WARREN CONNECTICUT – Our house in Warren in good backlighting. Taken with my Leica Monochrom. The fishing aspect of photography. I’ve been on this spot thousands of times but I’ve never seen this before. Two frames stitched.
Warren
On this day last year: Chair transformed by good light and my Noctilux lens.
Chair
WARRN CONNECTICUT – Fog. Lots of it. It’s atmospheric and it simplifies composition, muting backgrounds. It’s a pretty common phenomenon here in Warren. We’re on a hilltop that seems to be a fog magnet. Taken with my Leica Monochrom and 35mm Summichron lens.
Woods
Sundial
YRELLAG
On this day one year ago: Yawn. A water tank. Whoopee. In New York. Imagine that. An example of why I shouldn’t shoot color. I find the mixed lighting here very unattractive.
Water tank
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Over the years we’ve developed a park-like area to the East of our house here, systematically clearing out underbrush and encouraging grass and ferns, and emphasizing the large, mature red and white oaks and sugar maples. In early spring the oaks have clusters of small light green flowers that look like nothing and shed pollen like the devil. Visually they lend a light green haze to the landscape – one of my favorite times of the year. Here you go, photographed with my Leica S medium format camera and a 24mm super wide angle lens.
Park
On this day one year ago: Breakfast.
White
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Out and about a neighbor’s property in curtain filtered daylight. Not bad. Taken with my Leica S and a 35mm lens.
Trees
Truck
On this day last year: Noctilux on Broadway.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – We drove up here early today, in time to catch the golden hour here. I’ve turned again to my Leica S, which I struggled with a bit yesterday – it’s a big complex system and I’ve been shooting mainly with my Leica Ms for the last few months so my skills operating the S have slipped a bit. I’ve resolve to tune up my approach to it over the weekend. It does produce remarkable files. Here you go with the Leica S and 120mm macro lens.
Callery Pear
On this day last year: Gas explosion. Back to back duds last year.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – We haven’t been here for a while. We love Warren so I actually resent (a bit) our recent travel that has made it hard to get here. Basil the Norwich Terrier stays up here we we travel so I drove up today to fetch him. We’re actually going to be in New York this coming weekend for a vey close friend’s Birthday.
I’ve got a Leica lens from the 1950s called a Dual Range Summicron. The DR is an iconic lens that has produced thousands of iconic images in the hands of the most famous photographers of its era. It has two focusing ranges, near and far, and an eyeglass-looking doodad that clips on to activate the close focusing range and adjust the view through the viewfinder for close focus. Very cool, except that on digital Leica Ms the DR can’t be mounted because the close focus cam on the lens doesn’t fit through the opening in the camera body. The solution (which I’ve adopted) is to send the lens to a machine shop to have the close focus cam machined off. It then fits a digital M but in the close focus range the lens lo longer links with the rangefinder so the close focus feature really can’t be used.
Enter the new Leica M, a rangefinder camera that also permits focusing through the lens with an “electronic viewfinder” attachment. I strapped the DR on the the M, set the lens to close focus range and fired up the electronic viewfinder and voila it worked. This brings the focus distance down to .5 meter. Here are a couple of images taken in Warren with this combination.
Close up
Sundial
On this day last year: The Zen of Citicorp.
The Zen of Citibank
WARREN CONNECTICUT – You call this spring?! This is an outrage! I want my money back. The snowdrops (galanthus) have just poked their heads up. Six full weeks later than last year. The forsythia haven’t bloomed! I might as well be in Minnesota.
I shot the snowdrops with my iPhone – that’s how I get close to small things.
Snow drop
On this day last year: 11th Avenue.
Tenderloin
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I’ve had a bit of trouble getting into the moment today, so I’m stuck with this nondescript image of a wall on our property, taken will taking the dog for a quick walk with my Leica M and an 18mm Super Elmar M lens.
On this day last year: Nashville.
Diana
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I spent part of the day getting to know my new camera, a Leica M, also known as the M240. With this camera Leica dropped the number after the “M” on their rangefinder cameras (so just “M” not “M10″). Marketing genius. Whatever.
I’m starting to get pretty good results from it. It’s operations are the smoothest and quietest of an Leica M ever. There’s not much of a learning curve. Here it is with my f.95 Noctilux strapped onto it with a neutral density filter that lets me shoot in daylight wide open. Below (the yellow tulips) is with a 1939 Carl Zeiss Jena 85mm f1.5 Sonar, a famous lens that doesn’t couple properly with the Leica rangefinder so it requires live view to be focused (the new M is first Leica to offer live view).
Angel
On this day last year: Spring. March 30 seems to be tulip day. Mayan wheel of time?
Spring
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I continue to get good results from my Leica Monochrom. This may be the most interesting, and in some ways challenging, camera that I’ve ever owned. I’ve been very busy at my day job so I’ve been shooting what’s close at hand – giving the content part of my images a prosaic tilt. Here’s the front of our house.
Two houses
On this day last year: Construction site.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Out with my Leica Monochrom the day after a heavy snowfall. Images are self-explanitory.
Warren Church
Tanner Hill Road
Shadows
On this day last year: Hell’s Kitchen.
It’s called a tree
WARREN CONNECTICUT – A slow day tilling familiar soil for images. Leica Monochrom and f.95 Noctilux lens with a neutral density filter to permit shooting wide open in daylight.
Watch out for Basil
For the birds
On this day last year: rainy night.
Rainy night
WARREN CONNECTICUT – A gray day with freezing rain. I drove to the Washington Club beach on Lake Waramaug to capture the grayness. Still shooting with my Leica Monochrom and f.95 Noctilux lens. The Nocti is not the most obvious lens to use in daylight but it is critically sharp and has a lovely signature. My shots across the lake are not entirely successful. Three frames stitched.
Ice
On this day last year: 5 MA.
Madison
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Still shooting the 24mm Summichron on my Leica Monochrom. Here I’m experimenting with hand holding it in cloud-obscured moonlight at ISO 10,000.
Night
Moon
Dark
On this day last year: Dinner for two.
Dinner for two
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I’ve been working a lot recently with my fastest lenses, my Leica 50mm Noctilux (f.95) and my Leica 24mm Summilux (f1.4). I often shoot the 24mm with a .9 neutral density filter which permits it to be used wide open in daylight. The rendering is lovely, turning mundain subjects into magic:
Drifts
On this day one year ago: Purple Heart.
Purple Heart
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