TAZM PICTURES

Testing the Agfa Silette Rapid F

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

When I’m considering vintage cameras for purchase, I specifically look for cameras that still appear to work, and for which film can still be acquired somehow. Then, periodically, I grab a couple and test them out. This week, it’s the Agfa Silette Rapid F.

This is actually one of the first cameras I acquired; when I first developed an interest in vintage cameras, my older daughter bought it for my birthday at a local “junk” store in Windhoek, Namibia. Probably almost two years ago. And I’ve tried to run film through it a few times, but failed every time. Why?

The Silette is one in a series of cameras produced from 1953 onward. The Silette Rapid F, introduced in 1964, was a response to Kodak’s new innovation, the self-contained film cartridge being used in its wildly successful “instamatic” series. Sadly – for Agfa – the system did not manage to make much of an inroads against Kodak. How did it work?

The film was sold in one of the “rapid” cartridges above. Another, empty cartridge would be used to take up the film, with a space between the two where the camera took the exposure. The camera used the sprockets to push the film into the take-up cartridge, and then it was just a matter of moving the (now) empty cartridge to the right to take up cartridge. So this was the innovation – not much over today’s 35mm cartridges, but a handier way to deal with film in the 60s.

Of course, these have not been available pre-loaded in decades. So the solution is to pull about 40 inches of film (about an arm’s length) out of a regular spool, and just feed it into one cartridge until it becomes difficult. Where I was having trouble was in finding a completely dark room – I kept coming back with ruined film. To be honest, I didn’t know much how to set the speed and aperture for decent photos either. Because this camera is completely manual – you set the aperture (between f/2.8 and f/22), speed (bulb, flash, 1/30s to 1/250s), and then you estimate how far the subject is and set the focus distance. It did have a built-in flash with a pretty hefty battery, but I didn’t test that.

And once I figured things out, I’d say the pictures turned out pretty well. Just how I’d expect photos from the 60s to look – if not better! Could be because I used modern film. Check it out:

And to wrap things up, a bike leaning against an old wall always makes for a good photo:

One word of caution with these cartridges. If you develop your own film and are doing a few rolls, make sure this one is not left in your work area! I typically remove film from normal 35mm cartridges by ripping open the slot where the film comes out. I was tugging and tugging, having trouble getting a roll of film out of the cartridge, and when I finally managed, found no film inside. That’s when I realized I had ripped apart one of my Rapid cartridges, which in a dark room doesn’t feel much different from a normal film roll!

Posted in Life in India, Tips and Tricks, Vintage cameras | Tagged Agfa, camera, film, Photography, Rapid, Silette, test, vintage | 2 Comments

Documenting the Dhobis

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

British soldiers may know the terms “doing your dhobi” (laundry) and “dhobi dust” (detergent) – but they may not be aware of these terms’ origins.

A photographer friend recently spent several hours negotiating, on behalf of a small group of photographers, entry into a local “dhobi khana” or “dhobi ghat” – i.e. a community where local dhobis live and do their work.

Dhobis are, literally, “washers” – comprising an occupational caste in India and Pakistan of people who earn their livelihood washing clothing and linen. At the Dhobi khana in Chetpet, India, as in most other places (only Mumbai has a larger dhobi khana), clothing, uniforms, and linens and sheets from local hotels are literally beaten on wet stones, or soaked in cement tubs, where they will be “stomped” clean.

The dhobi khana at Chetpet consists of sets of basins and troughs, grouped together as in the photo below, with covered drying areas, repeated at least 4 or 5 times, although I did not have the opportunity to see the entire facility. Surrounding the entire perimeter are living quarters and work “cubbyholes”, where people iron and fold the clothes. A multi-storey building is also on the grounds, where access to the roof and balconies provides additional space for drying large items. Throughout the morning, there was a constant coming and going of privately-owned autorickshaws, or “tuktuks”, carrying loads to and from vendors.

Working as a dhobi is strenuous, difficult work. Yet it’s also equal opportunity work – men and women were employed in almost equal numbers, with some of the women who weren’t washing clothes – particularly older women – looking after the children living in the place. It’s also a dying profession, and the dhobis worry what they will do if this way of life disappears. According to the sparing information available online about this way of life, the individual dhobis establish contracts with local hotels and other businesses with regular washing needs; and because labor is relatively cheap in India, it is still financially worthwhile to take bedlinens to the dhobi khana for cleaning, rather than a machine laundry. For now, anyway.

Modernization, combined with increasing competition for a limited water supply, threaten their way of life. Although people are not bound to the caste system, this job, like many others, is typically passed down from one generation to the next. I was told that between 500 and 700 people work here.

The dhobi khana in Chetpet was built in 1902 by the British. One imagines that’s where the military and the aristocracy had their washing done. Much of what is there today still dates from over 100 years ago. During my visit, I brought a handful of older cameras and film, as I wanted to capture something of the mood and history of the place. I used a Kodak Monitor folding camera from the early 1940s, with Kodak Portra film that expired about ten years ago:

The lady above is preparing a meal, the way it has presumably been done for a century. There is electricity in the place. Ironing is also done with irons that hold hot embers.

The square photos you see throughout this post are from an Argus Seventy-five, from the 1960s, with some old Ilford ASA50 film (date unknown). I also snapped a few shots with an old folding camera made about 95 years ago, a Kodak No. 2A folding autographic, ~~box camera that Kodak gave away free to kids turning 12 in 1930~~, loaded with film that expired in 1973:

I was a little disappointed with the outcome – most of the other photographers had much more impressive shots. But it was a difficult place to get inspired. On the Indian streets, people are eager to be photographed; but here, it felt a little like we were being tolerated. Maybe they get a lot of photographers, but nothing is done to improve their future – it’s difficult to know. But like anywhere, the kids were happy to have their pictures taken:

Our visit to the dhobi khana was a fascinating window into another way of life – one that may not be around much longer. What will happen to the dhobis of chetpet if their services are no longer needed?

To see a short, award-winning video about this place, click here. The subtitles are a bit tough to read. To see some much better photos of the place, click here.

