philosophographlux™

Rally To Save Education, Salem, Oregon, President’s Day, February 20, 2012–Mark Your Calendar!

dominic le fave — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:40:19 +0000

Public education is imperiled by the opportunist narratives that surround the economic crisis. These corporate-backed narratives are false. The truth is there is plenty of money and corporations and financial institutions have never been more profitable nor had so much capital. They have also never been more powerful and this includes the power to both exclude their immense wealth from serving the public good and to create narratives that obscure their power—a power that extends even to controlling the monetary supply and creating $7.7 trillion (half the deficit) when the feel they need it—and narratives that distract the public from the real issues affecting our economy. What we have is a crisis of values. We need to reset our values as a culture and as a society. Education is a fundamental American value and we need to say this forcefully enough that it competes with the well-funded narratives offered by corporate interests. This is important not just to preserving the education of our children, education jobs, and an educated civic culture; it’s important to protecting our values. This rally will be a way to say clearly, democratically, and in a powerful way that education should be a valued part of our society, that it should be funded and supported in a way that reflects our values. Portland Association of Teachers will be providing shuttle busses to Salem.

Make a Donation to Help Our Local Special Education High School Students

dominic le fave — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:38:21 +0000

Our high school special education students are on the verge of vocational greatness! These students, many of whom struggle with significant disabilities, passionately run a café that serves the school community. They have the unique pride and self-respect that comes with doing work that has both social capital and genuine, meaningful service to others. They want to be the best of the best. Right now they operate a beautiful La Marzocco espresso machine that was donated to them through the generous support of our community. They just need a few more pieces of equipment to have a fully operational, professional coffee service operation.

Your donation will buy equipment that every espresso vendor has and bring our students’ café up to professional specifications. Your dollars will buy two professional coffee grinders made specifically to complement our commercial espresso machine. It will buy some missing parts for the espresso machine, a tool to keep it tuned, and barista tools that will allow students to work on barista-competition-level skills—tamping and pulling the espresso. Additionally, your donation will by four coffee serving carafes that will allow students to cater meetings at the school such as the principal’s administrative meetings, special education meetings, and teachers’ union gatherings.

Please click here to visit our donation site to make your 100% tax-deductible contribution.

Help Improve The Nutrition of Local High School Students

dominic le fave — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 17:31:37 +0000

Nutritious foods can be more delicious and exciting than any junk food!

That’s the message we want to teach high school students through our fantastic student-run cafe. Fruits, yogurt, even raw vegetables and greens make wonderful after-school refreshers when they are made into smoothies.

The Life Skills program at our school has run a vocational and pre-vocational program for several years. The program prepares young men and women with moderate and severe disabilities (e.g., Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Down’s Syndrome, Developmental Delays) to work in community jobs so that they can support themselves as adults and become productive and involved members of the Portland community. Our graduates have gone on to internships and jobs in the community, improving our economy and enriching our civic culture. Recently, our café received a donation of a top-of-the-line Italian espresso machine and the opportunity to expand into the faculty lounge to set up for food service. Thus, “The Green Scene Café” is expanding to offer more than just the best espresso drinks in town. This will give our students the opportunity to operate a real food service facility within the school. Not only that, but the cafe has started opening as a student venue after school!

My Project: We are requesting a commercial blender so that we can make smoothies in our cafe. We have two goals: 1. to teach students the value of healthy alternatives to soda and sweets and 2. to facilitate social interactions among students with disabilities and those without. Our cafe is already doing some of the later, but healthy sweets will definitely help facilitate social gatherings. If we can combine the teaching of healthy lifestyles with providing a cool venue for student talent in an inclusive, integrated and community building environment, then we will have made the best possible educational use of a small appliance ever!

The obesity and poor nutrition epidemic in this country is acute in our high schools, among teens, and especially among teens with disabilities. We need to address all these issues along with the social isolation and poor job preparation of many teens with disabilities. The blender we are requesting will be the centerpiece of our program to address the physical, social, and vocational health of our kids.

