Armoire amore – Re-purposing outdated furniture

Somewhere along the line the transition occurred- maybe the early nineties. Entertainment centers were out, and a reinvented version of your grandmother’s armoire was in. Designed to hold a tube T.V. of great size and weight, the backs of these entertainment armoires had holes cut in them so the tube could stick out without making the furniture too large. A convenient shelf was included to slide your vcr, dvd, or laser disc player in. Below those shelves were often either drawers or shelves to hold your media.

Soon after there were entertainment armoires, there were computer armoires. Intended as a stand alone home office, they included slots for media, shelves for printers, a compartment for the tower, a keyboard tray, file drawers, a desk top, and more.

And just like that- they were obsolete. Tube TVs were replaced by wide flat screens that no longer fit in the space provided. These tvs can be mounted to the wall, and no longer needed a piece of furniture that hid their ugliness. Vcrs went the way of the dodo, and dvds are fast on their way out the door as well. Most computers no longer have towers, and many are made so portable that they don’t need a dedicated storage space. Printers are often wireless, so they don’t need to be physically tethered to a computer. I wonder if there has ever been a piece of substantial furniture with a shorter usable life.

Craigslist was full of them- armoires that once fetched 1500 to 3000 dollars were being sold for next to nothing. Many were good pieces of furniture made with quality woods. Since they were being dumped en mass, that hurt their value even more than the perceived obsolescence! Not only were the average homeowners looking to get rid of their dated furniture, but the hotels and motels nationwide were purging themselves of these pieces. Some of these contained recessed lighting and built in power strips. The hardware alone was often worth more than they were asking for the entire unit!

There was a downside for an interested buyer. Armoires have always been fairly large and heavy- and these were no exceptions. Built in conveniences like lazy-susans, hide away doors, shelves galore, and many other accoutrements , added to the weight substantially. The buyer would not only have to find transport, but also to find a way to carry this weight into the house to the appropriate floor. I found this to be a challenge, as I broke my ankle moving one into the house!

Armoires can be re-purposed for a lot of things, from simple to sophisticated. With very little effort and some creativity- the sky is the limit! I chose to pack one room of my house with armoires like prior generations did with bookshelves to create a library. Some basic purposes for my armoires: A closet for guitar storage, a place for my Yamaha keyboards, a place for musical miscellany, a home studio for recording music, painting storage, a place for Ann’s collections, a craft armoire full of craft supplies, and a home office.

I have found that just about any hobby or interest can fit in these nicely- especially the computer armoires, as they have a nice desk top that pulls out. You can easily build shelves in them, as well as store all sizes of plastic totes. Aside from great storage, a benefit is how easily you can close the door to your chaos when the guests arrive.

If you really want to blow some minds, store clothes in them!

The DIY Aesthetic- How we can still reach out to each other through art.

We have entered a new era of creation. Scrapbooking tools like Crikut and Silhouette replace jobs normally done by commercial vinyl cutters, and 3-d printing has made one off production not only possible, but commonplace. Photoshop has been manipulating images in ways only dreamed of in the days of layout paste-up and darkroom processing. WYSIWYG(what you see is what you get) website programs have made it easier than ever to look the part of a professional operation. New printing processes make archival color printing affordable and commonplace. A hd camera can be paired up with a small drone and grab sweeping images of scenes that used to cost major movie houses thousands of dollars. The average individual is being given the production capabilities of a major corporation, albeit without the benefits of economies of scale. Availability often equals democratization, and that is good.
Though all of these processes are quite miraculous, I find a great deal of it as lifeless as the made-for-commercial-consumption products it immitates. In this post-digital era, I find myself more than ever enamored with the tactile and the evidence of process.
Don't get me wrong- I like a good gadget/toy. I just happen to find evidence of the human hand in craft ever more satisfying. There was a time when a craftsperson desired perfection in the honing of their craft. I feel that pulling back on perfection is pulling back on that temptation to be more like a machine. Show a pencil mark, show the track of the saw blade, the groove of a carving tool.
This is the new DIY aesthetic. Ironically, the internet allows creative types the world over to teach each other how to carve, how to paint, how to create the dirty old-fashioned way.  There have always been makers like these, but somehow they have become more important of late, my cult heroes.

An incredible find on a very hot day.

