs. I addition to making very sharp images, the small size of the camera meant that it had a lens focal length that was uniquely wide angle among the box cameras. That provided, in addition to a wider view of the world, the capacity to get sharp images as close as six feet from the subject as opposed to the twelve to fifteen feet required by most other box cameras.
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| Ansco Panda |
I subsequently picked up a number of other box cameras including a Kodak Duaflex, a Kodak Brownie Reflex, an Anscoflex II, a Genos Rapid and a Zeiss Ikon Box Tengor. The ones I most enjoyed using all had brilliant view screens in which the mirrored image was augmented by a thick biconvex viewing lens.
I'm not sure that anyone in our recent online meeting was inspired to run out to find a box camera and begin making pictures with it. It is understandable that photographers accustomed to using sophisticated modern cameras would hesitate to commit to an instrument with fixed aperture, speed and focus. In fact, I have fairly often come across reviews of box cameras which are mostly lists of perceived faults, often accompanied by illustrations supporting those judgments. My take is that is mostly an example of confirmation bias -- people get the pictures they expect.
In fact, simple cameras offer a lot more versatility than is often imagined, especially if you develop your own film. One easy step toward success is to carry two cameras, perhaps with 100 speed film in one and 400 in the other. It is also possible to push or pull film in the processing so as to accommodate available lighting. With fast film loaded, filters can provide a wide range of exposure, and close-up accessory lenses can help to achieve tight compositions. In the days when box cameras were in common use, flash bulbs lit up the dimmest scenes. The most common complaint -- soft focus borders -- is easily dealt with by just properly positioning the subject in the frame.
One of my box cameras has seen more rolls of film pass through it than most of my modern cameras with all their sophisticated features; it is the Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim. Most people might prefer this little wonder to be called a point-and-shoot, but it has all the features -- or lack thereof -- of the other box cameras in my collection, including fixed focus, shutter speed and aperture. The 22mm lens provides a unique perspective on the world and the 35mm film images are tack-sharp.
I have made a lot of pictures at the Botanic Garden over the years we have lived in Albuquerque. The years-long reconstruction of the Heritage Farm there was recently completed, and I was eager to see the results.
Now, the place is full of concrete and high wire mesh fences. The carefully tended vegetable garden is gone. It reminds me of what I saw happening in southern Idaho where we lived on an old dairy farm. The irrigation ditches were filled in, the old farm buildings leveled to the ground to make way for gigantic mechanised circle irrigators. Albuquerque's children are left without a visual clue about rural history.
Unable to sleep one night recently I chose to re-read a 1969 Aperture Monograph about Gene Smith's photography. At the time of that publication, Minor White was still the Aperture Editor and Smith was still seven years from his death at age 67. I was then in my thirties and actively interested in doing photography, but I don't recall a specific awareness of Smith's importance at that time. And yet, I think of him now as having had a formative influence on how I came to think about photography's importance as an art form.
In spite of that perceptual vacuum on my part, I think the weight of Smith's innovation in developing the photo essay form was inescapable. The graphic power, the intimacy and story-telling depth of his picture essays in the major magazines was unprecedented. In part, his stylistic originality owed something to the times; he began serious work toward the end of the Great Depression, and then dove into a vertiginous career as a chronicler of World War II.
Back in photography Smith worked intermittently for the major magazines and also for a time as a member of the Magnum Photos agency. Smith's post war photography focused seldom on extremes of violence and more on daily life events. In fact, one of the first pictures he made on regaining enough strength to hold a camera was the famous picture of his two children that appeared in the Family of Man exhibit, The Walk to Paradise Garden.
In spite of the wide recognition of the quality and innovation of Smith's photography during his lifetime, he came to regard much of the war-time work as a failure. That was likely due in part to Smith's setting of standards for himself that were practically unattainable; he wanted the pictures to contribute substantially to the eradication of war. Smith's objectives and standards were also not consistent with the realities of publishing in the major news magazines for which he worked. Editors of the big picture-using publications like Life and Time insisted on pre-scripting story lines, and they never used the photographs in the quantities and manner in which Smith would have done had he enjoyed significant editorial control.
On giving further thought to my initial awareness of Smith's work I think it likely was connected to his photo essay about mercury poisoning through environmental contamination by the Chisso factory around the Japanese fishing village of Minamata. That effort probably produced the most direct change in opinions and behavior of any photographic work accomplished by Smith; it was undertaken with the considerable assistance of the woman he married upon arrival in Minamata in 1971, Aileen Sprague.
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| Aileen and Gene, credit/copyright: Ishikawa Takeshi |
The most impactful of the photographs included in the book produced by Smith and Sprague, Minamata, Words and Photographs, portrayed a mother cradling her severely deformed daughter in a traditional Japanese bath house. Ironically, long after Smith's death, Aileen in 1997 withdrew the photo from circulation in accordance with Tomoko's parents' wishes.
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Update:
Thanks to the suggestion of JR Smith I looked around the web for more insights about Gene Smith. I did not find the video JR had mentioned, but I did come across an interview with James Karales who was a darkroom assitant during the time Smith was working on the Pittsburgh project.
