Pennsylvania May NYC Meet-UP/May Philly Megabus Trip

Really sorry to miss this outing .. have fun everyone
Philippe

Philippe,

We were met at the drop off point by Jim and his husband John. Jean-Marc, Pro-Mone, Raj, and Jeff sat in the back of a red and white two-toned 1957 Dodge four-door that was 19 feet long, and I rode in the front for the Tour de Ghetto. Pretty much we were kinda like a parade making a specticle with gawkers and onlookers cheering us on, except for on lone hipster who thought we were not cool at all. LOL.

We had lunch in Chinatown and did a little bit of shooting. Somehow the expected rain ended up being in NYC and north of the city.

We learned a lot about the Philly culture. It seems the mounds of stuffed animals we photographed last year were grave markers where people died from gunshots, and it was not about a child getting killed necessarily.

On the Tour de Ghetto Jean-Marc and I remembered parts we explored with you in North-West Philly, but already it seemed cleaner than I remembered it. I took note of seeing less bordered up abandoned houses. I strongly remembered entire blocks that were vacant, but it was explained to me that Philly tends to demolish structures to avoid draining manpower and resources to stop vagrants, squatting, and arson.

The only thing I can say is we kinda ran out of time and we wished we had more time for shooting. This trip was more about putting the time on the ground recournoitering, gathering intel, and in a way mapping out the area for some serious future shooting.

I kinda was more like a one-day vacation. It was relaxing and fun.

Cal
 
Very enjoyable Philadelphia day trip. Special thanks to Jim and John, for the 'Tour de Ghetto' in the uber-cool car, and to Ben for hanging out and exploring with us.
 
So somehow on July 11th we will have a super special odd kinda Meet-Up that I hope will be an extra special "Gala" event.

How about a bridge blowing up pick-nick near all those cemeteries by the BQE that involves shooting the demolition of the K-OZ-Key-OZ-Co Bridge.

The only thing this is on a Tuesday July 11th.

How different is that?

Cal
 
Cal ,

Thanks for the write-up. Sounds like you really cruised the 'hood in grand style. Seems appropriate. Wish I had been there , although at the end of the day I may have been a bit frustrated by the lack of shooting time . But you say we may be going back (count me in)... Philly has a lot of open spaces, something I may have to adjust to after 6 weeks living in tiny apartments and moving around in dense urban environments. One observation on coming back is how spread out everything is here . I have 40 Tri-X rolls to develop and I also brought back 4 rolls of "snapshot" style color shots taken with point and shoots and which I processed on the road, at 1-hr shops.

Philippe
 
Cal ,

Thanks for the write-up. Sounds like you really cruised the 'hood in grand style. Seems appropriate. Wish I had been there , although at the end of the day I may have been a bit frustrated by the lack of shooting time . But you say we may be going back (count me in)... Philly has a lot of open spaces, something I may have to adjust to after 6 weeks living in tiny apartments and moving around in dense urban environments. One observation on coming back is how spread out everything is here . I have 40 Tri-X rolls to develop and I also brought back 4 rolls of "snapshot" style color shots taken with point and shoots and which I processed on the road, at 1-hr shops.

Philippe

Philippe,

While you were away touring Asia I contacted "Linhof Disease" and now I have three. Been busy day trading some gear, that's where the Linhof Disease began. I now own a "new" Hammertone M4.

Welcome home. If you really want to see how big the U.S. is drive cross country three times. Seems even longer in a Jeep due to lack of comfort, especially in the winter because in the old CJ's basically you don't have heat.

Tulsa and Oh-KLA-Home-A City are about 400 miles apart, and if you don't stop at the 4 story McDonald's exactly two hundred miles from each city to get gas you won't find any other gas of food for hundreds of miles. This McDonalds had elevators and esculators like a department store, but outside of this rest stop for food and gas was empty prairie.

Cal
 
Really hope to time a possible future NYC visit with a NYC meet or outing. I did meet Cal on a workweek day just a few days before Dec 15 meet. I'd say there is nothing that can up touring Philly on a '57, turning on some great blues-rock on the way! Daytrips, as much day one might have, are more demanding on time and there's always something left off. For one, only one sunrise and sunset with the corresponding "good light" hours.

If one thing the US has is space and sprawl because of the newer planning designed around vehicles and railroad while old world cities were made around a walking pace. Manhattan was considered as the single concentrated walkable city, elsewhere being quite sprawled.

Asian tour sounds good. I always wanted to do some hopping around, and counting I have some relatives there. It isn't happening soon though.
Chaos takes a new dimension in Asian cities however!
 
