Tag Archives: Boris Starosta

Williamsburg Bridge

by Boris Starosta

Fuji RAP, f11 (?), 1 sec. exposure in available light, using Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner. Camera stabilized on walkway/surface of bridge.   Slide in folio is original film.

Cycling over the Williamsburg bridge to visit someplace in Brooklyn, I took interest in the elaborate riveted steel trusswork along the way.  It was very cold, and I had no tripod.  I placed the camera on ground and tried to stabilize it with a pocket knife acting as a shim to get the angle.  Aim and thus composition was guesswork.  I would have wanted a longer exposure/smaller aperture, but the rig was shaky, so I dared not.  Luckily, it was wintertime, so the traffic was light, and I was not reported to the TSA or other anti-terrorist authorities as a person of suspicion – it’s sad what one has to be afraid of these days.

Coiner’s scrap yard

by Boris Starosta

Tech: Available light exposure of 1/50sec. on FUJI RVP Velvia 100F film with Sam Smith’s (I think) siamesed Ricohflex on loan from Paul Talbot. This is the original slide.

This is some of the first MF3d photography I have done.  Seeking abstract and textured subject matter, I went to the local scrap metals yard.  Not only was it very cold out, but the picture I found was of some scrap (in foreground of this view) very close to where a crane was working, making loud clanking and thudding noises.  I needed to face away from the crane, could not monitor it, and so made my exposures with some apprehension for my safety.

Maia B 15

by Boris Starosta

My version of a Christmas image?  Well, making it did involve the use of a string of Christmas tree lights. maia_B_15_MFT72_ Maia is a bit soft because she’s just trying to sit still for 30 seconds, while I pull the pile of lights out of her lap.

Fuji Astia, f22, about 30 seconds exposure, tungsten lights, using twin Mamiya 6 w/ 75mm lenses, 3.6″ stereo separation.  Distance to subject about six feet.   Original slide.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Arthouse 2

by Boris Starosta

This is the living room of the Arthouse, a bed and breakfast where I stay whenever I’m in New York (unless they are booked up).  They do no advertising and let their rooms out only to artists that have been personally introduced through friends.  So it’s a bit exclusive, I guess…  There are five rooms of various sizes, and 2.5 baths that the guests share.

Every morning, breakfast is included, and one typically finds guests from overseas, often from Germany or nearby central arthouse_2_MFT72_European countries, Spain, Mexico, or other countries in South America.  Sometimes the guests are so interesting, you hardly need to see the rest of the city.  I stay there once or twice a month, because I have a part-time job driving a coach bus to and from NYC from Charlottesville.  I always bring my bicycle.

Fuji RXP, f16 (?), 1 sec. exposure in available light, using Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner. Camera stabilized by holding up against a wall.   Slide in folio is original film.

Bike Works NYC

by Boris Starosta

This is a great little bike shop in SoHo that I discovered years ago while shopping for some esoteric bike parts online.  They have a fabulous web page with lots of fun historical content, plus galleries of unusual bikes they’ve had in their shop (see this page showing some of my bikes).  My city bike, pictured at the lower left of the view (black frame, 20″ wheels), is in their web galleries as well.  This view is of their “showroom” and counter – an area about 10 x 15 ft. bikeworks_NYC_1_MFT72_ To obtain this exposure, I held the camera upside down against the door frame above my head, shimmed a bit with a bicycle cog under the front edge of the camera (I couldn’t bring a tripod on my bike).  I took numerous pictures this way, bracketting my exposures.

Kodak E200, f16, 8s exposure, Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner.  original slide.

Michele in 2009

by Boris Starosta

In early spring of 2009 I went on a hike with my beloved Michele.  Weather for Charlottesville had been forecast in the low 50s.  But at Old Rag Mt. things turned out different.  Instead of the partly sunny, mid-40s temperatures we’d expected, by the time we got halfway up the mountain, there was a stiff breeze blowing snow UP the side of the mountain, into our faces, with temperatures below freezing.  At the point shown in the photograph, we were out on some rocky parts of the climb, relatively exposed, wind howling, like a scene out of Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air.”  We’d forgotten our oxygen bottles so we turned around.

michele_2_MFT72_


1/10 sec. exposure on FUJI RAP film in available light at f16 with Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner.  This is the original slide.

UVA Hospital

by Boris Starosta

scan001053Shot in natural evening light using twin Hasselblads with 75mm lenses.

I had set up the twin rig Hassys but one of them was acting funny, making a nasty noise advancing the film (they have electric/motor drive film advance). Just to be safe, between exposures I shifted the tripod over 9-12 inches each time. I figured if the film advance was screwed up (it was) I’d have some side-steps on at least the one roll. And that’s how I “succeeded” in my photography that night. The careful observer will be able to make out the Orion Nebula in this shot, as well as read the time of day in a distant wall clock!

12″ (?) interaxial original slide shot in 2004.   f/11? five to ten seconds exposure, if I remember correctly.

Terri “Angelic”

by Boris Starosta

scan001052Terri had to hold very still, while I manually wound the film and shifted the camera. You can see some rivalry near her adams apple and eyes. I shot the picture “upside down” and wanted her to appear to be flying like an angel (but asleep and dreaming too, go figure). This is some of my early MF3d, from 2001, using a borrowed TLR

Shot sequentially with twin a TLR Rolleiflex on a slide bar. f22? Exposure with flash in studio. Original slide.

Play The Building

by Boris Starosta


David Byrne rigged up this industrial space in NYC with numerous actuators – hammers, motors and similar vibration inducing devices – attached to columns, radiators, roof trusses, etc. Visitors to the installation can sit down at the old organ keyboard, where from they “play the building”. The music/sounds thus created, in combination with the space are very mesmerizing. I was there on two occasions. Once nearly empty (I got to play!), the second time with Spud, very crowded. The effect was different each time, interesting both times.

Above: Fuji RXP, f11 (?), 1-2 sec. exposure in available light, using Sputnik, 80mm lenses.scan001055
This is the original slide shot in summer of 2008.

The organ was modified to send signals via electric or pneumatic lines to the various actuators. The music was essentially percussive: lots of clinks and clanks. Only the electric motors near the ceiling, in the trusswork under the skylight, produced “tone” – a dark, rumbling, droning tone.

Right: Fuji RXP, f11 (?), 1/8 sec.  Exposure in available light, using Sputnik, 80mm lenses. This is the original slide.