Polyglot a pioneer poster

[alison brundage]

If there's any issue with the price of software(s) or any equipment (in order to digitize pictures), why can't we help Polyglot by "crowd funding" the necessary? I hope dozens of persons would give a few bucks (well, depending on their income, it could be more) in this project, or should I say simply "invest" some money in their passion.
I'll be proud to help so myself, considering the excellent quality of Polyglot's pictures (that I know for many years...).
Does anybody know a GOOD crowd funding website?
Anyway, this is not only a matter of softwares and hardware, but a matter of time too. Would Polyglot have enough time to digitize and publish pictures? Some developers who are into free softwares (I mean open source, for example  luajit.org/sponsors.html) have sponsorships from companies or individuals, so they can work on these free projects without loosing money (income). What do you think of it? Polyglot's pictures are worth our support so much.

Interesting idea.  What are his thoughts?

[alison brundage]

I have Silverfast and I've contacted Polygot.

Well keep us posted will you?

[jdm022]

I know it's been a while here...but I have seen some great new posts from polyglot on his experiences with judges and some of the politics of the sports.

Polyglot, if you/re reading this....PLEASE consider getting with MuscleAngels and selling them some....and allowing them to post 12 to 15 photos from different models you shot over the years...

We would be VERY grateful...and I'd hate for them to go by the waste-side when so many of us would appreciate you eternally for it.

Thanks for considering....
jim

[anosee]

Interesting - and a little too flattering.

In those days I tried to max my quality by using slide film extensively - even though most mags wanted B&W.  However, slides are so difficult to digitize and software is becoming non-compliant with OS's.  My Nikon 9000 (because I have some medium format) scanner's operating software is not supposed to work with modern Windows.  Nevertheless, I still have about 200,000 transparencies (almost all in non-fading Kodachrome) sitting in cabinets.  Perhaps 100,00 B&W images and 100,000 or so digital photos too.  I also dabbled in video in those days, but have yet to take a serious look at the 100 or so hours of FBB material.

Even some photos of Alison Brundage I think.

Over time I found the promoters and officials more and more difficult to deal with and one day I just walked away from it all.

Many interesting stories/recountings I could submit.

However, I continue to take thousands of photos in a much different field and have a Flickr page.  Some photos coming out shorlty in a book.

I also retained thousands of clippings from publications going back to the 1930's or so.

Do you know how the story of his life continued for legend Tom Jackson? Is he still alive today?

[polyglot]

I am now almost fully geared up.  I have a 7200 DPI slide scanner as well as a flatbed scanner.  I also have digital images taken in the early years of this century at various events.  However, I am now using a 61 MP camera and a slide/negative of 35mm film is about 1.417 inches by 0.9449 inches.  So a 7200 DPI scan of such a slide yields 10,202 pixels by 6803 pixels.  I suspect that a device attached to my camera plus Macro lens might result in better quality and take much less time.  I have now entered my 9th decade of life and time is more important to me.  I just checked a TIFF image taken from a slide of old time FBB Krista Anderson and it shows a resolution of 8476 X 6052 pixels.  It was scanned at 16-bit colour depth and sits on a hard drive taking up 293 MB of data.  A downsized (1200 X 857) version in JPG format takes up only 890 KB.

"Tom Jackson" was always reticent regarding his personal details.  Nercy Navab sent me an address for him a couple of years ago.  It was in a wealthy suburb of Pittsburgh.  He came from a wealthy family and didn't want his hobby activities linked with his "real" life.  With his visage popping up in the internet countless times and never going away, unless he had plastic surgery, lots of luck with that hope.  Presumably he has inherited his father's business and likely continues to operate it.  I suspect that he funded several video companies.  He said he had an MBA as does Bill Jentz.  After seeing the first couple is issues of WASP, I sent the publication a letter claiming that I had better photos and received a reply from "Tom Jackson" who deliberately misspelled his real name.  He wrote that he was a partner of Bill Jentz, the owner, and along with Steve Wennerstrom, they were supplying the publication with photos.  Later he apologized for misspelling his own name, writing that he wanted to maintain some anonymity.

[jdm022]

AWESOME!!!

Congrats on making it that far in life...the rest of us will be lucky to get close to 90!

Looking forward to seeing some more scans from you.

Also, I'm happy to help you in that regard if needed.  I have been scanning and posting pics for years...

