mattblaze

mattblaze, 5 days ago

Captured with a DSLR and a Zeiss 21mm Distagon lens. Handheld (there was no room to set up a tripod).

in 2009, I was fortunate to join a "top to bottom" tour of former Air Force Titan ICBM site 571-7, now preserved as a museum. Titan II missiles carried a 9 megaton(!) "physics package" in the "reentry vehicle" (which they emphatically assured me had been removed from this missile, but I still wouldn't advise upsetting them too much).

mattblaze, 5 days ago

More ICBM photos and discussion here: https://www.mattblaze.org/blog/titans/

mattblaze, 6 days ago

This is a stitched composite of two captures made from the same position, using horizontal shift movements to get a wider field of view on either side. This was really the only way to capture this building from in front of a tree that would otherwise have obstructed the facade, while also keeping its geometry undistorted. The final result is roughly the angle of view of a 14mm lens (in 35mm full frame terms), with a total of about 190 megapixels in the combined frame.

mattblaze, 6 days ago

Captured with the Rodenstock 32mm/4.0 HR Digaron-W (@ f/6.3 lens, Phase One IQ4-150 back, and Phase One XT camera. Composite of two shifted images (+/- 12mm from center horizontally, -12mm vertically).

Technically the "House of the Temple, Headquarters of the Supreme Council, 33°, Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, Washington DC". The local Masonic temple, museum, library, and, I'm told, a gift shop. Definitely no human sacrifices performed there.

mattblaze, 6 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

I used the 32mm Rodenstock here. I could have just barely squeezed it into a single frame with the wider-angle 23mm, except that the 23 doesn't have a large enough image circle to accommodate the vertical shift needed to keep the vertical lines from converging. The 32 has a much larger image circle, and so stitching with it yields a wider angle of view than I could obtain with the 23 (which allows only much more limited movements). More pixels this way, too.

mattblaze, 7 days ago

This image attempts to highlight the difference between realism and more abstract schools like Precisionism. While it's a realistic image in the strict sense that it's a straight, basically unaltered photograph of buildings, it deliberately omits elements that might distract from the abstract lines and and shapes that make them up. The black sky (aided by the IR exposure) and harsh, almost threatening diagonal shadows add to the unreal feeling.

mattblaze, 7 days ago

This was captured early afternoon on a clear day with a Rodenstock HR Digaron-W 50mm/4.0 (@ f/7.1) lens, Phase One IQ4 150 Achromatic Back (@ ISO 200) and Phase One XT camera (10mm vertical shift). 760nm IR filter, which effectively blackened the sky.

This is an abstract view of modern midtown skyscrapers, as perhaps Georgia O'Keeffe might have seen them. The composition is a nod to the Precisionist school of a century earlier, emphasizing the lines and essential geometry of the buildings.

mattblaze, 7 days ago

This photo was particularly influenced by two O'Keeffe paintings from her time in NYC, almost a century ago (during her precisionist period). She lived in the building at left.

See
https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/manhattan-34289

and also
https://collections.artsmia.org/art/2725/city-night-georgia-okeeffe

mattblaze, 8 days ago

Captured with a Rodenstock 50mm/4.0 HR Digaron lens (@ f/5.0) and the Phase One IQ4-150 back, shifted vertically by 12mm.

This is a straightforward, somewhat abstract, composition, emphasizing scale and lines. It converges out of sight below the foreground pier, suggesting an infinite roadway.

I shot this several times, day and night, and the nighttime image, in which the steelwork under the bridge is closer in brightness to the sky, was much more interesting. The cloudy night helps, too.

mattblaze, 8 days ago

The more famous bridge just to the south, named for another borough, gets most of the photographic love, but I think the Manhattan Bridge deserves respect, too.

mattblaze, 9 days ago (edited 7 days ago)

Captured with the Rodenstock 90mm/5.6 HR Digaron (@ f/7.1) and the PhaseOne IQ4-150 "Achromatic" back. 12mm of vertical shift kept the geometry in line. The sharp lens and achromatic back reveal a lot of detail zoomed in at full resolution (full res is downloadable on flickr).

This is a very simple composition, the frame filled with the Memorial from roughly the perspective shown on the $5 bill. The National Parks Service does a superb job lighting the site.

mattblaze, 10 days ago

Captured with a DSLR and 24mm shifting lens (vertically shifted just a bit) on a hot day in the Mojave desert.

This is a simple composition, characteristic of the early 20th century Precisionist school. There's little in the frame that isn't essential. The pylons, wires, and tracks all converge at a vanishing point at the edge of the frame, suggesting, but not showing, an expansive network of wires, tracks, and, for better or worse, human dominance over nature.

mattblaze, 10 days ago

Telegraph poles with multiple "code lines" were once a common feature along American railroads. They are distinguishable from ordinary power or telephone lines by their multitude of cables, often occupying several crossarms. The wires typically include a power bus plus separate leads for the signals along the route, with a various encodings used as technology improved.

They've been mostly supplanted by more modern SCADA systems that don't require so many individual wires.

mattblaze, 10 days ago

@north_easton I should have included that.

Here's a thread where I discuss the particular camera system I generally use: https://federate.social/@mattblaze/111218509478918596

And here's a picture of a full-fledged view camera that I occasionally use: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/43984565630

A

mattblaze, 10 days ago

15 years later, I wrote up my recollections of Clipper, key escrow, and what we now know as "crypto war I" in an invited talk at ACSAC 2011: https://www.mattblaze.org/papers/escrow-acsac11.pdf