University Housing
Based on Google translate, this building is apparently student housing for a fraternity associated with the university in Heidelberg. It is right next to Heidleberg Castle, where I was standing when I took this photo. I guess I went to the wrong university.
Taken with a Sputnik on Fujifilm Provia 100F (aka RPD III). The film was developed and scanned by TheDarkroom.
Schloss Schramberg Ruins
These are the ruins of the castle on the hill above the town of Schramberg, Germany. My wife’s maternal Grandfather was from Schramberg, and we have a photo of him from almost 100 years ago sitting on the edge of the ruins with the town down below in the background.
This was taken with a handheld (string monopod) Sputnik on Fuji Provia 100F (aka RDP III). The film was developed and scanned by TheDarkroom.
This is an area not far from Sydney Australia. When I visited Australia in 2002 the only medium format cameras I owned were two Sputniks. I shot a number of successful hypers with the two cameras, covering one lens on each and advancing the film one exposure at a time. I think I had the two cameras four feet apart on separate tripods here. Velvia 100F.
They say that ‘Guilin is the best scenery in Guangxi, and the best of Guilin is Yangshuo.’ There is no doubt that Yangshuo is a beautiful location in the world with it’s limestone Karst mountains and gorgeous waterways. I would highly recommend a visit. An added bonus is it’s little walkways and side streets such as this one at night. Mostly catered to tourists ( as most of this area is, for good reason), it’s an interesting area to visit. I enjoyed being able to safely take night shots throughout the town, and this shot being one of my favorites. Shot with my Sputnik MF3D camera on Fujifilm Provia 100f film.
Here’s another shot of Lijiang at night, of the famous waterwheels located in the south entrance of town. The water wheels were supposedly built roughly 800 years ago, around the time of the town’s origin. I wanted to capture the wheels in motion, so a nightshot it was to be! I enjoyed Lijiang immensely, despite the amount of tourists at any given time. The town has so much to see that it’s no wonder that it was so popular. Not to mention that I was there in the perfect time frame for weather. Shot on my Sputnik MF3D camera and shot on Fujifilm Provia 100f fim.
Lijiang is a beautiful city located in the Yunnan province of southwest China. A town full of cobblestones, old houses converted into hotels and storefronts, waterways and bridges galore. It’s no wonder that this town was overrun by tourists, mostly from China, and filled the streets day and night. I wanted to capture it’s beauty and it’s craziness at the same time. I figured a long exposure night shot would do the trick. This was shot with my Sputnik MF3D camera with Fujifilm Provia 100f film.
Shangri La is located near the province of Tibet in southwest China, in the Sichuan province. Not many tourists seemed to be there, despite the amount of local tourists in other parts of China. Maybe it was because there wasn’t much to see in the town except one of the largest prayer wheels in the world and a spectacular night time lighting of the local monastery. The town had been devastated by a large fire, destroying most of the original buildings only years prior to my visit. Needless to say, we did not stay in Shangri La very long, only 2 nights, before heading south to the more interesting provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi. Shot on my Sputnik MF3D camera with Fujifilm Provia 100f film.
In April 2018 I went on a road trip to Utah with a few friends. We stayed in the campground in the town of Escalante and went on day hikes to Lower Calf Creek Falls, Escalante River and the Dry Fork Slot Canyons.
 Grand Staircase-Escalante – RDP III – Sputnik (Location) The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was (until recently) the largest National Monument in the contiguous US and comprises enumerable canyons, including some famous ones such as Bryce and Zion. On our first full day, we decided to visit the slot canyons nearby after speaking with the campground owner. I took this slide at the top of the Dry Fork trail which leads down to the slot canyons. |
 Slot Canyons – RDP III – Sputnik (Location) This was taken at the mouth of Peek-a-boo slot canyon. It’s quite high up and it was a bit tricky to get up with my tripod and Sputnik. There wasn’t too much stereo photography that could be done within the slot canyons since the narrow corridor would cause window violations. It’s a really neat place, and I recommend going if you get the chance. The road to get there is like a washboard though, so don’t take a nice new vehicle. Peek-a-boo was the shortest and easiest of the slot canyons here. We also went down Spooky canyon, which was extremely narrow at several points — I couldn’t get through with the backpack. It was also very dark in some places and the sky couldn’t be seen at all. Apparently the third canyon, Brimstone, is even narrower and has pools of water you have to wade through! We ran out of time to attempt it. |
 Heroic Hikers – RVP 100 – Sputnik (Location) On our drive back home, we stopped at Bryce canyon and hiked the Fairyland trail. It’s a very beautiful hike. These are my hikineg friends: Gabe, Derek, and Elliot. |
 Sinking Ship – RVP 100 – Sputnik (Location) All along the hike, I was wishing I had some sort of twin camera rig, or a bit more time to do some cha-chas. It’s sometimes hard to balance photography with other activities, like hiking with others. I do a lot of walking, so I’m able to take photos and keep up quite well, but it still takes a fair bit of time to stop, set up and level my tripod, meter the scene and take the shot. When we arrived back at our vehicle at Fairyland point, I decided I really ought to take a hyper — cha-cha style. Unfortunately I didn’t have a lens cap or Mike Davis’ spreadsheet, but I found a railing to slide my camera on and I covered one lens with my hand. My apologies for the slightly excessive on-film deviation and corresponding window violation. Otherwise, I’m quite pleased with how it came out. I wish I had taken more hypers, but we had to get going. I hope to come back some day and really take my time shooting. The tilted landmass in the distance is called Boat Mesa or the Sinking Ship. |
Thanks all for sharing your wonderful images. It’s such a pleasure to participate in the folio.
