Instant Aerial Jury Duty

I'm sitting here in the jury antechamber (or whatever title this pre-jury room inspired), exhausted, in that thoroughly putrid state of nervous nauseousness caused by that unique chemical reaction of a sleepless night combined with a Rockstar.

The wifi is broken, the stomach is empty, but the heart hums joyously. Deep in the recesses of my manly man-purse is a recently purchased, just repaired, polished metal, leather encased beauty of German engineering. Along with this mechanical, battery eschewing, photon-recording device, is its dubious cousin, another German wonder, with a a dark and lugubrious background.

We must, dear reader (I've been on a free ebook rampage, Main Street, done; Ann Veronica, done; Siddartha, done; Rights of Man, working on it; Walden, working on it; Winnie the Pooh, done; Treasure Island, done. I now find myself one third of the way through Les Miserables. Holy tangents! I thought I was bad! Just because this Mr. Valjean dude walked by a house on a the corner of "fancy french street name" and "equally fancy french street name" that don't mean I need to know the life story of the previous sixteen tenants. Ain't no one got time for that!) close our eyes (okay now open them again, you can't read with your eyes closed),

(Wait right here, I'm being called up (I'm the row opposite the row under the televisions) to validate my parking ticket. Yeehaw! Things are HAPPENING! Make way for juror number 120817647!)

and take yourself back seventy years or so, before hippies roamed the earth, back when the cars were pretty, and the world was on fire. Bombers lumbered and the Lord seemed to slumber. In secret rooms in secret buildings, secret people sent secret pilots on secret missions. In the front sat the hotshot aviators, in their dashing leather jackets and wonky goggles. In the back, nerds with pocket protectors were manning large camera with huge lenses. Flying high to avoid enemy fire, they captured hundreds of images per flight; army bases, weak points, bridges, convoys.

These aerial lenses were commissioned by the armies, specially manufactured to take in as much light as possible. Now they are prized for their speed, not for photographing the night, but for the speed, the larger the diameter of a lens is the smaller the plane of focus is so you get that crazy front-of-eyeball-is-in-focus-but-the-eyelashes-aren't look. But I bore myself. This particular chunk of glass, in a neighboring pocket of my manly man-purse, keeps for itself the stately title of "Schneider-Göttingen No57610 Xenon 1:2 f=12,5cm".

(Roll call. Schnorrer Berkowitz. Here. Downstairs I go. Past the out-of-order drinking fountain, past the garbage can with the Warning: Garbage and Lid Sold Separately, past two more non-working water fountains, past the cold drink vending machine and into room number 520 in department "M". Juror number 3987, 2870, 8430, 2101… I've heard many stupid things as a Judge. Lunch break. Reconvene at 1:30. Of course I am late. I run upstairs, freshly egged, smoothied, and watered. Judge is later. Gary J. Ferrari is his name. With that name I knew we'd be finished quickly. Right)

So the lens is made by Schneider, from the Göttingen division, which in 1936, either broke off from the Kreuznach division on its own to build aerial lenses for the Luftwaffe, or was forced to by the Nazi Government. Serial numbers are odd, but it seems that most of them are between 55,000 and 65,000. It's a Xenon designation which is a modified double gauss design (and we all know what that is). Its diameter is half of the focal length of 12.5 centimeters. And it's heavy. Very heavy, a lovely chunk of glass.

Leica (the big German camera companies were Rolleiflex and Hasselblad, the big lens makers were Zeiss, Schneider, and Zeiss), was also supposed to be designing optics for the Reich. They had this huge blueprint and prototype that they showed any official who came to check up on them, it took them until the end of the war. It turned out they just blew up the design for a tiny 35mm lens they were working on for their small rangefinder cameras. Sticking it to the man since 1936. In the early stages of Nazi Germany they gave hundreds of Leica's to Jews so they could be designated as journalists and be able to leave. They're cool like that. I really should buy one.

(Are you going to be prejudiced against this man because of how he looks? No, ma'am. Whisper whisper, whisper whisper. I wish judges still wore wigs. More whispering.)

I don't know which camera these lenses were supposed to be mounted on (they were probably specially made for this lens), I bought it from some friends in LA who stuck a SL66 mount on the back (that's the aforementioned camera in my aforementioned manly man-purse). The lens doesn't have a focusing hellicoid (that part of the lens you turn to focus) so it can only be used on a camera with a bellow focusing system (which is one of the reasons the SL66 rocks so hard). But this wasn't enough, no, not for the intrepid Wright Brothers, they had to modify a Speed Graphic to shove the lens onto, calibrated the rangefinder (NOT easy, and NOT fun), and modified the back so a Polaroid back would be centered (for some ridiculous reason (stuff like this is why Polaroid went belly up) the Polaroid back is off to the side, which in this case (where the lens doesn't properly cover 4x5), that just wouldn't do).

