Cathedrale Notre-Dame De Paris

A few years back, Canon Paper-Craft- http://cp.c-ij.com/en/ -produced a paper model of the Cathedrale Notre-Dame. The model is very well designed and is a free download to booth. This model is now rests in a curio cabinet of a neighbor.

I thought I would share a few pictures of the model with readers. Building the Notre-Dame is straight forward in terms of following the instructions provide with the model. I printed the model on standard card stock available almost everywhere. It was printed on an Epson printer. Epson printers offer waterproof ink and does not lend itself to marks as easy as most ink jet inks do. The only change I made to the model was to double the braces that surround the nave area.

So for your enjoyment.

Minox "THE SPY CAMERA" Extraordinaire!

Of the many cameras I have owned over the years of my life, the Minox has been one of my favorites. These cameras carry the distinct label of "Spy Camera". Minox cameras were never designed as such and except for one or two rare occasions never used by any Secret Agency.

The term "Spy Camera" is due in most parts to Hollywood movies, It has been used in several movies most recently in the Movie "Shinning Through" with Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith. Other such movies like James Bond and a few World War 2 era films are mostly responsible for attaching the term "Spy Camera" to the Minox.

Without going into a great amount of detail about how the Minox works and all the technical details, let me say it is suffice to say the Minox uses a strip of photographic film inside a cartridge and yields several negative images measuring 8 mm x 11 mm per image. Today one can still purchase several different models of these cameras on Ebay although finding film and processing is getting harder to obtain. I always carry my Minox with me daily even yet today.

While thinning out a vast amount of photo CD's in my collection, I came across some Minox pictures that were transfered to CD by the processing lab a few years back. I came across three pictures that I thought I would share with you. The tractor, I understand dates back to the 1920's and the photos were taken in the late afternoon with my Minox model ECX. When one considers the size of the original negative 8 mm x 11 mm, the pictures are pretty good.

Liberty Ship "John w. Brown"

During the summer of 2003, the Liberty Ship "John W. Brown" came up the Detroit River for a fundraising cruise to help pay for new rivets she badly needed. A dry dock in Toledo, Ohio is still the only dock that makes rivets and could handle a ship her size. So she sailed up the St. Lawrence Seaway and had over a thousand new rivets installed. To help pay for this, she made a trip up the Detroit River for a one day cruise out into Lake Ste. Claire and return to Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

My wife and I purchased tickets and we became part of that historic cruise. It was a beautiful July Saturday with temperatures in the low 80's, mostly sunny with calm waters. As luck would have it, an Air Show was happening at Selfridge ANG Base that same day. It truly turned out to be one of many high lights of our Golden years of retirement. We had box lunches, below decks in one of the forward cargo holds while listening to music of the era. On deck, a band dressed in uniform played and a group of dancers also in costume danced the Jitterbug and various swing dances. Later an actor who is part of the ships company dressed as General Patton gave Patton's famous speech.

Before long, we were under siege by aircraft from the Air Show. Passes were made by a Spitfire, an Avenger, a Swordfish, a B-25 Mitchell Bomber and a Japanese Zero fighter. The guns on deck were maned by members of the Navy Guard which sailed on every Liberty Ship during the War. These guards are also part of the ships company and in uniform. The guns have been rigged to simulate via electric circuitry the flash and noise of the guns, mounted in an open gun tubs protected by thick pads of cork.

When we reached the turn around point, a prayer was said and a wreath tossed overboard to honor those lives that were lost during the war from the United States and Canada. When the ship returned to Windsor, visitors were allowed on board the next day, Sunday, before she left to return to her home port in Baltimore, Maryland.

Here are a few pictures of the "John W. Brown" taken by me as she arrived in Detroit on the Friday afternoon before.

A Paper Model

One of my favorite paper models is this Dornier DO-27. The real aircraft was made by Dornier GmbH in Germany. This model was the first civilian model and made for the Serengeti Safari accounting for its Zebra like paint scheme. Unfortunately it crashed when it collided with an animal in January of 1958.

