Running out of daylight, but time for one more shot so I grabbed this sunset with the near silhouette of the log along the frozen shoreline of Big Bear Lake in February of 2022. You can see across the big part of the lake in this view and most of the lake is not frozen, just the end where we were. It was a satisfying journey to get out of the cabin and run along the nature trail and get back before the temperatures dropped to single digits. The next day would be great skiing.
The kids enjoyed a little climbing adventure on this log. Eventually we settled down into this arranged pose for the cha-cha shot on my Fuji GA645w. It was getting cold and the sun was going down fast. Glad to have this memory of my kids, who are 14,12,11,9 in this picture.
Due to the pandemic, my road trips to the States have been curtailed and limited to shorter journeys within my home province of Ontario. With all of the beautiful Saskatchewan vistas and the spectacular travel photos that were featured in the recent go ’round of the folio, I felt that Ontario should also have a chance to show off some of its breath-taking scenery.
“SLIDE AND THE FAMILY STONED”
Who needs to travel to Kingston, Jamaica when you can easily drive to Kingston, Ontario? On the way to Kingston, why not stop in Napanee? Napanee is so named for the unusual practice of its residents, who kneel while sleeping, which incidentally is not the same as sleeping while kneeling. Napanee is full of pastoral views, such as this parking lot amusement park, seen here via an EHO stereo box camera. The Altissa-EHO Stereo box camera was manufactured in the ’30s and has no provision for focusing. It has a choice of two Waterhouse f stops – f11 and f22. This image was shot using the EHO’s original single shutter speed of (I believe) 1/30th of a second. The camera has visited a technician in the interim and has had its spring tensioned so that now it is capable of firing its shutter somewhere between 1/60th – 1/100th of a second!! Captured on expired Velvia 50 and home-processed with a CPP2 Jobo unit.
“THEIR SNOW BUSINESS”
Meet Lorrie and Ray Dillard. They reside in Barrie, Ontario, which is very far North of anything and above the permafrost line. Lorrie and Ray run a successful snow-harvesting business, selling their surplus snow to countries around the world that won’t or are unable to grow their own snow. The snow is shipped out via husky-powered sled in small individual manila bubble pack envelopes twice daily. Lorrie and Ray hired Ethel Merman to sing their social media jingle; “Their Snow Business! Like ‘Snow Business’!” This image is from a test roll I shot to determine if Rollei Superpan 200 could be reverse-processed in the sometimes-available Foma reversal processing kit. Captured with Sam Smith’s conjoined AGFA Isolettes (the “Samulette”) on the aforementioned Rollei Superpan 200, and home-processed with a CPP2 Jobo unit.
“THAT’S IT (IN SPANISH)”
People not your thing? How about taking a road trip to Cooper’s Falls, Ontario? This here gas pump is one of the most photographed entities in an almost-ghost town with not that many entities in it. Approximately 14 houses in the area are still inhabited, and the waterfall after which this semi-ghost town is named cannot really be seen (or photographed) without trespassing, as it is situated on private property. The title of this image is of the crossword puzzle question type, and by request, I am not supplying the crossword puzzle answer here. Captured with an as-fine-tuned-as-is-possible-with-a-Soviet-camera Sputnik cobbled together of donated parts, on expired Provia 100F and home processed with a CPP2 Jobo unit.
“SCREAMING HEADS OF MIDLOTHIAN”
Every year, Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day falls on the last Sunday in April. It is an excuse for my daughter and I to spend a day together photographing various locations in Ontario using pinhole cameras. I will usually pack a “lensed” camera in addition to my pinhole camera(s). On WPPD 2019 we visited artist Peter Camani’s residence which hosts his grand scale outdoor art exhibition. There are various shapes of cast concrete screaming heads situated throughout his 310-acre property near Burk’s Falls, Ontario, each sculpture being in the 15-20 foot tall range. On this occasion I had packed my Hasselblad SWC, and I can’t remember if I was consciously trying to capture a stereo cha-cha image or not. In any case, I found an uncut roll of film with three pairs of images that looked like they might work as stereo pairs. Despite some anomalies between the left and right chips, my brain can fuse these images into a stereo image. As John Thurston likes to say, “your mileage may vary”. Hasselblad SWC, yellow or orange drop-in filter, expired Kodak Aerochrome film, home processed with a Jobo CPP2 unit.
