In the winter of 2020, we will be celebrating nearly 20 years of analog love here at Blue Moon!  A critical (though often unspoken) factor in our success as a small business is our reliance on the United States Postal Service. We have customers from rural Alaska to Tokyo. We ship orders all over the country every single day! Simply put, we just would not be here without the USPS and we absolutely cannot continue without the vital services that they provide. ⁠ ⁠

Beyond their affordable shipping rates, the USPS provides vital public services by delivering life sustaining medications, they employ nearly half a million people across the country, and they establish a lifeline of communication and connection for all of us during these particularly isolating times. In spite of their importance, the USPS is actively being defunded. Fortunately, there are several ways that you can help!⁠ ⁠

Get involved with the US Mail Not For Sale campaign.⁠

Contact your senators, urging them to approve the Delivering For America Act, a bill that has already been passed in the House.⁠

Text ‘USPS’ to 50409 to have Resistbot guide you through some streamlined actions.⁠

Buy stamps and boost your penpal community: write your old friend from grade school, or to an elder in an assisted living facility, or to an incarcerated person you’ve never met before. Typewritten letters are a particularly wonderful gift to receive. Throw in an original optical print and you’ve just made someone’s whole entire day! Luckily, we can help you out with both of these flourishes of analog love! ⁠

⁠We have a lot of favorite stamps, but our latest favorite stamps were released in May of this year - they are the Voices of the Harlem Renaissance series. These stamps feature four influential artists, historians, and writers from the creative and cultural bloom that was the Harlem Renaissance.  To read more about these four individuals, check out The Codex.

We have a plethora of Graflex press cameras in at the moment... one could almost complete the whole set. ⠀ ⠀

The Graflex Crown and Speed Graphic 4x5 cameras really are exceptional cameras.  We sell more of them than any other large format camera.  Why?  A couple of reasons.  First, they are so well made.  These things fold up into nigh-indestructible metal boxes.  You really have to set your mind to breaking one of these cameras.  They are also incredibly portable and fast. They are fast to set up: push a "hidden" button under the leather covering and the bed drops down, pull out the front standard and lock it into position for infinity, and you are ready to go.  You can do this in 5 seconds or less.  They are also fast to use.  Have your film holder already in place, focus via the knobs on the bed and the rangefinder on top, and then (later Speed Graphics only) you have a shutter release right there on the main body for the focal plane shutter.  Want to get a huge negative of Babe Ruth hitting that historic home run?   This is all you need...and, of course, a time machine.⠀ ⠀

We often bring these cameras in on consignment, but a number of them come from a fellow we met a couple years ago who specializes in the restoration of Speed and Crown Graphics. ⠀ ⠀

If you are heavy into film and have not yet had the experience of making a large format negative, you really should.  At least once in your photographic life.  If you are looking for a great camera to start with, this is one of our best recommendations.⠀

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With nearly five ounces of palpable quality over the standard aluminum lens boards on the market, our custom-crafted hand-patina-ed brass lens board is what your Graflex Crown Graphic deserves. ⠀ ⠀

The handsome engraving you're seeing (made by one of our amazing customers) is a sundial, whose hour lines were calibrated for the exact longitude and latitude of our shop in North Portland.  Pretty clever!  Not only will your Graflex look amazing but, if you are photographing around the St. Johns Bridge, it will even accurately tell the time of day for you.

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