Boy, I'm glad I didn't make any public commitment to make regular posts to this journal. Of course a lot has happened in the 15 months since I uploaded the previous page, but I'll limit my comments to the realm of photography.

The main event is that I bought myself a view camera and three excellent lenses. I haven't owned a view camera since I sold my Sinars (I have Cadillac tastes) when I went back to school. View cameras are a bargain these days because digital is all the rage...and I still don't own a DSLR.

For those who might be wondering, DSLR stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex...a digital version of the classic 35mm camera (not including Leica or the rangefinder class of camera). A view camera is what many people think of as an old fashioned camera--the kind where the photographer has to be a cloth over his head to keep out light while he/she look through the back of the camera. They aren't old fashione and still represent one of the best photographic tools.

I decided to take three photos last weekend. At the left you see one taken with my view camera...just some sunflowers tossed onto a wet tree stump near my house. View camera film and processing is expensive compared to the old days...as much as $5 per click of the shutter. I allowed myself one click to capture the little scene you see here. It was published on the 1X.com (also known as Onexposure.com) the only photographic community that I contribute photos to at this time. (Press F11 for a full-screen view)

If you like fine photography, I suggest you pay the site a visit. My personal 1X.com page is here and the photo at the left is published here.

The original, unretouched, version is seen on top at the left (click to see enlarged image). I shot this long before digital photography was commonplace and before Photoshop, the wonderful photo editor, was available to everyone. The floating effect was accomplished by inverting the lighting and simply turning the image upside down. Here's a clumsy drawing and poor redproduction of what you would have seen if you were present at the photo shoot, with the upside down version just above.

I feel a need to explain the version I'm currently showing because I've improved it using Photoshop to make it closer to what I originally had in mind and which the wonderful model couldn't provide...perfect symmetry.

The enlarged four-up vesion has descriptive text, but heres what you will see if you click to enlarge it. The top image is the original which, as you can see, is dramatic but not symmetrical. The second image down replaces the models right arm with a reversed copy of her left arm only. Next, I copied the entire right side of the image, reversed it, and pasted it on the left. The last image is just the opposite, the original left side of the image was copied and pasted on the right.

The final version, not shown on the left, takes the third image down and uses the model's right hand at the end of each arm.