KENT CONNECTICUT – I’m getting back on my game in Connecticut. I took my Alpa Max out with a tripod on a field trip to Kent Connecticut where I stopped at a remarkable chocolate shop called Belgique. Do click through the link – the site is over the top. So Belgique is closed today – evidently on vacation to rest after the holiday rush. Taken with the Max, a 72mm Schneider lens and my Phase One IQ 180 back.
On this day one year ago: Lexus of Manhattan.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – My photography has been feeling a bit listless post Tuesday’s lunch. I decided to shake myself up bit with a radical equipment change. I walked around the upper eastside with a small Panasonic that I had converted to infrared last year. I like IR images in the winter; when there is foliage on the trees infrared renders the leaves as white and they look phony. Here we go with an image in IR false color:
Another, converted to grayscale:
On this day last year: a shot of the El Dorado across the frozen Central Park Reservoir.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A day of preparing for meetings. I took a break to go out and refresh my printer supplies. This from our local Staples with my Leica and a 35mm Summilux lens.
On this day last year: sunset from my office.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I went to a lunch sponsored by the ICP that included a panel discussion by a number of photojournalism luminaries. Discouraging. They all said that its easy to produce good or even very good pictures. It’s the brilliant ones that are hard to come by. Everyone has long term projects and takes assignments in hell-holes at the ends of the earth. What’s the point of my daily photo blog from cosy New York and Connecticut (and various one-percenter hang outs)? What’s the narrative? What (if anything) makes my pictures interesting?
Tough issues. Maybe the narrative is my life; but wouldn’t that require me to get closer (photographically) to the people around me – family and friends? That’s difficult because they didn’t volunteer for this (another issue discussed by the panel) – I’ve had one situation where the subject of a photo asked me to take it down; for now I’ve resolved the issue by designating the post as “private” (if you look back carefully you’ll see one day gap in the public record) – I’ll figure out what to do with it at some later date. The lunch was in Tribeca; I had my Alpa with me (not much good at the lunch) and the light in the streets was flat and poor later in the afternoon. I finally settled on this.
On this day one year ago: breakfast at Kitchenette.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – So . . . . still relying on my little bitty Ricoh GRD 4. There was some splendid light this afternoon. This image (and some others) prove that good light trumps poor equipment choice. Three frames stitched.
On this day one year ago: winter in Warren. Another tree line, no more than 200 yards from where this year’s image was taken, but with a radically different angle and lens choice, and radically different light.
KENT CONNECTICUT – We took a walk today along a segment of the Appalachian Trail that runs through here. I thought that I had left my Alpa in Connecticut; it turns out that it was in New York, so I only had the camera that travels in my pocket, my Ricoh GRD 4. Not the best tool for landscape. Here’s a branch off of Ten Mile River taken with the GRD 4, three frames stitched.
On this day one year ago: a really crappy day.
TAOS NEW MEXICO – It’s become clear to me that occasional ski lessons aren’t going get me to a reasonable level so I decided to focus elsewhere. One of the nice things about Taos is that there are other things to see and do within a reasonable driving distance. Today I visited Earthship homes outside of Taos. According to Wikipedia:
Earthship homes are primarily constructed to work as autonomous buildings and are generally made of earth-filled tires, using thermal mass construction to naturally regulate indoor temperature. They also usually have their own special natural ventilation system. Earthships are generally Off-the-grid homes, minimizing their reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels.
Here are some images, again taken with my Panasonic:
On this day on year ago: my office.
