Bakelite Land

Loreto Bay National Marine Park

2008-06-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

Baja Shore

2008-06-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

This was taken in Baja with a Vilia. It's a POS from the 80s courtesy of Belarus. Of all the bad things the Soviet's did, they did manage to crank out some cool cameras.

Look What My Yashica Can Do

2007-05-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

I have a Yashica Electro 35 rangefinder camera that's probably 35-40 years old and it still works like a dream.

The squadron needed a new digital camera. Come to find out, the rules about what we can purchase are very complex. When we suggested buying a high-end refurbished camera, the idea was nixed. We can only buy new equipment. Oh yeah, and it has to be the cheapest out there that will suit your needs. I asked if quality was a factor was told it was not. "So what you're telling me' I asked the Resource Advisor guy, 'is that I can't buy a quality product for a fraction of its regular price, but I can buy a brand new piece of crap?"

Basically, yes. Of course it's not the squadron RA guy's fault. It's just Air Force rules.

I used the camera at commander's call today and I wanted to drop-kick down the aisle of the auditorium. I would have gotten better pictures with my Seagull TLR and my cheap Sunpak flash. When I do finally buy a digital camera, it won't be a KODAK EASYSHARE PIECE OF CRAP!

2007-05-11T14:31:00.000-07:00

Hammocks

2007-05-07T00:44:00.001-07:00

Candles in Church

2007-04-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

I took this picture at a church in Monticristi, Ecuador.

San Lorenzo

2006-10-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

El Gatito Carlito

2006-10-27T18:21:00.000-07:00

There are warnings posted around the base admonishing us not to pet, feed, or otherwise encourage stray cats--they may have ringworm.

Carlito wandered up to the guard shack one night as a kitty, skinny and starved. The security guard on duty threw caution to the wind, took pity on Carlito, and fed him. Now they have an official base cat. He gets shots and everything.

He's a bit of an attention slut. When he first saw me, he made a beeline for me and rubbed up against my legs. He's also a food slut. He follows people with styrofoam food cartons shamelessly.

The head security forces guy hated Carlito. I hope in his next life the Captain comes back as a mouse.

Lonely Cart

2006-10-27T18:20:00.000-07:00

Playa Murcielago

2006-10-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

This is the beach in Manta where all the restaurants are located. I've gotten on a sepia toning jag lately.

Quito Marketplace

2006-10-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

I got the opportunity visit Quito for a day for a conference on women in the military. We had some time to kill, so we visited the market. It was all just a big tease. We weren't allowed to go back again.

Come On In!

2006-10-27T17:48:00.000-07:00

Ecuador has some really cool doorways.

Stampa Spa

2006-10-27T17:39:00.000-07:00

While I was deployed to Ecuador, a co-worker and I visited the local spa on a regular basis. I was able to get a manicure, pedicure, haircut and style, and an hour-long full-body massage for about $55. Needless to say, we were valued customers and the nice lady that owned the spa was very sad to see us leave. We probably paid her rent for three months. I was also very sad to see us leave. I can't afford to do all that in OKC once a week.

Friends Don't Let Friends Drink and Shoot

2006-09-12T16:12:00.000-07:00

I got some of my pictures back from Ecuador. These were taken on the beach in San Lorenzo with a Seagull TLR.

The first shot came from the roll I shot when I first got to the beach. The second shot was taken about five hours later. When I initially opened the pictures and saw the first one was slanted, I was slightly irritated, but when I saw the rest of them I was mad. Of course there was nobody to be mad at except myself. The sun finally came out late that day and I ran down to the beach to take more pictures. I even made it a point to pay careful attention to shutter speed and f-stop. I bracketed and everything. Guess I should have paid more attention to making sure the camera was level.

It's not hard to figure out which picture was taken earlier in the day and which picture is post-Mai Tai.

Morale Booster

2006-08-31T13:15:00.000-07:00

Since I don't have access to a scanner while I'm deployed, I've had to make do with recycling photos I've already scanned. I saved them in the My Pictures folder on one of the computer in one of the crew rooms.