You can donate to this project at DonorsChoose.org:

http://www.donorschoose.org/lefave

Gallery: Chicago Transit Authority

dominic le fave — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:33:01 +0000

With my camera strapped to my bag and set to automatically take a photo every minute, I rode the CTA in Chicago. Not realist, documentary, intentional, nor even recording experiential data, the camera has its own impressions and dreams which it brings to consciousness by making the artist responsible.

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check this out as a slideshow click here

not a puzzle

dominic le fave — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 00:28:14 +0000

Today I attended an annual fundraising walk for Autism Speaks with one of my students and her family. Autism Speaks is a national organization that funds research into causes and treatments of autism. The picture below shows protesters of the event. The protesters are from ASAN (Autistic Self-Advocacy Network), a group that opposes biomedical approaches to dealing with Autism and promotes the acceptance, tolerance, and the value of “neurodiversity” and emphasizing that autism is part of the natural range of human neuro-development. ASAN protests every year and I increasingly value their message. As the research that Autism Speaks funds comes closer to discovering a prenatal test, we still–as a culture and community–have not fully grappled with the ethical consequences of other prenatal tests, such as the test for Down’s Syndrome, a test that when yielding a positive result also results in a nearly 90% abortion rate (a statistic that I take from ASAN’s flier that was handed out today at the walk).

ASAN, Portland, OR

While I was a participant in the Autism Speaks walk and support biomedical research into the causes of autism, I also support ASAN’s goal of creating a more inclusive and accepting society. I share ASAN’s concerns around the use of biomedical research to eradicate autism in people who are already fully formed human beings and the eugenic potential of genetics research is something that has already outstripped the capacity of our current ethics. Perhaps this underscores, more than anything, the need to fund genuine work in ethics. Ethics in our culture is generally only considered and funded at the level of law and policy. Any genuine philosophical or speculative research in ethics is left to the minor fringes of academia or relegated to nostalgic religious institutions.

ASAN-Portland

ASAN-National

From last year:

United Cerebral Palsy – Walk & Roll!

dominic le fave — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:43:11 +0000

UPDATE: This walk was a tremendous success! There were over 700 participants and the pizza was great. The best thing about it was being able to try out some new wheelchairs with one of my students, including some speeders and the Quickie All Court–which is just fantastic!

Track Chairs

Quickie All Court Wheelchair

Walk, Roll ‘n’ Run 2010

Sat. Sept 11, 2010. Run starts at 9am, Walk/Roll at 10:30am

I will be there with local families, students and friends in a celebratory walk to raise money for valuable Family Support Services in Oregon and Washington.

We will begin at SE Main and SE Water Ave in Portland Oregon. Nearest address is fire station located at 5 SE Madison, Portland OR 97214. Event is 4 blocks North of OMSI.

Please join me for a fun time and a great cause!

Please use this link to register now and join the fun: http://walkrollnrun.kintera.org/lefave/

Gallery: Social Stories

dominic le fave — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:46:27 +0000

Social stories have three main purposes: to explain what is really going on among people, to point out the possibility of meaning, and to say exactly what needs to be said in a particular situation. How many times do we really grasp these? Often we come to articulate them after we have left, or when others have left, and the traces arrange themselves nicely and clearly. These stories are meant to be read in advance so that understanding and speaking arrive contemporaneously in the moments they are needed. They are not retrospective but, rather, predictive.

Most of these are done with an old FED lens, a collapsible 50mm from the 1940s, mounted on a Zorki 4K and shooting long expired Tura, ISO 100, or Delta 100. Sometimes an Ernst Leitz Wetzlar Germany doubler lens is screwed into the front of the FED to turn it into a 100mm. Post-processing mostly consists of creating Newton rings with a piece of cheap glass and blowing out the exposures.

As another of my ongoing projects, this series will gradually widen to contain work done with other equipment and techniques.

Gallery: Seek Her Always

dominic le fave — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:57:24 +0000

Seek Her always. This ongoing project uses a variety of photographic techniques to explore the permutations of Wisdom through the scriptures, the culture, and my own experience. My primary concern was to provide glimpses of some of the ways in which Wisdom shows Herself in everyday life. The titles are taken from the holy scriptures in sometimes truncated forms and in hopefully evocative ways.

