Year: 2019
-
Voigtlander Vitoret: Test/Review
The Voigtlander Vitoret is a relatively inexpensive camera manufactured in the 1960s in Braunschweig, then-West Germany. It’s pretty simple compared to its fancier cousin, the Vito, and it came in different versions – with an exposure meter, rangefinder, and other features – but this is the simplest of them – set your aperture (f/2.8-f/22), shutter…
-
Yet Another Sh*tty Camera Challenge
If you spend any time on “film photography twitter” you’ll have heard about the CULT (allegedly) that is the Sh*tty Camera Challenge. The rules are simple: find a camera that costs less than a roll of film and see what you can do with it. This time around we were given a bit more time…
-
Found Film from the 1940s: Prudential!
Some of you who have looked at my blog once or twice are aware that I used to develop “found film” that was found undeveloped inside cameras, either that I had bought or that someone else had found inside a camera and didn’t know what to do with. Occasionally it would be a trove of…
-
Episode 3 of “Artisans” Published!
Eons ago (ok, October last year) I posted the first episode in a series of mini-documentaries about jobs in the informal sector in Madagascar, about the traveling blacksmiths that wander through the city repairing umbrellas, plastic tubs, roofs… A couple of weeks later, the second episode, about brickmakers. And then, for a long time, nothing.…
-
An Old Camera Gets a New Life
Admittedly, I own too many cameras. So when it was time to leave Madagascar, I invited a couple of friends – who happen to be the only other film photographers in Madagascar, as far as I know – to see if anything caught their attention. Safidy and Toni browsed my collection just days before they…
-
Memories of Favorite Places: Ile aux Nattes, Madagascar
Off the eastern coast of the island of Madagascar stretches a 57-kilometer long by 5 kilometers wide island, covered mostly in green and dotted with thatched-roof villages. Ile Sainte-Marie (Saint Marie’s Island), or Nosy Boraha, as it is known in the local Malagasy, is a popular destination among the whale watching community (see this post…
-
Introducing Kids in Madagascar to Photography: Results (3)
This is the third in series of posts in which I write about introducing kids to photography, using point-and-shoot film cameras from the 1980s and 90s, at the youth center, Le Cameleon, in Antananarivo, Madagascar. You can find previous posts in this series here, here and here. When it came time for the kids to choose their third…
-
Introducing Kids in Madagascar to Photography: Results (2)
This is one of a short series of posts in which I write about introducing kids to photography, using point-and-shoot film cameras from the 1980s and 90s, at the youth center, Le Cameleon, in Antananarivo, Madagascar. You can find previous posts in this series here and here. Previously I wrote about how we had sent the…
-
Introducing Kids in Madagascar to Photography: Results (1)
I wrote last time about the youth center, Le Cameleon, we crowdfunded and built in Antananarivo, Madagascar, and the project we organized to introduce a half dozen interested kids to photography, using point-and-shoot film cameras from the 1980s and 90s. I was excited and hopeful the kids would wind up with good results, because I…
-
Sharing our Passion: Kids in Madagascar Get a First Taste of Photography
A few years ago, I joined a couple of other folks with a passion for photography and an interest in doing something for the local community in Antananarivo, Madagascar. We collaborated to successfully crowdfund a small youth center that would cater to local vulnerable kids who, for whatever reason, were not attending school. Thanks to…
-
Visit to Isalo National Park, Madagascar
Shortly before leaving Madagascar after having lived there for more than three years, I finally made it to Isalo National Park, which is one of the premier tourist destinations in country, and one I would have regretted missing out on. My wife and daughter had visited this huge national park, established in 1962, which incorporates…
-
One Last Trip – “Lemur Island”
Given today’s justifiable flak surrounding the keeping of pet lemurs or the existence of lemur “petting zoos” that rely on capturing lemurs from the wild, Madagascar’s “Lemur Island” (officially “Vakona Private Reserve”) near Andasibe-Mantadia National Park is seen by some as controversial. The reserve consists of several different islands (lemurs don’t cross water) criss-crossed with…
-
Off the Beaten Path in Vatomandry, Madagascar
You could live in Madagascar – for as long as three years – and have trouble getting to see all of the on the beaten path things there are to see in that country–in fact, that’s what I just did, and I can confirm this. But for one of my final posts on traveling in…
-
Testing Kentmere 400 Film
I’m not sure why I’ve never really heard of this film – most online discussion refers to it as a “cheaper” film produced by Ilford Photo, but I was quite impressed. I found the tones and the grain very pleasant, and found the results nicely balanced despite having shot both day and night, indoor, outdoor,…
-
Locust Swarm in Madagascar
Shortly after arriving in Madagascar a few years ago, we watched the BBC’s Planet Earth II episode in which a film crew found it amazingly difficult to track down a swarm containing more than a billion of the tiny, destructive creatures. Apparently, it can be surprisingly difficult to find and film them. We had also…
-
Camera Review: the Pho-Tak Traveler 120
Never heard of the Pho-Tak Corporation and the cameras they manufactured around 1948-1950 in Chicago? Neither had I, until I unwrapped this Christmas gift from my daughter, who sparked my interest in vintage cameras about 6 years ago. It’s a solid little tank of a camera, made almost entirely of metal, with a worn black…
-
Ektachrome Returns!
I followed with interest the hype surrounding the re-release by Kodak Alaris of Ektachrome 100 slide film, announced in early 2017, after having been completely phased out by 2013. Honestly, initially I wasn’t that interested, but as time wore on I become more intrigued as to what the slide film might offer. When the long-awaited…
-
Rice Harvest in Antananarivo
After three years living in Antananarivo, you gradually stop noticing the things that you found so fascinating and unique about this city as a newcomer. Antananarivo is a city of 1.5 million people. It has a downtown – an older, French-looking “haute ville” (high city) – cobblestone roads running along, over, and under the hills…
-
Great News: Jerome is Learning English and Coding!
Way back in 2016 when I was still new to Madagascar, Anne and I saw an online notice that a crowdfunding initiative on the eastern coast of the country was looking for a photographer and a videographer to produce a crowdfunding video and associated imagery to support a project (at the time still unnamed) to…