Two of my favorite musical instruments carry the clear mark of the craftsperson. One is a Puerto Rican Cuatro that Ann and I found in a junk shop on the market square in Santurce, San Juan. It is a 60s home made instrument that would make a luthier cry, but makes me beam with pride! The front, back, and neck are made of a porus island wood, and the sides are crudely stacked with castellations of wood with a veneer stretched over to indicate the ribs of the instrument. Inside can be seen streaks of sloppy glue, and a black and white photo of some palm trees. Instead of inlays of semiprecious gems, it has glued on decorations including a diamond shaped slice of veneer stained and mounted to the back.
I coaxed this beauty to life by removing, steaming, and flattening the bridge, carving a new cow bone nut and saddle. I love the way it looks and sounds. I wonder about the well worn neck and all of the alley sessions it may have had. I think about the amateur craftsperson who made this instrument that looks so crude yet sounds so sweet.
The second instrument is a guitarron made by the Familia Timaure of Carora, Venezuela. I never traveled to Venezuela, but by the time I received my guitarron I felt like I had! The internet was my passport.
I enjoy playing my upright bass, but at times the size can be a burden. I tried an accoustic bass guitar, but it greatly lacked in volume. I saw guitarrons and wanted to dig deeper and find out all I could. All hail Google. Guitarrons are the giant guitars that the bass player uses in mexican mariachi bands.  Since they play in octaves and have very short necks, there would be a steep learning curve. I don't claim to be brilliant, or even the master of my choices, so I set about getting one.
At the time of my search for this instrument, ebay only had two versions. The made- in- China Lucida instrument seemed to be a decent enough starter instrument, but the other listing- this choppy, barely intelligible description paired with photos of the instrument leaning against a couch felt somehow more right.

Guillerno Timaure y Nieto Adalberto Timaure.

After a challenging spanish back and forth with the seller ,Augusto, I found out that a father and sons outfit in Carora would be making my instrument. He gave me the name " El Torrense" Timaure and Sons.  I Googled it, and I came across a Flickr album where a photographer visited the family of instrument makers.  The craftspeople were working away under a shed roof with the most basic of tools making some wonderful instruments.  Though this was Venezuela, I could see a family in Appalachia doing the same thing. These images somehow made me feel the beginnings of kinship to the makers I would never meet. Augusto warned that it would take more than a month and a half to ship, but I was already sold on it. Over that month and a half I had several phone conversations with him.  He would call as a courtesy to tell me when the item cleared customs, got past government screenings, etc.  The first month was spent getting the guitarron out of Venezuela. Once free of the border, the package moved with incredible efficiency to my door.  Upon my receipt of the package, I wrote Augusto and thanked him. I felt like someone who just got back from a vacation and decides to thank the kind host.
The guitarron is very well made, but there is evidence of the hand of a human being everywhere. The bindings are wrapped with bands of wood, each chip a little different from the last. You can almost make out the brush strokes of the finish on the wood, and if you look inside, you can see a ghost of a streak of glue here and there. Somehow that just makes it more special.
The next time you buy something hand crafted, try to remind yourself how lucky you are to share that experience with the artist. They likely could have just printed it off for you , but they made it with their own hands.

Polaroid Conversion- My Messy Manual Polaroid.

I, like many Polaroid nuts, love the style of the Automatic Land Camera pack cameras from the sixties, but need more control. Though the Automatics offered many more options than the current point and shoot cameras(5 apertures, flash or no flash, variable focus), I desire a fully manual camera on occasion. My 195 is wonderful but a bit rare and expensive, so I wanted one that I didn't feel quite so attached to that I could be more rough and experimental with.

I come from a maker family. My mother made it a point to expose us to art shows and art museums. We grew up watching her paint, draw, and enter shows. My older sister was also creative. When my sister and I wanted a toy, we figured out how to make it. Her efforts were always much more refined than mine. I can still remember those sloppy, loping stitches on that terrible looking doll I made, with eyes of smeary marker. A lifetime later, I still do that same thing. When I want something and it is financially out of reach, I try to make it!

There is a tradition of converting the lower priced packfilm cameras to manual, so I wasn't a pioneer. For my inspiration I turned to a wonderful Flickr collection of images by Option 8(a handle known to many a Polaroid geek). There are tons of great ideas for Polaroid conversions, but I have to warn you- it is an addiction. https://www.flickr.com/groups/polaroidconversions/?ytcheck=1 If this link is dead, just google Polaroid conversions and you will find the image thread rather quickly. Though there are some gorgeous ones done with wood veneers, color leathers, and bright paint, the ones that appeal to me are the cameras that look very mechanical and a bit steam-punk.