Ian Andvaag
Saskatoon, SK
The Atlas of Rockefeller Center faces off against St. Patricks Cathedral
Shot with a Sputnik in my early MF3D days. I like the framing of this “religion collision.” Had to work fast, because the guards came running out to chase me and my tripod away.
Shot through the side of the Gelato Vendor’s stand, in Rome, I think. It was a quick grab-shot, hoping for the best. Provia 100 – Sputnik.
Sea and Santorini
Santorini is one of the Greek Islands we visited during a “Journeys of Paul” tour that Diana and I were on in June of 2017. Our vessel is the sailing craft in the upper left corner of the view, also depicted in Aft-Deck Morn, one of my other views in this round – quite an amazing boat. This was taken with my Sputnik, the only film camera I had on the voyage. Pretty sure I used the Sunny 16 Rule, shooting at 1/125.
This shot is from 2000, I took it with my carefully adjusted Sputnik with a Vivitar 285H fill flash on a tripod. Probably 8 seconds at f16. This is an example of the terrific results the Sputnik can produce, this is one of my all time favorite slides.
Patrick Dougherty came to Charlottesville a couple of years ago, and I undertook to document his work. If you google his name, you’ll soon find lots of background information that I need not repeat here. Patrick was in town for about a month, commissioned by UVA Arts to make a stick sculpture in the (then brand new) Arts commons, right next to Ruffin Hall (which some of you know as one of my “clear buildings”).
Before his arrival, a crew of local volunteers will have assembled. In his first week, Patrick gets to know his volunteers in the work to gather his sticks. Patrick’s raw material is young saplings. He’ll correspond with people in the area, to find “doomed” saplings – i.e. saplings in wooded areas that are about to be clear cut. So he tries not to harvest saplings that would otherwise grow into mature trees.
After a week of gathering saplings with his volunteers, the work on the sculpture begins. The first slide shows some of the initial work: saplings have been stuck straight into the ground, pressed into ground some four or five feet if possible. Each sculptural structure will be anchored by a few very large and strong saplings. These will be placed into boreholes that were drilled first. At this point, volunteers keep busy preparing the saplings for integration into the sculpture – which mainly involves removing all the leaves. Throughout the work, more and more saplings are trucked in from whereever they had been cut.
Once the installation’s initial layout is secured with these larger saplings, then the work can proceed with smaller saplings and “sticks.” My (uneducated) impression is that the sculptures are more or less woven into place. It is weaving with sticks. Dougherty uses no fasteners of any kind. No nails, screws, twine, rope, zip-ties, nothing of the kind! Only the sticks. The work proceeds for about two more weeks, at which point the sculpture will be mostly complete.
His structures thus fashioned can get quite large. Although the one he built at UVA was nowhere more than about ten feet tall, others I’ve seen depicted online can be multiple stories tall. They are also very strong. Dougherty typically specifies that his installations should be taken down after a year to 18 months. But for some reason, this one at UVA was left in place for over three years! (UVA wanted to get its money’s worth, and I bet Dougherty had to remind the university to take it down). Surprisingly, even at three years old, the sculpture didn’t look all that bad – it got a little shop worn around the edges, and some of the structures had started to sag a bit. (I should have photographed it at the end of its life, but I failed to do so).
In the fourth week of his visit, Patrick tidies up loose ends and gets ready for his next project. I include a slide taken at a farewell reception, of Patrick talking with one of the UVA big wigs who funded the project; and a slide showing the finished project with all (or most) of the volunteers standing with Patrick for a portrait (that last slide was helpfully exposed by my beloved Michele). Patrick makes about ten sculptures per year in this fashion: one per month, anywhere in the world. Then he takes off two months to be at home with his family.
PS
I did undertake a 3d timelapse of the birth and subsequent aging of the sculpture: I shot two stereo pairs per day for about four months. After an initial review of the imagery, I decided that it was not looking very “good” (constantly and rapidly shifting light was very distracting in the video), so I didn’t do anything more with it. But you can see some of the beginnings of aging, if you look closely:
Guatemala is a great place to visit within Central America. We arrived here mainly to visit the Mayan ruins of Tikal as part of a 3 month trip through Central America, and we found ourselves intrigued by it’s beauty and history. No doubt, Guatemala has had it rough over the years, but it still hangs onto it’s founded traditions regardless. After visiting Lake Atitlan, we managed to go to the beautiful colonial city of Antigua. Mostly known for it’s famous Easter day parades through town, we were graced with some Christian processions starting holy week before Easter. Due to our timing we couldn’t stay for Easter in Antigua, but it was nice to be there regardless. As we were walking through the center of town, near the square, I noticed a beam of light going down the corridor onto a woman seated and reading.
Having my Sputnik camera with me, I managed to swing and take a shot. That was an eye catching moment that I caught on camera. Hope you like it! Shot on Fuji Provia 100f film. All in all, Guatemala was one of my favorite countries in Central America to visit and to shoot in 3D!
One morning, I was walking along on the outer edge of the seashore, and I came across the fishing docks of Essaouira. The place was lined up with tons of fishing vessels of all kinds, many of them moored because of a wind storm the day before. A few fishermen did manage to make their way through the storm, and began to arrive with their catch from the previous day. Of course this attracted the attention of hundreds of seagulls.
I was at first walking along the outer edge of a high wall that surrounded the main docks to get an overall wider shot of the action.
However, as we all know, being ‘down in the pits’ is a better way to get a good 3D shot. So, I climbed down to get closer, and whoosh! I was surrounded by seagulls! Prime 3D action! This one I shot with my Sputnik, on Fuji Provia 100f.
If you get a chance to visit Morocco, Essaouira is a great place to go, especially within the walls of the medina.