Beautiful Bokeh

Living in Stereo

~brf

View-Master blew my mind as a kid.  I thought it was so cool that by viewing two tiny, nearly-identical images- one for each eye- I could experience a hyper-realism that somehow looked more authentic and vivid than the same image appeared using only my own eyeballs.  I finally got the opportunity to pick up a 3D camera of my own and have spent the last few months and countless rolls of film experimenting.

I bought a TDC Colorist- a fairly standard, relatively inexpensive stereo camera produced in the late 1950’s.  No rangefinder, but for this kind of stereo photography the depth-of-field is more important than precise focusing.  It’s an extraordinarily simple technique:  Two exposures are made simultaneously and from a distance apart that more or less matches the distance between the average person’s eyes.  When seen simultaneously through a viewer- a single image per eye- the ‘stereo’ effect is created. Groovy.

Stereo photography is nearly as old as photography itself:  By the mid to late 1800s it was already a hugely popular form of entertainment as a means for people to experience foreign lands, cultures, and events.  Oh yeah- and porn.  Lots and lots of porn.  Being relatively cheap and inexpensively mailed, it was an easily accessible amusement for most anyone interested in most any subject.  Advantageous, too, that the stereograms could be handily concealed within the pages of a book or gentleman’s wallet.

Stereo photography seemed a natural companion to my affinity for roadside attractions so I have been taking the Colorist along on any adventure where we might encounter a souvenir stand or anything weird, wonderful, and made of concrete.  The choice of subject matter plus use of ultra-vivid, super-saturated color slide film has been delivering delightful results.

I asked CW to pair these sets for me and describe the best way to view: 

"If you have some talent viewing random dot stereograms (those posters of 3D sailboats and unicorns and stuff you used to find at the mall) you can see the 3D effect of these images right here on the screen without any goggles or viewers. Hold your head about 18" or so from your display, make sure your eyes are level (don't tilt your head), and defocus your eyes until you see a 3rd image between the two: that middle image will be in 3 dimensions. If you can do it, it's awesome. If you can't, sorry... it's hard for some people." 

This relaxed eye-crossing method of viewing stereograms doesn’t work for me- I find it tedious and a little uncomfortable, but evidently most people have no problem.  I use an awesome illuminated viewer that really makes the slides look great, and an old-timey stereoscope for printed cards.

Badlands Brutalism

When I was studying architecture, one of my favorite styles was one that was really unpopular with all my fellow students: Brutalism. I liked the fact that those buildings had surfaces that looked like they would cut you if you touched them, but were simultaneously beautiful and inviting. I guess whatever part of my brain that draws me to that sort of thing is why I love the Badlands of South Dakota so much. It's hard to imagine more brutal terrain, but to my eyes it's also absolutely beautiful and other-worldly. Even the plant life that is badass enough to survive there has the same don't-mess-with-me look to it.

Thankless Speedwork: Domestic Pros in MPLS

Being a pro bike racer in Europe is one of the hardest jobs in the world. The doping scandals over the past several years have made it even tougher still. But at least in Europe the compensation is still good, the race locations are still sexy, the crowds are still big, and the admiration is still there.

But being a domestic pro in the US, even at the top level is almost as hard physically but they get little money, little love, and have to race on a lot of really boring roads. I don't know how they do it.

Recently the domestic pro peloton came to Minnesota's biggest race, the Nature Valley Grand Prix, and Brenda and I watched these guys turn themselves inside-out on the downtown Minneapolis streets. I hope most of the crowd understood just how impressive the show was.

Everybody seemed fascinated with the bad boys of Rock Racing though, especially David Clinger's facial tattoo.

New Favourite Photo

~brf

Perhaps the best CW photo in circulation.

Leica! Leica! Leica!

~brf

CW has been really wanting to upgrade his Nikon body to a D3 or D300 (don’t ask me what the difference is other than a few grand). While we were visiting his parents in Tanzania, his dad Charles took a keen interest in CW’s photography magazines brought along for the trip. One morning we awoke to find that he had evidently been up all night reading and researching the assorted pros and cons of both the D3 and D300, and before even a “Good morning” he declared “Chris, you should buy the 300 and use the money you save to get a Leica for Brenda”. I must have the best in-laws ever; I swear I had no hand in this whatsoever. End result: Leica for me! The whole tale involves some ingenious furtive planning on CW’s part to keep me from pitching a fit over yet another sizeable gear purchase as well as some impressive sneaking on the Leica acquisition itself, but as the whole thing is very complicated I won’t elaborate (not to mention that although I am absolutely certain that the wool has somehow been pulled over my eyes on this matter, I have yet to fully understand how exactly he got away with it).

