• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Get off my LAWN! "Grumpy Old Farts"

Status
Not open for further replies.
#2,001
Ajapses said:
The tuner is very scratchy. Anybody out there know the best thing to use to clean the plates?
Click to expand...

Inspect the variable capacitor for dust. Vacuuming is better than compressed air. A shaving brush works well. A more intense cleaning requires removing the capacitor.

Sometimes the fins are badly oxidized. Some people use degreasers or alcohol. Don't spray anything that leaves a residue on the fins, that just attracts dust and makes it worse down the road. Soaking the cap in hot tap water with a spoonful of TSP dissolved works well. The bearings need to be re-lubricated after cleaning.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ajapses
#2,002
Jeff Scott said:
Ansel had to rely on his knowledge of the brightness of the moon at 250 foot candles IIRC. I have a great video with Ansel making a print of Moonrise where he discusses and shows the issues at hand with the negative. If you run into JS sometime ask him about those special Moonrise photos of his!

Modern landscape photography? Do you mean like that stuff post George Fiske or Timothy H. O'Sullivan, for example? :smug:

Or stuff like this:

View attachment 685482
Photograph Copyright © Jeffrey P. Scott 2000 All rights reserved
Click to expand...
The stuff that looks like it came from a video game, the artificial reality look of HDR, where the colors look like they were just pasted onto the objects underneath them. For lack of composition skills a lot of younger photographers are just going for this over saturated maximum "pop'. Don't get me wrong, I loved the look of Velvia back in the day, but it still had a natural look to the colors where a lot of the stuff I see online or even what a lot of my customers were showing me had that video game look. I guess you just copy what you grow up with! :cool: Jim
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jeff Scott and B-string
#2,004
Ajapses said:
I took that as a pic prompt:
View attachment 685479
Like a Pbass, only the essentials - tuning, volume, tone. Needs to be plumbed through the GK to put the growl to it.

The tuner is very scratchy. Anybody out there know the best thing to use to clean the plates?
Click to expand...
B-string said:
Virtual reality vs reality. Is it any wonder natural beauty is being lost and care for our environment is being ignored or denied. You can't "mold nature" to your own concept, only destroy it in the process. Dang, heavy old fart rant right there.
Click to expand...
Yeah, check out the work by Gallen Rowell, one of my favorite color photographers. He never used anything but 35mm slide film, and low end lightweight Nikon bodies and lenses. But the compositions and the stunning look to his work was very inspiring to me. This was long before photoshop, what you see is pretty much what was in front of his lens. Ansel called him"the color version of me" A nice compliment IMHO. Jim
 
  • Like
Reactions: B-string
#2,005
B-string said:
All I had was aluminum so this one sent me back in the house (that was from my back yard looking over the next door neighbor's roofs)!

View attachment 685407
Click to expand...

That event was both electrifying and shocking at the same time. Left you a bit of a live wire I guess. :) These, and more, are amongst my library of current jokes. :D

Always was a bit of a bright spark myself! LOL
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jeff Scott and B-string
#2,006
jim nolte said:
The stuff that looks like it came from a video game, the artificial reality look of HDR, where the colors look like they were just pasted onto the objects underneath them. For lack of composition skills a lot of younger photographers are just going for this over saturated maximum "pop'. Don't get me wrong, I loved the look of Velvia back in the day, but it still had a natural look to the colors where a lot of the stuff I see online or even what a lot of my customers were showing me had that video game look. I guess you just copy what you grow up with! :cool: Jim
Click to expand...
Yeah, most of that HDR is crap, for sure. I just don't see how anyone could consider that stuff any good looking. "Yeah baby, let's squash the hell out of the image so we can see everything in all it's distorted glory"! Ugh!

I am glad my mentors (real and/or virtual) were mostly from the classic "California School", Ansel, Edward (and sons), Morley Baer, Wynn Bullock, etc. Not to mention some lesser know greats, such as Frederick Evans, for one, and the aforementioned George Fiske, for two.

Velvia was a cool film, if a bit too saturated in the greens, but I do prefer good old Kodachrome 64 (I used some 25 too, but the differences were pretty minimal IME). For my personal work when I had my Canon F1n I rated the K64 at ISO 40 to get the best compromise between shadow and highlight detail; I always mounted the camera on a tripod and used my Pentax Digital Spot Meter, although the built-in meter (with the spot meter screen D in the finder was quite good on it's own). I used some Kodachrome 120 for a while, in a Plaubel Makina 67 (another very nice camera, along with it's wide angle version, too). Bruce Barnbaum was/is a big proponent of Echtachrome 64T for his color large format work, using an 85B on his lenses. This cut the contrast well to produce better Cibachromes from. Speaking of Cibachrome, one exhibit of Edward Weston's I saw back in the late '80s included some of the color work he did as a consultant to Kodak; these prints were Cibachromes made from Edwards', and Cole's 8x10 Kodachome transparencies. Those were a bit of a revelation, to me, as to color imagery. Almost a 3D quality to them.
 
Last edited:
#2,007
jim nolte said:
Yeah, check out the work by Gallen [sic] Rowell, one of my favorite color photographers. He never used anything but 35mm slide film, and low end lightweight Nikon bodies and lenses. But the compositions and the stunning look to his work was very inspiring to me. This was long before photoshop, what you see is pretty much what was in front of his lens. Ansel called him"the color version of me" A nice compliment IMHO. Jim
Click to expand...
I have a few of Galen's books, and met him at a seminar/slide show he did at an REI in Phoenix many years (decades) ago. Since he was an avid rock climber, using the lightweight, compact Nikon gear was essential for him.