This is my proof of concept for something that has been done hundreds of times- I was just proving it to myself. My Polaroid conversion is quite basic. I took a Polaroid Automatic 100 packfilm bellows camera that was inoperable as the donor body. I removed the shutter button and cable, the lens and all of the stuff built into the front standard, as well as from the battery compartment. I gave it a new bellows from a broken 104. I mounted a 127mm lens and Prontor shutter I got from a piece of Polaroid medical equipment on the front of the standard quite easily by widening the lens mounting hole with a Dremel tool. Then I filled the exterior holes on the front standard with scissor cut black metal off of an old packfilm pack. The inside of the standard was filled with black craft foam ( the kind you can buy by the sheet)to eliminate the possibility of light leaks. Felt would work just as well.

The final touches were to drill a hole in the back of the battery carrier to mount my development timer, and shape a lid to cover the now larger lens. Shaping the lid was pretty easy. I chose a lid that was shaped for the pack cameras that have the viewfinder permanently out, as the viewfinder would never fold back down with the new lens. I then propped the lid up between two bricks and stretched out the front to accommodate the lid by pressing the cold clip against the plastic while applying heat with a heat gun to the front of the lid. Take your time at this so you don't accidentally warp the whole lid, but just stretch the front.

That is pretty much it! Easy, right? If you looked at the images from Option 8's conversions you would see that the process can be done with a lot more grace and style than I applied!

Since my camera is intended to give me far more creative options, I carry a brief case full of goodies to go with it. I use short and long shutter releases, a manual timer, an exposure timer, ground glass, close up and portrait lenses with viewfinder diopters, lots of funky lenses, filters, and flash filters. I also made a very simple flash mount from a cold shoe and a 268 flash base so I can use an electronic flash. When the camera is weighed down with all of these gadgets it is so ugly it is beautiful!

Voila, fully manual camera!

So far I have done purposely messy pulls, dumped salt in the pack (it gives a star like effect), ran tape through it, as well as questionable expired film! It performs like a champ, and since I can attach all manner of stuff to it, the possibilities are endless. I can't wait to try wet plate collodion with it!

My Polaroid Obsession, Part Eight: You win some, you lose some. 500 series cameras.

This rather small collection within a collection is of the 500 series film cameras. The flagship of the line is the Captiva or Vision camera. If it was intended to go toe to toe with the billion 80s and 90s point and shoot cameras, then it succeeded. And like those cameras, it is totally uninspiring and boring- and from a collector's standpoint, nearly worthless now. It had a simple automatic two phase focus, all exposure automatic with a built in flash and self timer. It ejected the pictures into an internal chamber for storage, so you could get the pictures later. I have no idea why that would be important as most people want to see the images instantly (kind of the point of instant photography). The pictures were small- just a bit bigger than Fuji Instax mini. 

The sole redeeming characteristic was that it was a folding SLR. Folding SLRs are amazing- the SX-70 was revolutionary. It is kind of sad that they put that much engineering into such a boring camera.  Why not a Spectra SLR? Perhaps it was used for ID badging, as it was also branded as Badge Cam.

The Joycam was the cheaper version, and by far the worst camera Polaroid ever made. It was intended for re-use, but built like a disposable. The film door was held on by a sticker. The film was ejected manually by a rip cord type apparatus. I personally thought manual eject was a great idea to reduce cost and weight. They should have had more cameras that used manual ejection, like the Kodak Handle.

The final one was a disposable instant camera called Pop Shots. You could send it in to Polaroid once you were done with it, or just pitch it. The problem with this idea was that there was no significant incentive to mail it in. I believe you got a coupon. With the typical disposable camera, you had to send it in to get the images. This camera was actually a bit better than the Joycam! 

As a camera maker of more than 50 years, Polaroid is getting a pass from me for building such pigs as the 500 series. Based on the size and depth of my collection of Polaroid cameras, you have to assume I am all in- a couple of duds don’t wreck it for me. I am, however, trying to think of the next great hack to turn these pigs into something more interesting…

My Polaroid Obsession Part Seven: Folding SX-70- Dr. Land's crowning achievement

Perhaps the most popular Polaroid camera today, the folding SX-70 was a design miracle at it's inception. It was the first folding slr, and the first camera ever to use integral instant film. Prior to this camera, the film shot from an instant camera required you to peel away a negative and dispose of it and some other scraps of paper. The breakthrough was that the integral film contained everything within one picture and ejected it out as a fully contained unit- no messy stuff to dispose of. Another miracle of this film was that you could have the experience heretofore only known to the darkroom lab worker- you could witness your picture developing right before your eyes.

In the age of miracles and wonder, we may not appreciate what it required to do such white magic. Polaroid integral film has been described as one of the most complex man made chemical products ever. This is because so much happens in fractions of seconds. Darkroom photography happens in stages: exposure, developer, stop, fix rinse, all with different chemicals over a period of minutes in a dark, controlled environment. Rinse alone can take 15 minutes, and this is just black and white photography! Integral film had to put all of that into a tiny pod and have it spread evenly, temporarily creating a darkslide (opacifier) that disappears after a few seconds allowing us to witness the picture emerging!