Posted in Life in India, Vintage cameras | Tagged caste, Chennai, dhobi, ghat, hereditary profession, India, khana, washermen, washerwomen | 1 Comment

Found Film Friday: Fungus

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

It’s “Found Film Friday!” This week’s roll is a bit different from most weeks. This week’s roll seems to have been stored in conditions that allowed some sort of mildew or fungus to grow on the film. This was not obvious in the development process, but when you look at the scanned photos, you can tell this is not just random “fog,” but instead follows a pattern. Like you might see in a petri dish, maybe. It could also be the result of chemical reactions, but I have never heard of this being mentioned in online fora dealing with old film.

Whatever the cause, this has pretty much ruined the photos, but created some interesting effects. This is the film roll. It looks clean on the outside. Tri-X Pan was introduced in 1940, but not in 620 size until 1954. You can still buy it today at specialty shops. Most cameras I’ve come across use this film to make 8 exposures of 6 by 9 cm each – but the camera this came from made exposures half that size, 6 by 4.5 cm. Only about half of the 16 potential photos on this roll show any real image, but I scanned some of the other “blank” sections just because the patterns were interesting.

To start out, here’s a nice “still life” from someone’s yard:

Here you can see the effects of whatever it was that grew on the film, and the patterns it makes. There is a car which repeats several times and gives us a clue on the age of the film.

The car looks like it might be from the early 50s – but we know the film wasn’t available until 1954.

Then there are a few which my daughter says would be fun for her art / design class:

Hopefully next week the pictures will be a bit clearer. Meanwhile, if you’d like to see the rest of the photos on this roll (and other found film), you can check out this flickr set. You can also check out Tony Kemplen’s photos on Flickr – he had something similar happen with a few rolls of film and the results were much more spectacular. But probably not 60 years old…

Posted in Found Film | Tagged effects, found film, fungus | 2 Comments

Check Out my Entries for the B&H Wilderness Photo Contest!

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

B&H Photo (I really should own stock in that company, as much money as I send them) is hosting a Wilderness Photo Competition – and the grand prize(s) are safari trips to Namibia and Botswana. Yes, I’m sending mainly wildlife photos from Namibia – the irony is not lost on me. It wouldn’t do me much good – the flight is from the US to Namibia, but I’d make it work I suppose. I’m after the runner-up prizes – $500 gift cards to B&H photo!

The contest allows you to submit one photo each in nine different categories – I went for 8 of them (not the culture/wilderness/people), although the pink goat (photographed in India) I sent for “animals in zoos and captivity” is a stretch. After you’ve lived in a place like Namibia, zoos become a bit hard to handle.

After submitting my entries I thought I’d take a look at some of the others (there’s a “peoples’ choice” award) and discovered there are twenty-two THOUSAND entries in the contest! If you were thinking this is an easy trip to Africa, well….check out some of the other entries. Amazing photos. Can you imagine having to judge those? Oh, and FYI, the submission deadline is extended thru February, so feel free to enter the contest yourself!

Before I post my own entries, I’ll mention that if any of them happen to impress you, feel free to hop on over to their website and throw a “peoples’ choice” vote my way if you like. My entries in the contest are linked here. You can vote for ONE photo. Per email address, that is (hint, hint). Here are the best photos I could come up with from my own personal stash. From the EXACTLY 2000 photos I have uploaded to Flickr this very moment.
Category: Macro: Flora/Insects

Category: Landscape/Scenery

Category: Land Mammals

Category: Man and the Environment

Category: Birds

Category: Aquatic

Category: Animals in Zoos and Captivity

Category: Amphibians and Reptiles

Posted in Photo Contest, Wildlife and Nature | Tagged B&H Photo, contest, photo competition, Wildlife and Nature | Leave a comment

The Best Chowkidar in the Universe

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

Way back in 2007, on one of my earliest tours in Afghanistan, I was responsible for writing these weekly situation reports, and I recall there was an open source report being published in the UK that I would regularly rely on as a source, because the author was able to get more detailed information on certain aspects of security than I could find in ISAF, despite not even being in country. I was pleasantly surprised a few weeks later when the author of those reports had submitted an application to work for our organization in Afghanistan, and I shamelessly poached him from his previous employer.

James was one of the smartest, hardest working and hopelessly optimistic people I’ve ever worked with, he would end up outlasting me in Afghanistan, staying there a full six years, working for our organization and then switching over to the UN. You have to be optimistic to work on the projects he worked on in Afghanistan – most people would typically burn out after a year or two.

James is now leaving Afghanistan with a heavy heart. But on his way out, he is doing something wonderful for a man who was critical in making it all somewhat bearable. I’m talking about his chowkidar. What’s a chowkidar? Technically, it means “house watcher” – but a good chowkidar can do so much more, and apparently this one did.

I could go on, but I hope you won’t mind taking a moment to read for yourself what James wrote and how he can use your help. Check out the website to read about the best chowkidar in the universe And then check out thefacebook page. And share it with the people you know – it’s a good story.

Posted in Afghanistan, Good Causes | Tagged Afghanistan, chowkidar, fix Ibrahim, FixIbrahim | Leave a comment

Short Film: Kinabatangan

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

I’ve been talking a lot about photography and vintage cameras on this blog, but originally this was all about video editing and production. This is the first “real” video I’ve done in some time – a short documentary film as opposed to some hastily thrown together clips. It’s based on our trip to the Malaysian part of Borneo the first few days of the new year, and some of the amazing sights we saw on the Kinabatangan River. Hope you enjoy it!

Kinabatangan from Tom on Vimeo.

Posted in Malaysia, Places | Tagged boating, Borneo, documentary, frog, Kinabatangan, Malaysia, monkeys, nature, primates, proboscis, river, Sabah, Wildlife and Nature | Leave a comment

Found Film Friday: An Airman in Syracuse

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

It’s “Found Film Friday” again! When I share a roll of film that has been found and rescued from oblivion. No one has seen these photos before – not the people who took them, not the people on them. And now you get to see them…

Before I go into this week’s roll, I wonder if folks have heard about a much more famous roll of “found film” found not too long ago – lost pictures of Mount Saint Helens. Check it out – my mother-in-law sent the article from Eugene; it’s a pretty cool find.

