Everyone who visits Namibia wants to go on a safari – there are game parks and private farms all over Namibia that will drive you through the bush on a 4×4 outfitted with bench seats so you can “ooh” and “aah” over the endless animals and landscape of the country. And of course, there’s Namibia’s crown jewel, Etosha National Park. But how about something completely different: a helicopter safari!
Rainier Arangies gained a certain notoriety in Namibia not too long ago when the country’s President spotted a 1960s Bell “Huey” with original markings flying around in Namibia. Arangies had purchased the aging, but still completely functional UH-1 from a collector in the U.S. as a result of his love for all things helicopter. In addition, he has now amassed a collection of more than a half dozen different aircraft as a part of his firm “Expedite Aviation” – a rapidly growing company that provides rotary wing aircraft for a variety of missions, mainly from Tsumeb but also from other locations in Namibia. In addition, he now owns a Cessna which can ferry passengers from Windhoek to Tsumeb.
One of the activities Expedite offers is a design-it-yourself helicopter safari. You can either ask Arangies or his partner for suggestions involving private farms, or as we did, have them fly you out to Etosha. The down side of flying to Etosha is that there are minimum height restrictions – the Etosha tourists don’t take kindly to a helicopter buzzing the elephants at the drinking hole. But we arranged for the company to ferry us to Etosha, drop us at a nearby lodge, stay two nights, and then bring us back. As a part of the package, we had basically paid for two hours’ flying time, which means there was also time to do a turn along the edge of Etosha, as well as checking out sites of interest near Tsumeb, such as Lake Oshikoto.
This was not aboard the now-famous Huey, as that aircraft is based near Swakopmund. Instead, we flew on a Long Ranger, which was more than adequate to store our luggage for the weekend, and then shift back and forth in the aircraft to take photos and video on the flight. The cost was completely reasonable, and we also had to pay to house the pilot at the game park – but they offer special “crew rooms” at a much-reduced price. We were apparently the first users of Onguma Game Reserve’s new airfield, where we were picked up by park staff and shuttled to our tented room (with a short game drive on the way!)
The helicopter flight was a completely unique way to see Namibia and get transported to an idyllic game reserve. Want to fly the Huey? We asked whether this is affordable, and were that if you fill the seats and split the cost, it is a very affordable way to see the coastal dunes or fly along Namibia’s magnificent coast, where desert meets the sea.
Want to see what we saw on our trip? Check out the video below:
For a change from the standard fare offered on YouTube, it’s fun to stop by occasionally at the Prelinger Archives, a diverse collection of thousands of preserved films from the ages, all available for download in the public domain. In addition to being interesting, the collection offers insights on changing attitudes over the years. Most are hilarious, but some can be pretty disturbing.
Much progress has been made in the acceptance of, and views toward homosexuality, particularly in the last few years. It took twenty years between “don’t ask, don’t tell” – which got a lot of emotional and impassioned criticism within the military when it first became policy – and full acceptance of gays in the military. In 1992, servicemen and women would be poorly advised to reveal their homosexuality, because males in particular could expect to be endlessly berated and harassed. Gay female servicemembers were more widely accepted but would still have to endure snide comments. And woe to any public displays of affection or attempts to marry – that was grounds for dismissal, or punishment under the UCMJ.
How times have changed. Now we have General Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, going on AFN to publicly praise the contributions of gay servicemembers. Although as recently as January 2013, a gay spouse was denied entry to an officers’ spouses club (she was eventually admitted, but only after a series of public articles), Dempsey is now advocating for equal rights for gay spouses.
But it’s easy to forget just how far we’ve come. In the 1950s, 1960s and later, Sid Davis produced well over 100 “social guidance” films. A number of these, produced in partnership with the Inglewood Police Department and the Inglewood Unified School District, warned young people of various dangers. Presumably the films were shown in schools, and while Davis has been called the “King of Calamity”, it’s safe to assume they reflected the general thinking of the time.
One film, “Boys Beware” (1961, remade in 1973) particularly underlines some of the changes in attitudes and is in places quite shocking though defenders of the film have characterized it as “not having aged well” The film “Boys Beware” highlights the danger to teenage boys from older men who would prey on them. The companion film “Girls Aware” similarly warns girls about getting too chummy with older males – but in the case of “Boys Beware”, the danger is from homosexual men in particular.
Given today’s views toward homosexuality – or even views two decades ago, the attitudes from 1961 are quite disturbing, and one imagines the shame homosexual boys may have felt having to sit through the film. Near the beginning of the film, the police narrator explains, “What Jimmy didn’t know was that Ralph was sick — a sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious–a sickness of the mind. You see, Ralph was a homosexual: a person who demands an intimate relationship with members of their own sex.” At the end of the film, the narrator reminds us, “One never knows when the homosexual is about; he may appear normal, and it may be too late when you realize he is mentally ill.”
It’s taken fifty years to bring these changes. How will people in fifty years view the films we are making on today’s most controversial issues?
If you’ve had the pleasure of watching the Armed Forces Network which is produced for U.S. military and many other categories of government employees serving overseas, you’ll remember those irritating commercials. After you’ve been without AFN for awhile, according to many people, the feeling you have for these commercials becomes a fondness. But this takes awhile.
