A Tribute To Will Dunniway

Several wet plate photographers met in Yosemite National Park to take photos as a tribute to Will Dunniway who recently passed.  We met at "Will's Secret Spot" to "pour a plate", share lessons learned, and honor the legacy of this amazing man.  I know Will helped me a great deal on my journey of learning wet plate photography and he helped and trained many others as well. 

Will loved getting this photo in the morning when the granite could be seen reflecting in the pond.

We had a great turnout of many photographers.

There were also  a great number of wet plate cameras and darkrooms being used. 

Will's camera was being used with a Dallmeyer 3D lens.

Conrad Young had a cool portable darkroom that fit nicely in a wagon. 

Catherine Segura used a larger darkroom in the back of a car.

This is Will's portable darkroom in the back of a car.  Notice that Will uses a four tray method. The first tray is developer that is changed every plate.  The other three trays are rinse water that is rotated. 

Tri Tran also created a really nice video of the event that you can watch on YouTube.

You can also see these photos on Facebook if you prefer. 

Make Believe At Muzeo

 

With COVID restrictions partially lifted, I was invited to give a Magic Lantern Show for a live event at the Muzeo Museum in Anaheim Ca. The museum is about 5 minutes from Disneyland and was hosting an event called "Make Believe at Muzeo" in collaboration with the Museum Of Make Believe.   This was my first live event in front of a large audience and my first public event. 

A Magic Lantern was discreetly worked into the decor!

Artwork by Geoff Mitchell. 

 I brought my primary lantern as well as a Marcy Sciopticon as backup.  Both lanterns were powered with batteries and use an LED light. Notice also the small lantern in front of the table.  This was placed by the organizers as part of the decor to fill the screen in between performances.

The show was short with a performance of "Jack And The Beanstalk" as well as several slip slides for comedy.  It was great to finally perform in front of a live audience and get real time feedback on what worked and what did not.

We also brought our Tintype Photo Studio, Telegraph Demonstration, and Color Candle dipping.   

Shannon brought her snack bags to sell as well ( http://randomsacks.com ).

Overall, the event went well.  I got lots of laughs on the slip slides.  The event was live streamed.  The stream is on YouTube if interested.  I can say that watching one's own performance certainly highlights room for improvement!  

The following links will take you to the exact parts of the the show where we were involved.

• 6 Minutes : Candle Dipping
• 8 Minutes: Telegraph
• 9 Minutes: Wet Plate Photography
• 16 Minutes: Random Sacks Of Kindness (http://randomsacks.com)
  
• 2 Hours: Magic Lantern Show
  

Lighting The Marcy Sciopticon

     Designed in the late 1860s, the Marcy Sciopticon brought new innovations to Magic Lantern design. The double body, double wick kerosene illumination, and compact design set a new standard for the technology of cinema projection. 

     I had originally purchased my Marcy due to an interest in the lens.  I expected that the Darlot Petzval lens would be useful for making  tintypes using wet plate photography. However, I became enchanted with the the lantern.  The beautiful brass and wood combination and solid construction dating back to the 1860s seemed a perfect companion for the historic demonstrations I do at Fort Tejon State Historic Park in Southern California. 

   As I have had some success building my own lighting systems for lanterns, I decided to try building LED lighting for it.  I based the design on the MR16 style LED bulb.  They can be obtained in 12V models and the LED versions run up to 9 watts.   They vary between 15 and 35 degree dispersion angle so you can choose a bulb that works with your specific condenser and lantern body.  For this project I used the  SORAA 08740 75 Watt Equivalent". It has 665 lumens, 36 degree dispersion pattern and only consumes 9 watts. 

I started by measuring the inside of the lantern and sketching out a basic design.  This design was loaded into the Affinity Designer software that is used with the GlowForge. 

 When designing something new, it often takes a few iterations to get everything quite right so several prototypes were created on cardboard. The design was finally cut out using the Glow Forge Pro on 1/8 inch Birch Plywood.

Cut out and ready for assembly.

Gluing the pieces together. 

I attached battery holders for 18650 cells.  The 18650 is a very versatile cell that runs at 3.7 volts and will have a capacity between 2 and 5 amp hours depending on the model purchased.  They are readily available and not too expensive. 

The MR16 style LED bulb mounted on the front. 

Once installed in the lantern, the switch in the back is nicely disguised by the back cover. 

The lamp sits essentially where the original flame would have been when operating with kerosene. 

 After some testing, I found my design needed a few revisions. 

• Low Voltage - As the 18650 cells are 3.7 volts each, this gives a total system voltage of 11.1 volts. Although this was enough to drive the LED and it worked OK, I decided to add a cell to raise the voltage to 14.8 volts hoping that this would give me longer battery life. 
• Heat - I thought having the batteries in front would keep them out of the way, but even with only consuming 9 watts, the bulb does get hot.  Not all 18650 batteries do well with heat, so I started loosing batteries to heat failure.  I needed to move the batteries off of the front.
• Balance - Having the bulb and batteries in front made the fixture a bit "Front Heavy". 

I decided to mitigate all of these by adding a battery holder and distributing the batteries around the holder differently.

 Fully installed, the lamp is imperceptible and does a nice job illuminating an image.  As it runs on battery, it can be used almost anywhere.

I measured light at the screen at 15 feet using a handheld light meter with two different bulbs. Here were the readings in LUX.

• SORAA 9W 12V 670 Lumens 36 degree dispersion: Lux at Screen: 90
• CREE 7.5W 12V 570 Lumens 25 degree dispersion: Lux at Screen: 80

This is enough light to do a good job projecting in a dark room. As the Marcy likes a "Point" light source, I also found that this was about 20% brighter than the COB (Chip On Board) style LED used in other lighting designs such as the CelSun.  It is certainly much brighter than the original kerosene illumination would have been.

