With a pair of adjustable vise-grip pliers and a Leitz head, you can make an immensely versatile clamp that is ideal for cramped or unusual quarters. Use a carbide bit to drill into one arm of the pliers. Insert a % inch X 20 bolt and screwthe head onto the pliers. Now, you can clamp a camera or light source in awkward situations, since the vise-grip will tighten around practically anything. One photographer used this device to secure a motorized Nikon onto motorcycle handlebars. Though the bike scrambled over some rough terrain, the pliers held, and he got some dramatic shots. There is something mysterious — some magic, some marvel — about the class of cameras named Leica (from E. Leitz’s Camera) that has set men and women to doing things and feeling emotions that no other camera quite has. One thinks of the enthusiasm with which Model A and Model T Fords are driven and of how old, green-glass, six-ounce Coca-Cola bottles are cherished.

From Dust We Come, With Dust We Live

Unless you photograph, develop and print in a room designed for the assembly of missile computers, you can count on windmg up witn white specks on your prints from dust that has settled on or embedded itself into the negative. Fight the dust... then learn to spot. Use a magnifying glass; any clean paper used to lean on to protect the print from skin oil and dirt and a good No. 00 or No. 000 red sable artist’s brush, twirled on the tongue to keep i t pointed. Special dyes, shown below, are mixed in to match the image tone of each particular brand of paper. Hint — after mixing the dye, combine it with a water puddle on a 4x 5-inch (11 x 13 cm) glass plate. When it’s dry, you will have various densities of dye available to lift off the plate with a tongue-moistened brush. Build up the image SLOWLY by stippling, not by painting. Beginners always go too far.