Leonine

When my dad passed away some years back, among other things I inherited an old Polaroid camera. It was buried in the middle of a bunch of boxes, and at the time I couldn’t see much use for it — but didn’t have the heart to give it away. During a recent clean-up, I ran across the thing again and decided I should either use it or chuck it.

Luckily for me, you can still get film for the thing — and clumsy as the camera is to use (manual focus w/o rangefinder, fixed aperture, etc.), it can still take a good picture:

Leonine

I made this diptych using (expired) Polaroid 100 Sepia Giambarba film from The Impossible Project. Sadly, the IP folks couldn’t save the old plant that made this kind of film — so when they run out of the old (but obviously well-preserved) stock of this stuff, it’s gone for good. But while it lasts, this is fantastic film for anything you’d like to give an antique touch — and as you can see, the (normally disposed of) negative can be art too!

The subject of the image is a Marzocco Lion (at the Museum of Outdoor Art in Englewood, Colorado), a carved replica of an original by Donatello. BTW, the camera is a Super Shooter Plus — you can get one just like it for $5 – $10 on eBay.

Lost in the Caribbean

A few weeks back, Denver held its latest annual “Doors Open Denver” weekend. The point of these is to encourage people to get out and get familiar with some local architectural points of interest. This year’s theme was “modern architecture,” roughly speaking things built in the past 50 years.

Lost in the Caribbean

I took this shot in the lobby of the Cable Center Building — a pretty posh place that’s a local hub of the cable TV industry. I have no idea who this gent was, but he definitely seemed to be feeling a bit… at sea.

Giant in the mist

I took this image (actually, a panorama of two images) several years ago, and just recently thought to revisit it in my “workflow.”

Giant in the Mist

What I like best about this image is the people in it. For many of us, Paris and the Eiffel Tower are romantic places seen only on occasional trips. But for the locals, they’re a regular part of the scenery — almost taken for granted. So while I was working to get a good composition of this image with the tower, the people that lived nearby were going about their regular lives, paying little attention to the tower.

Democracy Wall, Beijing — 1979

A lifetime ago, I was fortunate enough to be part of a cultural exchange trip to China for a few weeks. It was 1979, and much of the country was just opening up to visitors from outside. When our group travelled through Beijing, it was months after the main activity at the “Democracy Wall,” but some sections of it were still in active use as a community discussion board:

Democracy Wall, Beijing -- 1979

I’d forgotten about this slide (taken with my trusty old OM-1, recently scanned), but current events in Egypt reminded me that I’d never done anything public with this image.

I have to suspect that authorities in China are being very careful w.r.t. how they handle news of the events in Cairo.

Update: turns out, they are

Have a very colorful New Year!

Another shot from this year’s Photographers’ Night trip downtown — a much broader view of the Denver City and County building in all its gaudy holiday colors:

Have a very colorful New Year!

I took this from across the street in Civic Center park (good news: easier to take in the view; bad news: no way to get the trees out of the shot). If you look closely, you can see the smeared lights of cars coasting by on Bannock street…

River of colors

Another fun night shot from the Denver Botanic Gardens:

River of colors

You have to work a bit to see it, but there’s a narrow stream running through the middle of this shot — it’s really only visible from the reflected lights on the bushes. I was more than a little surprised after taking this picture to see just how saturated it looks. The technicolor look wasn’t evident in person, but definitely came out with a long exposure!