XPAN AT THE AUTO SHOW

Late last year I borrowed a Hasselblad Xpan camera from my friend Jack. The Xpan is a very special panoramic format rangefinder that was manufactured from 1998 to 2006. A kit with the 45mm f/4 cost around $2000. A super wide angle 30mm f/5.6 went for $2566 new.

I shot one roll at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show. All the shots were done with available light using the 45mm f/4 kit lens and Kodak Portra 800 film. Since I can't process the Xpan at any regular lab, the roll has sat in my office for quite some time until I took it to A&I in Hollywood a few days ago for processing and scans. For $15, A&I did processing, medium resolution scans of 5800 × 2376 (ranging from 10mb to 17mb in size), and a contact sheet (free with the order). They did a pretty good job but I have to go back to get some rescanned because they got the borders of a few shots wrong so I basically have two photos in one frame. With Xpan, one photo spans one and a half frames of 35mm film.

Here are the best of the roll:












Toyota had a free photobooth at the Auto Show so I did a self-portrait with the Xpan. The funny story behind this shot is that the photobooth started talking to me when I sat down. I guess they have somebody off site who sees you, but they make it sound like a HAL type computer voice. Right away the booth asked me who was going to take the shot because I immediately posed with the camera in front of my face. I responded that it was going to take my picture. And then it was asking me all kinds of photo questions, like was I a professional photographer. I guess the Hassie looked pretty serious to the photobooth. It was really funny.

Xpan photos of the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show by Lydia Marcus.
Photographed November 19, 2007 in Los Angeles, CA

THE SWIMMER PART 2

More portraits of my Dad at the pool, this time shot digitally. He turns 87 in less than a month.





When i was a kid, my Dad could lay on the floor of the pool for at least a minute (probably more). He would just let out a little bit of air at a time - teeny, tiny bubbles. My Dad isn't that playful of a person, but this always was a crowd pleaser! i'm naturally too buoyant to do this.

Fred Marcus photos by Lydia Marcus
Photographed August 6, 2008 in Encino, CA

BIG THANKS

Once in a great while, special people come into your life, and photographer Aline Smithson is that person to me. I first met Aline when I began taking "The Next Step: Getting Exposure in the Fine Art and Documentary World" at Julia Dean in April of 2007. Aline has turned out to be the most amazing teacher, mentor, friend, and constant encourager. Through her class I finally found a small community of fine art photographers willing to support one another. Instead of being competitive, Aline has encouraged her students to share resources and be each other's best cheerleaders. Before I met Aline, I didn't have a blog, wasn't showing any of my photography on the web or publicly, nor did I have a network of other photographers to bounce ideas off of or get feedback. Because of the course, instead of miscellaneous photos, I now have different series of work including "Curious Transport" and "Sign Language." Without Aline's influence, I know for a fact that "Sandra's Stare" would not currently be published in JPG Magazine, because I wouldn't have even tried to submit it anywhere. So today, I send out a big THANK YOU to a wonderful woman who has helped the artist within me emerge. To a fantastic friend and mentor who has shared both her heart and her knowledge - Aline Smithson!

Aline & Me at the opening of my first group gallery show "Photography Now" at the Julia Dean Gallery on October 18, 2007.


Here is some of Aline's amazing, one of a kind work:






Aline's website is alinesmithson.com and her blog is lenscratch.blogspot.com.

TACOMA & TOPIARY

Tacoma & topiary photo by Lydia Marcus
Photographed July 27, 2008 in Encino, CA

JPG MAGAZINE POLAROID PORTRAIT CHALLENGE

Well here it is - my photo "Sandra's Stare" in the pages of JPG Magazine Issue #17. I was one of the winners of the JPG Magazine (teamed with Flak Photo and File Magazine) Polaroid Portrait Challenge. Among the four page spread, I was pretty psyched to have the second largest image (as far as layout) and to be one of the five images (out of 23 total) that had some text about the shooting of the photo included. The feature starts on page 18 and my image is on page 20. As a winner of the competition, I get paid real cash money (I actually received payment BEFORE the issue came out - a FIRST for me for sure), a free year's subscription to JPG Magazine, and of course, my photo printed in the magazine. JPG also lists the web address of the image on jpgmag.com and lists me in the back of the magazine in the contributors index (and that includes a mention of my fotonomous blog). I have to say, JPG is a real class act, now if only more publications treated their contributors so well. Big congrats to all the other Polaroid photographers whose work was featured in JPG.

