Author Archives: Boris Starosta

Maia C 105

by Boris Starosta

Date: May 2012

Tech:

Available light exposure of 1 second on FUJI Astia RAP100F film, at f22, with a modified TL120 (65mm lenses) on loan from John Thurston. This is the original slide.

Notes:

Chuck Holzner was also along on this expedition with a model, whom we took hiking in St. Mary’s Wilderness, just south of Afton, VA via the Blue Ridge Parkway. We ended up hiking down a trail about two miles before finding a pretty spot with a waterfall. This shot was taken along the way, when we spied some impressive looking boulders. We tried to get this done early enough in the year to avoid full foliage (looking for dappled sunlight), and also lots of other hikers. We mostly succeeded. There was still some sun in places, and only one couple of hikers disturbed us briefly, while we were working. Chuck nearly had a heart attack climbing out of the valley, it was so steep.

Bremo Power Plant Far Room

by Boris Starosta

Date: April 2012

Tech:
Available light exposure of 1 second on FUJI Provia RDPIII film, at f22, with a modified TL120 (65mm lenses) on loan from John Thurston. This is the original slide.

Notes:
Earlier this year I had the chance to photograph inside an old coal fired power plant. Chuck Holzner and I travelled to the plant three times with various MF and digital cameras, and this slide is just one of probably over a hundred made coming out of those expeditions. The plant is in Fork Union / Bremo Bluff, VA, and was built about 1930. It was the first plant to be built with an “automatic” central control room. That means that valves, pumps, and other control elements could be remote-controlled electrically from the control room. This plant was decommissioned in the 1950s and now sits adjacent a newer plant.

Aqueduct

by Boris Starosta

I discovered this lovely view nearby our house while “geocaching” some time back. Yes, I know my tastes are strange.

Late afternoon, available light exposure of 1 second on an older roll of original FUJI Astia film (maybe, I believe, marked on slide mount. Not Astia100F.), at f32, with a Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner. This is the original slide, and I really like the color response of this film better than the newer Astias.

Old Rag Mountain Views

by Boris Starosta

Ektachrome 200 (I think, check slide mount notation). A little over exposed, handheld with a Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner.

Old Rag Mountain is about a five hour hike in the foothills of the Shenandoah (8.5 miles), north of Charlottesville. Here’s a picture of my betrothed Michele as we near the summit, with the ridge along which we climbed in the background. In some places, the trail involves some surprisingly challenging rock-scrambling (I would jest, “we forgot our ropes!”).

Ektachrome 200 (I think, check slide mount notation). A little under exposed, handheld with a Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner.

This is the view from the summit at Old Rag Mt., again looking back from the way we came. Off in the distance, you can see the rocks upon which the earlier image was made – notice the other hikers there? Getting from there to the summit took about a half hour. It was crowded and hot when we did this hike in the summer of 2010. I rather like the under-exposure in this view, as it gives detail to the sky.

Clear Building (Nurse F 12 mixH)

by Boris Starosta




This is a digital “dupe” made by Gammatech from a file I sent them. The file for each of these images was about 2500 x 2000 pixels, about 1200 pixels per inch. I had them “print” eight stereo pairs like this onto an 8×10 inch transparency. They offered two resolutions for this, “8k” and “16k.” I asked them to print my file at “16k” because my file had a resolution around 12k. I might try doing it onto 70mm film next time – the cost is about the same either way. This imagery was obtained and processed digitally. Cameras: twin rig Canon D60 (6MP DSLR) with 28mm lenses, stereobase for this view about 9 inches.

Using a multiple exposure technique, buildings are rendered magically translucent, revealing the structure beneath the facade, and the foundation beneath the structure. Images were obtained over a period spanning 12 to 18 months, each time from a platform carefully repositioned, so that the camera(s) would be in exactly the same spot, matching position, direction and orientation in six axes. From about 2007 to 2010, I recorded the construction of a half-dozen buildings like this in and around Charlottesville. With its requirement for extreme accuracy, digital post-processing was almost as much work as the photography itself!

Liz 303

by Boris Starosta

Fuji RAP 100F, f22, 1/2sec exposure, studio flash and some ambient light, using twin Hasselblads with 80mm lenses, 4.5″ stereo separation.  Original slide.

Liz was a wonderful model that I worked with in 2005.  Aside being a beauty, she was really smart, funny, and very creative.  She had visited the studio several times for the purpose of artmaking, and had each time remarked how much she loved this transparent vinyl chair that I had.  Well, one day I took her up on this, and asked her to show me how much she loved the chair.  I told her the chair had worked up the nerve to get naked with her.  Thus we produced some interesting images.  After making love to the chair via some traditional positions, I suggested the chair might enjoy receiving oral satisfaction from her.  She seemed game for anything.  Liz was a big flirt, and I had to control myself carefully…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Williamsburg Bridge

by Boris Starosta

Fuji RAP, f11 (?), 1 sec. exposure in available light, using Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner. Camera stabilized on walkway/surface of bridge.   Slide in folio is original film.

