Anchorage 1978

Photographs

A new life for an old image.

I lived in Anchorage from November 1977 through October 1980, after which I moved to New York, new green card in hand.

The long summer days brought with them acidic colors and what better emulsion to do these justice than Kodachrome? I preferred Kodachrome 64 to the slower 25 variant, trading coarser grain for one and a half stops in speed gain. Even so ASA 64 rather pales beside what modern digital technology can deliver at a far higher quality level.

This image was taken on 4th Avenue which was ripped apart by a 9.2 earthquake in 1964, still the most powerful recorded in the US. Appropriately enough this occurred on Good Friday, for 4th Avenue was a den of iniquity back then, replete with dive bars and shady businesses.


Kodachrome yellow.

This image has been given new life when recently rescanned using the Nikon D800. The original Kodachrome slide is as good as new, no fading detectable. and was taken on my Leica M3 with the 50mm Summicron lens.

Nantucket

Book reviews, Photographers

An outstanding picture book.

For an index of all my book reviews click here.


Gorgeously illustrated.

Nantucket Island, once a stronghold for whale hunters after the animals’ oil, used for interior lighting, lost that monopoly when Rockefeller’s Standard Oil started refining crude to make much cheaper kerosene, much to the relief of the whales. The island is only accessible by boat or light aircraft:


In the Atlantic.

Perhaps Robert Gambee’s outstanding book is Wall Street Christmas which beautifully illustrates the corridors of financial power but also supplements each image with details and trivia which make for a fascinating reading and viewing experience.

So when I discovered that Gambee had also published a volume of images taken on Nantucket Island I snapped one up. It’s long out of print but mint copies can be had for pennies.

Not only is the photography up to Gambee’s high standard, full of warm interiors in yellow paint and even warmer woods, there’s a wonderful hidden surprise to be found. You see every third image or so includes a 1950s vintage American automobile, the last era in which America made the world’s finest cars. And, as with the Wall Street book, each image is accompanied by fascinating text which fleshes out many historical facts.


Note the woody station wagon.

The homes are described in detail …. as are the wonderful vehicles. Robert Gambee’s ‘Nantucket’ is recommended without reservation to all photography, vintage car and early American history buffs.

Itoya large print albums – update

Printing, Technique

Two choices.

I continue building a collection of large print legacy albums containing some five decades of my best photographs.


A photographic legacy

I first wrote about these here and the other day when ordering more from B&H, which has the best prices, I found that the profiled album was out of stock. Digging around the splendid B&H site I discovered that there are actually two versions of the 13″x19″ Itoya large print album, at much the same price:


Two versions. Click the image for B&H.

The other version, at left, touts the high gloss ‘Poly Glass’ vinyl sheets but, for the life of me, they look identical to those in the version previously profiled. So I snapped up a couple and can confirm they are every bit as good as the original. Each of the 24 vinyl sheets comes with a black interleaver to prevent image bleed through to adjacent prints.

Putting the Boot in

Photographs

Sweet.

You can instantly recognize the two scummiest US professions, for they are the only ones still wearing suits – politicians and lawyers.

So it’s a pleasure to see one of the latter putting the boot into another rather than into one of their many abused clients.


On the Embarcadero, SF.

Panasonic G1, kit zoom.

For large prints from early Panny MFT originals I find there is too much chroma (mottling) noise in the printed image, but the new ‘Enhance’ option in the Develop module of LRc does a nice job of cleaning that up without significantly losing definition. For some reason it only works with RAW files, not with TIFF or JPG, so be sure to apply it to the right file format.