If you’re not familiar with AFN, the way it works is that they have agreements in place with the major networks to rebroadcast shows, generally 24 hours after they’ve aired in the States. This wasn’t always the case – as a kid it would take months or more. But the advertisers whose commercials would normally air during the shows haven’t paid for the additional audiences – and the government isn’t party to the agreement with the networks anyway. So these shows go overseas with a bunch of gaps that need to be plugged…with something. I’m guessing otherwise the TV schedules would get impossible to follow – so they try and keep things on the hour and half hour. So what we get is public service announcements – frequently educational, often encouraging viewers to behave responsibly, such as wearing reflective gear on motorcycles, not smoking, things like that. And to be fair, the standard of these commercials has gone way, way up over the years. But I think the vast majority are produced by the military itself, sometimes with assistance of outside contractors.
Unfortunately, no matter how good the commercials are, it seems that AFN simply can’t produce the volume needed to keep things interesting. As a result, even the best AFN commercials get repeated over an over again until they start to get really irritating. Some are irritating from the start – for instance, right now the military is on a big anti-smokeless tobacco kick. They’ll use anything they can to get military personnel to stop using smokeless tobacco – and woe unto you if you happen to be eating dinner when these commercials come on.
To give you an idea of some of the commercials AFN viewers get to watch over and over and over again, I’ve included a few below. Enjoy!
This series of photos came to us via eBay from an unknown camera. The first and fourth photos feature a little girl – one posing in a cowboy (-girl) outfit, and the other is from what looks like a camping trip perhaps. They appear to be from the same trip, as the cowboy photo has a picnic table in the background.
What’s got me stumped, however, is the other two photos – it looks like a bunch of people watching something in the water – some sort of competition? Everyone seems pretty decently dressed for fishing. And the portrait orientation of the photo, when landscape seems like it would have been much more useful, is also a mystery. Any ideas?
UPDATE: May, 2014. So it turns out, this is probably a camping trip to Yellowstone. The last two photos appear to be of a geyser. Which explains the “portrait” orientation – they were capturing the plume of the geyser, no longer visible after years of fading.
Since 1969, the Oregon Country Fair has been a gathering of the wacky, existing as a three-day fair in Veneta (near Eugene) with a counterculture theme that attracts as many as 45,000 visitors. This year, those visitors included us. We had great food, met interesting people, and heard lots of great music (even buying a couple of CDs)! Here’s a video of our favorite music act at the fair:
Fortunately the heat wasn’t too bad, because by 1 pm it was getting pretty darn packed, and though we were in the far back end of the park, we had to start making our way out as it was becoming stifling. But if you’re around Eugene in July 2014, you should check it out!
In our continuing Western States Odyssey in a rented 31-foot RV, our final stop was a return to the place we had originally intended to be our first stop: Crater Lake. Unfortunately, we had gotten a late start and ultimately decided to postpone it to the end.
Crater Lake is always a special treat – breathtaking every time we “see it again for the first time.” We had been delayed somewhat by the Newberry National Volcanic Monument, which has a lot of geological similarities with Crater Lake in terms of how it came to be, but missing one key element: annual snowfalls in sufficient quantity to create a lake. At Newberry, you can drive to the top of the volcanic cone (which we did not) or you can take a gas lantern and hike into a lava cave which apparently runs underground for a mile or so (we stopped just inside the entrance. But we saw some cute chipmunks!
You can spend hours – even a full day – at the Newberry Crater visiting a variety of different formations and caves, even climbing its rim – I believe this is Paulina Peak below:
Eventually we made it to our main destination for the day, and drove the spectacular, 33-mile road around the rim of the Crater.
People like to focus on the much larger Wizard Island, and Phantom Ship Island ends up getting short shrift. But did you know that Phantom Ship Island (seen above) is sixteen storeys tall?
We ended up at the visitor center just in time to see the final showing of the park’s new video, “Crater Lake: Into the Deep”, the first video on the park since the 1980s, which premiered in April 2013. Admittedly, the video is a bit “over the top” in terms of its enthusiasm – it goes on and on giving first impressions “the first time I saw Crater Lake” and had the kids snickering in the back seat for a good 30 minutes after the show, supplying their own examples of what they did “the first time they saw Crater Lake.” But it captures the wonder that surrounds this unique park and gives spectacular underwater views as well as a great computer animation which illustrates how the park came to be.
If you get a chance to visit the lake yourself, be sure and check out the video which shows on the hour and half hour.
And thus ends our ten-day odyssey through some of America’s western states – a welcome opportunity to re-acquaint ourselves with our great country after having spent the last six years abroad representing it to others. Hopefully next time it won’t take so long to come back home.
One of my favorite places in the U.S. is Eastern Oregon. Some people find the landscape boring, but I’m definitely not one of them. There are so many interesting, hidden little places to see, especially on some of the lesser-traveled roads. Abandoned buildings and barns from better days make great photography subjects.
Along the Interstate, there is an endless succession of odd industrial buildings – sawmills, mining operations, and who knows what else. Many of them are no longer in use, and you could spend hours photographing them from all different angles.
When you leave the Interstate, the landscape becomes more and more barren. This road, which runs through the John Day Fossil Beds, cuts through some amazing gorges. Be sure to look in the rearview mirror from time to time!