Stepping into the snowed over creek is a bit of a challenge when doing cha-cha hand held stereo as my footing was wobbly and I was unsure if I was keeping alignment between the first frame exposed and the second. Alas, I liked this image enough to include it in this round.
If you’re in Mammoth, have a fun adventure on the loop
https://www.mammothtrails.org/trail/30/town-loop/
The Town Loop is 7.8 mi and a great run/hike. On the nature part of the loop is the Mammoth Creek and it is beautiful when snowed over, as seen from this roadside view which parallels the trail. Most people just ski during the winter, but hiking and running are fun too. The loop provides a family-friendly tour of town with access to a variety of outbound trails and staging areas. Mammoth Creek Park is a popular start point from which you can tour the eastern half of Mammoth–offering sweeping views of the Sherwins and connections to local schools, the library and dining/shopping–or the western portion, which cruises sleepily through Old Mammoth and past the Valentine Reserve to Eagle Lodge before turning into a quiet neighborhood on its way back out to the Main Street frontage road.
My kids loved climbing up on this.
Gold was discovered in the vicinity of Old Mammoth in 1877 and thousands of men rapidly flocked to the region in the hopes of striking it rich. Today, evidence of these industrious pioneers remains throughout Old Mammoth and no object is able to tell the story of Mammoth’s early history better than the historic Knight water wheel.
The photogenic Knight water wheel, located along Old Mammoth Road, is a preserved remnant of Mammoth Lakes’ industrial beginnings. Now positioned in the quaking aspen adjacent to the paved bike path, this cast iron water wheel has a row of spoon-shaped buckets (Pelton-style) and was a technological marvel in its time. This innovative turbine design allowed late 19th-century industry to generate more power with less water. Previous water wheel designs were inefficient, cumbersome, and required sources providing high volumes of water.
Due to the design’s practicality, Mammoth’s Knight water wheel has a very unique history. The wheel was originally manufactured by the Knight Foundry, located in Sutter Creek, California, in the mid-1870’s and was hauled from the Mojave area to the Mammoth Lakes Basin by mule and oxen team.
Did some skiing this winter up at Mammoth Mountain with the family and got them to do a morning run with me. Along the adventure we crossed this bridge located just to the North of Old Mammoth Road up and to the end of Waterford Ave. Sometimes the kids would stay still enough to get a cha-cha. My trusty Fuji GA645w is the only light enough MF camera I can take on an adventure hike/run, but you have to do cha-chas, hoping the left and right images are still enough to give the stereo illusion without retinal rivalry.
I was going to call this set “Dancing in 645 Time”, but I thought that sounded really pretentious, so, I went with something equally as creative; “2018 Submissions”. I was going to use the word “Dancing” because these four images are all cha-chas. I am a musician, and I know there’s no such time signature as 645, but I was going to use it as part of the title as all these images were shot in 645 format.
“My Thriving Ceramic Hobby” – I used to enjoy creating ceramic sculpture, and when we moved into this house (years ago) I set up a pottery shed in the backyard. Unfortunately, the equipment has lain dormant for a while now. I am hoping to eventually resume my ceramic hobby and build some ceramic stereo pinhole cameras. You’re looking at two Skutt kilns under plastic behind the pottery shed. This is a cha-cha captured with a noisy Fujifilm GA645W.
“Horned Sentinels On A Hot Tin Roof” – this is self-explanatory and should be a familiar scene for almost all film shooters. This is a cha-cha shot with a Fujica GS645W, on Kodak Aerochrome film, using a Y1 Yellow filter. A GA645W couldn’t be used to shoot infrared film as it has film sensors that would likely fog this sensitive film. This was captured in St. Lucia, during the December holiday season. See all the snow? No, I didn’t think so.
