stephanieNY

Jill sent me a link to these photos that she was reminded of by the last post.  Small town America from 1939 - 1943. Can't get enough of these either.  Check out the link for all of them.  

The caption on this one was "children asleep on bed during square dance":

Brockton, MA:

Boston.com posted an article the other day with some of these photographs.  They were taken by a Russian photographer, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, in the early 20th century of people, architecture, industry, etc. of the Russian Empire.  That makes them 100 years old!!  Incredible.  The article describes the technique: "He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images."  

I can't get enough.  It's fascinating to look at these people without the filter of the photographic quality of the camera/film used at the time.  I like that the article pointed out that neither the Russian Revolution nor World War I had happened at the time these were taken.

The Library of Congress has the entire collection here.

1910:

She was standing in this grassy knoll back in 1910 for this picture:

A steel truss bridge in 1910:

Ah-mazing:

Since I was doing this on the other side of the camera in all my pictures from Brazil, I posted some pictures that others shared that will prove that I was there with the rest of them (plus some really great shots that I missed). Here.

I submitted my final set of images for my photography class today. It was a 1/2 semester class as well, so that's it...Finito.  Two classes down.  I posted my final images here.

I spent a few days with this little one last week and had my camera attached to my face half the time. She's going to think that it's part of my body. I couldn't help it....I mean, look.

Some more pics from my new camera....in the neighborhood.

I go out and see places for my photography class, when I'd otherwise be stuck in Avery Hall working.  This is a good thing.

Queensboro Bridge on Tuesday.

Railroad tracks along the Hudson in the Bronx on Sunday.

I've been in the market for a new camera for-ever.  With all the hemming and hawing I've been doing about it, you'd think I was buying a house or something.  I've been reading all these reviews on digital SLRs and now the new micro four-thirds cameras.  For a while, I was being woo-ed by the simplicity of the solid retro body of the Olympus e-p1:

But let's face it, I need to take good pictures, not look good taking them.  So, my photography class and my impending trip to Brazil put a fire under my butt, and I finally made a move and ordered one today.  It'll be here on Wednesday...and I don't know if I'm gonna make it that long. I want to play with it right now!  I had dinner at a friend's last night where we talked shop on cameras, and I tested out a few they had in house...it was a dream. After shooting with my point and shoot the past few weeks, I think a good camera is going to be life-changing. 

Anyway, here it is.  It's sort of the "baby's first" camera of DSLRs but I'm pretty sure it's just what I need.

Last week I had my first assignment due for Architectural Photography that we presented to the class. I had heard scary things about the professor, so I was kind of nervous. But I think I like her a lot. As I silently flipped through my images one by one on the projector, she said..."yes, no, no, yes, no, yes, no, no, no" and she was totally right. She liked my interior shots and thought I was uncomfortable outside. Yup.

Here are some of the "yes"es.

Apparently there is this crazy network of secret tunnels under the city of Moscow. Construction workers just uncovered one near the Kremlin and now federal agents are trying to keep it all secret. This article along with other counts claim that "subterranean Moscow is honeycombed with secret facilities" that were meant for Communist Party officials in the event of a nuclear war, and are still maintained "just in case".

One of the lines runs all the way out to the suburbs and is equipped to "sustain the lives of thousands of people for up to 30 years". (!!!!) And there may or may not still be "food depots, generators, sleeping quarters, cinemas and even swimming pools" down there!!

One of my classmates came across this guy that photographs this city's underground tunnels. (Some must be less secretive than others.) He uses HDR processing (ala Adam's experiments last year) on the images so they're really detailed. These are my favorites, but check out the others here.