Tuesday August 30, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – I walked around the Village this afternoon with my Alpa TC. There was wonderful Edward Hopper light – just enough haze to open up the shadows – the IQ 180 back’s color rendering actually got the light right. Here are a couple of examples:

August 29, 2011
The Village
August 29, 2011
Woody does Edward Hopper

On this day last year: Travel day. Yuck.

Out of Africa

Monday August 29, 2011

WARREN CONNECTICUT – As noted yesterday we rode out tropical storm Irene in Connecticut. It rained 8 inches in a few hours, causing minor erosion damage – but no other problems. Amazingly good luck. Here’s what things looked like post storm. Taken with my Alpa TC and a 35mm Schneider XL lens.

August 28, 2011
Basil surveys Irene damage

On this day last year: Our last day in Nairobi.

An indian pastry shop

Friday August 26, 2011

WARREN CONNECTICUT – I puttered around our Connecticut place working with my tech camera stuff. This was taken with my Alpa Max and a 120 mm Schneider Digitar.

August 26, 2011
irch

This with my Alpa TC and a 35mm Schneider.

August 26, 2011
Bedroom

On this day last year: Hippos. These guys are seriously dangerous, “Killed by a hippo” is the most common bad human-wildlife encounter in Kenya.

Hippos

Wednesday August 24, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – I took my Alpa Max and a light tripod to Central Park to shoot with my Schneider 120mm lens. The Max and the !20 were a delight to use. On reviewing the results the light tripod was a disappointment – in the future I’m going to need to use a serious tripod with this lens. I’m fighting a battle with myself to avoid an overly composed look when working on a tripod, and generally loosing. Here’s an example:

Belvedere Castle
Belvedere Castle

On this day one year ago: Sunset on the Maasai Mara. I actually just posted this – I had taken the picture but hadn’t posted it in the confusion of pulling the Africa materials together.

Sunset
Sunset

Tuesday August 23, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – This afternoon I walked the Brooklyn Bridge from the Manhattan side. It was seriously crowded. I shot with my Alpa and the 72mm Schneider lens. Framing continues to be a challenge. Out of the 30 or 40 images I thought this was the best point of view, but it’s flawed because I didn’t recognize it at the time so I didn’t take the time to wait for the optimum moment in terms of the pedestrians. Near misses for me two days in a row. Here it is:

Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge

On this day last year: wildebeest migration. I had so many images that I did three posts for the day. Here’s a crocodile killing a zebra.

Zebra kill

Monday August 22, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I walked to the office today with my Alpa and the 72mm Schneider Digitar. I’m experimenting to see if it’s possible to hand hold the camera with this lens. (Longer lenses are more demanding in terms of camera movement than shorter lenses.) The light was just ok. There’s a no name spec building at the Northwest corner of 57th street and Lexington Avenue. I played around with the plaza in front of it, and finally realized that the shot for the day was looking straight up. You’ll see that the framing would have been better if I had included the full circle on the sides of the frame. The Alpa finder is kind of approximate – based in this fairly disappointing experience I’ll be trying some of my Leica finders on the Alpa to see if I can get more accurate results.

Anyway . . .

Look up!
Look up!

On this day one year ago: Maasai village.

Maasai boys