All posts by dcphotoartist

Victorian Cross-Dressing and Circus Dogs

To take a break from the High Heel Race photos, here’s two new CDVs in the antique image collection.

Cross-dressed Women by Mattheson
Cross-dressed Women by Mattheson

This pair of women in men’s clothes are rather unusual for the time period (1860s-early 1870s). Without knowing any back-story behind the photo, it’s hard to tell if this was just a couple of friends on a lark dressing up like lads (the mustaches were added by the photographer, much as hand-coloring or gilding of jewelry would have been done, for an additional fee) or if this was a comic way of expressing a deeper relationship between these two women. Without knowing, I’m filing this in my collection under the category of “Performers”, because it certainly is a performance of gender and gender identity, and it COULD be a theatrical, like the Ike Partington photo I posted earlier. I don’t know if there was a comedic play of the time period that called for women to play men’s parts.

Jack Russell Dog in Circus Ruff, Uruguay
Jack Russell Dog in Circus Ruff, Uruguay

This is a CDV I bought from a vendor in Uruguay (on Ebay). These two photos kind-of go together in that the dog is wearing a ruff, so in some way he’s probably a circus performer. This is a heavily restored version of the CDV – the idiot seller shipped it basically in a plain envelope, with no protection, so it arrived with a MAJOR crack running across the CDV just above the dog’s head. I thought I’d at least preserve the image content and post it.

The DC High Heel Race 2012 – part 2

Was that high heel or high hair race?
Was that high heel or high hair race?
The higher the hair, the closer to God?
The higher the hair, the closer to God?
Anime flying ponies running for office?
Anime flying ponies running for office?
Sophia Grace and Rosie, all grown up. Be Afraid, Be VERY Afraid!
Sophia Grace and Rosie, all grown up. Be Afraid, Be VERY Afraid!
Candy tits, hairy pits and abs to die for...
Candy tits, hairy pits and abs to die for…
Sally Bowles, perhaps?
Sally Bowles, perhaps?
Cruella deVille wants her puppies
Cruella deVille wants her puppies
Old-fashioned Gal
Old-fashioned Gal
Race Fan
Race Fan

All shot with my Canon 5D, 24-105 L zoom lens and 580EX flash.

The DC High Heel Race 2012 – part 1

Lady In Black
Lady In Black
(Diet) Cookie Buffet!
(Diet) Cookie Buffet!

This is Cookie Buffet, the drag persona of Christopher Dyer, a long-time DC resident and sometimes politician –
Cookie Buffet, from Wikipedia

Panda Girl!
Panda Girl!
Having Fun
Having Fun
Church Ladies
Church Ladies
Runaway Bride
Runaway Bride
Asian Schoolboys in Heels
Asian Schoolboys in Heels
Asian Schoolboys in Heels - the closeup
Asian Schoolboys in Heels – the closeup
Asian Schoolboys in Heels, showing their school pride
Asian Schoolboys in Heels, showing their school pride
Southern Belle?
Southern Belle?
Tired, and Fabulous!
Tired, and Fabulous!
Vote For Me!
Vote For Me!

This is the first in a series – I’ll finish posting over the weekend, as I have over 200 shots to edit through.

All these were shot with my Canon 5D and the 24-105 L lens.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood

House Wrap, Black and White, 14th Street
House Wrap, Black and White, 14th Street
Steps, Black and White House
Steps, Black and White House

Two shots of a former house turned liquor store turned redevelopment project on 14th Street.

13th Street Brickwork
13th Street Brickwork

A perspective study of the brickwork trim on the front garden retaining wall of some houses on 13th Street.

Ben's Chili Bowl, Evening
Ben’s Chili Bowl, Evening

The front of the world-famous Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street in Northwest DC. You can see the new mural in the alley that depicts Bill Cosby (and Dr. Martin Luther King, not visible in this photo) – one of the two people who can eat at Ben’s for free (the other ‘person’ being the Obama family).

Door, Ben's Chili Bowl
Door, Ben’s Chili Bowl

I just liked the way the door caught the reflections in the glass as it was closing.

Food Case, Starbucks, 13th Street
Food Case, Starbucks, 13th Street

Just another one of those quotidian things we see every day and don’t pay much attention to.

