Mug Shot ~ Thanks Mukul

My friend Mukul Dube in Delhi, India sent me this mug. Thanks, Mukul! What a great birthday gift! Yeah, I turned 67 a couple of days ago and I look more fit and in better shape than my balding physician Larry. I got me a flatter belly also. Not to mention that mop of hair! Eat your heart out, Larry the Bald.

I guess this means that I'm going to have to stick my 15mm Voigtlander Heliar lens, that ultra ULTRA wide angle optic, my favorite lens, on one of my Leica camera bodies instead of the lightweight little mostly plastic Bessa L. That oughta build up my arms and shoulders, holding close to a kilogram of glass, brass, and chrome out there at arm's length. Strange, but it's mostly chicks that recognize the Leica name. Or take traditional darkroom courses at school and still shoot film! The Dudes talk about "megapixels" and auto this and auto that and frame rates, all that tech geek B.S. rather than wanting to learn how to make great eye catching photographs.

I like to sit out on my front porch in the morning, drinking my coffee, watching the dogs and kids walk by. I really enjoy watching the neighbor's cat trying to stalk the occasional wayward mouse that didn't manage to get into his hidey hole before it got light out.

The coffee tastes great in that new mug also. If you'd like one email Mukul. He can be reached at uthappam@gmail.com He'll want a check for $20, which includes shipping from Delhi, and the few dollars "profit" he uses to help out the malnourished children there. Obviously he can make good use of more money if you feel generous, and there's a saving in per mug shipping costs if you order more than one at a time, which is more more money for his good work.

The Gas Mask Bag? No, A Camera Bag!

Growing up in the forties and fifties every town had an Army/Navy store selling military surplus about anything-you-could-think-of at baergain basement prices. Canteens, mess kits, pup tents, and where it was legal, guns and ammunition. College kids carried their books in olive drab back packs. Girls used the shoulder bags for purses. Photographers had a choice of a dozen belt pouches and shoulder bags. Floppy brim "boonie caps" in "jungle cammo" kept the sun and rain off your head.

The original tan canvas Leica bag was only $17.50 back in the mid seventies but an olive drab almost-lookalike was $2.95. I guess all the U.S. surplus from WW-II, Korea, and Vietnam is gone now but other countries are still unloading. This one in olive drab raindrop camo is from the Deutsche Armee.

Browne's Photo Center ~ The Used Case And Junk Drawer

This was taken when the store was still located on the corner of N.W. 79th St. and 22nd Ave. before Browne relocated "up town" to Biscayne Blvd. and 82nd St. He stocked a great selection of films, papers, and chemicals, but before the move the place was noted for the selection of used stuff because Brownie was just getting in to carrying new Mamiyaflex and Graflex. The Rollieflex, Hasselblad, Nikon and Leica franchises came a bit later. Norman Frank (pictured) knew the merchandise and could tell you what you'd need for some special job. There was always a selection of used enlargers on hand, big 4x5 Omega D-2's and Beselers, small Dursts, the occasional Leitz Focomat, and that's where I came by my Kodak Precision as well as most of my collection of timers, tanks and reels, baseboard easels, all that stuff, and cheap too!

Those drawers behind Norman, and the boxes on the bottom shelf in the showcase, were filled with "junk" that Brownie bought when he "bought everything" from some retiring photographer or perhaps his widow. You could paw through them and hopefully find that oddball filter, adapter ring, or synch cord you were looking for, or perhaps find somethig you really had no use for, but what the hell, the price was right. Someday you'd be kicking yourself if you had let it slip by.

This photo was shot with a Pentacon-Six using the 50mm f/4 Flektagon (I think).

Jonathan's Early Years ~ The Lady Killer

That handsome young gentleman is my son Jonathan. I don't remember exactly why he owned a suit at the time. Perhaps for a wedding in the family? He was five years old when I shot these photos at the annual Miss North Miami Coronation Ball, but he'd reached the age where he loved to go places with me, meet new people and find out exactly what it was that Daddy did for a living.

