This is a daily photo blog. I’m posting one image each day from now until I run out of space on my server. The “each day” refers to when the photograph is taken. I upload when I have time, typically five or six days after the image is captured. Click on a balloon to open a page for comments.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Last month I set my Alpa Max up to demonstrate its “tilt” capacity (the ability to tilt the focus plane to increase the appearance of depth of field) and got an somewhat poorly visualized image of our sundial. It’s snowing today (at last) so I set up trying to do a better of seeing and imagining the image:
Sundial redux
On this day one year ago: a long skinny Third Avenue from my office.
Third Avenue
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Out with my Leica and 90mm lens I caught this in the failing light.
East 86th Street in good light
On this day last year: 9-11 memorial.
9/11 memorial
BROOKLYN NEW YORK – At last a good day of photography. I met a friend for lunch a Peter Luger, still the best steakhouse in New York (and maybe in the universe). It’s just over the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn, so after lunch I explored the bridge and Williamsburg in lovely winter light. Williamsburg is an interesting melange of Lubavitchers, hipsters and young urban types – it has a very good subway connection to midtown. The day was good enough to warrant treatment as a mini-gallery in this post. All images are with my Leica M9 and a 24mm Summilux lens. Lets start with an image of a lone runner in the shadow of the bridge overpass:
Soloist
I’ve done this a lot. For a long time. The distant, solo figure is a recurring theme in my work. Here’s one from 1970 (taken with a
Rollei 2.8 F in Luxembourg):
Solist
Since 1970 the cells in my body have replacement themselves many times; I’ve had a world of experience but I still identify with the lonely, isolated figure. Another thought is captured in the comparison of these two images: my work is often symmetrical with correct prospect (which takes a certain amount of control when shooting with a wide angle lens) or is wildly askew. Anything in between just feels like a mistake to me.
One of the advantages of living in the Northeastern US is the brilliant winter light. It was very much in evidence today giving the graffiti a visual kick.
Fine winter light
Kind of mixed use real estate here, with car repair shops and the like tucked in among buildings undergoing major renovations.
Car repair shop
Here’s the bridge. It wasn’t easy to get this angle. The East River has no accessible waterfront here. I had to trespass through a bridge and tunnel authority parking lot and climb a fence. There are some excellent early 19th century warehouses along here that look like they are in early stages of being renovated.
Williamsburg Bridge
Finally, the scene under the El for the M train back to Manhattan could have been from 1954.
Under the El
On this day one year ago: parking space.
World Trade Center Boston
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Back in New York I met Francesca (our daughter) for dinner at a college burger joint near Columbia. They had Full Sail beer on the menu (the only time that I’ve seen it on the East Coast) so I ordered a dark one. Taken with my iPhone (what did I do before I had this thing?).
Full Sail
Because I’ve assiduously kept this blog I know that I was at the Full Sail Brewery in Hood River Oregon (a bit east of Portland) on October 27, 2009, over two years ago, when I captured this image:
Full Sail Brewery
On this day last year: a lonely guy view of a parking lot in historic Boston.
Blizzard Boston
NAPLES FLORIDA – In a break from meetings I ran into a friend having lunch at a casual bar on the beach. He posed as I photographed him with my iPhone. But this presents a dilemma. This guy is pretty prominent in the world that I work in; when he posed he didn’t realize this was destined for the web; I don’t necessarily want to “out” him as having fun in the middle of the day. How to handle it? Well here’s one idea: There’s an app for the iPhone that converts an image into tiles. At tile resolution he’s not recognizable:
Incognito
Another sunset. This does happen every day so I’m generally against shooting sunsets (same category as pets and cute kids). It was really, really clear and occasionally when the sun sets toward the sea and it’s very clear you see a brief green flash. I’ve actually seen it once from Basil’s Bar in Mustique. So I set up to catch it but alas it didn’t happen. Here’s the sun where there would have been a green flash had it happened.
Yet another sunset
On this day one year ago: humongous ice-sicle.
Ice Warren Connecticut
NAPLES FLORIDA – I flew down here from New York this morning for two days of client board meetings. I managed a long walk on the beach today. Beaches aren’t great for photography (at least when I’m pushing the shutter button) I suspect because they are all similar, if not the same. Here’s a sea bird admiring its shadow, taken with my Panasonic.
Naples Florida
A few hours later, a sunset from my hotel room.
Sunset Naples Florida
On this day one year ago: snow.
Warren Connecticut
MORRIS CONNECTICUT – I drove over to Morris this morning to catch the Morris Congregational Church in good morning light. I got a late start – we had house guests so I needed to attend to breakfast. By time I got to Morris it was too late – the light was flat and dull – but I saw these school buses on the way back and they seemed unusually vivid. Taken with my Alpa Max and 72mm Schneider.
School Buses, Morris CT
On this day last year: a snow covered barn in Milton CT.
Barn Milton Connecticut
KENT CONNECTICUT – I’m getting back on my game in Connecticut. I took my Alpa Max out with a tripod on a field trip to Kent Connecticut where I stopped at a remarkable chocolate shop called Belgique. Do click through the link – the site is over the top. So Belgique is closed today – evidently on vacation to rest after the holiday rush. Taken with the Max, a 72mm Schneider lens and my Phase One IQ 180 back.
