“What’s up, Dougy?”
“Oh! Feather play!”
Post 1412: Feather play!
WEGGIEBOY'S BLOG by Doug Thomas
Andy and I miss Dougy
and also… I was just putting tomorrow’s post together and looking for humor from the CBI Theater – about 3/4 of the way scrolling down – look what I see as one of the articles!
It was even worse with the Arriflex camera, the one we used in Germany and that had a special viewfinder, a type of SLR arrangement that eliminated the parallax issue with the Bell & Howell Eyemo and Filmo cameras used by military mopic guys before me, and put you right in the action, seeing things as they were, not indirectly.
I love the expression on the first one Sir!
Andy is my sceptical cat. Dougy just plows into play or activities that cats enjoy.
I wouldn’t want to be that feather, it gets a lot of abuse. 🙂
For sure! I already had to toss that one, it was so smooshed and ripped and broken up. The kitty boys are merciless!
My boy is looking good!!
Though mats in his tail feathers, under his legs, and behind his ears are a problem when his (and Andy’s) hair grows out, they look fantastic with the longer hair. I’m going to try reducing the grooming appointments but try keeping up with the grooming demands of Persian kitties. Any way, Dougy says to tell you “Mrow!”, GP!
Give my boy an extra scritch for me, Doug.
Thought you might like this…
https://bengould.wordpress.com/2017/06/03/whickers-war/
Yes, I did, and I look forward to the second part of the documentary. Thank you, GP. I lucked out and didn’t have to live up to the first word of the description of my military job, “”Combat Motion Picture Photographer”. I did, however, have access to an archive of films – raw footage, the review films the Pentagon sent us with a critique of our film – taken by these incredibly brave men in WWII (and after, during occupation and rebuilding of Europe). There were scenes that ended with a camera landing on its side, continuing to run, the mopic guy either dead, dying, or wounded. It was humbling to know I followed in their footsteps, though I cam=n’t imagine ever being so brave as they, filming while under fire with nothing more than a .45 sidearm and a heavy Bell and Howell 35 mm Eyemo camera between you and death.
I’ve often wondered how many of those cameras took a bullet aimed at them?
Me, too. I suspect they were like medics in that their primary job wasn’t soldiering, and both needed to be in the action to get their jobs done: sitting targets!
One other thing: I know from personal experience that looking through the viewfinder of your camera takes you into a different world where you are visualizing the composition of the shot, the way the shot fits into a bigger story, and worrying about getting the correct information for your sheets you send along with the exposed film to the Pentagon.
You are in a different reality, one where you don’t see the tank coming directly at you (for example) but see a beautiful shot of a tank filling the viewfinder in a really, really dramatic way!
“Wow!” you think, “the guys at the Pentagon are really going to like that one!” It is surreal and another form of danger we faced by our own fault.
It was even worse with the Arriflex camera, the one we used in Germany and that had a special viewfinder, a type of SLR arrangement that eliminated the parallax issue with the Bell & Howell Eyemo and Filmo cameras used by military mopic guys before me, and put you right in the action, seeing things as they were, not indirectly. I had to learn how to look through the viewfinder with one eye, and keep the other eye open as much as I could, to view where I was in relation to what I was filming.
What helped was the view through the camera was rose-tinted by a filter we used to correct the color of the image on the film, which was color-balanced for inside shots. (We used the same film for both types of work.) What I saw with my eye instead of through the camera, therefore, was untinted, real, and saved my butt many times from helicopters taking off; cars, tanks, trucks, and trains coming toward me; and from bumping into people in my shot.
All of that to get to the point that I believe medics have the same sort of intensity when doing their work, and lose track of their surroundings till they’ve dealt with the wounded. Of course, I think they’d be more imperiled than photographers simply because they can’t stop doing their job till it’s done or people die. Photographers can pick and chose their dangers a bit more and still have a story.
That is reallly interesting, Doug. You know, you should do a post on those guys. You brought up aspects of the filming I had not thought of, such as not being able to see what’s coming at you from either side or behind, and how your mind is concentrating on something else.
Give it some thought!! You have the experience for it!!
I think I kind of did…here! And on Ben Gould’s blog, in a comment, where I got into the types of cameras used. You bringing his blog to my attention today unleashed a whole lot of memories. I didn’t get into the the two visits to the Arriflex factory in Munich, where we had breakfast on the house. (Broetchen, beer, ham and cheese for the bread rolls – a typical German breakfast, though the beer was a switch from a more typical strong, black coffee! LOL! We didn’t complain!)IOt was fun talking with the people who made the cameras we used, and they were pleased to get our highly positive feedback on their fantastic cameras! I used a 10mm Arri lens that was made for a 35mm Arri but worked really well in my 16mm Arri. It was a wide angle lens that had so little distortion in the image that I used it practically like a normal lens. It was fast, versatile, and practically the only lens I used.
Ya see what I mean!!!
and also… I was just putting tomorrow’s post together and looking for humor from the CBI Theater – about 3/4 of the way scrolling down – look what I see as one of the articles!!!
http://www.cbi-theater.com/roundup/roundup120744.html
Wow! Though I eventually wandered down to that article (very interesting, of course!), I strayed over all the other ones. It is always interesting to have context. At the local military museum, someone donated bound copies of Stars and Stripes (European theater) for (I think it is) the whole war. Seeing a daily newspaper, following an event like the Normandy landing piece by piece, not having the advantage of knowing the final outcome, the texts have a greater intensity, a look into the angst of the times.
Glad you found it interesting!!
History in the form of contemporaneous accounts is fascinating to me!
Oh I love that peacock feathers too… the mama had a lot on her christmouse tree last year… for 10 minutes ;O)))
LOL! Yes, that’s about right! I gave up on Christmas trees once I got cats. They may tire of the regulation cat toys, but Christmas tree ornaments…!? Never! I have a creche made in Nepal. The figures are made out of felt and are stuffed with -?- don’t know what. Little baby Jesus in this set is the same size and general look of a mousie toy that the kitty boys love, love, loved as kittens. Oops! Not good! Not good at all! It’s been five years since that was set out.
the howly furmily destuffed by cats…. oh I can see the headlines in the news papers hahahahaha
It would have happened! I expected lightning bolts at the very least the first time one of the kitty boys ran off with Baby Jesus in his tiger jaws! LOL!
Very sweet photos of Dougy with his feather toy!
When it was just old Mr. Beaucastel and old Mr. Austin I could put up a tree, lights and decorations. Once the then youngsters Abby, Lucio and the others came in, it was impossible. All house plants are shut away in the main bathroom, which has a good east window, for the same reason. 🙂
Yes, nothing is uninteresting to a cat. I got one of those goofy black cat clocks with the wagging tail and eyes that move, and Andy pulled the tail off the dang thing before it was on the wall five seconds! I had to rfehang it so high it is (frankly) barely useful.