It’s a model IIIa with a serial number indicating a production date of 1937, and came with an uncoated 5cm Wetzlar Summitar lens. This camera is gorgeous. Perfect. I can’t believe it’s over 70 years old. It works beautifully, fits my hands better than any other camera I own, and the sound of the shutter tripping makes the hairs stand up on my arm. So many reasons to love:

It has historical significance: The Leica screw-mounts were of monumental importance both in photojournalism and in establishing 35mm as a legitimate format.
It has a high difficulty rating: Loading is a bitch to get the hang of. Seriously. You need patience, faith, and scissors.
It’s portable: Being small or medium-format, all my cameras are portable but this one with its collapsible lens slips into a pocket almost as handily as the Perkeo.
It’s a rangefinder: Clear, flawless, smooth focusing.
It’s a looker: Chrome, chrome, chrome, and badass, hyper-precise machined bits all over the place.
Its a 70 year old Leica: Huge elitist pride factor here.
It makes great pictures: Still in the getting-to-know-each-other phase, but early results are awesome.

I love this camera the way I love my Thunderbird- with a curious, illogical, ill-defined affection and visceral pride that extends into a longing for its safety. When I fly, I hold the Leica in my hand for takeoff and landing because I think it will be safer there than stowed in my carryon in the event of a water landing or other untoward airline event. Also like my car, it has a name. I will not disclose it.

I must admit I do miss the monster 6x6 negatives, but because the little Leica rubs so many of my other camera love buttons I am sure I’ll have no trouble embracing small format.

What Leakey Saw

Or, why I brought only dubious antique cameras to one of the best photo opportunities in the world.

I don’t know what cameras the Leakeys carried with them during their research in Tanzania in the 50s, but it is rumoured that Dr. Leakey complained bitterly about faulty bellows ruining his photographs.

Leakey Camp at Olduvai Gorge, mid-50s

Let me begin by explaining ‘what the hell I am thinking’ since that is an inquiry I have received several times about this matter.

I stomped my foot on the ‘real film only’ issue several years ago, just as digital kits started getting good enough to take proper photos and inescapably joined the endless technology race track to which we have all grown accustomed with our computers, televisions and toothbrushes. I am impressed with these technological advances in photography, just as I am impressed with my MacBook and new printer and the sonic toothbrush that keeps my teeth clean. The digital camera thing, however, doesn’t do it for me. I want a box with film in it and a little iris that gets bigger and smaller at my command. I understand this. I don’t understand how autofocus and vibration reduction works; it’s like black magic. I don’t know why suddenly ‘white balance’ is something to pay attention to and getting it right has critical impact on how your images turn out. I am sad that four gigs of memory and 60 shots in ten seconds have made the Decisive Moment irrelevant. In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit to conceding the inconvenience of a wet darkroom. I have a proper lab do all my processing and I handle the post-processing and printing in a digital darkroom with a fancy-pants scanner and printer. It works okay, but I definitely feel the pain of some lost resolution and other, intangible film qualities by finishing digitally. It hurts, but I am lazy.

My ‘film only’ rule evolved into a ‘classic cameras only’ rule, which in turn has fueled the growth of a steadily expanding collection of boxes with film in them. There is much discussion about what makes a camera classic. My benchmark used to be “before WWII”, then “older than I am”. Now it is a vague “anything before 1980 that is not an SLR and does not require batteries” category that permits me to buy nearly any contraption that captures my fancy and doesn’t upset my bank account. A few of them suck. Some take obsolete film that is now prohibitively expensive. I truly love them all.

When we decided to go to Tanzania I knew I would be using my old film cameras. Chris has a fancy-pants Nikon kit with monster lenses and all the aforementioned voodoo technology that enables a photographer to capture the bits of zebra fur clinging to a lion’s tonsils. He is damn good at using this kit and takes beautiful photos; I knew I could count on him to shower us in scores of stunning National Geographic style images. Me? Not so much. My cameras are more the “Hemingway got drunk in Kenya and rolled over on the Kodak again” variety, and I love them for that. I love the grittiness of film and the way sometimes no matter how careful I am the results still aren’t in sharp focus. I love the limitations: Inaccurate or nonexistent rangefinder, few (or two!) apertures, the expense of film and slow, one-at-a-time-then-wind shutter release that makes me take care, think about each shot and wait for the right moment. I love that for some reason, inexplicably, shots taken with my cameras look like they were taken with a vintage camera. Do I get frustrated and miss some awesome shots because I can’t take bursts or because the film winder is hung up or I have done something stupid? All. The. Time. Mostly the something stupid part. Do I also sometimes get some pretty good shots because I’m not carrying a hand cannon and no one notices I am taking their picture, or because they are interested in my crazy antique, or because I am patient and sneaky as hell? Absolutely. The lions don’t give a shit, but it sure can make a difference with the humans. Knowing I have fewer ‘chances’ makes me thoughtful about every time I press the shutter, even for landscapes or trees or stickerbushes or hippos.