Another miracle was the camera itself. Dr. Land told his engineers that it should fit in his jacket pocket, and showed them a Cross pen box. Somehow, in the early seventies, they created a folding slr that was not too much larger than the pack itself! Later modifications offered the sonar auto-focus, among other advances.

These cameras were used by artists and professional photographers alike. The early SX-70 film could be pressed around and messed with to painterly effect for hours after taking the photograph. Andy Warhol is just one name in the “ who's who” of famous artists who worked with SX-70.

Fast forward to 2008. Polaroid discontinued their instant film and The Impossible Project(TIP) stepped in to fill the gap. With the next generation of film, The Impossible Project brought about a renaissance in the use of these old cameras. Available through TIP, Ebay, and Amazon, these cameras are afforded a second life. The “skins” or leatherette covers, are often worn or cracking, so enterprising people have stepped in to offer skins in many more colors and styles than were ever available before.

My collection consists of mostly re-skinned SX-70s, one re-skinned in actual wood veneer! The one with the gold skin is actually my favorite- given to me by my father in-law. He handed me this dirty chunk of something and said he thought it might be a camera, but he couldn't be sure- he didn't know how to open it. That chunk of something is what I enjoy shooting with today.

Bus stop

In the back of our crabgrass choked lot there is a small cement pad-nine foot by nine foot. Originally the home of a hot tub, it became an informal place to play music when the hot tub was moved closer to the house. Some friends of mine and I would get together semi- weekly when the weather would allow, and play until we couldn't see our notes(or our frets). Often in the fall, we would feed the cracked iron chiminea with whatever scrap I got from my basement art projects and dead fall from nearby trees.

This small pad was like a kitchen at a dinner party- everybody would gather on the pad. It was as if there was not room on the surrounding grass for standing or sitting. My friends would slip seamlessly from tune to tune while I would urgently try to find my notes and my place. Even my upright bass, the boat-sized instrument that it is, would find a home on that little pad.

Years went by and the group got smaller. Friends moved away. There were more pressing engagements than music in the back yard. The remaining players spent less time at the pad and more time in my painting studio. Temperature control and lack of mosquitoes won us over.

My friend Pete got a home on Armitage Road next to the bike path. The location is wonderful- an historic house with gardens all around at the end of a winding road, surrounded by the best of southeastern Ohio nature. The bike path is a rails- to- trails setup that is smooth and even for miles with a wonderful canopy of trees.

He suggested I bring my bass and we play at one of those small shelters they put along the bike path. I am not one to play for an audience, but he assured me that our audience only consisted of weary bike riders who may stop to draw from their water bottles. I found myself once again playing on a small pad, standing next to a picnic table. The roof overhead was a nice addition to a pad of concrete.

I started to dream up a plan for my backyard pad. It would definitely need a roof to keep out the light rain and snow. I would build something more intentional out of that little pad. Maybe I would include some seating that maximizes the space. The limiting factor would be money-I don't have any.

Within a month, my brother had donated a little red roof off of his grown children's playhouse, and his father in law gave me piles of scrap left over from a disassembled deck. I decided to add some old doors I had in the basement , and the project is underway! I can already imagine music and conversation in this old/new space.

Though it is well underway, it still looks transitional. It may always feel transitional, and that is OK. The odd shape and size asserted by the materials available makes it interesting and a bit awkward. My wife called it a bus stop(and follows the comment with “bus stop, wet day, she's there, I say”), and it is a bus stop. People coming and going, but it stays put for them.

The other day, I sought shelter from the rain under the little red roof, and I felt the energy of our little sessions- still there. This is going to be a great project!

Fuji Instax Wide and Mini, dual film camera- how to hack the Instax Wide.

When you have the D.I.Y. Bug, sometimes you do things just to see if they will work. No true major goal, just will it work. I do a lot of that. Do things wrong, do things backwards, see what happens. As a painter, sculptor, and photographer, I love to push the medium. I like things a bit messy. When it comes to the mechanics of a camera, I like to see what else I can get from it. The camera is just interpreting reflected light, and I like to see if there are any fun ways to make it less literal, maybe more poetic. I also just like hacking stuff.

Fuji has two types of integral film for their instant camera line, Instax Wide and Instax Mini. A third type is on it's way- Instax Square. I just came up with a simple hack that makes the Instax Wide 210, and possibly other Fuji wide cameras accept all three packs. The mini is just simply a wide cut in half. The square, according to the news on this product, will just be a square a bit bigger than the mini(but no taller). So all three types should fit into the cartridge holder and likely will use the same eject engineering. The mini and wide already do, we will see about the square. 