STARS AND STRIPES IN TIME ZERO

I originally posted this shot as part of my 4th of July party wrap up, but I think that it got kind of lost among all the other snaps and I'd like to give it a solo spotlight. Also, if you like this image, please go vote for it at jpgmag.com where it's currently up for the "Geometry" theme. Voting is open until August 12, 2008.

"Stars & Stripes in Time Zero"
Polaroid photo by Lydia Marcus.

Photographed July 4th, 2008 in Encino, CA using a Polaroid SX-70 Alpha and expired Time Zero film.

ROCHELLE

Tonight I was at a wedding. In between the ceremony and dinner, people were hanging out and I spotted this lovely young woman in this exact pose resting at the edge of a beautiful fountain. Of course I had to ask if I could take her picture. I knew it would be a good shot but the Polaroid 195 at f3.8 delivered beyond my wildest expectations.

Rochelle Roepke Polaroid portait by Lydia Marcus.
Photographed August 1, 2008 at Orcutt Ranch (Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #31) in Canoga Park, CA

FAMILY VACATION CIRCA 1979

In August 1979 I went on a road trip with my Mom, Grandma Belle and her boyfriend Harry. We travelled all the way up North until we hit Canada. Our main stops along the way that I recall were San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver. Here's a Polaroid (One Step camera using Time Zero film) of three generations. The car was my Grandma's Chevy Monte Carlo (bright yellow with a black landau top). The Monte Carlo had just passed through the Chandelier Tree in Northern California. From Wikipedia: "Chandelier Tree is a 315 foot (96 metre) tall coast redwood tree in Leggett, California with a 6 foot (1.83m) wide by 9 foot (2.74m) high hole cut through its base to allow a car to drive through. The hole was carved in the 1930s."

To see more photos from this series, check out my flickr set FAMILY.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Last night I was trying to find a photo of my Mom cooking or "entertaining" to use in a future blog post. I have tons of digital photos going back to 2001 but my Mom passed away in 2002 so I don't have that many digital images of her. The majority of photos of her are un-scanned 126 and 35mm photos we took while I was growing up. And those are crammed in boxes in no particular order. There are a couple of my Mom's albums from the era that predates me that are tucked away in a cupboard in the living room. I haven't looked through those photos in YEARS. Maybe decades. But at least I remembered where they were stored. So late last night I dug into the cupboard and pulled out two albums. I was surprised to find on the first page of the second album the original invitations to my parent's wedding. I don't recall every seeing it before. When my Mom first passed away in December of 2002, my Dad and I still celebrated their wedding anniversary when it came round. I'd give him a card, we'd choose a special restaurant that we used to all go together as a family, and basically we'd think about my Mom. Then either last year or the year before, we didn't observe the day. I forgot, he didn't mention it, and time went on. I never was that great at remembering the actual anniversary date - I seem to recall it being either the end of June or end of July. But last night when I opened that album I looked at the wedding date and it was staring back at me - July 30, 1955 - literally a few hours away. Today I brought out the album to show my Dad the invitations and for some reason he thought the 30th was still to come, not today's date. When I told him it was today, he was surprised (and of course it's a bit emotional). I left him the album to peruse while I began scanning a few images I had pulled out for this blog. Deciding to get the album and go through it the night before their anniversary (without actually realizing the date) and stumbling onto the wedding invitation and photos from their honeymoon strikes me as another incident that goes beyond "coincidence." I've written about my Mom's touch before and this seems like another one of those times. Here are some photos of my parents from their early days and a few from the last year of my Mom's life. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad, today would have been your 53rd.

Dr. and Mrs. William Burton request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter Beverly to Fred Marcus on Saturday, the thirtieth of July, Nineteen Hundred and fifty-five at seven o'clock in the evening.

Their wedding photo. My Mom was absolutely gorgeous.

The Point "Just Married"

Honeymoon, August 1955. My Mom's inscription jokes, Oakton "Manure" Manor. I think my Mom looks like a glamourous movie star here in her bathing suit. Esther Williams watch out!

My Dad the swimmer in his white speedos.

This is a screen grab from a home movie I had converted from 8mm to video. To my surprise, most of the home movies were in glorious color.

Another from the home movies

My Mom is wearing the same outfit here, so the photo is probably taken the same day as the home movie.

My Mom's caption reads: "could choke him, but I adore him." I think that pretty much sums up their entire marriage.

My Dad and Mom on her 70th birthday in 2001.

May 2002

The last mother's Day, 5.12.02, The Bistro Garden in Studio City. Believe it or not, the guy wearing sunglasses in the background between my Parents is David Cassidy! I guess he was out with his Mom too.