We got dressed and I checked to make sure that I had enough film and batteries to get through the evening. A lot of the pictures had to be shot in black and white for the newspaper and the Chamber of Commerce newsletter, as well as get color shots of the girls with their sponsors. I think that Jonathan was the only one there that not only got to dance with all twelve of the contestants, but they were the ones who asked him to dance.

These scans are off some old prints and somehow it just seems more authentic to leave the faded colors and age stains. The photos were taken with a 35mm Summicron on a Leica M camera, but I don't remember which model.

Not So Still Life? Another Wedding Adventure?

I first "met" Danielle a few years ago over at the Photo.Net Wedding Forum (or maybe it was their Leica Forum?) before I got completely banned from Photo.Net forever, accused of becoming a cult figure simply because I was being helpful in sharing my photographic knowledge and wrote some interesting but true stories to illustrate my points. I wear my banning with pride!

Danielle was seeking both photographic and business advice as she tried to build up her wedding photography business. I even got Jon Sinish involved with some thoughts on advertising and promotion. Hell, even Monkette came up with a suggestion or two.

This morning as I was checking email before heading off to the annual North Miami Thanksgiving Day Parade I was assaulted by Danielle's Instant Message, we chatted for quite awhile, and Monkette and I never did get to the parade. The gist of the conversation is that she'd like to fly from her home on the left coast to Miami, "hang out" (her words) with me for a week or two, shoot a wedding or two with me, see how I work in the darkroom, all that stuff. If she's really on the ball she'd do an article for that trade mag of the wedding shooters "The Rangefinder" while she's at it. Hell I'D write the copy. Why not? Who knows me better than I do!

Anyway, her idea is that I'd shoot film, probably black and white. She'd shoot digital. Her half of the wedding fee would cover her travel expenses and Monkette just wants to get a pretty new dress out of the deal. This is all very much on the up and up, no hanky-panky, with Danielle staying in Monkette's bedroom of course. That leaves me with trying to find a wedding for us to shoot between December 25th and January 3rd where the bride and groom won't mind being featured in thepriceofsilver along with my usual tongue-in-cheek narrative, and at least a few set-up shots that would include a fifteen inch tall furry bridesmaid with a long tail. If any couples reading this, straight or gay, are interested, we can pick the date and get the ball rolling. You'll end up with a wedding album like no other, I promise!

Me And Monkey

Photo (c) James Mitchell

This charming sensitive portrait of me and Monkey (that's me on the left) is actually a few years old, shot when I was a youthful 63 and Monkey about a year younger. We were sitting around outside of Starbucks on Biscayne Blvd. and 135th St., me smoking cigarettes as usual. Monkey doesn't smoke, never has, but he does seem to enjoy being around smokers. He prefers ganga smokers though. Starbucks doesn't allow that on the patio.

I'll be turning 66 in a couple of weeks on the ninth of November. I'm not sure about Monkey's birthday, though. He keeps it a secret. He and I have a long history together!

He got really excited yesterday when we got an email from James telling us that he'd be in town toward the end of January or beginning of February. He wants to get James to photograph him together with Monkette. He said that James shoots better portraits than I do. Thanks a lot! Hell, at this point James probably had my 85mm f/2 Nikkor on his Leica, judging by the contrast and bokeh. He fell in love with that lens, and ended up buying two of them, one chrome, one black. Mine is chrome. I love it dearly, but when it comes to cuddling a toy monkey is much better than any silly old lens, don't you think?

After The Destruction Perhaps It's Time For A Change?

I pulled this photo out of my archives because it reminds me of what Google's blogger stite was like yesterday and the day before. I couldn't log on to post, and I didn't understand why I was getting error messages and then directions to go to some nonexistant web site. I exchanged some emails with my buddy Jon Sinish, he researched it, and discovered that a lot of people were having the same problem.

