"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit)
01/01/2014 at 12:37 • Filed to: Trainopnik, photopnik, turn of the century technology, worlds blankiest blank
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"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit)
01/01/2014 at 12:37 • Filed to: Trainopnik, photopnik, turn of the century technology, worlds blankiest blank | 3
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How do you take a picture of the world's handsomest train at the turn of the century? With the world's largest camera, naturally.
Early last month Paleofuture uncovered !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , including what was supposed to be the first camera ever made. Spoiler alert: it's not. But it was the largest camera constructed up to that time, and the purpose for its construction is about as Jalop as you can get in the year 1900.
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See, the Chicago & Alton Railway had a problem. It had what they claimed was the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and what's the point of having the world's blankiest blank if you can't show it off, especially if it was the world's handsomest blank ? They wanted to display it at the Paris Exposition, but not only would that be quite a task to transport to the other side of the Atlantic, but it would remove the train from revenue service as well (and what's the point of having the world's blankiest blank if you can't make the world's biggest pile of moolah off it?) Granted, it was a good century before file sharing really became a thing, but developing a huge photograph and shipping that to Paris was still a far more practical issue than the whole train. And we are talking huge - still far short of lifesize, the photograph needed to be large enough to truly convey the scale and detail ( handsomest detail, naturally) of the world's handsomest train. The thing is, they needed a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in a world still stuck with kilopixel first-gen camera phones.
To solve this problem, they took the most obvious route - they just commissioned someone to build them a Nikon D800E, regardless the cost. Oh yeah, that cost - five grand, which was a colossal sum of money back then. Enough to buy a house, or, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Which paired very well with the world's handsomest train, because nothing advertises like the world's blankiest blank than having two world's blankiest blanks with you. The glass plates were so large (larger than a household doorway) patrons of the Paris Exposition thought it had to be some trick, likely accomplished through Old Timey Photoshop.
I'm sure it's a shoop, because of the inconsistencies in how it developed, and also from having seen a number of shoops in my time.
You can see for yourself what kind of impression this photograph must've had to people back then through the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (or, uh, just view the photo above).
The man who made this possible, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , was a savant with early photography himself. He experimented with photography from balloons and even kites (actually, deeming the latter superior) in order to photograph trains, and knew what it took to both build the world's largest camera and use it to take a photo of the world's handsomest train, and in the process pioneered a few photography techniques considered basic today. You might even say he's the world's best photographer of the time. That's three world's blankiest blanks all tied into a single story!
So maybe they didn't follow all !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! - but they certainly went the extra mile.
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Danimalk - Drives a Slow Car Fast
> No, I don't thank you for the fish at all
01/01/2014 at 14:45 |
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Unrelated, but related kind of.
I would pass this on my commute through Chicago everyday this past summer/fall.
http://butterfliesandbuffalo.com/theproject/cam…
Ok, only related b/c giant camera. ;p