I have 40 Tri-X rolls to develop and I also brought back 4 rolls of "snapshot" style color shots taken with point and shoots and which I processed on the road, at 1-hr shops.

I'd love to see this if you end up making it available in digital format anywhere.
 
ah, good for you. I hope lots of good eats to make up for the crowds. Hope to see you soon. Cheers, Jean-Marc
 
JM , I was in Hong Kong and S Korea

Kinda funny. I'm not a stalker, but I knew the smut about Philippe a month ago. LOL.

The world is not that big. Not affiliated with the NSA, but I do a lot of data mining, and I am a Smut Queen. LOL.

Maggie is heading to Chicago today. I'll try not to be a lame slacker and develop a 2 liter tank of film over the next few days. I intend on not doing a Philippe and have mucho film stockpiled that needs to be developed.

I'm looking into shooting 70mm film. Linhof makes a Cine Rolliex that loads 15 feet of 70mm film so the idea is to be able to shoot 53 6x7 exposures on a 15 foot roll. There are 15 foot spools for development and even 70mm bulk loaders, so basically instead of shooting 5 rolls of 120 I shoot one roll of 70mm and get 3 extra exposures.

BTW in 6x7 the 53mm Zeiss Biogon is like a 28mm FOV. This is my "Beast" camera. John will laugh when he sees this rig.

Cal
 
I'm looking into shooting 70mm film. Linhof makes a Cine Rolliex that loads 15 feet of 70mm film so the idea is to be able to shoot 53 6x7 exposures on a 15 foot roll. There are 15 foot spools for development and even 70mm bulk loaders, so basically instead of shooting 5 rolls of 120 I shoot one roll of 70mm and get 3 extra exposures.

BTW in 6x7 the 53mm Zeiss Biogon is like a 28mm FOV. This is my "Beast" camera. John will laugh when he sees this rig.

Cal

Nah, John will laugh when he thinks about how much you go out of the way to make the technical side of photography weirder for yourself (70mm)!
 
Nah, John will laugh when he thinks about how much you go out of the way to make the technical side of photography weirder for yourself (70mm)!

John,

One way to stand out is to be weird; another way is to do something crazy that makes no sense to so many (basically annoy people); another is just simply not do what most other people are doing; but really it is all just being cool being me.

I'm a complicated person, and only a few people understand me. LOL.

I mentioned to Christian that shooting a Baby Linhof for street in NYC will suggest to the general public that the photographer might be a little crazy. "Crazy is good," I say, but Christian said, "The general public's first impression might be right."

Perhaps one does not see many Linhof's "in the wild" for a reason. LOL. Anyways it is one way to be widely known. Kinda like how Louis Mendez is associated with a Crown Graphic; it is part of his "branding."

Cal
 
I just put in two images for a PDN contest that deals with fashion. The category is Street/Runway.

I am finally embracing myself as the "Incidental Fashion Photographer" as my photography gets lifted and published and broadcast all over the planet via "Maggie's" Instagram (213K followers).

Many of you guys have seen the B&W prints of "Subway Girl" (Maggie walking down subway stairs at night wearing leather pants in Fort Green) and "Shadow Play" where she is standing in the projection of street signs and a traffic light on Houston Street.

The winners will be notified in August, and I figure if I win and since PDN is such a big sponsor of Photoville, there could be a possibility of seeing my work at Photoville 2017 in September.

Anyways just sharing the hopeful delusions of an artist. LOL.

Cal
 
I mentioned to Christian that shooting a Baby Linhof for street in NYC will suggest to the general public that the photographer might be a little crazy. "Crazy is good," I say, but Christian said, "The general public's first impression might be right."

Cal
The true quality maximizer german camera is not Leica, but Linhof ;)

In part yes, but people would exteriorize some good feedback and compliments. The era of getting a stereotypical digital photographer stopping and preaching the goodness of the new medium are mostly gone.
You have to ride a Saturday evening through Williamsburg with the IBIS and the Linhof hanging across the chest. :D Give some schooling to the Hipsters.
Worth of note: In youtube there's this film show "Negative Feedback" and there is an episode of shooting skaters in Venice beach. In a scene one of the kids wants to see the photo in the back of the P67, and upon being told it is a film camera... :eek: "That's like the real deal camera".

I grew with a kind of selfconsiousness carrying cameras, don't know why but I still haven't gotten rid of it and a part of me would hate being stopped and told something about cameras.
Another thing that short circuits me are contests and metrics, not getting the "expected KPI" is a bummer and I take it too seriously. Thus, I don't do them.

Best of luck with the PDN contest!
 
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