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The Ladies Wore Leather I used two cameras to shoot the Gay Pride Parade, one with black and white film, the other with color. In looking at the black and white photographs, 
I'm not happy with the sharpness and I'm curious to see how the second camera's
pictures look in comparison when I get the color slides back tomorrow. This
autofocus business is fine if it works. I used manual focus cameras for years,
of course, in the days before autofocus was invented. They have their own
problems and I don't really want to go back, but we'll see how this comparison
between cameras resolves. I was using relatively slow ISO 100 film in both
cameras which required that the lenses shoot nearly wide open, most of the black
and white photos taken with a 135mm f 2.0 Nikkor lens and the color with
a 35 - 70mm f 2.8 Nikkor zoom. You don't get much depth of field down at f 2.8
and f 3.5, so if your focus is off even a little bit, you're screwed.
There is some controversy, by the way, within the gay community about the
behavior of some
I think my attitude goes back to my college days when I was publishing a humor
magazine just before the
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of the Dykes on Bikes. Evidently a rude crew. They think the ladies give
the outside world the wrong impression of gay reality when they blast down
the street half naked acting rowdy and unrepentant. Last year there were two
or three riders who crossed the starting line bare breasted, one or two with
strategically placed bandaids over their nipples. This year there
were at least a half dozen women naked to the waist when they crossed the
starting line, none of this bandaid shit, thank you very much, gun the engine,
you're a photographer, get your pictures. I suspect a lot more clothing came
off once they were moving along the parade route and I got the impression
from the group in general that their attitude was the more skin the better. I
take it they were letting the gay establishment know their attitude on this
"don't freak the straights with your weird faggot behavior" caution.
Fuck 'em.
advent of the underground press. They used to give me all kinds of shit
for publishing really mild, really dumb stuff. It was fun, but what a lot
of grief for something so lame and sophomoric. And then the underground
press came barreling down the road like these women on their motorcycles,
just let it all hang out and blow these assholes straight off the street.
These women, men and women, have taken a load of shit for
being gay that I can't even imagine, except I can see the gleam in their
eye when they kick over a 1200cc hog and blast down the highway laughing,
witches with their subversive tits flying on fuel injected broomsticks,
blowing by all those fat heads watching this on television. At least for
the moment. Naive as I am, I can still clap for a righteous performance,
shooting my pictures.