This week’s roll is a roll of Verichrome Pan 620 film. Most cameras I’ve used with 620 film take 8 exposures, 6 by 9 cm each; but this roll had 9 6×6 exposures and 3 blank ones – where the flash probably failed to fire. The eBay seller said they had come from an estate in Syracuse, New York, and mentioned that there were negatives showing the Adirondacks and Atlantic City – so I was pleasantly surprised when I found they were all photos of people.

Film rolls of this type are basically a long piece of paper and a shorter piece of film, rolled together around a metal spool. Typically in an old roll the film may be difficult to uncurl, but this was the first roll where the backing paper was basically stuck to the film on both sides. Despite soaking it, residue was left on both sides of the film. So when I developed it, there were still rough areas and streaks of yellow paint from the yellow backing paper. After I scanned them, I thought I’d experiment with – of all things – nail polish remover. It actually removed the residue (and not the picture!), but the residue had also blocked the developer, so the yellow spots were replaced with clear spots. But I learned that nail polish remover, used gently, can be used to clean negatives.

So on to the photos. This was a family that liked to spend time around the dining room or kitchen table. That appears to have been the community gathering place.

Also, I thought at first they had taken a photo of a Christmas tree that had taken a tumble, but it seems like maybe it was a larger tree plus a smaller one? The kitchen table pictures made me think gritty, working class, maybe a bit lower income – but the tree appears to be well endowed with gifts. Nowadays, Christmas trees in the U.S. are loaded with gifts – but we weren’t as commercially oriented in the 1950s and 60s, I believe. Those were still pre-credit card times.

Here, one of the ladies has made a snack – no doubt it will be polished off by the kids on the couch!

And finally, the photos for which I named this photo roll. An airman, in uniform. I tried to do some research on the uniforms and time periods, but without color photos, it’s hard to judge whether this was the more grayish blue during the 1950s and early 1960s – Korean War era perhaps – or the darker blue of the later 1960s – Vietnam War era – and well beyond. The rank insignia – this was a junior enlisted airman – was used from the 1950s onward, so that doesn’t really help. So maybe someone out there who served in the Air Force can help. Anyway, he’s proud in his uniform, isn’t he?

Posted in Found Film | Tagged Air Force, Sound film, Syracuse | Leave a comment

A Story Behind Every Picture

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

They say every picture is worth 1,000 words. In the best case, a good picture tells a story. Sometimes the picture itself is the story. This is one of the cool things about photography.

Take the photo below, for instance. Not a very good picture – out of focus, not well-framed, and the subject kind of blends with the background. It’s a kid who lives in a Dhobi Khana – a washers’ community and the second largest in India – where people live and work washing sheets and blankets and everything else you can think of for local clients, by hand, literally beating the clothes against rocks. The place was built in 1902, and they are still in business, though with an uncertain future. The picture was snapped with a Kodak No. 2A folding autographic brownie, manufactured around 1920. You can’t get film for it anymore – the camera takes exposures 2.5 by 4.25 inches – and the widest film you can get (new) is only just over 2.25 inches wide. I found a couple of 116 film spools and backing paper that are the right size, and, in a dark bathroom, taped a piece of narrower 120 film to it, and rolled it all back up to put in the camera. That film had expired in 1973. Then I went and snapped this picture with it.

The photo below looks like something you’d find in an old scrapbox in the attic. It was taken on a camera that belonged to a guy named Ron Stone, who was stationed on the USS New Jersey, the U.S. Navy’s most decorated battleship, as part of the “King Division”, which served aboard the ship during the Korean War, from 1952 to 1956. Mr. Stone served aboard the New Jersey from September 6, 1952, to August 3, 1954, and later on the USS Missouri, followed by the USS Eldorado. He left the Navy on December 20, 1955.

But he didn’t take this picture. The USS New Jersey currently sits off the New Jersey coast near Camden, where it functions as a museum ship. Mr. Stone likely is no more, as his camera was picked up at an estate sale and wound up in my hands while I lived in Namibia, and is currently continuing to snap photos in India, 60 years after it was on board the USS New Jersey, and roughly 75 years after it was manufactured. The photo below was taken in July, 2013.

This is a picture of my dog on a beach in India. It was taken on a 1950’s Ansco Anscoflex, designed by Raymond Loewy. Who? Here’s a quote from another blog about Loewy:

This robust example of 1950’s Industrial Design is the brain child of Raymond Loewy. Don’t know who Raymond Loewy is? I’m sure you’ve seen his work, Pennsylvania Railroad Locomotives, Boeing 307 Interior, Components on Harley Davidson’s 1941 Knucklehead, Lucky Strike Logo, Coca-Cola Bottle, US Coast Guard Logo, US Postal Service Logo, International Harvester Logo, Shell Logo, BP Logo, Exxon Logo, TWA Logo, NABISCO Logo, The Zippo Lighter, NASA’s Skylab Space Station Interior, Frigidaire Products, Studebaker Commander, Avanti and Starliner Coupe, Sears products. Basically by 1951 his company Raymond Loewy Associates had a slogan “the average person, leading a normal life, whether in the country, a village, a city, or a metropolis, is bound to be in daily contact with some of the things, services, or structures in which R.L.A [Raymond Loewy Associates] was a party during the design or planning stage.” He is the father of industrial design and has been and will continue to be an influential designer.

The camera is pretty simple, and it has a major flaw – it always produces a line on the photo, near the right edge. You can see it clearly on the photo below. It has had this flaw pretty much since it came out of the box, way back in the 1950s. How do I know this?

Because between 1953 and 1960, the same camera was used by its original owner to photograph this girl on her 6th birthday in Toledo, Ohio. The birthday girl is the one smiling on the left. I know this because the very same roll was also used to photograph the same girl on her second birthday. That roll, with two usable snapshots, was never developed – neither the photographer nor this girl, who would be in her late 60s today, ever saw this picture. But the manufacturer’s defect is present on all three photos. It’s a line that stretches from the 1950s to 2013, from Toledo, Ohio, to Chennai, India, on a beach with an old dog chewing on a stick.