(Juror number 2 knows one of the lawyers. More whispering. My lip reading skills could use a brush up. Dismissed. Next. No speak English. Next. Juror number 5 dismissed. No speak English. Dismissed. Dang I got to try this.)

What's a Speed Graphic? Please! I'm trying to get to the point of this pointless diatribe. Okay sheesh, fine. The Speed Graphic was made by Graflex (in the good ole USA),

(Juror number 8 dismissed. I still haven't been called up and while I do pay myself for Jury duty, no one pays me to pay myself, and I REALLY can't do it, even though I kind of want to.)

it can be used either as a rangefinder, or through the ground glass in the back. It also has a remarkably complex shutter system(as opposed to the Crown Graphic which can only be used with lenses that have built in shutters) with 4 shutters and 12 tensions giving 48 (!!) speeds between 1/10 and 1/1000 of a second. And it's remarkably annoying to use. Let's say you see a scene you really want to photograph, you must:

(Juror number 8 dismissed.)

1. Get a meter and figure out how you want he Polaroid exposed (you have to be very exact with Polaroids).

2. Figure out which combination of shutters and tension will give you the shutter speed you want (noooo, no easy obvious numbers. Shutter A is 1/10-1/80 with 6 possible tensions (I.e. a large slit with 6 speeds), "B" is from 1/90-1/200, etc.).

3. Uncover the lens.

4. Compose your shot in the viewfinder (which is way off to the side and completely inaccurate).

5. Focus in the tiny rangefinder window.

6. Fine focus in the viewfinder.

7. Release the shutter.

8. Pull out the Polaroid.

9. Cover the lens to cock the shutter.

You have to do that each time. EACH TIME!

(Juror 11 dismissed.)

Is it worth it. I'm still not sure. The image it produces is delightful and unique. But it's so. Darn. Annoying.

To find out the exact awesome/annoying ratio and how much I'm willing to bend in either direction, I shot an all Polaroid session with a friend of mine in Redondo Beach. I actually screwed up a lot less than I expected but I did realize in middle that I was pulling the Polaroids form the camera too quickly and that was doing weird stuff (white, or magenta dots, and unexposed corners). I took the Polaroids home with me to scan, but normally I'd give them to the clients and just scan the negatives.

So here it is, some positives, some negatives. Just like life.

(Juror 4 dismissed. After five days you can go on twitter and all that other stuff young people use. Kids these days. Juror 4 dismissed. Wiser whisper. Juror number 6471 please come up. That would be me. Did you read the questionnaire? Yes. Did you answer "yes" to any? Yes. 4. Do you, or any relative, or close friend, have any formal legal training? Yes, of course I do, I'm Jewish. 5. Have you or any relative, or close friend, ever been a victim of a crime? Yup! I was kidnapped when I was 2 (nope, you don't get that story now, one day…). Did you testify in court? No, I was two…12. Do you have a personal reason to have a bias either way in this case? Yes (it was a child molestation case), I have 5 kids age 6 and under, so this would be hard for… 5 kids under 6! That would be hard for anyone! Everyone laughs. Sir, I would like to be excused due to financial hardship. Yes? I have 5 kids, one who is a newborn, and I freelance so... Whisper whisper. Juror 4 dismissed. Juror number 3071…)

Capturing Grace

It seems that I tend to write about writing and doing more than I write and do. And now I'm writing about writing about writing. Lame.

I've been doing a bit of soul searching and I'm discovering that I'm a serious right-winger. Not in regards to politics or religion (though admittedly I'm pretty hard-core in regards to both) but in the soul-character spectrum.

Kabbalah teaches that there are ten soul faculties. Three intellectual, and seven emotional. There is a right side, a left side and a middle. It goes right, left, middle, right, left, middle, right, left, middle, middle.

The right side is outgoing, challenging, always looking for the new, restless, visionary, revolutionary, fast, and furious.

Left side is calmer, reserved, disciplined, organized, submissive, evolutionary, focused.

Big plans excite me. The minutia of actually implementing it, not so much. And that just ain't cool.

I like me some new cameras. Holy moly I like new cameras. I've gone through more in the past three years than most have seen in a lifetime. I have this weird aversion to what's popular. "If everyone likes it, it must be really bad." Which oftentimes is true, but it's a bit (a bit?) elitist, and you know, sometimes it's good enough that even the proles (sic) get it.

I wonder if everyone shot film would I shoot digital? I don't think so, but it's hard to know the working of the subconscious. Who is deciding here?