One day I walked in to use the computer and found that somebody used one of my pictures as desktop wallpaper. Then it happened two more times. I may never be famous, but somebody out there thought my pictures were good enough to look at and be desktop wallpaper. That made me feel pretty good.

Nekkid Pitchures

2006-07-29T06:50:00.000-07:00

My favourite dress is long-sleeved, loose-fitting and goes down to my ankles. It would pass muster in an Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood. Out of all the outfits I own, it's the one dress that I've had the most compliments on from guy friends. It's enough to show off some curves, but also enough to leave something to the imagination.

I was at Barnes and Noble looking through periodicals on fine art photography and I noticed that a few of the magazines had an inordinate amount of nude women. Of course it wasn't the Playboy/Hustler type of nude--these were "serious" nude photos. The type of black and white photos that look like CK One ads with uber-serious young women looking mightily unhappy (binging and purging tends to have that effect on people) and writhing around on the furniture in various stages of undress.

Now, I'm not a big fan of nudity in photos, but it's not for the reasons you might assume. I have several reasons and obscenity isn't one of them.

1. The periodicals I saw seemed to focus on wanting to be on the "cutting edge". The message; if you want to be taken seriously, naked is the way to go and if you question the wisdom in that, then you are obviously a Flyover-State yokel and not an urbane New Yorker where people actually have a modicum of class and taste. I'm not buying it.

2. What is the purpose of a portrait? Isn't it to capture the essence of who somebody is on film? How can one see the whole person when the only thing catching the beholder's eye is an enormous set of jugs? A whole person is made up of more than just two items up front.

3. It's a substitute for real creativity. Anybody can draw a crowd taking nude photos, because people aren't interested in your work as an artist--they're interested in seeing naked women. Abercrombie and Fitch came up with the concept that they would promote their clothing by having the models in their quarterlies not wear any (or hardly any). That isn't creativity--it's using sex to sell a product. Hardly a novel idea and it certainly doesn't make them edgy.

4. There are a lot more photos of naked women then naked men.

I'm not saying that every nude photo is pretentious, stagnant, and base. There are photos that are well-composed and capture the whole person and while the models are nude, most of those photos don't bare all. One of the most beautiful photos I saw was of a woman who while stripped down to her birthday suit was in a position so that she didn't show any of the goodies. What you do see is her striking eyes--you see her, not her boobs.

The most beautiful women are the ones that you can actually see.

New York! New York!

2006-06-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

I Got My Kicks...

2006-03-15T18:28:00.000-08:00

with the Imperial Debonair. You probably thought I was going to say. "on Route 66." Well, I wasn't. That would just be trite.

This camera is kind of cool. When I first picked it up, I wasn't terribly impressed. It looked a little cruddy and I had to clean it off. But it was the only camera there, so I bought it. I was pleasantly surprised.

I'm currently serving a minimum three-year sentence at Stinker AFB in Oklahoma. In spite of that, I'm trying to make the most of things. Last weekend, I went to the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City. I also stopped at the Cherokee Restaurant on the way home. They had some pretty good eats. There was a real ambiance there what with being able to sit and watch the state of Oklahoma burn to a crisp while I ate my bison burger. As it turned out, I got out of southwestern Oklahoma just ahead of the fires. There was also a very large gift shop. They had some really cool stuff. They also had the kind of "gifts" that keep on giving--every Christmas in the form of white elephants at office parties. If you're looking for just the right gift for that special person--the type that screams, "I hate you"--nothing says it like a porcelain weiner dog in a tutu.

Death on the Highway

2006-01-29T06:43:00.000-08:00

I saw this somewhere in Arkansas or Mississippi. My mom happened to be with me at the time. "Don't touch it! They carry leprosy", she said. As though I have a habit of regularly jumping out of my vehicle to fetch dead armadillos from the side of the road. You can almost picture my parents having to explain to passers-by and fellow travellers, "Crazy, Jennifer--it's all we can do to hold her back and keep her from leaping out of the car and picking up the first dead animal she sees".

