I discovered a new trick today. You’ve probably seen those big light boxes on which doctors view x-rays. Well this office, had a huge panel of 6 of these light boxes on the wall. I turned them on to discover they make a nice side light and they are color balanced with the overhead fluorescent lights. No need for strobes or gels! After I got this tight portrait of Dr. Britt (right), we did one more photo outside the entrance to Eastern Virginia Medical School. It was a pretty dreary day, but the cloud cover was light enough to create a nice soft light. The assignment was for Health Leaders magazine through Getty Images.
I have known for a long time that my dad had an old wood field camera up in the attic. I know this because I broke it when I was a kid. I was running around the house in my socks, slipped on the hardwood floors and slid into the camera which was on old wood legs. It fell to the floor and the brass plates that connected the camera to the legs popped off and bent. It’s been stored away ever since. I decided recently to restore it and take some pictures. The camera is probably turn of the century. It was designed to hold glass plates and film came on the scene in 1888. I have fixed most of the light leaks, but still need to repair the brass.
While doing some research on old photography I discovered Sergei Prokudin Gorskii. He made color photographs in the early 1900s by shooting one scene with 3 B&W glass plates with red, blue and green filters respectively and then combining them later. It’s ingenous, really time consuming and beautfiful to look at.
this is my camera. I’ll post photos from it as soon as I can.