Posted in Found Film, Random Thoughts, Observations and Weird Stuff | Tagged Ansco Anscoflex, found film, Kodak Monitor, No. 2A folding autographic brownie, Photography, Toledo Ohio, vintage photo | Leave a comment

Accidental Cross-Process

Posted on January 20, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

There’s this whole experimental back-to-film movement where people are doing things to get weird and unexpected effects. Like using Lomography “purple” film, reversing the way your film faces to get “redscale” pictures, and “cross processing.” Cross processing is either processing your color negative film in chemicals for slides, or the other way around. Generally, processing slides as negative film is more common. It produces strange color shifts, supposedly. I tried it once on purpose a few months ago and got some odd results. I ordered a couple more rolls of slide film, thinking I might try it again with different subjects, and when they arrived I threw them in the drawer and didn’t think much about them.

Fast forward a few months, and I’m looking for film to take with us to Malaysia, and grabbed all I had. In Malaysia, we went to the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park, and since black and white is not that good for photographing colorful birds, eventually the roll of color slide film I had forgotten about made its way into the camera. Imagine my surprise when I developed it and the film was the wrong color (first of all). I didn’t realize what was wrong until I saw the scanned film.

I’m pretty sure I would have preferred “normal” pictures, but these are strangely interesting, and the “normal” pictures probably would have been pretty unremarkable. How many people have a picture of a peacock that looks like this?

The effect is also interesting on buildings

Sadly, probably over half the photos on the roll were beyond interesting, and were just ruined – particularly the more close-up photos where there may not have been as much light. A lot of the smaller birds sitting in trees (which allowed us to get quite close) would have been good to see in their proper colors.

I think “cross process” is also an effect you can use with Instagram or similar programs, but I think it’s not as fun as actually doing it with film. If you’re interested in seeing other peoples’ cross processed work (most of it intentional, I suspect!) to see the full range of effects, you can go here and here.

Posted in film processing, Photography, general | Tagged bird park, Cross-processing, E6, effects, film photography, filters, Malaysia, slide film | Leave a comment

Found Film Friday: Clyde, Texas

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

In my continuing, admittedly odd, quest to rescue other peoples’ forgotten, undeveloped film from oblivion, I recently acquired a Kodak Brownie Starflash, advertised on eBay as still containing a roll of unprocessed film inside. I received the camera, still in its original box. It was manufactured between 1957 and 1965. You get a lot of old cameras on eBay still in their box. Apparently that was a thing back then. When was the last time you bought a camera and stored it inside its original box?

and found inside this camera, with its roll of film:

I went to process it, and found five very clear shots, and the rest of the photos showed pretty much nothing at all. A roll of 127 film, when used in this camera, normally yields 12 shots. The first three are unremarkable, if odd, things to take a picture of.

The last two shots are pretty cool. From corresponding with the camera’s seller, we know the camera belonged to a lady who died (recently) at age 92, who was born on a farm in south Texas, and spent much of her life in west Texas. After sharing these images with the seller, however, we are pretty sure the image with the ladies is taken in Clyde, Texas – either in “the old fellowship hall next to the Baptist Church,” or the Lions Club. She’s checking to see if anyone recognizes any of the ladies and will get back to me. In the meantime, here are the final two photos:

Posted in Found Film, Vintage cameras | Tagged Clyde, fellowship hall, found film, Lions Club, Starflash, Texas | 2 Comments

Two Towers, Two Cameras, Two Views on Photography

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers make interesting photographic subjects – not because they are the tallest twin buildings in the world, but because of their shape and the textures and patterns on the outside of the building. At night, they are lit in such a way that these shapes and patterns are even more emphasized.

So during a recent trip to the city, I was carrying a Ricoh Super Kr-5 II, made in the late 80s or early 90s, loaded with black and white film, during the daytime. Then at night (New Year’s Eve, as a matter of fact – the park below the buildings is the epicenter of the city’s massive annual fireworks display) I carried my Sony NEX digital camera, which has a huge sensor by camcorder standards (the same size as most DSLRs). And I took similar photos both times.

When I got home and processed the film, I failed to take note of the fact that I had already used my chemicals for a few rolls more than the recommended amount. As a result, the pictures came out especially grainy, and a bit dim, so I had to enhance them a bit using software.

The cost of the film and chemicals is a big factor, of course. But the cameras themselves have a significant price difference. The Ricoh is essentially free – I can easily get back the 25 bucks or so I spent on it on eBay. The Sony is a $2,000 disposable camera. Yes, disposable – just like your DSLR. My Sony’s sensor has a bit of damage from the Namibian desert, and it’s not cost effective to replace…and I’d be told, “You might as well buy a new one, this one is obsolete” anyway. It’s only a matter of time before this happens to every modern camera.

Other than a light meter, which may or may not still be accurate 25 years after its manufacture, the Ricoh is fully manual. The Sony is completely automatic; you just point it in the right direction, and it does everything else. So obviously the pictures from the Sony will be much, much better – probably nearly perfect, right?

Take a look at these samples and compare for yourself:

Oddly perhaps, I find something appealing in the black-and-white photos that I just can’t find in the color snaps. It reminds me a bit of the compact disc / phonograph record debate. Somehow both media have become so “perfect” that they wind up somehow sterile and characterless.

Others may disagree. I’m the kind of person who prefers driving a VW Beetle over driving a luxury vehicle. In the latter, you’re completely isolated from the driving experience somehow. The same goes for barefoot running, which I also do. The foot is a sensory organ, filled with nerve endings and blood vessels. Compared to cradling your feet in a perfectly engineered container made of nylon and separated from the road by nearly an inch of blown rubber, barefoot running can be gritty and at times even difficult. But in somehow it feels more authentic – more real.

I’ll end with a couple more examples of photos I really like, not of the towers but from the same trip. I really like these, but I’m 99% sure that, taken with the other camera and all the technology it contains, they would have been completely unremarkable.