As usual, Jon came up with a "work-around" to bypass the problem. In all likelyhood some young hotshot computer geek had decided to write the code to destroy Google, make it impossible to use at least some of its features, and seemed to be making decent progress at it too! But within a few hours things started getting back to normal as Google's computer geeks got in there and set things straight again. No doubt they also figured out a way to keep the same thing from happening again. Anyway, The Price Of Silver still lives!

This photo was shot for insurance purposes before the big clean-up after Hurricane Wilma. Yup, I also shot a roll of color without me in the photos. That's what was in the Leica that I'm using in my right hand. The location was my ex's back yard. She had power a week before I did so I was going over there every morning for a shower and hot coffee. It pays to stay friendly. I also brought my chain saw over to cut up the downed limbs.

Months later I discovered just how badly I'd screwed up. It seems that if I'd billed her for taking the photos her insurance company would have paid, plus paying me for cutting up the downed branches. In fact I could have gone around both my neighborhood and hers, taking pictures of the hurricane damage, explaining to people that their insurance companies would reimburse them for the expense. Oh well, live and learn.

And the change? I've been mulling over some possible changes to The Price Of Silver. I appreciate your comments and emails, so if you have any suggestions please let me know! Thanks.

Too Famous For My Own Good

I started having problems when I first started posting on the Photo.Net forums four or five years ago. People thought that I was making up the stories I told, thought that I was full of B.S. really, but then I started posting photographs and yes I had met President Clinton and photographed Janis Joplin, etc. Also, I started to meet people in person that I'd f irst met on the forums when they visited Miami. One of them was Marc Williams, a Chicago advertising photographer who also shoots high end weddings. He shot the photo of me on the T-shirt on one of his trips to Miami as we sat at a sidewalk cafe in South Beach enjoying our morning coffee. Another photographer, James Mitchell, from the Washington, D.C. area had the idea of printing up some T-shirts and Marc did the layout, picked the type face, and Photoshopped the Leicas a bit bigger than they were in the original shot. They also vouched for the fact that yes, my tales were true!

The young lady in this photo, Melisa McKolay, saw my Janis Joplin picture and just had to have a signed print. She also got a T-shirt from James. She posted it on Photo.net, as did a bunch of other photographers wearing their T-shirts. That was the beginning of the end for me on P-net. The inner circle, Brad, Jeff, etc. accused me of starting a cult. I was soon banned from the Leica Forum and in short order from ALL of the Photo.net forums. I haven't heard from Melisa in a few years now, on a rare occasion I hear from Marc, but James and I get together a few times a year, whenever he's in Miami on business. I'm publishing this blog and posting on the Rangefinder Forum. Starting a cult sounds like it might be fun though!

Beyond The Camera Into Uncharted Territory

When Mario Flores, the owner of Rootz Gallery here in North Miami, asked me if I could put together an assortment of prints for an exhibit I said "Sure! No problem!" I knew that I had lots of prints on hand. I usually make more than one print when somebody orders one. It's easier to make more right then at the time than to go back and do it later, and usually a print that sells will also appeal to others. In fact, when people see a framed print hanging at somebody's home or office they start to think about how nice it would look hanging on one of their own walls. And people have come to appreciate the look of a gelatin silver print.

Putting the show together would mostly be a matter of going through some boxes and envelopes, picking out the pictures and sticking them in frames. I picked them out. I stuck them in frames. They were all photographs I'd made back in the 1960's and '70's, and most of them were printed back then too.

Scroll down one post and you can see a couple of those images. While at the gallery I'd been looking at some paintings with strange effects of splattered paint, smeared together colors, and started wondering if that might be something that could be done with a gelatin silver print. But how?

