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If I had one of these:
Three MIT students created this interesting concept for mating CNC technology with a handheld router. It's on my birthday wish list . . .
See the technical brief and information about a forthcoming commercial version here. A pdf describing the process can be downloaded there as well
visualcasualty
One of my current projects is (re)designing a camera for street portrait photography used by photographers in Afghanistan, India, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and many other countries throughout the world. There are a variety of approaches to the design but they all have in common the ability to process a paper negative within the camera. Re-shooting the paper negative on a built-in copy stand with some means of racking focus out to 1:1 enables the production of a positive image. Billy Baque, for whom the design is being worked out, brought to my attention an elegant design in use by a street photographer in Argentina. This camera is typical of a type that arranges for access to the interior of the camera through a back door. The same door is opened for purposes of focussing the camera.
This design typically has a hinged top lid with a viewer for image processing along with a red window to admit light for that purpose. These are masked off by various types of mechanism when a photograph is being made. Also characteristic of this design is a movable standard on slider rails inside the camera controlled by an external knob attached to a third rail that moves the standard from portrait position to copy position. Note also that the camera has two processing tanks. Stop bath is omitted in this case and a water rinse is typically done outside of the camera.
Argentine street camera
A Velophot "One-Minute" camera
Side view of a Velophot
I was recently contacted by photographer Billy Baque from the Bay Area about a design project. He had become somewhat enthralled with the idea of a traditional street photographer's camera originally based upon early ferrotype cameras. An interesting site for The Afghan Camera Project includes further details on the particular Afghan version of this camera. This is a street photographer's portrait camera with in-camera processing that can produce a finished image for the customer in a span of as few as 5 minutes.
The camera is a large box with a sliding internal focussing mechanism designed to go from portrait distance to 1:1 copy distance. Internal processing tanks, paper storage and a darksleeve for access to the interior of the camera enable a portrait shot to be processed within the camera and washed outside of the camera.Once the paper negative is rinsed, it is fitted to a copy stand mounted to the front of the camera while the focussing mechanism is moved back to copy position. A photographic copy of the paper negative run through the same procedure then results in a positive print ready to deliver to the customer.
Photographer Chris Wroblewski produced a nice looking book entitled "Smudgers" about some of the photographers still practicing this kind of street photography around the world
Chris Wroblewski's book on "Smudgers"
Before contacting me, Billy had done extensive research into the cameras. You can see his blog entries here:
The Cuban Polaroid
Building a "Minute" street camera
Accoutrements for a "One Minute" camera
I'll post updates on this project as it proceeds.
Just about 4 years ago a modest sketchbook idea took life in a form that eventually would become the P.90 lensless camera. Conceived as an easy-to-use camera with an elegant, modern appearance, the P.90 is a medium format, lensless camera with a long-standing pedigree dating back to the original Pinoramic 120 camera from 1991. That original sketch proposed a canvas for the arrangement of a simple, anodized aluminum shutter placed in the middle of a subtly curved field of beautiful wood grain. Like all the Pinoramic cameras, the P.90 design is a curved film plane camera designed to capture a wide field of view on the expansive medium format.
Unlike so many offerings in this general category, the P.90 is an uncompromising camera utilizing original design concepts executed at the highest level. Bent wood laminations used for the front and back of the camera incorporate cross-banded construction that makes the camera both lighter and stronger than typical brick-style cameras. This technique was used in constructing the famous Mosquito bombers of WW2.
Carefully chosen rift-sawn solid timber is used for the top and bottom of the camera. Considered to be simply a necessity by historical camera makers, rift-sawn material is more dimensionally stable and reliable in service than the typical, less expensive, plain sawn material. The combination of bespoke, cross-banded lamination and rift-sawn material is unique to the P.90 and Pinoramic 120 series cameras and gives them their unique appearance.
The P.90's hardware is designed and made specifically for this application. Each brass component is given the same level of consideration as the custom woodwork. Both form and function are carefully designed to bring beauty and functionality into harmony in the final result. Very few contemporary builders of wooden cameras give this same level of attention to hardware that they do to the woodwork.
This level of attention to detail makes a P.90 is an investment you will be proud of and enjoy for a long time to come. And with the no-questions-asked return policy, there is no risk in making your purchase.
P.90 cameras are a limited edition and production is nearing the end of the run with the remaining stock dwindling quickly. The last chance to own a P.90 is near. With the week-long anniversary celebration there will never be a better time to buy a P.90. Orders placed between June 9 and June 15 will receive 10% off of the standard price of $975.00.
Purchases can be made either at the website store or the Facebook P.90 page.
As encouragement to try out Dwolla's new cash payments system, purchases made using their service will receive an additional $20.00 off of the standard price. Dwolla is a new cash payment system that takes the credit card middleman out of the equation. There are online and mobile apps available. Check out the Dwolla site and contact me if you might want to take advantage of this additional discount.
A temporary reading light
Illuminated
The source fitting.
The lamp head.
The cable guide
The Counterweight
It's been a while now since Lisa first suggested we enter our Bungaloft project in the Build It Green! Home Tour. Once we were accepted (and committed, or more likely, ready to be committed ), we accelerated the pace a bit, worked hard on the house and finally waved a glorious goodbye to our temporary, fifth-wheel-trailer-home and moved into the house. A week later we welcomed about 150 green building aficionados to our 550 sq ft experiment in compact living for a day's worth of interesting conversation about our work in progress. Although a bit of imagination was a useful tool for the typical visitor, the temporary staging job we did to make a serviceable presentation came off pretty well. In spite of an unfortunate, last minute, job-site accident that left Lisa feeling a little less presentable than she might have liked, we all three (Zane entertained guests) thoroughly enjoyed the day.
Now that we have been in the house a while and are beginning to tackle the many remaining tasks in earnest, it feels like time to review what got us this far. We would never claim to be the ultimate green warriors on the home remodeling front, but we have made a significant commitment to incorporating green building techniques wherever we felt we could. The other major consideration has always been to find a comfortable melding of the Bungalow heritage of our little house with our shared fondness for Modern design principles.
Recycled fir vanity, recycled steel handles, bamboo towel hook
We stumbled upon the one-piece counter top at Ikea. It is a very well made part complimented nicely by a Cifial faucet purchased inexpensively at a local fixture shop sale. The very modern top surface of the cabinet inspired me to look for a handle that would nicely blend that polished look with the more rustic feel of the Fir. I finally decided to make the handles from some recycled steel angle lying around the shop. The combination of a modern design with the rough mill finish seems like just the right touch. The photo below shows the other Fir material and a detail of the smaller pulls used on the narrower right set of drawers along with a glimpse of Lisa's idea to use open shelves for rolled-up bath towels.
Drawer pull and fancy Fir
Resawing the fir
The material reclamation process we used involves a number of steps starting with planing and re-sawing the original material. The photo above shows one of the boards making its way past the blade of my vintage Duro bandsaw equipped with a custom fence I built for it. I chose to aim for 1/16" inch veneer just because it felt right.
Lisa feeds the beast
Vacuum lamination
Back to work . . .
What a place to work - a Pinoramic 120 photograph of the train outside my shop window.
The Guardian newspaper recently proclaimed Portland #1 on its list of the five best places in the world to live. The others were -
It's an unusual list. Many of the usual suspects don't make the cut. But the reasons given for the choice - "There are planning restrictions on crappy developments. Portland has the highest number of microbreweries in the world." among others are familiar to Portlanders. I just like the sense of Portland being a place that's full of surprises but still gritty in an urban sort of way. To look out my shop window and behold the Banfield expressway, the MAX light rail and this railroad all within 50 feet of my window - that's my urban fix.
