Matt Blaze"Pennsylvania Avenue Subway" Tunnel, Former Reading Railroad City Branch, Philadelphia, 2004.
Captured with a Fuji GX680 camera, 80mm lens, T-Max 100 film. Some tilt was applied to control focus. It was very dark in there, and focusing required the use of a flashlight.
The Pennsylvania Avenue Subway was built to provide a sub-grade freight connection between the Reading Railroad's main line and its "City Branch". It served the Baldwin Locomotive Works' Callowhill plant and, later, the Philadelphia Inquirer's printing plant, among other Center City industries. Abandoned in the 1980's.
The GX680 was a fun but very unusual camera that couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be. It was a truly gigantic beast of a medium format SLR camera providing (limited) view camera movements. It used 120-format roll film with a 6x8cm frame (so a 3:4 aspect ratio), with a built-in autowinder. It's sort of what you'd get if you somehow merged a Nikon F4, a Hasselblad, and a Crown Graphic. Definitely not a point & shoot camera.
Fun fact: the Reading was a major northeastern US railroad (made famous internationally by its place on the Monopoly gameboard), which ceded its rail business in 1976 to the newly formed Conrail consortium. But the company kept most of its non-railroad real estate holdings, and also operates cinemas (including NYC's Angelika) in several countries.
(The Reading Company was named for the Pennsylvania city, and so is pronounced with the past tense of what you do with words on a page).
Bjørnar (he/him)@mattblaze fun fact, editions outside of the US have generally been localized and don't use the same properties. I know a couple of properties indirectly through Monopoly showing up in US made movies and TV, but Reading wasn't one.
Ken Butler@mattblaze presumably the Reading Railroad was named for the Pennsylvania city, which itself was named for the town in England(*), which is pronounced the same way.
(*) The UK has many cities, but the UK Reading is officially not one. I recommend the Map Men video on the matter: https://youtu.be/Whqs8v1svyo . Also, I was born there.
Why British cities make no sense
Bava@mattblaze It would be cool if you post pictures of the cameras (equipment/setup) too. Thanks.
Sir Farts Alot@mattblaze I’ve never had the opportunity to handle the Fuji, but it is probably as massive as a Mamyia RB or RZ-67 with a 45° prism viewfinder, 120mm lens and a 220 film back. They created a phenomenal negative but they were a tank when it came to portability. Great for studio camera but not so fun on location
When it came to mounting negs on aperature cards for printing, the 6x7 negs allowed for so many cropping ratios and print sizes, even an A crop (35mm)card.
When it came to mounting negs on aperature cards for printing, the 6x7 negs allowed for so many cropping ratios and print sizes, even an A crop (35mm)card.
Kelley Graham@horqua @mattblaze heavy. I’ve hiked up to about 9500 feet off trail. Backpack weighs about 50 pounds minimum, not including tripod. Worth it.
Mamiya RB67 medium format camer…
Mamiya RB67 medium format camer…
@imklg @mattblaze What a chunk of steel & glass!
@horqua the Fuji actually manages to be bigger! Take the RZ and add a focusing rail and bellows to the front!