Category Archives: FolioA

BTS: Chuck Comes Across a Wood Nymph – St. Mary’s Wilderness

by Boris Starosta

 

Chuck Holzner was a onetime contributor to the MF3d folios, and we occasionally worked together on a project.  Here we are in the St. Mary’s Wilderness, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, about five years ago?   He joined me and my model for a fairly strenuous hike to find some nice situations where we could photograph lovely Maia, who was a champ trooping along in the woods for several hours.  We were heavily laden with cameras and snacks and water!  He brought his sputnik, I brought my sputnik plus a TL120-55 on loan from John Thurston (many thanks!), plus a couple of digital cameras, and all the necessary tripods.  Thus armed, lots of silly pictures got made.

(by the way, the tag “BTS” stands for Behind The Scenes)

Liz 323

by Boris Starosta

In the early aughts I worked numerous times with Liz, who was not just good looking, but quite a friendly jokester too.  At the time, I had this inflated vinyl chair sitting around in my studio, and every single time she came for a photo session, she would remark how much she liked it.  So finally, one day she came and again she said she loved the chair, so I asked her if she could show me how much she loved it, and could I photograph her loving it?   That’s how this session came to be.  Numerous really good images came out of the session, but probably my favorite one is this flub – the flash had failed to fire in synchrony with the shutters.  She had just gotten down on the floor to receive the chair, and teasing me, had starting moving with it just so (you know what I’m talking about), when I shot this image impromtu, really before I was ready.  All the subsequent images were well lit, but none showed this energy.  Sometimes the best images are visible and available for only a moment, and too much gear or technical complexity leaves them inaccessible… or too much thought and direction spoils them.

Shot with twin Hasselblads CM500 on a bar, electric twin release.

M2506

by Boris Starosta

Six or so years ago, when I first pursued the notion of shooting a homage to “Fred with Tires” by Herb Ritts, I made a version with my beloved M at the local Community Bikes shop. Our little boy was just a few months old and he got to watch the whole session from his portable playpen, just out of frame in this view.   This was likely shot with a sputnik.

Alipore District, Kolkata, India

by Brent Osborne

Kolkata is a very interesting city in India to visit. It doesn’t even remotely feel like Delhi, or even Mumbai for that matter. In fact, it feels like a whole different country comparatively. Being a colonial capitol at one point, it has a different ‘air’ to it. But it still has it’s alleyways, busy shopping and dealers districts. This picture was taken in an area that was very close to the house that Mother Teresa had founded to help the sick and the poor in India. We may have even visited her grave the same day that this shot was taken. I would love to go back and photograph these areas again with their endless streams of people going about their daily lives. This was one of those shots where I looked down an alleyway and had to get a shot of it. There are endless photo ops in India, but the alleyways are especially nice in 3D in my opinion. Shot with my Sputnik on Fuji Provia 100F film.

Pak Ou Caves, Pak Ou, Laos

by Brent Osborne

The Pak Ou Caves are located along the Mekong River near the town of Pak Ou in Laos. We visited this area near Luang Prabang, with Luang Prabang being one of my favorite places I have ever visited in Southeast Asia. The cave itself wasn’t very big, and the fact that it was filled with tiny Buddhist statues from many worshipers over many years made it seem even smaller. Luckily there was enough light that was coming in from the entrance to get this shot. What makes this one of my favorite shots I took of this location, was that you could see the smoke rising from the incense and the tiny fire in the lower part of the frame. My Sputnik failed me a little in this picture however, in the fact that it was sharper on the foreground in the right image, and sharper in the background in the left image. The image still works for me as 3D, but it may not work for everyone. This was taken with my first Sputnik, and before any real adjustments were ever made on it. Shot on Fuji Provia 100F film.

