Miracle Mile – Coral Gables Florida

The center island of the Miracle Mile in Coral Gables is lined with these trees.   I used a TL-120 on a tripod with a Vivitar 285H fill flash, this was taken after sunset.   The fill flash brings out a little touch of detail in the passing cars.   I used an incident meter to determine the exposure, hoping to bring out the detail in the trees at the expense of blowing out the store in the background.   I think this was a 30 seconds at f22.

Infinity Pool – Singapore

This is the famous Infinity Pool at the top of the Sands three-tower hotel in Singapore.   You’ll find a lot of images online of this pool that feature the illusion that the back edge of the water drops off to the Singapore skyline, you’d think swimmers were in danger of falling off.   This shot shows why they aren’t.

May 2018.  I used a TL-120 with Provia 100F pushed one stop.

Galactica Bubble

Tom Noddy blows a Galacitica Bubble

One of the stalwarts of the Moisture Festival is my good friend Tom Noddy, who does an act with soap bubbles. Yes, you read that right. Tom performs all over the world and his act can include caterpillar bubbles, yin yang bubbles, tornado bubbles, a carousel bubble, a bubble tetrahedron, a bubble cube, a bubble dodecahedron, (long time members of the folio have probably seen a number of those!) all delivered with a patter that he’s worked for probably 40 years. When Johnny Carson had his anniversary special with highlights from the last 25 years, a clip of Tom was included. Here he’s creating a “Galactica Bubble” in my living room.

Moisture Festival Finale

Seattle’s Moisture Festival has grown to be the largest comedy/variety festival in the world. (Perhaps if they had known that when they started, fifteen years ago, they would have given it a different name.) It grew out of a collaboration of performers on the left coast vaudeville circuit and other performers from around the states and around the world. One of the inspirations for the festival was a cabaret run by the great German clown, Hacki Ginda.

I was once part of that vaudeville circuit, and many of the folks in this shot are friends of mine. This was shot a few years ago at the end of the festival, and that’s Hacki Ginda at center stage. Also pictured in the back, sporting a beard, is the great American clown Avner Eisenberg, aka Avner the Eccentric, who years ago did a one man show on Broadway to critical acclaim. The Moisture Festival has very little money to pay performers and yet they come from all over the world to participate.

Ian Andvaag A30 submission

Encroaching Dunes and Storm Brewing were taken during the four separate times I visited Douglas Provincial Park this summer. It is a nice ~4km walk out to the dunes, through scrubby aspen parkland full of scraggly junipers and cacti eking out an existence off the dry, nutrient deficient soil. Unfortunately our provincial government has thoroughly defunded our provincial parks, so the nature centre at the trail head has been permanently closed and has fallen into disrepair. So, I don’t know much about this unique ecozone. At least the trail markers remain mostly in tact, so it is still easy to find the dunes, although the trails are not used very frequently. During my visits I only ever encountered maybe 3 groups of people.
The first time I went I discovered rather dramatically at the end of my 5 hour hike that my TL-120 had not been working properly. It was getting dark and I decided to do a couple of longer exposures. I set up the camera to 1 sec and took the shot … the shutter did clicked open and shut without any delay. Uh-oh. I had always thought that the camera had a mechanical shutter, so even if the battery was dead, it would still operate normally, except for the light meter. Earlier in the day I had been shooting at around 1/60, and didn’t notice that the shutter wasn’t staying open long enough. I think I developed 5 super underexposed rolls from that excursion. Lesson learned, I’ve now carefully reread John Thurston’s excellent page on battery options, and I always carry spares now, and I change the batteries periodically.
Canola Fields and Milkhouse were taken near the farmyard where my Dad grew up. I should have been there about 1 week earlier to get optimal colour in the canola flowers. I wish I would have had an opportunity to photograph the field in the early morning or late afternoon warm light, but it was cloudy. I think Milkhouse is a bit weaker than the other slides in my submission, but I really like the colours, so I decided to include it.
I’m really enjoying shooting with the TL-120, but I still take out my Sputnik in adverse weather conditions and when it is inconvenient to lug around the heavy TL-120. Sometime in the future I’d really like to try some hypers after seeing some amazing slides from the folios. I still struggle with exposure a bit, I’d say only about 80% of my shots come out properly exposed (provided my camera has functional batteries!) Was the TL-120’s internal light meter calibrated for colour negative film, because it seems to overexpose most scenes by a bit. I use my Gossen Luna Pro F primarily. Perhaps I should consider getting a spot meter.
I really enjoyed the folio again, thanks all for your lovely images!

Carousel Follow Pan

WSF_Carousel_2_225x190This was another experiment to do something a little different with a stereo image. I tried following the ride as it was moving to get a crisp subject with a streaked background. Can’t claim success, but I’m encouraged to keep a’tryin’. One of the challenges was the lighting, which was a combination of fluorescent and tungsten. The original film I got back was awful to look at — super saturated ugly yellow-orange where you should see white. With some experimentation I settled on two filters stacked — one fluorescent and one blue. I think it was an FL-B and an 80A. If I remember right, the ideal exposure would have been 1/15th of a second but I couldn’t get there with my filters, even with pushing the film. I think these were shot at 1/8 second. I could probably get there with a flash that’s gelled for tungsten and fluorescent. Maybe next year! I’m not sure if this is the exact same image that’s in the folio (I sent some images in by mail and didn’t note exactly which scans they matched!). TL-120 with Provia 400X pushed to the limit.

Aspen Abstract

AspenAbstract_5_225x221This was a ‘proof of concept’ experiment in creating an abstract 3D image. It isn’t all I had hoped it would be, but it isn’t discouraging me either! Taken with the TL-120. Don’t recall the settings (I’m writing this after the slide was sent in, so answers could be on the mount!). Probably something like a quarter or eighth of a second exposure. Camera is swept down, hopefully level, and the shutter pressed when already in motion. I also don’t know if this image is the same one as the slide in the folio, but it’s in the same spirit.

Goliad Market Days, Texas

folio-4Goliad Market Days is an open air market which combines an arts and crafts fair, farmers market and community festival.  Market Days are held to relive Goliad’s traditional role as a crossroads for commerce, beginning with the 1700s’ Spanish-colonial trade from Mexico to Nacogdoches.  The tradition continued throughout the 19th century, as Goliad was included on the routes for oxcarts, freight wagons, and stagecoaches. Today, Goliad Market Days is one of the largest and most popular street markets in South Texas. Goliad is the third oldest municipality and is rich in Texas history. It is the County Seat of Goliad County, one of the oldest counties of Texas. First named Santa Dorotea by the Spaniards in the 16th century, its name was changed February 4, 1829 to Goliad. The name is an anagram derived from the last name of a Spanish missionary priest, Father Hidalgo.

Tent Rocks near Los Alamos

Well, this one is a bit different. It’s a hyper of a formation about 1/8 mile away taken using the Sony SLT 55 with a 100 mm prime macro lens. The images were acquired as part of a rapid burst from a moving car (I’d had foot surgery and my wife was driving me about). The spacing of the shots is around 100 feet. The white formations are about 30′ tall. This is a little known site near Los Alamos.

This was transferred to TL 120 using a “4K” screen. See “Camel Rock North Face” for the details of that process.

There is a very famous grouping of tent rocks, larger and more numerous, south of Santa Fe, which some of you may know of. They occur only in a few places, including outside of Istanbul, Turkey.

I’ll be heading out to Tent Rocks proper in the summer once things have solidified.