Those 1970's "Guitar Strap" Neck Straps

The NIKON strap is like brand new. Somebody gave me a bunch of straps and pouches recently. The two "Hippie Straps" below are from the 1970's. I used them on my Pentacon-Six cameras which are much larger and heavier that 35mm SLR's.

The fabric straps hold up much better than leather straps, but the leather parts still dry out and get cracked. I want to get some rivets and use the Rollie clips off of an old dried out leather Rollieflex strap on a fabric strap.

The straps really weren't "photographed". I just put them on the scanner glass and scanned them directly. I did the same with the bones and teeth,as well as with the Edgeworth tin.

Ruthie

It was May of 1972 and I don't remember why we were taking photos but I loved the light. Behind her is a trowel splatter textured plaster wall painted white. She's facing the long narrow window on the door which was a textured glass to let light through but you really couldn't see through it. I shot a 12 exposure roll of 120 film in my Pentacon-Six with the 80mm Biometer lens, probably wide open at f/2.8 and when I first saw the contact sheet I knew that "This was the one"! I don't think that I ever did another shoot of Ruthie and I lost track of her soon after.

This is another one of those "scanned directly from the contact sheet" pictures so I'm presenting it complete with dust spots. For many years I included an 11x14 print of this in my portfolio. I really loved the picture. I still do.

Football At The Park ~ Nov. 1971

I shot this with my brand new Pentacon-Six but I don't remember if I was just looking for something to shoot with the new camera, or was shooting it for the North Dade Journal, or for the North Miami Parks and Recreation Department. So much of the scenery has changed over nearly four decades that I'm not even sure if this was shot at Cagni Park or Pepper Park. What I do know is that both photos were on the same 12 exosure roll of film. No machine gunning a few hundred frames with a digital back then. You had to know WHEN to push the damned button!

And those energetic young guys playing a pick-up game of football would all be in their fifties today, grey and balding, perhaps sporting a pot belly, maybe taking their grandchildren to the park. Life goes on!

Like a lot of these older pictures the scans were directly off the contact sheets.

HAIR For The Fourth Of July 1971

Yup, that was me back in 1971. My daughter Elena was a newborn and I was the proud owner of a Pentacon-Six, a single lens reflex camera from East Germany that used 120 roll film and made BIG negatives. They went through a series of importers in a few years time, each in turn dumping their unsold inventory for cheap. You could by one for about 20% of the price of a Hasselblad, and the Carl Zeiss Jena lenses, also from East Germany, were a bargain to boot.

I don't remember which restaurant I was in, or who I was with, but they wanted to try the camera and I was a convenient subject. I probably only had my hair that long for a year at most. The girls loved it, but were very, very jealous that I didn't have to set it or anything. I'd just come out of the shower, lightly pat it dry with a towel, and give my head a good shake! Half an hour later it was dry and looked like this. No muss, no fuss, no bother!

Perhaps a year later my client list had shifted from rock groups and festivals to more civilized endeavors like a computer company, a couple of land developers, and so on. Time to trade jeans and sandals for suits and ties, and kiss the hair goodbye. I miss it.

On the other hand I could then afford to buy a Hasselblad and a set of West German Carl Zeiss lenses. In a few more years I even had myself a West German wife, Claudia. We're now long divorced but still good friends. She's always telling me to get a haircut! Had I done that back in the early seventies my life would have traveled a far different path. I never would have met her. Long hair does have its effects.