Sigiriya Rock Temple, Sri Lanka

by Brent Osborne

Sigiriya meaning ‘Lion Rock’ is a giant rock structure that is surrounded by jungle in the middle of Sri Lanka. It’s like nowhere else that I’ve been and something out of an Indiana Jones movie. We stayed in a tiny hostel which was so close to Sigiriya that you could see it from our hostel room and within walking distance to the entrance. Luckily we were told that the place opened at 8am by our hostel hosts, which was not what our guidebook had said. The book said that it opened at 9am, and the place was FULL by 10am with busloads of tourists. We were literally the first people to walk in and what an amazing experience it was! There are two Sigiriyas, people called them Little Sigiriya and Big Sigiriya. The big one is what you see in the distance (standing at over 600 feet high) while we were standing on top of little Sigiriya. What was great about little Sigiriya was the fact that it was a jungle hike to get there and much cheaper to visit. If you ever go there, I highly recommend visiting both since they both offer different and amazing experiences in their own right. The structures located on top of big Sigiriya are the foundations of former fortresses and the home of the king of the region, named King Kashyapa who reined in the mid 5th Century. After his death it became a Buddhist monastery until the 14th Century. It’s now a UNESCO World Heritage site and hopefully well protected for many more years to come. These Rhesus monkeys you see here were a little out of focus, I must have been too close to them, or didn’t stop down my aperture enough to get them all sharp. Either way, I still like the shot and hope you do as well. Shot on my Sputnik on Fuji Provia 100F film.

Borobudur Temple, Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia

by Brent Osborne

Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the world. Located in Central Java, Indonesia, it’s a wonderful place to visit. Before heading to Indonesia, I wanted to make sure to put this on my list of places to visit. It’s an incredible temple with layers and layers (like a layered cake) representing the different stages of enlightenment to reach a final state of Nirvana. It was built originally in the mid-8th Century to 9th Century AD. Once it was abandoned and then ‘rediscovered’ by a British Colonist who then hired a Dutch engineer to excavate and rebuild the structure. It took his team over 4 years to rebuild, however volcanic eruptions, erosion, and even terrorists have beat the structure down throughout the years. Luckily, with the help of UNESCO and tourism, it has been restored to as close to what they think it was like in it’s original state as possible. We visited it in a different way at first, in fact it was from a distance that I got a shot of it in the early morning pre-dawn light. The visit consisted of a hike and motorbike ride to an adjacent hillside. We later went back down the valley and into the entrance the same day. Made for a long day for sure! This shot is of a bas relief, one of over 2,600, that covers the structure. A must see if you’re ever in Java! Shot with my Sputnik on Fuji Provia 100F film.

4 From Bob Venezia

by Bob Venezia
4 From Bob Venezia

4 From Bob Venezia

Timing was very unfortunate this year. I blame the Coronavirus. I received 2 folios within days of my state being identified as one of the world’s hotspots. The problem was compounded when several of my coworkers were ordered home because of potential exposures to the virus. For a while I was doing the work of 5 people. Even though by now there are 4 of us doing the work of 5, I’ve still been working long hours and not getting enough rest.

Sorry to have held onto the folio for so long. I’ll try to add some context to the photos in the coming days.

Skydiver is among my all-time favorite carnival ride shots. It’s the only time I captured the intermittent movement of this ride while it was loading. (My other captures of the ride show a more boring seamless disk when the ride was in full motion.

Photographers Playground is a slight hyperstereo shot at Bryce Canyon. At the time I was cursing these people who were messing up my nature shot. But clearly I ‘m an idiot, as you can see that they make the shot. Shot with Hasselblads at about 18 inches separation.

Fireworks (Sorry, I’ve already sent off the folio and don’t remember the exact title) is another of my hyper shots with forty feet separation.

And Edison Advances is shot with twin Hasselblads in a macrobox with a beamsplitter.

Mammoth Creek, CA

by Philip Steinman


Stepping into the snowed over creek is a bit of a challenge when doing cha-cha hand held stereo as my footing was wobbly and I was unsure if I was keeping alignment between the first frame exposed and the second. Alas, I liked this image enough to include it in this round.