Posted in Malaysia, Photography, general, Random Thoughts, Observations and Weird Stuff | Tagged black and white, camera, comparison, film vs. digital, Malaysia, Petronas, Ricoh Kr-5, Sony NEX, vintage vs. modern | Leave a comment

Greeting the New Year in Kuala Lumpur

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

Yes, I’m two weeks late. But it’s been a busy two weeks!

We recently took our first trip to Malaysia, and wanted it to be a mix of big-city-Kuala-Lumpur / shopping, and seeing monkeys and apes in Borneo. Something for everyone. So New Year’s Eve, smack in the middle of the week-long trip, was spent in Kuala Lumpur. At 4:30 the next morning, we were on our way to the airport, ears still ringing from the celebration. Why ears ringing? You’ll see in a minute.

The epicenter of Kuala Lumpur’s New Year’s Eve celebrations, i.e. fireworks, is the Kuala Lumpur City Center park, in the shadows of the city’s famous twin Petronas towers. By 10 pm, huge crowds of people were already headed that direction, as we exited a restaurant after a late dinner. The park was already packed, but there was a steady stream of people continuing to pour in. We decided it would be better to pull off at the periphery, were lots of families with really young kids were already seated.

The big thing in Malaysia seems to be this canned soaplike spray stuff. As the magic hour approached, people who had initially seemed very reserved started to come out of their shells with the aid of this spray foam.

And everyone was blowing these horns. It was a nonstop drone. For about three hours. In all, the actual fireworks lasted about 6-7 minutes. I’ve shortened them a bit, because it’s not the same when you’re not actually there. Anyway, see for yourself in this short video. And happy new year from TAZM!

Posted in Malaysia | Tagged celebration, fireworks, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, New Year | Leave a comment

Mylapore’s Annual Kolam Contest

Posted on January 12, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

When I first arrived in southern India, I blogged about the “kolams” made by millions of women in India every day. So it turns out this is also a competitive sport of sorts! Over the last four days, the Mylapore Festival has been ongoing, and one of its main attractions has been the kolam contest. [side note: Mylapore is a central suburb of Chennai, with arguably the city’s most famous temple]. In case you missed the previous post on kolams, women get up early every morning, and (typically) on the street just outside the home, they create an intricate design made of rice flour, on a freshly cleaned and watered surface. The “kolam” (which in some parts of the country includes color and has different names) is thought to bring prosperity to the home. The busiest street in Mylapore is half blocked, and marked with 100 numbered squares, roughly 4 feet on each side. The women gather at 3 pm and are allocated their square, and then the heated competition begins, surrounded by onlookers – and photographers. Each day there were 100 contestants – mostly Indian women. But I did spot one Western woman competing, as well as one Indian man. Could this be my one true calling? The patterns are generally all made by starting with rows of evenly spaced dots. Then the designs are filled in, either by connecting those dots or by going around them. The variety of styles was fascinating, and I have no idea how the judges managed to pick winners. Meanwhile, just around the corner, a similar competition was taking place for youths. The crowds were not as large, but the pride in workmanship certainly was.

Want to see more? Here’s a video one of my fellow photographers posted of the same event:

After checking out the kolam competition, I saw another surprise. A man was handing out 8-inch lengths of sugar cane to a group of kids. A man noting my curiosity explained that it was a competition to see who could strip the bark from their stick the quickest! The winner got a nice print of Mylapore. I wonder what they’d think of some of the activities at an American “County Fair”?

Posted in Life in India, Photowalks | Tagged Chennai, contest, festival, India, kolam, mylapore, sugar cane | Leave a comment

Found Film Friday: Trip to Germany

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Tom (Admin)

This week’s “found film” is a roll of 35mm film that came with 5 other rolls via an eBay seller who was unwilling or unable to offer any details concerning the film’s origin. Only one of the six rolls yielded any images at all, and they all had an orange tint to them and had lost flecks of emulsion.

But that roll had some interesting shots on it, all of which appeared to be from someone’s trip to Germany – I’m guessing in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Is the photo above a US Air Force guy? The US military used these Chevy Blazers for many years – they were the precursor to the Army’s Humvee.

Why the that time period? I’m judging from the M113 armored personnel carriers, which came into US military use in the late stages of the Vietnam war, and were gradually phased out in the 1980s for the most part, except for the tracked ambulances that continued to be used in the 1990s.

Also, there are a few cars on some of the photos, but not enough where you can really tell what model it is.

In spite of the many years I lived in Germany (and it’s definitely Germany), I am not able to identify any of the places. But there are a number of photos taken on highways that suggest the photographer traveled across a larger area of Germany.

The photographer also had an interest in the small plane shown in 4-5 photos. UPDATE: a friend pointed out that you can look up the tail number for airplanes. It turns out that this one was a glider / trainer, built in 1961. It’s still in service. The airfield is in Peine, Germany – a glider club between Braunschweig and Hannover.

And finally, it appears that many of the pictures were taken from a bus.

My favorite photo on the roll is the last one – thought I can’t reconcile why everyone is in civilian clothes in all the other photos, and then suddenly the last photo on the roll appears to have people in uniform. Was it a tour? Air Force guys touring Germany? This might explain the glider. Help solve the mystery!

Posted in Found Film | Tagged airplane, bus, found film, Germany, M113, military | Leave a comment

Found Film Friday: Bill

Posted on December 27, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

Found Film Friday is when we look at a roll of film that someone took long ago, and forgot to get processed/developed, and years later it ended up in my possession so that I could rescue the photos from oblivion.

Over the last two weeks we have gotten to know Bill. Two weeks ago, I shared a roll of film with lost pictures of a wedding, and a smart-looking guy having a cigar in his back yard. This roll of film supposedly came from Rhode Island, along with many other rolls, of which only two more came to me. These were marked “Bill Party”, which we saw last week – and the final roll, which I will share this week, is marked “Bill Experimental.” This is the roll it came from:

We saw Bill (?) last week opening gifts – this roll appears to be the same person, in the same chair by the window – only the entire roll is shots of him.