Izakaya Seki, V Street
Izakaya Seki, V Street

The entrance to a new Japanese restaurant that is very much in keeping with the spirit of a real Izakaya in Japan – spartan in appearance and compact in size, but still welcoming. Rumor has it that the food is excellent – I will have to give it a try some day soon, although their menu is a bit seafood-intensive for me as I’m allergic to shellfish (shrimp, crab, lobster and scallops).

Graffiti-inscribed Manhole Cover
Graffiti-inscribed Manhole Cover

To close out the show, here’s a manhole cover that has been thoroughly inscribed with graffiti. I liked the contrast formed by the regular geometry of the manhole cover and the grid of the concrete with the organic shapes of the leaves, setting up a man-vs-nature conflict, only to be complicated by the man-made disorder of the graffiti.

More adventures in Rolleiflex-land for those who care about such things. All of these were shot on Fuji NPH 400.

Two More from Chinatown

Spy Museum, G Street, Twilight
Spy Museum, G Street, Twilight

This is looking West on G Street, across the street from the National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum (they’re housed in the same building, the former US Patent Office, once the largest building in Washington, occupying an entire square block. Designed to be fireproof (although proven later due to budget cuts during construction to NOT be as fireproof as designed), it was home to Abraham Lincoln’s Inaugural Ball). If you saw photos of this street from 30 years ago you would barely recognize it – the entire neighborhood was in rough shape, and despite the museum’s presence, not a safe place to be. They wouldn’t let school groups wander beyond the museum – it was straight from the bus to the building, and back directly into the bus in those days. The whole neighborhood smelled of Eau de Homeless. Now, drinks at Zola are $10-15 each for bottom-shelf liquor, and dinner for two at Rosa Mexicano around the corner will routinely set you back $70-100.

Portrait Gallery Steps, Twilight
Portrait Gallery Steps, Twilight

As you can see, sitting on the steps of the Portrait Gallery is a popular pastime, although not as popular as it used to be amongst teenagers who used to congregate there in large numbers pretty much all year round. The downside was that they weren’t absorbing culture – they were there being teenagers, being rowdy and noisy, sometimes getting into fights, and other inappropriate behavior. So the museum installed speakers that play classical music. Beethoven, the ultimate teenager repellant!

More Chinatown at Night, Rolleiflex plus Fuji 800Z

More of my DC nightscapes- I was testing out the Fuji NPZ 800 that I had in my film inventory. A surprisingly good result from a film I’ve had sitting around again for the better part of a decade.

National Portrait Gallery, Twilight
National Portrait Gallery, Twilight
RedLine Pub, Chinatown
RedLine Pub, Chinatown
Legal Seafood, Chinatown
Legal Seafood, Chinatown

You can definitely see the grain in these images, but it’s nowhere near as pronounced as the grain in 400 speed 35mm film. It also handles mixed lighting pretty well, but it’s not Kodak Portra.

Oh, by the way, these were all hand-held. THAT’s why you shoot 800 speed film!

Great Article from Petapixel

What I’ve Learned About Photo Gear Over the Past 40 Years

Terrific summary and great dispelling of the constant upgrade myth. A great photographer can make great images with a pinhole or a Brownie box camera, in addition to a CaNikSonEikaBlad. A mediocre photographer gets caught up in an upgrade chase thinking gear is the solution to a skills problem. Don’t get me wrong, gear is fun, and its always nice to have the right tool for the job – there are photos you can take with a Canon 5D that you can’t take with a Hasselblad, and photos you can take with an 8×10 Sinar you can’t take with a Leica (the old “don’t use a hammer to do a screwdriver’s job” adage). But when it comes down to it, it’s far to easy to blame the tool when we don’t get what we were looking for (“I would have gotten the photo if only I had an xxxx”). This is part of why I’m fixating on my Rolleiflex. It’s just one camera, with just one lens – it’s forcing me to pay more attention to what I’m shooting and how I’m shooting it rather than running around with two or three bodies and half a dozen lenses in two or more formats. My Argentina trip of a few years ago was a prime example – I had the 5×7 with six (SIX!!!!) lenses, 13 film holders (13!!!!), and a tripod, along with my Contax G1 with 45mm and 28mm lenses. While I did take some wonderful photos in each format, I’m pretty sure both suffered as a result. Certainly, there were photos I could not have taken with one that I did with the other. My Recoleta cemetery photos would not have happened with the Contax, and my street scenes in San Telmo and La Boca would not have happened with the 5×7. But by dividing my attention between the two systems and two ways of thinking probably meant that I wasn’t fully in the mindset of either system and then tried (and failed) to make images with one that would have been better done with the other.