If you’re in Mammoth, have a fun adventure on the loop
https://www.mammothtrails.org/trail/30/town-loop/

Mammoth Creek Roadside, CA

by Philip Steinman

The Town Loop is 7.8 mi and a great run/hike. On the nature part of the loop is the Mammoth Creek and it is beautiful when snowed over, as seen from this roadside view which parallels the trail. Most people just ski during the winter, but hiking and running are fun too. The loop provides a family-friendly tour of town with access to a variety of outbound trails and staging areas. Mammoth Creek Park is a popular start point from which you can tour the eastern half of Mammoth–offering sweeping views of the Sherwins and connections to local schools, the library and dining/shopping–or the western portion, which cruises sleepily through Old Mammoth and past the Valentine Reserve to Eagle Lodge before turning into a quiet neighborhood on its way back out to the Main Street frontage road.

Mammoth Historic Knight Wheel

by Philip Steinman


My kids loved climbing up on this.

Gold was discovered in the vicinity of Old Mammoth in 1877 and thousands of men rapidly flocked to the region in the hopes of striking it rich. Today, evidence of these industrious pioneers remains throughout Old Mammoth and no object is able to tell the story of Mammoth’s early history better than the historic Knight water wheel.

The photogenic Knight water wheel, located along Old Mammoth Road, is a preserved remnant of Mammoth Lakes’ industrial beginnings. Now positioned in the quaking aspen adjacent to the paved bike path, this cast iron water wheel has a row of spoon-shaped buckets (Pelton-style) and was a technological marvel in its time. This innovative turbine design allowed late 19th-century industry to generate more power with less water. Previous water wheel designs were inefficient, cumbersome, and required sources providing high volumes of water.

Due to the design’s practicality, Mammoth’s Knight water wheel has a very unique history. The wheel was originally manufactured by the Knight Foundry, located in Sutter Creek, California, in the mid-1870’s and was hauled from the Mojave area to the Mammoth Lakes Basin by mule and oxen team.

Mammoth Mtn Bike Path Bridge

by Philip Steinman


Did some skiing this winter up at Mammoth Mountain with the family and got them to do a morning run with me. Along the adventure we crossed this bridge located just to the North of Old Mammoth Road up and to the end of Waterford Ave. Sometimes the kids would stay still enough to get a cha-cha. My trusty Fuji GA645w is the only light enough MF camera I can take on an adventure hike/run, but you have to do cha-chas, hoping the left and right images are still enough to give the stereo illusion without retinal rivalry.

Nik Sekhar A31 submission

by Ian Andvaag

There was no post for Nik’s submission, so I created this post in August 2021 so Nik could receive some comments. -Ian Andvaag

1) Mt. Rainier Stream 8/4/10 F16 1/125

2) Untitled. [3Ders in front of Chihuly art installation at New York Botanical Garden]

3) Untitled. [New York Botanical Garden Pond]

4) Untitled. [Nik’s son, I believe]

Two Sepia, Two Pinholes.

by Steven Lederman

Sepia images and Pinhole images just naturally go together.  Okay, so maybe they don’t, but these are the images that I’ve selected for this go-’round of the Folio.

  1. “Ep-PIN-phone” –  this image was made with one of Todd Schlemmer’s TerraPIN Oskar 2 stereo cameras.  Todd’s camera creations are 3D printed using environmentally-friendly materials.  The exposure time for this image was about 26 minutes.
  2. “Pixel Rick At The Precipice” – expired Kodak TXP processed in Developer 2 by Dr. 5, captured with a TL-120-55.
  3. “Sgt. Ghost Peppers’ Lonely Pinhole Band” – captured with the TerraPIN Oskar 2.  Exposure was approximately 19 seconds.
  4. “Wedge” –  expired TXP, TL-120-55.

Old Guard

by Timo

One of the traction engine owners was having a rest. He was gracious enough to let me get this shot. This was at the Milton Steam Era show, held every Labour Day weekend. Shot with my TL120 on Provia 100f. I can’t recall the aperture, but it must have been large on this overcast day.