Holiday Parade, Prescott Arizona, 2019

In my collection of classic mechanical cameras, I have a 1954 Kodak Retina IIIc made in Germany. It is a very compact 35mm camera with amazing lenses. But for me it is the watchmaker’s precision that gives me the pleasure of using it.

Here is the Retina with the lens retracted :

and fully extended:

Unfortunately, I had not used it for a decade or so. When I decided to take it out to the Holiday Parade downtown, I did a quick check of the functions. All seemed still smoothly working, except that there was some fluid leak on one of the shutter’s leaf. The retina belongs to yesteryears’ leaf shutter cameras, where the opening of the shutter is not through a horizontal moving cloth(or a vertical “guillotine” metal shutter like the Contax cameras) but there are a set (in this case 8) very thin steel leafs that open and close when the shutter release button is pressed. So, since the shutter seemed working fine (no hang-up of the leafs) I decided to take it to the parade.

The 50mm lens I used is a Schneider- Kreuznach Xenon 2.0, a fast and among the most famous German lenses of the golden age of B&W photography.  And surprisingly the 65 year old Selenium built-in lightmeter still works and gave me a suggested reading of 1/125 second speed and an opening of f8 for my ASA 100 B&W film.

 I was a bit early for the parade so decided to take photos of the attendees rather than the often uneventful marching of t e parade participants. After all, that would be true street photography contrasted to photojournalism or event photography.

… When I developed the negative all looked good. But when I printed my first frame, a delightful phenomenon became apparent:

This is probably my favorite shot on the roll. It gives a real feel of the people waiting for the parade to start. There is a lot of facial expressions and body language around the beautifully postured American Bulldog.   The contrast is perfect and the center of the frame has wonderful crispness and definition. But.. the left of the frame is off focus.

I printed another frame and the same phenomenon happened. Although the composition of high school band getting ready to march in the parade seemed enhanced by the blurry left side of the frame!

The JROTC young man in front of the PolyJohns gives an old time photograph feel:

And the caption of the narrow town street, with the mountain range in the background demonstrates the quality of the lens:

So, I was delighted by this travel back in time in B&W. I will use the Retina again soon as I cleaned most of the dried fluid material with lighter fluid. Will see if the minimal weight of the deposit will still affect the synchronization of the leafs that may be the cause of the blurred segment on each frame. 

If that does not work, I will use this camera for “special effects”…

PS/ The picture at the top of the page also shows the blur. But it certainly adds movement to an otherwise very frozen composition where the man is lying down in the middle of the closed street waiting for the parade to start.

December 8, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

In Retrospect, Things Look Nicer Than They Once Did (Photos Are No Exception)

Looking through my photographs is like closing your eyes to remember. Sometimes you recall moments of which either you have no recollection, or you rediscover what you once had experienced.

Either way, and for the space of reliving that memory, you feel grateful.

... During my search, I found a photo that I did not recall taking. It was many years ago in Vienna, late in the day, when a Turkish dancer showed her skills (and a few other things) dancing in the street near Stephansdom. I recall taking other photos of her with my Nikon F2 but not this one. In retrospect, I perhaps like this one better than the one below that has been published a few years ago:

So, decided to look for other street dancers photos I had taken over the years and which were not used on my blogs or published in my books. Indeed, I was able to find one more, this time from Barcelonetta. 

Again taken with a Nikon F2, this photo of the dancers has been posted and published:

But there was another one that I did not use since the lighting was not optimal. Yet, I do like the warm presence of the crowd around the dancers.

Maybe with time and age one discovers more delightful aspects of photos that once did not look attractive.

Hmm, maybe the same attitude applies regarding people, places, ideas, tastes and smells....

Anyhow, I have a few other photos of street dancers previously posted here: https://liveingray.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-fluidity-of-frozen-movement.html

November 16, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Veterans' Day 2019, Prescott, Arizona

Veterans’ Day is celebrated in many cultures to remember those who defended the mother (or father) land.  In the UK and the Commonwealth they wear the poppy on this day; in France and Belgium they wear the Bleuet de France, a blue cornflower that is a national symbol representing solidarity with victims of war, orphans and widows of veterans of war. While Italy and Ireland do not have a national holiday to remember veterans (although there are various activities to salute those who served in their armed forces), Israel observes the Yom Hazikaron in a two-day memorial dedicated to her fallen soldiers and to victims of terrorism.

And there are many other countries where the fallen for the survival of the land and culture are officially remembered at least once a year.

Prescott, Arizona has a large population of war veterans going back to the Korean War. Every October 11 there is a parade and celebration on the city’s downtown square where thousands gather to honor their heroes. November 11 parade is also a street photographer’s favorite events, although when it comes to war heroes and their families much effort is made to not infringe on their privacy.