Cycling over the Williamsburg bridge to visit someplace in Brooklyn, I took interest in the elaborate riveted steel trusswork along the way.  It was very cold, and I had no tripod.  I placed the camera on ground and tried to stabilize it with a pocket knife acting as a shim to get the angle.  Aim and thus composition was guesswork.  I would have wanted a longer exposure/smaller aperture, but the rig was shaky, so I dared not.  Luckily, it was wintertime, so the traffic was light, and I was not reported to the TSA or other anti-terrorist authorities as a person of suspicion – it’s sad what one has to be afraid of these days.

Coiner’s scrap yard

by Boris Starosta

Tech: Available light exposure of 1/50sec. on FUJI RVP Velvia 100F film with Sam Smith’s (I think) siamesed Ricohflex on loan from Paul Talbot. This is the original slide.

This is some of the first MF3d photography I have done.  Seeking abstract and textured subject matter, I went to the local scrap metals yard.  Not only was it very cold out, but the picture I found was of some scrap (in foreground of this view) very close to where a crane was working, making loud clanking and thudding noises.  I needed to face away from the crane, could not monitor it, and so made my exposures with some apprehension for my safety.

Maia B 15

by Boris Starosta

My version of a Christmas image?  Well, making it did involve the use of a string of Christmas tree lights. maia_B_15_MFT72_ Maia is a bit soft because she’s just trying to sit still for 30 seconds, while I pull the pile of lights out of her lap.

Fuji Astia, f22, about 30 seconds exposure, tungsten lights, using twin Mamiya 6 w/ 75mm lenses, 3.6″ stereo separation.  Distance to subject about six feet.   Original slide.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Arthouse 2

by Boris Starosta

This is the living room of the Arthouse, a bed and breakfast where I stay whenever I’m in New York (unless they are booked up).  They do no advertising and let their rooms out only to artists that have been personally introduced through friends.  So it’s a bit exclusive, I guess…  There are five rooms of various sizes, and 2.5 baths that the guests share.

Every morning, breakfast is included, and one typically finds guests from overseas, often from Germany or nearby central arthouse_2_MFT72_European countries, Spain, Mexico, or other countries in South America.  Sometimes the guests are so interesting, you hardly need to see the rest of the city.  I stay there once or twice a month, because I have a part-time job driving a coach bus to and from NYC from Charlottesville.  I always bring my bicycle.

Fuji RXP, f16 (?), 1 sec. exposure in available light, using Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner. Camera stabilized by holding up against a wall.   Slide in folio is original film.

Bike Works NYC

by Boris Starosta

This is a great little bike shop in SoHo that I discovered years ago while shopping for some esoteric bike parts online.  They have a fabulous web page with lots of fun historical content, plus galleries of unusual bikes they’ve had in their shop (see this page showing some of my bikes).  My city bike, pictured at the lower left of the view (black frame, 20″ wheels), is in their web galleries as well.  This view is of their “showroom” and counter – an area about 10 x 15 ft. bikeworks_NYC_1_MFT72_ To obtain this exposure, I held the camera upside down against the door frame above my head, shimmed a bit with a bicycle cog under the front edge of the camera (I couldn’t bring a tripod on my bike).  I took numerous pictures this way, bracketting my exposures.

Kodak E200, f16, 8s exposure, Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner.  original slide.

Michele in 2009

by Boris Starosta

In early spring of 2009 I went on a hike with my beloved Michele.  Weather for Charlottesville had been forecast in the low 50s.  But at Old Rag Mt. things turned out different.  Instead of the partly sunny, mid-40s temperatures we’d expected, by the time we got halfway up the mountain, there was a stiff breeze blowing snow UP the side of the mountain, into our faces, with temperatures below freezing.  At the point shown in the photograph, we were out on some rocky parts of the climb, relatively exposed, wind howling, like a scene out of Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air.”  We’d forgotten our oxygen bottles so we turned around.

michele_2_MFT72_


1/10 sec. exposure on FUJI RAP film in available light at f16 with Sputnik on loan from Chuck Holzner.  This is the original slide.

UVA Hospital

by Boris Starosta

scan001053Shot in natural evening light using twin Hasselblads with 75mm lenses.

I had set up the twin rig Hassys but one of them was acting funny, making a nasty noise advancing the film (they have electric/motor drive film advance). Just to be safe, between exposures I shifted the tripod over 9-12 inches each time. I figured if the film advance was screwed up (it was) I’d have some side-steps on at least the one roll. And that’s how I “succeeded” in my photography that night. The careful observer will be able to make out the Orion Nebula in this shot, as well as read the time of day in a distant wall clock!

12″ (?) interaxial original slide shot in 2004.   f/11? five to ten seconds exposure, if I remember correctly.

Terri “Angelic”

by Boris Starosta

scan001052Terri had to hold very still, while I manually wound the film and shifted the camera. You can see some rivalry near her adams apple and eyes. I shot the picture “upside down” and wanted her to appear to be flying like an angel (but asleep and dreaming too, go figure). This is some of my early MF3d, from 2001, using a borrowed TLR

Shot sequentially with twin a TLR Rolleiflex on a slide bar. f22? Exposure with flash in studio. Original slide.