Sometimes the rolls of found film are more exciting than others…

Posted in Found Film | Tagged bill, found film, Rhode Island | 1 Comment

Christmas Photowalk

Posted on December 26, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

This Christmas, several of us got things like lenses and other camera-related items in our stockings. So it was quite natural that we decided to take a “family photowalk” on Christmas Day, especially given that we are living in a foreign country, far from the close friends and family we might ordinarily be visiting over the holidays. We had the pleasure of being accompanied by two of our most avid Indian photographer friends, one of whom suggested the site of our walk.

He took us to “T. Nagar” – which stands for Theagaraya Nagar. T. Nagar is one of the busiest shopping districts in Chennai – and is considered the biggest shopping district in all of India, by revenue. And while many people celebrate Christmas the way people in predominantly Christian countries celebrate the day (and it is a holiday here fyi), it seems that there are also many who, rather than staying at home with family and friends, go out shopping.

So it turned out that we ended up in one of India’s most busy shopping districts, on one of the busiest days of the year. Trying to take pictures.

It ended up being a bit chaotic – keeping track of each other, and keeping a constant watch for that magical photograph. And it turns out that on a photowalk, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. And we didn’t end up getting all that many photos. I was able to test out the 50mm prime lens I had gotten in my stocking. Zooming was unnecessary – in fact I had to look for ways to increase the distance between my camera and my subjects. But I did find that, unlike my usual 18-200mm lens, a 50mm lens simply lends itself to portraits – both in terms of alignment and subject matter. Here are a couple of the good ones I got:

A side note on the second photo – it has been a “brisk” 75 Fahrenheit the last few weeks. Temperature is a relative thing, and wool hats and earmuffs have become a common sight.

And finally, here is the photo I wish I had gotten. I’m not sure who it belongs to, originally – it has made its rounds on the internet. It could have easily been taken on the streets of Chennai.

All the best this holiday season, however you choose to celebrate.

Posted in Life in India | Tagged Chennai, Christmas, photowalk, shopping district, T. Nagar | Leave a comment

Hanging Around in Hyderabad (Post #3)

Posted on December 24, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

For my third and final post on our trip to Hyderabad, I’m sharing a roll of Tri-X 400 film (black and white) I shot with my Ricoh Super Kr-5 II, a camera that’s barely vintage, having been manufactured in the mid-1990s. And, amazingly, for a roll of 36 photos, every single shot came out in focus and correctly exposed.

Most of the shots were around the Mecca Masjid, or “Mecca Mosque”. Built 400 years ago, the mosque is one of the largest in India and can accommodate 10,000 worshippers at once. More than 8,000 workers were employed to build the mosque, which contains a single block of granite that took 5 years to quarry. Its central arch is constructed of bricks made from soil taken from Mecca. The mosque was the site of a horrific bombing in 2007, and today security remains visible in and around the mosque.

When you walk up to the mosque, you first arrive at an area where people are feeding the pigeons. It’s fun to have a seat on the steps and not only bird-watch, but people-watch:

You can also join in the fun yourself.

We met a family who had brought their daughter to feed the pigeons and goats, and she was completely absorbed in her world and unaware that she was the focus of attention of a group of about 4 Indian photographers, and at least 1 foreigner (me).

We also got some great shots of the mosque itself. I think they turned out great, anyway.

I’ll close with my favorite photo on the roll. I normally don’t like using the different filters and special effects they offer in photo editing software – but in this case I think it “works.”

To see more photos of Hyderabad, you can visit this Flickr set.

Posted in Life in India | Tagged Hyderabad, India, Mecca Masjid, mosque, pigeons | Leave a comment

Hanging Around in Hyderabad (2nd Post)

Posted on December 22, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend a week working in Hyderabad, a city of 7 or so million in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh (which is in the process of splitting into two states – but that is another story). During my work week, I had little to no time to see the actual city – it’s huge in terms of square mileage, and getting anywhere I wanted to go, by motorized rickshaw would have put me into darkness.

So on Saturday, we finally set out for “old Hyderabad.” The area around the city has had inhabitants for two millenia, but it was not until 1591 that the current city was founded on the southern bank of the Musi River, where “old Hyderabad” can be found today. The Koh-i-Noor diamond was apparently mined near Hyderabad, but today, the old part of Hyderabad and its bazaars are known for pearls, jewelry, silks, and Islamic buildings and monuments.

We had our driver take us to the “Charminar” – which means, literally, “four minarets. From this structure, in the middle of a roundabout, extend four roads, all of which have an arch extending over them. The area is almost frantic with activity – tourists, merchants, beggars and traders moving in all directions.

The bulk of the Charminar is suspended over your head by the four corner minarets.

You can climb up into the Charminar, which is architecturally an interesting structure. From the top, you can circle in all directions, admiring the archways and construction of the tower itself, or looking out across this part of the city.

Nearby, you can see the Mecca Masjid (“Mecca Mosque”), which, like the Charminar, the sultan Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, founder of the city, had built.

We headed over to the mosque, where we ran into these three boys, along with many other people.

All these photos, by the way, are film photos taken with a Ricoh Super Kr-5. After I shot the photos above, I put in a roll of 36 black and white exposures. When I developed them, I was amazed that every single one of them came out sharp, in focus, and properly exposed. I got some great photos around the mosque, which I will share in a couple of days. In the meantime, this is a fun thing you can do with photos:

Posted in Life in India | Tagged Charminar, Hyderabad, India, Mecca Masjid | 1 Comment

Found Film Friday: Bill’s Party

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

Last week I posted the first of three rolls that were shipped to me as a set, ultimately from Rhode Island – and we don’t know much else about them. They were all 120 film, but of different types. This second roll was marked “Bill’s Part”…and after developing them, I realized it was supposed to be “party” – the “y” had been added above, after the owner ran out of space. This is the roll of film:

In the first roll, we saw a wedding, and a man in his prime, smoking a cigar. We don’t know whether how the man in the photos is related to the photographer. In this second roll, we meet who is most likely “Bill”, with some sort of handicapping condition. It’s not clear whether the man in this picture is the same as the man in the first roll. We see a family, and children, and “Bill”, presumably, opening a birthday gift.

It’s purely speculative, but there is some resemblance between the adults in these photos and the adults in last week’s photos, and it may be the same people. Unfortunately, the film quality is too poor to tell for sure. Next week, I’ll share the third roll in this series.