My goal is always to tell a story and not capture people off guard.

My other interest is to use tools (camera, film and lens) that are not common or not popular. I like to push the abilities of these tools (now at least 50 years old) and be surprised when they perform better than expected or in a way that I had not intended to capture the moment.

So, this time I took an Olympus OM-1 (not OM-1n which is newer) and a Vivitar 135mm Close Focusing telephoto. This lens belongs to B&W photography “cult members” who value this unusual lens for its uniqueness in focusing almost as a macro lens. I have used this lens for portraiture years ago when I used to run a mile of film per month through my cameras. It has been seating lonely on the shelf for a while so I decided to take it for an outing.

Here is the lens on the camera surrounded by some of the 8x10 prints I made:

And the details of the lens surrounded by my various “expression mode facilitators” in my studio…

… A Veteran, dressed as Batman, was walking around the city square providing an opportunity for eclectic photo framing. The photo at the outset of this entry is a typical street photography capture, as the Batman shook the hand of a policeman on his immaculately cleaned motorcycle. I took this shot from at least 50 meters away and did some cropping (or enlarging) of the policeman and Batman. 

Here is the cropped area and handshake:

Clearly the Vivitar lens is not very sharp for such usage even when set at f8 aperture and 1/250^th sec speed.

Still, it has that warmth and tonal range that only film can provide and why folks like me still get those looks in a crowd as people ask “is that really a film camera? I did not know they still made film.”

So, I wanted to see how the lens did in the tonal range transition. Here is a newspaper photographer with a fancy digital camera. She was kneed down in street as the parade passed by, and I captured part of her between two spectators. I wanted to see how the dark and unfocused human borders would transition.

Here is that shot:

Finally, I suppose one has to show some parade when covering a parade… Here is my take, with a long- haired Veteran (Vietnam perhaps?) and a fancy hat en lieu of a poppy!

October 12, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Pioneer Cemetery, Prescott Arizona

It is where many "old timers" are buried. Some of the gravestones show dates in the mid-1800s. It is well preserved and maintained, although some of the graves have seen the unkindness of the passage of time.

It is located on a small hill off of a busy street. But once there all seems calm and quiet. I love taking walks there with my dog who is most interested in the labyrinth and holes gofers make on the grounds. I think he has sniffed every hole making me worried that a gofer would eventually decide to teach him a lesson and bite his nose!

Here is a grave one may say typically affected by the Southwestern plant grow, mainly the Prickly Pear Cactus. There are a few like this one and somehow I find it most fitting to the environment.

And then there are always surprises. I found these two angels lonesome and away from any grave I could detect. Why were they there? Was there a grave under them that had been effaced a bit by the winds and the sand storms?

But, like other times in my life, I tried to ask very few question when I met angels with broken wings....

October 11, 2019
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Victoria Falls, Elephant Soup and a Kodak Moment in Zimbabwe

These are the photos from Zimbabwe, mostly from Victoria Falls and surrounding area that I wanted to bring out of the darkness of my classified files. They are not the artistic photos I try to capture about people and their environments, but I think these is some humour in these photos worth catching a smile through.

In fact, these are no people in these photos, so that is in part why, as a street photographer, I classified them away.

Ok, the opening photo is that of Victoria Falls. Of course it is a very large area and these are thousands of angles to look at the falls, but this one has enough of dramatic shades, clair obscur and effaced corners that I decided to start this entry with its panoramic spread.

Of course, most of the food is meat and most of the meat is game in Zimbabwe. Sometimes it is game that we had seen roam around the street during our own walk! Here is a photo I previously posted of a warthog near our hotel

And here is the menu from that night…

But I had never seen a recipe for an elephant soup! Here is the humour printed on a chef’s apron:

At closer look, one can see how important it is to follow the steps. I was fascinated by the addition of a rabbit…

But, if one does not have a refrigerator large enough to store all the ingredients, one can easily try that soup here…

With the local beer, of course.

Finally, a moment of nostalgia for a photographer who still uses film. Indeed, Kodak film is history for many, and for the young generation of all things electronic, a total unknown. I was delighted to see the Kodak sign still standing in this weathered bus stop.

September 29, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

One Flew Over the Beach in Capetown, South Africa

This morning I posted a few photos of wildlife from the Kruger National Park in South Africa after going through some photos I had left unpublished.

Among these were also photos from Cape Town. One photo has a special place in my memories of that town – I was taking photos of folks on the beach with a Minolta Autocord medium format TLR camera. The 80mm lens is fixed so all photos had to be taken from a close proximity.