This picture speaks of death, futility, and miscellaneous.

OKC Memorial

2006-01-12T17:38:00.000-08:00

Finally--From the Brownie Reflex 20!

2006-01-09T17:23:00.000-08:00

To answer what you're probably thinking--no, I don't really have this much time on my hands and I do have a life. It's just that it was Halloween and I thought the Bat Cat thing would be funny. When Oskar finally looked at the camera I got the rancorous look that we see here.

In my defence, I wasn't the one that put the dress on the dog.

This is a True Story...

2006-01-05T19:14:00.000-08:00

I usually make it a habit to avoid airshows like the plague. They're crowded, getting in and out of them is a major butt-pain, and now, after having to do visual recognition quizzes in training, I've developed an new kind of aversion. I wasn't the only one whose dreams were invaded by MiG-29s and Blackhawk helicoptors the night before a quiz. I made an exception a few years ago, when I went to the Offutt airshow. I just bought my new camera (the good one) and rented a mondo zoom lens to take pictures of the Thunderbirds.

As I was waiting for a ride off base, I sat on a bench next to an older woman and a little boy who was her grandson. The kid looked like he was probably about three years old. He was fascinated by the camera and wanted me to take his picture. There was no film in the camera, but I "took" his picture. He was delighted. Then he sidled up next to me and wanted to look at the back of the camera. He seemed a little confused and his grandma said he'd never seen a film camera before. I tried to explain that I didn't have "that type" of camera and that we couldn't see the pictures until later. He didn't get it.

It was kind of like a burning clown--sad, but funny.

Sunflowers

2006-01-05T19:07:00.000-08:00

I love pictures of sunflowers. I don't know why--I just do. I took this picture behind the apartments I lived in while I was stationed in Nebraska.

Holga Pics

2006-01-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

Isn't this just the cutest thing you've ever seen?

More From the Argus Seventy-Five

2005-11-30T19:31:00.000-08:00

I took these pictures at Fort Concho during my stay at Angelo-traz. I was pretty happy with the way this roll of film came out. There were still some blurry shots, but they were acceptable losses.

The Brownie Reflex 20

2005-11-28T20:01:00.000-08:00

When I was home last July, I was trolling around my favourite place to hunt for POS cameras. There's a giant antique mall in Omaha called The Brass Armadillo. I haven't found a place nearly as good in OKC. The antique shops here are a lot smaller and worse yet, some of them sell really nice stuff. You can't find crappy cameras in places like that. I like the places that advertise on interstate billboards, "OVER 200 DEALERS!" Really nice, little antique shops aren't cram-jammed with mirrored beer signs and Pepe LePew drinking glasses. They also don't have much in the way of cool cameras. I like places that have 20,000 square feet of crap.

Anyway, I'll get to the point. Last July, I found the coolest Brownie Reflex 20 camera. It was in absolutely pristine condition, like it was used only a few times if ever. The viewing screen didn't have a scratch on it. I grabbed it quick and as I was walking around, I realized there was no price tag attached to it. I took it to the register and told them there was no price. When they asked me which booth it came from, I couldn't remember. There were only something like 837 booths in the whole dang mall, of course I didn't remember. They said no problem--they would find out who the dealer was and call me. They never did call me back. I was miffed. I went home over Labor Day and stopped by the store to look for other cameras. At the register I casually mentioned the fact that they never called me back. They gave me some poopty-doo lame apology and said there was nothing they could do about it. Then over Thanksgiving, I went back. I'd pretty much resigned myself to the fact, I would never find the camera again. I'd stopped at a dealer booth to look at another camera when, HOLY CRAP! THERE IT WAS! I almost didn't see it. It was relegated to a lower shelf and it wasn't even facing out. The only thing that caught my eye at first was the bumblebee-coloured Kodak box. When I turned the box round to see what was inside, there was my Brownie Reflex 20. This time it had a price tag, $25 actually. Quite a bit more than I really cared to pay, but I figured it was meant to be, so screw it. I went ahead and bought it. Now I just need to order film and flashbulbs.

