Thursday September 29, 2011

GD Star Rating
loading...

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

Chicken Eggplant Swiss Chard

On this day last year: Brooklyn Bridge Park.

South Street Seaport from Brooklyn Bridge Park

Wednesday June 22, 2011

GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK NEW YORK – Our friends Varya Gornostaeva and her husband, Sergei Parkhomenko, were in town from Moscow so we had a small dinner party for them in our kitchen. Varya has terrific English and Sergei very good French (as does Maria) so we had enough languages in common to communicate well. This is Sergei captured with my Leica M9 – this is less annoying than it looks because it was at the end of the meal and still mid-afternoon in Moscow.

Dinner in the kitchen

Dinner in the kitchen

On this day one year ago: A passport photo for Maria. This very clearly demonstrates that I really could make a living at photography, doing passport photos.

Maria

Maria

Monday April 11, 2011

GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I had lunch at Colicchio and Sons, followed by a trip across 10th Avenue to the Chelsea Market, an outstanding food destination. The James Beard Foundation (of which I’m the Chairman) is opening a popup restaurant at Chelsea Market named JBFLtd. I dropped by the restaurant in its final stages of preparation.

JBF Ltd. - James Beard Foundation restaurant pop-up

JBF Ltd. - James Beard Foundation restaurant pop-up

On this day one year ago: Image of Spring with truly ugly bokeh.

Spring

Friday February 18, 2011

GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK NEW YORK – We went for a walk to Union Square where we did some shopping in the farmer’s market for meals over the weekend. A pedestrian image, captured with my Alpa TC, which demonstrates once again that great gear doesn’t guarantee great images. This is in contrast to the image from one year ago.

Mushrooms

Mushrooms

On this day one year ago: Vietnam Memorial. For me the most emotional image since I started this project. I was in Vietnam in the Marine Corps. Of my Basic School class of 317 Second Lieutenants I know of no one who finished a 13 month tour of duty – almost everyone was killed, seriously wounded or sent home after their third Purple Heart. Karl Marlantes’s novel Matterhorn captures the experience brilliantly – I highly recommend it. Many friends of mine are listed on this wall. Visiting it is almost unbearable. I’ve reproduced the picture at full web size.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Monday December 20, 2010

GD Star Rating
loading...

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

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

Brick Presbyterian Church

On this date last year: Gallery in San Miguel.

Statue

Statue San Miguel

Wednesday November 10, 2010

Click for more

GD Star Rating
loading...

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:

David Young

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

Friday October 15, 2010

GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I decided to cook today. We had in the refrigerator the end of the produce from our garden in Connecticut: an aubergine, some zucchini, some tomatoes and a few other odds and end. This obviously assembles easily into a ratatouille. Both images with my Leica M9 and a 40 mm Summicron C lens.

Mise en place:

Mise en place for ratatouille

And here about an hour and a half later is the assembled product, ready for final cooking.

Ratatouille

Sunday June 20, 2010

GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Dinner at Bar Boulud with some old friends and our son and daughter, who took me there for Fathers Day. This is a silly made-up holiday designed to promote greeting card sales, but I have nonetheless promoted it to our children as the most important day of the year.

Dinner at Bar Boulud

Nikon D700 AND Nikon 85mm f1.4 lens.

Tuesday May 18, 2010

GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A Commanderie de Bordeaux dinner at the Knickerbocker Club.  Wines included the 1982, 1989 and 1990 vintages of Château Mouton Rothschild and Château Lafite Rothschild, as well as the 1983 Mouton:

1983 Ch. Mouton Rothschild

Leica M9 and 35mm Summicron.

Tuesday December 1, 2009

GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – We attend a Piemontese white truffle dinner at the James Beard Foundation, hosted by Joe and Paul Bartolotta.  I’ve edited this post – on reflection I like the image below better than the one originally posted.

By the way I’ve made some changes to the site.  I’ve added three additional galleries under “Parties” and a gallery called Fireworks.  I’ve also added a star rating system.  This is an experiment – I’ll be working over the next few months to refine it.  Feel free to click on the stars at the top of each post to cast a vote on it.

White truffle dinner at the James Beard Foundation

White truffle dinner at the James Beard Foundation

Tuesday November 24, 2009

GD Star Rating
loading...

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Today is the run up for Thanksgiving – a major food shopping day.  We spend the morning at Fairway in Harlem (it’s at 125th Street and the Hudson River).  The weather cleared dramatically, providing an opportunity to photograph the underside of Riverside Drive from 125th Street.

Riverside Drive from 125th Street

Riverside Drive from 125th Street

Monday October 26, 2009

GD Star Rating
loading...

PORTLAND, OREGON – Portland has a remarkable food culture.  There are elaborate “food carts” in various parts of town – generally in clusters.  They aren’t actually “carts”. They are really trailers, sometimes elaborate ones, rather than the hand carts that the name suggests.  Here’s a link to a site specializing in Portland food carts: Food Carts Our friend and guide to Portland, Ron Paul, claims that the best coffee in Portland, and thus North America, is at Spella Caffe. Here’s Andrea Spella. Sorry Andrea for the harsh back lighting.:

Andrea Spella

Andrea Spella