A discourse in photography, media and culture
Americans for the Arts decided to have their annual convention in Albuquerque this year. This is a national, DC-based organization that lobbies for and supports the arts on a broad basis. One reason for the convention coming to New Mexico this year might be that a high-ranking New Mexico government official is on their board of directors, but it's actually a natural fit, given the history of this…
Of course, I didn't go into the gory details of all the other fiddly things I did for this repair, like the ribbon take up was wonky, necessitating the lefthand spool drive sprocket needing to the adjusted. Or that the Power-Space feature, that interacts with the escapement, is sensitive to misadjustment and can wonkify the carriage movement at a moment's notice unless carefully attended to. Or…
There's an interesting thing happening in the digital photography space, which are new digital camera products that promise a "film-like" experience. You may have seen these products being advertised, with names like Camp Snap or the now popular Kodak Charmera . What these have in common is they use a very low-quality, color, 4:3 aspect ratio, tiny digital sensor, the kind originally intended for…
Casa Rinconada, Chaco Canyon National Historic Park There's a silver gelatin contact print of this image hanging on a wall in my home. It was made in the late 1990s using a sheet of resin-coated black-and-white darkroom paper exposed at Chaco Canyon in a handmade pinhole box camera. The resulting "paper negative," after processing and drying, was contact printed onto a sheet of Forte fiber-based…
Some writings gleaned from this end-of-year event: It's become a tradition of sorts to post these pages harvested from our public typewriter events, like a crowd-sourced poetry collective. Of course, I've already filtered out the usual den of quick brown foxes. Our next public event is January 15 at the ABQ Museum for their Third Thursday Event , where we will have a display table with typewriter,…
It's been several months since I've updated you, my regular readers, on the happenings in my world. We last talked about the various typings culled from our highly successful Type-In at the ABQ Museum in August of 2025. We also had acquired a lovely Adler J3 typewriter, seen above. I've been wanting to make a comparison video between that German-made medium-size portable and several other German…
L ast month we had our most successful public typewriter event yet at the Albuquerque Museum, where hundreds of people had the opportunity to try their hand at a dozen typewriters we had brought. Check out the blog article for more details. Just like with previous events, once the crowds have dispersed we are left to pack up our machines and collect the papers strewn across tables and left in…
This is the original dealer tag, from Boulder, Colorado. There's a second tag on the left side from a California-based office supply store in Universal City. The styling of this machine is wonderful! The three levers visible here are, from left to right, paper release, carriage release and all tabs clear. The carriage lock lever is visible on the bottom. Another beauty shot! I think the feel of…
Our 12-typewriter setup at the Albuquerque Museum This month has been busy for the ABQwerty Type Writer Society ! We kicked off the month on August 2nd at the Ernie Pyle library with a Type-In celebrating the famed journalist's birthday. Check out this blog article for details. THE SECOND EVENT: Next came our biggest event yet: a public typewriter gathering in conjunction with the Albuquerque…
Here's the work I did on the Royal Century : Here's the 1941 Underwood Universal , at the Ernie Pyle Library event: I think the standout machine at this event was the Remington Portable No.2 (which formerly was my machine but I've since given it to my friend Bill), as Ernie evidently used one of these as a traveling journalist in the 1930s. Okay, back to that pretty blue Seiko-made Century , I was…
Fingers on keys Our spring 2025 typewriter event was once again at Cherry Hills Library, located near the foothills of the Sandias in northeast ABQ. Myself and Matthew Bouchard set up the event and brought a total of 23 machines, only one of which, a Hermes 10, was electric. There were a few other people who also brought their own. We ended up having over 40 participants, many of whom stayed and…
Woz Flint typewriting It's been a fun week here in ABQ for typewriter events! Here at the ABQwerty Type Writer Society world headquarters, we've been busy with a littany of events intended to encourage the inner writer in all of us. Matt writing on his Olivetti-Underwood Studio 44 at the Tony Hillerman Library Matthew Bourchard, one of our key members, has been instrumental in arranging these Type…
