[LargeFormat] prewar Speed Graphic

[Les Newcomer]

Even in the late 80's pencil lasers weren't around. I got a contract with 
a military company making high end scanners and bought an industrial laser 
about the same size as Brock's. After the job, it sat in the file drawer.  
At one point I needed a pointer for a slide show and remembered it.  After 
the slide show I left the laser in my car overnight and headed for work as 
an assistant/shooter the next morning.

I was still on my first cup of coffee and the head photographer was trying 
to figure out how to locate the huge softbox at one point for a shoot, 
move it out and then get it back to the same EXACT position.

"What we need is a laser", he fantasized out loud.  A sly grin crossed my 
face and without a word I started to walk out of the room.
"Where are you going?!"
"To get my laser out of my trunk." I replied flatly
The look of astonishment on his face was quite gratifying.
"What? I suppose you don't have a spare HeNe laser in YOUR car????"


And it worked very well too.  He started using it to direct us.
"move that light over here"  He would order, moving the laser around.
We finally got it through to him that we weren't crazy about "direction by 
laser" when we all started batting at the red dot like cats.
les

On Wednesday, January 8, 2003, at 09:21 PM, Brock Nanson wrote:

> It was even more fun in the 70's... my father was a science teacher and 
> they
> had a small (40cm, 1kg!) helium neon laser for experiments.  I used to 
> shoot
> it out the second floor window of his lab at night onto the snow in front 
> of
> people walking their dogs... back then a laser wasn't exactly a household
> toy so you can imagine the reactions I got...  The best ones were the
> nervous glances at the sky looking for little green men joy-riding...
>
> Brock
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "rstein" <rstein@bigpond.net.au>
> To: <largeformat@f32.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2003 9:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [LargeFormat] prewar Speed Graphic
>
>
>> Dear Nephew Tim and others,
>>
>>      Dear Olde Uncle Dick uses a laser pointer to assist in focussing
>> wedding groups in dim surroundings but he would never stoop to terrifying
>> harmless drunks in the street. For Shame.
>>
>>     Notes down technique for future use.
>>
>>      Uncle Dick
>>
>>
>>
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>
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