So I raise this cup of ice coffee to the lefties of the world. The plodders, the planners. The ones who get stuff done, and are able to focus the crazy ideas out there and actually implement them. And a special sip for Estee who holds my feet to the fire.

Not that I'm boxing myself in. One isn't "either or". There's always some sort of balance and we can always work on ourselves. It's just important to know one's merits and faults. Both to capitalize on what you've got and to work on the other half.

Truth is I'm getting better. Slowly, but it's happening folks. One day I'll be a picture of orderly submissiveness. With a huge side of rebelliousness.

***

One of the good things about being a righty is the questioning of things that are. The why. And the why behind the why. In between checking ebay for new cameras and expired film, I do my fair share of thinking, especially in the field of photography. What I really wish I had from my childhood (besides Microsoft, and later Apple stocks) is an album or two, from different stages of my life, of how we lived. What we did, how we interacted, what our house looked like. I want to know what we wore, and how many dishes were in the sink. What was in the fridge and what we did at the park. I'd want a beautiful family photo every once in a while.

I had the recent pleasure of photographing Amy Grace and her beautiful children. Amy, besides being a beautiful person inside and out, is a wonderful artist (and I don't use that word lightly) with both images and words. And she gets it. Her photography is quite different, but it is much more of "this is how it feels" than "this is how it looks".

So here is just a normal day at the Graces. Breakfast, chillage, playing, getting food, park, ice cream, back home for some more chillage, reading, back to the park, bathtime... You get the gist. I also busted out my new polaroid machine made by some good friends of mine in LA (it's a modified Speed Graphic with a huge old aerial lens). That thing is annoying, huge, slow, and challenging, but that's why I like it. Nothing normal allowed here. Oh, and the images it produces are spectacular.

Enjoy!

And some instant film. I gave the prints to Amy, these are scans of the negative (which are cool, but not as pretty as the actual prints).

Please check out Amy's work. You'll be happy you did.

***

If you haven't heard... I'll be having two (or more) quickshoot days with all the profit going to help my brother in law who has been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). One in LA and another in NY. It's a wonderful chance to get amazing photos of your family and help a family who could really use it. You could see the details here. Thanks!!

I'll be wandering around the East coast towards the end of October, so if you want to book a session do so before the fat cows sing (that's the deadline).

and his name in Israel shall be called... Shlomo

Nine days ago, after delaying as much as possible, whipping together some mayonnaise (aioli if you want to sound fancy), setting the sourdough for pancakes the next day, taking a walk around the block, and other such activities, we finally jumped (I jumped, Estee rolled) into our silver Honda Odyssey, moseyed onto the 710, merged onto the 105 (which, in some ridiculous abuse of power, changes from 6 lanes to 3 in less than 300 feet), exited at Bellflower, made a left on Imperial Highway, turned right on the imaginatively named "Care Way", found some parking, and checked into the triage wing of Kaiser Permanente Hospital.

That was around 10:00 PM. Fifty five minutes later Estee gave birth to a little 8lb. 2 oz. ball of deliciousness. I tried to remember how long he was, but it never works (dudes like me just don't seem to care about these details).

Guys like being in charge of situations; to help, give a hand, doing something. I doubt there are many times where a husband feels as utterly useless as when his wife is in labor. You know she's in pain, you hear the screams, clutch your imaginary womb in empathy. And there is nothing you can do. Nothing.

Now came the planning of the Shalom Zachar and the Bris. The Shalom Zachar is a little shindig you make the Friday night after the baby is born. Beer and chickpeas are customary, along with the normal spread of cookies, chips, etc. The community here in Long Beach (and our family) was amazing in sending over food, drinks, paperware, etc. All I had to buy was beer. Which I gladly overdid :). I also had to finish all the opened beers after everyone left. You know, waste not, want not.

Next came the bris (circumcision). Last time I posted about a bris on facebook I got attacked by the anti-bris brigade. Quite an interesting bunch of people. Anyways, the bris is when you actually name the baby. Naming is challenging. Chassidus explains that the Hebrew name by which someone is called reflects his inner soul; his character traits, emotional tendencies, intellectual capabilities, and spiritual acuity. So you want to name him with a special name, either after a special person, or a name which means something special. There is also the custom to name after a deceased relative. And we have a lot of those. In fact the large majority of our relatives over the past 5773 years are deceased (and most have eaten bread... do you see the correlation?).

In my family I have many illustrious, holy and smart relatives. Relatives who gave their entire lives to teaching and spreading the wellsprings of Torah.

Relatives who sacrificed their lives for the sanctification of G-d's name.

After much deliberation, a little consternation, (and after almost going with the name “Batman Berkowitz”) we decided on the name “Shlomo” (Solomon).

