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
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 – 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
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I went out hunting for late fall landscape today, mostly in the garden. I used my Leica M9 and 24mm Summilux, which if you follow these posts closely you will have noted is my most used camera/lens combination by far. But I also found a new tool, a new iPhone 4S. The camera is surprisingly good. Dynamic range is only so-so – highlights tend to get blown, and prints are marred by jpeg weirdness (white fringes is the like) but this thing is surprisingly usable and always at hand. It’s quite serviceable for web resolution.
First the Leica and then some iPhones.
Fall is still here
The iPhones, with a little help with post-processing in Lightroom.
Warren fall
Sundial
Finally, what post would be complete without a self-portrait from the 24 hour series. If you think that you’re getting tired of these, image how I felt sitting for them and pushing the cable release, then processing the film, etc. Part of what I’m doing with these ix exploring repetition and the passage of time. Anyway 11:05 PM on February 13, 1999 with an Arca Swiss view camera.
11:05 PM February 13, 1999
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I got a bit confused writing the posts for October 9 and today. Today’s pictures were originally published as October 9 – probably because I forgot that I was in Warren (rather than New York) today, which is Columbus Day. (I typical write these posts about a week after the fact.) Columbus Day really isn’t a national holiday, but what the hell, I’m an adopted Italian so so it’s a good excuse not to go to the office. Anyway, here are two pictures from a walk around our Warren property, taken with my Leica M9 and a 24mm Summilux lens (I’ve stated elsewhere that this is my best friend ever, lens-wise.) Back lit ornamental grasses, and a Balinese Garuda.
Ornamental Grass
Garuda
On this day one year ago: Waterfall, New Preston.
Waterfall, New Preston Connecticut
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Twelve or so years ago I did a series of projects where i set a camera up on a tripod and took an image each hour over a 24-hour period. I generally used a 4×5 view camera, but also an 8×19 view camera and a 35mm (generally my Leica M7). I typically shot images that were set up to mimic a well known piece of art, “appropriating” the organization and subject matter. For example I did a 24 hour series at our pool in Connecticut and a Balinese statue after Jennifer Bartlett’s study of her pool in Italy. (See Jennifer Bartlett pool for example.) I stopped doing the 24 hour sequences after I went digital. The fact that you can put a digital camera on a tripod and set it to take a picture every hour made it too easy and took the life out of these projects;
Enter the Alpa and the Phase One IQ 180 back. The aesthetic is similar to 4×5 or 8×10 and it’s entirely manual – you really can’t automate taking a 24 hour sequence. So I decided to give a 24-hour project a try. No reference to any only other works of art – just a shot of a tree line at our place in Connecticut. I shot 24 images, one each hour from late afternoon October 8 through late afternoon October 9. I’m please with the results and have resolved a couple of technical issues, so I’m starting work on a serious series, again borrowing from a well-known work. Here’s the image from 5:57 PM (local time). My self-imposed rule is that all images need to be taken within 10 minutes plus or minus the hour. Precision (i.e. exactly on the hour) really isn’t possible because of the vagaries of cat napping and so on. I’m pleased with the results so I’m searching for a project with a fine arts referent. By the way, I’ve also included an image of the Alpa set up to capture the tree line.
Fall arrives in Connecticut
Alpa Max
On this day one year ago: Seagrams.
Seagrans Building
KENT CONNECTICUT – We visited our friend Greg, the owner of R T Facts, an antiques store in Kent that specializes in industrial and architectural stuff. We’ve been looking for a large fire pot for our terrace – these are now the vogue in these parts – you bundle up and light a roaring fire, extending the season for using the terrace a month or two. We found a large steel pot that was used in a steel mill in India. Here’s the inside shot with my Alpa TC and 35mm Schneider XL lens.
Fire pit
More from RT Facts:
Table
On this day one year ago: Wake at the Colony.
Wake at the Colony
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Tropical storm Irene arrived early this morning with more rain than we’ve ever seen before. We had plenty of warning and were well-prepared – we suffered essentially no damage. This was not a bad as a typical winter ice storm. We brought some statues back from Bali years ago – here we’ve laid one on its back so it won’t be blown over. Taken with my Alpa TC and 35mm Schneider Digitar.
Ganesh meets Irene
On this date last year: we visit AmericaShare in Nairobi.
AmericaShare
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I puttered around our Connecticut place working with my tech camera stuff. This was taken with my Alpa Max and a 120 mm Schneider Digitar.
irch
This with my Alpa TC and a 35mm Schneider.
Bedroom
On this day last year: Hippos. These guys are seriously dangerous, “Killed by a hippo” is the most common bad human-wildlife encounter in Kenya.
Hippos
WARREN CONNECTICUT – We had dinner at Ct, a nearby locavore restaurant. Taken with my Panasonic GH2.
Maria and Francesca
On this day last year: Kenya gets intense.
An elephant gives us the full Monte
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Shade garden (primarily astilbe, vinca and hosta), taken with my Alpa and a 47mm Schneider Digitar XL.
