Tag: black

Winter Sky (and then some more!)

Besides acquiring a bit of old glass, I have also, as said before, been wandering through my digital archives. Here, a photo taken in March 2017 using the Retina IIIc with the Xenon 50mm f2 lens and Agfa Vista 200. Some images I desaturated to B&W because I thought they looked better that way. Digitalizing film can be quite a good thing!

When I first used this camera, I found it rather trying. It has an EV metering system which made absolutely no sense to me, even after reading the manual. Yes, I do RTFM! However, YouTube came to the rescue once again, and there are several good videos about the Kodak Retinas from the 1950s. Many consider these to be some of the finest Kodak cameras ever produced. I won’t disagree. Nearly every American in my age group has used Kodak cameras, and many were rather cheap and produced rather poor pictures. But, for a kid, they were just perfect!

This camera came to me about 4-5 years ago from Chris Sherlock at Retina Rescue, across the sea in Australia. He’s great. You can find his videos on YouTube. Playing with it again, and having more experience with older cameras. I really appreciate this camera far more than I did before. I think I am going to throw some film in the camera and see what this puppy can do yet again.

The Mighty

Several years ago a friend took me to a park tucked into the hills and canyons of Los Angeles County. We were there on a photo shoot, to enjoy one another’s company, as well as to enjoy the beauty of back country. Oaks predominated the scene with sycamores and other native plants. There is such beauty in oak trees! They always fill me with a joy that cannot be expressed, but perhaps a photo can help in that expression.

Dry Land to the East

I was in the passenger side of the car, in the back seat. The land was barren and dry, filled with rugged rocks and sparse vegetation – beautiful and lonely.

I like to have my digital camera (here, X100V) set to a fast exposure and point and shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot out the car window. It is always surprising what you get and rather fun, too.

Mess Hall

This is a distance shot of one of the remaining mess halls / dining halls at Manzanar, the Japanese interment camp located in the Owens Valley of California. The Eastern Sierras butt up against with a sort of barren plain between the camp and the mountains. Over 110,000 Americans were forced here during WW2.

Not a lot remains here. Barracks were many, as were latrines, laundries, manufacturing, kitchens, and a cemetery. A hospital and schools and recreation areas kept this from being a dreadful place of extermination, but it did often exterminate self-worth and communities.