“What Stays In Vegas Decays In Vegas” – in February my wife and I drove from Las Vegas, Nevada to Los Angeles, California to visit family. While in Vegas we visited the Neon Boneyard Museum. My wife and I booked a guided tour of the Museum, and I booked myself a “Photo Walk” for the following afternoon. During the guided tours you have to keep up with the tour group, you can’t lag behind taking photos, and you can only bring one camera. No tripods, no extra lenses, and no selfie sticks. On the Photo Walks, you are allowed to bring all of your gear, and you get to roam around at your leisure for about an hour and a half. The Photo Walks happen twice a month and are usually limited to about six photographers. If you ever book a guided tour, make sure to request Russ as your guide. He’s been a Vegas resident since 1962, and he’s frequented most of the establishments that once displayed the signs that now reside in the Boneyard. He knows the history of Vegas, and the backstory for all of the signs in the Museum! This cha-cha was shot with a GS645W. I tried to meter for balance between the highlights and shadows, but I still wound up with some blown-out highlights. No matter, you can see what the blown-out signs on the right look like in the final slide of this set.
“Vacancy Row” – I was going to call this image “Cinnamon” as that’s what I think of everytime that I read the motel name on the most upright of the two motel signs pictured, but you all woulda thunk I wuz illiterate. Shot with the same equipment on the same afternoon as “What Stays…”, I also had a 1930 Rolleidoscop, a CLAed 2.8 Stereo Realist, and a Panasonic 3D-1 in my camera bag.
Title Baby Vincent, 11 months
Location Van Nuys, California April 2013
Technical Fuji GA645w (slide bar, F22, 2”, Kodak EPR 64)
Comments He is my little star, my darling, my 4th child in 5 years, my second son, and my future. The only way to photograph a baby cha-cha style is while they sleep. Here he is shot with my Fuji GA645 closeup filter, with a Benbo tripod hanging over his body. His eyes fluttered when I pressed the release on the 2nd and 3rd exposures. I used the 1st and 4th exposures and got lucky because the separation of 1cm was made for pairs 1&2 or 3&4, but 1&4 also had 1cm and created the proper separation for this 3D image.
Title: Statue of Alfred Eisenstaedt’s V-J Day Life Magazine Photograph Aboard the USS Iowa Battleship
Location San Pedro, California December 2012
Technical Fuji GA645w (cha-cha no slide bar ), Fuji Provia F100
Comments In 2012 the West Coast’s only Battleship opened to the public in San Pedro with the USS Iowa. The self-guided tour takes you on a journey through World War II, the Korean War, and the Cold War to experience the life of a sailor on the lead ship of the last class of gunships. The USS Iowa was the only ship of her class to have served in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. Despite the 16” guns, 5” guns, missile decks, bridge, mess areas, and world famous Captain’s Cabin – with the only bathtub installed on a battleship for a President, the most interesting item on the boat for me was this statue errected of the photograph of the nurse’s iconic kiss that marked the end of World War II. The battleship alone is certainly a symbol of this and world peace but for a public display, they chose to combine the weapon of a battleship with the softness of a kiss. The lasting power of a single photograph lives on.