The Super Autoretrolux

dominic le fave — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:11:41 +0000

The Philosophographlux Super Autoretrolux is a medium format pinhole camera. It shoots 120 and 220 film in a 6x9cm or 6x6cm format. It utilizes two old Graflex Speed Graphic “23” rollfilm converters for 4×5 press cameras and a Speed Graphic 120 film back. The Super Autoretrolux is a system camera with both interchangeable boards and the new Super Autoretrolux TT Bayonet Speed Mount. These two attachment systems allow a nearly infinite variety of pinhole chambers to be attached to the film carrier quickly and easily.
I would like to thank Twinings Tea for making standard tea tins in the perfect size to surround a 6×9 film plane!
Since the edges of the 4×5 adapters don’t lend themselves to any kind of tripod attachment, I used a Manfrotto Super Clamp with a quick release plate attached. On the Mini Retrolux and some experimental chambers I used epoxy to attach a brass nut tripod mount. “Where is the shutter?” you ask. It is the dark side that is part of the 4×5 adapter or film back. One simply slides it out to open and back in to close. Since the shutter does not cover the pinhole, this is an easy camera with which to use filters.

The original pinhole chamber, the Super Autoretrolux 120EBT-8c, is made from a Twinings English Breakfast Tea tin, and a very nicely machined pancake pinhole mount with a laser-drilled 0.399mm hole in a stainless steel shim. The focal length is 80mm which makes this an f200 camera. I sprayed the inside of the tin with flat black enamel and used Ultra Black RTV silicone (available in the auto parts store—it is totally opaque) to attach the mount. I glued a filter step-up ring to the front of the pancake mount. Again, I sealed the edge where the ring attaches with Ultra Black RTV silicone. This allows thread-on photo filters to be easily attached and detached.

The Super Autoretrolux 120POW-2x80excentric

The Super Autoretrolux 120POW-2x80excentric is a pinhole chamber for the Super Autoretrolux. It has two 0.5mm holes in the corner of the tin causing double imaging and lots of distortion.

Super Autoretrolux TT Bayonet Speed Mount

I am pleased to announce the perfection of the Super Autoretrolux minute aperture camera system with the addition of the Super Autoretrolux TT Bayonet Speed Mount. This mount does not replace the already very flexible interchangeable pinhole tin board system, which allows various tins or other chambers to be quickly attached and detached, but rather augments this flexibility with a super fast bayonet mount on an interchangeable board.

The Super Autoretrolux TT Bayonet Speed Mount is made from the lid of a Twinings Tea tin that has had its top cut out. The rim of the lid was then glued to the interchangeable board. This provides a standard mount that will accept any Twinings Tea tin to be snapped onto the camera. Since I have dozens of these tins, this mount allows endless, quick, and easy experimentation with different pinhole designs.

The Super Autoretrolux 80EGT Zoom Tube

The Super Autoretrolux 80EGT Zoom Tube is a tea tin that has had its bottom cut out and the rim of a lid epoxyed to the bottom. It is thus an extension tube for any of the standard tea tin chambers and quickly snaps into the Super Autoretrolux TT Bayonet Speed Mount or another Super Autoretrolux 80EGT Zoom Tube.

The Super Autoretrolux 120CMS-11c

An ideal portrait camera, The Super Autoretrolux 120CMS-11c is constructed on an interchangeable board that mounts to the Graphlex 4×5 rollfilm adapter. On the board is epoxied a really nice Chunky Minestrone Soup can with a 0.5mm hole in the end. The focal length of the soup can is 110mm. Thus, The Super Autoretrolux 120CMS-11c is an f220 camera.

The Super Autoretrolux FS-2.5c

The newest addition to the Super Autoretrolux lineup is the FS-2.5c which utilizes a 25mm French Sardine can for the finest super-wide optics available. It is constructed from an old Graflex Speed Graphic “23” rollfilm converter for 4×5 press cameras, a Connétable Les Filets de Sardines Moutarde A L’Ancienne tin, and a very nicely machined pancake pinhole mount with a laser-drilled 0.0102mm hole in a stainless steel shim. The focal length is 25mm which makes this an f/96 camera. I sprayed the inside of the tin with flat black enamel and used Ultra Black RTV silicone (available in the auto parts store—it is totally opaque) to attach the interchangeable tin board. These boards are made from a very ridged and flat particle board that has been cut to size and sprayed with flat black enamel.

