Wednesday October 2, 2013

NEW YORK NEW YORK – Today I’m documenting the most elaborate gift that we have ever received. We have a friend of very long standing who is a London-based architect. For our wedding anniversary he painted in miniature a copy of Tiepolo’s Anthony and Cleopatra with Maria’s face on Cleopatra and mine on Anthony. No kidding. And then he built an elaborate frame to house it. Tiepolo is one of my big three Italian artists of all time. The image Guill selected is lush and voluptuous, full of Tiepolo excesses. Operatic. Just like Maria and me. Wow. (Let’s leave aside the fact that things ended badly for Anthony and Cleopatra.) Here it is in living black and white shot with my Leica S2 medium format camera and a 120mm macro lens from a tripod (I got serious with this one). Actually two frames stitched to maximize detail.

Tiepolo
Tiepolo

On this day one year ago: gas station.

Filling station
Filling station

Saturday August 10, 2013

WARREN CONNECTICUT – A perfect day for a lovely party put together by some neighbors. As you scroll down you’ll see an Aunt Alice shot – a lineup of people squinting into the setting sun. I object to these in principle but have decided to start taking them as a documentary record. Complain to my editor if you don’t like it. All images take with my Leica S2 and 70mm lens.

John
John
Maria
Maria
Aunt Alice
Aunt Alice

On this day last year: Urban poetry. A construction site in Manhattan. Proof that color has a function, despite by bias toward black and white.

Construction site
Construction site

Sunday July 28, 2013

KENT CONNECTICUT – We had lunch with friends in Kent. I took my Leica S2, which is a very large camera – eccentrically so in an era of iPhones and professional photographers moving to mirrorless compacts. People didn’t seem to mind. Interestingly, even at web resolution you can see that the medium format S2 offers an advantage in three dimensionality and texture.

Robert
Robert
Peter
Peter
Maria
Maria
House
House
Paella Pan
Paella Pan

On this day last year: Pool.

Pool
Pool

Friday June 7, 2013

WARREN CONNECTICUT – I didn’t feel like photography today so I procrastinated and ultimately found myself at the far end of the day here with my iPhone in my hand. Some 20 years ago I paid $3500 at an out of the way auction for a set of 18 Edward Curtis gravures from his North American Indians body of work done around 1905. (This is a lifetime best for me in terms of purchasing photographs.) Interestingly Curtis’s project, which ultimately included 1500 photographs, was commissioned by JP Morgan. By 1905 the Native American way of life was badly impaired so the images are often posed reenactments. Here’s a Nez-Perce man photographed by Curtis via my iPhone:

Nez-Perce man
Nez-Perce man

On this day last year: sunlight redux. A continuation of a theme.

Sunlight
Sunlight