I bought a bike rack that mounts to my seat post. It can handle 20 pounds, and has an EZ-PZ fast mounting with a quick release.
Don’t tell “Maggie,” but I have some 120 ACROS (original) in my stockpile that I have been saving because it is fab for night shooting: no reciprocation failure. Developed in my “Slacker’s-Brew,” AKA Diafine, I get mucho contrast compression with full range of tones which means mucho mids from high contrast scenes.
Pretty much load up a bike with a tripod and a camera. Perhaps even an 8x10 so I can contact print. You know me; optimize at time of exposure; make great negatives that are easy to print; and maximize IQ. Contact printing is the lazy slacker’s way.
So I think I will do this night shooting during snow storms. I live in an urban area that has mucho lovely old houses. One of them I own. The Ti Basso set up as my Fat Tire bike with muy aggressive 2.35 wide tires would get me around, and the idea would be to photograph in virgin snow that could be wind blown and banked to display that calmness that happens when it snows, as well as the turmoil of a northeaster.
Ice storms at night would be rather dramatic.
So I see a wonderful bunch of series happening that easily could become books, even if one offs.
I am still fondling the Robot Royal 36. Privately Devil Christian mentioned that at the last Meet-Up he failed to remove the lens to demonstrate that the rather small lens is remarkably heavy. In fact the lens is a mucho heavy chunk of machined brass, and the weight is so vast that it is no exaggeration that it weighs as much as the body of the camera.
”They don’t build German cameras like they use to,” I say.
On one hand, the camera is compact and small, so is the lense, but it weighs a ton. Makes a Leica seem wimpy.
Also my fondling has redistributed lubricants it seems. My Robot Royal is a shelf queen, but with a mucho simple shutter. The shutter speeds are limited, with a top speed of only 1/500, then 1/250, 1/100, 1/50, 1/25, 1/10, 1/5, 1/2 and finally Bulb. The point is no slow shutter speeds like on a Leica to get gummed up and pretty low maintenance.
I thought the rangefinder was kinda dim, but this was without my glasses. In fact the rangefinder patch is a small circle, but it has great contrast if I wear my glasses, and is deadly accurate.
So with exercising I seemed to eliminate some friction by redistributing lubricants and now I can get 10-11-12-13 shots from the spring motor, where in the past I could only get 4-5-6. One time I even got 14. Just enough stored energy to trip the shutter. Seems when this happens that winding the spring motor after just the shutter has tripped advances the film with no ill effect. “How crazy is that?
Anyways this Robot Royal 36 has mucho “Calzone-Factor,” very-very quirky, very-very different, not boring, not like other cameras, mucho strong for its size, but then again mucho strong in a robust thuggish way. The sound of winding the spring motor is like using a Craftsman 1/4 inch drive racket. The sound pretty much is the same for winding, but the sound of the film advance pretty much replicates the sound of my Nixon F3P when rigged with motor drive but at a lower, more quiet sound level.
Kinda chirp like my Jeep Scrambler’s rear tires when under full acceleration when I shift gears and break traction for a moment. Chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp… Anyways I love that sound.
So pretty much I have a deadly camera. A heavy weight, rugged, weaponized, tough, and perhaps a bit ghetto and thuggy.
I am reminded when I use to carry a Rolliflex and my Plaubel 69W with Proshift. The Plaubel has a 21mm FOV and makes a 6x9 negative, but shooting this with a Rollie 3.5F “Whiteface” made a great shooting pair. I did a lot of shooting with this pair of cameras, and generally I do not mix formats of mediums because it gets too complicated for me and I easily get overwhelmed.
So anyways I think I might want another Robot camera that shoots a square 24x24, because I tend to shoot with two cameras.
For one thing, I learned from Amy Arbus that she use to carry three Rollies in a knapsack sack. With 120 pretty much only 12 exposures. Richard Avedone before he shot and got known for his 8x10 work also shot Rollies, and he would have two assistants who’s jobs were to load and unload cameras.
If you ever shot a Rolliflex, you gotta know that they can eat a lot of film, that 12 exposures is not a lot, and then it kinda sucks when you miss shots because you have to reload.
Anyways that is why I tend to carry at least 2 cameras, and at times three.
Also Devil Christian says the way I shoot is kinda “performative” because I interact and engage with my subjects. Some of my work involves sequences… That is another body of work.
I pretty much have two different books I have to edit that involve outdoor pole dancers. One was this girl, mucho hot, who put on a show for me. “I was just minding my own business,” I say, but it was in the staging area early for the Mermaid Parade. Pretty much she core-E-O-graphed a sequence of shots for me and my camera.
I would a year later meet-up with this smoking hot girl, and learn her name was “Brooklyn.” Again, “I was just minding my own business…”
One day, “I was just minding my own business,” and I was searching for these people who believed that Ama-GOD-N was going to happen and they strongly believed that they would as send to heaven in a few days because the world as we knew it would end due to some Mayan calender event. For some unknown reason all these crazy religious fanatics came to NYC to get us to repent.
I went down to Union Square, and could not see or find any of the believers what only earlier in the week and in fact just the day before, told me to repent or be condemned to hell. Then I wondered, did the ascend already? Am I in eternal hell, meaning NYC? Is NYC hell?
So pretty much I started walking up Broadway, and I discovered a staging area for a “Dance Parade.” So pretty much I go from being abandoned in hell to paradise. I immediately recognized the pole platform from the Mermaid Parade that was towed by a guy dressed like a Pirate on a three wheeled bike that pretty much was designed and marketed for senior citizens.
So I meet this scantly clad girl yet again, with the ideal pole dancing body, but I am face to face. I’m happy to see her, and it seems she remembered me from a year ago. I know this because I asked her, “Do you remember me?” So that is how I got her name.
So the smut was that there was this “Dance Parade” and she and a whole crew of pole dancers, with hard bodies, scantily clad, were part of this parade to promote some pole dancing institute or school on 5th Avenue. Actually Brooklyn tried to recruit me, “We need more men Pole Dancers,” she said.
Am I dirty old man, or was this girl flirting with me?
So then all these pole dancers began warming up, practicing their routines, and putting on a private show for me. “I was just minding my own business,” I say, and for some unknown reason I was rigged with a Mamiya 6 with the legendary 50mm wide angle lens to get up mighty close in about 6-7 feet to be basically in the action. At one point one dancer almost kicked my camera while I was shooting.
Another girl pretty much opened her crotch kinda flashing me with her privates. I have the photo to prove it. Some of the shots display motion blur because of my close proximity. Oh so dramatic.
So this is just another example of how I seem to end up in sich-E-A-tigons, when all I’m trying to do is mind my own business.
Another time I was just walking around Brooklyn. In Manhattan that Saturday was the Climate March, and I wanted to avoid the crowds, the mob scene, and do something more akin to my style. Somehow I stumbled into some skateboarding event sponsored by Vans the sneaker brand.
Because of the Climate March I pretty much had like a back stage pass to this event that was part of a big production. It was being video taped and would be broadcast. I actually watched the show when it was broadcast.
I had my Leica Monochrom rigged with a 28 Cron. The shooting was fast, and pretty much I shot using a “Kill-Zone.” Anyways I have enough material to create another book. Also know this and the other examples are kinda how I operate. In true life I perhaps am very private and could say I’m kinda shy or perhaps even anti-social.
Cal