Posted in Found Film | Tagged bill, birthday, found film, Rhode Island | Leave a comment

The Argus Seventy-Five: Great Photos for a So-Called “Toy” Camera

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

The Argus 75, also marketed as the Argus Seventy-Five and the Argoflex Seventy-Five*, is a bakelite pseudo TLR made by the Argus company between 1949 and 1964. It’s a simple, inexpensive, yet reliable little box camera that you would hang around your neck, look down into the large, clear viewfinder, and snap photos at waist level, keeping the camera steady with your elbows at your side. They used 620 film, which is easily obtainable by using 120 film available today, and either modifying the take-up spool (clipping off about a millimeter from the edge all the way round), or by respooling the film onto a 620 spool. In complete darkness, of course.

It’s cheap and readily available – I have one of each, neither of which I expressly purchased, but they were thrown in with other cameras I was after on eBay. With a leather case and possibly even a flash attachment, you should be able to get one of these for between 5 and 10 bucks. At the time these were manufactured, twin-lens reflex cameras were all the rage, but they were pretty expensive. They all had dual lenses like the 75, and the focusing systems were linked, so that you could focus using the image coming through the top lens (and through the finder on top of the camera), and this would match the focus that the “picture-taking” lower lens would have. The “pseudo” twin lens reflex, on the other hand, didn’t really let you focus at all. You just looked through the lens and hoped for the best.

The camera takes 6 cm by 6 cm square photos, and most tend to be in focus despite the lack of a focusing mechanism because the manufacturers wisely made it about f/11 and 1/50-1/60 of a second or so – which works at most distances – from about 7 to 8 feet and beyond. There is a flash attachment, but if you want to leave the shutter open for a longer exposure, there is a “time” setting instead of the 1/60 “instant” setting that can be used.

I recently took this camera out on the streets of Chennai, and the photos that came out well are shown below. Admittedly some of them have been improved after scanning using Photoshop, but a decent photo would not have been possible had the original exposure not been in focus and with decent lighting. The first, despite (purposely) being crooked, is one of my favorite photos I’ve taken in Chennai. If you’d like to see additional photos taken by someone else using this camera, here are some unmodified Argus 75 photos; or you can also check out this blog. I am notorious for being unable to hold a camera straight, but I’m still not sure this explains why all the pictures lean in the same direction.

*it was called the “Argoflex Seventy-Five” from 1949 to 1952; the “Argus Seventy-Five” from 1952 to 1958; and the “Argus 75” from 1958 to 1964. They were all pretty much identical, except the last model came in black instead of brown.

Posted in Life in India, Vintage cameras | Tagged 120 film, 75, Argoflex, Argus, black and white, Seventy-five, vintage camera | 1 Comment

Hanging Around in Hyderabad

Posted on December 17, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

I had the opportunity to spend a bit of time in Hyderabad, India’s fourth-largest city. It has some very interesting and historically significant buildings and monuments, centuries-old bazaars, and the ancient ruins of an old fort – as well as friendly and interesting people. Here are some of my initial impressions – more to be added later.

The walls and buildings made interesting photography subjects. I also couldn’t get over the amount of electrical wires and cables strung between buildings. I suggested to one shopkeeper who was amused when I was looking at and photographing all of the wiring, that maybe it would be a good idea to cut it all down and start over. He just laughed.

People were very friendly and open to being photographed.

In the crowded fruit and vegetable market, we encountered not only people who were fascinated by the foreigners with cameras walking through the market, but animals. My wife was snapping photos of a stray cat with a great background, and someone asked me quizzically, “is there something special about that cat?” When we took pictures of this goat, however, the owner quickly came over and wanted to be photographed WITH his goat.

Many of the people we met in the fruit and vegetable market can be found at this link. They are “Strangers” numbered 24 to 31.

More photos to be added in a few days.

Posted in Life in India | Tagged buildings, Hyderabad, market, people | Leave a comment

Shooting with the Kodak Retina 1a

Posted on December 15, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

I’m loving this little 1950s camera and the pictures it takes. There are lots of little imperfections here and there, maybe dust in the lens – who knows – but I love the vintage look of the photos I have been taking with it.

A few weeks ago I took it out for a test run – and I gave an overview of the Retina 1a. And now I’ve gotten a chance to do a bit more shooting, which I’ll share in case you’re into vintage cameras and are considering buying one.

The great thing about the camera is that it takes 35mm film. The film below is Kodak 400TX (Tri-X), currently available.

The photos below and above are from one of the old temples at Kanchipuram. I blogged about that temple and shared some digital camera photos of the place here. A line runs through most of the photos – I think it has to do with the way the film passes over the rollers – and I plan to take a look at it, but in some ways I don’t mind it. The line above is crooked because I can’t manage to hold a camera horizontal to save my live. so I turned it in Photoshop.

With these old-looking black and white photos, you can apply an additional filter with Instagram, or on Flickr’s editing tool, and get interesting effects like the one below. They can fake a lot of the photo damage to make it look old, but why fake it when you have the real thing?

Then there was this group of guys we met in one of the temples. Raucous bunch.

The next couple of photos are from Hyderabad. The camera works well to capture old buildings, which can be fun in India:

And finally, a guy whose facial expression doesn’t match his shirt:

To see other photos taken with the Retina 1a, you can go here.

Posted in Vintage cameras | Tagged Hyderabad, Kanchi Kailasanathar, Kanchipuram, Kodak, Retina 1a, vintag | Leave a comment

Found Film Friday: Bill Goes to a Wedding

Posted on December 13, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

So there’s this guy, “Bill”, who loved to take pictures…he lived somewhere around Rhode Island…and when he passed away, as is the case for many people, his things were packed up and sold for whatever his relatives could get for them. Among those things were many, many rolls of undeveloped film, some of which ended up on eBay, were purchased by me here in India, and developed.

In so doing, I discovered that Bill either was a guy, or knew a guy who liked to sit in his back yard and smoke cigars.