In order to not identify people, which is always a challenge to a street photographer, decided to take contre-jour shots thus having the sun behind the subject hence leaving their faces obscured. I took a few, but nothing special. Then I saw this couple having lunch sitting on the grass near the beach and from the side of my eye saw a lady selling hats. She was dressed in traditional African clothing and wearing a straw hat advertising her merchandise.  I focused a meter or so behind the lunching couple and waited. Sometimes one has to anticipate scenarios based on the environment and hope that the one clicking chance he has to capture the scene will be timed just right.

So, the hat lady passed exactly behind the couple as I expected. And I thought I clicked just at the right moment.

When I developed the film, I saw a strange shadow above the hat selling lady’s head. Intrigued, I decided to print that frame even though there seemed nothing very special in the captured moment.

To my surprise, my timing for depressing the shutter had been better than I anticipated. Obviously a pigeon flew over the scene at that very moment and I did not notice it. Here is the cropped and enlarged unanticipated inclusion to the otherwise well choreographed scene I had organized:

Now this otherwise pedestrian photo had that je ne sais quoi that makes street photography so unpredictable and sometimes because of that, delightful.

September 26, 2019

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

When Hairy Met Silly in Kruger National Park, South Africa

It rained all night and the mountains now are floating in a sea of frothy fog. For a minute one may think about the Japanese paintings where fog lets each viewer understand nature according to past experiences.

When I stay home, I paint, write or search my photography files for that photo I missed to use or did not appreciate enough. All my photos are printed under my 1950s enlarger, and then scanned.  So I do not have to look through interminable numbers of shoeboxes as I once did…

… I came across a thick envelope containing 8x10 photos from South Africa and Zimbabwe. I have posted many of them in various entries about these countries, but found a few that I had not.

So, here is a couple from Kruger National Park in South Africa.

To start, I have to say that while all going through the park had digital wonder cameras with lenses that can capture the smile of a flea on a sleeping lion’s nose; I took with me my 1960s Mamiya 645 medium format camera and its 90mm lens. As a backup, I had a 1954 Canon L3 rangefinder 35mm camera which I enjoy using more than any Leica of the same era.

Ok, so we were in an open safari car looking for a leopard. Of course these magnificent animals hide in the tall trees, and even if our guide would spot a leopard, my lenses would take a photo of the tree only. All the wonder cameras with unlimited storage of pictures would win the photo shoot by zooming across a 100 or so meters.

We drove for a while without seeing a leopard. But we saw a tick-covered male lion sleeping at the side of the road:

And groups of gazelles filling the fields by the thousand:

Our guide told us that they call these gracious animals “Mc Donald Fast Food” for the lions…

We were about to finished our morning tour when a handsome male lion came out of the forest. He seemed oblivious to us and the two cars that made our caravan. He was a few meters behind our car when I took this photo

The slapping mirror sound of my Mamiya made our guide forbid me to use that camera! He was worried that the lion would be intrigued by the sound and jump into our totally open car… (Of course, I never understood why they cannot have cars with minimal protection for the passengers). So I used the Canon rangefinder for the next shots.

The male lion sniffed the air toward the forest from where he came out. Then a magnificent lioness appeared with that feline walk that would turn anyone’s head.

And it did. Very quickly, the lion and lioness engaged in an amorous tandem exercise just a few meters from our car (photo at the top of this entry). I have to admit that while it may not be unusual for them to do so, witnessing the king and queen of the jungle so intimately was a once in a lifetime experience for us, the humans sitting in an open car peeping on the love making of the strongest cats in the world!

… And then, as if to tease us pudic and prude humans who think of J.J Rousseau as being too close to nature, the content lioness laid on her side next to the king of the jungle for a short post-coital nap.

The look of the lion is almost anthropomorphic – it is kind, caring and proud!

So, as a street photographer this series does not fit into my portfolio, but I thought it captures a behavior many on the streets I have met across the globe would identify with.

And would give a high five to the Lion and Lioness!

I ended the day with a salute.

September 26, 2019

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

A Lonesome Walk in a Desert Cemetery

 I woke up in the dark of the night from the smell of burning wood smoke. It is fire season in the desert and the dried brush catches fire quickly. I knew the fire was a few miles away, given the minimal smoke that had reached our house.  Yet, half-asleep, I was overwhelmed with the scent of burning cedar. Of course it was from the cedar/pine family trees and junipers that had been touched by the brush fire.

And in a short moment, I relived moments in churches and cemeteries where such incense was burned.

Then I went back to sleep.

