Superb Alabama Folk Art: Snuffy Smith's of Wilmer

Snuffy Smith's, 1990, Kodachrome slide, Leica M3, 50mm lens

Snuffy Smith's gasoline station and antique emporium was a familiar sight on U.S. Highway 98 near the Mississippi-Alabama state line. Google gives the address as 14860 Moffett Rd, Wilmer, AL 36587, but I am not sure if that is correct. Regardless, it is an example of folk art magifique.

I found two 4×5" Fujichrome frames from 1990. The large negatives, of course, preserve a lot of detail (click the pictures to enlarge to 1600 pixels wide). There is surprisingly little information on the web about this site. A 2009-vintage blog states that "Snuffy's got its name from a previous owner, Arthur Drake Smith, who dipped snuff."

1995 Kodachrome slide, Leica M3, 50mm lens

Notice a few changes between 1990 and 1995. A new armored man is on patrol guarding the gasoline pumps. And an antique blue pump has been placed on the left of the island, replacing an overflowing trash can.

This amazing example of home-made art may be gone. I did not see it the last time I drove on U.S. 98, but maybe I simply missed it. If any readers have information, please advise.

Railroads of Greece 7b: The Corinth Railroad Station with Black and White Film

When I visited the now-unused train station in Corinth, Greece, last October (2018), I had two cameras with me. The little Yashica Electro 35CC had color Kodak Ektar 100 film, and my Leica M2 was loaded with Fujifilm Acros black and white film. Last week, I showed you some of the color results. Here are some of the black and white frames.

Corinthos train station (not in use), 35mm f/2.0 Summicron lens, Leitz polarizing filter. 

Control lever for points, Corinthos, Greece

Being a sunny day with the classic brilliant Greek light, the setting does not have quite enough of that urban decay aura. The Acros film is very fine grain and does not look gritty, unlike 1960s Tri-X.

When I was last here in 2011, there was more rolling stock on the tracks, but much of it is now gone.

I am surprised that these rotating water spigots were preserved. I have seen other spigots at stations throughout the Peloponnese.

End of the line, Corinthos, Greece.

Dear Readers, you can decide if you prefer color or monochrome for this type of setting.

Ticket for the full-gauge Athens Suburban Train.

Photographs are from Fujifilm Acros film exposed at EI=80. I used a Leica M2 rangefinder camera with a 35mm f/2.0 Summicron lens, with yellow or polarizing filters to darken the sky. This is the Type 3 35mm, the pre-aspherical model. The film was developed in Xtol by Praus Productions, Rochester, New York. I scanned the negatives with a Plustek 7600i film scanner controlled by Silverfast Ai software.

Railroads of Greece 7: Corinthos Train Station (Ektar film)

Corinth is an ancient city at the east end of the Gulf of Corinth, a long, narrow body of water that separates the mainland of Greece from the Peloponnese region. The Peloponnese was developed with 1-m narrow gauge rail in the late-1800s. Corinth was one of the first cities that a traveler reached on his rail journey from Athens to the Peloponnese.

This railroad station on Dimokratias Street is rather severe mid-20th century architecture, possibly 1950s or 1960s construction. I do not know how many older stations on the site were replaced by this building. Fortunately, it is not abandoned. I saw modern computers and office furniture inside, so someone is using it as office space. It may have been painted since I last visited the site in 2011.

Kodak Ektar 100 film, Yashica Electro 35CC camera, polarizing filter.

The modern Athens Suburban Railway, Train OSE, is a regular-gauge commuter line that enters Corinth on a totally different right-of-way. Therefore, this older 1-meter system is currently unused. The rail yard is unused and grassing over. Some rolling stock that I saw here in 2011 has been pulled away.

The Ektar film does a nice job emphasizing the red of the roofs, graffiti, and rust.

