Strangest question ever from a stranger

Yes, the X100S is great for that type of comment. Even my family can't tell it apart from actual vintage stuff like a Fed or Zorki. I guess the silver & black combo is really that uncommon.

Well, I mean...

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A student of mine was shooting a young model who was attending classes in another area of the college. While shooting the model kept asking when she could get a copy to post on her My Face page. My student was shooting film and explained the process of developing the negative and printing the image, and that it would take a couple of hours at the least. After about three attempts to explain the process the model finally caught on and said, "I get it, film is like old school digital!"
 

Connected to this, there's an interesting snippet in Skunk Works, Ben Rich's book about his time at Lockheed. One of his engineers was complaining about not being able to get a sharp photo of the F-117 they were developing. Turned out that they were using a sonar-focussing Polaroid and the plane's shape and coating was killing the echo.
 
My fave of the last year was a Cuban police captain who had confiscated my 35mm film wanting to know if he could unroll the film and see the photos I had taken. Fortunately I had changed rolls while in the police station and what he actually had was a new blank roll.
 
My fave of the last year was a Cuban police captain who had confiscated my 35mm film wanting to know if he could unroll the film and see the photos I had taken. Fortunately I had changed rolls while in the police station and what he actually had was a new blank roll.
You are an evil genius😎
 
In a lift with a black Zeiss lens hood on the front of the silver 50 C Sonnar. Man in his late 40s: "What's that attached to the lens?"
"A lens hood."
"What's that for?"
Explanation...
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, that's really what it's for."
Not convinced.
Open lift doors. Exit.
 
In a lift with a black Zeiss lens hood on the front of the silver 50 C Sonnar. Man in his late 40s: "What's that attached to the lens?"
"A lens hood."
"What's that for?"
Explanation...
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, that's really what it's for."
Not convinced.
Open lift doors. Exit.

Tell them it's so no one in the pictures is squinting
 
That reminds me of the Anglo-Scottish wedding I went to where the photographer called "OK, bride's family please!", rummaged in his bag, turned round as the Celtic horde assembled and said "I'm going to need a wider lens!"

Adrian
 
Q: "Are you oriental?"
A: "Um...I'm Asian...?"
Q: "Oh, where are you from?"
A: "California"
Q: "Oh your English is so much better than my husbands! He's Japanese. I'm not racist at all!"
A: "Good for you..." (awkward)
 
I was shooting with my Rolleiflex at an open party in a garden, when a bou around 12 told me he never saw such a camera and than ask me if he could look in it. I showed him the camera explaining the inversion of right and left side. he said
" great, never seen anything similar. And how many Megapixel is?"
robert
 
Q: "Are you oriental?"
A: "Um...I'm Asian...?"
Q: "Oh, where are you from?"
A: "California"
Q: "Oh your English is so much better than my husbands! He's Japanese. I'm not racist at all!"
A: "Good for you..." (awkward)

Oh I get this all the time. Especially the "English good" part. Even from people somewhat familiar with me.

"Oh! Someone who's been studying in the U.S for a decade speaks good English! What a surprise!"

And for people on the streets...

"Are you spying for the commies?"

"Yes, sir. In fact I have been trained in over fifity bare-hand kill techniques. But I'm sure one will be sufficient"
 
. . Especially the "English good" part. . .
Woman in Manassas motel (to me) on learning that I lived in England: "You speak really good English! How long have you been in our country?"

Me: "Um... England? English? It's the language they speak in England."

WIMM: "No, but you're from abroad, and everyone from abroad speaks different languages..."

Something similar happened in Arizona. And around the Californian, Texan and New Mexican state lines you should see la migra, out on the road, trying to get their heads around the idea that someone with a pink skin who speaks English (often better than they do) is not a US citizen. Then they'd often ask for my wife's passport, even though she is a US citizen. There's a certain flaw in the logic here...

Unfortunately, some stereotypes of national stupidity exist for depressingly good reasons. There are always some people, in most countries, who live up to (and beyond) those stereotypes. Except perhaps in Poland.

Cheers,

R.
 
At a polling station a few years back i was taking some test shots of a brick building and trees while my wife was voting. The light was good...

A woman approached me and asked if I was videotaping her, with my ZeroImage 612 multi format. She looked pretty anxious so I had to doubly reassure her that it wasn't a video camera. Apparently tripods equate video. Even on a camera that looks 100 years old.
 
Q: "Are you oriental?"
A: "Um...I'm Asian...?"
Q: "Oh, where are you from?"
A: "California"
Q: "Oh your English is so much better than my husbands! He's Japanese. I'm not racist at all!"
A: "Good for you..." (awkward)

I'm from a part of the Midwest (Missouri) where we sort of considered ourselves connected to the old west. About 30 miles from my home, in Kansas, was a reservation populated by Iowa and Kickapoo Indians. I met and visited the grand-daughter of the Iowa Chief. He was very kind to me. Our museum had a very extensive collection of indian artifacts.

So, just before I entered the US Army, my mother and I visited my brother and his Japanese wife in California. We visited an amusement park where they had a teepee with a person in front of it, wearing a robe and feathered head dress. He obviously was not of Caucasian stock. I approached him and asked him what tribe he was from. He looked around sheepishly and answered, Korea.

My students, seeing me with an old folder Zeiss Ikon that I took to class one day.

"Does it take color photographs?"

Go the other way. After looking at a b/w portrait I had made from a b/w negative, I was asked if I could make a color print from it. After I stopped laughing, I actually did, with Marshall's oil colors.
 
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