Photography by Leonard Whistler

Shepard Tables - Optical Illusion

Shepard Tables is an optical illusion first published in 1990 as "Turning the Tables" by Stanford psychologist Roger Shepard in his book Mind Sights, a collection of illusions that he had created. It is one of the most powerful optical illusions, typically creating length miscalculations of 20–25%.

This illusion is based on a drawing of two parallelograms, identical aside from a rotation of 90 degrees. However, when the parallelograms are presented as tabletops, we see them as objects in three-dimensional space. One table seems long and narrow, with its longer dimension receding into the distance. The other table looks almost square because we interpret its shorter dimension as foreshortening. According to Shepard, "any knowledge or understanding of the illusion we may gain at the intellectual level remains virtually powerless to diminish the magnitude of the illusion".

I made a YouTube video about the Shepard Tables: Shepard Tables - Optical Illusion.

47 Years after High School

I graduated from high school 47 years ago in 1978. Below are my yearbook school photos from Winslow Junior High School and Centennial Senior Secondary High School in Coquitlam BC, Canada.

The photo on the left is me in 2025.

Junior and Senior Secondary High School - 1976 to 1978

Pinhole Camera Photography

This is a 4x5 wooden pinhole camera I made which takes 4x5 sheet film. The lens is a pinhole in a 2-inch x 2-inch piece of aluminum foil. For the shutter, I used a piece of duct tape, which I would remove during the exposure.

For film I used Ilford Delta 100 4x5 black & white sheet film. The film was tray-processed in Ilford Ilfotec DD-X film developer, Ilford Ilfostop, and Ilford Rapid Fixer. I then scanned the 4x5 negatives on an Epson V700 scanner.

35mm equivalent focal length can be calculated by dividing the diagonal length of the 4x5 sheet film in millimeters (mm) by the diagonal length of a 35mm single frame. In this case 160mm / 43mm = 3.72. If you would like a wide-angle pinhole camera of about 20mm (35 equivalent) you would calculate 20mm x 3.72 = 75mm. Your pinhole camera would be 75mm from the film plane to the pinhole, equal to a 20mm lens on a 35mm camera.

To determine the f-stop of your pinhole camera, you divide the camera's focal length in millimeters by the diameter of the pinhole. The focal length is measured from the film plane to the pinhole. Example: (75mm / 0.50mm = 150) The f-stop of the pinhole is f150.

Exposures can be calculated using the sunny f16 rule, which is 100 ISO, 1/100 second shutter speed and f16. The equivalent sunny f16 rule exposure on a sunny day with a f150 pinhole and 100 ISO film is about 1 second, plus adjustments for the film's reciprocity failure due to exposures longer than 1 second. The film's data sheet will show how much to adjust the exposure.

You can also use your digital camera to calculate the exposure for the pinhole camera. Set the camera to manual (M) with the ISO at 100 and the f-stop at 16. Adjust the shutter speed until the exposure is good, then add the difference in exposure time from f16 to the f-stop of your pinhole camera. f16 to f150 is 7 stops of extra exposure, plus an adjustment for reciprocity failure.

The reciprocity failure of Ilford Delta 100 4x5 black & white sheet film can be calculated by taking the measured exposure time (Tm) to the power of 1.26 to get the adjusted exposure time (Ta). Tm^1.26 = Ta.

The results from my pinhole camera were better than I expected.

Pinhole Camera Photography

Canadian National Railway (CNR)

From 1979 to 1997 I worked as a Carman for the Canadian National Railway (CNR) and VIA Rail Canada in Surrey BC, Canada, and Vancouver. The Carman position is similar to a Heavy Duty Mechanic.

During my time there I picked up two souvenirs - a Canadian National Railway (CNR) caboose kerosene signal lantern manufactured by the Hiram L. Piper Company, and 4 railcar outer bolster springs.

I used the bolster springs as legs for a coffee table with a wooden top. I made the coffee table in 1980 and still have it.

