NEW YORK NEW YORK – Our local Presbyterian church in New York, Brick Church, celebrates the beginning of Advent every year with a ceremony on the Church steps lighting the trees all up and down Park Avenue, and singing carols. We’re members of Brick but not currently that active because of our weekends in Connecticut. When our children were younger we were very active – I joked at that time that at one time or another I held every non-paying job at the Church. A lovely community. Anyway I took my Leica Monochrom and Noctilux lens to this year’s carol sing.
Carols
NEW YORK NEW YORK – As you have seen if you’ve been following these pages my 50mm Dual Range Summicron has become my best friend – it mates wonderfully with the MM. It’s the iconic Walter Mandler design that defined the Leica look for a generation. Surprisingly more than 50 years later it stands up to the demands of digital resolution. So I asked myself which 35mm lens is most like the 50mm DR Summicron? I spent a bit of time with Irwin Puts’ Leica Compendium, an essential tool for anyone who fancies him/herself a Leica nut. The long-running 35mm Summicron Asph has very similar MTF curves and narrative but based on personal experience supresses flair better than the DR. I’ve owned this lens but sold it when I got my first 35mm Lux. So . . . I found a nice looking sample on ebay and bought it. First sample below, which is a flair and contrast torture test.
Flair
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Lunch today at ABC Kitchen followed by a walk to the New Museum on the Bowery, which has devoted three full floors to the work of Rosemarie Trockel, a German artist who can do just about anything with anything. Photography is not permitted at the New Museum, a common problem these days, so I have to content myself with pictures from my walk. I’ve commented before on the declining state of New York’s tenderloin areas. The winos are being priced out of the Bowery, which like the rest of the Lower East Side is undergoing rapid gentrification. All images with my Leica Monochrom and 28mm Summicron lens.
Amsterdam BilliardsGraffitiCooper UnionDoor
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Two images of a traffic control box from a walk around town today. Taken with my Leica Monochrom and 1958 Dual Range Summicron lens.
Traffic control box 1Traffic control box 2
On this day last year: GW Bridge. I’ve adapted this to be a banner for this blog.
PAGET BERMUDA – We’re staying at the Coral Beach Club, which we were given an introduction to by a friend’s aunt way back when we were first married. We’re actually here with our children to celebrate our anniversary (today) and Maria’s birthday (yesterday). Still chugging along with my Monochrom. The weather was cloudy today – remember what I said about the reliability of the weather in Bermuda? Anyway, some images, first of the church of the oldest Protestant congregation in the Western Hemisphere:
The oldest church
An interior of the same church (done with the Monochrom and my 18mm Super Elmar):
NEW YORK NEW YORK – On the street with my Leica Monochrom. I’ve never been good at street photography – it’s probably too late for me to change. My street photography is about at the level of my golf game – bogey in my dreams, much worse in actual fact.
Rapt audience
NEW YORK NEW YORK – An odd day. We’re going to Bermuda for an anniversary and birthday celebration tomorrow and Basil the Norwich Terrier ended up here in New York – which is the wrong place for him when we’re traveling because a friend in Connecticut looks after him when we’re away. So I drove up to Connecticut, dropped the dog off, and drove back. This from the car wind with my Leica Monochrom.
Work
