Joseph Szymanski

Disassembly of Front Cover and Shutter Holder:

1. Tear off front cover leather -A,B, (2136,2137) take off four setscrews (9004) and the M.X. changing knob (2132) so that the front cover set (219 set) may be taken off.

2. Open the back cover and take out the light shield barrel (1034), shutter nut (2141) and shutter and also disconnect the soldered portions.

3. Take off successively the focus adjusting washer (2140), reset ring (2020), shutter seat (2017), charge ring washer (2018) and shutter charge ring (2019).

Adjust shutter after the shutter being assembled:

Charge the shutter with the focusing lever being set at the near or closeup distance. If it fails to be charged, lift little by little the crank arm adjustment plate so as to select the charge point and then check if the reset ring arm is in contact with the shutter lever when the former is charged. Adjust the overcharge at the infinity position and confirm this adjustment at the near position also. If the adjustment is not sufficient, make further adjustment by means of the adjustment plate.

Posted in Notebook / Misc | Tags: Camera Restoration, Minolta Autocord

Post Disassembly, the Leica IIIf I snagged off Ebay is starting to shape up. Picked up a 3.5cm f/3.5 lens and a multi-finder off Ebay as well. Up next is to order a new leather covering.

If you ever have a camera in need of a new covering, check out cameraleather.com. The web site is pretty dated, but this guy has everything from classic black pebble calfskin to red lizard skin coverings, if that’s your bag. It’s a pretty simple and cost effective way to bring an old camera back to life.

It’s difficult to tell from the photograph, but the chrome is pitting badly on most of the top plate, so I’ll probably end up stripping the chrome, and re-painting the body in black lacquer. Mechanically the camera is in great shape after I re-built the shutter and cleaned out the 50 years worth of dirt.

Have a look through the Leica IIIF tag to see a few images I’ve shot with it so far…

Posted in Notebook / Misc | Tags: Camera Restoration, Leica IIIF, Leica Screw Mount

I have gone to bed with such a deep feeling of shame more nights than I care to remember in these past eight years. On November 4th, I fell asleep with the hope that our nation and it’s people can some how dig ourselves out of the colossal hole that has been dug.

“This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:”

“Yes, we can.” - Barack Obama

Posted in Notebook / Misc | Tags: Barack Obama

Leica iiic, factory converted to a iiif. Purchased from Ebay in a non-functioning condition. Stripped the camera, rebuilt the escapement, cleaned and lubed all the gearing, now the shutter fires like butter. Stay tuned for the re-assembly…

Posted in Notebook / Misc | Tags: Camera Restoration, Leica Screw Mount

In hindsight, there is something a little unsettling, at least to me, about hopping a plane to Las Vegas on a Friday night with all of eighteen dollars in my pocket and a handful of film in the bag, though a free ride helped stem the discomfort, and a hotel room twice the size of my apartment would alleviate the rest, and nothing makes photographs quite like the most ridiculous city ever created by man, woman or god, so it wasn’t as though I could turn down the offer.

Both white trash and new money were out in full force, Elvis was, as a matter of fact, in several buildings, lounge lizards and blue hairs, pumping the slot machines like rats hitting the feeder bar for another tasty food pellet, and just when I thought I had seen it all, in strolled a young woman in white with full bridal party in tow, groom and groomsmen dressed to the nines, they made their vows to one another right then and there, in a shopping mall food court.

“Who are these people? These faces? Where did they come from? They look like caricatures of used car dealers from Dallas, and sweet Jesus, there are a hell of a lot of them at 4:30 on a Sunday morning. Still humping the American dream.” - Hunter S. Thompson

Thanks Doc, for the Vegas bender…

Posted in Notebook / Misc | Tags: Las Vegas

After a bit of re-organizing and a little editing, the fine art prints section has been pared down and updated to reflect the most popular imagess in my archive. In addition to the re-organization, custom silver gelatin print sets of selected images are now available for purchase at a lesser price per print than when ordering single photographs.

Fine art print sets contain between three and six silver gelatin prints and are available in two sizes; 8×10 and 11×14 inches. Each print is matted with buffered 4 ply acid free museum board and delivered in an archival clamshell box. Sets of 8×10’s will be matted to 11×14 inches, sets of 11×14’s will be matted to 16×20 inches.

As always, I personally hand print all image sets using traditional darkroom processes. Each image is individually printed, and no two prints are ever the same, making each print a unique piece with its own individual characteristics.

