Landscape – Page 638 – Woody Campbell

Monday November 7, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – On the street with my miniature camera. I’m slowly gaining confidence in it – getting a better feeling for its capabilities and limitations. I’m not really good a street photography and street photography generally doesn’t move me. A lot of the work that I see by other photographers is colorful looking people (often from the rear) in colorful setting, lacks dynanism and is wildly derivative of Robert Frank. There are exceptions. For example the energetic body of work being produced by Daido Moriyama (who shoots by the way with a Ricoh GRD). There’s an argument that the Ricoh is to this generation what the Leica M3 was to an earlier generation. Anyway here’s an image from Third Avenue caught with my Ricoh GRD IV. Of course my shadow in the picture is derivative of . . . Robert Frank.

I mentioned several times in the last month that the 1999 self portraits were taken in my Connecticut studio with an 8X10 camera. Here’s what it looked like. That’s me holding the cable release for the lens (whatever it was) on the Arca-Swiss view camera.

Saturday November 5, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’m taking a break from my new Rikoh GRD IV – in good light I find the Alpa, 35mm Schneider and Phase One IQ 180 back irresistible.

This from East 72nd Street. It’s a bit surprising that this building’s coop board permitted air conditioning vents to be cut through the decorative limestone facade.

Here’s number 23. This is the penultimate image from my series of 24 hourly photos of myself taken on February 13 and 14, 1994. This one is from m12:00 noon on February 14. Once I’ve presented all 24 of these, over the next week or so I’ll show you some composites and collages assembled from them, starting Monday.

Friday November 4, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – More time in the trenches on may day job, and fussing around with my new Ricoh GRD IV. This thing lets you get really, really close.

More me. This is number 23 out of the series of 24. We’re getting close to the end.

Wednesday November 2, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – More blahs. Today I had lunch at Harry Cipriani with Michele Parmigiani, a remarkable watchmaker who has a show of mechanical wonders that he has restored for the Sandoz foundation at A La Vieille Russie. Lunch was excellent and we were surrounded by fashionable Italians. Somehow out of all of this I couldn’t make a plausible photograph. Tonight was our James Beard Foundation annual Gala at Gustavino, a genuinely interesting space built into one of the approach ramps to the 59th Street Bridge. No photos worth taking up hard drive space. The best I could do for today is this safe view of a Manhattan facade. One of my objectives in my photo a day work is to capture the visual part of life from a privileged (in an artistic rather than economic sense) point of view. It may be that I’m just too wound up in practicing law and the Gala to relax and see the world around me. Still, one photo every day . . . .

Let’s see here, it’s Mr. Curley Hair again. Looking a little fresher at 9:00 after a night of fitful sleep interrupted by my hourly photo regime.

Monday October 31, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – I took a walk today in Central Park looking for storm damage with my Alpa TC and 35mm Schneider lens. The camera provoked a number of conversations. There were a lot of tree limbs down, but nothing very dramatic. I needed up shooting a pretty conventional rocks and trees image but the high resolution medium format files make it seem important:

I’ve taken this picture before, actually quite a few times. Here for example is an olive tree from the Pelopnnesian Peninsula taken in 1970 with my twin lens Rollei 2.8F. The tree was probably a couple of thousand years old when I shot it. I hope the intervening 40 years have been kinder to it than they have been to Greece in general.

Here we go with the “Its all about me” part of this post. I’m now actually embarrassed that I started out posting these things, but having started I need to finish. Here’s 7:01 AM on February 14, 1999.

Sunday October 30, 2011

WARREN CONNECTICUT – It finally stopped snowing around noon. We got a devastating 21 inches of wet, heavy snow. Most of the trees still had all of their leaves so the snow collected on them, breaking or uprooting trees in absolutely record number. Power, telephone and cable and internet are out over most of the state. This is been called the most damaging storm in Connecticut’s history. We have a backup generator for occasions like this (we loose power several times each winter; without power the heating system doesn’t work; if the house gets below freezing there is massive damage to the plumbing). Anyway, I took my Alpa (with the 35mm Schneider) out after the storm cleared. Here’s what it looked like – a typical January scene on October 30.

These images exploit the amazing dynamic range of the Phase One IQ 180 back.

It’s me again, this time at 6:03 on February 14, 1999. As I’ve said quite a few times now this is one of a series of hourly self-portraits shot with an Arca Swiss 8×10 view camera.

Saturday October 29, 2011

WARREN CONNECTICUT – Well here it is, not quite November yet, and we’re suffering a blizzard. Our preparations for winter were not quite complete, but we have replaced our backup generator that failed during this fall’s hurricane. I went out into it with my Alpa, Here are two typical images – the first a monochrome and the second in color (the idea was to record the point that the trees still have their fall foliage). It was a monochrome day – you almost can’t tell the difference. This is classic “be there” stuff.

More of me. This series is making me increasingly uncomfortable – it’s just not in my DNA to post pictures of myself. Anyway, here’s 4:54 AM on February 14, 1999. One of a series of hourly shots taken with a Arca Swiss 8×10 camera.