Do not try this on a camera that you are not willing to break- there is a reason I called it a hack!

This hack is super simple. Slide out the pressure bars in the back of the film door. Be careful not to lose the spring. Cut an inch out of the center of the bar and then cut an inch out of the center of the mounting portion of the bar, but be sure to keep the backing that slides into the door. Experiment with empty packs of both the mini and the wide to get an idea of clearance necessary. Tape the open ends, and put the pressure bars back in the door.

Now you have an Instax Wide camera that can shoot both wide and mini (and most likely square). Why? I don't know. Maybe you only want to carry one camera. Maybe you just want to get messy and do things wrong, do things backwards. 

My Polaroid obsession part six: Spectra cameras- point and shoot with creativity!

The Polaroid Spectra line was made with the high end in mind. The film is the largest film they sold, wider by 5/8 inch. It could still function like a point and shoot camera, but came packaged with lots of versatile features, . like glass coated lens, timer, auto-focus, tripod socket, chime, flash on and off, and even accessories you could buy like closeup stand, effects filters, and macro lens. The most feature rich of the entire line, the Polaroid Spectra Pro, also came with creative features like multiple exposure, time exposure (like bulb), built in intervalometer, backlight compensation mode, and manual focus control. And if those features were not enough, in James Bond License to Kill there was a Polaroid Spectra that shot killer laser beams. I don't think that feature was available to the general public.

My collection includes a few strong favorites. The Pro Cam, for how ugly and big it is, the spectra pro for artistic versatility, and the image lcd for its folding lcd screen viewfinder- a last gasp attempt to appeal to the new lcd screen crazy digital population.

The top of my list is a very rare (in the states), Polaroid Spectra Blitz Street Camera which features wide angle, wide angle close up, and exposure control. It was a joint venture between Polaroid and the Lomographic Society ( the company that makes crazy creative cameras that artists and hipsters love but many gear snobs hate).

If you like integral film, but want more creative control- consider shooting with the Spectra line. Spectra film is available through TIP(the impossible project) and it is getting better all the time. You will have to add your own laser beam.

My Polaroid obsession part five: I-Zone cameras- no rationalizing this!

How does one become a collector? Though there are many ways to rationalize collecting (preserving, sharing, specializing in, investing in, etc.) I chose the low road- denial.

My father has always been a collector, collecting stamps, postcards, military patches, and license plates. He knows just about everything there is to know about his license plate collection. His last apartment was basically papered in license plates, and he has a story or connection to each one. To the outsider, this collection bordered on obsession.

So when my wife pointed out that I was a collector of musical instruments, full blown denial kicked in. Though I have always heard that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, I didn't want to be so easily labeled. What collection? All of my musical instruments are fully functional, and all are occasionally played. I don't own a single wall- hanger(useful only for aesthetic purposes)! Surely if they are all functional, then it is not a collection as much as a group of tools.

When I started collecting Polaroid cameras, I continued to employ this skewed logic. All of my cameras are fully functional and they still make film for them. If you have been following my Polaroid obsession, so far I have only shown cameras that are fully functional.

When I started collecting the I-Zone cameras, I had to learn to accept my addiction. Hello, I am Aaron, and I am a camera collector. The reason for my acceptance is that these cameras don't take any kind of film that is available. Even the expired film I have found has not worked in them. They are officially for legacy only. They also may exist as a cautionary tale!

Dr. Edwin Land, the inventor of Polaroid, was very much against making cheap, mass consumer products. His idea was to allow everyone access to cameras and instant development, but never at the cost of creating a bubble gum and sugar cereal type product, and this is exactly what the I-Zones were. They were marketed to children and tweens, and they were a powerful short term market. They made them with bright colors, simple use, sticker backing, and convenient size. They were an early version of the facebook post. You snapped them, shared them, stuck them on your wall, and wrote on them. Dr Land would have liked that part of the product, as he wanted shooting instant film to be an event. What he wouldn't have approved of is chasing the latest trend- the flash in the pan. He was about long term innovation.

Business wise, they were the hare, when Dr. Land preferred the tortoise. Not to say that he was slow, but he was steady. Dr. Land actually has the second most patents secured ever, with only Thomas Edison as his better. This “hare” shareholder and bottom line mentality was eventually the death of Polaroid.