When CW was busy fussing with with his giant lens to capture the elephants that would be only specs to my cameras, I got to watch them at my leisure and up close with kickass binoculars; no pressure. Or I could shoot the landscape, the ugly bird on the roof of the truck, and Chris at work with his kit. In fact, I wonder if I maybe got to actually see more stuff than he did.

CW near Lobo Lodge,Serengeti. Agfa Clack.

Hunting grounds, dry lake bed in the Serengeti. Voigtlander Perkeo.

I deviated a little from the cameras I originally planned to take. The Retina was left behind in a huff, and the Clack made the Holga seem redundant. A new acquaintance on Photo.net, Minh Nguyen, generously lent me a 616 Kodak he had converted to 120 format and it was so marvelous that I have sent him my own 616 to convert.

The verdict:

Agfa Clack: Truly a box with film in it. We took both horrid and great photos together, as usual. No regrets.

Serengeti Hippo Pool, Agfa Clack

Voigtlander Perkeo: I really love this camera and it performed as well as I allowed it to. It’s new to me so perhaps we need to get to know each other a little better, and I clearly need to practice my “squint and wing it” method of range finding. The Perkeo is beautiful. Hot, even. I am in love with it but we do not yet understand each other.

Serengeti,Voigtlander Perkeo

Yashica 44: This was a sure thing. It works pretty much just like my YashicaMat but is soooo little and cute and fun to use. Its small size magnifies its stealth capabilities; almost no one notices when you are shooting from the waist. The only drawback is not having a 127 mask for the scanner so it’s a trick to get the negatives digitally archived- someday I’ll fabricate something.

Yashica 44

Converted Kodak 616: Surprise hit! Minh’s loaner arrived the day before our departure. I love these old folders, and Minh’s is much nicer than my (currently useless) 616. This thing makes MONSTER negatives at 6x12cm. Amazing. It was so much fun I am sending my 616 Jiffy to Minh for conversion. It’s not as nice as his, but will be good fun.

Serengeti, Kodak 616 converted to 120 Panorama

-brf

St. Patrick's Day Parade

Usually we hide from anything to do with St. Patrick's day because it's been our experience that most people who celebrate it in the states aren't, in fact,
Irish, and are only looking for an excuse to carouse and drink all day. But the fact that there is a large contingent of people in St. Paul who are of genuine Irish decent made it seem worth checking out the parade.

Naturally there were tons of annoying overgrown frat-boy posers present, but that was more than made up for by the far more interesting "real" Irish who were all letting their green hair down. We also loved that though it was a parade, there were no floats to speak of; in fact, it was mostly just thousands of people walking down the street together for seven blocks. They were all dressed up festively for the occasion but so were the spectators so it was hard to tell sometimes who was in the parade and who wasn't.

Another cool thing about parades that I hadn't thought about was that since the spectators all have cameras and all the paraders were kind of "on exhibition" by definition, it was easy to get candid portraits. No sneaking required.

Days 4-11: Bunda

Much to my relief, my parents, as it turns out, do not live in a tiny grass hut. Seriously, I really had no idea what kind of living conditions to expect, but I definitely was not expecting them to live in a big, nice house with drinkable water, a normal kitchen and two bathrooms (one with a huge tub). I also had no idea their property was basically a large multi-building compound including several cabannas for visiting guests (we got to say in the house proper on a bed my mom had custom made to be long enough to fit me :).

One of the cabanas for guests.

There's also a schoolhouse, where my Mom teaches kids in direct competition to the local school system (where the teachers cane the kids. Eeek). There's a hut specially made for a giant hammock, and various other buildings whose purpose wasn't explained. They have a large staff as well. I'd heard about this, and wasn't quite sure how I felt about it until I saw the real situation. The people who work for my family literally love them, and feel very much part of the family. It was awesome seeing them giving my dad shit in swahili all the time, and laughing at his bad jokes...it's pretty cool. Also very reassuring since it's obvious they'd do anything for them if something bad happened.

