Beautiful Bokeh

Living in Stereo

~brf

View-Master blew my mind as a kid.  I thought it was so cool that by viewing two tiny, nearly-identical images- one for each eye- I could experience a hyper-realism that somehow looked more authentic and vivid than the same image appeared using only my own eyeballs.  I finally got the opportunity to pick up a 3D camera of my own and have spent the last few months and countless rolls of film experimenting.

I bought a TDC Colorist- a fairly standard, relatively inexpensive stereo camera produced in the late 1950’s.  No rangefinder, but for this kind of stereo photography the depth-of-field is more important than precise focusing.  It’s an extraordinarily simple technique:  Two exposures are made simultaneously and from a distance apart that more or less matches the distance between the average person’s eyes.  When seen simultaneously through a viewer- a single image per eye- the ‘stereo’ effect is created. Groovy.

Stereo photography is nearly as old as photography itself:  By the mid to late 1800s it was already a hugely popular form of entertainment as a means for people to experience foreign lands, cultures, and events.  Oh yeah- and porn.  Lots and lots of porn.  Being relatively cheap and inexpensively mailed, it was an easily accessible amusement for most anyone interested in most any subject.  Advantageous, too, that the stereograms could be handily concealed within the pages of a book or gentleman’s wallet.

Stereo photography seemed a natural companion to my affinity for roadside attractions so I have been taking the Colorist along on any adventure where we might encounter a souvenir stand or anything weird, wonderful, and made of concrete.  The choice of subject matter plus use of ultra-vivid, super-saturated color slide film has been delivering delightful results.

I asked CW to pair these sets for me and describe the best way to view: 

"If you have some talent viewing random dot stereograms (those posters of 3D sailboats and unicorns and stuff you used to find at the mall) you can see the 3D effect of these images right here on the screen without any goggles or viewers. Hold your head about 18" or so from your display, make sure your eyes are level (don't tilt your head), and defocus your eyes until you see a 3rd image between the two: that middle image will be in 3 dimensions. If you can do it, it's awesome. If you can't, sorry... it's hard for some people." 

This relaxed eye-crossing method of viewing stereograms doesn’t work for me- I find it tedious and a little uncomfortable, but evidently most people have no problem.  I use an awesome illuminated viewer that really makes the slides look great, and an old-timey stereoscope for printed cards.

Baba na Mama Africa

My parents were here last week. They just left to go back home to Bunda, Tanzania where they've lived for 6 years and will live for the rest of their lives. It's obviously very hard to see them so it's really really great when we get the chance. We took a cab to Manny's, my Dad's favorite to place in minneapolis & the cab driver was from Kenya—my parents had a conversation with him in Swahili which was fun to watch even if I wasn't in on the jokes they were telling. My parents are missionaries. People who know me well know that I'm not religious (an athiest in fact), but they also know how highly I value behaving well and living a moral life. There are bad kinds of missionaries, we've all seen them in movies, but there are good kinds as well. My parents are without question the second kind. They're over there being good to people and having an effect, the scope of which I doubt even they realize. I can't express how proud I am of them. While they were here we mostly just relaxed, hung out, and talked. They've had lots of adventures since the last time we were together and it's always fascinating hearing them tell them. Oh we also played Tiger Woods 09 on the PS3 and Dad murdered me.

f-stop swap!

We checked out the latest edition of the f-stop swap camera swap meet this weekend. It's an odd mix of collectors of specialized antique camera stuff and vendors of more modern equipment as well so there are usually things for both Brenda and I to come home with. Last time we spent too much but this time, though we saw lots of awesome stuff, we managed to confine ourselves to a lens a piece. She got a funny looking telephoto for her old Leica and I got my first fisheye. We also ran into my old friend Charles Murphy who, it turns out, is a photo geek of the first order. Was fun catching up with him & chatting lenses & stuff. One of the coolest things I saw was a 3D camera with a VHS instruction video hosted by Vincent Price. I also liked all the tiny little spy cameras. Afterwards we went to Monte Carlo to play with our lenses. Here are my first two fish-eye lens shots ever: One of our kind bartender, and one of brenda playing with her own new toy.

45th Parallel

There's a lot of stuff and countries half-way between the Equator and the North Pole but one of my favorites is our friend Scott's vodka distillery. It's named after the famous circle of latitude on which it (roughly) is located. It's not far from Stillwater, MN and is therefore within reach of a bike ride so I rode my bike over and met Brenda and our art director (*cough* designer) friend Han Lin and we took a tour of the thing. It was just us and Scott who was nice enough to walk us through the entire process from corn to bottled vodka to packaged bottles and it reminded me of those episodes of Mr. Rogers when he showed us kids how they make violins or whatever. It's incredible how many parts of the process you can tweak that affect the taste in spite of the fact that the ingredient list is incredibly short. We were also impressed by the look of the imported german distillery equipment he bought and couldn't help but suspect that some of its aesthetic awesomeness was intentional. The tour ended with the hoped-for tasting session which did not disappoint. If you live in MN or WI, try some. There are lots of places to find it in Minneapolis...Manny's, Red Stag, the W bar, and a bunch more.

ValleySCARE!

We've been looking for an excuse to go to Valleyfair for a while, on account of how we both love roller coasters, and it's so close and all. We found out our friend Targetgirl Tina was working in the Dr. Dementia magic show and that the whole park had been spookified for halloween so we checked it all out last night and had a blast. They spared no expense on the fake fog. Seriously, walking around the park there are places where visibility is zero. It actually looks surprisingly cool with all the plastic scary stuff and made-up people walking in and out of the fog. We went through a haunted house thing and I had one legitimate scare when I realized the hand I was holding on to wasn't brenda's but was some teenage zombie girl's instead. I think I made an embarrassing sound.

We also dug the Ritual of Fire gang which is a bunch of hot chicks looking mean & playing with fire to tribal drum beats until some giant bald voodoo-king-god-type-guy comes out and sprays like a big 15 foot flame out of his mouth which I guess signals the whole voodoo fire ritual was a success because they immediately disappeared, presumably to go have a fire orgy somewhere.

And of course Tina was awesome in the magic show which had a mad scientist theme...Thomas Dolby soundtrack, etc. The crowd was big and really responsive (mostly adults, I guess cause it was late) and thanks to Tina we got to go back stage and talk to the magician and the rest of them afterwards. Really cool buncha guys. The magic was solid...more theater than amazement in places but there was one trick in particular that left us pretty baffled. It involves a lemon...the most mysterious fruit there is. Also there was an reasonably family-friendly S&M bit in which Tina reveals that she is not fucking around when it comes to bullwhips. She killed. We also rode a few of the big rides which only made us want to go back soon to do the rest of them. Roller coasters rule.