Camera Case Repair

Last weekend I spent a few hours re-stitching a case I had bought for my 1953 Zeiss Contessa. The Contessa is a beautiful little camera, and it takes good, contrasty pictures. Mine came with a dead light meter, which I repaired. There is a crack in the corner of the rangefinder glass, but it does not interfere with focusing; I find that it adds a little bit of wabi sabi to the camera. After all, it is ridiculous to expect a 60 year old camera to look new. "Operational" is already a high bar, and I am in awe of the solidity of Zeiss engineering.

To repair the case, I followed the instructions given here, and I am very grateful for them - I would have made a mess without them. Here are some pictures of the work in progress, and additional notes in case you want to try this are at the bottom of the page:

After stitching the first half of the bottom.

The larger hole on the right normally holds a special knob that for winding the film.

The smaller hole in the center is for viewing the frame counter.

Stitching completed. It is not perfectly regular as the original was.

After I took this picture, I darkened the thread with brown shoe polish.

 The camera in its repaired case.

Some additional suggestions if you want to do a similar job.

• Read the instructions at the link above first :-)
• After you thread the needles through the first two holes, make sure both ends of the thread are the same length, otherwise you will not be able to finish the project!
• Using thread that is too thick will make the job really hard, and potentially break the leather. For me, the right thickness turned out to be 1/3 of the thread I had originally picked; I separated one of the three strands that made up the thread.
• Most of the time, the needle should find its way through the existing holes very easily. If you have to push hard to get it through, it is not aimed correctly. However, it can still be hard to pull all the way through. I had a pair of small pliers on hand, and they really helped sometimes.

Les neiges d'antan

Maybe I was a bit harsh on Ms. Maier yesterday.

Here is a try at a more balanced judgement: what we have here is a collective work of art, like jazz or theater. Ms. Maier played the Rolleiflex; some unknown professional played the enlarger (and man, is he good with it); and John Maloof told the story, and he has a hell of a talent at marketing it.

Vivian Maier was not really an artist, I think, but it is hard not to respond to her personal story. She tried to live according to her own rules when young, and was lonely in her old age, like we all are likely to be in this modern world of ours. And what was the deal with her photo-snapping obsession? I hear that she recorded conversations, later made 8mm movies, and kept mountains of old newspapers. One can only make up his own interpretation. To me, it sounds as though she feared impermanence, and tryed to stop the passing of time.

It is not an uncommon sentiment. Japanese culture seems to be more aware of it than most: there is an entire cycle of seasonal occupations, that deal with the enjoyment of transitory beauty, cherry blossoms being the most famous. With the cherry blossoms, I hear that the most beautiful moment is the consider the one in which the petals come off the trees like a snowfall. It takes a lot of control at that point not to give in to the sadness for the end of the flowers (which, of course, foreshadows our own demise). Maybe Vivian felt this form of mono no aware acutely, and tried to cure it with her camera.
It did not work for the people she pictured, who have become anonymous, like characters in a morality play: the Old Lady, the Policeman, the Couple on the Beach, the Bum. They, too, by now, must be sleeping the Big Sleep, as gone as Villon's last year's snow.

Found Photos

Disclaimer: I am a grumpy old man, and intolerant of attention devoted to people other than myself. Among other things, this makes me impatient with the adoration showered on athletes. I have been that way since I was a child, and I have no intention of changing now.

With that out of the way, last Sunday I went by the Photo Center NW to see what was on display (I recommend it, I always find it interesting). They had a show of photographs by a person called Vivian Maier. The pictures are very professionally printed and mounted, and are offered for $1,800 a piece (!). Most left me cool, but a few are very good:

Then there is the back story. In short, we are told Ms. Maier took some 100,000 photographs, left most of them undeveloped, got old, and died. At this point, according to Wikipedia, a guy by the name of John Maloof comes into the story. He is described as the curator of Ms. Maier collection. All of a sudden, there are NPR stories, and publications, and exibitions. He is not mentioned at PCNW at all, and his relation ot Ms. Maier is unknown.