Hope you enjoyed this overview.  Please feel free to reach out with any questions.

 

Goals, Vision, and Values, Oh My!

 

Goals, Mission, And Vision

The terms Goals, Vision, and Values are often used interchangeably, but are actually different things.

• Mission - The Purpose of the organization as well as scope of operations. A good mission will be rooted in a business definition.
• Vision - Where you want to go.
• Values - Beliefs and principles.
• Core Values - Strong, enduring beliefs used as a foundation for decisions. They are the essence of corporate culture. They explain how you intend to act towards stakeholders and employees. They are values in action.
• Strategic Vision - Moves beyond the Mission to provide perspective on where the company is headed.
• Goals - These are Specific items, that can be Measured and Assigned to specific individuals or teams. They should be Realistic and have a Time frame for accomplishment.

Strategic Planning

If you are thinking about coming up with a mission, a vision, or values, it's important to understand that these things don't' exist in a vacuum, they are intended to be used as part of a business strategy and planning process. The process flows into a strategy that can then be implemented.

Organizational Purpose - Goals, Mission, And Vision

This is the first step, but also the last step in strategic planning. After plans are implemented, it's important to continually evaluate your plan, and determine your need to for strategic change. If you determine change is needed, you can focus on the important parts to change.

Analysis - SWOT

Situational Analysis is a process of determining the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) in both the external and internal environment. It helps you This process should take into account the following attributes.

• Internal Environment - Strengths and Weaknesses
• Determine Distinctive Competence - What can we make or do better than our competitors? What are we really good at?
• Determine Core Capability - Internal decision making routines, problem solving processes, and culture that turn inputs into outputs.
• External Environment - Opportunities and Threats
• Environmental Scanning - Important events or issues that might effect the organization such as new technology.
• Strategic Group Analysis - Compare yourself to other companies.
• Shadow Strategy Task Force - Think like an external competitor focused on your own weaknesses.

Although the above model explains how to perform SWOT analysis for strategic planning, the SWOT method can also be used on a smaller scale to examine a specific business unit, department or team.

Implementation - The "7S" Model.

Once you have have a purpose and vision and understand your strengths and weaknesses, it's time to come up with a plan. One common approach is the McKinsey 7S framework which focuses on specific portions of the business.

• Strategy: Your overall plan for maintaining your competitive advantage.
• Structure: Team structure, departmental structure, lines of reporting. i.e. Vertical, Horizontal, or Matrix organization, Project or task force teams, etc.. - See Team Structures Below.
• Systems: The process and procedures to get things done. i.e. ticketing and inventory systems.
• Shared Values: Culture and work ethic.
• Style: The leadership style adopted by the organization's management.
• Staff: The people and talent within the organization. .
• Skills: What are the skills our people have and how do we address gaps, growth, and development.

Implementation - Departmental Structure

When forming departments within an organization, different strategies can be applied.

• Functional Departmentalization - Departments are formed based on the kind of work they are doing. i.e. Help Desk, Software Development, Infrastructure, Finance, Human Resources, etc. This allows specialization on a kind of work, but may cause departments to focus only on their own needs.
• Product Departmentalization - This is a department focused on a specific product. i.e. Cars, Trucks, Toasters, etc. This allows more specific focus on the product, but may cause duplication since each department needs similar functions.
• Customer Departmentalization - Responsible for particular kinds of customers.
• Geographic Departmentalization - Targeted towards a specific geographic area.
• Matrix Departmentalization - Combine two different methods. You have more integration and less duplication but people report to multiple bosses.

Implementation - Team Structures

In implementation, Goals are accomplished by teams. If the team has a clear mission, vision, and values, it helps them make decisions more autonomously. Teams can be structured in different ways.

• Cross Functional Teams - A group staffed with a mix of people from different skills, backgrounds or departments. It is formed to accomplish a specific objective. Cross functional teams are popular in the DevOps paradigm where deployment and development skill sets work together on the same team. Though, this is not common at WDAS since we don't often put a large group of people towards a single objective.
• Project Teams - A group formed specifically to design a new product or service. The members are assigned by their managers based on their ability to contribute to team success.
• Self-Directed Teams - Groups of highly trained individuals performing a set of job tasks within a natural work unit. The team members rely on consensus-type decision making to perform work duties, solve problems, and deal with customers.
• Task Force Teams - A team formed by management to immediately resolve a major project. These are often created for downtimes or events where incident response plans are implemented.
• Process-Improvement Teams -A group made up of experienced people from different departments or functions. The group is charged with improving quality, decreasing waste, or enhancing the productivity of processes that affect all departments or functions. The members are normally appointed by management.

The amount of Autonomy can also be considered.

• Low Autonomy - Traditional Work Group - Team is assigned a specific task to accomplish. No power is given to make decisions or change workflow.
• Employee Involvement Teams - Can make suggestions but not decisions
• Semi-Autonomous - Still answerable to a manager
• Self Managing - Team makes decisions without a manager.
• Highest Autonomy - Self Designing - A team that can change its members as well as structure.

Evaluation - Assessing need for Strategic Change

All plans need to be flexible and adapt to changes in the environment. To paraphrase Helmuth von Moltke, "No plan survives contact with the enemy". You can also adjust your strategic plan by addressing the need for strategic change. If change is needed, you can again conduct your SWOT analysis and determine new strategic alternatives.

References:

Snell S, Bohlander G. (2014) Managing Human Resources. South-Western, Cengage Learning ISBN 978-1305258358

Williams, Chuck (2019) MGMT 11e. Cengage

McKinsey 7S Framework : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_7S_Framework

SMART Goals : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria

McKinsey 7-S Framework : https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_91.htm