The photos he took were on different brands of 120 film, and square, 6cm by 6cm. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help narrow it down. The fact that he was such a photography enthusiast, however, suggests that he may have been using one of the fancy twin lens reflex cameras photographers still love to use – but these were manufactured from the 1940s onward, and continue to be used today.

At one point, he took his camera to a wedding.

And I somehow find it tragic that he never developed the pictures he took. The groom looks like he could be our same cigar smoking friend in the garden. But this doesn’t answer who was taking the pictures.

I have two more rolls of Bill’s that have been rescued and developed. I’ll post those in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you can check out the other photos from this roll, as well as other “found film” projects at this link on Flickr.

Posted in Found Film | Tagged found film, wedding | 1 Comment

Testing the Zeiss Ikon Ikonta A 521

Posted on December 11, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

The Ikonta A 521 is one of a series of compact and well-designed cameras the German Zeiss Ikon company produced from 1929 until the late 1950s, with a brief break during World War II, as the company was destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in February of 1945. during the Cold War, the East German portion of the company became state-owned, and the eastern and western parts of the company merged again with reunification. The company continues to produce cameras today.

I was able to narrow my Ikonta down as a 521 because this is marked on the case. Other than that, the many variants (A, B, C, D as well as number variants) and lens/shutter combinations made identification confusing. All I knew was that it had been manufactured between 1940 and 1956. This chart listing many of the variants was not helpful, because my version displays many of the characteristics of the 520 – a Tessar 75mm lens, a Compur Rapid shutter, and dual film windows on the back, indicating a model which shoots 16 4.5 cm by 6 cm photos from a roll of 120 film, which is normally used for 8 6×9 cm shots.

But thanks to this website on Zeiss cameras, I was finally able to identify this as a camera likely manufactured between 1940 and 1942. Of course, this begs the question: how did it get to the United States, so that I could buy it on eBay 75 years later? We’ll probably never know.

My Ikonta had been badly battered over the years, and when it arrived I was immediately able to identify several tiny holes in the bellows, which render such a camera useless. Fortunately, there is a method which can be used to repair small bellows pinholes – for larger ones you would need to use black silicon or replace them entirely. So I gave this a shot and let everything dry, and finally got a chance to try the camera out with a roll of color 120 film (expired). Here are the results:

So these shots show a somewhat functioning camera, but there are a couple of things that can be learned from test photos like these. First, I now know why there are two little film windows on the back of the camera. 120 film is marked for 8 exposures. To use this camera correctly, you snap one shot when the number “1” is in the right window, and a second shot when it has moved to the left window. In this way, you end up with 16 exposures, not 8 as I did.

Second, the photos with the blurry flowers were focused at 3.5 feet. On cameras of this time period, you had to focus by turning the lens to the number indicating how far away you thought the subject was. And with an aperture of F/11 which I used, the range of objects in focus is going to be pretty good. When you get this close and objects become blurred although they were focused correctly, the lens probably needs to be collimated. This is something I learned how to do just the other day with – coincidentally – another Zeiss Ikon.

Finally, the last photo has some streaks across it. This likely means there is still at least one tiny hole that needs to be repaired. Most of the photos turned out OK because the camera likely had to be facing a specific direction for the film to be affected. So it’s back to the workshop with this one.

If you have an Ikonta of this time period, I’d be interested in knowing if yours works correctly or not!

Posted in Vintage cameras | Tagged 521, Compur Rapid, Ikonta A, pinhole repair, Tessar, Zeiss Ikon | 4 Comments

Shooting with the Ansco Anscoflex

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Tom (Admin)

A couple of days ago, I posted about some “found film” that had come from a 1950s Ansco Anscoflex. I had originally bid on an unidentified roll of film on eBay, and when I found out that the seller was also offering the camera on which the roll had been found for sale, I bought that too.

This is a neat little camera, different from any other I’ve ever seen, where the front cover slides up like a garage door, simultaneously opening up two aluminum “barn doors” protecting the large viewfinder on the top surface. You hold this camera at waist level and look down, and can clearly see where the square lens in the picture above is “looking.” It’s a “pseudo” twin lens reflex, because the photo is actually taken using the smaller, round lens, just below. The camera winds with a back-and-forth of a large knob on the side, and is made of cool aluminum painted a deliciously 1950s shade of green, with a matching leather cover and a large flash reflector. Mine was in pristine condition – but the shutter didn’t work properly.

Fortunately, with a little bit of searching, I found this set of photos on Flickr, in which another Anscoflex owner completely disassembled his camera and provided photos on how to do it. This not only allowed me to thoroughly clean the camera, it also let me get at the shutter mechanism, where I could see that one of the springs was just lacking a bit of tension to get the mechanism to work. So I took out the spring, bent it a bit to increase the tension, and put it back. Then the shutter worked like a charm!

Now it was time to head out to the beach for a test of this camera. The results were outstanding! I’ve posted some of them below. Despite the simplicity of this camera and inexpensive lens and other components, I think you’ll agree the pictures that came out of this 1953 camera are pretty impressive for a camera of that era.

It’s Wilson in India! Reminiscent of the Tom Hanks film, it’s actually a volleyball, washed up on the beach.

My dog had a fun day testing out the camera as well.

If you look carefully at all the photos, you’ll see a set of gray lines running vertically toward the right side of each exposure. Sometimes it runs at a slant – because I have a hard time holding this camera straight, I’ve gone back and straightened the shot. But the lines come from some sort of irregularity inside the camera, probably on the rollers that allow the film to go through the camera. The photos we had from the 1950s have the identical lines. My daughter noticed this and pointed out that this was a line that stretched from 1953 to 2013, and from Toledo, Ohio to Chennai, India.

Some people do fancy setups with their cameras to achieve this effect. This is what having a shutter that is always 1/60th of a second does for you.

The cool thing about medium format cameras is, there is so much detail in a square of film that’s 6 cm by 6 cm, as opposed to, say, a digital image in a modern camera (yes, it’s true!) that you can crop it and still end up with an amazing amount of detail:

Posted in Vintage cameras | Tagged ansco, Anscoflex, beach, Chennai, dog, India, vintage camera | Leave a comment

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