La La Cafe in northeast ABQ has become one of our favorite venues for impromptu typewriter meet-ups Joe's writing iron of choice, a 1929 Corona 3, in spectacularly good condition, with new rubber and a rebuilt carry case Practice makes perfect, and here you can see the title at the top is not well centered! We, Matthew and I, had originally planned to do some actual, honest-to-gosh public poetry…
We had our first Type-In of the year at another local library, this time at the Juan Tabo Library in northeast ABQ, just a few miles from the foothills of the Sandia Mountain Wilderness. This library is the closest to my neighborhood and one I've walked to on numerous occasions; although the Tony Hillerman Library , though further away, is the one I favored since childhood, as it is located in a…
A crop of my left hip x-ray image post hip joint replacement surgery Even if they were precision surgical tools! When I'd returned home from surgery, several weeks ago, my left leg was colored yellow because of the disinfectant they'd used; but that washed away after my first showering. Yet, weeks later, I still had some yellowish tinge to the back of my thigh, along with some nasty-looking…
Royal KMM, a classic American-made standard typewriter with whole-line spacing The KMM's line spacing clutch button How I made pencil marks spaced 1/4 inch along the left margin (before typing!) (The curved lines are from the camera lens) Aligning the reference line on the backing sheet to the edge of the card guide Resulting in evenly spaced rows of text at 1.5 line spacing!
Well obviously I was being overly dramatic with the title, because the Zeppelin wasn't "lost," just in storage. The box itself was designed to fit in the bed of my Ford Ranger pickup. The frame was made of 1 inch x 2 inch wood, laminated with white corrugated plastic panels and a hinged door on one end. It's wide enough to have fit both halves of the finished airframe, which itself was intended to…
So, what's a "Pop-Up?" It's a short-notice event where you show up with something -- often it's crafts people with a table or booth selling their wares, or whatever -- but in this case we're using the term to mean a small typewriter gathering in a public venue, publicized just to our contact list. We show up, we set up, we eat and/or drink, type and chat. What could be more fun? Kevin brought his…
Here I've underlined areas in this pre-repair typing sample where the letter spacing was crowded against other letters. The problem didn't seem to be consistent or present any pattern. Steve's invoice, whose style harkens back to my TV repair days. Here's the part Steve replaced. It's obviously an original IBM part, complete with label and part number. It's great having access to a guy who not…
I should insert a family story here. Our grandparents had several rental houses, besides their main home at 112 Edith. There was a house on High Street that served as a boarding house during WW2. Some time in the very early 1950s an FBI agent came knocking on Grandpa's door, asking about a tenant name David Greenglass, who had rented a room at the High Street location. It turned out Greenglass was…
Harman Direct Positive Print, Pinholio Self-Developing Pinhole Camera The last Sunday in April is when the global pinhole photography community celebrates Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day . Their website is humble enough such that they don't self-promote the fact that they've been doing this for years. I know our fellow blogger and pinhole photographer Nick Dvoracek has been involved in this for…
Lomo Colorado Library in Rio Rancho Amongst the standout machines on display was this folding Hammond, brought by Bill Tefft: We were also impressed with this Smith Premier No.10, with a business-oriented upper keyboard, while the lower keyboard are caps; there are four separate tabulator keys to the right: Kevin brought this Olivetti 660C typebar electric, that was popular with many people, due…
Canon T5i DSLR with 100-300mm lens I've never been an avid DSLR user. For the uninitiated, "DSLR" stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex camera, implying the sensor is digital instead of film, and there's a mirror in front of the sensor that directs the view from the camera lens to a ground glass screen, the image of which is relayed via a prism to the viewfinder eyepiece, just like with a film SLR…
Vivitar 110 Film Camera, early 1970s in Albuquerque The physical model of the vehicle placed against a blue background The image of the model composited with contrails as it appeared to my brother Typecast via Remington Ten Forty.
One of my all-time favorite writing machines, the Underwood 5! Here's the link to the March workshop. Woz Facilitating I didn't expect this personal kind of writing! I liked this SCM-made Sears Constellation