NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A busy day of shopping, cooking and otherwise preparing for an onslaught of relatives for Alexander and Laura’s wedding this coming weekend. It’s good to have some food hanging around just in case people are hungry at odd hours. So I roasted a coupe of chickens, made two kinds of swiss chard, did some beets and feta cheese and eggplant parmesan, and made a variety of pasta sauces. Here’s a sample, captured with my Panasonic GH2

Chicken Eggplant Swiss Chard

On this day last year: Brooklyn Bridge Park.

South Street Seaport from Brooklyn Bridge Park

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NEW YORK NEW YORK – As noted yesterday we stayed in New York this weekend to attend an engagement party at the River Club. Shot with my Panasonic GH2 and a 20mm pancake lens..

Engagement party at the River Club

On this day one year ago: Joshua Tree National Park.

Joshua Tree National Park

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I carried my Leica around as I went about Holiday preparations. I stopped at a costume rental place on West 38th Street to pick out costumes for a New Year’s Eve party. Here is a portion of a wall of photographs, sent to the shop by clients, showing their costumes. Of course I had the Walker Evans image Walker Evans Studio in mind.

Costumes

On this day one year ago: Dolores Hildago, Mexico.

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – We had a casual dinner at home in the kitchen with two friends of long standing, Bill and Bunny Beekman. Here’s Bunny Captured with my Leica M9 and the 35mm Summilux II lens, my new favorite lens on this camera.

Bunny Beekman

The out of focus portions of the image are particularly interesting. I shot Bunny at f/2.8, where the lens has the creamy out of focus character typical of the pre-aspheric Leica lenses; wide open at f/1.4 it has a more edgy character typical of the current generation of highly corrected fast lenses. The following is an example. In effect this is two lenses in one – how it draws the out of focus portions depends on f stop.

Brick Presbyterian Church

On this date last year: Gallery in San Miguel.

Statue San Miguel

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – The Holiday season continues. This is our friend Chuck Klein at John and Anne Herrmann’s Holiday party.

Chuck Klein

On this day one year ago: Dallas Fort Worth Airport.

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Another heavy day of meetings. We ended the day at the James Beard Foundation’s annual gala at the Four Seasons restaurant (my life seems to be centered around the Seagrams Building), I chair the board of the foundation – here’s a link: James Beard Foundation. I had planned on getting my photo of the day at the gala and came equipped with my Nikon D700 and a fast lens. But as I tried to take my first image I had a major “oh shit” moment: I had left the camera’s compact flash card home in my computer. This is a first for me. I always turn the camera on when I pick it up to leave home to check the battery and settings, and take a picture to make sure that everything works. Lesson re-learned.

So what to do? David Young was kind enough to lend me his iPhone. The iPhone is the Holga of this generation. There’s a bit of a learning curve to get a plausible image out of these things – I’m a long way from mastery. I took a couple of dozen images, one of which (ironically of David Young) seems ok to me. So here’s David on David’s iPhone:

November 10, 2010

On this day one year ago: Out my office window The subject matter suggests (accurately) that I was struggling to keep up with the photo-a-day pace in November of last year – November really is a rough month for me.

Out my window

CAYAMBE ECUADOR – This town hosts a week-long festival for Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) and Taita Inti (Father Sun) around the summer solstice. This guy’s costume bears no relationship to the prevailing native garb at this festival – he probably looked as odd to the Ecuadorians as he does to us. His mask looks like it was made from a child’s bib, but on close examination it’s actually finely beaded. He’s sufficiently odd that I’ve adopted him in the header for my site.

Cayambe festival

Leica M9 with 28mm Summicron.

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – The Film Society of Lincoln Center held its gala last night at the new Alice Tully Hall, honoring Michael Douglas.

Film Society

Nikon D700 with 50mm f1.4G.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Our son graduated today from a masters degree program at Columbia University on management of digital resources.  

Alexander, Laura and Maria

Nikon D700 and 50mm f1.4G

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DANBURY CONNECTICUT – New Year’s Day.

New Year's Day

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