God Bless Texas

god-bless-texasThis image was taken with the TL 120 in a cemetery south of San Antonio, Texas. I was looking for a different kind of cemetery image. It sort of worked. Handheld under a bright sunny Texas sky. This was taken in 2012 when we had a bumper crop of color. I didn’t think to take thumbnails of my photos before I sent the folio on. So I dug out the extras I had and used the closest match.

 

Mountain cha cha

This is an experiment, I was kilometers away from these mountains. I walked a long way (can’t recall now, maybe 60 paces?). I have rubber eyes so this works for me. If it is badly mounted, let me know, I can take it!

“Tanks A Lot”

This is my brother-in-law, Gordon, and yes ladies, he’s single!  This is another shot from last year’s beer run.  Gordon plays an international online tank game, so we stopped on our way to the beer store in Vermont to shoot an avatar image for him.  I captured a few shots with a Fuji W3, and then I bracketed some exposures with the Stereo Samulette.

I have another version of this shot that I like slightly better, as the background is sharper and there’s an American flag present, but the setting sun washed out some of Gordon’s features and his pose was more rigid, so you get to see this one instead.

I realize there’s a scratch or some sort of anomaly on the left film chip.

This was handheld, shot on HP5 processed by dr5 – I think the f-stop was 16, 1/100th of a second handheld, and the distance and hyperfocal estimation was guesswork (there’s no through-the-lens focusing on this camera).

“General Store”

My brother-in-law Gordon is a bière connoisseur.  He makes regular pilgrimages to Vermont to frequent a specialty store there that stocks micro-brews from around the globe.

Last year I decided I’d accompany him on one of his beer runs to Vermont via the quaint Quebec countryside so that I’d have an opportunity to shoot with my folding medium format camera.  If I did all the driving, I’d have control over where we stopped for a photo op.   I am pleased with how the camera performed.  I enjoy the vintage feel of this shot, marred only by the snout of the more modern vehicle peering out from the rear of the truck bed.

This scene reminds me of the subject matter that my late friend Earl Bennett was attracted to when he painted.  He studied with Thomas Hart Benton in the 1930s and for the most part painted works that dealt with small town, mid-Western life.

This image was shot on HP5, processed by dr5. I wish I could say the shutter speed was 5 and the f-stop was 5, but no such luck.  The f-stop was 32, handheld at 1/100th.

The camera was created by Sam Smith, fusing together two 1950s-era AGFA Isolette II folders.  It has AGFA’s intermediate-level f4.5 Apotar lenses on S-Prontor shutters.  When folded shut, it fits into a jacket pocket.  It’s resplendent in faux ostrich skin.  I wanted to name it “The AGFA Stereo Smith-O-lette”, but Sam liked the sound of “Sam-O-lette” better.   For some reason, when I say “Sam-O-lette” I think of Frank Zappa’s “Camarillo Brillo” and the lyrics; “She had a snake for a pet, and an amulet…”, so since Sam told me to name this camera “whatever sounds good”, I’ve named it “The Samulette”.

Krumlov Tower

Krumlov Tower

Everywhere you go in this UNESCO protected town there is a great potential for photographers. The narrow lanes and medieval buildings also make for plenty of deep stereo subjects. This image was shot hand held on the fly at 1/125 on Provia 100f. I set the aperture while metering through the lens of my TL120 and don’t remember what it was.

Krumlov Lane

Krumlov Lane

Shot hand held f16 at 1/125 on Provia 100f using my TL120.

Czesky Krumlov has become a popular tourist attraction in the Czech Republic, but up until the Velvet Revolution in 1989, it was just another medieval town. this place is a target rich environment.

My wife is originally Czech, and we go there every year, so you can expect a lot of my stuff to be from there. We were in a hurry when we walked past this street scene. It looked so cozy, I wanted to capture that feel.

Timo Puhakka