Polaroid 600 Black & White

me_dirtbag, originally uploaded by infrar3d.

I drew my Flickr icon with a mouse, in Microsoft Paint, from this Polaroid. Was this my best hair day ever?

Here's the MS Paint image. Not bad for a crappy ball mouse, although the chin got away from me a little bit.

Polaroid 600 Black & White was a great film that wasn't around very long. It was 640 ISO, but I ran it through my SX-70 Sonar since I never had an SLR 680 or 690. SX-70 cameras were made for Time-Zero film which was ISO 150. You could put a neutral density filter over the light meter on the camera, but I usually just cranked the lighten/darken knob all the way over to "darken," which resulted in this blown-out look that I like.

I really should order some Impossible Project PX film now that I've found my old SX-70 Sonar again.

Jeff Bridges' True Grit Book

Photo: Jeff Bridges

Jeff Bridges' behind-the-scenes photos from True Grit have been making the rounds on the internet. Photography is one of The Dudes many hobbies, and according to his website he's been making these behind-the-scenes books since Starman. He also published a book of photography a few years ago, Pictures, the sales of which benefit the Motion Picture and Television Fund.

Every time I look at these pictures I get the itch to buy a Widelux, or a Noblex, or maybe even an Xpan.

Seen at Austin Kleon.

Still Loving the GRD2

004_1172915, originally uploaded by infrar3d.

It's been a little over two months with the GRD2 and I still carry it everywhere. It's great. I carry it so much that I've already lost the lens ring that covers the bayonet mount. I think I knocked it off at the Top of the Hops Beer Festival. Too many 2 ounce beers I guess.

I used Hasselblad Phocus to process this pic. It's a free download and can process DNG files. Nice, but I don't think it'll replace Bridge>ACR>Photoshop.

Update: It looks like Hasselblad has released an update just today, Phocus 2.6.

Damon Winter on Cell Phone Photography

A lot of photojournalists are upset that Damon Winter took third place at Pictures of the Year International with his series "A Grunt's Life." Mr. Winter shot the series on his iPhone using the Hipstamatic app.

I find the argument that it's not photojournalism if it's not shot with a dSLR in RAW ridiculous. I'm sure there were similar arguments made about "miniature" photography by the old 4x5 Speed Graphic shooters. And until PJs stop converting everything to black and white I don't want to hear the complaints about "toning" keeping things "closer to reality." It all sounds like fear of lowering the barrier to entry.

But Damon Winter doesn't need anyone to defend him. He's written a very eloquent statement staking out his position, and you can read it at The New York Times' LENS blog.

And if you'd like to see the entire photo series, they have that as well.

Seen at Stereoscopic Magic.

Polaroid Polavision Land Player Manual

Here's something you don't see every day. Although I seriously doubt anyone has a need for it, here's the manual for the Polaroid Polavision Land Player. It's a great looking manual, with really well done color marker illustrations.

The Polavision Player was required to play back the weird Polavision Phototapes. At one time I had an entire Polavision system - a gift from my uncle, who knew I was into old Polaroid stuff. But I was never able to come across any blank Phototapes. The whole system was an expensive, short-lived forerunner of home video cameras, and never really caught on.

If you're interested, you can read more about the ill-fated Polavision system at The Land List.

Polavision_Land_Player_manual.pdf - eight pages, full color (1.7MB)

Stolen Polaroid

Dennis Hopper Photo: Jason Lee

As has been previously established, I can't resist a Polaroid news story.

Jason Lee's lovely 8x10 Polaroid portrait of Dennis Hopper was stolen from a show opening at THIS Los Angeles a couple of nights ago. There's a reward, a $25,000 reward, and they just want the photo returned.

Seen at Figital Revolution.

Mitch Dobrowner

Rain, Los Angeles, California, 2008 - Photo: Mitch Dobrowner

Do you think you need to buy better camera? I sometimes do. Well do yourself a favor and spend a little time looking at Mitch Dobrowner's landscape photography.

Beautiful. And I think most of it was made with a Sony R1 and Sony F828.

Seen at The Picture Show.