Belgique
On this day one year ago: Lexus of Manhattan.
Lexus of Manhattan
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’ve operated for a few days on the theory that the point of this exercise (a daily photo blog) is to document my daily life. A visual diary. Ok. So here’s a picture taken with my Panasonic while waiting for a red light. I may have to give this a bit more thought. Maybe it’s a Friday the 13th effect.
Driving to Connecticut
On this day one year ago: Hell’s Kitchen.
Hell's Kitchen
NEW YORK NEW YORK – My photography has been feeling a bit listless post Tuesday’s lunch. I decided to shake myself up bit with a radical equipment change. I walked around the upper eastside with a small Panasonic that I had converted to infrared last year. I like IR images in the winter; when there is foliage on the trees infrared renders the leaves as white and they look phony. Here we go with an image in IR false color:
IR on Lexington
Another, converted to grayscale:
Outside of Fairway
On this day last year: a shot of the El Dorado across the frozen Central Park Reservoir.
El Dorado
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A day of preparing for meetings. I took a break to go out and refresh my printer supplies. This from our local Staples with my Leica and a 35mm Summilux lens.
Buying paper
On this day last year: sunset from my office.
South from 919 Third Avenue
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I went to a lunch sponsored by the ICP that included a panel discussion by a number of photojournalism luminaries. Discouraging. They all said that its easy to produce good or even very good pictures. It’s the brilliant ones that are hard to come by. Everyone has long term projects and takes assignments in hell-holes at the ends of the earth. What’s the point of my daily photo blog from cosy New York and Connecticut (and various one-percenter hang outs)? What’s the narrative? What (if anything) makes my pictures interesting?
Tough issues. Maybe the narrative is my life; but wouldn’t that require me to get closer (photographically) to the people around me – family and friends? That’s difficult because they didn’t volunteer for this (another issue discussed by the panel) – I’ve had one situation where the subject of a photo asked me to take it down; for now I’ve resolved the issue by designating the post as “private” (if you look back carefully you’ll see one day gap in the public record) – I’ll figure out what to do with it at some later date. The lunch was in Tribeca; I had my Alpa with me (not much good at the lunch) and the light in the streets was flat and poor later in the afternoon. I finally settled on this.
A vacant lot
On this day one year ago: breakfast at Kitchenette.
Kitchenette
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Out on the street on a bright day between meetings with my iPhone. This image has been altered; I took a number of images in rapid succession; I added the shadow to the image of the walking man.
Park Avenue Pedestrian
On this day one year ago: snow drifts. This seems odd, now. This winter we haven’t had any real snow since the end of October.
Wind blown snow, Warren Connecitcut
WARREN CONNECTICUT – So . . . . still relying on my little bitty Ricoh GRD 4. There was some splendid light this afternoon. This image (and some others) prove that good light trumps poor equipment choice. Three frames stitched.
Good light
On this day one year ago: winter in Warren. Another tree line, no more than 200 yards from where this year’s image was taken, but with a radically different angle and lens choice, and radically different light.
Warren Connecticut
KENT CONNECTICUT – We took a walk today along a segment of the Appalachian Trail that runs through here. I thought that I had left my Alpa in Connecticut; it turns out that it was in New York, so I only had the camera that travels in my pocket, my Ricoh GRD 4. Not the best tool for landscape. Here’s a branch off of Ten Mile River taken with the GRD 4, three frames stitched.
Ten Mile River
On this day one year ago: a really crappy day.
1185 Park Avenue in snow storm
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Well here we are in Connecticut a day earlier that usual. Blah light on the landscape end of things. The secret of great landscape photography is to be their ready to shoot when the light is brilliant, novel or moving and shoot whatever is at hand; otherwise keep your camera in the bag. This was a camera in bag day. So a shot dinner: risotto alla Milanese )made with a goose stock left over from Christmas – very rich and satisfying). Shot with my iPhone.
Risotto alla Milanese
Asparagus with beurre noir
On this day one year ago: four images of the Chrysler building in sensational light.
Chrysler Building III
TAOS NEW MEXICO – It’s become clear to me that occasional ski lessons aren’t going get me to a reasonable level so I decided to focus elsewhere. One of the nice things about Taos is that there are other things to see and do within a reasonable driving distance. Today I visited Earthship homes outside of Taos. According to Wikipedia:
Earthship homes are primarily constructed to work as autonomous buildings and are generally made of earth-filled tires, using thermal mass construction to naturally regulate indoor temperature. They also usually have their own special natural ventilation system. Earthships are generally Off-the-grid homes, minimizing their reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels.
Here are some images, again taken with my Panasonic:
Earthship 1
Earthship 2
Earthship 3
On this day on year ago: my office.
Office at Debevoise & Plimpton
TAOS SKI VALLEY AND TAOS NEW MEXICO – Maria, Alexander, Laura and I snowmobiled in the morning, guided by a local legend and egregious name dropper called “Big Al”. Really fun racing up and down the mountains in two-cycle engine exhaust miasma. Here’s the village in good light and Maria.