SEXY ALFA

This beautiful 1974 Alfa Romeo GTV 2000 belongs to one of my neighbors who lives a few blocks away. The guy owns four Alfas including two squarish four door Milano's from the 80's and a Spider convertible. He pretty much shared that once you drive an Alfa, they basically become an addiction. I've only seen one of the Milano's (a silver one) and this little black coupe. He told me he keeps most of the cars in storage and I guess occasionally rotates them. I've never met him before and he was very nice. He saw me kneeled down in front of the hood when he came out and started talking to me about the car. I never realized he owned so many Alfas. I told him that I definitely want to come back and take some Polaroids and he said that if the car was covered up to just ring the bell and he'd come outside and uncover it for me. Really nice. Maybe one day I can get a ride ;-)

1974 Alfa Romeo GTV 2000 photos by Lydia Marcus

OUTFEST 2008

From July 9-21, I attended Outfest, the 26th Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Outfest is the oldest continuous film festival in Los Angeles and definitely the largest and most attended one in the city. This year's festival featured 212 films and videos from 25 countries in 7 different venues over 13 days.

Outfest and I go back a LONG way - I've been going to Outfest since 1987 when I had just graduated high school. Over the years I was their first college intern (back in 1991), as an entertainment journalist and film critic I covered the festival for numerous Frontiers Magazine cover stories, was a juror on the American Narrative Films jury in 1999 with actor Wilson Cruz and director David Moreton, have been a participant on panel discussions and moderated post screening Q&A's, but this was my first year going to Outfest just for fun. My only agenda was to film a couple panels that "Desert Hearts" director Donna Deitch was on for possible use in my documentary "Desert Hearts Mon Amour" but other than that all I planned to do was see films, connect with friends, look for possible interviewees for my documentary, and have a fun two weeks just hanging out.

The best films I saw this year were: "The Secrets" (a tense and sexy story about the friendship and bourgeoning chemistry between two orthodox Jewish women); "Wild Combination" (a documentary about avant garde composer and musician Arthur Russell); "Hamlet 2" (the funniest damn movie I've seen all year - watch for it coming soon to theaters); "Breakfast With Scot" (the poignant and wacky opening night film); "She's A Boy I Knew" (a documentary directed and about a male to female transexual); and "Trinidad" (a documentary about the frontier town in Colorado dubbed, "the sex change capitol of the U.S." and transexual Dr. Marci Bowers, the top sexual reassignment surgeon who practices there).

Here's a photo recap of the festival.

OUTFEST, Opening Night at the Orpheum - a longtime tradition. The Orpheum is a restored downtown Los Angeles Movie Palace.


Filmmaker & Women On A Roll founder Andrea Meyerson, partners Valerie Madden and Tina Scorzafava (a talented filmmaker), and Me.

Me and Monica Trasandes, my former Frontiers editor. There's some real history here. We were young pups together. We sat next to each other at the first press screening of "Showgirls" - if that doesn't bond you for life, nothing will!

Two femme fatales (Calpernia Addams and Andrea James) and me LOL.

The main Outfest location - The Directors Guild of America, on Sunset Blvd.


"Boys Don't Cry" & "Stop-Loss" director Kimberly Peirce conducted "A Conversation With Donna Deitch." Donna was the recipient of the 12th Annual Outfest Achievement Award on Opening Night. (Photo Credit: Danna Kinsky / dannakinsky.com)

Kimberly, Donna, and Me (photo credit: Danna Kinsky / dannakinsky.com)

Donna Deitch, Kirsten Schaffer (former Director of Programming and present Outfest Interim Executive Director), and Kimberly Peirce (photo credit: Danna Kinsky / dannakinsky.com)

In back of the DGA

S & Me

The Outfest Legacy screening of a restored print of seminal gay and lesbian documentary "Word Is Out."

Wolfe Video founder Kathy Wolfe and "Desert Hearts" director Donna Deitch in front of a giant "Desert Hearts" poster. They had a small dvd signing in the lobby of the DGA.

Donna Deitch


Me & Donna (photo credit: Angela Brinskele)

Outfest Awards at the beautiful Ford Ampitheater. This is Craig Chester at the podium and awards presenter Momma.


Calpernia Addams and Momma.

More of Calpernia and Momma.

Outfest Closing Night, the Orpheum after party.

S, M, & Me

Moi

The huge Orpheum lobbby

Gorgeous lamps and details of the Orpheum ceiling.

The last marquee of this year's festival, Polaroid SLR 680 SE with Polaroid 600 Film.