Author Archives: Tom (Admin)

Found Film: Hannah and her Sister

This week we have one of three rolls found (by someone else) in a storage unit in Worcester, Massachusetts.  This set of film rolls is interesting in that they are all different types of film, and thus came from different … Continue reading

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Chennai: Textures

I’ve posted before about Chennai’s endless walls and the fact that many of them get postered, painted, repainted and repostered.  This creates interesting textures; so much so, that one of my predecessors did an entire photographic exhibition on just that … Continue reading

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Chennai: Grit and Grain

In Namibia, photography was all about long lenses, tripods, “the golden hour”, and finding the right guide. Since moving to Chennai, a large city in India, the lenses have gotten much shorter, shooting is sometimes instinctive; and sweeping landscapes have … Continue reading

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Found Film Friday: Laguna Beach Photowalk

After last week’s “surfing” theme, I thought it would be fun to share another roll with a seaside theme.  This one is not that old, and it came with the same batch of film as “Michelle’s” fisheye roll, and “Mike’s” … Continue reading

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These Student-Athletes Can Use a Hand!

Those of you who know me may recall that in Windhoek, I was quite active in teaching Namibian teens to swim, and training them to compete in multisport competitions involving swimming, running, and/or cycling.  The story of one of these … Continue reading

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Swimathon: Bird’s Eye View

Last week I took part in a “Swimathon” in Goa, on the eastern coast of southern India.  Participants were to swim either 2 km, 1 km, or 250 meters in the calm sea.  It was a great set of races, … Continue reading

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“Blessed:” My Entry for the “India Is” Video Contest

All living things love their life, desire pleasure and do not like pain; they dislike any injury to themselves; everybody is desirous of life and to every being, his life is very dear.” –  from the Yogashastra (Jain Scripture), from around … Continue reading

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Found Film: Everybody’s Gone Surfing

This week’s found film has a little bit of a story to it. It was found by someone in a storage unit in Worcester, Massachusetts. I wrote them back and asked for more details, but didn’t get any. But anyhow, … Continue reading

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Testing the Ansco Regent

Sometimes I’m not sure whether these posts I do on whether or not I’ve been able to make these vintage cameras work are more about the cameras, or about the content of the photos I’ve managed to snap.  This is … Continue reading

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Found Film: Seasons

This week, I thought I’d post TWO rolls of found film. One roll has suffered quite a bit from age, and the other only had a couple of usable photos on it. I’m titling this post based on the photos … Continue reading

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Three Vest Pocket Kodaks

  These are “Vest Pocket Kodaks” – of which nearly two million were produced, from about 1912 to the early 1920s.  I’ve blogged about one of these cameras before – to sum up, they represent an important step in the miniaturization … Continue reading

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Chennai’s Walls: an Endless Canvas

Chennai is full of walls.  Many of them are marked “stick no bills” – and people will generally abide by that request.  But the majority end up being political advertising space. The successive layers of paint upon paint, posters upon … Continue reading

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Found Film Friday: Dress-Up Dog

This week’s roll of found film is a roll of 620 panchromatic that not much is known about, other than that it came from an estate sale near Alliance, Ohio.  I had quite a bit of trouble loading it into … Continue reading

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Found Film Friday: New Baby AND a New TV!

Sometimes when I develop these “found” rolls of film I find it kind of sad that their original owners forgot to do so themselves.  This is one of those times.  The fact that I picked up these rolls on eBay … Continue reading

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Badrian Street and the Flower Market

Badrian Street or “Budirian Street” as it is painted on the street sign, is the site of Chennai’s old wholesale flower market. While technically, the vendors in what is commonly known as “poo-k-kadai,” sell “wholesale”, their typical clients are ladies who … Continue reading

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Found: Michelle’s Fisheye Film

It’s “Found Film” Friday, and this week’s “found” roll comes to us from the same place as last week’s roll – but appears to be from a different photographer.  Among that set of different 35mm rolls, none of which appeared … Continue reading

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It’s always hardest cutting your own video…

Why, other than a few hardcore fans, is a film’s director the only one who likes the “Director’s Cut” better than the movie that was released to the public? It’s hard to delete the footage you worked so hard to … Continue reading

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Goa is for the Birds – Literally

Just north of Panaji, Goa’s “small but spritely” capital, where the Mapusa and Mandovi Rivers meet, is what appears to be an island – Chorao Island – which has 11,000 inhabitants, and whose western end is a 1.8 square kilometer … Continue reading

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Hack Your Brain: Mrs. McKinley in 3D

I have an old Holmes stereoscope that dates from around 1900 or so.  What’s a stereoscope?  It’s a device that allowed you to look at two side-by-side photographs in such a way that the image appeared to be in 3 … Continue reading

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Found Film Friday: It Doesn’t Have to Be Old

One of the fun aspects of “found film” is the fact that it’s usually old, and developing it opens a window into a forgotten past, maybe involving forgotten people.  But this week’s roll is an oddity in that it’s not … Continue reading

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Review: Phantom 2 Quadcopter

One of my photographer friends posted a video on Facebook a couple of weeks ago and wrote something along the lines of, “This video is guaranteed to convince you to buy a GoPro and a Quadcopter…” He was right.  Proceed … Continue reading

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Vintage Camera Test: No 2 Hawkeye Model C Anniversary Edition

This week’s vintage camera test is an interesting one (yes, but aren’t they all?), despite its rather long name.  Waaaay back in the late 1880s, a small company called the Boston Camera Company introduced a model called the “Hawk-Eye” Detective … Continue reading

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Guindy National Park

Smack in the middle of Chennai is a 2.8 square-kilometer national park – one of India’s smallest – which is an extension of the Tamil Nadu Governor’s residence. Along its fringes can be found the Snake Park, which I’ve posted … Continue reading

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Found Film Twofer: At the Beach and On the Farm

Not long ago, I bought a roll of Kodak Verichrome Pan 127 film that had been found inside an old Beacon II, a bakelite camera manufactured between 1947 and 1955 by Whitehouse Products in Brooklyn.  The seller threw in half … Continue reading

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At the Fair – Chennai Style

There’s a place in north-central Chennai where they set up the local “fair.” Called the “Island Grounds”, it’s the site of the 40th Tourism and Trade Fair. To be honest, we skipped most of the trade fair itself, but found … Continue reading

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