The Twelve Chairs

Today’s Post by Joe Farace

One of my favorite Mel Brooks movies is the 1970’s film The Twelve Chairs , starring Frank Langella, Ron Moody and Dom DeLuise and just a brief but hilarious appearance by Brooks himself. The screenplay was written by Brooks and was one of at least 18 film adaptations of the 1928 Russian novel by Odessan Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov. In it a Russian aristocrat reveals before dying that a fortune in jewels has been hidden from the Bolsheviks by being sewn into the seat cushion of one of the twelve chairs from the family’s dining room set. At that point it becomes an extremely fun chase film, in format similar to (and I think funnier than) It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

While testing the Olympus Pen F, I went to the Hidden Mesa Open Space and next to one of the rustic building on the site, discovered this chair with the number “2” next to it. I assume this is Number Two of the twelve chairs. I didn’t see any jewels so it must be in on of the other eleven chairs.

The image was shot with a Olympus 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II lens (at 14mm) using the camera’s 16:1 image format (vertically) with an exposure of 1/500 sec at f/7.1 and ISO 400. I used the Pen F’s flip-out screen to get this low angle, although the pundits have criticized the Pen F for including it, I find it’s a handy tool.

Barry Staver and I are co-authors of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s out-of-print with new copies available from Amazon for $19.95 (non-Prime) or used copies for giveaway prices, less than $7 as I write this.