The village itself is very safe which was also reassuring, but I did learn that it's not entirely safe late at night and especially on the weekends when people have been drinking. Apparently these are the circumstances which encourage "thieves armed with machetes" behavior. Also to be considered is the villagers' tendency to "collect" things. No one considers it stealing; if a person needs a thing and that thing is just sitting there for the taking, one would be crazy not to take it home, right? As a clearly prudent precautionary measure, the Wiggins compound is surrounded by not one, but two fences, forming a kind of dry moat. But the coolest part is that at night, they let the dogs run around in that perimeter (evidently dogs are a really large deterrent in that part of the world, even the slobbering playful kind like these) and they have a security guy named Sampson who patrols the perimeter all night long armed with a fucking handmade bow and arrow. No kidding. He also has a hellofa badass look about him which, by itself, would probably cause a would-be hammock thief to drop his machete and bolt.

Bunda the village wears it's poverty on it's sleeve for sure, but there are some really big differences between poverty here and poverty I've seen elsewhere. A lot of poor places are filled with really cranky, pissed-off people who just radiate oppression and bitterness. I'm not judging them; I know I'd definitely be like that if I was living in a slum below the poverty line too. For some reason you don't see that in the people in Bunda at all. They are all incredibly easy-going, visibly happy and content, and even though their lives are difficult they honestly seem to really be enjoying them. The children are even happier and seem incredibly optimistic.

Being the only white people in the entire village (aside from my parents) made us beyond conspicuous. It was palpable everywhere we went, way more than what I felt in Japan. It made getting candid shots very difficult, especially since the middle-aged adults (especially the women), aren't at all keen on getting their photo taken. Part of the problem was that we hadn't done our homework and learned enough swahili; definitely a mistake we will correct the next time we go. The kids loved it though, and the older folks were very accommodating and good-natured as long as we were respectful; in fact there is a separate, more gracious greeting in swahili for older people and they clearly appreciated our butchering attempts to use it.

One trick we discovered to get around the candid shot problem was that our favorite bar in town (ironically, the "Yankee Hotel & Bar") had these outdoor booths that were like little thatched-roof huts with small windows so we could sit in there hidden in shade, sipping our Kilimanjaro beers with our new local friend Thomas (not everybody has swahili names), shooting out the little windows. It was like a kind of hunter's blind and worked great!

Brenda shot John shooting some smirky children from our "blind"

We still definitely missed out on tons of opportunities because we didn't know enough swahili. Next time. But even so, we had an incredible time in the village and of course it was fantastic hanging with my family again. They were also meeting Brenda for the first time and that went great, but I knew it would. The best part about the entire trip has to be the fact that they are so obviously happy and loving life there, especially John. I was really nervous when they moved but I feel a lot better now that I've seen it first hand.

Day 3: Serengeti North

The third and final leg of the safari would be the longest, and take us all the way from Lobo Lodge to my parent's front door in Bunda. For some reason, maybe because we'd already seen so much stuff, and partly because we knew we would ultimately be leaving the animal areas and driving to my parent's village, our expectations for photo opps were pretty low. We were wrong. Tons more great areas, lots of yelling for Mashuka to stop, and two incredible highlights: First, we found a "small" herd of elephants (around 50 we think) in a little clearing that made for incredible shooting. I think I shot an entire card in that one spot. Things did get a little scary when a huge bull flared his ears and yelled at us. He looked totally pissed off. Mushaka backed away and explained that he'd had a really bad experience with an pissed off bull charging and ramming the vehicle (!!) so we agreed, time to go.

The second highlight (maybe the highlight of the whole safari) was when he took us to a hippo pool, so called because it's filled with scores of gigantic hippos who never ever leave the pool, except at midnight to come out and eat some grass. In spite of how dangerous the hippos are, it was ironically the one place we were allowed to get out of the rover and walk around (as long as we stayed 5 meters from the pond edge). It's because of the hippo's badassness that made that possible because predators won't go near the pond.

The hippos were incredible. Brenda found a rock >5m from the edge to sit on and I set up my monopod and shot and shot. I think I must have shot 4gig of hippos, no kidding. They were super active, fighting each other, chasing off birds, stomping around in the mud...it was awesome.

When we finally emerged from the Serengeti's north checkpoint, we were alarmed to discover we were now only 20 minutes away from my mom & dad's place. Mashuka started to close the roof, but I told him to leave it up and we rolled into the driveway with me standing up & shooting. My dad loves a good entrance.

