Steampunk World's Fair 2017

The 2017 Steampunk World Fair was on the weekend of Friday, May 5-7. It took me a while to settle on what camera I wanted to take, but, I finally decided to dress up my FE2. With a couple of brass pieces, it doesn't look out of place, in fact, most participants who have cameras with them carry around their usual modern black polycarbonate wonders. I wanted my camera to become part of my new steampunk persona, the high-adventuring magazine photographer, Jersey Jack. I didn't do anything permanent to the FE2 and I'm in the process of steampunking a camera that looks a little more worn for Jersey Jack. This is much too pretty.

I took four rolls of Ilford XP2 with me. I brought one lens ( a Nikon 50mm series E), and a Tiffen soft focus filter. The series E lenses were made by Nikon in the late seventies and early eighties for their compact consumer SLRs. The 50mm series E is a bargain today. They are very sharp, and can be found on Ebay for $50 all day.

The theme for this year's SPWF was "The Fires of Inspiration" and steampunk's neo-Victorianism goes perfectly with photography. The 1880's until the turn of the 20th century was a time when photography first began to be taken seriously as a fine art form under giants of the craft like Hoboken native Alfred Stieglitz. The ethereal quality of the work they created is a great source of inspiration for an aspiring photographer.

The SPWF takes place in and around the Radison and Embassy Suites hotels in Piscataway, NJ. This was the view of the atrium my floor in the Embassy. The atrium in the Embassy is one of my favorite spaces, it's a good place for a Victorian promenade.

Eric, one several friends from college who always shows up to this event.

SPWF is a festival with artists and all kids of live acts, one of my favorites is Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band. In addition to their scheduled concerts, they are known for their late night dance parties under the hotel car ports. Their arrangements mix funk and carnival music.

In most of the night shots, my shutter speed was way to slow, even when shooting wide open. The motion blur on this one looks semi-interesting, though. If I try this again, I'll experiment with pushing the XP2 up to 800 asa.  

Electric violin and a wearable speaker.

Nicole Py is the photographer from The Devil's Darkroom studio, specializing in wet plate photographs. She hand mixes her chemicals, coats metal or glass photographic plates with silver emulsion, and then develops the exposed plates under the dark tent seen behind her.

Nicole's final ferrotype image of me. I think that next year I will go back for another. Photo credit: Nicole Py, The Devils Darkroom https://www.thedevilsdarkroom.com/

Belly dancer and band.

Stephanie, a paramedic on staff at the event.

Nighttime concert with ENSMB and This Way To The Egress.

She reminded me of the Borg Queen...And speaking of Star Trek...

Inside and outside, there are plenty of vendors where you can purchase top hats, goggles, brass gears, custom leather crafts and other great items.

In line for a hamburger, I met Her Grace, Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryan, First of her name, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Protector of the Realm, Khalessi of the Great Grass Sea,The Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains, and Queen of Mereen. I like the arm tattoo.

From the glass elevator, I saw her on the floor of the embassy promenading in her shimmering hoop dress and endeavored to catch up with her.

This kid didn't seem at all interested in what was happening on the stage.

The crazy looking contraption is a vehicle of some sort.

Very Mad Max looking.

And, finally, Steampunk with lightsaber.