WARREN CONNECTICUT – You’ve noticed by now that I’m experimenting with my superwide lens at extreme angles and extreme speeds. So far in this series the extreme angles have been in New York (and for that matter in the dark). Today I pushed forward to extreme angles in the countryside in daylight. Still interesting stuff.
Here’s one of a number of similar shots this afternoon from our woods. Note that the leaves are finally off of the trees so I’ve been relieved of the curse of beautiful fall foliage.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I’m exploring other daily photo blogs – I’m working on a page of links and critique that I’ll post here when its finished. There actually aren’t many of them. The one I like best is one polaroid a day over an 18 year period, to the photographer’s death. Someone has lovingly scanned and uploaded the 7,000 odd images, and built a very nice flash gallery. Here’s a link: hughcrawford.com. Anyway, I’ve been doing more in Manhattan in the early evening with my ultra-wide 12mm lens:
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I had lunch at Columbia today. This is an Henry Moore sculpture on the bridge that crosses Amsterdam Avenue from the Law School, an otherwise bare and uninviting space. The Moore is actually too small for the site and is located on a spot where there is no reason to walk past it.
NEW LONDON CONNECTICUT VICINITY – So here I am shooting out of windows again, but this time on the Acela train from Boston to New York. This is through the glass with my extreme wide lens shooting one second or so exposures. This is interesting – the clouds are sharp because their relative motion is small – but the foreground is totally lost to motion blur. The tint in the train window gives a slight ghoulish quality to the light. I experimented with these for the four hour ride.
AIRBORNE OVER CONNECTICUT – I made the 6:00 AM shuttle from LaGuardia to Boston. This is unusual because I generally don’t prefer window seats and have a bias against shooting out of windows. This from the air, out the window with my 12 lens on my digital Leica.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Feel free to go to one of those other daily photo blogs that you follow if you find that my voice is getting a little whiney. Yes, another week of all day meetings, at least through Wednesday, including a trip to Boston. You may ask “Why doesn’t Woody just quit the damn day job?” Actually I like my day job – it’s just that sometimes it gets in the way of photography – why I like it is beyond the scope of a two paragraph discussion. Today I spent some time shooting going to and from my meetings. Sometimes this is not very productive, but today it was, so I’m posting two images. They are both with my Leica and the 12mm Voigtlander lens – I’m getting more interesting results shooting wide right now. Let me know if you think it’s a gimmick.
Anyway here’s a night shot looking straight up at the facade of the New York Central building (now known as the Helmsley Building) at the foot of the North segment of Park Avenue. Wikipedia entry on the Helmsley Building. The Wikipedia entry is oddly ambiguous on who the architects were. It’s actually Warren & Wetmore, who were also responsible for Grand Central Terminal. Here’s a link to the AIA website.
