I watched the PBS documentary on Ansel Adams last night (from the American Experience series). The film itself was alright, but not as good as it could have been. For a show focusing on a photographer, there was remarkably poor treatment of his photographs and the venues he shot them in. The director, Ric Burns, chose to use the now cliched pan-n-zoom effect his brother made so famous, but it really detracted from the photographs. I would’ve loved to have seen the full pictures for a little bit to understand the composition and have a sense of scale before zooming around the various elements of the photo. They also had a lot of helicopter footage from the Sierras, but the camera was so shaky and not level, it was disturbing.
The American Experience website for this documentary, however, is quite good – there’s extra footage and some cool features. Check it out here.
posted January 4, 2005 – 8:12 am
I put up some info about how I fixed the flash that came with my recent acquisition (the Canon QL17) – you can check it out here. No pictures developed from the camera yet except for the all-too-grainy 800 speed film ones.
I also got a ton of work done today on the piano bench in anticipation of including it in my portfolio. Pictures soon.
posted January 3, 2005 – 2:54 pm
Well, my new (old) camera arrived yesterday! It’s in much better shape than I expected it to be, and seems to work perfectly. I loaded up some ASA 800 film (grainy stuff, that) and took a quick roll of pictures last night. I might post more of them, but in the meantime, check out my self-portrait.
Happy New Year!
posted December 31, 2004 – 2:15 pm
I finished making a new focusing screen for my Rolleiflex last night. It ain’t perfect, but it’ll do for the time being. You can see it here.
posted December 29, 2004 – 8:56 am
I guess it was around 9:30 this morning when I was still in my pajamas that I realized I wasn’t going to work. There’s about 8″ of snow outside, though, so I’m not entirely without excuse (the driving really wouldn’t have been fun).
I won an E-Bay auction for a Canonet QL17 yesterday – hopefully I’ll have it by the weekend. Hooray for new toys!
In other camera-related news, I did some work on replacing the ground glass in my Rolleiflex, which cracked more in transport back from NYC at Thanksgiving (even though it was pretty chipped to begin with, I gotta be a little more careful). The nice folks at the Shards stained glass studio helped me cut rectangles of the appropriate size from “micro plate glass,” which happens to be exactly the same thickness as the original ground glass. I tried using sandpaper to get a roughed up surface on the glass, but it appears either etching or using powdered abrasives is the way to go.
posted December 27, 2004 – 8:34 am
