Author Archives: Woody

Tuesday January 3, 2012

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

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

Taos ski village

Maria does a snowmobile

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

Horse

Sagebrush

Sagebrush

Taos pueblo

Taos pueblo

Cemetery Taos Pueblo

Cemetery Taos Pueblo

On this day last year: a clear day in Connecticut.

Tanner farm, Warren Connecticut

Tanner farm, Warren Connecticut

Saturday December 31, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

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

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.

Friday December 30, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

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

Lunch at St Bernard

On this day last year: wind carved snow. Shot with my Hasselblad.

Windswept snow, Warren Connecticut

Windswept snow, Warren Connecticut

Thursday December 29, 2011

Posted on by
1
GD Star Rating
loading...

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

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

Windswept field Warren Connecticut

Monday December 26, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

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

Sundial

On this day last year: Sundial.

Blizzard

Blizzard

Saturday December 24, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

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

Washington Congregational Church

On this day one year ago: Frnacesca trimming the tree.

Francesca trimming a tree

Francesca trimming a tree

Thursday December 22, 2011

Posted on by
1
GD Star Rating
loading...

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

One helluva paint job

On this day one year ago: costumes.

Costumes

Costumes

Wednesday December 21, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK NEW YORK – I met with our friend and designer Antonella Scarsini at B&B Italia to look at some furniture. I captured a nice angle on the Christmas Tree in the courtyard of the Bloomberg Building and a bowl on a tabletop, both with my iPhone. Some work in post: grunging Bloomberg and percolating the bowl.

Bloomberg Building

Bloomberg Building

Bowl

Bowl

On this day last year: from my office.

AT&T Building

AT&T Building

Tuesday December 20, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK NEW YORK – The day of the iPhone riot. A gallery of the Christmas Season images from midtown.

Bolts

Bolts

Sculpture

Sculpture

Ice Cream

Ice Cream

Necklace

Necklace

30 Rock

30 Rock

Street Graffiti

Street Graffiti

Tree grill

Tree grill

Christmas comes but once a year

Christmas comes but once a year

Christmas Cheer

Christmas Cheer

Glasses

Glasses

Park Avenue in Morning Light

Park Avenue in Morning Light

Blue ball

Blue ball

On this day one year ago: Bunny Beekman.

Bunny Beekman

Bunny Beekman

Monday December 19, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK NEW YORK – Feeling better. I went about my business today carrying my iPhone and collecting images. This thing is addictive. I haven’t tried very hard to edit the day down – I present this as an iPhone gallery. My reaction: “get a grip, Campbell.”

First an image that was not taken on December 19 – I’m posting this on Christmas Day so I thought I should share a Christmas greeting. The front of our house grunged up with an app called “plastic bullet”.

Have yourself a grungy Christmas

Have yourself a grungy Christmas

1185 Park with a tilt shift app that create an impression of very narrow depth of field, making everything look like toys.

1185 Park in miniature

1185 Park in miniature

A panorama stitched (defectively – there’s still a reason for these big cameras) from three frames.

1185 Park Stitch

1185 Park Stitch

More street.

Fire alarm

Fire alarm

Literally a picture of the street.

CATV

CATV

On this day last year: Chuck Klein.

Chuck Klein

Chuck Klein

Saturday December 17, 2011

Posted on by
2
GD Star Rating
loading...

WARREN CONNECTICUT – I was sick last night. Nausea, throwing up, the works. Major GI stuff. Food poisoning or a stomach flu. It continued through the day today. I mistakenly left my iPhone in the City and only have my Alpa with me. I really don’t have what it takes to go out and photograph landscape. So I set it up in the bathroom and captured myself in the steam shower. Then back to bed. I foodie friend, Jason Wright, was good enough to put the finishing touches on prep for the dinner party tonight, which I slept through.

Steam Shower

Steam Shower

On this day last year: Out my window with the Hasselblad.

Out our window

Friday December 16, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK NEW YORK – I had lunch at the Barking Dog Cafe. A burger at the bar and a glass of IPA. The beer turned out to be a mistake – it predictably brought on an overwhelming need to nap. Anyway in the morning I got some work done and in the PM I did all of the prep work for a dinner party for 11 that we’re having in Connecticut on Saturday night.

Anyway here are the iPhone stills from the Barking Dog. One grunged up and the other modified with an app called Percolator, which overwrites the image with patterns of circles that are straight out of Benoit Mandelbrot.

Barking Dog

Barking Dog

Barking Dog

Barking Dog

On this day one year ago: musicians at the Union Club.