Early in the morning, and perhaps directed by my sub-conscience, I decided to take my dog for a walk in a nearby cemetery. I also took with me my old 1969 Nikon F, knowing that taking any photo while walking a 50 kg two-year old Akita on a leash is near impossible, especially when one has to set the aperture, and focus holding the camera with both hands…

Here is the entrance of the cemetery, my camera, and the sneaking head of my dog behind the structure:

I was wondering how the gravesides were organized, kept or forgotten. The strong sun, the sand, the drought of the land do not allow for any plants, trees or grass. It is sand and rocks upon those who were remembered by a gravestone, a cross or a simple plate.

I wanted to capture some of these characteristics, hoping that I can stop my dog from chasing lizards so I have a split second to focus and click.

Many of the grave sites were affected by the passage of time, loneliness perhaps, and the winds full of sand. There also were large numbers of hoof prints in the cemetery attesting to the fact that peccary and deer had made this secluded space their own.

Here is one that had stood the passage of all elements and perhaps feelings. Angels still standing upright:

While a nearby plot had been taken over by Prickly Pear cactus, the most prolific type of cactus in the high desert:

I tried to not identify the names on the gravestones for privacy consideration. Some photos have partially recognizable inscriptions, though. Here is one where I found a cap upon the stone. The hat has been weathered and given the lack of water/rain and the very dry weather materials do not rot or decompose as in more temperate climates. So this cap could have been there for many years.

I came across, after being pulled by my dog that sniffed fresh tracks of deer, to a humble grave surrounded by small rocks that were painted. It was a personalized grave site, and the stones had faces and profiles of Native American young men.  This was the only grave site I saw there with such an arrangement.

Finally, the most intriguing were the sites where the names on the plate or erected stones were mostly unintelligible and the cross was broken, or more recently replaced by two pieces of wood tied en guise of a cross.

Here is one example

And another that had a haunting appearance when I printed the frame:

… My dog was panting from all the running around and pouncing upon lizards that he never caught up with. The sun was getting already hot and it was time to return.

As I was walking slowly next to him, I kept on wondering why the dead would have a grave if few get visited.

And, as if the lizards that escaped a big dog, I realized that graves are for the living, not the dead.

PS/ Since I only scan my prints from negative strips, any blurring of "special effects" have to be done during the printing under the enlarger. I use a 1960's simple enlarger that has a Leica 39 lens screw type. That means that any Leica type 39 mm lens will be adaptable to the enlarger, even if these are camera lenses and not enlarger lenses. The difference is that enlarger lenses are flat field, meaning there is no aberration in the corners of the photo when printed. Camera lenses are not flat field but the front lens is convex. This means that all kinds of aberrations can happen when printing a photo! And I like that surprise dimension as I may get flare, soft/off focus spots, and uneven light distribution.

Here is what I did to have these effects on the above photos: I used a 1960s Soviet camera lens, A Jupiter -3, as an enlarger lens. I never liked the unpredictability of this lens when used to take pictures, but sometimes it surprises me with its "creativity" while printing the negatives!

September 13, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Singapore, Almost Twenty Years Later

 It has been years since I had heard from a colleague in Singapore. I was amazed that he was able to track me down.

“One of your books popped up from under the pile of papers on my desk” he said. “I thought I should see how you are doing old bloke.”

.. I was in Singapore first in 2001 working with the Ministry of Health in restructuring the delivery of medical services. I was amazed to realize that there were no suburbs, no mountains, and no outdoors. The entire country was just a city, that of Singapore.

“Many of the colleagues you knew are still here and working on old topics,” he wrote. “Before I decided to write to you I let them know and they send their hello. We also talked about when you were here at the outbreak of SARS in 2003. You remember?”

Of course I do. As an epidemiologist it was quite an experience. Every morning I went to a special center to get my temperature taken. Then I got a sticker, valid for the next 24 hours, stating that I did not have a fever. I had to wear that sticker on my shirt visibly, if not I would have been pulled off the street for test and observation!

The surveillance was not on individuals as such, but truly the entire population as it was at risk for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Given the small size of the city (and the entire country being only a city) a clever approach was adopted for immediate surveillance. Indeed, all the large screens on Orchard Road were transformed to heat seeking tactical display centers. The thousands of people that walked that main artery were scanned for body heat, and one could see a red spot on the large screen (like the ones in Times Square, NYC) indicating a person with possibly high temperature.

It was a very active screening by the Ministry of Health and the potential spread and ravage of SARS was contained very effectively.

“Yes, I do,” I replied. “I visited Singapore possibly ten times till 2008, and have many fond memories of your country, the research we did together and your hospitality.”

