Hypatia

I've actually had this 6x7 back for my Speed Graphic for a couple months now, and for some reason it's taken me this long to get through a roll I put in there something like halfway through April. Definitely gonna come back to this one now that I can pull a hundred-odd megapixels out of a 6x7 frame (perhaps using a film and developer more suited to the task).

Also, first "production" use of the Coolscan 8000! Took me about an hour to scan this roll, and the scanner mostly behaved during the process (it did randomly drop the USB connection once but I'll take 10 out of 11 successful scans). Stand-developed 400 ISO film is maybe not using it to its greatest capacity but hey I sure can see that grain structure, and even so there's detail in these at 1:1 that I know my Epson flatbed wouldn't have picked up.

📷 2x3 Pacemaker Speed Graphic (1947)
🔎 Kodak Ektar 101mm f/4.5
🎞️ Kodak TMax 400
⚗️ Rodinal 1+120ish
🖨️ Nikon Coolscan 8000, custom electronics

In March of this year TCGplayer—a trading card marketplace and verification service owned by eBay that deals mostly in Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards—had 272 of its employees unionize. This was a pretty big win, not only because these workers are the first ever at eBay to unionize,¹ but also because it came in the face of a significant union-busting campaign by eBay and TCGplayer. Unfortunately, that campaign has continued even with the union in place.

TCGplayer has fired unionized workers; has tried (and failed) to delay the union's certification in an effort to delay bargaining; has denied the union's requests for information; has ignored the Weingarten Rights, of workers; and is now just entirely refusing to bargain with workers. The union, with the support of Communications Workers of America, have filed numerous unfair labor practices with the NLRB, but now they're asking for public pressure to bring TCGplayer and eBay to the bargaining table.

Specifically, they're asking you to:

Stand with TCGplayer workers by sending a message to the CEO of TCGPlayer, Robert Bigler, telling him to respect our union and stop the obstruction. Sending a letter will only take a few minutes and hearing from supporters and customers like you will help push Bigler to do the right thing.

You can do that HERE—I'd encourage you if nothing else to spread the link around to your friends in the trading card community, since my understanding (from the outside) is TCGplayer is a reasonably large fish in that pond.

1. eBay acquired the company in November 2022, shortly before the unionization effort went public.

Seattle, WA