[anosee]

I am now almost fully geared up.  I have a 7200 DPI slide scanner as well as a flatbed scanner.  I also have digital images taken in the early years of this century at various events.  However, I am now using a 61 MP camera and a slide/negative of 35mm film is about 1.417 inches by 0.9449 inches.  So a 7200 DPI scan of such a slide yields 10,202 pixels by 6803 pixels.  I suspect that a device attached to my camera plus Macro lens might result in better quality and take much less time.  I have now entered my 9th decade of life and time is more important to me.  I just checked a TIFF image taken from a slide of old time FBB Krista Anderson and it shows a resolution of 8476 X 6052 pixels.  It was scanned at 16-bit colour depth and sits on a hard drive taking up 293 MB of data.  A downsized (1200 X 857) version in JPG format takes up only 890 KB.

"Tom Jackson" was always reticent regarding his personal details.  Nercy Navab sent me an address for him a couple of years ago.  It was in a wealthy suburb of Pittsburgh.  He came from a wealthy family and didn't want his hobby activities linked with his "real" life.  With his visage popping up in the internet countless times and never going away, unless he had plastic surgery, lots of luck with that hope.  Presumably he has inherited his father's business and likely continues to operate it.  I suspect that he funded several video companies.  He said he had an MBA as does Bill Jentz.  After seeing the first couple is issues of WASP, I sent the publication a letter claiming that I had better photos and received a reply from "Tom Jackson" who deliberately misspelled his real name.  He wrote that he was a partner of Bill Jentz, the owner, and along with Steve Wennerstrom, they were supplying the publication with photos.  Later he apologized for misspelling his own name, writing that he wanted to maintain some anonymity.

Thanks for the interesting details!

But i guess regarding how internet evolved in the following years it might be impossible for him to hide his "second identity".
The family might have found out everything i think.

I hope he is alright today. He made incredible videos which are way more classy and stylish then most of the modern content nowadays.

[polyglot]

I did hear a funny story regarding "Tom Jackson".  He was married and had children while being involved in this life.  Don't know anything about his wife, but suspect that she was normal, so to speak.  When I did a little digging WRT the address Nercy sent me (Nercy started Builtmore et al), I found a name "X X, III", "Tom Jackson" III.  So just as TJ presumably inherited his father's business, his son likely will carry on.  I was amazed that he could engage in this scene so heavily at that time, yet keep it secret from his family.  The story is that while on vacation is southern Florida and walking down the street with his wife and children, someone approached him and asked if he were "Tom Jackson".  TJ quickly denied the suggestion that he was TJ, but the "fan" insisted and persisted.  If his wife had some internet savvy, she could likely have found references to the many TJ videos and then.... I just don't know.  Bill Jentz, on the other hand was totally open with his wife (French).  He even published a photo of her in an early issue of WASP.  Nowadays I think a daughter runs the internet business he maintains.  Also acts as a Gatekeeper.  Jentz had some interesting stories about dealing with the distribution company owned by Larry Flynt when he tried to go mainstream with WPW.  Got the impression that Bill thought he was being "hustled".

[e_honda]

I did hear a funny story regarding "Tom Jackson".  He was married and had children while being involved in this life.  Don't know anything about his wife, but suspect that she was normal, so to speak.  When I did a little digging WRT the address Nercy sent me (Nercy started Builtmore et al), I found a name "X X, III", "Tom Jackson" III.  So just as TJ presumably inherited his father's business, his son likely will carry on.  I was amazed that he could engage in this scene so heavily at that time, yet keep it secret from his family.  The story is that while on vacation is southern Florida and walking down the street with his wife and children, someone approached him and asked if he were "Tom Jackson".  TJ quickly denied the suggestion that he was TJ, but the "fan" insisted and persisted.  If his wife had some internet savvy, she could likely have found references to the many TJ videos and then.... I just don't know.  Bill Jentz, on the other hand was totally open with his wife (French).  He even published a photo of her in an early issue of WASP.  Nowadays I think a daughter runs the internet business he maintains.  Also acts as a Gatekeeper.  Jentz had some interesting stories about dealing with the distribution company owned by Larry Flynt when he tried to go mainstream with WPW.  Got the impression that Bill thought he was being "hustled".

Yeah, that's supposedly the story that's been told. I don't know exactly the extent of its truth, but I clearly recall WPW saying in a statement in the early 2000s (I think it was one of their mailers/news letters) that the "Ray Martin" series of videos was abruptly ending because the guy featured in the vids ("Tom") had retired. WPW continued making videos for several more years. So obviously it's possible.