Shlomo was my mother’s father’s twin brother’s name. Shlomo Carlebach was a Jew who lived and breathed Ahavas Yisroel, love of his fellow Jews. And not in a “I’m a hippy and I love everyone so much” type of way, but in a deep and personal way. He went to places where Judaism was almost non-existent, to people who yearned for truth, but had no idea what it was, and he taught, and sang, and loved so much, that the truth just shone forth. He didn’t argue theology, or bring in modern scientific theories to prove anything. He spoke to souls. He would walk by a poor stranger and just give him everything in his wallet. Everything.

He was an amazing Torah scholar as well as a gifted composer and singer. There is much to be said about him and his life, but I’ll leave that to the history books and wikipedia. Okay, maybe not wikipedia.

Shlomo was the name of the third king of Israel. It was he who built the first Beis Hamikdash (Holy Temple) in Jerusalem. He is known as the wisest man who ever lived, who knew the languages of the trees, the birds, and all the mystical creatures. Under his rule the Jews knew a peace and serenity that has been unparalleled before and after, and when we speak about the coming of Moshiach (messiah), we compare it to the times of King Shlomo.

The name comes from the word Sholom which means peace, and Shalem which means complete, for it is only when there is true peace, between the spiritual and physical, between the holy and mundane, between the body and soul, that the purpose of creation is complete.

And while his father, David, is the more famous poet, King Shlomo penned (quilled?) some of the most passionate love songs to Hashem. The Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs) and Eishet Chayil (Woman of Valor), along with the deeply powerful Mishlei (Proverbs), and Koheles (Ecclesiastes).

This past Tuesday was the Fast of Tisha B’av (9th of the Jewish month of Av), when we mourn the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, and the subsequent exiles. The reason that is given for the destruction and exile is Sinat Chinam, baseless hatred. For Jews not getting along, fighting, arguing, living their own lives for themselves. What the world needs is peace, not just in the world sense, but in the more intimate sense, in being real with your spirituality, having real emotions towards G-d, and living a purposeful life; true love (not in the first-kiss-disney-sense), really and truly loving your fellow, being empathetic, giving; and the building of the third and final Beis Hamikdash with Moshiach.

I feel the world needs another Shlomo.

Unpacking my brain

I was dreaming about knives. It was 2005, summer was winter, and I was 21 or so, living in Pretoria, South Africa, studying to become a Rabbi. There was this book I borrowed (indeterminately, none of the other students knew of its existence) from the school titled Minchas Yitzchak (or Minchas something-or-another). For almost a week, all day, in school and out, I was trying to understand (never really did) why exactly a knife had different kosher laws than any other utensil, and how each possible reason fit into how the differences manifest themselves in actual law. Before falling asleep I’d get comfy, open up the Minchas Yitzchak and try to wrap my mind around the knife issue.

Well, since that year, my mind hasn’t been doing too much wrapping. Yeah, I think here and there, maybe post a snarky status on Facebook about my purported thinking, but thinking ain’t no wrapping.

Recently, in addition to all the regular Dr. Seuss’s (and now a whole bunch of bird books), Estee took out a biography on Albert Einstein. The fact that most of the physics and math are beyond me doesn’t bother me as much as the realization that I haven’t really grappled with any concept in years. I learn here and there, but most of the time, when coming across some obtuse concept, I don’t really chase after it and actually figure it out. Or try my heart out.

Chassidus explains that every concept is like a river, with depth, breadth, and length. The breadth is understanding the concept with all it’s facets, particulars, details. Its length is being able to bring down that topic with examples, parables, and analogies, until you could explain it to a child. It’s also the ability to apply the concept in day to day life. The depth is the essence of the concept, from which all the details flow out. It’s understanding the principles behind the concept.

The conceptual river is one I haven’t sailed, swam, or drowned in recently. And Landsickness is quietly taking its toll.

It’s time to reach up, bring down the box, and unpack my brain.

***

I’ve been a bit obsessed recently with instant film. It seems to me the truest medium for capturing memories. It not only captures the moment but it even captures the fleetingness of it. All you’re left with is one print and one funky negative, an imprint, a memory of the print, and the memory is never the same as the actual moment.

There are some major ideas brewing in my prefrontal cortex involving polaroids, aerial lenses, and some ancient cameras. Prepare to be amazed. You’ve got time.

In the meantime, here are some recent Polaroids, some prints some negatives, (okay disclaimer, Polaroid is pretty much defunct, these are actually Fuji instant peel away prints (same tech as Polaroid) but if I called them by their real name (Fuji FP3000b) no one would have a clue as to what I was referring to) of my fambly.

Thanks for visiting, and come back soon! Free digital cookies (and beer) for all.