NEW YORK NEW YORK – April is intense. We have an expectation on Spring that seems to be a bit frustrated this year and a heavy schedule of meetings in my legal life. I sneaked this image out our dining room window – a different take on a familiar scene. Leica M with 35mm bokeh king lens.
On this day last year: Sunset out my window.
Sunset out my window
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Around this time last year we had a heavy snow storm. Today we’re having . . . a heavy snow storm. Early March isn’t quite Spring here in the Northeastern US. Four frames stitched taken with my Leica Monochrom and 135mm lens.
Storm
On this day last year: Here I am shooting street stuff with my Alpa. Probably not that good of an idea.
Yura
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A truly crappy day. Out my window with a Leica Monochrom.
Out the window
On this day last year: Faux percolated.
Percolated?
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I’ve spent the day here having what feels like a speed bag workout with my day job. Not much time or space for photography. At around 8:00 I decided to see what I could do handheld with my Leica Monochrom around the house in near darkness with my 24mm F1.4 Leica Summilux lens.
Night Sky
Shadows
On this day one year ago: Sunrise and sunset.
Sunrise New York
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Out a window in our offices with my new Leica S and 35mm lens. It produces very deep files that hold up under intense editorial abuse, in this case extensively lightening the foreground and darkening the sky.
Looking uptown
Full Sail
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’m looking for some of those winter days with lovely brilliant light to give my new Leica S medium format camera a chance to shine. No luck. More freezing rain and fog. So I put it on a tripod and shot out our window, here with a 120mm macro lens.
Home
On this day last year: Staples. January 11 is clearly another undistinguished date on my calendar.
Buying paper
BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS – My monthly trip to Boston is jam-packed this month. Ugly weather. I decided not to go out to shoot, so I shot a four frame stitch out my hotel window using my laptop case to try to suppress reflections in the glass of the window, which doesn’t open. Nice looking construction site. Taken with my Leica Monochrom and 50mm dual range summicron lens.
Construction site
On this day one year ago: Morso
Bil
NEW YORK NEW YORK – You read a lot about the weather on this blog. Woody’s weather channel. what a bore. But the weather really affects me. At the core I’m an landscape photographer; in New York we happen to have an urban landscape; the weather dramatically affects how it looks. Today we had a serious snow storm. The snow turned to slush by the time it reached the ground and photographed as a medium gray sludge. Not to my liking so I pointed my camera out the windows of our apartment to give you a gallery of water tanks, obscured by the snow, on surrounding buildings. All taken with my Leica Monochrom and a135mm APO-Telyt lens.
Snow
Snow on water tanks
Early Winter Storm
Blizzard
On this dat=y one year ago: Dandy. Taken with my long-g0ne Ricoh GRD.
Dandy
NEW YORK NEW YORK – This afternoon I had a meeting at the ICP where I found the pay phones hidden – perhaps out of embarrassment for this ancient technology. Taken with my Leica Monochrom and 35mm Summilux FLE lens. A bit earlier I caught a window washer out of my office window.
They hide the pay phones
Out my window
On this day last year: New Preston Kitchen Goods.
New Preston Kitchen Goods
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A bit of repair and maintenance today. The rangefinder on my M9 has been slightly out of alignment for a while which has made it hard to focus in demanding situations. Horizontal alignment is easy, but vertical alignment requires peeling the Leica red dot off and using a special tool through a keyhole that the red dot hides. The special tool arrived from China today, so I peeled the red dot off (making a mess in the process) and fiddled with the tool for 10 minutes or so. Weirdly, unexpectedly, after ome trial and error I got it just right. I ordered a replacement red dot online and covered the hole with a little patch of duct tape as a temporary measure so I’m ready to roll. Most people would have sent their camera to Leica for calibration but I use mine every day and can’t really be without it for the three week round trip to Solms.
The focus issue had prevented me from using my Noctilux .95 but since I’ve fixed it I’ll be shooting a lot with the Nocti. It’s a magical lens, imparting a poetic quality to the most mundane objects. Here’s an example:
Candelabra
This morning I had a chance to get more use out of the Perer 35mm lens. Here’s a picture of it, mounted on my Leica M9, taken with my iPhone.
Perer 35
Lovely sunrise light this morning taken out my window with the Perer 35 and my M9:
Out my window
On this day one year ago: Gil.
Gil
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Still suffering from a bit of jet lag. Maria and I both woke up very early – in plenty of time to to watch the sunrise illuminate our living room. Maria picking up after an early morning of catching up on magazines and newspapers. Taken with my Fuji XPro 1.
Living room
As I write this my Milan film came back from being developed, and I’ve started to scan it. Here are some samples taken with my Leica M3 and Ilford XP5 film. What I notice most? The grain. I’ll be leaking these out into my daily posts as I scan them.
Duomo taken with 50mm Summilux, two frames stitched (yes, once you’ve scanned film you can stitch it!)
Milan Duomo
Milan
On this day last year: Home in Warren.
Warren Connecticut
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Back home. Our flight back was as bad as our flight going. Delayed five hours in Milan. A hassling arrival at JFK as we struggled to master the new Global Entry system. Ugh. Back home we unpacked in the midst of a major heat wave. Cowering in air conditioning. There was a really weird sunset. Captured with my Leica M9 and 24mm Summilux.
Out my window
On this day one year ago: another sick day. Both of my July 7th shots, this year and last, feature out my window views.
Out my window
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I collect Vinini, a Venitian glassmaker. This piece was advertised on eBay a Venini. It clearly isn’t but it was priced accordingly so I bought it anyway. Taken with my Fuji-X-Pro 1 and 17mm lens.
Venini
On this day one year ago: Spring sucks. Urban version.
Rooftops in the fog
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Busy day with no time for photography. But as I was cleaning up after making dinner for myself (Maria is in London) I spotted an amazing sunset out the window. I grabbed the nearest camera – my Sony NEX-7 – and clamped a 50mm Summilux onto it. It would have taken too long to set up the big guy. I used a beanbag to steady the camera, and took a lot exposures hoping to get a good one. I got exactly one. Here it is:
Sunset out my window
On this day one year ago: On the Bund, Shanghai.
Sunny day on the Bund
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I periodically go back to school on photography. It’s a great way keep to technical skills fresh, to get work critiqued and to meet new friends. Today I started a ten week class on landscape at the International Center for Photography taught by Benjamin Dimmitt, a landscape photographer who does a variety of subjects and has a particularly lovely body of work on primitive Florida. The first assignment was to shoot “out your window”, literally or figuratively, in a comfort zone, at various times and in various lights. Of course I shot out my window, something that I’ve done frequently here, at various times over a 24-hour period. You’ll be seeing more of these over the next few weeks.
So . . . I put my Alpa Max on a tripod, selected a 72 Schneider lens (the “normal” formal length for this format) and fired away. The results where ok, but the most interesting thing going on seemed to be the sky so I switched to a wide lens (the 32mm Rodenstock) to get more of it. Because of accidents of meteorology the night images came out as the most interesting.
Out my window
On this day one year ago: Citcorp. I photograph the Citicorp building and its neighbors a lot: Citicorp Center images. I love their bulk and the surprising angles and reflections. It’s also convenient for me. My advice to urban landscape artists: Look up!
Citicorp
NEW YORK NEW YORK – We got home from Connecticut and had a quiet dinner with our daughter, Francesca, who is pictured in context here. Sony Nex-7 and 24mm Leica Summilux.
Francesca
On this day one year ago: out my window with a 135mm Leica APO tele-elmarit.
Out my window