Professional Camera Settings

Yellowstone with my Canon AE-1

Back in October, my family took a 6-day, 2500 mile road trip through North Dakota, into Yellowstone, down through the Tetons, and back home through South Dakota. I brought some film that expired in 2013, and I shot it with my Canon AE-1 Program that's older than me that I've had since I was 17 years old. The resulting images are somewhere between "art" and "touristy" photos (I think)...

[click each image to enlarge]

Just outside of Yellowstone's east entrance.




Along the shore of Lake Yellowstone.


A classic: Old Faithful.


Walking among the pools in the Upper Geyser Basin.






Moments after a close encounter with a bison!


My boys on a snowy hike...


... working our way to Mystic Falls.




Overlooking Grand Prismatic Spring.


The lower half of the 200' Fairy Falls.


Pulling out of Yellowstone on a snowy morning.


Starting a hike in Grand Teton around Lake Jenny.


Hidden Falls up in the Tetons.


My family starting their way down from Inspiration Point in the Tetons.


A frosty final morning in Grand Teton.


Like the image of Old Faithful, here's another common pic: Sylvan Lake in South Dakota on our way home.

Camera Lens Focus Modes

I'm never going to see the "auto focus / manual focus" switch the same after this...

Camera-Wielding Skeleton Art

Here's a 0:30 video of a unique process for making some camera/skeleton art from CarlNeedsAJob on Instagram:

Direct link: youtube.com/shorts/Mt-cQYiHyd0?si=bT0fHbN5gN4pyYgG

Film Processing

We've had a few successful days of processing film in class this week:

Direct link: https://youtube.com/shorts/qkg7V4OjfbQ?si=5inWKXCouZtxjxFx

3-in-1 Lego Camera Set

A Lego Ambassador shared this sweet 3-in-1 camera lego set that's coming out in a few weeks:

1961: John Drysdale Tried to Photograph a Kangaroo...

... but this happened instead:

I can't be certain, but that appears to be a Hasselblad, so I feel a little bad for smirking.

(Oh yes... and I hope he's OK too... but we all know we worry more about our cameras than our own well-being in situations like this.)

Using a View Camera in Public

This is 60 seconds of truth:

Direct link: https://youtu.be/8SQwxOBDplc

"Who taught you that word?..."

Passing Out 35mm Cameras

My students are currently shooting a project on 35mm film. So I came to class like this last week ready to hand out cameras to everyone:

Ten cameras. What's extra funny is that I'm wearing the
same shirt as when I handed out cameras last semester.


Wrapping up notes that day in class.

Happy shooting, class!

Buzz Lightyear Quote

New Semester

I start a new semester teaching at Concordia University tomorrow, and then the University of Minnesota next week. Here's a pic from the end of last semester when I was collecting the last 35mm cameras from my students to return to my office:

Rocket Launch Destroys Camera

I saw this image on the web and had to investigate:

It turns out the story is true, but not how I imagined it.

NASA photographer Bill Ingalls set up several remotely triggered cameras near the launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to capture a SpaceX launch. And he was successful:

Image from NASA / Bill Ingalls.

Ingalls went to pick up his cameras, and he had ones closer to the launch pad that were just fine. But one that was farther away and captured the previous image looked like this:

Image from NASA / Bill Ingalls.

No, it wasn't the blast of the rocket that burned this instantly (which is how I imagined it in my mind). Instead, the rocket launch sparked a brush fire (which is apparently not uncommon) and Ingalls camera fell victim. He said it had continued to take photos "until its demise," and shared one of the final images:

Image from NASA / Bill Ingalls.

Is that the lens hood melting down at the top of that image? Wild.

Peter Adams on Cameras

As someone who just had a solo exhibition consisting of work shot on a 16-year-old digital camera, I tend to agree.

