NEW YORK NEW YORK – I took my new Leica over to Randalls Island today but OMG, disaster has struck. For some reason all of the images are coming out of the camera upside down. Help me out someone. What to do?
On this day last year: BBQ Joint.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Here we are, on the street in Manhattan in bright early Spring light, with my new Leica M and a 21mm Super Elmar M lens. This is familiar territory working through the plusses and minuses of a new Camera.
Same lens (21mm) but three frames stitched.
On this day one year ago: Dinner at the Fours Seasons.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – The calendar says March 24. The weather gods apparently don’t have a calendar. It’s supposed to be Spring, but there’s no sign of it. Connecticut: the new North Dakota. I’m packing my medium format Leica S today, wearing a 120mm lens (a modest telephoto in this format). Here’s an image of ice on our road.
On this day last year: Garuda.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A landscape day. Brilliant early Spring light reinforce’s the city’s three dimensionality. Here’s the back of a newsstand taken with my Leica Monochrom and 21mm Super Elmar M lens. The idea was to express visual clutter but not chaos.
On this day last year: High Line. Shot with my Alpna and Phase One 80 meg. back.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I saw a potential image at Lexington and 51st Street that reminded me of second picture from Boston that I posted on March 13. I snapped it with my Leica Monochrom and 18mm Super elmar lens. It’s less successful than the Boston image at least in part because the light is less interesting. As I’ve said many times before on these pages: “It’s the light, dummy.” I was also able to get closer in Boston. That always works, doesn’t it.
On this day last year: Fresh.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – So here I am out on the street (actually a side street in the 80s on the East Side) with my Leica Monochrom trying to take a serious picture. This is with my 18mm Super Elmar lens and a yellow filter which does nice job of darkening the sky. And of course the second image is a shot around the house with my iPhone and the kitCam app, which I actually think is a better picture.
On this day last year: Leaving town.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Here’s a major difficulty that I’m having with this photo a day gig. I’m basically a landscape shooter. Cityscapes are landscapes so most of what I’m doing here in New York counts toward my landscape quota. (This is where I live; if I lived in Indio California I’d be doing sand dunes.) The problem is that landscape photography is about finding light. It’s like trout fishing. When you see great light stop what you’re doing and shoot. It actually doesn’t matter much what’s in front of the lens. When you don’t have good light the trout aren’t biting so you pack up your gear and go home.
But some days (maybe most days) sensational light doesn’t come along. If you try to force the case in dull light you get junk. Period.
So on those dull days I’ve decided to do something different. Shoot with my iPhone. Close. Real close. Or odd. Funny angles. Dark. Indoors with poor light. Push things a bit. After experimenting with dozens of camera apps I’ve finally found one that I like: kitCam. Try it. Anyway here are some kitCams from today. You’ll be seeing these whenever crap light makes landscape a challenge.
On this day last year: Las Vegas.
