I’m not letting Louis DeJoy ruin my Competition Season 2021.

Background. Whenever I need to make a lenticular “magic motion” print for Competition Season, my go-to source is Peter Sinclair of Snap3D.com. I send him the images, he crafts me a spectacular lenticular print, and it arrives safe and well in my mailbox.

In fact, Snap3D was the company that made my print The Long, Strange Trip, my magic-motion look of the Grateful Dead VW Super Beetle that’s resting under a pine tree in Old Forge, New York. You know, this one.

Yeah, that works for me.

So back in November, I asked Peter if he could assemble a lenticular print based on my Double Feature Family Friendly image, which showed the Jericho Drive-In marquee as a day and night experience. He said he could. And as an added request, I asked if he still had the original images to my four-seasons-in-the-Adirondacks image Vivaldi’s Pond, which had disappeared in my hard drive crash last June. He said he did, and offered to make a new, smaller 11×14 print for me.

That’s good. Money was exchanged, and Peter went to work.

These images aren’t “do them on Monday, get them on Thursday” prints. Lenticular prints must be aligned very carefully with the ridged plastic layers, or the photos won’t look right. Peter’s an expert on this, and he explained that I should expect him to send it in January.

On January 9th, he e-mailed me, alerting me that he had sent them, along with a tracking number, from Toronto to my home in the Capital District.

Unfortunately, I’ve had to deal with a bit of a side problem.

Louis DeJoy.

For those of you who haven’t reloaded their dartboards, Louis DeJoy is the turd that Donald Trump installed as the new Postmaster General. Louis DeJoy immediately ordered the smashing and destruction of high-speed sorting machines. Louis DeJoy immediately ordered the closure and removal of thousands of neighborhood post office boxes. Louis DeJoy immediately reduced postal workers’ hours. Louis DeJoy essentially knee-capped the United States Postal Service.

Items that normally took a few days to arrive at destinations were now taking a week at best, two weeks on average. Louis DeJoy’s original plan was to cause a loss in confidence in voting by absentee ballot (mail-in voting), which was one of Donald Trump’s many lies to perpetrate his colossal lie about election fraud. But that slowdown also meant that everything else – from prescription refills to baby chicks – got caught in that slowdown.

And my lenticular prints got caught in all that.

The prints left Snap3D’s offices in Toronto on January 9th. And they traveled swiftly through Canada Post, until they hit the United States border. At which point, they spent two weeks trapped in Chicago. Then another week in Brooklyn. Then another week in Springfield, Massachusetts. Trust me, I know this. I had a tracking number to follow the prints.

But then, I received word. The prints were moving. They went from Springfield to Albany. Then a day or two later, they traveled from Albany to Troy. And then a couple of days later, they moved from Troy to a postal truck that services the Town and Village.

Last night … they arrived.

I can tell you this.

That’s my new print of Vivaldi’s Pond, a print that’s staying in my house. I remember building that original print, going up to Corinth every three months to shoot at a specific location with my Kodak Medalist II (“Kodak Red”) and packs of Kodak Ektar 100 film. It’s a print that won awards at the New York State Fair and the Altamont Fair, and is one of five Chuck Miller prints that were accepted over the years at the Photo Regionals. So good to have it back.

But now the big test. What does the Jericho Drive-In print “Double Feature Family Friendly” look like as a lenticular construct?

Wow.

Seriously, wow.

Peter Sinclair did an incredible job with this. This print is automatically designated for Syracuse 2021, or whenever the New York State Fair takes entries again. Yeah.

Much thanks to Peter Sinclair and Snap3D. They do good quality work in the field of three-dimensional lenticular prints, and you should definitely check out their website at this link.

As for Louis DeJoy … you bald-headed, fat, cross-eyed jackass … I’m just one customer in a vast network of customers that you’ve unfairly affected with your demagogue postal tactics. And I hear you’ve got plans to announce more drastic measures, like cutting services, raising prices, and more Trumpian horse shit.

Do me a favor. Resign from your position as Postmaster General and go jump off a cliff.

You are no service to the Postal Service.