Tom imitates Jeff, 10 years ago and stretched...

The best shot from that Yugo voyage. This was the last time I ever shot TMY, there's a 400% burn on this's guys chest, just to get that tattoo to show up and then damn neg kept popping as it was printed with the original condenser head on my Beseler 45MX.

-- tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com), July 11, 2000

Answers

before I had a glass carrier and dichroic head... t

-- tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com), July 11, 2000.

film

Tom, what film would you have liked to have in the camera now and what difference would it have made? I see too little exposure and too much development. And I see a total disregard for your like. As a former merchant in the 60's I used to supply merchandize to disreputable types like these guys. Or are these some modern "outlaws" doing time in a suit during the week in the City riding their Hogs on the weekend trying to intimidate the tourists down by North Beach? Looks just like Lee right before Marlon bounced him. That was a cool flick. Nice image soldier. James

-- james (james_mickelson@hotmail.com), July 11, 2000.

first thing that strikes me after reading your disclaimers is the sense that you did a damn fine job in the darkroom with some serious contrast. second thing is that it must have taken all the courage you had in the state of california (if that's where it was taken)to broach the subject of setting up the image. third thing is that the spectators in the back left appear to be expecting your imminent demise. truth is, given a little better light and a lot less clutter, that could have been a memorable shot.

-- wayne harrison (wayno@netmcr.com), July 12, 2000.

Good observation Wayne. I hadn't even noticed the spectators in the background -- they really complete the picture.

-- Christopher Hargens (ldmr@cruzio.com), July 12, 2000.

Is this a "drive by" shooting, or were you standing there- this is a classic for sure....

-- Chris Yeager (cyeager@ix.netcom.com), July 12, 2000.

I just walked up, framed the caption "Boot Hill", lowered to keep biker as bottom of frame and handheld the widelux, probably at 1/125th since the damn thing only has something like 3 shutterspeeds (I forget, exactly). The lens on the widelux sucked and I gave it up shortly after this image.

It (the image) was made at BikeWeek in Daytona, a media fest of incredible size. I actually saw some guy with an 8x10 on a wheeled dolly.

To clear out the background on this would have been more dangerous than making the picture. The guy on the bike was totally unconcious, I'm not kidding, a waitress came out of Boot Hill and literally took his pulse, just to be sure. When I came back by, about 2 hours later, there were some blue hairs (The Florida Geriatric kind, not the tattooed and pierced kind) making pictures of each other standing behind him as if he were a Disney prop or some kind of monument. That would have been a great picture, huh?

Look even closer and see that the guy with the hairy belly has a camera strap over his left shoulder (Image is everything at BikeWeek). The atmosphere was quite friendly. If you didn't want your picture made, you were in the wrong town.

The little girl, the nervous frat boys in the background, hairy belly dude and the smoking man all make this picture for me. Not to mention the sweeping landscape posture of the unconcious biker. There are four layers deep of visual info in this frame, all of which contribute to the cohesion. The only thing I'd like to loose is the telephone pole and the human fragment on extreme right. The coolest thing about the widelux, is everybody watches it work while the picture is being made. While the exposure on the film is only 1/125th, it takes the slit about 1/30th to complete the transit.

Wayne, I actually made a widelux neg carrier out of 1/8th inch black sintra to combat that neg poppin' problem. and James, I'd go with Fuji Neopan 400 today, it would definately handle High Noon at Boot Hill better than TMY. Plus, this was early in t-max's product life, before t-max developer. So it was probably soaked in FG7 with the sodium sulfite shooter, which was my standard for many years, and still is for Kodak's infrared. Thanks for the pat on the back, it sounds like we've had some similar history (nuff said)... t

-- tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com), July 12, 2000.

Interesting story Tom, and it's certainly my kind of scene. I seem to be find the unfriendly ones however :-)

I am quite partial to full scenes (Tom andI have had this conversation before, I think)with lots of information, as opposed to the closer-up thing. I think some of that "single subject" is from too much TV, it's the talking head syndrome. Look at what many people call "portraits" today, and it's a direct mimic of television's talking heads.

This one tells a story, and it's a pretty funny one...

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), July 12, 2000.

One of the best pictures so far on this forum. This picture deserves to become a huge enlargement.

-- Edward Kang (ekang@cse.nd.edu), July 13, 2000.

Unfortunately, the shortcomings of the Widelux lens become the most interesting aspect of this image (to me) when enlargement excedes 14 inches. It is a rather detail dependant image. Thanks E.W.... t

-- tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com), July 14, 2000.