Year: 2013
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Matchbox Pinhole Camera II
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…
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Denver Photo Essay
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…
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In Search of my Camera’s Original Owner
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…
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Matchbox Pinhole Camera Project
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…
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Fun with a Baby Brownie
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…
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Found Film: Day at the Beach
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…
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Found Film: Gone Fishing
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…
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Found Film: Check out my Hat
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…
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Redscale Photography – First Attempts
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…
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Fun Photography Trick: Star Trails
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…
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Namibia: Street View
I don’t think we really have Google Street View in Namibia just yet. In fact, I don’t believe they have worked out where the different house numbers are on the streets – GPS systems just get you to the right street, and the rest is up to you. So I took a drive through Windhoek…
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Vintage Cameras in Cape Town
There’s a guy in Windhoek who teaches black-and-white photography who mentioned that there is a big vintage camera shop in Cape Town. He didn’t remember the name of the place, but as we were headed down there we thought we’d check it out. A bit of investigation on Google revealed this camera repair shop that…
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What is it with computer company customer service these days? (I’m talking about you, Toshiba and Dell!)
I’m seeing a lot of reports these days lamenting lagging computer sales, and theorizing why that might be. I’m of the opinion that a big part of the reason is customer service. These days, it seems that more and more, when you speak to computer companies’ customer service and sales departments, you’re confronted with people…
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Digitally enhancing analog photos – is it cheating?
The whole “back to basics” photography movement, with its return to analog film and (in some cases) cheap plastic lenses has a kind of purity about it that doesn’t mesh well with all of the computer-aided post-processing of photos we have come to take for granted. We have computer programs that know how to automatically…
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First photos from an 80-year-old box camera
Some time ago my oldest daughter picked up an old Kodak box camera at a yard sale, and it sat ignored on a shelf for years until I decided to get my hands on some 120 film and an old 620 film spool and see what kind of pictures the old camera might deliver. While the…
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Found Film: the Fun Begins
So in all of this business of acquiring really old cameras, here’s something I recently learned. There are lots of old cameras lying around in peoples’ attics that still have film in them. And frequently they end up on eBay or in collectible shops, without anyone checking if there is still film inside. This happened…
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Diptic: The Coolest Photo App Ever (With a Mediocre Name)
Ever want to share a bunch of photos, but couldn’t make up your mind which? Whether you post on Facebook or attach them to an email, it would be great to combine a bunch of related shots into a single image. The app, “Diptic” (available on Apple devices and Android) lets you do exactly that.…
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Camera Lucida – Get Yours Now!
What if you could use a simple device with a prism to “trace” an object on paper that was actually in front of you. Would this revolutionize how we do art? It turns out that according to theory, that’s exactly how many of the 19th Century masters created their great works of art. And a…
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Lomography: Remembering the 70s with a Ricoh Kr-5
I just got back the first set of photos from my “newest old camera”, a Ricoh Kr-5 dating from around 1975. It’s a thing of beauty, especially when I think of the cameras I personally owned in the late 1970s and the 1980s. It was a steal on eBay, coming with a “1970s brown” nylon…
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Check out Namibia’s ‘Shishani’
One of Namibia’s rising young talents needs your help! Namibian musicians have a hard time “breaking out” – primarily as a result of Namibia’s small population – just over two million, around the same size as the city of Houston! Namibia also has one of the biggest income disparities in the world, which means that…
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Um…is that an accent I hear?
Ever come across a North American accent you couldn’t quite place? Well now, there’s an easy chart to figure it out. Someone has gone to the trouble of mapping it all out, using things like, do they pronounce “pin” and “pen” the same way… It includes audio samples to help better understand the accent descriptions.…
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Found memories…and a lost roll of film
Here’s a fun mystery to try and solve. For my (recent) birthday, my kids went down to Otto’s, the local “junk and curiosities” dealer and picked out for me the newest additions to my growing vintage camera collection. In addition, my youngest was excited to have found an original box for the Agfa Billy Compur…
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Build Your Own Plant Host Drone
I recently posted about drones and how they’re being used. Here’s a much more humble drone – one that simply moves plants around your house to take advantage of changing sunlight. For the cost of $10-$15 (and a bit of know-how, which is of course priceless) you too can own one of these. Find the…
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Got Drones?
Lately there has been increasing mention of the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for unexpected purposes. For example, both India and Namibia have been experimenting with the use of UAVs to control poaching, thanks to a $5 million grant given by Google to the WWF. Here’s a video showing how it works in Namibia (here’s…