“You will not recognize Singapore if you return,” he continued, “We are expanding the city into the ocean by building new land. People are different too – I think they are more cautious. But I recall you fancied Emerald Hill Road, and that has not changed much” he ended.

… Of course all this made me wonder if there are photos on those rolls of film that I have not printed. I know there are because I have printed only the better shots over the years.

But now, perhaps I have some that captured the “old” Singapore! So, I went to look for 35mm negatives from almost 20 years ago.

I know I have more in other shoe boxes, somewhere. But I did find a few strips with frames I vaguely recall taking and for sure of not having seen them printed on paper.

So, decided to take a trip on memory lane in the darkness of my darkroom.

The Armenian Apostolic Church of St. Gregory the Illuminator (circa 1839) and its cemetery: The first time I visited Singapore I was surprised by the Armenian immigrants’ story to this tiny country. In short, Armenians arrived in Singapore in 1819 with Sir Stamford Raffles who made Singapore a prominent commerce port.

I have taken many photos of the church, gravestones and cemetery statues. Perhaps one day I will get the courage to print all the negatives I have instead of picking one or two shots that are well composed. I have posted some here (https://liveingray.blogspot.com/2017/01/aesthetics-that-tell-story-fluidity-of.html) and here (https://liveingray.blogspot.com/2017/11/armenian-diaspora-salmon-syndrome.html).

But there are many others, mostly taken with an OM-1, which are less than perfect. So, now I decided to publish them in this entry as they may perhaps show some change over the past 20 years.

Here is one I like – the cemetery and a young woman bent over a grave stone. The light flare due to the unhooded lens (I presume) makes it actually quite charming.

In the above links I had already written about Agnes Joaquim (Hovakimian), born in Singapore on April 7 1853, and who hybridized an orchid which in 1981 was designated the national flower of Singapore now called Vanda Miss Joaquim.  Looking through my negatives I believe that I have her father’s gravestone:  

I can only partially read the writing since the stone and its carved face have sank into the dirt. It is inscribed in Armenian and what I can read states:

“Gravestone of Mr. Parsegh Hovakimian, a merchant of good reputation who at age 54…”

I assume he is the father of Agnes as she is also buried there. And, as the stones slowly sink into the ground, at some point in the future they would be engulfed in dirt and no one will know who was buried there....

The passage of time also affects the statues, especially my favorite limestone statue in the cemetery. Time and the tropical rains have already taken a toll on the stone, but I visited it on every trip I took to Singapore as if it were a memorial statue upon the grave of a family member. There is grace, charm, pain and hope in her posture and face.

This time, I found a poorly focused shot of the statue where the inscription on the pedestal is showing.

Unfortunately I can hardly read the first two lines, and I thought the inscription was from the Bible. I sent the photo to a friend who was able to read the entire inscription as:

“Our loss is infinite
More dear than life itself
And life without him (her?)

Is akin to a thousand deaths”

He also specified that these lines are about the person buried under the statue and not borrowed from the Bible.

Also, while the statue shows a woman in mourning, it is not possible without knowing the name of the deceased to know if it was a man or a woman since Armenian language is gender neutral.

The crowded streets of Singapore: I am not sure if this is Orchard, but I like the reflections in the glass captured by this shot. Of course I was laughing at the “House of Condom” sign next to the MC Donald….

This photo made me smile. I assume I took it as a play on the relationship between the Registries of Marriage sign and the young men and women who are walking away from it. 

And then I found a frame of classy lady window shopping. For me, the attitude and attire of this woman is typically Singaporean, as I have not seen it in Malaysia, China, Taiwan, Indonesia or Japan.

And, I believe that it was maybe around 2001 when French cheese and bread shops opened in Singapore. I may be wrong, but I recall that on a trip in 2002 I was told that now I can have French bread instead of noodles..!! My friends knew about my inclination to favor French bread over other forms and sources of starch...

So, I was delighted to see this frame which of course I do not recall shooting:

So, I chose these frames to print with my enlarger in my darkroom. It was a trip back in time, but delightful as always. There are of course many more on those negatives’ strips that I may tackle one day.

But I cannot wrap up this entry without this shot:

Truly, I have no idea, but I think these are three roasted piglets in trays given the anatomical features of the one at the far right.

And I recalled, after almost 20 years of not thinking about it, that, at each visit, I used to go to a fish eatery with a friend to eat fish head. Yes, only the heads of very large fish that made a delightful dinner. I recall ordering these with Indian, Chinese or Malaysian spices and picking the meat, skin and connective tissue with chopsticks. 

What a delight it was to cool our mouth with Tiger beer during dinner.

August 26, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019