Normandy Prep ~ Spring 1961

I'd dropped out of high school a couple of times. I guess I was bored. My mom thought that I needed the diploma to go to college and she enrolled me at Normandy Prep on Normandy Isle in Miami Beach. I did manage to stick it out there, and Roger Kalins, the son of my mom's best friend lived nearby. He got me interested in photography. Soon I was developing and printing my own photos. He was a couple of years older than I was and had a pair of Leica III-f bodies and a few lenses.

Normandy Prep needed somebody to shoot candid and posed shots around campus for the yearbook. I got the "job". This was a set up shot. After forty-eight years I don't remember their names. I think that I did a pretty good job for a rank beginner! This scan is off the contact sheet although I still have the negatives.

I Wonder Whatever Happened To Jill?

I first met Jill at a Greynold's Park Love-In in the late 1960's. She was truely a miniature woman, about 4 foot 9 and 80 pounds at best, good looking and she knew it!

She grew up on Miami Beach and eventually got married, changing her name from Aberman to Carpenter, hardly a Jewish name, and had a son. I guess that he'd be in his late twenties by now. Jill and I used to run into one another frequently for many years and then one day I realized that I hadn't heard from her in months. I asked around but never did find out what happened to her. I guess that was back in the early 1980's.

This shot was for no better reason than to try out a "new" Polaroid camera. Polaroid had made first a Model 110 with a quality Wollensack lens and coupled rangefinder, following that up with the 110B which had a fantastic Rodenstock lens, but they were both designed for the original Polaroid roll film. They wouldn't accept the new pack films. It was getting difficult to find the roll film, and a lot of us used to like to shoot a Polaroid test shot to check the lighting in studio shots.

Somebody came up with the idea of taking a Polaroid pack back made for a 4x5 view camera, a hacksaw, and some epoxy. With an hour or two's work the 110B would take Polaroid film packs! I located a 110B at a thrift shop for next to nothing, bought the back at Browne's Photo Center, did a bit of sawing and glueing, adjusted the front standard to move the lens back a few millimeters, and ran into Jill. That solved my model problem. I wasn't testing the lighting, I was testing the camera. It worked! I still have it. Now I read that Polaroid is stopping production of all their films. Who needs instant pictures when you have a digital camera, right? I hope that Fuji starts importing their version of instant film. A lot of other people do also.

And that table that Jill is standing on? It's an old treadle Singer sewing machine from near the turn of the last century.

Al Kaplan And Jon Sinish On Miami Beach

If you've been following this blog for awhile I'm sure that you're aware that Jon and I have been friends now for about forty years. We just look young! Every time he's visiting Miami there's the obligatory trip to Miami Beach so he can see the genuine Atlantic Ocean instead of Long Island Sound.

There's a bit of size distortion caused by the perspective of the 15mm Heliar, but I am 6' 3" and Jon is just a tad shorter. I have a much larger nose too. That part isn't camera induced distortion! The camera hanging from my shoulder is my Leica CL with a 40mm Summicron.

When I shot this one I hadn't had the Bessa with the 15mm Heliar for very long, and I wasn't yet very good at guessing the framing while holding the camera off to the side. I'm still not exactly adept at shooting verticals with the rig. I like this picture anyway. That stance and facial expression are pure Sinish!