On this day one year ago: Maria and Nancy do a bushwalk.
Maria and Nancy do a bush walk
KAREN, KENYA – Here we are in this suburb of Nairobi which either is or isn’t named after Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen), depending on who you talk to. Karen was the site of Blixen’s coffee plantation which forms the backdrop of Out of Africa. Back in the day this was the bush, now it’s a suburb.
We’re staying at a relatively new hotel, Hogmead, in Karen for one night to catch our breath from travel and to wait for Maria. Hogmead is in a large, beautifully restored, colonial house. I wonder how they get away with the Harry Potter name? They’ll probably be getting a nastygram from Harry’s legal team. Here it is captured with my Alpa TC, Phase One IQ 180 back and 35mm Schneider Digitar lens.
Hogmead
On this day last year: Jim.
Jim
WARREN, CONNECTICUT – Still fighting this miserable flu. This from the morning with my Alpa TC tech camera, a Schneider 35mm Digitar XL lens and my 60 meg Hasselblad back.
Summer morning
On this day one year ago: Ancramdale Presbyterian Church.
Ancramdale Presbyterian Church
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Back in bed battling the flu from hell. We cancelled a dinner party. I spent the weekend trying to prepare for meetings next week through the fog of flu. I got out with my tech camera for a few minutes in the late afternoon:
Warren Connecticut
On this day one year ago: Riverside Boulevard.
100 Riverside Boulevard
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Second day with my loaner Phase One IQ 180. Very high performance photo equipment is like a very high performance car – the photo equivalent of noise, vibration and harsh ride are part of the experience. This thing doesn’t auto anything, and getting the most out of it takes some work. I spent part of the day experimenting with shifting the back on my Alpa Max technical camera. Initial results are technically good but uninspiring as I focus on technique rather than seeing. Here’s our pool in Warren and the perennial border next to it with the IQ 180 on the Alpa Max and my 47mm Schneider Digitar.
Pool Warren Connecticut
On this day one year ago: Baptismal Iglesia de San Roque
Iglesia de San Roque
BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS – I managed a quick walk in the rain in downtown Boston before being sucked into daylong meetings. I captured this in the small park across from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. It’s an Allium Giganteum, an ornamental onion. I recognized it because we have a lot of them in Warren – because of the savage winters the palette for perennial gardens is fairly limited.
Allium Giganteum
On this day one year ago: Lipstick Building.
Lipstick building
WARREN CONNECTICUT – It poured all day. These are actually pretty good conditions for intimate details of the Northeastern landscape. I captured this in our garden with my Alpa TC and a 35mm Schneider Digitar lens. That’s Basil, our Norwich Terrier, putting his nose in the picture.
Summer Rain
On this day one year ago: Friends in Mustique.
Judy and Doug
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Back in Connecticut with my Hasselblad an the rain. This is one of my favorite images of the season.
Rain
The image below proves that dandelions aren’t the only flowers that we have. Nine images focus stacked in Helicon Focus.
Wildflowers
On this day one year ago: Maria, one year younger.
Maria
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Most of the bushes and shrubs around our Warren house flower at some point between April and July, and everything turns invitingly green during this period. From a photographic standpoint it’s a little bit of a distraction because I doubt that MOMA or Pace will be showing any dynamic new photographers specializing in flowering shrubs any time soon. But nonetheless this pretty conventional landscape is hard to resist, so I spent the weekend wandering around with my Alpa and Hasselblad digital back.
Shade Warren CT
On this day one year ago: Walking back from lunch. The restaurant that I mentioned in this post last year closed with no notice under mysterious circumstances. They just put a sign out saying they were closed. They had received excellent reviews and were always packed. The rumor mill suggests that it was something to do with the owner’s divorce or a litigation involving employee tips. Too bad.
Manhattan
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Our wildflower cultivation in Connecticut seems to be limited to dandelions, at least this season. I set my Leica up on a tripod with my 24mm Summilux lens framing a field of dandelions from about 2 feet away to the horizon. I then took 7 exposures focusing at various distances, and combined the images in Helicon Focus, “focus stacking” software. The combined images are sharp from the close forground all of the way to the tree line 150 meters away.
Dandelions
On this day one year ago: Another pedestrian image. Raises the question of why am I doing this. There are good streaks and bad streaks.
AT&T Building
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I walked around our Warren property this morning with my Alpa TC, a 36mm Schneider lens and a 60 meg Hasselblad back. Finally, I mean finally its really spring here. The shadow of the tree in the first image has an anthropomorphic quality that I really like
Warren Connecticut
Warren birches
On this day last year: a Tiepolo sunset. For all of my fussing about not doing sunsets one of my favorites from last year.
Tiepolo sunset
WARREN CONNECTICUT – A perfect spring day with perfect light. I got out with my Alpa and the 60 meg back for the morning “magic light” moment.