One imagines what the original settlers must have felt when they came in on the Oregon Trail (pictured below). Other than a thin ribbon of asphalt, many places have little else to show that the state is now home to millions, as most Oregonians live in the western part of the state, where rain is much more plentiful. If you do visit Oregon, be sure and visit the Oregon Trail interpretive center near Baker City.
Finally, a shot from the Snake River, as the (not quite) full moon rises over Farewell Bend State Park – so named because this is where the state’s original settlers left the Snake River for the last time. We can say from personal experience that it takes about 16 minutes (one way) to swim the Snake River at this point. The birds would hover about 10 feet above us, probably wondering what sort of odd fish we were and what we must taste like.
They say few things are as American as baseball, apple pie….and add to that “jumping into the old water hole.”
As we headed west from Reno/Sparks, Nevada, the temperature climbed steadily toward the maximum it would reach that July afternoon – 109 degrees Fahrenheit. Just off to the right, winding alongside interstate 80, the Truckee River ambled lazily from side to side, with its telltale green fringe accompanying it through the dry Nevada high desert. Though it’s normally quite frigid, I found myself thinking it would be nice to dip my toes in the water today as it was probably pleasantly cool.
About 15 minutes outside of Sparks, we saw a line of 5-6 cars parked along the right side of the Interstate, in one of a number of snow chain removal areas that appear every few miles along this stretch of high desert. As we drove by at 70 mph, we saw off to the right a huge boulder that formed a cliff over the Truckee, with someone distantly perched on the top of the precipice. “Hey look – they’re jumping off a cliff into the Truckee!” I told the kids. “Can we stop?” they asked, and once we verified the presence of on/off ramps about a mile on either side of the spot, we agreed to turn the RV around.
As traffic continued to zoom by, we all changed into our swimsuits and grabbed cameras and sunscreen, picking our way along the cement dividers lining the chain removal area. As we followed a path down the embankment and crawled through an area where the barbed wire had been pulled apart to allow access, the heat from the desert floor was already feeling uncomfortable through the soles of our shoes. We had to cross a train track and follow the 100 meter trail littered with beer cans to the cliff.
“More people are joining the party,” a tattooed, goateed mid-20’s male clutching a can of unidentified beverage called. About a dozen people and at least two dogs were in the cool water below as a teen prepared to launch himself off a cliff that towered about four stories over the river. “Is it deep enough?” I asked – and he led us to the edge and gave us a short briefing on where the Truckee was deepest. Spray paint on the rocks and the occasional soda can or beer can told us we were definitely not the first to brave the cliffs, so we decided it would be safe. Someone had even taken the effort to cement the “launch pad” from the highest rock.
The kids went first, with very little hesitation, as we snapped photos. But then I made the mistake of climbing up to check out the jump myself, and suddenly found all eyes focused on me, waiting for me to take my turn. As I cautiously peered over the edge of the precipice and saw the swirling green water at least four storeys below, my stomach lurched. And I suddenly realized I would have to decide between “chickening out” after my teenage daughters had already made the jump – and going against all my natural instincts and nearly five decades of conditioning.
Ultimately I would make the leap – and even went back once more to prove it wasn’t a fluke. Plus I wanted to do at least one jump without shrieking like an eight-year-old on the way down. And after a few more jumps we had to tear ourselves away, picking our way across the rocks back to the RV as traffic continued to fly by on I-80. Hey, you only live once.
…so the (teen) kids didn’t want to see the inside of a casino when we stayed overnight in Reno. Apparently gambling has gotten a bad rap in our family, which is not a bad thing as far as I’m concerned. But as parents we insisted they see Circus Circus – “just humor us”, we told them.
And although the “circus” at Circus Circus wasn’t quite as spectacular as we remembered, and we couldn’t imagine eating $16.99 worth of food at the all-u-can-eat buffet (so we ate at one of the other restaurants), we managed to cajole them into the Arcade, and then spent the next few hours trying to cajole them back out.
What we learned: For 1,250 of those little tickets you win in the games, you can get three brightly colored “squid” hats and ten tootsie rolls.
The latest turn in our Western States Odyssey took us into San Francisco. And if you’ve never had the opportunity, a great thrill ride is to take a 31-foot RV and drive it over the Golden Gate Bridge and straight through the heart of San Francisco. I believe if you put it dead center one of the lanes on a major San Francisco artery, you will have about 5 inches to spare on either side of the wheels before you hit the white lines on either side. Add in other buses, cable cars / the Muni, hills and hordes of other drivers, and you’re in for loads of excitement.
We parked the RV in a park right next to Candlestick Park, which on most days is a quiet neighborhood.
Within a couple of hundred yards is a former landfill turned into a recreation area (walking and jogging trails) with a constant view of the Bay, and you can also do a nice run up Bay View Hill:
Best part of San Francisco: meeting up with friends and family we haven’t seen for years. We really should make the effort to do that more often.
Our continuing RV Odyssey in the Western States today took us through what botanists like to refer to as Really, Really Big Trees. The Avenue of the Giants was particularly impressive – not really captured accurately by this timelapse:
It’s really not possible to capture the grandeur, scale and magnitude of these trees, some of them more than 2,000 years old.
We ended the day in what ended up being a crummy RV Park (Harbor RV Park in Fort Bragg, CA), but a wonderful view of the sun setting over the Pacific. Next: on to The City!