Looking for 620 Film?

2005-07-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

I finally found a company that makes 620 film. I wasn't sure where to look for it initially, but I ended up finding it on J and C Photo, a company that specializes in making film for older cameras. Even the pictures taken with it look kind of old, like the one below. Instead of the Odessa Meteor Crater, you might expect to see a picture of unsmiling, dour-looking women in stiff, uncomfortable dresses and corsets. You know, pictures you find in a box in the attic and wonder, "Who are all these people?" It could be the faculty of Harvard's Women's Studies Department shortly after discussing Larry Summers. It could also be the staff of the local library with someone holding up a 75 year-old overdue library book as the photographer snaps the photo. Probably it's just that everybody is a bit peevish at being forced to wear corsets and sit still for a picture taken in 85 degree heat.

At any rate, if you have an old camera that takes 620 film and you want to get it out and use if for old time's sake, go to jandcphoto.com They also sell flash bulbs to go with the cameras. Any high-end camera shop camera shop can develop it. Additionally, they sell 126 film if you have an instamatic hanging around and medium format infrared film. All good stuff.

All Hail the Argus Seventy-Five!

2005-07-18T17:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, I didn't really get the film wound tight enough, but the first three pictures came out great. The subsequent photos got progressively worse, not to mention the fact that the photo developer apparantly didn't cue in on the fact that medium format film isn't printed out as a 4X6. I guess the giant spool with 120 printed on it didn't catch their attention. Oh, well. I was just happy to find out the camera worked.

I took the Argus Seventy-five out for a West Texas excursion one day and stopped at the Odessa Meteor Crater. I expected to see a giant hole in the ground. I saw a giant hole in the ground filled with cacti and mesquite. I was a little disappointed, but it occurred to me that that sort of thing happens after a few millenia and since I'd driven all that way, I took the pictures anyway.

Lewis and Clark Slept Here

2005-07-18T17:28:00.000-07:00

Do you live in a state in which Lewis and Clark passed through? Have you gone to any of the bicentennial celebrations? Have you heard so much about it that you're ready to pitch yourself screaming out of an open window?

I'm from Nebraska and happened to be stationed there last year when the whole bicentennial thing was going on and it was quite a lot of fun and very interesting. But it just kept going...and going...and going...

By the time I left Nebraska, I was about Lewis and Clarked out. But just to remember the good times, here are a few snapshots courtesy of my good friend the Holga.

Nothing says Westward Expansion like a blanched cattle skull. The bicentennial committee managed to drum up three of them for this event.

During My Exile to San Angelo...

2005-07-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

...the Air Force's education command let us out of our cages on the weekend to go wherever provided we filled out the requisite paperwork detailing down to the gnat's behind where we would be every waking second and promising not to do anything dangerous, like crossing the street (they consider EVERYTHING to be dangerous--they even have instructions on classroom safety--you just never know what can happen when you're using Sharpies to draw on a piece of laminated paper).

Anyway, during several of my escapes from Angelo-traz, I visited San Antonio. Here's the Alamo. The great thing about cheap plastic cameras, is I can get that dreamy diffuser look without actually having to use a diffuser.

I Love My Holga

2005-07-06T12:52:00.000-07:00

I love my Holga. It's currently mummified with black electrical tape to keep out the light leaks. I took it with me to Nova Scotia when I was at the Halifax air show. Somebody asked me something to the effect of did I get this piece of you-know-what out of a cereal box. Of course not. I had to eat five boxes of cereal and send in $29.95 to get this treasure. Not really. I just sent in $16.95 to Adorama.

Things like focus and lack of vignetting are so overrated.

This was taken at the Henry Doorley Zoo's Desert Dome in Omaha. It has a slightly ethereal look.

Stay tuned. There's more to come...