These old spigot arms are still in place, even though steam locomotives were phased out decades ago.  Some of the old locomotives are rusting away in Myloi, a town on the west side of the bay of Naufplio. When the family and I took the train from Kato Achaia to Athens in 1997, we rode in self-contained diesel-electric cars (meaning not pulled by a locomotive).

The KTEL bus station is across the street. On the day I was there, a modern and clean Athens-bound coach pulled into the street and picked up a few passengers.

These photographs are from Kodak Ektar 100 color negative film, exposed with a Yashica Electro 35CC compact rangefinder camera. I used a Canon brand polarizing filter to cut glare. This inexpensive little camera has a very fine 35mm f/1.8 Color-Yashinon-DX lens, maybe marginally lower resolution than my 35mm Leica Summicron lens, but not far behind. These Electro 35CCs are a bargain on the big auction site. Update: like many other film cameras, these 35CCs have gone up in price and sell for over $100, mostly from Japanese vendors.

The picture of the WC door with books is from a Moto G5 mobile.

1950s Excellence: the Leitz 50mm ƒ/2.0 Type 2 Summicron-DR lens

Leitz 50mm ƒ/2.0 dual range Summicron lens in original box. 

Introduction 

Leica's 50mm Summicron lenses have been famous for optical and mechanical excellence for over 60 years. Leica's term Summicron means a lens with maximum aperture of ƒ/2.0. They have been improved over the decades and are still in production - how many other consumer products have lasted over a half century? Even more amazing, a new lens will fit on a 50-year-old Leica M body, or a 60-year-old lens will work on a brand new film or digital body. When you consider the longevity, Leica lenses are reasonable price, despite the hatred (= envy) from many modern digital users.

A convenient summary with photographs of the different versions is on Ken Rockwell's site.

5cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens in extended (ready to photograph) position

Summitar

Ernst Leitz produced the predecessor lens, the 5cm Summitar, from 1939 to 1953, with 170,761 units total. War-time lenses were uncoated, but from 1946 on, they were anti-reflection coated. Eastman Kodak and Zeiss had coated optics for military use during World War II, but coating all air-glass surfaces on general civilian optics became widespread only after the war. The Summitar had a complicated design of 7 elements in 4 groups. Human computers using mechanical calculators and trigonometry tables must have made a heroic effort to compute the ray paths. The Summitar's central sharpness is superb, but the edges fall off and there is field curvature. This can be used creatively, and regardless, "sharpness" is not normally the factor that makes a photograph successful. For examples, please look at some of my 2017 Nepal articles. In 1953, the Summitar lens cost $158 in USA.

Summicron Type 1

E. Leitz introduced the first Summicron, the Type 1, in 1952. It was an update of the Summitar, also mounted in a collapsible barrel. This lens was also manually computed, although surely the workers used electrical tabulating machines. The first electronic computers after World War II were used for ballistics analysis, atomic weapons research, rocket trajectories, and military optics. The 1953 USA cost for the Summicron was $183.

A note on collapsible lenses: When the E. Leitz company introduced its first camera in 1923, it used perforated cine film but doubled the frame size to 24×36 mm. All other cameras then used much larger roll film or individual sheet film. So the new small image surface became known as miniature format. The cameras were intended for travel or adventures like mountain climbing. Therefore, the manufacturers wanted to make the cameras compact and portable. One way to do that was to build a lens in a barrel that could collapse into the body. As the years went by, cameras grew larger and heavier (like automobiles or, most grotesquely, American SUVs). The Zeiss Contarex of 1960 had grown to 910 grams for just the body. The Nikon F with its metering head was a big package, as well. And today, the digital single lens reflex (DSLR) in "full frame" size is a bulbous thing graced with a protruding penile lens that points at its subject like a cannon. Just tell DSLR users that they really have the miniature format.

1963 Type 2 Summicron lens with single focus range.

Summicron Type 2

E. Leitz introduced their Type 2 Summicron in 1956. It was in production until 1968. To improve the precision of the glass alignment, Leitz mounted Type 2 optics in a rigid barrel. It was a masterpiece of mechanical precision and elegance, but the construction of brushed chrome over brass made it heavy. This lens was also hand computed.