Today was an eventful day in our Western States RV Odyssey. For those just tuning in, we are touring Oregon, California, Nevada and Idaho in a rented monstrosity of an RV, in order to satisfy a Congressionally mandated Foreign Service “home leave” (between overseas tours), and in order to avoid camping with relatives for an entire month.
We stayed in Emerald Forest something-or-other RV Park, which was a dark and gloomy place (due to the giant redwoods towering overhead), much in contrast to the photos on their website, which imply the beach is a bit closer than a mile away…
But we made our way down to the beach just north of Trinidad, California – which turned out to be one of the most scenic beaches I’ve come across in a very long time. For reference, you can compare to these beach photos sent to me by TripAdvisor while I was writing this post (*waves to the NSA*)
We saw almost no other people. We did see vultures – about a dozen, circling over the forest just inland from the beach. As we were deep in Bigfoot Country and convinced we would come across a family of them at any moment, we were sure that the vultures were circling over a recent Bigfoot kill – probably an elk or something (photo of Oregon elk, snapped yesterday, provided for reference).
But as we continued down the beach, we saw a group of about four of them sitting on the ground, and a fifth perched on a makeshift totem pole someone had put up on the beach and surrounded with a circle of stones (witches in Humboldt County? nah…) As I edged closer with my camera, there was one particularly determined vulture who kept picking at something on the beach.
I got within 20 feet of him before he finally flew away and I could see what he had been working on. Shark sushi! Obviously caught by a Bigfoot and abandoned there when the witches came to perform their totem rituals. Don’t you love how the vultures always go for the best parts of the shark first?
After that beach, we went for a walk in the woods to take a look at other nearby beaches like this one:
Unfortunately, on the way there, we had to pass through the woods where Bigfoot lives:
But as we were passing through, I heard a loud rustling sound in the woods and stopped to listen while the others continued on. I was eventually rewarded for my patience when I spotted this little guy:
Tomorrow’s installment: Really big trees. And hopefully more fast food. Today we ate in this healthy, funky little restaurant in Arcata, whose downtown has more than its fair share of both vintage stores and people high on one substance or another.
Yesterday I posted about our efforts to satisfy American fast food cravings while on “home leave” after a 2-year absence. And about how the menus change gradually, but how after two years the all-familiar fast food menus suddenly appear loaded with strange and unfamiliar menu items.
The major shifts among the big contenders are pretty well-known – faced with a growing public perception that they are at fault for America’s obesity epidemic and spurred on by a couple of particularly damning movies, restaurants like McDonald’s have made great strides to make their menus healthier and greener (adding fruits and veggies) and in some cases more “gourmet.” McDonald’s has cashed in on the Starbucks craze in many of its stores, offering espresso drinks and scrumptious baked goods. And no more funny looks when asking for a “veggie burger” – which now gets you some sort of burger-like patty, rather than a lettuce-and-tomato-on-a-bun sandwich. And weird salads with things like cranberries and walnuts and raspberry dressings.
Today, our road trip led us to Burger King, which I haven’t seen for two years. What struck me first was that like Taco Bell, BK has also struck a deal with Cinnabon. Seems like a genius move on the part of Cinnabon if you ask me.
But the other thing that struck me was that it appears Burger King has added an ingredient here and there to some of their most popular sandwiches, which has allowed them to rebrand the entire sandwich using a geographic theme. So now we have a “Carolina BBQ Whopper” and a “Carolina BBQ Tendercrisp” (in addition to the completely new “Memphis BBQ” pulled pork sandwich). And the boring old BK Big Fish has suddenly become a “Premium Alaskan Fish Sandwich” (I wanted to ask what kind of fish, and what distinguishes this from the BK Big Fish, but decided this would cause confusion).
And then there is the entirely new “smoothies and frappes” category. I couldn’t decide between a milkshake (because I was craving one) and a coffee (because I needed caffeine for driving). So I thought a mocha frappe might be a good way to combine the milkshake and the coffee, but when I asked how much coffee comes in the frappe, I was told probably very little, because “the frappe comes pre-mixed.” I didn’t really want to know much more than that and went for the coffee. And two ordinary cheeseburgers. I’m afraid to ask what the strawberries and bananas went through on their way to becoming part of a smoothie.
Foreign Service Officers (i.e. U.S. “diplomats”) are Congressionally mandated to spend a decent amount of time in the United States between tours – presumably so that we maintain a good understanding of our home countries while we’re out representing America to other countries. This means is that every 2-3 years, between foreign tours, we’re required to spend a month or so at home, getting to know our country again. It’s called “home leave,” and it can be expensive, unless you spending the month holed up in your parents’ basement to save money. Not that my parents have a basement. ANYhoo…
My 15-year-old came up with a great way to spend our first (and likely my daughters’ last) home leave: rent an RV and go cruising up and down the Western states for a week or two. So we’re driving this giant rig from Eugene, Oregon, as far south as out budget will allow, for the next couple of weeks. Here’s how our trip started:
So why is “Fast Food” in the title of this blog post? Well, one of the unexplained phenomena that occurs when Americans spend years outside the country – especially with teens – is that we develop an unexplained, and often unhealthy obsession with American Fast Food. This, in spite of being able to step back and observe its effects on American society. And in our case, we’ve spent the better part of the time between July 2007 and…well, last week – outside the United States. For the last couple of years, the only thing remotely “fast” and “American” has been KFC (which is remarkably popular in Namibia, but that’s for another blog post). So a big part of this Western States Odyssey is about satisfying our cravings for all of the fast food we have missed out on.