This paper model was made by the J.F. Schreiber GmbH also of Germany. As far as I am concerned, this is one of the best models designed by this company. When cutout and assembled the Zebra stripes line up perfectly and the parts fit just as they should. This is my third model, over the past twenty years, I have built two others. My first was made sometime in the 1980's and I had not yet mastered making the wing to perfection. My second model was made four years ago and promptly sold to a airplane buff.

Now comes this, my third model. I knew where some additional help might be needed and paid attention to these areas. One such part is the tail wheel. which is quite weak. So I doubled it by gluing it to a spare piece of card stock. Once cut out and attached to the fuselage, I coated it with "Hard as Nails" polish thus giving it more strength.

Thanks to the local florist, I was able to obtain a small amount of a green sticky gum like substance. Using this green Gummy stuff, I packed the first section of the fuselage with it and then glued the the fuselage front plate in place after boring a hole for the propellor shaft. After the propellor was finished and with a straight pin fitted inside the propellor nose cone, I push the propellor into the fuselage front and into the green gummy stuff. it held in place and now I have a really nice spinning prop. I would highly recommend this model for anyone who would like a change of pace from the more complex models.

Paper Shipwright's MV "Maria" Grab Dredger

David Hathaway owns Paper Shipwright, a company in the UK that produces some very nice and well designed paper models of unusual ships. Here is one of his latest in 1:250 scale of a Grab Dredger. The initial design is from a Scottish firm Seadrec. The "Maria" was never built but rather a model based on Seadrec's plans.

This model is certainly not my best work, however it was a fun build.

From Anker Set Number 4 (Listed as a Fortress Tower)

Officially listed in Anker's Plan Set 4 on page 13, number 2 called a "Fortress Tower". With the figure that I have placed next to it, it now looks more like a monument. Something in the arch would enhance the appearance; perhaps a clock face or a small statue would help.

Again using a tripod I tried to photograph the model without any distorted perspective. And I still want to improve the background a bit more. Our weather is beginning to warm up as we approach May. Today as an example it is mostly sunny and we should top out about 58°F. In the photo to your left, the tripod was not level enough and so there is a slight tilt to the tower.

The sweeper incidentally is a Schieich figure from 2007 an stands about 3 inches tall..

Grabkapelle Revisited

Alan Winston, who's Blog "Block Play": http://blockplay.blogspot.com/, clued me in on a program very useful in correcting perspective: www.shiftn.de when working with items that render themselves to look better when this correction is made.

In my early youth, I worked for a company in the City of Detroit, that did all their photography using View Cameras. View Cameras usually come in 8 x 10 film size and have a number of corrections that can make almost anything appear straight. The film plane can be swung from left to right, up and down and tilted almost 75° from vertical. Likewise in the front where the lens is located, those same movements can be obtained. This allows for a great many corrections in perspective. General Motors used View Cameras when photographing each years new model automobiles for example.

Another method that works well is a tripod. Tripods work best when you are photographing objects that fit into the tripods category. Scale models are a good example. Height can be adjusted to give one that street level look. A sharper image is captured when using a cable release or the cameras self timer. Biggest problem with tripods, come in setting them up to be just right. I'm just to lazy to go through all the effort involved. But to give one a look at what can be done, these two photos show what I did in about ten minutes of set-up time using my digital cameras self timer. My camera is an old third generation model and thanks to its viewing screen in the back, I do not have to worry about parallax correction and digital photography is great for macro work as the depth of field problem is almost nonexistent.

Another tool that helps a great deal, is a good photo program. I have only a simple photo program that came pre installed on my Macbook. This program although allowing for just minor corrections gives me enough to correct for exposure, cropping and rotation. Speaking of cropping, I'm still working on improving the background to enhance the overall effect.

As soon as time allows, I'm going to give Alan's suggestion a try, for I do admire the quality of his photos and I look forward to visiting his page daily.