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

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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

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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

On this date one year ago: Urban landscape.

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NEW YORK NEW YORK – More fussing around with my new iPhone 4S. I tried my classic out my window brick wall torture test, shooting with the phone braced against a window sill to approximate the effect of being on a tripod. I used the “HDR” (high dynamic range) mode given the phone’s tendency to blow highlights and the long dynamic range of the scene. It turns out that this was a mistake – on close inspection there are ugly white bands where the buildings meet the sky. After a bit of digging online I came to the conclusion that Apple dramatically over sharpens in HDR mode – so for future reference I’ll be avoiding it. Later in the evening I shot a Martini at the Monkey Bar – odd that this famous bar serves a Martini in a sherry glass. Whatever . . .

Out my window

Martini

The next installment in my 1999 24-houe self portrait project – this one from 12:08 AM on February 14, 1999. As always taken with an Arca Swiss 8×10 inch view camera.

12:08 AM February 14, 1999

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NEW YORK NEW YORK – Francesca has a new hat. This and the Triborough Bridge shot at the golden hour (which is particularly golden this time of year) were shot with my Panasonic GH-2. This is my kit for snapshots and for long lenses.

Francesca has a new hat

Sunset

On this day one year ago: kitchen reorganization.

Kitchen

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WASHINGTON CONNECTICUT – We spent the day on Lake Waramaug. Here is a friend’s Nash Metropolitan, a cottage on the lake that we’ve rented for the summer, and three friends in our boat, all taken with my Alpa TC, 35mm Schneider XL lens and Phase One IQ 180 back,

Nash Metropolitan

Cottage on the lake

Boating

On this day last year: The David Sheldrick animal orphanage outside of Nairobi.

Elephants

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A long day in the office. I caught this out the window in a moment of lovely light with my Leica M9 and 24mm Summilux lens.

Bloomberg Building

On this day one year ago: Porto Seguro, Brazil. This isn’t bad for a travel day. Maybe I should just stop whining about travel days make the most of them.

Porto Seguro Airport

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – While I was in Africa Phase One released a firmware update to the IQ 180 back that enables “live view”, the ability to view on the back’s lcd screen what the camera is seeing in real time. Live view is commonplace in consumer cameras, which use CMOS technology, but is difficult to implement in medium format cameras which use CCD technology. I downloaded the update and installed it and voila it worked. Live view is a boon to technical camera users because it permits composition on the back’s lcd monitor while using shifts. I set the back up on my Alpa Max with my 72mm Schneider Digitar and took the following out my window (with the back shifted up 15mm and to the right 17mm),

New York Rooftop

On this day last year: Trancoso at night.

Trancoso

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Back to New York – that was a genuinely quick trip to attend a wedding. Still a bit under the weather. Francesca noticed a quite cruddy looking rash on my legs and had nagged me to see a doctor, which I’ll do tomorrow morning.

I installed new firmware in my Hasselblad back. I did an out-my-window test, stitching two frames shifted to the left and the right on my Alpa Max, to see if the firmware cures the “centerfolding” issue that’s apparent when this back is used shifted on a technical camera. It didn’t – note the vertical line in the sky on the right side of the image:

Centerfolding

On this day one year ago: fundraiser at the Litchfield Community Center.

Bruce

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NEW YORK NEW YORK – Out my window, taken with my Panasonic GR2 and 14 – 140 zoom lens. Two exposures, one for the skyline and one for the moon. I hand tipped the correct moon exposure in Photoshop. Still feeling poorly so I’m resorting to out my window stuff to meet my one photo every day objectiive.

Moonrise over Manhattan

On this day one year ago: Boston public art.

Nessie

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