Submarine Base, New London

Posted by Twelvebit (Victoria, United States) on 13 August 2008 in Miscellaneous.

I'm going through another scanning phase this week. All of the images this week are scans of film images taken years ago, long before digital photography was considered to be a possibility.

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Comments (7)

MadScientist from Düsseldorf, Germany

Cool! I imagine how you sat on a branch with a fat zoom lens, waiting for the best moment to make this military paparazzo shot. :-)

13 Aug 2008 9:50am

@MadScientist: I don't actually remember the details but I believe I shot this one from the BOQ (bachelor officer quarters) --on base.

gbe from kansas city, United States

i like it. shoot like that today and you start to arouse suspicion.

13 Aug 2008 3:55pm

@gbe: Maybe not. If memory serves I shot this one on-base from the BOQ (bachelor officer quarters). So, as long as I was in uniform, I doubt I'd be questioned. However, as a member of John Q. Public --yeah, I'd be very careful. When I was growing up I used to hear how the commies in Russia didn't let people take photos of bridges, trains, subways, public buildings, and military installations, even from public locations --unlike in America. Back then, prohibitions on public photography were considered to be a hallmark of authoritarian regimes, now they're part of the new "freedom."

Ronnie 2¢ from London, United Kingdom

gbe is so right . . in fact, I was stopped last week in a crowd of photographers and asked why I was NOT carrying a camera . .. apparently, that aroused suspicion (the camera was in my pocket!).

13 Aug 2008 5:24pm

@Ronnie 2¢: I've never seen a crowd of photographers, except in photos.

Judy from Brooksville-Florida,, United States

I remember taking a tour of a submarine in Groton in 1954. We were below, climbing through the openings between the bulkheads. I pulled out my little camera to take a shot and our friend (a sailor) told me to put it away in a hurry before I got caught. What did I know, I was only 16! ;D
Thanks for the memory.

13 Aug 2008 7:47pm

@Judy: We used to give tours on occasion when we came into port, but anything "classified" was covered --I don't know why they were so uptight though in 1954, since back then it had to be a diesel boat. I've got another sub photo posted for tomorrow.

danthro from Suburbia, United States

i see two boat-type things in the center. the one on the right looks like how i might imagine a submarine but the one on the left just looks like a ship to me. then again i really don't have more knowledge about this sort of thing than what i've gained from watching a few movies.
so you were in the navy... did you work on a submarine? the idea of being in the middle of the ocean, far away from help, way down under the water, seems pretty scary to me.

13 Aug 2008 8:17pm

@danthro: Yep, ship on the left, submarine (aka boat) on the right. I was a Nuclear Weapons Officer on a ballistic missile submarine, for awhile. I actually liked the operating part of being at sea, and even the Navy --I love boats, ships, and the ocean-- but I didn't like the long deployments that essentially made any kind of family or social life impossible. Not only did I not fear being under water, I actually felt sort of invulnerable since I was on a ship that was designed to "sink," and hence, couldn't be capsized or sunk in a storm. And if you look at it from the perspective of possible combat (non-nuclear), there was the submarine force slogan that went --there are only two kinds of ships: submarines and targets.

Sandy from Ontario, United States

Very interesting..though it seems kinda...flat...no dimension..I can see the difference from a digital shot. I find that same issue when I scan old photos...can't seem to make the images "pop" like I can with my digital shots. Maybe you can't mix old technology with new.

14 Aug 2008 1:20am

@Sandy: I think that's due, in this case, to the lens used, the film speed, and fading --with color shift-- in the color negative emulsion. I have Kodachrome transparencies taken by my father in the 40's that look like they were taken yesterday. I'm using a film scanner here and it is capable of producing spectacular images. I didn't spend much time working with these negative scans and there is still probably some room for improvement. However, a properly exposed negative or transparency of good quality, scanned with a good film scanner, should produce images as good or better than a digital camera. Also, while scanning a print with a desktop scanner is an entirely different matter, in both kinds of scanning, the software used and the scan settings can make a huge difference. This image and this image and this image are film scans, from my old scanner --and my new one gives much better results (plus I have a better idea of what I'm doing with it now).