From the Archives: 1990s Kodachromes from Vicksburg, Mississippi

Vicksburg, Mississippi, had so much interesting photographic material. I am glad I explored when Kodak's famous Kodachrome film was still available and could be processed by laboratories equipped to handle the special chemicals and techniques. I used Kodachrome until near its final end in the early 2000s. It is gone forever and will not be revived, despite the requests from old-timers. Here are some samples from the 1990s.

Fairground Street Bridge from top of an oil tank 

Rear stairs on Grove Street house pre-renovation (20mm ƒ/5.6 Russar lens)

Deconstruction, 807 Main Street

Chevrolet, Grove Street

Vicksburg depot and tracks used by Vicksburg Southern Railroad (VSOR)

View east to Mulberry Street from depot 2nd floor

I looked into the former depot (now housing the Old Depot Museum) and saw some youngsters. They said they rented an apartment on the second floor. They generously let me take some photographs from their balcony.

Lower Grove Street

Discount Barn, Levee Street

Former McKay Motors on Washington Street (150mm ƒ/4 Super-Takumar lens)

Cottages, 505 and 507 Fairground Street (200mm ƒ/4 Leitz Telyt-V lens)

Pearl Street view north (50mm)

This ends a short look back in time. I have hundreds of more Kodachrome slides of Vicksburg. Will I ever have time to scan them? 

From the Archives: Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1990 with 4×5" Film

Vicksburg in the 1990s offered so many interesting photographic topics. It still looked like an "old" town, with small shops, hand-lettered signs, and buildings that stepped out of the early 20th century. It changed and slightly modernized in the decades that followed, so I am eternally grateful that I made the effort to get out and about with my camera way back when. 

Here are some 1990 examples made on 4×5" film, some from my wood Japanese Tachihara camera and others from a Burke & James (an old-time camera manufacturer from Chicago). 

Reverend Dennis with a visitor, 1990 (90mm ƒ/6.8 Wollensak Raptar lens)

Margaret's Gro on North Washington Street was a folk art cultural icon for over 35 years. Reverend Herman D. Dennis married Margaret in 1979 and slowly transformed her store on North Washington Street into his Temple to the Lord. He told me he learned his brick skills from German prisoners of war who he guarded in World War II. Many of his foreign visitors were German tourists. After Margaret and Dennis passed away, the art work deteriorated and vandals stole pieces. The Mississippi Folk Art  Foundation has preserved some of the materials in a warehouse.

Loading dock for logs, Yazoo Canal (Kodak Tri-X film, 75mm ƒ/8 Super-Angulon lens, yellow filter)

Alley behind Washington Street buildings (Turner-Reich Triple Convertible lens at 8½ inch) 

North Washington Street view south (Turner-Reich Triple Convertible lens at 20 inch)

The grassy field in the foreground had railroad tracks under the debris. At one time, passenger trains came to these platforms.

Openwood Street garage (Tri-X film, 75mm ƒ/8 Super Angulon lens) 

Kansas City Southern rail yard and Levee Street, view south to the Fairground Street Bridge (Turner-Reich Triple Convertible lens at 20 inch)

The Kansas City Southern rail yard occupied a flat zone below the Vicksburg bluffs and just east of the Yazoo Canal. A rail yard had been in this area since before the Civil War. Unlike rail yards in big cities, this one had no fences, so one could take interesting pictures. The Fairground Street Bridge in the distance in the photograph above was open when I took the pictures in 1990, but it has been condemned and closed for over two decades. As usual: fate unknown despite its historic status.

Tank farm, Fairground Street (75mm ƒ/8 Super-Angulon lens)

This tank farm was located at the western end of Fairground Street. It was unused for decades. I remember climbing one of the stairs to the top of a tank, and strong petroleum fumes swirled about. I am amazed that there was never a fire. 

Hangar 3 (demolished in 2012) at the Waterways Experiment Station 

The Waterways Experiment Station acquired surplus steel hangars in the late 1940s. Some sheltered  hydraulic physical models of waterways and harbors. Hangar 3 in the photo above came down in 2012. Hangar 4 was demolished to make space for the new headquarters building.  

Steam Laundry (90mm ƒ/6.8 Wollensak Raptar lens)

Waiting for a load (Kodak Tri-X Prof 320, Caltar IIN 180mm ƒ/5.6 lens, 1 sec ƒ/16)

The Vicksburg steam laundry on Grove Street was a fixture of the city in the early 20th century. Some old-timers told me that mid-century, many Vicksburg families never laundered any clothing at home - it all went out commercially. This laundry closed before I moved to town in 1985. 

