CAT FORESTRY EQUIPMENT

Dave Trautrimas
Mnemonic Doppelganger
Archival digital print
22.5 x 35 inches


-From his a series of fictional, top secret military installations derived from Cold War industrial design.

"...To create these Cold War structures, suitable source materials — such refrigerators and lawn mowers — are completely dismantled and photographed, then, by digital means, meticulously reassembled into original structures. This technique is a continuation of the process used in my previous two bodies of work; those being residential and industrial structures, respectively.
The most dramatic evolution from my previous work is the process for creating the landscape of each structure. For this new series great effort has been taken to photograph landscapes throughout North America that have a direct connection to the narrative of the series. I've traveled from one of the epicenters of Cold War activity, Los Alamos and the state of New Mexico, to more regional locales, such as Prince Edward County, home to many Avro Arrow tests, and abandoned Pine Tree and D.E.W radar bases in Central and Northern Ontario. Each location was thoroughly documented, allowing the fictional bases to be situated in the real landscape of the North American Cold War experience."

• made from my parents 60's era 8mm film camera, and other film cameras found at flea markets (including a 50's era Eumig 8mm camera from Austria).
• The landscape was photographed at the Caledon badlands, located an hour northwest of Toronto. Erosion of topsoil in the area revealed the undulating clay underneath. The total area of the badlands is only about 2 acres, but was made to look bigger by photographing the same hills from different perspectives.
•The jeep was photographed at a roadside garage in Central Ontario, near the Bon Echo provincial park. It's in really rough shape, some of the parts I had to reconstruct in photoshop to make it look whole. There's a garage door in part of the structure which could be used as an entrance for vehicles.
•The windows are from the warehouse of William F White, the largest supplier of cinematography equipment in Ontario, possibly Canada.

Now I appreciate that at first this image isn't very clear, but I think this is a whole new paradigm for me and was itching to share my news.

This photo is me triggering a Canon580EX flash tonight in my back garden visible through the garage from the top of my front drive almost out in the street. Its probably a distance of about 10m. I never did that before.

I ordered a set of the new Yongnuo RF-602 transmitters and receivers from a UK supplier on ebay and they arrived today. I'd heard all the good feedback about them on various flickr discussion groups and I figured I'd take a gamble on a set before I took a sharp intake of breath and bought some Pocketwizard PWIIs with hard earned cash. They are an order of magnitude cheaper - literally 10 times cheaper.

From first looks the build quality isn't going to keep Volkswagon awake at night but they are a lot more robust than my set of Cactus V2s triggers. There is a lot of chat about the transmitter not fitting the hotshoe and being able to fall out but I took care to order one that was listed as being for Canon 5D, 30D etc and although I don't know if that's material at the end of the day mine fits the hotshoe of my Canon 20D perfectly and there is no need for a wheel to tighten it in place. My 580Ex and Vivitar 285HV flashes are a very snug fit so I'll be fitting and removing all of them very carefully to avoid any traumatic damage.

A quick test tonight has got me three new things:

1) a range of at least 10m in line of sight - much better than my Cactus triggers
2) A sync speed of 1/250th second - the Cactus could at best hit 1/200 but normally for safety I didn't exceed 1/160 to avoid 'interesting' visible shutter curtain borders.
3) Most importantly, no misfires yet. I was plagued with them with the Cactuses. And although I could live with misfires for most situations they fouled up at a wedding and at a press thing I did recently and I missed some good shots because of them.

So far I'm really pleased and I can't believe how much money I've just potentially saved/about to spend on other photographic equipment.