And we make quite a sight, walking in to these establishments. Empty Taco Bell, in walk four Americans as the only customers, and the cashier stares at us as we deliberately stay back a bit, in order to carefully study the menu, oohing and aahing at the offerings. “Uh, just a minute – we’re studying the menu.” Who needs to study the menu at Taco Bell?
You see, the menu DOES change. You may not notice – it’s like not noticing when a family member’s hair grows. But try leaving for a couple of years and see if there’s a difference.
So … what was so amazing about Taco Bell (other than its always pleasant affordability)?
Taco shells made out of Doritos! Cool ranch OR nacho cheese flavor. Who comes up with that?!? And fluffy deep fried things from Cinnabon filled with whipped cream! Mmmmm….yummy unhealthy American goodness! And a whole bunch of other things…but I couldn’t break away from the cool ranch Dorito taco shells.
You people really should not take these things for granted.
A couple of days ago I posted about a project where I taught teens in one of Windhoek’s vulnerable communities to make matchbox pinhole cameras. I lamented how few of the photos had turned out because I had failed to actually make one of the cameras myself in order to use my own experience to better instruct the teens.
Well it turns out it wouldn’t have made a difference. Below the six best (of 36) photos taken from my first matchbox pinhole camera. All the more respect for these pinhole photographers on Flickr.
Above is a photo of two ducklings (right of the photo) taken from a back yard deck. Below a park bench with a paper plate on it. I was trying to photograph pigeons next to the bench.
Portrait of my daughter:
…and some buildings in downtown Denver:
Needless to say, I’m back to conventional photography…
Missing a flight can be frustrating…but can have unexpected benefits. We missed our flight from Denver to Eugene, Oregon, and were told the next flight was not until the following night at 9:54 pm – and to Portland. While we were disappointed, the added benefit was that we’d have an opportunity to spend the day in Denver, which I’ve never seen before. Sadly, many of the more interesting (i.e. small) shops were closed on Sunday, but it was still an interesting day for photography.
I picked up a Kodak Monitor 620 on eBay not too long ago. It’s a heavy thing, probably the heaviest folder I have come across, and it’s described on a number of websites as “one of the most sophisticated folding cameras of the 1930s and 1940s”, “robust, and well-crafted.” It’s interesting in that it has a parallax adjuster on its flip-up viewfinder, and also has a brilliant finder to allow the camera to be used at waist-level. With one of the best lenses of its time and a shutter speed of up to 1/400 second, the camera would have cost nearly $1,000 in today’s dollars. Here are a couple of photos:
As you can see, mine is in particularly good condition, but it arrived wrapped in a leather case whose seams had become completely separated. And inside the cover flap we saw someone had written his name (and scratched it out): Ron Stone, 4527819 | USS New Jersey | “King” Division. And this was intriguing. Because every camera has a story, no matter how long it has lain in someone’s attic. Especially a camera at the more pricey, sophisticated end. So my daughter Molly and I started some googling.
It turns out the USS New Jersey was around for years and years – it’s the U.S. Navy’s most decorated battleship! It currently sits off the New Jersey coast near Camden, where it functions as a museum ship. But the “King Division” refers to a very specific period in its history, 1952 to 1956, when it was employed in the Korean War. And we found Ron Stone had posted on the “ship’s log” at ussnewjersey.com:
Served on the J from 9/6/52 to 8/3/54, then on to the Missouri to decommissioning at Bremerton, subsequently to USS Eldorado, discharged from the latter on 12/20/55. Would like to hear from some of my shipmates like Herm Silkwood, Ben Basis, Carl Denny, Jimmie Dykes, Tiger Tansey, Nobert Delacy, Conrad Pete Johnson and Messrs Portnoy and Newton.
On the outside of the case is scribbled in pencil what looks like an address. The best I can make out, it’s 200 (or 20A) W. Grant Street, in Cano, Michigan. And Molly followed a few leads on some chat groups – for a time we thought Mr. Stone might have been some sort of war journalist. Or just a hobbyist photographer. Was he an ordinary sailor, working somewhere in the bowels of the ship? Or is it possible for example that he might have taken a photo like this one, using (now) my camera?
Mr. Stone also put a significant amount of effort into drawing a fancy “S” logo on the front of the case with a sharpie:
But eventually all the trails ran cold. And we realized that sadly, many vintage cameras only appear on the market when their owners pass away – so we may never find Ron Stone. But regardless, we felt like we were holding a small part of history. So I am posting this in case someone ever stumbles across it and wants to find out where Ron’s camera ended up. Right now, Ron Stone’s camera is in Oregon for a few weeks. Soon it will go to India. In the meantime, I’ll post some of the first photos taken 59 years after Mr. Stone used it in the Korean War, aboard the USS New Jersey…in Namibia, in southern Africa of all places.