Music at the Union Club

Thursday December 15, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK NEW YORK – There’s a lot going on in the iPhone photo world. Here for example is a site that does an iPhoto every day and reviews apps and the like: the modern iphotographer. Really useful source on apps. I’m sitting here looking at my iPhone 4G. It’s got 13 camera apps. Most cost $1.99. Or less. I’ve sorted out six post processing apps that I like or at least wish that I could master, and six photo information apps that I use when I’m shooting other cameras. This is fun, sort of productive and a real eye-opener. You’ll see a lot more of these over the next few weeks.

This one is an iPhone video still taken at a lunch meeting and processed with PhotoWizard that let me do the center focus thing and grunge it up a bit. there are lots and lots of photo grunge apps. Evidently everyone wants to be a hipster. I can move my visual self to Bushwick without actually having to move there. Cool.

Meeting

Meeting

On this day one year ago: Waldorf Astoria.

Home of the famous salad

Tuesday December 13, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK NEW YORK – We entertained some Dutch friends in our kitchen. Captured with my Ricoh.

Dutch friends

Dutch friends

Christmas party at the Knick. Hmmm . . . . We’re doing the same things every year. With the same people. They’re not getting any younger. I sense an issue here. Memo to self: hang with younger people at edgier venues.

Christmas Party at the Knick

Sunday December 11, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

TORRINGTON CONNECTICUT – Back to Torrington for the Center Congregational Church. This is an oddity – the only stone Gothic revival Congregational Church that I’ve seen I’m my travels in this part of the state. Here it is. Two frames taken with my Alpa Max and cropped to fit the form factor of the church. Torrington by the way was the birthplace of John Brown, the radical abolutionist who merits a line in the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Center Congregational Church Torrington

Center Congregational Church Torrington

On this day one year ago: Union Savings Bank.

Union Savings Bank Litchfield

Saturday December 10, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

TORRINGTON CONNECTICUT – This afternoon I drove to this former mill town on the Naugatuck River to photograph churches. The light was right to collect two of the large Catholic Churches in town, St. Peter Church and St. Francis Assisi Church. The light was wrong for the Central Congregational Church – I’ll be back tomorrow morning for it. The large Episcopal Church, Trinity Church, is very tight to a narrow street and accordingly very hard to photograph. Anyway here are St. Peter and St. Francis Assisi, taken with my Alpa Max and an 80 meg Phase One back. These subjects require full use of the camera’s rise and shift features. The St. Francis Assis (the second image) is two frames stitched.

St. Peter Church Torrington

St. Peter Church Torrington

St. Francis Assisi Torrington

St. Francis Assisi Torrington

On this day last year: Marty gives us a sinister look.

Game time

Friday December 9, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YOEK NEW YORK – I spent some time this afternoon at Yancey Richardson looking at photographs, primarily by Andrew Moore. The experience was energizing. When I started this daily photo effort over two years ago I expected that a number of longer term projects would emerge. Looking at Andrew’s work and paging back through mine I’ve decided to push on the churches of Litchfield County project. I see a couple of phases, starting with taking an inventory of facades, making high quality prints as a means to get closer to the ministers/rectors/priests, doing more in depth studies (which I’ve only done at the Washington Congregational Church at this point), teasing out the narrative (which I have some ideas on but need further work to refine) and then more follow through studies.

But today I’m not in Litchfield County so I point my Alpa Max out our window into good light. I’m working to achieve technical mastery with this tool – it’s the key to creating the kinds of images that I’m looking for in Litchfield County. By “technical mastery” I mean that my hands do the right things without an need to think about anything but composition.

Out my window in good light

Out my window in good light

On this date one year ago: Urban landscape.

Riverside Drive South

Thursday December 8, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK NEW YORK – A friend, Bill Beekman, has collected a treasure trove of Virginia Woolf first editions, letters, manuscripts, autographs and photos. It’s all on display at the Forbes Galleries, starting with an opening tonight. Here’s Bill and his wife, Bunny, being photographed by a friend, and the same friend trying to photograph me with a very pretty white Nikon point and shoot. Taken with my Ricoh GRD IV, aka the “party animal”.

Bill and Bunny

Bill and Bunny

Good luck shooting me

Good luck shooting me

On this day one year ago: Interior at St. John the Devine. One of my favorites from last year.

St. John the Devine

Tuesday December 6, 2011

Posted on by
Reply
GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK NEW YORK – I meet monthly for breakfast with a group of college classmates. One member of our group is the headmaster of an independent boys’ school – we meet in his office, which seems kind of appropriate on many levels. Here’s a picture of Andy, captured with my iPhone in video mode, using an app called Video Stills as a frame grabber to sort out individual video frames as stills.

Andy

Andy

On this day one year ago:

Questar Duplex Telescope