Pears in bloom
Pear in bloom
On this day last year: A nice angle on The Church of the Heavenly Rest.
Church of the Heavenly Rest
WARREN CONNECTICUT – My birthday. We celebrated with a family dinner at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, but no pictures from there. Earlier in the day I took a long walk in with my Leica M9 and a 24mm Summicron lens.
Warren Spring
On this day on year ago: 59th Street Bridge.
59th Stree Birdge
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I have better days and worse days. This was one of the better. Sometimes it is enough just to go through your routine day with a camera in hand. It helps that it’s Spring. I met Francesca (our daughter) at J. McLaughlin where she was picking up a birthday present for her fiance, and for a coffee.
the way regular visitors (thanks to all of you) may notice that I’ve changed the galleries to the right. I’ve added a collection pulled together from the Litchfield County Connecticut churches that I’ve been exploring for the last 16 months, and a series of timed exposures taken out of the window of a high speed train in China. Let me know what you think.
These were taken with my Panasonic GH2 and the wonderful 14mm pancake lens
J McLaughlin
Same setup. I’m using a crop of this as my blog header.
East 95th Street
On this day last year: Bill Cohan and Maria at the Pen gala.
Maria Campbell and William Cohan
WARREN CONNECTICUT – We’re having a vey late spring. My photo from April 24, 2010 shows our pear trees and a bunch of flowering shrubs in bloom. See yesterday’s post. This year we only have forsythia – the earliest of the large flowering shrubs. Here’s a forsythia captured on a rainy Monday morning before I drove back to New York with my Leica M9 and a 24mm Summilux lens.
Forsythia
On this day one year ago: One Rock, at night in the fog.
One Rockefeller Plaza
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I’m getting a little impatient with early spring here – it’s indistinguishable from winter in other parts of the world. Here I’ve taken a picture of a birch and our barns, wonderfully detailed by my Alpa TC, 60 meg Hasselblad back and 36mm Schneider APO digitatar.
Birch
On this day one year ago: 94th Street at night.
94th Street
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Still looking for Spring I took a walk today in the Conservatory Garden in Central Park. I actually found Spring here. A quote from Wikipedia:
The Conservatory Garden is the only formal garden in Central Park, New York City. Comprising 6 acres (24,000 m2), it takes its name from a conservatory that stood on the site from 1898 to 1934.,,The park’s head gardener used the glasshouses to harden hardwood cuttings for the park’s plantings. After the conservatory was torn down, the garden was designed by Gilmore D. Clarke, landscape architect for Robert Moses, with planting plans by M. Betty Sprout;[2] constructed and planted by WPA workers, it was opened to the public in 1937. . . . After the Second World War the garden had become neglected, and by the 1970s a wasteland. It was restored and partially replanted under the direction of horticulturist and urban landscape designer Lynden Miller, to reopen in June 1987. . . . The high-style mixed planting was the first to bring estate garden style to urban parks, part of the general renewal of Central Park under Elizabeth Barlow Rogers of the Central Park Conservancy.
This taken with my Leica M9 and a 24mm Summilux lens. I’ve used a crop of it for my banner.
Conservatory Garden
On this day last year: Hydrangias.
Hydrangias
WAREN CONNECTICUT – Here we are in Warren doing the same thing that I often do in Manhattan: look up. We get a structural view of the deciduous canopy. In the summer the leaves almost totally obscure the sky. I’ll take more of these as the trees leaf out. Taken with my Alpa TC, 60 meg Hasselblad back and my 36mm Schneider APO lens.
White oaks and sugar maples
On this day one year ago: Forsythia. This winter was much worse than last. The Forsythia are no where near blooming.
Forsythia
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Weird. You take a month’s break from visiting a place, you come back, and it’s entirely changed. Tom Sachs’s sculpture, Hello Kitty, has been in the courtyard of Lever House for longer than I’ve been photographing for this blog. Now it’s gone, so it’s “bye bye Hollo Kitty”. Here are some links to some earlier Hello Kitty photographs: July 6, 2010, May 11, 2010, April 20, 2010, and March 19, 2010
I guess I really like Hello Kitty. The little gold doodad that replaced Hello Kitty appears to be a part of a much larger installation by Rachel Feinstein entitled “The Snow Queen”. Photographed with my Leica M9 and a 28mm Summicron lens.
No more Hello Kitty
On this day last year: an infrared image including the Racquet and Tennis Club, the Seagrams Building and One Park Avenue Plaza.
Racquet and Tennis Club
WARREN CONNECTICUT – The leading edge of the Boxing Day blizzard. We stocked up on food in the morning on the theory that the blizzard would leave us snow bound for a couple of days, which turned out to be the case. Here’s an image from the early hours of the storm, taken with my Hasselblad H4D-60 and a tilt shift adapter that permits view camera-like movements, that I’ve used here to enhance the shallow depth of field. The image is in color but the weather froze the color out of the landscape.
Blizzard
On this day one year ago: San Miguel de Allende.
Shipping
Twitter