Day 2: The Serengeti South

After a nice breakfast we went out to find Mashuka wide-eyed and ready to get going. We packed up and headed north. The plan was that we would enter the Serengeti park itself today and end up at a lodge which is nestled into an enormous boulder. There were many hours of driving between the lodge on the Ngorongoro rim and Lobo Lodge so we settled in for quite a long, bumpy road trip. It would be a while before we even reached the entrance checkpoint to the Serengeti park so we got comfortable, taking in the scenery with the cameras packed up. But suddenly Mashuka took a hard left off the road onto a kind of overgrown trail headed for a forest of some kind. We just trusted him of course...he knows what he's doing. We left the grassy plains and entered a weird little forest filled with alien-looking thorny trees and plants. It had a really cool feeling to it. There were some zebras hanging out in there among all the thorns that we made him stop for. But finally we emerged into a wide open area that was clearly a (mostly) dry lake bed of brilliant white, cracked mud. No road or trail at all now. Mashuka slowed waaaaay down and started scanning the trees, dirt and grass patches for something. We passed skeleton after skeleton. These were somebody's hunting grounds. We took the clue and unpacked the cameras. Finally he stopped the rover, scanned the trees with his binoculars and then pointed. We couldn't see anything. I scanned the general direction with my telephoto and holy shit, there was a lioness up in a tree, digesting a recent meal in the shade.

Mashuka wasn't yet satisfied so we let him do his tracking/spotting thing a while longer and the next thing we knew we were stopped again, and he was pointing at a group of five or six cheetah. Unbelievable. We were staring at a cheetah family violently devouring what we think was once a gazelle, though it looked less like a gazelle and more like a giant pile of bloody gore.

All but two were eating. Mushaka explained that those other two were guards, stationed to scan for scavengers or other predators who might want to horn in. The guards were all-business, scanning left and right while the others ate. It looked like they were watching a tennis match. Finally it was their turn, and one of them grabbed a huge hunk of gore and trotted off to enjoy it in peace.

We could have watched the cheetahs all day but finally Mashuka suggested we get going and he got us back to the original dirt road and we were off again. We didn't pack our cameras back up because we kept seeing stuff and making him stop. Hawks, more zebra, a couple of gigantic vultures fighting over some scraps of a zebra carcass, all kinds of cool stuff.

By the time we reached the southern entrance check point for the Serengeti proper, we'd completely forgotten that we weren't already in it! The checkpoint is a kind of rest-stop; a tiny oasis of civilization at the bottom of a small hill. Mushaka pulled the rover into a long line of other rovers, and trotted off to take care of some paperwork so we took our lunches over to some picnic tables and ate with the other safari tourists. A large, ruddy-faced British man looking a little silly in his full-on "safari outfit" asked us if we'd "had any luck". We weren't sure what he meant. "With animals I mean. Have you seen any exotics at all?" he clarified. "Uh...yeah, tons." we told him. We rattled off some of the morning's highlights and he was dumbfounded and more than a little skeptical. So far all his car had seen was zebra and wildebeests (which it turns out are fucking everywhere btw). I showed him the in-camera previews of some of the shots and his skepticism turned to annoyance & anger directed toward his driver. Once again we were seeing that we were not only lucky to have a vehicle to ourselves, but that my dad had arranged for us to have a truly amazing guide.

The rest of the day we continued trekking north through the park, and it more than lived up to its reputation. Right away we saw a migration of thousands of wildebeests; in fact we had to pass through them, causing some to freak out about being left behind and awkwardly sprint right past the car, too close for my long lens. Then we started seeing so many as-yet-unseen animals (elephants, giraffes, etc) that the more common guys like the zebras & wildebeests got demoted to the point where we stopped asking to stop for them. They were dead to us.

The whole rest of the day we couldn't have averaged more than 10mph because we could never get very far before we'd see some awesome shooting opportunity. At first it was a little awkward jumping up to shoot; brenda and I getting tangled up with each other as we scrambled to get the sandbags in place and to get into shooting position but eventually we found a good system and got into a nice rhythm. Check the slideshow link at the bottom for the results of all that.

One disappointment we had the day before was that we completely missed the evening light due to the sprint to keep from getting locked in the crater (we still wonder what would have happened if we'd been late. Would they seriously have closed the gate and leave us to fend off the lions all night?). But we weren't on a schedule today so we asked Mushaka if we could try to time our arrival at the lodge with sunset. He gave us his patented smile and his patented "noproblem" (he says it like it's one word). It turns out that was a great idea because we ran into some elephants and giraffes in perfect lighting late in the day, and he got us to the hotel 2 minutes before the sunset deadline. Like I said, he rules.

The lodge itself was spectacular. It really was kind of embedded in a gigantic rock formation consisting mostly of a single huge boulder. We were very impressed. Far less impressed though with the character of the typical safari tourist we met. Lots of Brits and Germans, and most of the ones we met were snobby, loud, and outright rude to the lodge staff (who were actually amazing by the way and deserved none of the shit they were being given). I'm used to being embarrassed to be American but this time I was embarrassed to be a white westerner.