Canon 35/2.8 – Filmosaur

Of Maine and Mad Dashes

28 March, 2016

Everyone has had those conversations where the participants start exchanging increasingly absurd ideas and exclaiming how good they are. Usually these end when everyone acknowledges the silliness of the discussion and moves on, or when they run out of beer. But once in a while the obvious stupidity of the idea in question is not sufficient to dissuade those involved from actually carrying it out. This is one of those times.

With spring coming, we were discussing the arrival of this year’s crop of insects and how to most effectively exterminate them. Flashback to last summer, when we came upon handheld bug zappers in the shape of tennis rackets, which are both quite good at killing bugs and being utterly ridiculous. We found them while up in Maine at a local department store for the princely sum of $3. Unfortunately, buying them through various internet sources more than triples the asking price. Rather than shell out an extra $7 per racket, we thought it would make far more sense to drive up to Maine and buy more. All well and good, but the Maine state line is about five hours one way. We’d have to stay overnight, but then first thing in the morning, Tennis Rackets of Death, and home.

This still seemed like a good idea after we ran out of beer, so we found a hotel, booked it for Friday night, and we were off to Maine.

We left at 0530 and were up to Maine by 1100, having stopped for breakfast at a local spot in Massachusetts (I think – maybe it was New Hampshire. I had French toast.) along the way. We couldn’t check in for several hours, so we wandered along the coast and stopped at a few spots for photos. After a long day of driving, we dropped the car at the hotel in the late afternoon and walked into town for dinner and beer, both of which were quite necessary by this time. We finished off with a nice long walk along the cliffs and past the local lobster boat anchorage.

Next morning I got up early (how I’m not exactly sure) and did the same walk as the night before, knowing that I’d have the low angle morning light of the rising sun to play with. The light was good, but I was dragging by the time I hauled myself back to the hotel. Off to breakfast and then to the bug zappers. We bought six, saving ourselves $42. Take that, internet price gougers! We then stopped in several antiques stores and spent all of our savings and then some. Our mission accomplished, we cruised south along the coast into New Hampshire and Massachusetts, stopping several times for more photos and walking, followed by a late lunch in Portsmouth, NH.

Finally, we hit the highway for the blast back home, pulling in around 2030. After some 39 hours and 700 miles, we got our Tennis Rackets of Death. Sometimes you just have to go through with a plan to see if it’s as stupid as is sounds. It was, but it was also a hell of a good time.

So, the photos. I had two Canon LTM rangefinders – L1 and P – with two lenses – 35/2.8 and 50/3.5 (the latter a new acquisition and as such a lens I have not yet formally introduced here) respectively – and two different films – FP4+ and Ektar, again respectively. I only shot three rolls – two of color and one of B&W – but I still got some shots I was happy with. Enjoy.

Canon P, Canon 50/3.5, Kodak Ektar

Canon L1, Canon 35/2.8, Ilford FP4+ in Caffenol C-H(RS)

Canon P, Canon 50/3.5, Kodak Ektar

Canon L1, Canon 35/2.8, Ilford FP4+ in Caffenol C-H(RS)

Canon P, Canon 50/3.5, Kodak Ektar

Canon L1, Canon 35/2.8, Ilford FP4+ in Caffenol C-H(RS)

Canon P, Canon 50/3.5, Kodak Ektar

Summer Holiday, Part 5 – The Empire Strikes Back

29 September, 2014

The Communist years in Central Europe were a dark time. Much of the evidence is gone now, or at least concealed beneath the surface, but the architecture of that period remains a prominent reminder. Modernist sculpture and brutalist architecture combine to offer a stark contrast to the relatively ornate 19th Century buildings that still predominate.

Canon L1, Canon 35/2.8, Kodak Tri-X, Caffenol-C-H(RS)

It’s not pretty, but it does have a certain nostalgic charm to those who are old enough to remember the Cold War, conjuring up visions of countless movie scenes and evening news clips. One has to wonder how it is seen by those who had an altogether more intimate relationship with dictatorship.

In the later years of the Cold War the stylized forms of early 20th Century modernism gave way to the more prosaic shapes we see scattered throughout cities around the world today. The ever-greater connections between cultures have served to make the world increasingly uniform, plummeting in a downward spiral toward mind-numbing dullness. But at least it’s shiny….

Angular forms repeated endlessly in glass and concrete are mesmerizing in their own way, lulling those surrounded by them into a stupor of sensory deprivation – given the nature of totalitarian government, perhaps this was not accidental. And yet all the poured concrete in the world cannot fully block out the light.

Summer Holiday, Part 4 – A New Hope

6 September, 2014

Well, a new location at least. Moving inland, the architecture turns from Venetian to Austrian provincial, remnants of the long Hapsburg presence across this part of the world that still dominates the cities and town of the old empire.

Once again, my focus was as much on the people as the place. In this little installment, I’ll display a few photos that offer a taste of the architectural character of the place, from both wider and narrower perspectives, in color and monochrome.

Canon L1, Canon 35/2.8, Kodak Tri-X in Caffenol C-H (RS)

The river flows slowly through the center of the city, always quietly, but it is never quite as still as it is in the early morning hours. The farmers are already setting up their stalls in the market beyond the colonnade.

The cafes and restaurants fill early and stay busy all day and much of the night. No street in the old town, no matter how narrow, is without its array of outdoor tables and umbrellas.

Climbing the castle-topped hill at the center of the city one can see the tile roofs slowly give way to the hills and mountains beyond. Little of this view has likely changed in centuries.

And as night falls again, the city stays awake in the soft shadows of the buildings that have given it much of its character, with people casting shadows of their own under the streetlights.