Leitz began computer-aided lens computations after about 1960 at their factory in Midland, Ontario, Canada, under the guidance of Dr. Walter Mandler (from Erwin Puts). It is an interesting history of international competition about this time. Japanese optical companies such as Canon, Nikon, and Topcon were also exploring new lens designs with the aide of early computers. They were able to market lenses with almost as refined optical characteristics as Leica but at lower price. The brilliance of the Japanese companies was to bring superb optics to a wide audience at reasonable price.

Leitz made two versions of the Type 2 lens. One had a single focus range covering 1m to infinity. The photograph above shows a 1963 lens that I bought from a friend in town. It was available in M-mount  (63,055 units) as well as the 39mm thread mount (1160 units; now a rare collector item).

1967 Dual range Summicron without goggles.

Dual range Summicron with goggles attached on the flat plate. The lens has been extended to its closest focus distance.

The second version had a dual focus range and is known as the DR. The normal range was 1.0 m to infinity. But if you wanted to focus on a closer object, you slid a spectacle viewfinder attachment onto a flat plate on the top of the lens. The goggles depressed a button, which let the lens focus from 0.48 to 0.88 m. The goggles correct the parallax of the rangefinder view. It was a clever way to let a rangefinder camera focus more closely than the normal 0.8 or 1.0 meter. A reflex camera does not have these limitations, but in the 1950s, most miniature camera photographers were still using rangefinders. Total production was 55,145 units.

Note: the goggle units varied slightly in design over the production period. You must have the correct unit for your lens for it to mount and focus correctly.

My stepdad bought the DR in the pictures above in 1966 or 1967. This lens and M2 camera took family pictures in Greece and traveled to Asia, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and North America. Now it photographs urban decay in Mississippi and Louisiana. This one has pristine coating.

I could not find a complete Leica price booklet from the 1960s, but I found a few prices in US $ for M2 body and lenses:

• M2 w/50mm ƒ/2 rigid Summicron 423.00
• M2 w/50mm ƒ/2 DR Summicron 465.00

Optical unit and focus mount of Summicon-DR lens. Serial numbers must match.

Special note: the optical unit can be unscrewed from the focus unit. If you buy a used DR lens, the serial numbers must match. Do not accept an unmatched lens. 

I also have a Type 4 50mm Summicron from 1984 or 1985 production. I will write about it in a future article. It is mounted in a lighter weight black alloy barrel as opposed to the gorgeous brushed chrome of my DR unit.

Examples with Kodak BW400CN film

On a recent day trip through rural Mississippi south of I-20, I grabbed a roll of Kodak BW400CN. I have had mixed results with this film in the past. Sometimes it looks muddy, but sometimes I like the tonality. Could there be differences in the C-41 chemistry? Regardless, here are a few samples from my Leica M2 and the 50mm Summicron-DR. I was surprised how the film renders green as quite light, but only for long exposures in settings such as dense underbrush. I do not recall seeing this before. The BW is pretty grainy, but I like the effect. (Click any picture to enlarge it.)

Abandoned farm house, Rte 18 in Brandon, Mississippi.

Remains of a gasoline station, Raleigh (with polarizer filter).

Big Smittys, MS Hwy 149, Mendenhall. This is a former Pan-Am filling station. 

Main Street, Mendenhall. Polarizer used to darken sky.

Shop on MS 28 east of Georgetown.

Historic Crossroads Store on Old Port Gibson Road, Reganton.

References

Laney, D. 1994. Leica Camera and Lens Pocket Book, 6th Edition revised and updated, Hove Collectors' Books, East Sussux, UK, 142 p.

Other

An interesting 2007 article about Leica cameras is in The New Yorker, September 24, 2007 issue, Candid Camera, The cult of Leica.

Update Dec. 2020: Here are silos in Delta, Louisiana, taken with long-expired GAF Versapan film. Click to enlarge.

