When Photo Opp scheduled a photowalk in downtown Oshkosh, it put me in a quandary. Part of the fun of these events is to go somewhere you've never been and discover compositions as they appear before you. I've spent years riding around in downtown Oshkosh exposing hundreds of frames. I decided to concentrate on people and their cameras. The Sunday afternoon weather forecast predicted long exposures, and maybe we'd be hanging out in a bar. That called for Lomography 800 in my fastest camera, the Variable Cuboid with the f100 20mm front. It's also my widest camera, with a 113-degree angle of view. Every little bit of this speed was necessary.
A 35mm Populist also went along but that's another blog post.
Host Graham Washatka's preamble was briefer than usual because he wanted to get back into the conversation with some first-time walkers who brought a film SLR and a Holga.
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A group headed down to the event space in the large atrium led by Giles La Rock and his Hasselblad.
About half the people who participate in these walks do at least some event photography, so this environment is pretty normal.
Mark Ferrell advancing his original Nikkormat after taking my photograph.
The group from that earlier conversation emerged from Becket's with multiple camera straps across most shoulders.
This time, I was the hometown boy. We chatted about how to get to the Fox River and historic Main Street. I glanced up and saw Graham on the parking structure on the roof of the City Center, which, based on signs on the entry ramp, I thought was forbidden for the general public. An architectural photography pro and fan of brutalism, he recognized one of the doors as the bottom of an open staircase with no signage at all.
Technical pinhole serendipity note: Despite the odds against it, the lights from the bridge are perfectly reflected in one lens of his glasses.
This happened with him once before.
Looking to find photographers in the wild, I set out up Main Street and found Almon Benton and Brandi Grahl in Opera Square with a Linhof field camera and a Leica M6. There's probably a Leica over his shoulder as well.
This walk's unintentional double exposure. On my return, there was nobody else at Becket's to photograph. Well, I'm a person too! A self-portrait enjoying a club soda around the fire pit, the most brightly lit spot in the room. Graham arrived and took my photograph as I closed the shutter, which it seems distracted me from winding the film. Later, Almon set the shiny Linhof right in front of me. The opportunity of a stationary subject was too compelling. Not a bad abstract composition, but I'd rather have the two pictures.
A late group returned and sat sort-of in the light. At least two flash exposures of the table by the door occurred, which it appears did nothing for my film.
The following Saturday was the
From Our Streets gallery opening and festive gala fundraiser at Photo Opp, showing off the renovations...
and what still needs to be done. Here, five friends converse around a table waiting for my exposure, one to the left taking a call, and on the right someone arriving to show a photograph.
The place was tastefully strewn with paraphernalia, like this sturdy 4x5 Calumet view camera, which was the camera they checked out to students when I was in grad school.
In a comfy moderately well-lit place to sit, these folks agreed to stay put for a five-minute exposure.
The 20mm front for the Variable Cuboid has a .20mm Gilder electron microscope aperture. The Lomo 800 was developed in an Arista.edu Liquid Quart C41 kit.
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