More Notes On Process » || About Fine Art Prints » || View Silver-Gelatin Fine Art Print Sets »

Posted in Notebook / Misc | Tags: Black and White, Silver Gelatin Prints

It’s long overdue. Time for a house clearing and some major reorganization of presence on the web.

The openorigins.com site will continue to function as is for the time being. I will continue to post in a somewhat regular fashion, but there will be significantly less new content being published. The new site, www.josephszymanski.com, will now host all of my personal work, while gradually the origins site will be phased out and re-vamped into something completely different. What that is I’m not quite sure, but I have a few ideas cooking.

The new feed address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/MostlyPhotography.. The origins feed will stay the same for now, though eventually it will most likely forward here. I encourage everyone who is subscribe to update to the new address. I’ll send out some more reminders on this over the next few weeks. If you wish to subscribe via email, visit the Subscribe page.

A good deal of the static content here is the same, with a few updates, additions and minor changes. The fine art prints section has been completely overhauled. Check out the print sets page for custom image sets.

Some notes on code. I have done very little debugging for Internet Explorer and make no promises that it will function perfectly, or even properly. If it doesn’t work, download a real browser instead of an over inflated piece of bloat-ware like IE.

As always, enjoy…

Posted in Notebook / Misc | Tags: Starting From Scratch

I do my best to keep my politics off the web and away from my art, but frankly, George W. Bush is an imbecile and a boob. That said, we here in the states did get a tax rebate thanks to him. There are no jobs, health care, no affordable housing, and we’re spending billions searching for phantom WMDs, but we got a rebate. A whole $600, part of the economic stimulus package of George W. and the rest of the right wingers and schmucks calling the shots. Just Brilliant, thanks guys…

Rather than waste all that cold hard cash at Wall Mart and Costco like they hope you will, I suggest a more enlightened approach. Buy some art. Here’s why…

1. Art is one of those peculiar things that most everybody loves, but nowhere near enough people actually support it. Do yourself a favor and support an artist, I promise that you’ll enjoy the feeling you get almost as much as the art itself.

2. Most everything in this world is fleeting, nothing lasts forever, except art. It may not be popular, it may be dated, it may not be worth a fortune, but it will always have a place in the world.

3. Art is an investment. Again, it may not be worth a fortune, chances are you aren’t buying the next “Starry Night”. However, nearly all art will appreciate over time.

4. The process itself can be an enjoyable one. It is no myth that artists are often peculiar, eccentric and abnormal folks. If nothing else, purchasing a piece directly from the artist will be incredibly entertaining.

5. WalMart, Costco, Sony and Microsoft do not need anymore of your hard earned money. Honestly, please don’t give it to them, they have enough already. Do any of us really need a 50 inch plasma screen TV anyway? By a piece of art instead, they have better warranties.

Posted in Notebook / Misc |

The woman at the coffee house never understands, too much already rolling around in her head I suppose, waiting in line with the rest of the addicts looking for the afternoon fix to keep things moving, to keep the day moving along, waiting in line with minimum wagers behind the counter taking orders and giving attitude… 

“…could I have a small coffee in a large cup please?” and minimum wager with glassy eyes and furled brow wondering back at me about why I’m asking for things not on the wall, because if it’s not on the wall it doesn’t really exist, so “I’ll have to charge you for a large” she says and makes a face and waits for me to answer, holding up the line of addicts waiting for a fix…

“I don’t want a large, I would like a small, in a large cup…”

“Well, the price of cream and sugar is part of the coffee” she says being overtly visibly frustrated and annoyed with the un-ending line of addicts piling up making her day more miserable by the second quite perturbed that someone has asked for something thats not on the wall, if only they just stuck to what was on the wall, I can make a half-caf skinny mocha whatever with foam because thats on the wall, but a small coffee in a large cup…

“I don’t want cream” I reply, “or sugar. I would like a small coffee, in a container that is large-ish or larger than what you normally put a small coffee into, nothing more, just room, the coffee needs room, that’s all, I just need the room.”

Glassy eyed miserable minimum wager blinked and paused,… and thought about things for a minute, I watched the wheels turn in her head and could see that things were not going well for her at that very moment what with the line of addicts waiting for a fix, and so I gave up and ordered a large coffee, paid for the large coffee in a large cup and dumped out enough to leave me with a small coffee in a large cup, because the woman at the coffee shop just never understands.

I just like the room…

Posted in Notebook / Misc |