Maybe I am just a grumpy old man, but my guess is that he came by the negatives in a yard sale and saw an opportunity to make a buck by telling a story people like to hear: ignored artist recognized as genius. A few thoughts:

• This happens all of the time: see Charles Jones, whose life is here, and a few photos can be seen here. There seems to be a cottage industry of people scouring yard sales and flea market in search of the next ignored genius.
• One hundred thousand pictures! Of course there were a few good ones! We are in Infinite Monkeys territory here (if you have enough monkeys hitting typewriters long enough, eventually one will produce the works of Shakespeare). I have taken nowhere near 100,000 pictures, have the photographic talent of a gerbil, and I sure enough already have a few good ones stashed away!
• Ms. Maier, I am afraid, was not an artist. By my personal definition of art, there has to be a process of doing, looking at the result, and either improving on it or keeping what is already good. The good pictures we see in the show are the combination of a lucky accident, plus a good darkroom printer, and a smart impresario to suggest a story that did not really take place.

Lomography

For some reason, I have always found the idea of using cameras with serious technical limitations a little bit silly. Why would one buy a Holga with a plastic lens and some light leaks when you can have a vintage Canon or Nikon for the same price, with none of the defects?

At the same time, and with some guilt, I have been playing with an Lomography app on my phone. The app is called Lomogram, and is one of several that let you apply “old photo” effects to pictures taken with the phone (or other pictures, if you get them on to your phone). I am not sure where the guilt comes from; maybe from the fact that I am creating fakes? Maybe from the fact that the fakes are sentimental and nostalgic? Is the cheesy film markings that one can use as borders? I am sure much could be learned from analyzing this feeling.

Either way, there is no denying that I really like the output. I have even become a regular Facebook user so that I can share my pictures. The reason I like them is that they are surprisingly good, and that is not because I make them, but because the app uses sound composition devices. You can apply rounded corners and vignetting, which help to keep the viewer inside the picture frame. You can apply simple white or black frames, which also help to do the same. And you can alter the colors. Not every color effect works on every picture, but some make the picture nearly monochromatic, which lends it unity.

I have posted an album of these altered phone pictures here. Tell me what you think

Graflex View Camera

Phone Photo

August 2012

Sermonette: Why Doesn't The Light Wait?

Among the bags of fan mail that we have received since the start of this blog, one topic stands out. Our public relations assistants, E. Ta and B. Ta (they are sisters, and trace their roots to Outer Mongolia) every day sort the incoming mail into different heaps by subject, and the heap pertaining to this one subject rapidly came to resemble the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
So, rather than replying individually to each sender, which would have considerably delayed the answers, today I will provide an answer in the blog.

The question, of course, is: what does the title of this blog mean? What is this deal with the light not waiting?

The title goes back to a remark by (I think) Ansel Adams: going back to a place where he had visualized a picture but been unable to take it never works. Even at the exact same hour on the next day, there is going to be a miriad of small differences, and the picture is just not going to be there. This puts the story of the taking of the famous Moonrise picture in New Mexico into perspective - Adams tells of having to set up his camera in haste before the last light of the sunset disappeared. Although he was a full-time photographer, and had nothing else to do but getting the pictures, he could not come back for it the next day.

Ansel Adams

Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico

1941

In general terms: at any moment, on any day, we may come across the opportunity to capture a great picture. We have to take it there and then. There is no "later": the opportunity is not going to be there "later". If we do not act immediately, it is as if the opportunity had never presented itself.

This is true of taking pictures, but it is true of human relations as well. Every now and then, we have the opportunity to do something to help someone, make him or her feel better, or take the first step towards a friendship. Those moments have to grabbed there and then - if you postpone them (because you are tired, late for an important meeting, or whatever) they will not come back. In the end, you will believe there were never opportunities to have more friends or live a more meaningful life. Today, I was in the Central Library in Seattle, and took a picture through the windows of the Courthouse across the street. One of the homeless men who spend their days in the library asked me if I was taking a picture of myself. He sounded friendly and eager to talk. I was in a hurry to leave the library before my parking expired. And I am rather shy, so I replied something briefly and left. Now I am kicking myself, but of course it makes no difference now. There is no going back to that moment.

If photography drills this principle into your head, than it is more than just a way of killing time with cool equipment. I know this post sounds like a sermonette, but what has to be said has to be said.