So here is what collecting has become to me. It is a legacy preserving action, the parts forming the whole as a unique art piece. The collection is about content- not just about surface. There is a deeper read. Obsolescence captures the movement of time, and often the color, design, shape, and purpose of the object captures the spirit of the era. Oh, yeah- it is fun, too.

Yard scars

Landscape has been shuffled and changed enormously by human intervention. The “nature” trails you have become accustomed to are likely areas that were once farms, once forests, once prairies. In Southeastern Ohio we like our relationship to nature- the Wayne National forest surrounds my little city of Nelsonville on all sides. I have seen pictures of this region in the beginning of the 20^th century. The land was decimated and the hills were dotted with the stubble of tree stumps. It was not until the middle of the 20^th century that there was a concerted effort to re- forest the region.

Localized rural and urban landscape cannot even pretend to have avoided the hand of man. The continual construction and destruction of the land causes a great deal of dismay to many, but I find the aesthetic of decay and renewal very interesting. I enjoy seeing the multitude of Appalachian shacks and outbuildings, some which have outlived their purpose leaning or falling. Old railroad tracks to nowhere and logging roads and crumbling asphalt that is melting into the earth after another highway has made the road irrelevant, become strokes, lines, and marks on the canvas of our own personal landscape.

This interest extends in microcosm to my own back yard. An old shed in the far back was knocked down more than 20 years ago leaving a small pad of cracked concrete. A rock sticking out of the ground revealed(after a great deal of digging) a hundred year old decorative pond. My wife and I leave our own scars on this patch of grass, like the skate ramp I rode for years half removed, leaving a bumpy dead area yet to be fully claimed by weeds, or the patch of earth where the swimming pool resided becoming a circular vegetable garden.

Each old broken sidewalk, cracked patio, and bare patch of earth carries a story. There was that period where we were constantly doing raku-kiln firings and pit-fired ceramics in our yard. I can still remember the bunches of students gathered around to see Ann scorch the earth with glowing pottery. There is still a cement pad near the pond where my wife and I, as a new couple, poured and screed our first concrete together. Stuck in the concrete is twisted copper wire that reads Ann+Aaron 2000.

These yard scars are only evident in linear time if you allow your roots to grow, but they are the very gratifying things that make my roots stronger. I now know that I love these messy little transitions, these hints of a life lived- even if it is just in my back yard.

My Polaroid obsession part four: Plastic SX-70 cameras- the unsung heroes!

When people think about Polaroid's crowning achievement they think about the folding sx-70. A work of art employing sophisticated technology in a foldable slr, it is deserving of the praise even to this very day. But what of it's lowly cousin, the plastic non-folding sx-70?

This particular camera shoots on the same artsy sx-70 100 asa film, but does so in a more conventional way. The general shape of it is that of a 600 camera minus the built in flash. Depending on the model it was available with variable focus, fixed focus, sonar autofocus, tripod socket, accessory kits, cable release socket, accessory self timer, and a huge variety of after market electronic flashes. The most popular(and the inspiration for the instagram logo) was the white rainbow Onestep. This camera has a fixed focus, so you just point and shoot. For a flash it takes flash bars or you can hook up an electric flash.

This was the camera that was featured in countless movies, but the ones that stick with me are Gremlins(1984) where Phoebe Cates used it's flash as a weapon against the light sensitive antagonists. Guillermo del Toro wrote in a mini homage to Gremlins with his protagonist using the same camera as a weapon in the same way in Don't be Afraid of the Dark(2010)!

My two favorites are the RF versions and the sonar versions. The RF version is variable focus but actually includes a fully working rangefinder. The sonar version is so ugly it is pretty. It is the one that has a gold disc on the side. It allows auto or manual focus. Most of these cameras are actually better than most of the 600s(again my opinion). They offer far more creative control. And creative control is good.

Inconspicuous consumption, or building a banjo

Have you ever just wanted something? No logic involved? It is a lot easier to get something you want when you have a string of excuses for why you need it- ways to convince yourself you have to have it. When it is just a desire not connected to anything more than a passing feeling, it is much harder to convince yourself to get it- much less the rest of the world.

Yet, these ridiculous spontaneous purchases are what our society is made of! Being a bit of a tightwad, what I often do is find a way to A] Make the purchase cash neutral (an example would be buying something in a lot and selling off the others to break even or profit), B] Trade for the item, or C] Make it myself!

In my case, this thing that I wanted was a banjo. I saw them in music stores and they were so bright and interesting. I could say the attraction was bluegrass, the claw-hammer style, or old-time music, but that would be giving me too much credit. My connection to the banjo is more like Kermit the Frog, Steve Martin, and Deliverance. In other words, I had no right to the instrument!