Taos ski village
Maria does a snowmobile
Later in the day Laura and I drove down to Taos and visited the Taos Pueblo, one of the most photographed and painted sites on the face of the earth. From an editorial standpoint I’ve had failure of self control here.
Horse
Sagebrush
Taos pueblo
Cemetery Taos Pueblo
On this day last year: a clear day in Connecticut.
Tanner farm, Warren Connecticut
TAOS SKI VALLEY NEW MEXICO – We’re staying at the Bavarian where we celebrated New Years Eve with some friends who have built a house here. A family party image with my Panasonic.
New Years Eve
On this day last year: Maria in a nun costume. The scary thing about this was that Maria went to convent school and actually knows how to act like a nun.
TAOS SKI VALLEY NEW MEXICO – We made it to Taos. Our children, Alexander and Francesca, are excellent skiers. They started at age 3 and are at a very high level at this point. In most ski resorts they disdain actual runs, preferring off piste with a guide or instructor. Taos is a little different – there’s a bumper sticker that says “Taos – a four letter word for steep”. That pretty much summarizes it. They are in heaven. Maria is also a terrific skier. Laura is a beginner and is tackling lessons with great spirit. I haven’t skied that much since my knee replacements – I’m taking lessons to see what I can recover. At my current state there’s actually not a way off the mountain that I can ski.
The great thing about Taos is that it has snow, and spring skiing conditions in December. Midday it’s in the low 40s (F). Here’s lunch at the St. Bernard. All images from the trip are with my Panasonic – my travel kit when I’m concerned about size and weight (I actually thought that I might shoot on skis) or iPhone.
Lunch at St Bernard
On this day last year: wind carved snow. Shot with my Hasselblad.
Windswept snow, Warren Connecticut
NEWARK AIRPORT – This is one of those dreaded (photo-wise) travel days. Remember? I generally struggle to find an interesting image in airports, cabs and the like. Well actually the iPhone helps a lot – it’s always at hand and post processing apps provide entertaining (in reality silly) modifications of images. Who said that the photo-a-day gig has always to be serious.
We flew Southwest Air to Albuquerque. The “we” is me, Maria, Alexander and his wife, Laura, and Francesca. A three hour drive put us in Taos Ski Valley, one of the highest and frankly most difficult mountains in the US. Anyway here are two images taken in the aircraft as it prepared for takeoff. iPhone images. The first percolated and the second grunged up slightly.
Southwest Air
Southwest Air
On this day one year ago: Windswept field. In last year’s image from this date I used tilt to decrease the apparent depth of field:
Windswept field Warren Connecticut
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I love it when in mostly cloudy weather clear patches illuminate bits of the Connecticut countryside. Here’s an example. It lasted for a few seconds. I was lucky to capture it with my Leica and a 90mm Elmarit lens. One of my best landscapes of the year.
Baby Cloud
On this day last year: Blizzard redux.
Blizzard
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Boxing Day. Curiously I shot the same subject one year ago. This time I selected a different angle and camera, my Alpa Max with a short-mount 120 mm Schneider lens and a tilt adapter. Tilting is a view camera feature that is available for longer Alpa lenses. It permits tilting the lens and thus the focus plane, to either extend or shorten apparent depth of field. Here I have used it to keep the top of the sundial and the wall and the trees in the background in focus. It can be a tedious iterative process to get focus right with this technique; there are rules of thumb that help; there’s also an iPhone app that gives you a very good starting point. What I don’t like about this image is a mental mistake on my part: cutting off the bottom of the sundial.
Sundial
On this day last year: Sundial.
Blizzard
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Christmas Day. I went out with my Alpa TC today to capture some winter landscape.
Northeastern winter landscape
Our sign
On this day one year ago: Maria scores a Pucci.
Maria and her new Emilio
WASHINGTON CONNECTICUT – I went out with my Alpa Max today to add to my collection of Litchfield County churches. In reviewing my progress to day I realized that I hadn’t yet taken a full frontal image of the iconic Washington Congregational Church with high res medium format gear. I wasn’t satisfied with the image that I captured so I’m not showing it today – I’ll have to go back to try again – but I caught this as a set up the tripod and did a test image to assure that all was in order.
Washington Congregational Church
On this day one year ago: Frnacesca trimming the tree.
Francesca trimming a tree
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Here are some more iPhone images – the first two are percolated.
Pebbles on countertop
The fractal nature of screen doors
Stone wall
On this day one year ago: an intense conversation.
Susan McCone and Maria
NEW YORK NEW YORK – This was a busy day of Holiday preparations. I took exactly one picture with my iPhone. (This will be a relief for those of you who have tired of endless iPhone galleries.) There was a single moment of magical light as I passed a truck with an amazing paint job. The iPhone does a good job of rendering extreme greens. (It’s less successful with reds.) I percolated the image with the Percolator iPhone app – this may have been a gilding-the-lily kind of mistake. Anyway, here it is:
One helluva paint job
On this day one year ago: costumes.
Costumes
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