Before this building was converted into a laundry, it was housed the first industrial-scale Coca Cola Bottling plant. This was not the Biedenharn Coca-Cola Museum on Washington Street. The Vicksburg Foundation for Historic Preservation owns that building and runs the very interesting museum. 

In the 1940s or 1950s, Coca Cola Corporation built a new bottling plant on south Washington Street. An antique store now occupies part of this newer facility. 

In 1992, the Grove Street laundry/bottling plant suffered a catastrophic fire. The rumor at the time is that a developer found asbestos and torched the building rather than renovate it. That is not an unfamiliar story in Vicksburg. I have negatives from immediately after the fire (to scan some day....).

This ends our short 1990 tour of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Thanks for riding along.

More 1950s Excellence: The Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 Leica Thread Mount (ltm) lens

The 1950s and 1960s were an amazing era of innovation and creativity for the Japanese optical companies. They sold equipment equal or superior to many of the German offerings at the time and eventually dominated sales in the USA. 

Long-term readers may remember that I bought a Canon 50mm ƒ/1.4 ltm lens in 2019. It was superb optically but was a big cylinder that blocked too much of the viewfinder of my little Leica IIIC. The big front element may have caused some sun holes in my shutter curtains. I reluctantly sold it and looked for one of the smaller ƒ-stop Canon lenses. 

As I noted in the earlier article, Canon mounted their early post-war lenses in heavy chrome mounts. I wanted one of the lighter weight late-1950s versions. Problem: many (most?) of these 50mm black barrel ƒ/1.8 lenses suffer from hazy or etched inner elements. No one has a solid answer why this happens, but the haze was likely caused by gas from the lubricants used in the aperture mechanism. Many of the 1.8 lenses are totally ruined and cannot be cleaned, but once in a while, one shows up on the infamous 'Bay with a clear interior. 

There's a fungus among us

Precise engraving; brass and aluminum helical mount

I bought one of the 1.8 lenses with clear glass but minor fungus. The Japanese vendor was honest and the price was right. I think this is the 50 1.8 Type III, introduced in December 1958. I have used fungus before. The 35mm ƒ/3.5 Leitz Summaron lens that I bought in Buenos Aires in 1982 was a fungus farm. A technician cleaned off the inner coating to remove the fungus, and I proceeded to use the lens for another 15 years. No issues at all, and barely any flare problems. As usual, I wish I had kept that lens.

Here are some initial examples from my new/old Canon 50mm ƒ/1.8 lens in and around Vicksburg, Mississippi, on Fuji Acros film. 

2917 Drummond Street (empty for years)

Kansas City Southern rail yard, Levee Street (1/60 ƒ/4.0½)

Have a seat, Valley Street (1/60 ƒ/5.6)

Stouts Bayou footbridge at Avenue A

Stouts Bayou from Letitia Street

Need a mask? Letitia Street

Morgan Lane (1/100 ƒ/5.6, yellow-green filter)

Alma Street, Vicksburg (1/60 ƒ/8)

1920s or 1930s cottage, 2613 Alma Street, Vicksburg (1/60 ƒ/8.0½)

With Vicksburg's hilly terrain, many older homes have serious steps.

Bowmar Avenue house undergoing endless renovation (1/200 ƒ/8, yellow-green filter) 

Conclusions

This is a nice lens optically and mechanically. I have no complaints. Oops, one issue: this lens uses 40mm filters, an odd size (while dozens of German and Soviet lenses used 40.5mm). With an adapter, I can use Series VI filters. The correct Canon screw-in filters would be more convenient and faster in the field, but they are rare and seriously expensive from the Japanese sellers. All flaws in the photos above are those of the photographer's. I have sent the lens to Don Goldberg (DAG Camera) for cleaning and checking. When it is back, I will use it regularly, along with my 1960s Soviet Jupiter-8 lens and my 1949 Leitz Summitar. (Yes, I know, I have far too many cameras and lenses....)

Update July 2022:  The little Canon lens is back from its cleaning. There was no coating damage. Now to make time to use the little Leica IIIC.

Levee Street Railroad Yard, Vicksburg, Mississippi

The Kansas City Southern rail yard on Levee Street usually has interesting patterns, shapes, and textures to photograph. Long-term readers know that I have photographed here many times before, but I usually find new material when I explore. Nowadays, it is a rare treat to walk next to or within a rail yard that is not fenced off with security razor wire. The two big rail yards in Jackson are off-limits. 