One of the last projects I attempted with the teens I worked with during the last two years in Katutura, Namibia was a photography class. The idea was that I would explain how cameras work; bring a half dozen of my vintage cameras for them to examine and touch; explain basic principles of photography, and then I’d show them how to make simple pinhole cameras per the instructions at Matchboxpinhole.com. I planned to donate about $100 to cover some of the supplies, plus the film, development, scanning, and eventual printing of the best shots.
I’ll just start up front with the basic lesson to be learned from all of this: before you spend your money and time teaching kids how to do something, try doing it yourself first.
The instructions on matchboxpinhole.com seemed simple enough. I copied all the great photos they provide onto a power point file so the kids could see exactly how everything needed to be done.
But as we went along, we realized everything was taking longer than we had planned. and at the end we were really rushing to get some sort of working camera, but we never really covered the instructions in detail. Twenty kids, working in pairs, were to make ten pinhole cameras and were supposed to work together to take 36 or so pictures on each camera and bring them back a week later. I figured 360 photos, we’d end up with at least a few really cool ones.
Almost immediately, we ran into problems. While I’d been giving the class, the kids had been fiddling with the take-up film cartridges, and about half of them had wound the little bit of film we needed to attache the new roll to, inside the cartridge. Lucky I had a dozen or so extra. But then, as we taped the new film to the take-up cartridges and the kids started winding the film, the tape came off 5 or 6 of them where the film was connected to the short bit, and those also ended up being wound inside the cartridge. So I came up with the last few spare cartridges.
In the end we had ten somewhat functional cameras and the kids had instructions to bring them back a week later. After a week, five of them brought them back and I took them in for development. I came back a few days later and the film processing folks gave me the bad news: no photos on the film, which I passed on to the kids.
Except a few days later I decided to have a look myself and discovered there actually WERE (sort of) images on the film. So I had to go back and tell the photo lab, “listen I know it doesn’t look like much, but please just scan whatever is on the roll, regardless whether it meets your standards.”
Below is a sample of what the kids ended up with. Some of them are pretty cool and interesting. But I decided to go back and make a matchbox pinhole camera of my own – something I should have done before the class – and I’ll share those photos (if I get any) in a later post. While you’re waiting, you can check out some other pinhole photography on Flickr.
Not long ago, I was looking for a way to cut down on the 7-week turnaround for black and white film processing I’ve had to deal with in Namibia (3 weeks to the U.S., 1 week for processing at Blue Moon Camera, and 3 weeks to get back to me). I was referred to a Danish photographer who has been described as someone who doesn’t consider digital photography to be “real” photography (I’m not sure if it’s true but it makes him seem more colorful). He agreed to process my film if I brought more than one roll – so I brought him eight. Four were “found film” rolls and six were mine. The first thing he asked was what were the settings I had used to take the photos. “No settings” I said. He insisted there must have been f-stop and shutter speed settings, which he’d need to develop the film. I tried my best to explain that these were from cameras that generally had a single button – the shutter release. When he refused to accept this, I brought in my cameras.
This is the Kodak Baby Brownie Special. It turns out there is an f-stop setting and a shutter speed setting – it’s f/11 and about 1/40th of a second. Manufactured around 1950, it cost $1.25 at the time and was an improvement over its predecessor, the Baby Brownie. The Baby Brownie had only cost a buck, but lacked a viewfinder and had a shutter button that was slightly trickier to work:
My new Danish friend accepted the challenge and agreed to process the film, saying he would cut a small piece of each film to test it and ensure the best possible results. In the end I got photos from all but two of the rolls – discovering that one of my own vintage cameras appears to have a light leak. But some of the best photos were from this buck-twenty-five plastic camera, which I had taken along on a trip to the Cape of Good Hope. Here’s a sample of what we ended up with:
Here’s one from the streets of Cape Town:
And a photo of Cape Town’s Ritz hotel, just a few blocks from the beach:
I tried to capture breaking waves, with mixed results:
This is a directional sign next to the lighthouse that sits out on the Cape peninsula:
And lastly, my favorites from the bunch – photos of the end of the Cape itself:
The latest photos in my “found film” series is a set of four 6 x 6 cm photos from an unknown camera.
These show a family trip to the beach – possibly but not necessarily memorable – but they won’t be remembering them from the photos they took that day, because they never saw their photos and will unfortunately have to rely on their memories.
It looks like “Johnny” and “Susie” dressed up in their Sunday Best that day and took a ride in their 1960 Pontiac (thanks, Ed, for identifying that one) out to a beach with a long pier and what appear to be seashells. We don’t know how old the car was at the time, but judging from the snappy hat and clashing shirt “Pops” is wearing by the trunk of the car, I’d say the care was pretty new at the time – which would make these photographs over 50 years old. See anyone you recognize?
I’ve published a few posts recently about “found film” – old rolls of film that pop up from time to time, of unknown age and origin. This set of photos seems to be from a family fishing trip They are all 6 x 6 cm negatives on 120 film, which means there would have been 12 on the roll, but it seems only 4 images turned out after all this time.
Back in the day when these were taken, there doesn’t appear to have been a 2- or 3-fish limit! Nice catch, grandpa!
In the second photo, the proud patriarch looks on as junior seems to be cleaning the catch. Notice how junior’s hair is neatly and stylishly brylcreem’ed back, even though they’re on a fishing trip. Maybe someone else is on the trip who he’s trying to impress?
