Polyglot a pioneer poster

[alison brundage]

Ohhhh  my!   What fantastic photos these are.  K+++ to Timmon for all the work you put into the post.  Odo you again come through with your wonderrful stash.  K+ to yo as well.
Thank you all
Alison

[Timmon]

Thanks OdoHerr. I am beginning to wonder if Polyglot was a photographer and femuscle web site owner. The quality of his posts was superb. But if so, why post with no reference to the source site?

Polyglot is a photographer his photo's have been in mags, one of the other photographers ID'ed him a long time ago in the NG's.   But I don't remember who he was now, as I said its been a long time ago now.  I may or may not have the info somewhere but I have no clue if I do or not, and I have no idea where to start looking right off.   

He did not have a personal web page back when he was posting these images.  I have no idea if he ever made his own page.  There are a lot of photographer pages that are not really advertised on FBB sites.   Polyglot did have images on several web pages,   DtV had some with his Polyglot ID and DtV name in them and as I recall he had some images on FBB's personal pages.   I don't remember which ones off hand but I probably have some images someplace which when I find them I will probably post unless they are plastered everywhere already.   

His photos are pretty identifiable, well at least the ones he scanned himself and posted even if he didn't put the Polyglot name on them(The first images he posted were clean with no name, but the image and the file name gave it away.   When he latter started posting under the Polyglot nom de fleur it was easy to add the older images to the set.).   Mag photo's were and for the most part still are edited and dithered bit maps, so its not as easy to ID to a photographer.   

I personally always liked the style of the images he scanned and posted.  Polyglot most always remembers what the subject of his image is, I.E. the FBB.  Many other photographers are too busy making the artistic composition and forget what the subject of the image is.

Thanks Sar-Net, very interesting. I always assumed that he took scans, or photo's from sites, and made them "his own". A sort of claim on them because he took the trouble to encode them onto a news group. But when you look at this thread of 100% Polyglot pics, the style and all the things you identify, stand out so clearly. His pics certainly were some of the best at the time, and we could do with him today. Maybe he will see this thread sometime, and say hello. You never know!

[Timmon]

Ohhhh  my!   What fantastic photos these are.  K+++ to Timmon for all the work you put into the post.  Odo you again come through with your wonderrful stash.  K+ to yo as well.
Thank you all
Alison

Thanks Alison, glad you like.

[alison brundage]

Ohhhh  my!   What fantastic photos these are.  K+++ to Timmon for all the work you put into the post.  Odo you again come through with your wonderrful stash.  K+ to yo as well.
Thank you all
Alison

Thanks Alison, glad you like.

These photos are new to me as is Polyglott.  What a treasure.  I'm so glad you started this thread and put in the time to present the pics.  This is how I remember female bodybuilding...and I prefer to keep that image in my noggin for what it's worth.   Makes me wanna go out and bench a few...very inspiring. Thanks to all that contribute.
ALISON

[buildy]

Didn't see these 2 pics

[charlie22006]

Beautiful photos. Please tell mi who is de karate lady?
TkS
Charlie

[THFC]

Polyglot's photoset with Sharon Bruneau is still arguably the best photoset ever.  It set the standard for others to follow.

[muslmstr]

Wow! Vintage Lisa Moore and Tawanda Smith!  K+

[Female Bodybuilding]

Polyglot is a Saradas member. You can see his posts :

http://saradas.org/index.php?topic=130438.msg1511077#msg1511077

http://saradas.org/index.php?topic=327061.msg1526192#msg1526192

[asapferg]

These pic really take me back.

[polyglot]

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.

[Sar-Net]

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.

There is software to support that Nikon 9000 on windows 10, one product is called Silverfast, its not cheap at $499 though.  Here is the support info for windows 10 for scanner versions, etc.  You may need a Firewire card, if your scanner uses it,  for newer PC's.  The Firewire cards are cheap on Ebay.

A quick check on Google finds an automated slide scanner with $200 off till feb 20th, at Staples Online(Id check around, mite be cheaper someplace else or you may find a used one cheap.).  Its a little pricey as you can see below, but you load 50 slides at a time and let it run, as you can see it has windows 7/8/10 drivers updated 2015.   There are lots of slide scanners, just do a search.  You will have to check manufacturers web sites for driver info on each one though.   There are real expensive professional slide scanners, some have hoppers you can just keep loading slides into.  And then you have the option to send the slides out for scanning but this will be real expensive.  (I snipped out some of the excess stuff in the Staples info to make a smaller image.)

[polyglot]

Thanks for the info.  I was aware of the very expensive software.  It's disappointing that Nikon makes a fetish out of ensuring that their older lenses are compatible with all their bodies, but neglected to update the firmware for this scanner.

I always made adjustments to each slide based upon my monitor calibration.  I also avoid fiddling with JPEGs.  Consequently an automated system, at least a cheap one, is not for me.  What I need is lots of time.  Nowadays my workflow is to photograph in RAW, do some editing, convert some images to 16-bit TIFFs, do the heavy editing, convert a few to JPEG for publication/dissemination.  A digitization step would probably double my time in front of my PC's monitor.

Computers made a huge impact on this field of interest.  Way back in the old days, Bill Jentz placed himself between fans and the FBBs.  He made Super 8 films and sold photosets and published at first newsletters, then perfect bound beautiful magazines, then WPW, which he said was a money loser, but worth it because of sales generated from ads in the magazine.

However, digitization has enabled fans to circumvent the Middle Men and go directly to their objects of desire - via webpages, videos, etc.

Also Bill Jentz and Steve Wennerstrom did not like to change much.  Bill Jentz has a strong interest in music and that interest dragged him into the computer era.  Steve was forced to buy a laptop to carry on, but would not move from a film camera.  A few years ago I offered to give him a digital SLR, but he declined the offer.  (Jentz always used an old - even in those days - Canon Ftb body and probably still has it.)  Eventually Steve said he was no longer taking photos and likely one reason is that the magazines no longer wanted to accept film media.

And then there are unintended consequences.  JSN started his own film company not long after WASP (Women And Strength Periodical) started.  He moved into video production with a couple of others.  One partner, a  "pioneer" who is now known in the main as "Tom Jackson" had a strong interest in dancers, especially muscular ones.  He liked what is now called muscle worship and often starred in his own videos.  He was married, had an executive position and had children.  A harbinger for him occurred while on vacation in Florida with his family and having someone come up to him  and ask if he were "Tom Jackson".  Of course he denied it.  In the meantime he had kept this area of his life completely separate from his family life.  This did not have a happy ending.  That is, he could not possibly anticipate becoming a face that pops up on Youtube to this day.

[alison brundage]

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.

I'm honored to have at one time been an object of your interest behind the lens of your camera.  Your work is amazing.   I'm also happy to have encountered Jentz and Wennerstrom in those early years and be around to experience  their enthusiasm and drive to photograph FBBs.  They were fun to be around and most encouraging....like kids on an adventure !   Anyway, I was surprised that you mentioned my name as I came and went pretty quickly.

Alison

[soleil]

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.