Holga Quotes

I miss working with my Holga. And when we went to "remote learning" last year, I had to scrap my Holga-based project in my Advanced Photo class. Anyway, here are some fun "Holga quotes" I found on FreestylePhoto:

"Take your Holga out for a ride. Stop often. Play."
- Kit Frost, Professional Photographer

"Mechanically the Holga is simplicity itself. The nature of the Holga places emphasis on seeing, thinking, and interacting with the environment at hand."
- Joe Ostraff, Professor, BYU

"The Holga summons up Dadaist traditions of chance, surprise, and willingness to see what can happen."
- Robert Hirsch, Photographic Historian, in his book Photographic Possibilities

"As for the Holga, I like using it and making my students use it, because it encourages the photographer to concentrate on his/her relationship with the subject without technology getting in the way. The resulting images depend on the photographer's presence (of mind and body)."
- Lesley Krane, educator at California State University, Northridge

"As the Koordinator of the Krappy Kamera Competition, I've seen thousands of images produced with this camera. I am always awed by the variety of images that can be produced with such minimal equipment."
- Sandy Carrion, Coordinator of the Krappy Kamera Competition

"I still have the first Holga I ever bought back in 1988. I loved it then and still do, especially with black and white film."
- Julia Dean, founder of the Julia Dean Photographic Workshops

"I love my Holgas and I have eight of them. As a designer and art director, I have used Holga cameras on many photo shoots and clients love the different effects!"
- Randy Thomas, Founder, Randy Thomas Design Agency

Funny Photography T-Shirts

Here are some great photography-based tshirt from Luta:

Close-up of the last one.

Curtains Create Pinhole Camera

There are many instances of pinhole cameras being formed in darkened rooms to project the outside on a far wall. (Abelardo Morell has done work like this for example.) Two days ago, someone on Reddit shared what was happening with their curtains, and it was pretty fun:

That's the street below being projected sort of "accidentally" on his ceiling as a pinhole camera would do. Here's a video of the street below "moving" on his ceiling:

The curtains in my room create a "natural" pinhole camera that projects images of the street below onto my ceiling from r/woahdude

Click here to see it on Reddit if that embedded video doesn't work.

The Evolution of Camera Shutter Sounds

Here's a short video sharing different shutter speed sounds over the years:

Direct link: youtu.be/dukzCYaUTV8

The 3rd one took me back: I had an old TLR that sounded a LOT like that!

Also, I didn't know that TIME Magazine produced a crappy looking SLR at one point.

An Eight Year Long Exposure

Here's an excerpt from a press release from the University of Hertfordshire from last week:

A photograph thought to be the longest exposure image ever taken has been discovered inside a beer can at the University of Hertfordshire’s Bayfordbury Observatory.

The image was taken by Regina Valkenborgh, who began capturing it towards the end of her MA Fine Art degree at the University of Hertfordshire in 2012. It shows 2,953 arced trails of the sun, as it rose and fell between summer and winter over a period of eight years and one month. The dome of Bayfordbury’s oldest telescope is visible to the left of the photograph and the atmospheric gantry, built halfway through the exposure, can be seen from the centre to the right.

Click here to enlarge.

The previously "accepted" record for longest exposure was a Michael Wesely photo that was just over half as long: 4 years and 8 months.

Here's a bit more on Valkenborgh's record-breaking image from the Smithsonian Magazine.

And here's a video by Justin Quinnell showing how to make your own pinhole camera that can hold up for a long exposure:

Direct link: youtu.be/wtZOWEB_wcI


An example of a 6-month exposure from Quinnell.

"Hand-Held" WWII Aerial Camera

Check out this Fairchild K-17 aerial camera from the 1940s:

It's a "hand-held" camera, but it weighs 75 lbs!

It shot 9x9 inch negatives on a 9.5 inch wide roll of film:

Here's a bit from a website about "combat mapping" that mentions how you'd use the K-17:

While these cameras were normally clamped into mounts, a pair of handles and a viewfinder could be fitted to K-17s and K-18s for hand-held operation. What “hand-held” meant is subject to interpretation, as these cameras were not lightweights. With a 200 foot roll of film, the A-5 film magazine used with the K-17 weighed 30 pounds. A complete K-17 with 12″ lens cone and a full magazine weighed about 55 pounds. With a 24″ lens instead of the 12″, the weight climbed to near 75 pounds.

Posing with a Camera: Fail