OK look, there are only 12 exposures on this roll – could you kindly step back while I’m taking pictures?
Here’s a fun thing to do. Well, I think it’s fun. Most people I talk to just give me an odd look when I tell them about “found film”.
Occasionally on eBay you’ll see a listing for “exposed film” from an unknown age and camera. Or, like what happened to me, you’ll find a roll that has inadvertently been left inside an old camera. And then you wonder what memories might have been captured by someone, maybe half a century ago, and simply forgotten.
So here’s a roll we found inside an old Ansco B2 Cadet. This is a box camera manufactured in the 1940s – no telling when the photos were taken.
There were only a few good photos on the roll, likely due to age. Back then you would snap 8 pictures I guess, and just hope for the best.
The picture is very dim, but were these to little guys posing with mom? Are they siblings or just best friends?
Whatever the case, the one little guy seems pretty proud of that hat. I would be too – it’s pretty snazzy! And I love how they used the rule of thirds, even way back then.
Being new to film photography, I had never heard of “redscale photography” until I spotted this on on Flickr and had to know how he had gotten this effect:
Wanting to try it out on my own, I did a bit of research and discovered that the “redscale film” being offered by some vendors is really nothing other than ordinary film, run through the camera backward – i.e. so the light goes through the film before it hits the emulsion. So I went down to the garage (the darkest room at my house but from the film results maybe not quite dark enough) and wound a roll of 35mm film backward into a discarded roll. (Here’s how I made my own redscale film) Then I loaded it into an old Ricoh Kr-5 and started shooting. When I got my film back, a number of the photos in the middle and beginning of the roll were ruined (overexposed), but I think that was due to errors in the process of reversing the film.
What I learned from the photos that did turn out is that a bit of underexposure (or smaller aperture) increases the redscale effect. Take these, for instance:
The one on the left is almost like it was taken using normal film. I think the aperture was something like f/5.6.
This is another example:
In this case, you can underexpose too much, but there is something to be said for the darkest photo. Kind of like this one:
Here are the rest of the “better” photos on this roll:
Oh yeah – when you take a photo backward through the film, everything gets flipped in reverse!
Here’s a fun trick to try at night if you own a camera that can take 30 second exposures, a decent, fully-charged camera battery, and a tripod. This is not the best example, but it’s what you should be able to get on your first attempt, with about 25 minutes’ worth of shooting.
To get effective star trails, you’ll want to go somewhere where you can avoid ambient city light, airplanes taking off from an airport, strong moonlight, things like that. Too much ambient light will make the stars more difficult to see, and if something passes through your shot it will create stray lines.
So now what? first, it’s best to find your “celestial pole.” This is an imaginary point in the sky that aligns with the earth’s pole, and due to the earth’s rotation, all stars will appear to rotate around that point. In the photo above, it’s next to my head. How do you find your celestial pole?
If you live in the northern hemisphere, you’re looking for the north star, or Polaris. Most people know how to find the big dipper. Follow the imaginary line extending from the end of the dipper, and you’ll be led to Polaris, as in the diagram below:
In the southern hemisphere, where I currently live, it’s a bit trickier because there are no visible stars near the southern celestial pole. For this exercise, you’ll need to find the constellation Crux, also known as the Southern Cross:
Knowing roughly which direction is south is helpful. The diamond on the top right above is Crux. I find the southern celestial pole by taking the vertical axis of Crux, and following along an imaginary line extending through that axis and out the bottom. About 4.5 times the length of Crux’s axis down that line is where you’ll find the pole. Here’s another way in case my method doesn’t work for you.
Having the celestial pole somewhere in your photo makes it more interesting. As does having something on the ground – a bush, tree, or yourself. Or you can deliberately avoid the celestial pole. Just know that the stars will appear to rotate around the celestial pole.
Now you’ll want to set up your camera and tripod, and take a few sample photos. I would start with a mid-range f-stop and ISO setting. In the photo above, I used f/11 and ISO 800 just to try things out, but it will depend on your gear and how dark the sky is where you live. I think I need to use more like f/5.6 with ISO 800, but you’ll need to experiment. Set your exposure to 30 seconds and see what you get. What you want to see is a bunch of stars – any weird glow, or a completely dark sky and you need to change your settings.
Once you’ve got everything right, you’ll need to double check that your tripod is not going to wobble, double check your settings, and then, preferably using a remote or wire release, start taking 30-second exposures nonstop. If you have a way to do this automatically, great – or you can just do it manually, for at least half an hour. If you wait too long between exposures, you will get gaps in your trails. If your camera has a delay before it can take another photo, check to see that your noise reduction is turned off, you’re not taking RAW photos, or anything else that requires your camera to accomplish additional tasks. Worst case, you can try reducing the resolution of your photos. Using a remote is nice but not necessary. Slight jiggles of the camera on a 30-second exposure are not a big deal – just make sure you don’t shift the camera permanently.
If you want to put yourself in the photo, all you need is a flashlight to illuminate yourself, and then step briefly in front of the camera on one of the exposures. Later on, you can use Photoshop to clean up the stray star trails that will appear to run through you.