On Aug. 14, 1945 New York City’s Times Square went dark at 7 p.m. and then at 7:03 p.m.,more than 750,000 people roared in jubilation as the words “OFFICIAL—TRUMAN ANNOUNCES JAPANESE SURRENDER” blazed across the news scroll. Elated by the news, people in the crowd were hugging and crying tears of joy, but it was a far different experience for Edith Shain, a nursing school student. “This sailor just grabbed me and kissed me,” she said. “Any female closes her eyes when she’s about to kiss so I never saw the guy, and then I walked away. I was kind of embarrassed. I didn’t say anything about it to anyone.” What Shain didn’t realize, until a week later, was that her “indiscretion” was caught on film. While browsing a copy of a Life magazine, Shain, then 27-years-old, recognized herself in what has became an iconic photo titled “V-J Day” (Victory over Japan) of a sailor slightly dipping a nurse in a white uniform and kissing her. Of the kiss, Shain said, “It was very nice, and of course, it was in the days before you’d scream and go to an attorney. It was the best of times.” The famous photo was taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt, a photojournalist for Life Magazine. In his memoirs, Eisenstaedt explained, “Suddenly, in a flash, I saw something white being grabbed. I turned around and clicked the moment the sailor kissed the nurse….People tell me that when I am in heaven they will remember this picture.” Though Eisenstaedt died in 1995 at the age of 96, the celebrated picture has not lost its significance. In celebration of the 60th anniversary of V-J Day, Shain flew to New York City where a slightly larger-than-life-size statue titled “Unconditional Soldier” by J. Seward Johnson based on the Life photograph was unveiled on Aug. 11, in Times Square.
Title View from the Shoin Building of The Japanese Garden
Location Van Nuys, California April 2013
Technical Fuji GA645w (cha-cha no slide bar ), Fuji Provia F100
Comments Major architectural entities in the garden include the Shoin building which projects over the lake and adjoins the teahouse. Shoin was the residential dwelling developed for aristocrats, upper class monks and samurai during the 14th and 15th centuries. The exterior of this building is authentically shoin style, but the interior has been modified to provide a place for meetings and special events. While the room does survey a panoramic view of the garden, notice the white window blinds that slide horizontally. The Japanese garden style is to reveal only portions of the garden at a time from a seating and not the entire panoramic view at once.
Location Van Nuys, California April 2013
Technical Fuji GA645w (cha-cha no slide bar ), Fuji Provia F100
Comments The Japanese Garden, dedicated June 18th, 1984, is a 6½ acre authentic Japanese garden fashioned after “stroll gardens” constructed during the 18th and 19th centuries for Japanese Feudal lords. The trees are manicured to reduce any dense foliage and promote three dimensional views that allows one to see the pines, lake, and administration building in the background. The foot path allows two people to enter together in order to encourage courtesy and to allow the viewing of small portions of The Garden from different vantage points.
The Hollywood Sign is fenced off and well protected by surveillance; helicopters will come get you if you try to vandalize it. You can go up to the trail peak just behind the Hollywood sign which is across from the radio towers seen in the distance from the previous image. This hike affords one premium 360° views, perhaps the best of Los Angeles anywhere.
Location – Griffith Park, January 1st 2011
Technical – Fuji GA645w (cha-cha no slide bar), Fuji Provia F100
Trail running with my lightweight Fuji afforded me the opportunity to shoot MF3D vantage points that are generally hard to get to. I took advantage of the cha-cha method by giving a slight hyper stereo base of 4-12 “ in most of my shots. A backpack and a tripod would have eliminated me from going with my running group of 50+ people that have been doing this New Year’s run for 21 consecutive years. Although they are not in my shots, these runners inspired me to get up at 6:30AM and run 10 miles on New Year’s Day…glad I did.
Location – Griffith Park, January 1st 2011
Technical – Fuji GA645w (cha-cha no slide bar), Fuji Provia F100
On New Years Day 2011 I ran from the Griffith Park parking lot at the horse stables to the Hollywood Sign. This is a scenic 10 mile round-trip over trails. To do this trail run with a MF camera I put it in my Nike bag vinyl sack which has shoulder cord strings. I velcroed the strings together across my chest to eliminate any bag bounce during the run. All shots were taken cha-cha without a tripod by simply framing a distant object in the cross hairs of the camera and moving the camera over a few inches, one foot at most. This method works well so long as there is no movement between shots. You will see an occasional runner/hiker in these shots if you look close.
Location – Griffith Park, January 1st 2011
Technical – Fuji GA645w (cha-cha no slide bar), Fuji Provia F100