Railcar Bolster Spring Coffee Table

Good Morning from Vancouver BC, Canada

Today I visited Downtown Vancouver to get my breakfast at a very nice fast food restaurant called Anita's Kitchen in the Bentall Centre on Burrard Street.

After breakfast, I usually go to Starbucks for my daily coffee, but today I went to Tim Hortons.

3D Red-Cyan Anaglyph Video

In 2023 I made three 3D videos using two GoPro Hero7 Black cameras mounted side-by-side. Put on your red-cyan glasses and view the videos on my YouTube channel at: 3D Red-Cyan Anaglyph Videos.

URL Shortening - www.len778.ca

I created www.len778.ca to redirect viewers to my main website at www.LeonardWhistler.ca.

I use the www.len778.ca web address on my business cards because it is short, easy to remember, and easy to enter into the browser address bar. I chose len778 because Len (Leonard) is my name, and 778 is one of the telephone area codes in Vancouver BC, Canada - my home city.

There are online URL shortening services such as TinyURL, Bitly, ShortURL, etc. However, for my needs, the URLs they generate are still too long and difficult to remember. Below is a TinyURL generated URL compared to my shortened URL for www.LeonardWhistler.ca.

Below is the index.php file on www.len778.ca with the PHP code I use to redirect viewers to www.LeonardWhistler.ca.

VCC Printing Production Certificate Course

In September 1987 I took a 10-month Printing Production certificate course at Vancouver Community College (VCC) in Vancouver, Canada. I finished the course in June 1988.

I took this course because I was interested in printing up a 12-month calendar of my images from the concert photography (Blog post #008) I was doing at the time, and I wanted to learn how offset printing worked.

For the final project the students were required to print a 2-color job on a 1-color offset printing press. Since I was collecting Canadian stubby beer bottles (Blog post #011), I decided to print some beer bottle labels. I designed the labels on an Apple Macintosh Plus computer and printed them on a 25-inch L125C Harris offset printing press.

Canadian Stubby Beer Bottles

From about 1976 to 1983 I collected Canadian Stubby beer bottles. All major Canadian breweries bottled their beer in the same bottle from the 1960's to about 1984. I have almost 300 bottles in my collection.

If you have any Stubby beer bottles and are curious how much they might be worth, check the Completed and Sold Items on eBay. Or the collectibles section on Craigslist.

I have created a website at www.stubby.ca for my collection: Canadian Stubby Beer Bottles

Good Morning from Burnaby BC, Canada

To start my day after my breakfast, I went to the Starbucks at Brentwood Town Centre in Burnaby BC, Canada. Burnaby is a suburb of Vancouver, Canada.

This Starbucks location is very easy to get to, it is about 100 feet from the Brentwood SkyTrain Station. SkyTrain is Metro Vancouver's rapid transit system.

Drone Videos

I bought a DJI Mavic Air 2 drone a few years ago. In Canada you need a Basic Drone License to fly a drone that weighs more than 249 grams, this drone weighs 570 grams.

DJI drones are easy to use. They feature automated take-off and landing, simple and intuitive flight controls, simple image & video exposure controls, and compact design. They are also very reasonably priced for the technology inside them.

I uploaded 9 drone videos to my YouTube channel - Drone Videos Playlist - and my favorite video is an aerial view of Como Lake Park during the winter in Coquitlam BC, Canada.

Como Lake Park - Coquitlam BC, Canada

Concert Photography

From about 1984 to about 1990 I was interested in concert photography and planned to publish a calendar of Vancouver bands. The 16x20 print I am holding is of Madelaine Morris when she was with Moev at the New York Theatre on Commercial Drive in East Vancouver taken in 1984 - this was my first concert photo.

During the next few years I photographed a few more Vancouver bands in concert but decided not to publish the calendar. I don't have any of the negatives from the time I was working on this project, I had no use for them so I disposed of them around 1995.