Just Hangin' Out On A Saturday Night

My house always seemed to be the "hang out place" in the late 60's, weekends bringing together an assortment of friends to discuss everything from photography to world events. Even the room doesn't look all that different these days, with the same tables, lamps, and wing chair in pretty much the same places, but the sofa was replaced with the one that had been my mom's, and the lamp shades were also replaced. The floor length drapes are gone, and my son now has the Portuguese guitarra that's hanging on the wall. I have a new grey cat, Baby, that prefers sleeping stretched out straight.

Jim Kukar on the left now sports a full beard but is back working as a copy editor for the Herald, this time at the Broward bureau. Stephanie, my wife at the time, is remarried and is a doctor in South Carolina. That's me with the huge head of hair in the center. I'm not 100% sure but I think that's Nathan Benn in the wing chair. He's now living on the west coast. I spoke with him a couple of weeks ago. On the right is Al Olme. It's been a couple of years since we've talked, but he was still living in Minneapolis where he'd moved about 30 years ago.

The daylight Ektachrome slide is suffering from the wrong color temperature of light, color shift from age, and probably some reciprocity failure from a long exposure on the tripod. The lens was a 12mm f/8 Spiratone, neither full 180 degree circle nor full frame. The camera cut off the top and the bottom. It was revolutionary in its day for its price of only $39.50. Of course that would be about $200 in today's dollars. It wasn't very sharp at f/8, as you can see, but at f/16 it really wasn't all that bad.

I know it was Saturday night because that's the early edition of the Miami Herald on the floor in front of Jim. Some things never change.