So now 30 minutes have gone by, and you should have about 60 photos. Now you will need to “stack” them – use a program to add all of the tiny trails together. You can do this picture-by-picture with Photoshop, or you can use several different programs. Startrails and StarStax are free, and Image Stacker costs 17 bucks (US).
Always happy for any additional advice. Meanwhile, check out these star trails on Flickr.
Update: Here’s another example. This is what can happen with too much ambient light, and forgetting to turn off autofocus!
I recently clashed with Giant Media Corporation Universal Studios over copyright, and lost. I probably could push it and win, but their lawyers can beat up my lawyers, and whether I’m right or wrong is probably irrelevant.
The argument was brokered by YouTube, whose interest is in remaining neutral so that Giant Media Corporations don’t sue them. Because a small company like YouTube and their parent company Google something-or-other don’t need to get dragged into this nonsense.
Look, copyright law is supposed to facilitate creativity, not stifle it. It facilitates creativity because it is supposed to ensure you don’t just rip everyone else off willy-nilly. If your work can just be stolen, you’re not going to put any effort into being creative. Few will, anyway. Some people are creative just to be creative, but the vast majority would like to earn a buck or two from it, if possible.
So there’s copyright, and then there’s this thing called “fair use.” It means there are times when you can expect to reasonably and legally use the work of others, and not have to worry about getting sued. Understanding and honoring fair use is more important than ever nowadays, when the power to create media that were previously only accessible to Giant Media Corporations has been distributed to the masses. Now that both information and creativity have been democratized (among those who can afford a laptop and some basic software), the Giant Media Corporations worry more than ever over their own well-being. If any schmoe can do what they do, what’s that going to do to stock prices?
And by the way, Fair Use is not just putting a disclaimer on your YouTube video. And it has nothing to do with whether you make money off what you create (or borrow). There is a pretty good “Best Practices for Online Video” document that has been put together by folks in the business. In that document, the first two questions you must ask yourself (because that’s what the judges will typically ask themselves when you’re hauled to court) are:
– Did the unlicensed use “transform” the material taken from the copyrighted work by using it for a different purpose than that of the original, or did it just repeat the work for the same intent and value as the original?
– Was the material taken appropriate in kind and amount, considering the nature
of the copyrighted work and of the use?
As the Best Practices guide concludes, if the answer to both questions is “yes”, you’re probably OK. But there are also other cases of Fair Use:
– Commenting on or critiquing of copyrighted material. Nowadays, you don’t have to be Gene Siskel to critique movies. Anyone can do it. As long as you don’t reproduce the entire movie under the guise of “critique” and actually say something (positive or negative) about it, you’re critiquing copyrighted material. In this case, reproducing an excerpt for illustration purposes is completely legal (I’m talking to you, Universal Studios!)
– Using copyrighted material for illustration or example. As in the example above, you are creating new content – you’re expressing thoughts or ideas, and it’s legal to use an appropriate amount of a copyrighted work to help clarify your point, whatever you’re talking about. This is how night-time comedians on cable TV make their money – did you think those news clips they use to make fun of politicians were not copyrighted? Of course they are! And Fair Use isn’t just for Jon Stewart.
– Capturing copyrighted material incidentally or accidentally. Videotaping your kids opening Christmas gifts and Nat King Cole is singing in the background? You may post the video on YouTube if you wish.
– Reproducing, reposting or quoting in order to memorialize, preserve, or rescue an experience, an event, or a cultural phenomenon. This one is a bit tricky. Can I record Bruce Springsteen in concert when he comes to town, and claim that I’m preserving an event or experience? I guess it’s about proportionality. I’ve done this, and so far Bruce hasn’t objected.
– Copying, reposting and recirculating a work or part of a work for purposes of launching a discussion. This could be, for example, posting a part of a movie on YouTube to prompt the discussion that ensues in the comments. For example, in the movie “Kind of a Funny Story”, you could show where they sing Queen’s “Under Pressure” and ask whether this is an effective technique. Oh, wait – that’s what Universal Studios objected to!
– Finally, you can quote in order to recombine elements to make a new work that depends for its meaning on (often unlikely) relationships between the elements. This is what you call a mash-up. Bush and Blair sing “Endless Love.”
Unfortunately, the way it works on YouTube is:
– you post a video you think qualifies for “fair use”
– the YouTube filter catches it, and the owner of the quoted work decides whether you may continue to share this work
– you have an opportunity to dispute the claim (after repeated warnings by YouTube that you could be mercilessly sued if you’re wrong in your claim)
– the owner of the quoted work decides if they agree with you or not.
In this case, Universal Studios decided they don’t agree I was critiquing the film “Kind of a Funny Story” or quoting for the purpose of stimulating discussion, so YouTube deleted the video, and sent me a Stern Warning to discourage me from pushing back. This is the email I got from YouTube:
Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to prevent this from happening, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube’s copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.
If one of your postings has been misidentified as infringing, you may submit a counter-notification. Information about this process is in our Help Center.
As much as I’d like to claim one for the little guy fighting the Giant Media Conglomerates who want to bully everyone else into accepting their version of copyright law, I’m not sure I have the energy to try and fight this all the way from southern Africa. And these things only turn out well in the movies.
Instead I’ll share a video by people whose ridiculous claim of “Fair Use” has not been disputed, and an a capella version of “Under Pressure” that no one has an issue with. Enjoy!