Silos, Levee Road, Delta, Louisiana (GAF Versapan film, Summicron-DR lens, orange filter)

On the Boardwalk: Coney Island 1999

Coney Island has been the summer beach playground for New Yorkers for over a century. America’s first large engineered beach fill was the boardwalk and recreational beach on Coney Island in 1922 - 1923 (Farley 1923). With the completion of the project, immigrants and factory workers could escape the sweatshops of the sweltering city and enjoy a (crowded) Sunday at the beach for only a nickel subway ride (Stanton 1999). "The Improvement helped convert nearly 2 miles of shoreline characterized by ramshackle development and narrow to non-existent beaches from which the general public was excluded, to a world famous resort that was accessible to all for no more than the cost of a subway fare." (Dornhelm 2012). Coney Island is part of the borough of Brooklyn.

In the photograph above, the odd mushroom-shaped frame was once a parachute jump, where guests would hop off and float to the ground. The boardwalk has been rebuilt many times.

Coney Island beach pumping in 1922.

Coney Island 1941. From the archives of the Beach Erosion Board, now at the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, US Army Corps of Engineers.

Parachute jump,1941 or 1942 (from Library of Congress, intermediary roll film) fsa 8b00812 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8b00812)

This was the scene at Coney Island on a summer day in 1941 at the eve of World War II. The subway was still a nickel then.

Despite being refurbished and "urban renewed," there are still old structures and remnants of Coney Island's exuberant past.

 There is still an amusement park, but it is small compared to the ones in the 1950s.

Notice the rocket architecture, likely something from the Sputnik era when rockets were modern and trendy.

The famous hotdog stands are still there and thriving. The fries look great, but I may pass on the mystery-meat hotdogs.

This stone structure is known as a terminal groin and was built by the US Army Corps of Engineers at W 37th Street. The reason is convoluted. The community at the west tip of Coney Island is known as Seagate and is closed to the public. By law, beaches which are nourished with Federal funds must be accessible to the general public. Therefore, when the Corps of Engineers performed beach nourishments on Coney Island, the sand had to be restricted to the part of the beach east of W 37th Street (to the right in the photograph).

View across Gravesend Bay to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge from Seagate, Coney Island.

Along this shore, longshore transport is from east to west. Thanks to numerous beach fill projects, sand has filled the project to the seaward end of the 37th Street terminal groin and moves around the tip and to the shore at Seagate. The sand moves around the west end of Coney, past the Coney Island Lighthouse, and into Coney Island Creek. Some residents complained that the beach on the north side of Seagate was too wide (after decades of complaining they were suffering from beach erosion).

Rockaway Beach also has a wide boardwalk and the beach has also been nourished many times to provide storm and flood protection as well as recreation benefits.

I took these photographs with a Leica M3 rangefinder camera with 35mm Summicron-RF (the superb 8-element) and 50mm Summicron (type 4) lenses on Kodak Kodachrome 25 film. I scanned the frames on a Plustek 7600i film scanner using Silverfast Ai software.

References

Dornhelm, R.B., 2012. The Coney Island Public Beach and Boardwalk Improvement of 1923. Fourth Annual Northeast Shore and Beach Preservation Association Conference (NSBPA), October 24-26, 2001 | Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ.

Farley, P. P. 1923. Coney Island public beach and boardwalk improvement. The Municipal Engineers
Journal, Vol. 9, Paper 136, pp 136.1-136.32.

Stanton, J. 1999. “Coney Island - Nickel Empire (1920's-1930's).” (https://www.westland.net/coneyisland/articles/nickelempire.htm, accessed 09/27/2017)

Update, Jan. 19, 2018:  A friend sent me this interesting picture of Coney Island during Hurricane Donna in 1960. The photograph was on Facebook in the "Old Images of Brooklyn" group. Original source is unknown. It looks like it might have been a 4×5 original, so possibly from a press photographer.