I just learned that Kodak has pulled the plug on the best slide film ever...my old friend Kodachrome. This act really shows the transition of the whole photography industry's conversion from film to digital of which I am guilty of being a part of for the past six years. It's like the death nail to film. An end of an era.
Thanks for all the great images you've given me. Those vibrant reds...deep azure gradient sky...those greens of summer (where have you heard that)...the warm flesh tones. All the colors just popping out...wow. And the images were so sharp. There's nothing else like it.
Kodachrome was my main film during my two year trek in Asia thirty years ago. I memorize the lab's address in Palo Alto, CA to this day...925 Pagemill Road. OK..I might have forgotten the zip code, let me guess...94034.
Just checked...it's 94304...not bad.
A handful of mailers I sent from Katmandu never made it back here. To this day I am so sad as to what happen to all those images from Thailand, Burma and Nepal.
I have a ton of slides that I would like to digitize. I don't own a good film scanner yet. I understand most graphic scanners come with a transparency adapter to scan film. Any suggestions out there?
Farewell Kodachrome. We had some great times. Thanks for all the beautiful images.
I've been going around doing free psychedellic profile portraits for people where ever I see them. To get this effect, all I do is adjust the contrast in photoshop.
Hey...if you see me and if I got my camera with me, feel free to hit me up for a free psychedellic profile portrait.
Foh Gai Hoon means Turkey's Butt in the Taishan dialect.
Foh Gai Hoon is basically a game of tag in which you cup your hand in a soft fist, making a circle with the index finger and thumb. Then going around giving the turkey butt or preventing yourself from getting the turkey butt.
It's like a game of tag in which the person who is "it" with the Foh Gai Hoon has to touch someone else's exposed chin with the index finger and thumb of the soft fist and loudly say, "Foh Gai Hoon!" So that everyone else know that person now has the Foh Gai Hoon.
The person who is now "it" and has to tag someone else's exposed chin. In the meantime, everyone is walking around with their chins covered. The person who is "it" is just waiting for anyone to have their guard down.
This game is easy and doesn't require a lot of running around. In fact, a game of Foh Gai Hoon can go on for days with no end.
I don't know where this game originated from, but it was a game of my Chinatown childhood. I don't see my kids playing it nowadays. I guess it's another game that has been lost to computer games. But you can keep this game alive by giving someone a Foh Gai Hoon today.
Another similar game we played is called "mung" but I'll leave that one for another day.
Duncombe Alley is an interesting alley on the 700th block of Jackson Street (between Grant and Stockton Street). There's an iron gate now at the opening of the alley now. I remember there was only a small handmade wooden sign for the alley long ago. This alley went all the way through to the other side on Pacific Avenue. When they built the Ping Yuen Housing Projects in the 50's it became a dead end alley. A thirteen step stairway leads down into the alley. Just a few residences, a village association and a small alterations shop. At the end of the alley, a sign for the Hom Village Association adorned with plants.
I'm doing the graphics for this Autumn Dance Classic in October. I am to do the ad, ticket and a sixty-eight page program.
This is the ad.
Here is the cover of the program. They told me they will supply me with all the pages laid out already. I hope that is so...or they know what they're talking about. I don't plan to type and layout sixty-eight pages. It will cost them some extra money if I had to. And of course they tell me they're not making money on this. Which gets me worried. I'm going to just make it press ready and they'll find a printer for it.
I find it so hard to do business with people who don't have a computer...though they do have a website but nothing much on it.
Lifetime
