For the last few years when we've gone to Massachussets to visit Andy and Kristin, I've brought along a medium format camera, in this case The Crackon, but never made any exposures with it. Most historic sites and museums have draconian "no tripods on the grounds" rules, so I make do with the 35mm Populists and pocketable tripods.
I took The Crackon and the full sized tripod to Newport, Rhode Island and bought it along when we went on the seaside Cliff Walk. The sky was mostly blank but this cloud appeared near the end of the walk. I broke the streak and had at least one photograph for the trouble of bringing the camera.
The following Friday was possibly the last day for a bike ride in shorts and sandals so I headed for Lake Winnebago. Another in the series of trees in the gap between Ames Point and Monkey Island. Usually the geese slowly move away as I set up the tripod, but this time they just stayed there as close as they've ever let me get to them. The picture's still in the camera but this happened to me again a couple days ago on the riverwalk.
In the windows of Venue 404, formerly the grand lobby of the First National Bank, this view camera was spotlit by the sun. I wonder if it's a prop or gets used at the fancy dress-up events. Nice tripod.
Lewis Hine, one of pioneers of documentary photography, grew up in Oshkosh. A while ago I noted that the interesting alley behind the historic lower 400 block of Main Street would have been brand new when he lived in town. Little did I know that I was photographing the back door of his parent's restaurant which is now Jambalaya Arts. They recently got a historic plaque installed on the front of the building and with the help of files from the George Eastman Museum, printed a representative exhibit of his work. I always think about how in often risky situations, he had to be working on a tripod with sheets of film, or glass plates, which were just barely faster than today's photographic paper.
As I spoke to the Artist Member in attendance, he reminded me that the Art Alley Market was the next day. Last summer I took the Manic Expression Cube with Antique Tri-X to it and found a lot of very willing-to-be-photographed people and had great fun doing portraits. With all their colorful fashion and coiffure, the little grainy black and white negatives didn't do them justice. That would be good project for medium format color.
Everyone I asked was more than willing to let me photograph them, getting pretty close-up with the tripod and wide-angle camera. I mostly asked them to stay as they were, just don't get up and leave until I close the shutter. It was just assumed that what I was doing was creating a piece of art and they were happy to collaborate. Everyone thought the home-made camera was cool, but no one was surprised by it.
Thank you all very much.
Although I gave everyone my card, I only picked up one and I don't remember whose that was. (Hi, Kelly Coutley, www.etsy.com/shop/bluemoonart13). Please identify yourself if you wish and link to your page in the comments below.
Last year the only persons within three decades of my age were the parents of one of the people in the band. This time it was the band (well, there was one other).
I'm pretty sure these two were costumed as the White Rabbit and Alice, but the cool weather in the shaded wind-tunnel alley required additional insulation.
The painter, a graduate of UW Milwaukee, and his companion, who began to leave the picture but assented when I said she was part of the story. They both moved their heads slightly and thought it was cool that their faces would be slightly smeared. I always ask people where they went to school because I probably know their professors if it's UW Oshkosh.
An artist drawing on an iPad with an Apple pencil.
In the upper right corner of that last picture, across the alley. We conversed about how I could have photographed the interesting clothing the young people wear that was now under a hoodie. I said some of the protection from the cold looked pretty interesting.
Art is a family affair. It was notable that almost everyone assumed an expression that could be held for the duration of the exposures, five to thirteen seconds. Especially the daughter, who was smiles and eagerness when I asked her for permission to take her photograph, snapped into a face worthy of a Vogue cover as the shutter was opened.
A clothier interacting with the buyers and her friends across the parking lot while her wares sway in the wind.
I once rebuked the editor of the college literary magazine who, in a photo essay of a play a friend of mine was directing, removed the one picture of her friends in the audience, waiting in the lobby. These two friends of the dress maker were waiting in the warmer sunshine for me to finish taking her picture.
The Crackon has two .27mm pinholes on the axis and 13mm above it (these were all done with the axial pinhole), 45mm from a 6x6cm frame. The film is Lomography 400 developed in an Arista.edu liquid quart C41 kit.
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