Rolleinar 1

If you’re familiar with twin-lens reflex cameras, you know that they have certain limitations (close-focus capability or lack thereof, parallax compensation required, non-interchangeable lenses) for the most part (the Mamiya C22/33/220/330 family being the notable exception to most of the above). My Rolleiflex certainly falls into that category. One thing Rollei did was they came up with a special close-focus auxiliary lens set, which they called Rolleinar. Rolleinars come in four strengths, with the #4 being a rarity, and the #3 uncommon to find today. They’re basically diopters, but with a twist – because parallax worsens the closer you get, they include a special diopter plus prism for the taking lens so you can still compose a frame with relative accuracy. I have a Rolleinar 1, and I’ve been playing around with it. It’s good for getting closer for tight head-and-shoulders portraits, and for doing simple macro-ish photos of flowers and textures and the like. Here are a couple of shots I took with it outside the florist’s by my office – as you can see, it will get you close-r, but it’s far from 1:1 reproduction. Both of these were shot at or near minimum focus for the camera. Film is that same expired Fuji NPS 160 that I’ve been shooting through.

Flowers #1, Rolleinar 1
Flowers #1, Rolleinar 1
Flowers #2, Rolleinar 1
Flowers #2, Rolleinar 1

Capitol Bikeshare Bicycles

Here are some semi-abstract shots of the bikes of Capitol BikeShare, docked in their parking docks at Farragut Square. I saw the bikes’ shadows and the repeated patterns of wheels, spokes, seats and handlebars caught my imagination.

BikeShare #1
BikeShare #1
BikeShare #2
BikeShare #2
BikeShare #3
BikeShare #3
BikeShare #4
BikeShare #4

More Rolleiflex 2.8E/terminally expired Fuji NPS 160 action.

Francesco Lentini, the Three-Legged Boy

Francesco Lentini, The Three-Legged Boy
Francesco Lentini, The Three-Legged Boy

From Wikipedia:

Frank (Francesco, Francisco) Lentini (May 18, 1881 – September 22, 1966) was born at Rosolini, near Syracuse, Sicily into a family of twelve children, seven sisters and five brothers.

He was born with three legs, two sets of genitals and one rudimentary foot growing from the knee of his third leg. So, in total, he had three legs, four feet, sixteen toes, and two sets of functioning male genitals, which were all that existed of a conjoined twin and jutted from the right side of his body. The doctors determined that since his twin was connected to his spine, removal could have resulted in paralysis. When his parents refused to acknowledge him, his aunt raised him but eventually handed him over to a home for disabled children. As a child Lentini had hated his extra body parts until he spent time at the home. There, he met children who were deaf, blind, and mute. He also learned to walk, ice skate, and jump rope.
At the age of eight, Lentini moved to the U.S. and entered the sideshow business as The Great Lentini, joining the Ringling Brothers Circus act. He gained US citizenship at the age of 30. His career spanned over forty years and he worked with every major circus and sideshow including Barnum and Bailey and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Lentini was so respected among his peers that he was often simply called “The King”.

In his youth, Lentini used his extraordinary third leg to kick a soccer ball across the stage, hence his show name, the Three-Legged Football Player. By the time he was six, Lentini’s normal legs were slightly different in length–one was 39 inches, the other 38 inches–but the third leg was only 36 inches, and the foot on it was clubbed.[1] Even more as an adult, while his extra leg was several inches shorter than the others, his primary legs were also two different lengths. He was heard to complain that even with three legs, he still didn’t have a pair. He married Theresa Murray, three years younger than him, and they had four children: Josephine, Natale, Frank and James. Frank Lentini died in Jacksonville, Florida on 22 September 1966.

Over on The Human Marvels, there’s a wonderful discussion thread below a photo of Frank in which a number of his descendants/probable descendants have chimed in with questions and reminiscences. It’s well worth a read.