Vatslav Havel Airport, Prague
This image was taken with twin Lubitels again. This time I did not have my tripod or my mounting bar, and I am pretty sure if I did, I would have drawn a little too much attention in the airport terminal. Instead, I recruited my son Preston to look after one camera. We used a window ledge to rest the cameras on about a meter and a half separation and aimed them at a chosen target. Then we did a count down to fire the shutters, with our fingers on the lense’s shutter release. (I didn’t even have cable releases with me. just the cameras, to protect the film inside from the harsh baggage X-ray). We figured the shot was spoiled because both of us managed to turn the camera 45 degrees on the slippery aluminum window frame when we tripped the shutters. To our surprise, they both came out perfect. the shutters must have closed before the cameras slipped. On top of that, the cameras were aimed so well that I could align the chips in my largest mounts.
The plane in the foreground is Poland’s “Air Force one”. We had just watched the plane arrive to a crowd of reporters and photographers gathered on the tarmac to greet the Polish President or Prime Minister or some such, coming to town for some summit talks. They had all cleared out before we could get the cameras set up.
Here is a quiz question. How many aircraft can you see in the image?
The red rocks provide an unusual background to this otherwise typical scene of people relaxing while enjoying an idyllic scene. The alluvial rocks in the stream bed are not red like the canyon, and have been carried down to the canyon from up the mountain. We fell in love with Waterton Lakes National Park in south-western Alberta during this our first visit. Original slide taken June 7, 2015 with a tripod-mounted Heidoscop using Provia 400X exposed at 1/160 at f16. This was my last roll of Provia 400X; it is sorely missed.
These white dead trees create an otherworldly scene around many of the geysers at Yellowstone. I am not sure why living trees are growing amongst them: are the dead trees silicified and preserved, to be joined by the living trees when they succumb to the harsh environment; or perhaps the conditions have changed allowing a new generation of trees to survive; or perhaps the dead trees were burned in one of the many forest fires that occurred at Yellowstone before being covered in the minerals expelled by the geysers. Original slide taken June 1, 2015 with a tripod-mounted Heidoscop using Provia 400X exposed at an estimated 1/250 at f25.
The Belgian Pool was named for a tourist from Belgium who was killed in 1929 after falling into the pool. Enthralled by an eruption of Grand Geyser, the unfortunate man apparently wasn’t watching where he was stepping. The range of colors is caused by the variation in the composition of the microbial mats caused by the change in temperature at different parts of the pool. (The colors would have been more intense with polarizing filters but I don’t have two polarizing filters. This more intimate scene is more effective with the regular lense separation of the Heidoscop than the shots I did of Old Faithful and other majestic scenes in Yellowstone and the Grant Tetons, most of which would have benefited from hyper stereo.) Original slide taken June 1, 2015 wit ha tripod-mounted Heidoscop using Provia 400X exposed at 1/200 at f22.
Do these three crosses stand in memory of three people that lost their lives at this lonely crossroads? If yes, what complex lives are reduced to these simple white crosses? What happened? This shot was taken at intersection of US 287 and MT 200, north of Wolf Creek, Montana. The crosses are not present in Google streetview from June 2009. Original slide shot June 6, 2015 with a tripod-mounted Heidoscop using Provia 400X exposed at 1/160 at f25. (I was going to call the image “God Bless Ame”, after the billboard, but changed my mind as I felt it was going to change my intent.)