Even cheap banjos are usually expensive, so I set about making one out of junk I have in the basement. The foundation is a drum. Unfortunately I had to choose a drum that I had on hand, so my banjo body is quite large. I used a snare drum when I should have used a small tom. Banjo heads are usually 11 inches or so, and mine is 14 inches. That combined with the trash can lid for the resonator back, and I have a monster banjo.

Why trash parts? That leads me to the origin and the history of the banjo. The original banjo was a banjar and comes out of Africa. The banjo as we know it was a slave's instrument and it was home made. It wasn't until minstrel shows that white Americans started to use the instrument, and at first it was in comedy wearing blackface. When American whites began to love the banjo, there was a great effort by instrument makers to whitewash the instrument. That is why it looks so decorative today. I wanted my instrument to speak of the earlier connection to folk art and craft.

Making one was rather simple but time consuming. Take the hardware off of a snare drum until you are just left with the ring. Cut the snare drum in half so you end up with two rings. Look at lots of sites with banjos and combine that with using a program that calculates the fret locations. Shape a neck by cutting a block of wood in profile and sanding it until you are close. Mount frets, mount hardware and mount the neck. I chose to mount the neck by drilling a hole in the butt end of the neck and mounting one of those screw in nuts, then drilling a hole through the body and running a threaded rod through. It took me quite a while to shape the butt end with a jig saw and sandpaper to get it tolerable, and even more time to get the neck at the right angle when mounting. Now just add the trash can lid and you can string it. The strap is made of an old belt and boot strings. The bridge and tailpiece were the only things I bought and I got them from China via ebay.

I had a friend who can play banjo test it, and he was impressed. Once I made it I set it on a stand out of the way so I could grab it when the feeling struck. It is a very good thing I did not buy a banjo! I am just starting to get that feeling now, years later!

It is very empowering to be able to work with your hands, stringing together a lifetime of craft and art to make whatever comes to mind. Not all projects succeed, but I feel pretty good about this one. Now it is time to play!

Four dollar Silhouette Cameo- I get the best deals!

It is true, I get the best deals! It is not accidental that I am thrifty. I come from a fairly modest background of hand-me-downs and make it if you want it. From an early age my sister and I made our own toys. I was always taking things apart to see how they work and putting them together in “improved” ways. It is a wonder I never got electrocuted. As a teen I discovered the local scrapyard- Worly Steel, where you could get anything for 10 cents a pound! I bought my VW beetle a new hood with pocket change. I scoured the pile finding bicycle frames and all kinds of great stuff.

This has carried on into my adulthood. I am an avid thrift store, antique mall, flea market, and yard sale lover. I put in the time, and only buy it when I think I have found something special. It was during one of these safaris to a thrift store that I saw a translucent printer-looking thing with a four dollar price tag that piqued my interest. It looked like one more of the millions of inkjet printers, but had no place for ink. It was labeled Xyron Wishblade.

Inside was taped a brand new blade still in the package with the original price sticker for 42 dollars. At that point I pretty much knew what this was. This was a craft cutter like the Silhouette, or the Cricut- a machine for the serious scrapbooker or crafter! As an avid fan of arts and crafts supply stores, I was very familiar with the all too expensive machines.

A quick search indicated that this machine was from 2007 and retailed at around four hundred dollars back then. I took it home and found out that the wishblade was a very versatile cutter at the time, unlike the Cricut. The Cricut was limited to fonts, shapes and designs they supplied. This one could import images and draw anything you want to cut! All the reviews indicated that it was a bit of a nightmare to learn, and didn't support software updates past XP and Vista.

Remember, I am a cheap bastard! This would not discourage me- I had a plan. I would look for a software solution and if I didn't find one I would throw together an ancient machine just to run this! Then I discovered one line buried in the comments section of a blog that indicated that the same folks who made this old Xyron are now producing the new Silhouette Cameo! I went to the Silhouette site and downloaded the design suite of free software and the Xyron runs like a dream! And since it is new software, it is easy to navigate and use! The Silhouette Cameo is a newer, cleaner, repackaged Xyron Wishblade!

I am successfully test cutting all kinds of things, but I will be scanning the thrift store shelves from now on for those “obsolete” devices that cost a small fortune a decade ago! In our mass consumer society, it pays to be a late adopter- happy hunting!