Re: Photoshop, how did Jerry Uelsmann manage do do anything before PS came along? :D

Jerry Uelsmann
 
#2,010
Jeff Scott said:
I have a few of Galen's books, and met him at a seminar/slide show he did at an REI in Phoenix many years (decades) ago. Since he was an avid rock climber, using the lightweight, compact Nikon gear was essential for him.

Re: Photoshop, how did Jerry Uelsmann manage do do anything before PS came along? :D

Jerry Uelsmann
Click to expand...
And it's funny Uelsmann comes up sometimes when I'm in a particular heated debate about photoshop and when I look at a lot of modern photography that they aren't doing anything different that he was doing. Jerry wasn't trying to pull the wool over anybody, you knew his work was complete imaginary compositions, trees don't grow suspended over bodies of water with all there roots dangling. Contrast that to a shot I saw of the Lighthouse at Point Pinos. It, looked amazing, talk about being at the right place at the right time, the beams of light glowing through the fog, shining what looked like for miles out into the darkness. That is until my customer started to explain how he "created" it. It was a total of 5 different images taken over the course of several months all photshopped together. The individual images were all meh, but stuck together. yeah it was impressive, but it was more computer art than photography to me. But I wouldn't have known that if he hadn't told me. Would we still have the same respect for Hernandez or Ansel if we knew it was a composite, taken over several nights, or weeks or months. Some would I guess, I wouldn't. Christopher Burkett is another large format color guy I've been digging lately. Another local B/W large format guy I like is Chip Hooper. Brett Weston is probably my all time fav for that genre though. His old friends all tell me he had only 3 interests in life, photography, cars, and women! :hyper:
 
#2,011
I have seen both Christopher's and Chip's work at Photography West in Carmel a few years ago. They both do great work; I was amazed at PW as there were rooms devoted to Morley, and Wynn, along with some of Ansel's photographs (I have seen lots of his work over the years, such as the Museum Set show at LACMA, Ansel at 100, and lots of other smaller exhibits). One of my favorites is Clearing Winter Storm, which PW had a 16x20 print on show at the time I was there. Later that same day I was up at the AA Gallery on Cannery Row, and mentioned my visit to PW to Matthew; he asked me how much they were selling it for! He also told me of why he did not become a photographer, himself..................

The first time I met Matthew was my first visit to the gallery, in 2001. I was standing in front of Monolith (given the size, probably the one that hung in the American West show), and saw there was a Not For Sale note next to it. I said to myself out loud "Too bad this is not for sale..." when a voice from behind me said: "Well, this one is not available but we do have many other photographs you may be interested in". I turned around to face an Adams! I did walk out of the gallery with an original signed Yosemite and the Range of Light book, not one of the 100 or so "stickered" ones, but an earlier real signature one. :hyper:. I did later find and buy a "stickered" one that I gave to my brother for our 50th birthday.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: jim nolte
#2,013
KevInDaBassment said:
I look forward to the day when I qualify for this club...but that may be years from now lol. Can I drink coffee and listen to records with you guys to soak up stories about the good ol' days?? ;-)
Click to expand...
Think of it this way. It's just your turn to be young. You have heard this before but, time really does go faster the older you get. 20 years-- "Poof!" gone?? Young people may forget that or don't believe it. You should drink coffee and listen to records with us, we like awesome music.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheRealKong, KevInDaBassment and B-string
#2,014
beans-on-toast said:
Inspect the variable capacitor for dust. Vacuuming is better than compressed air. A shaving brush works well. A more intense cleaning requires removing the capacitor.

Sometimes the fins are badly oxidized. Some people use degreasers or alcohol. Don't spray anything that leaves a residue on the fins, that just attracts dust and makes it worse down the road. Soaking the cap in hot tap water with a spoonful of TSP dissolved works well. The bearings need to be re-lubricated after cleaning.
Click to expand...
Thanks, Mr. Toast. I'll give it a go.
 
  • Like
Reactions: beans-on-toast
#2,015
Winterglo said:
Think of it this way. It's just your turn to be young. You have heard this before but, time really does go faster the older you get. 20 years-- "Poof!" gone?? Young people may forget that or don't believe it. You should drink coffee and listen to records with us, we like awesome music.
Click to expand...
It hit me when I turned 50. When I was 40 I didn't feel any different than when I was 30, but when I hit 50, I didn't feel like I was 40 anymore let alone 30! I understood the "over the hill" part!!
 
#2,017
I figure the clown who came up with the term "The Golden Years" was probably some 30-something advertising exec, who by now has learned what it's really like. ;)
Some days my mantra is "This sure isn't like the retirement they show in the brochures.", but some days we get to babysit our new grandson and things are much better for a while.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheRealKong
#2,018
Winterglo said:
Think of it this way. It's just your turn to be young. You have heard this before but, time really does go faster the older you get. 20 years-- "Poof!" gone?? Young people may forget that or don't believe it. You should drink coffee and listen to records with us, we like awesome music.
Click to expand...

Yeah, sometimes I can't believe I'm going to be 28 in a month. Still feel like I'm 21 on the inside ;)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back