I let my brain chew on it for a few days, then BANG!, the coming together of the idea and a way that it might be done exploded in my head. I soon was in the darkroom, so excited that I was looking for the right negative even before the air conditioner had a chance to cool the July heat. Here it is a couple of months later and I still don't have it perfected as much as I'd like but I like what I'm doing, I love the prints that I'm making, and other people seem to like them too. We added three of the new prints to hang alongside the older work. You can see one of them in this picture that Mario shot of me holding my Leica. He was using a Nikon DSLR.

The North Miami Strangler?

Actually they were both actors. I shot this in the field behind Ruth Foreman's Playhouse on N.E. 123rd St. here in North Miami. She had a theater there, including a childrens' theater, and also ran a talent agency for models and actors. I was hired to shoot some pictures for this guy's portfolio. After nearly forty years my memory is a bit hazy on details but I seem to recall that he was trying out for a part in a movie where he'd be playing a character similar to this. The girl also wanted some photos for her portfolio I have no idea what happened to the two of them.

The theater is just memories now. Ruth Foreman died twenty years ago this week. She was well enough known to warrant an obituary in the New York Times http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5DD153CF937A15752C1A96E948260

I was always fascinated by ultra wide angle lenses and used a 19mm Canon lens on my Leica for this shot. This was scanned off of a print I made back then, and I have to say that today's Tri-X has changed a lot over the years from what it used to be. It's a lot less grainy than it was years ago, but you don't really notice the difference when they claim "New! Improved!" every year or two. The cumulative changes sure add up though. Tri-X today sure ain't your Daddy's Tri-X.

City Planning Running Amok

Well, first off, I'm hijacking my own post here. It was supposed to be talking about Mario's new art gallery and photo studio, how it's located where Jaybo's Photo Lab stood for perhaps twenty-five years, eventually expanding into a complete photography shop, everything from film, paper and chemistry to darkroom equipment and high end cameras such as Leica and Nikon. Be cool Mario! I have more photos, I'm impressed with your place, your work, and your plans, so I'll be revisiting you in upcoming blog posts.

What has me upset is the state and county road departments coming into North Miami and revamping our street system, creating a can't-get-here-from-there maze of one way streets and right-turn-only intersections. The on-street parking along here? Gone! Instead there's a small lot in back and a shiny new back door that looks like a front door. If you can find the place! Of course back doors along alleyways usually are massive ugly burgler proof things so a bad guy lurking in the shadows won't break in with ease. Now they expect the shop owners to have nice pretty glass doors in the alleys? Get real!

They may well be state roads or county roads, and they're the ones paying to upgrade them, even adding landscaped traffic islands, but they have no concept of reality. They're not doing the business owners, or the citizens trying to find their way around, any favors!

As for the term "running amok"?

Running amok - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Running amok, sometimes referred to as simply amok (also spelled amuck or amuk), is derived from the Malay/Indonesian word amuk, meaning "mad with rage" ...

There are plenty of people trying to find their way around, or just a place to park, and they're mad with rage!

The Contrary Ammarilis

I'm not sure if Claudia, my ex, has ever seen her ammarilis in bloom, live. She gets to see the flower stalk reaching maturity but every year when she goes home to Germany to visit her parents I keep an eye on her house and get to photograph the flower for her. Somehow that plant knows when she's out of town and refuses to let the flower open before she leaves. I shot a bunch of nice flower pictures with a 90mm lens on my Leica, then switched to a 15mm lens so I could get myself in the rest of the photos. When Claudia got back from her three week trip the flower was already dead and wilted. I gave her a stack of 4 X 6 prints along with the negatives. She was thrilled!

For my efforts she brought me three packs of cigarette tobacco. Her dad and I both roll our own, and they sell brands in Europe that you can't find here in the U.S. These days Fritz is smoking TURBO, a mild "American Blend", but nobody imports it here. Last year he stuck a few pouches of Miami Style in Claudia's Christmas package. I really liked that tobacco, and people here would really notice that pouch when I'd take it out to roll a smoke...LOL