News flash- Fuji has just announced a square format instant integral film due this spring- this comes right on the tail of the announcement of black and white in instax film! Square format- the domain of Polaroid 600 and sx-70- now produced exclusively by TIP The Impossible Project. Is Instax now a format competitor? Not really. At 62x62mm, this is one tiny square film. Since Instax mini is just an Instax wide cut in half,  and this one is just a square with the same height dimension as the other- can we look forward to the new mini-skinny or extra wide? We can look forward to new cameras, though.
Any way you look at it- this is an exciting time to be a fan of instant film!

 http://instax.com/square/
 https://www.fujifilm.eu/eu/news/article/instax-mini-film-monochrome-a-new-film-that-expands-the-possibilities-of-photographic-expression-using-instax-film-1

My Polaroid obsession part three: packfilm cameras with bellows or folding packfilm cameras

The showcase of my Polaroids is far from over! If your response has started at polite interest and now moved on to genuine concern- don't get too comfortable! Below are my folding packfilm or bellows packfilm consumer cameras. These are my favorites- even above my SX-70 cameras! They use the film I love (peel apart) and they are very well built- especially the metal ones! The cheapest ones have funky features, like measuring head height to get the camera in focus! My favorite of all , the 195, is fully manual and has the fastest lens at 3.8.  My favorite automatic is the 450, which uses flash cubes and a focus flash which uses louvers to control the flash. Though most of these are from the sixties, they are some of the best Polaroid cameras built!

The Zeiss Icon rangefinder can be found on most of the high end models.

The one on the front left, the 195, is my favorite.

The odd looking black ones are the "new" packfilm cameras that were released later. 

Though they are nice looking, they are not nearly as well built.

My Polaroid obsession part two: plastic packfilm cameras

Unfortunately I don't have a museum, so I cannot put all of my Polaroid cameras on display. Pulling them out of totes, dusting them and inventorying them is the closest I can get. Someday I will have my museum!
The cameras I am sharing today are my consumer grade plastic packfilm cameras. They are both the type 100 and type 88 cameras. Some have plastic lenses, some glass lenses. Many have development timers, and most have variable distance focusing. They are fairly simple to shoot with, and generally take very nice pictures. If you see these for sale, there is a good chance you can shoot with them. Just look for clean battery contacts. The type 88 film packs were discontinued quite a while ago, but the type 100 has been manufactured by Fuji as FP100c. Fuji has discontinued production of this film in 2016, but there will be inventory for the foreseeable future. New 55 and Supersense, and Catlabs of JP are going to take up the mantle and produce packfilm soon, so there should not be a supply gap.
Why shoot these plastic packfilm cameras? The simple answer is FUN! If you are into Lomography, or Fantastic Plastic, then you will love these time machines!
My favorite is the Super Colorpack. Try one of these cameras out and do your part to preserve a bit of our history while taking cool photos!

Making your pack-film last...Fuji Fp100c one shots part three, ground glass(also instax mini and instax wide!)

Now that you can make one shots and can crudely bracket some shots, you may want to see exactly what light is getting through your lens. A ground glass plate was used to do just this in the earlier days of camera and is still widely used by professional film cameras to this day. Ground glass for a typical packfilm camera can be used to give you very specific information about sharpness of focus, framing of the subject matter, and even dialing in accessory lenses for effect. If you are a lomography or experimental photography nut, this should work well for you!
Making a “ground glass” for packfilm is simple and cheap. All you need is a piece of plexiglass, an empty pack, some sandpaper or foggy(not clear) scotch tape, and some glue-all adhesive. First take the pack apart. Set aside the part that has the foam tongue- you won't need it. Take the inside piece(film plane) and trace it onto your plexiglass. If your trace is about 1/16th or so wider and bigger than the inside piece, make sure you adjust the difference before you cut.
Now cut the plexiglass to size. I feed plexiglass slowly and methodically through my band-saw or jig saw as it tends to melt if you go too fast(it can also crack). Once you have it to size, sand the funky edges smooth. Dry fit and adjust accordingly.
Now for the “ground glass”. Either sand the plexiglass on one side until it is very foggy, or cover one side with the scotch tape(careful to leave room to glue the edges down. Apply glue to the inside rim of the pack, and stick the plexiglass to it- foggy or taped face towards the glue. Wait for it to dry and you are done!
I have also shown a fuji instax mini and a fuji instax wide ground glass I have made- just as easy!The Lomo Instant and Lomo Instant Wide use instax film(and the new Automat as well)! 
It helps to have some sort of hood if the glare from the room or space is too much. An easy hood is a black tshirt with the camera poking through the neck hole and the body of the t-shirt acting as the hood. A clothespin can fasten it-simple!
Since most Polaroid cameras were consumer grade and did not have professional features like bulb, some cameras may need a little strip of electrical tape to cover up the exposure control (this will open the lens for several seconds at a time).

This process should further preserve your precious FP100c while you are waiting for Supersense and New 55 to reinvent packfilm!