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

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

WASHINGTON DC – So today I’m presenting an iPhone gallery. We spent the weekend here, having a memorable lunch at Zaytinya, Jose Andres’ remarkable Lebanese/Turkish/Greek restaurant, visiting the National Gallery for the Harry Callahan show, and going to a musical in Arlington that was written by a friend. Altogether a fabulous weekend. I decided to travel only with my iPhone, but at the last minute I chickened out and brought my Leica and three lens kit (a 35, 50 and 90 – the Leica holly trinity). It turned out that I managed just fine with the iPhone. Here’s a selection:

Lafayette Park

Bank

Lunch

Smoker

And finally, not an iPhone – take with my Leica M9. It was too dark and too far away for the iPhone.

Rick and Candace

On this day one year ago: Delancey Street

BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS – I spent most of the day in meetings with a client in Boston – a client that has a genuinely interesting art collection. One of the issues with photography, particularly digital photography, is that it’s cheap and easy. These are not good characteristics for a fine art medium. Some photographers approach this problem by creating unique prints that can’t be reproduced, infusing them with “objecthood”. Here’s a work by William Hamlin, one of his Window Series. Each print (they are old school chromogenic prints) is woven into a unique object. Interesting and quite beautiful. But they are hanging in a tiny, obscure visitors office in the conference center. Too bad for Hamlin. Taken with my Rocoh GRD IV. I guess you could say that I’ve appropriated Hamlin’s work, with a cheap and easy shot.

I’ve also included an image from a walk before my meetings.

Photo object

Boston Federal Reserve Bank

While I was in Boston I missed the opening of an exhibition of portraits by Jemina Kirke (who is actually better known as an actress) at the Skylight Gallery. Here’s a portrait by Jemima of Francesca (our daughter), photographed by Francesca. Jemima clearly owes a debt to Egon Schiele.

Francesca

On this day one year ago: Helmsley Building straight up. One of my favorite images from the past year.

November 15, 2010

NEW YORK NEW YORK – On the street with my miniature camera. I’m slowly gaining confidence in it – getting a better feeling for its capabilities and limitations. I’m not really good a street photography and street photography generally doesn’t move me. A lot of the work that I see by other photographers is colorful looking people (often from the rear) in colorful setting, lacks dynanism and is wildly derivative of Robert Frank. There are exceptions. For example the energetic body of work being produced by Daido Moriyama (who shoots by the way with a Ricoh GRD). There’s an argument that the Ricoh is to this generation what the Leica M3 was to an earlier generation. Anyway here’s an image from Third Avenue caught with my Ricoh GRD IV. Of course my shadow in the picture is derivative of . . . Robert Frank.

Dandy

I mentioned several times in the last month that the 1999 self portraits were taken in my Connecticut studio with an 8X10 camera. Here’s what it looked like. That’s me holding the cable release for the lens (whatever it was) on the Arca-Swiss view camera.

Self set up

WARREN CONNECTICUT – Well here it is, not quite November yet, and we’re suffering a blizzard. Our preparations for winter were not quite complete, but we have replaced our backup generator that failed during this fall’s hurricane. I went out into it with my Alpa, Here are two typical images – the first a monochrome and the second in color (the idea was to record the point that the trees still have their fall foliage). It was a monochrome day – you almost can’t tell the difference. This is classic “be there” stuff.

Freak blizzard

Freak Blizzard

Blizzard

More of me. This series is making me increasingly uncomfortable – it’s just not in my DNA to post pictures of myself. Anyway, here’s 4:54 AM on February 14, 1999. One of a series of hourly shots taken with a Arca Swiss 8×10 camera.

4:54 AM February 14, 1999