Fairground Street Bridge, closed since the early 1990s

The rail yard is much quieter than it was before the 2011 Mississippi River flood. I do not know where all the rolling stock went. For older articles on Levee Street:

• Historic Cotton Compress
• 1800 railroad warehouse/shop
• Tank farm

These photographs are from Kodak Ektar 100 film. I used a venerable Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic camera. Most of the rail yard photos are with my 135mm ƒ/3.5 lens, an inexpensive optic in its day but excellent mechanical and optical quality. Northeast Photographic in Maine developed the film and scanned the negatives with a Noritsu system. I reduced the saturation with Photoshop CS6 software.

Last Time Ever: 135-size Kodak Panatomic-X (Abandoned Films 05b)

Dear readers, this is it, the last time for 135 size Kodak Panatomic-X film. I exposed my last roll in and around Vicksburg and will likely never use any again (although I still am using 120 format rolls for medium format cameras). The Panatomic-X from eBay sellers is usually older than the rolls I used, and they almost never have information on how it was stored. Here are some examples from this last roll of the famous Panatomic-X. I exposed it at exposure index (EI) = 20 and sent it to Northeast Photographic in Bath, Maine, to develop.

 

Vicksburg, Mississippi

Cherry Street bridge, Feb. 16, 2021 (50mm Jupiter-8 lens, yellow filter, 1/30 ƒ/8)

This was one of our two unusual snowfalls in February of 2021.

Kroger supermarket, Pemberton Blvd. (Leitz 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, deep yellow filter, 1/100 ƒ/4)

This is the site of the short-lived K-Mart store, which was poorly run and seldom had customers. This is a new building because the Kroger company tore down the K-Mart structure.

Pemberton Blvd., Vicksburg (Leitz 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, deep yellow filter)

Parking lot north of Bunge terminal, Levee Street, Vicksburg (Summitar lens, ½ sec ƒ/11.5)

Kansas City Southern rail yard, Levee Street (Leitz Summitar lens)

"America" moored at the Vicksburg Waterfront, view down Grove Street (Leitz Summitar lens)

Kansas City Southern rail yard, Levee Street (Jupiter-8 lens, yellow filter, 1/20 ƒ/11)

Port of Vicksburg

Vicksburg Forest Products (formerly Anderson-Tully)

Vicksburg Forest Products, view north (Jupiter-8 lens, deep yellow filter)

Ergon Bio-fuels, Haining Road (Summitar lens)

DTE PetCoke company, 745 Industrial Drive

DTE is at the north end of Industrial Drive. I often bike there, and one of the ladies who works at DTE has given me bottles of chilled water on hot days. DTE stores and handles pulverized petroleum coke.

Falco Lime from Port Terminal Circle (Leitz Summitar, 1/60 ƒ/5.6)

Louisiana

Port of Lake Providence, Louisiana (Jupiter-8 lens, deep yellow filter)

Former cotton gin, Tallulah

Barn on Rte 602 near Tallulah (Jupiter-8 lens)

Po-Boy Don's, Louisiana Rte. 602 near Tallulah

Summary

 

This ends my Expired Film Treasures (Films from the Dead) series as it pertains to 35mm Panatomic-X. This has been a fun exploration, but I want to concentrate on contemporary films.  

• Panatomic-X was a beautiful film and very characteristic of the 20th century black and white aesthetic. 
• The last two rolls of Panatomic-X that I used were more grainy than I remember. Possibly this is a result of development, but more likely it is a result of the film being 30 years old.
• Today, Fuji Acros, Ilford Delta 100, and Kodak TMax 100 have a higher and more convenient film speed. They also are finer grain and higher resolution, showing the benefits of several decades of photo-chemical research and development. 
• Once you scan film and display it on the web, honestly, it is hard to distinguish different types of black and white film (despite what the internet "experts" claim).
• Some of my pictures had out-of-focus areas. There may be a lens alignment problem with my Leica IIIC, and I sent it to DAG camera for a check-up. (Update: the camera is back and I need to test it.)
• I recommend that you do not seek out Panatomic-X film unless you can be sure that the rolls have been frozen all the years. Even then, having been discontinued about 1991 or 1992, it is bordering on being too old, although some bloggers say it has almost indefinite keeping properties.
  

Thank you for reading. Keep exploring your world and take pictures of things, people, or scenes that move you.