Michael S. Goldfarb

Behold… Goldfarb the Grey! (639 × 939)

Black & White Beacon

Found-subject photos of Beacon, New York.

Through My Lens

Sarah Goldfarb’s short graphic novel (2014) about her memories of her paternal grandparents (Michael’s parents). Highly recommended, especially if you knew Sid and Teddy.

Michael on the Fedora Lounge

The Fedora Lounge is a very active group of forums dedicated to retro interests. Since 2004, Michael has been a frequent contributor under the username Doctor Strange, commenting on varied subjects including movies, TV, music, photography, history, books… and jackets and hats. Check out his recent postings.

Custom “Early Thirties” Fedora

The master hatter at The Northwest Hat Company made Michael this replica of a type of fedora you see everywhere in late twenties and early thirties films and photos, based on his specs. It’s pearl gray 100% beaver felt (the Cadillac of hat felts!), with a wide black ribbon, moderate bound brim, and just a center dent. It’s beautifully made, and for only about $75 more than what today’s Stetsons cost, it’s an outstanding value. This hat is on a whole other plane of construction and material quality from factory-made Akubra and Stetson hats! Photos by David Goldfarb; jacket is goatskin A-2.

Classic Cameras

Michael is listed in the All-Goldfarb Site. He shoots with vintage cameras—Minox, Olympus, and Nikon—and has authored a Port Halcyon article on them. His photos are at

and there are many more below.

Indy Hat and Lambskin Raiders Jacket

From Wested Leather, the movie costume shop in England that made the originals worn by Harrison Ford and his stuntmen in the Eighties. It’s the Akubra Federation model.

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small 296 × 361 291 × 362 330 × 397
large 592 × 722 582 × 724 660 × 794

Other Akubra Hats

These hats are tough as nails, beautifully made, and dirt cheap for the price at current Australia/US currency conversion rates.

Type A-2 Flight Jacket

Navy Pea Coat

Michael’s latest military fashion acquisition (590 × 920, December, 2007), a Navy pea coat. This is the older-style 10-button, heavier wool model made by the Navy’s contractor since the Vietnam War, Sterlingwear of Boston. (The current mil-spec model is lighter wool with fleece [vs. quilted] lining and has only eight buttons.) Note that they’re now black instead of the traditional very dark navy blue. It’s very warm. The hat is Michael’s Stetson Temple that he’s had for several years, and the background is Charles Point Park in Peekskill. David shot this with the digital camera Michael got him for Hanukkah 2007; Michael had to crop and reduce the image quite a bit to get it down to a manageable size to send over his dialup connection. He lightened the midrange tonal values in the peacoat picture to make the buttons and lapels more visible.

More Jackets!
(December 2017)

2003 Trip to Washington, D.C.

Chinatown

With Mark and David Meretzky in front of the late Wah Kue Co, 58 Mott Street, known for its comics and Lego:

Production Stills

Grateful Dead: Sunday, May 8, 1977

Michael finally got around to making a scan of his (in)famous Cornell Grateful Dead picture (1416 × 1035). He actually went into the darkroom and made a brand-new 8×10 print to scan. The 31-year-old negative was still in great shape! (Aside: Let’s see if 30 years from now, people can get usable digital images off of their camera memory cards and CD-ROMs, when all of today’s technology is long obsolete!) As usual, he did have to clean up some scanner and negative dust, but he’s sure you’ll agree that the shot looks great.

Michael took this with his old Petri Color 35—1/15 second, wide-open at f/2.8, on Tri-X. He exposed it exactly on one of the pauses in the vocals on St. Stephen, which is why there’s no movement-blur. This was a general-admission show in the Cornell gym, and we were able to maneuver right up to the front of the stage—that’s Michael’s college roommate Alan’s head in between Weir and Donna!

This show is generally considered one of the Dead’s very best, and the widely circulated tapes (Michael has long had it on reel-to-reel, but you can now download digital sound files from several Internet sources) prove that they were in great form that night. The Scarlet Begonias/Fire On The Mountain is amazing, and the rest of the second set is pretty awesome too! But don’t just take Michael’s word for it—see the reviews at the Dead’s own site.

The Outdoors

Osborn Preserve

Historical

The Palisades and view therefrom

New England, September 2012

The last four were taken on Sidney Goldfarb’s Sanyo point & shoot.

  1. Michael barbecuing in his A-2 leather jacket at Mount Philo. iPhone photo by David Goldfarb. (1154 × 1064)
  2. David atop Mount Washington. Michael used fill flash, which did a great job of evening out the shadows. It prevented the mega-bright sun from rendering his face with too much contrast. An old technique that still works great with digital. (1632 × 1224)
  3. Looking west towards Lake Champlain from Mount Philo (3264 × 1676)
  4. Mount Washington, with cog railway (3264 × 1668)
  5. Mount Washington, looking southwest towards the Lakes of the Clouds (3264 × 1880)

The Goldfarb Chronicles

Diptych

Michael in The New York Times

Michael appeared in the New York Times on Thursday, March 24, 2005 (p. G3 in the Circuits section), accompanied by these back and front images. Here is a local copy of the article.

He explains how it happened. “I was contacted by the author of the article last week—he must have seen my Port Halcyon article on A-2s, or maybe he saw my glowing comments in the feedback section of the US Authentic site. Anyway, he asked if I would answer a few questions about my interest in flight jackets and my dealings with US Authentic.

I ended up sending back long responses… “When I was growing up, WWII was still recent history—Combat! was a hit on TV, and my friends and I often played European theater commando games in Van Cortlandt Park… Despite being a lifelong pacifist, I’ve always been partial to classic military styles: I wore a number of flight jacket knockoffs as a kid, and I spent my high school and college years wearing N3–B snorkel parkas.”

RETROspective Magazine

Links to other people

Flikr

Fried-Louis Studio’s photostream