NEW YORK NEW YORK – A pretty good day for pictures. I’ve posted an “out my window” today (two frames stitched taken with my Leica M and a 35mm Summilus Asph lens. Out my window shots are usually a sign of desperation but because of enchanting light this was the best image from a day of pretty good images. Here you go:
Out my window
On this day one year ago: The Charles. Here we are in Cambridge.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Wine dinner tonight with some college classmates and other friends. Photographed with my Leica Monochrom and Dual Range Summicron lens. The cab ride (on a horrible night) to the dinner; some participants; and the wines.
Ride to wine eventWine dinnerThe wines
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Back here for the day. I shot some hosta with my Leica M, which unlike my Monochrom actually shoots in color. I made two versions of this image: one converted to black and white and one in color. This pretty conclusively proves that I see in black and white better than color.
HostaHosta
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Those of you who have followed these pages for some time know that we’re usually in Connecticut on weekends. Well not on this particular day. I drove back down to New York early this morning to attend a reunion at Columbia. A thoroughly enjoyable day. I spent a couple of hours in a tour of St. John the Divine, the massive, unfinished Episcopal cathedral here in Morningside Heights near the Columbia campus. Construction started in the late 19th Century on a Romanesque plan; around 1910 or so a new high gothic plan was developed so the structure is partly gothic and partly Romanesque. Pretty odd. Traditional building techniques were used – the construction is all masonry – there is no structural steel. This means that construction has been slow and expensive. Work stopped for after Pearl Harbor and was not restarted until the 1970. Work stopped again early in this Century when the Church decided that the money was better spent on its mission that this massive pile of stone.
St. John the DevineSt. John the DevineSt. John the DevineSt. John the Devine
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I didn’t feel like photography today so I procrastinated and ultimately found myself at the far end of the day here with my iPhone in my hand. Some 20 years ago I paid $3500 at an out of the way auction for a set of 18 Edward Curtis gravures from his North American Indians body of work done around 1905. (This is a lifetime best for me in terms of purchasing photographs.) Interestingly Curtis’s project, which ultimately included 1500 photographs, was commissioned by JP Morgan. By 1905 the Native American way of life was badly impaired so the images are often posed reenactments. Here’s a Nez-Perce man photographed by Curtis via my iPhone:
Nez-Perce man
On this day last year: sunlight redux. A continuation of a theme.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Straight up in Manhattan. Tried this yesterday and didn’t like the result. Came back today with a different lens and different light. Leica Monochrom and 21mm Super Elmar lens.
