|
|
Issue 17 · Spring
Meeting, June 03, 2007
In Attendance: Bob & Lorraine
Wilson, J.Mutch, Ken Strauss, Peter Sinclair, Stan White, Matt Neima,
Steve Horan, Bruce Hodgsen, Abigail Godfrey, Sarah
Shrigley, Don & Madolyn Tait, Felix Russo, Matt Tatham,
John Larocque, Vincent Chan, John Long, David Delouchery & Ian
Hazlett.
Our spring 2007 meeting was held at Bob
Wilson’s home and there was much discussion before the meeting
got under way about the pictures that Felix Russo has displayed around
Bob’s house.
Felix approached the West Toronto Junction Historical Society to
photographically document the Junction area of Toronto. Located
in the Dundas and Keele street area, the Junction runs north of Bloor,
west to Runnymede and north to St. Clair. Four railroad companies
met at this point in the 1880’s to transfer their product between
the lines. The National Post recently wrote an article and
mentioned that things were going to change in the Junction, which is
something that has been rumoured for years. Regardless of what
changes do take place the Junction begs to be captured.
It’s charm will oneday disappear. Felix says that a lot of
things in the Junction fall under the radar like the cheese factory.
Felix was amazed by the people that he would meet. He also
discovered that a lot of people have not had the honour of having their
picture taken while at work. On one street lined with auto repair shops he talked to an El
Salvadorian man who’s been here for twenty five
years. The shop looks like a movie set lost in time since the
50’s. He gives each person free 4x6 prints of their image
in return for permission to publish them in an up coming book. He
found one man who waits near the tracks just to photograph the trains
that roll by. He says that it’s important to document the
images with a date and description in rder for it to retain future
historical significance. The process has taken about a year
to document. He is making stereographic sets which will range in
price between $200-$400 for a set of 25. He mentioned that it is
a laborious process to print and mount stereographs.
Felix also reminded us that the winter issue of PhotoEd magazine will
once again be all in 3D. The first 3D issue was printed in 2003
and completely sold out. He said that he prefers colour anaglyphs as opposed to side by side and
he can print up to 11x17” but 8 x 10” at 300dpi is
preferable.
John Long
talked about his lenticular prints which are on display at
the Leonardo Gallery on Avenue Road. look better when backlit and he
mounts them in frames from photoglow.com He buys preglued, 40
lines per inch, lenticular sheets from Microlens, a North Carolina
company which sells sheets up to 4x8’. They provide free PC
software to prep & print the images for lenticular mounting. John
found a woman in Russia who has a similar Mac program. He
photographs the images with a 5 lens medium format camera. He
then prints and scans the images into Photoshop, stacks them into
layers, sets the 3D window (usually based on the eyes of a portrait)
then he sends the 5 image files into the lenticular program. He
says that he finds that lenticulars look better when backlit and he
mounts them in frames from photoglow.com He buys preglued, 40
lines per inch, lenticular sheets from Microlens, a North Carolina
company which sells sheets up to 4x8’. They provide free PC
software to prep & print the images for lenticular mounting. John
found a woman in Russia who has a similar Mac program. He
photographs the images with a 5 lens medium format camera. He
then prints and scans the images into Photoshop, stacks them into
layers, sets the 3D window (usually based on the eyes of a portrait)
then he sends the 5 image files into the lenticular program which
slices and arranges the images into a ABCDE order for each lens of
which there are 40 per inch. He says that the layered Photoshop
file is about 700 MB. John has hundreds of bad prints and it is
difficult to keep the critical vertical alignment when adhering to the
lenticular sheet. He prints and mounts 2 images back to back to
gain a richer black on the backlit images. John also raved about how
spectacular the lenses are in the 3D World medium format camera from
China.
Bob found a
book that included some anaglyphs and will share information about
bookstore he found it in for those interested in the $40 book.
Unfortunately I did not catch the subject or title of the book for this newsletter.
J. Mutch bought a chinese 3D viewer on eBay for $25.
Peter showed
us the 35mm version of John ‘s lenticular camera. He
says that it is not for sale but he’ll lend it out for use within
the club. He does however have new 3 lens camera’s for sale
for $18. Peter can also convert any Norman Rockwell Saturday
Evening Post cover to lenticular 3D. Bob mentioned that he should
do “The Sphinx” which deipicts the image of a boy holding a
stereographic viewer. Peter was already one step ahead of Bob
with that idea.
Stan talked
about the status of the 3D reference Library which will be housed at
the Art Gallery of Ontario. It will take a year or two for the
collection to be accessible at the gallery but it will be available in
list form on their website.
Matt Neima is
using “Imaginate” to do “Ken Burns” style
movements to his anaglyph images. He is also working with
“3D Movie Maker”. He said that J. did a presentation
at the London Library on 3D history.
Steve Horan
pointed out an interesting show involving holograms that was having
it’s last performance that evening at 27 Front street next to the
Humingbird Centre. As part of the Luminato event a Montreal based
show called “Norman Goes Live” features talented performer
and choreographer Peter Trosztmer interacting with holographic
personalities and cinematic elements. It is based on the works of
Norman McLaren.
Bruce Hodgson marveled at how long we’ve been gathering as a
club. He said that out first meeting was 17 years ago in November
of 1990. Bob Wilson was displaying 3D items at the Exhibition and
taught him how to free view. He was impressed by Stan’s
work in Stereographic cards and how so many of us are producing
professional work. He showed us a 3D picture of the Toronto
skyline and asked us to guess the year. Stan quipped that
it must have been taken after 1839 (the year that photography was
invented). The actual date was 1955.
As a reflection of the digital age we now live in, Sarah Shrigley
mentioned that she had a roll of slide film that couldn’t be E6
processed by her local lab and had to be taken down to Henry’s.
Madolyn Tait said that she enjoys the professionalism of the club membership.
Vincent Chan joined two Argas together which he joked should now be
called an Argi. He said that it has a lot of light leaks which he
is trying to track down.
Matt Tatham showed us his low tech underwater 3D system.
David Delouchery inquired about the workings of his Sputnik side by side printing plate.
Abigail Godfrey sat in on our meeting on behalf of a production company that is doing some research on 3D video production.
We finished off the afternoon with snacks from Bob and Lorraine and more socializing.
The fall meeting will be hosted by Mike Robinson on Sunday November
25th at his studio “The Century Darkroom”, 245 Carlaw Suite
502, Toronto, Ontario.
See you there.
|