Recent content by M. Valdemar

About 35 years later.

Shot when I was about 22 years old, with my Leica M3. From terribly stored and scratched negative. (I have made it to age 69. My friends are dropping like flies all around me. On the other hand, my father is 93 and still driving, totally lucid, and ambulatory. His father made it to 98. So we...

In the early 1950's my father owned a camera store, called "Flash Camera", in the Bronx, NY. My father, however, was unable to take a good picture or even one in focus. Among his customers was WeeGee, a photo of whom is my avatar. It was taken in his store. I recently found two stereo slides...

I have been dreaming of getting a stick shift 1960's VW bug. This is me in the early 1970's with one of my VW bugs. I still miss it.

Haha. I'd like to see one of these new lens "experts" running into Brian. Especially Brian. I'm reminded of that Woody Allen film where he is waiting on line and listening to some guy talking about Marshall McLuhan. Woody Allen gets fed up and says the guy doesn't know what he is talking about...

I think mainly because of the influence of the internet, there are a large number of young people who view Leicas as cult/totem objects. On Reddit, for example, you see this behavior, people posting photos of their cameras and lenses and adulating those who have high-status lenses and bodies...

Me, at age 15, with a bird and a Polaroid Swinger. If I recall, the film for this camera was something like $5.99 for eight exposures. This was a small fortune for me in 1960's dollars. I would carefully ration my photos, maybe taking one or two photos a week, or saving them for special...

My father, who is in the photo above, at age 20.

My father, who is 91 years old, and my daughter, who is 12.

I thought some of you might find this of interest. I was playing around with the latest iteration of Photoshop. It has something called "neural filters". Neural filters do a very good job of colorizing monochrome photos. But you can also do things like alter facial expressions, change hair...