PG, your pics from the best days (80s/90s) of FBBs were always the best. Glad you're posting here.

[Iron Maiden]

I did hear a funny story regarding "Tom Jackson".  He was married and had children while being involved in this life.  Don't know anything about his wife, but suspect that she was normal, so to speak.  When I did a little digging WRT the address Nercy sent me (Nercy started Builtmore et al), I found a name "X X, III", "Tom Jackson" III.  So just as TJ presumably inherited his father's business, his son likely will carry on.  I was amazed that he could engage in this scene so heavily at that time, yet keep it secret from his family.  The story is that while on vacation is southern Florida and walking down the street with his wife and children, someone approached him and asked if he were "Tom Jackson".  TJ quickly denied the suggestion that he was TJ, but the "fan" insisted and persisted.  If his wife had some internet savvy, she could likely have found references to the many TJ videos and then.... I just don't know.  Bill Jentz, on the other hand was totally open with his wife (French).  He even published a photo of her in an early issue of WASP.  Nowadays I think a daughter runs the internet business he maintains.  Also acts as a Gatekeeper.  Jentz had some interesting stories about dealing with the distribution company owned by Larry Flynt when he tried to go mainstream with WPW.  Got the impression that Bill thought he was being "hustled".

Yeah, that's supposedly the story that's been told. I don't know exactly the extent of its truth, but I clearly recall WPW saying in a statement in the early 2000s (I think it was one of their mailers/news letters) that the "Ray Martin" series of videos was abruptly ending because the guy featured in the vids ("Tom") had retired. WPW continued making videos for several more years. So obviously it's possible.

PG, your pics from the best days (80s/90s) of FBBs were always the best. Glad you're posting here.

Was Tom the same guy that appeared in the RM 115 Christa Bauch video or is that another guy?

[polyglot]

WRT that TJ story, my faint recollection is that John Nafpliotis told me that story.  He was very close to TJ and presumably heard it from the horse's mouth...

Addendum.  When you are born, you are not 1 year old.  You are only 1 after completing a year of life.  So when you are 10, you are entering your second decade of life.  And, as there was no year zero in the Christian calendar, then the third millenium begins at midnight on January 1, 2001 - not 2000.  So while I have aspirations of making it to 90, I am in my 9th decade, being the 80's.

[polyglot]

WRT "old" technology, my policy has been to retain a player of every tech I ever employed.  For example, my first camcorder was a Sony Hi8 model.  When I sold it, I used the proceeds to buy a Sony Hi8 VCR, which I still have, hoping to convert the old Hi8 tapes to DVDs.  (I also purchased the last perhaps model of a DVD recorder with a built-in hard disk drive.  These are great for converting analogue tapes to digital disks.  Unfortunately the tapes must be played at regular speed, when converting.)  I also retain a world wide format VCR.  As one might suspect, this plays tapes from any part of the world.  And when the ultimate analogue players appeared - video disk players - I bought a player and still retain it, along with about 100 LP-sized video disks, including several Chinese disks featuring C. Rothrock, Y. Oshima, etc.  Also retained a couple of SVHS VCRs as well.  Even a digital VCR which recorded 720P video onto tapes.

What is currently amazing is the burgeoning software utilizing "AI" to resize videos and stills, clean them up at a push of a button on screen.  I tried a still with Topaz AI 4.0 and it did some amazing work on an automatic setting, including upsizing the image 4X.  The current version offers a slide cleanup feature which also looks amazing.  I have been fiddling with another "AI" piece of software, VideoProc Converter.  Despite its title, it handles stills and video.  I am almost reluctant to start processing my hundreds of thousands of slides, as I fear that after spending a lot of time doing so, a new version of the software will be released and make me want to repeat all my previous work.  Alas, a full-frame 35mm slide scan can take up over 300 MB of disk space in 16-bit TIFF format.  God knows how much space one of my old Hi8 videos would take up.  Time is also an issue - processing time, that is.  The first time I tried the Super Focus feature in Topaz AI, it required over 12 minutes for a single image and I have a powerful PC, but perhaps I could use a videocard upgrade...

[jdm022]

Thanks Polyglot...we have always appreciated your posts and work...especially early on when there was not much original material out there.

Do you mind posting one of your recent scans here, maybe try reducing the size so maybe it is only 30MB or less vs. 300MB

I know that my 6MB slide scans are pretty decent quality and only take 15 to 20 seconds to scan...I utilize an Epson Perfection V550.

Thanks !!!