Author: Tom (Admin)
-
Testing the Agfa Silette Rapid F
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…
-
Documenting the Dhobis
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…
-
Found Film Friday: Fungus
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…
-
Check Out my Entries for the B&H Wilderness Photo Contest!
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…
-
The Best Chowkidar in the Universe
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…
-
Short Film: Kinabatangan
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…
-
Found Film Friday: An Airman in Syracuse
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…
-
A Story Behind Every Picture
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…
-
Found Film Friday: Clyde, Texas
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…
-
Two Towers, Two Cameras, Two Views on Photography
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…
-
Greeting the New Year in Kuala Lumpur
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…
-
Mylapore’s Annual Kolam Contest
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…
-
Found Film Friday: Trip to Germany
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…
-
Found Film Friday: Bill
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…
-
Christmas Photowalk
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…
-
Hanging Around in Hyderabad (Post #3)
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…
-
Hanging Around in Hyderabad (2nd Post)
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…
-
Found Film Friday: Bill’s Party
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…
-
The Argus Seventy-Five: Great Photos for a So-Called “Toy” Camera
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…
-
Hanging Around in Hyderabad
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…
-
Shooting with the Kodak Retina 1a
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…
-
Found Film Friday: Bill Goes to a Wedding
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…
-
Testing the Zeiss Ikon Ikonta A 521
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…
-
Shooting with the Ansco Anscoflex
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…