There is a heavy vignette effect from the super-wide angle. I will be experimenting with different sized holes to compensate or exacerbate.

The Super Autoretrolux 120EBT-4c~8.5c2x

The 120EBT-4c~8.5c2x Anamorphic Double Ambiguation Minute Aperture Camera is affectionately known as the “Insect Camera” or “Bird Camera” because of the way it collects light from both sides of its “head.” Using a standard tea tin on the Super Autoretrolux TT Bayonet Speed Mount, this pinhole chamber has a 0.5mm hole in the middle of the two opposing narrower sides of the tin. The light thus falls at a severe angle to the film plane. Since there are two holes, it also causes a “double exposure,” which is actually a single exposure with two apertures.

The Mini Retrolux

The Mini Retrolux is a compact addition to the Super Autoretrolux Minute Aperture Camera System. It is built around a Graflex “22” film back for medium format press cameras. It shoots 120 and 220 rollfilm in 6×6 square format. Unlike the 4×5 adaptors that are used with the interchangeable 4×5 boards, this camera is very compact and not much bigger than a standard point-and-shoot. The Super Autoretrolux TT Bayonet Speed Mount is glued directly to the film back. Thus, this camera will work with any of the Twinings Tea tin pinhole chambers. A brass nut is affixed with epoxy to the bottom of the film back to provide a tripod mount.

Here you can see the Mini Retolux sporting a new chamber, The 120EBT-4.5c which is made from a Twinings English Breakfast Tea tin that has been cut down for a 45mm focal length. I pried the bottom off the tin, cut it down, and then smashed the bottom back on. Then I sealed the bottom edges with epoxy and Ultra Black RTV silicone. The pinhole is drilled directly into the bottom of the tin with a conical diamond bit and sandpaper. The inside of the chamber is sprayed with Ultra Flat Black Enamel.

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The Super Kabahlucida XLP 300mm/f2 Lens

dominic le fave — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:46:52 +0000

Front Objective

The Super Kabahlucida XLP lens was constructed with a single 150mm uncoated biconvex glass element that I had reclaimed from an old movie film duplicating machine in New Orleans. The lens body is made of plywood finished in an ebony stain and black wax polish. It features two rectangular housings that slide one inside the other to quickly adjust the focal length. Designed as a portrait lens, its huge light gathering capacity also makes it excellent for low-light work. Of course its distinctive optical features are the soft focus effects, uncorrected comas, limited depth of field, and dreamy highlights characteristic of single-element designs and used glass. These features are enormously accentuated and exaggerated in unique ways by the sheer size and mass of this lens. Cast iron handles balance the weight of the front objective as well as provide maneuverability. The lens is substantial and with a camera attached weighs about thirty pounds.

Fine focus on The Super Kabahlucida is obtained either by a scale-focusing Leica macro tube mount (or SLR mount) or with a fixed mount that makes use of the housing slide.

Housing Slide and focus

There is no aperture adjustment so this lens shoots wide OPEN. Exposure is controlled using the shutter in the 35mm camera body. Thus, at f2, The Super Kabahlucida is one of the fastest telephoto lenses ever.

The Super Kabahlucida has four tripod mounts with a seven-inch Arca Swiss quick release plate and a locking pin to keep the two halves of lens body together during transport. Rubber feet allow it to be placed directly on a tabletop.

Super Kabahlucida Lens "on" the Bessa L

Above you can see The Super Kabahlucida mounted to a Cosina Voigtlander Bessa L camera via an E. Leitz New York Leica macro tube mount with scale focusing. Uniquely, the Bessa L is a scale-focused Leica Thread Mount camera with TTL metering—very useful with this lens. The focusing scale had to be precisely and painstakingly developed for The Super Kabahlucida.

Mounted to an SLR