WARREN CONNECTICUT – You may have noticed that its been a while since I posted an urban image here. That’s because we came up to Connecticut on December 24, 2014; we’re staying here through January 4. This is what my life would look like if we moved to Connecticut full time. Note the prominence of local Congregational meeting houses. This part of Connecticut really is New England, and these structures dominate town greens.
Day 1,901 of one photo every day for the rest of my life.
Hopkins VineyardWarren Congregational Meeting House
On this day two years ago (day 1,170): Litchfield. Three frames stitched, using a vintage 1954 Dual Range Summicron lens.
BANTAM CONNECTICUT – I shot around an abandoned factory here today with my Carl Zeiss 1945 Sonnar lens. There’s a bit urgency to this: Bantam is enjoying a real revival; the abandoned factor is actually in an early state of restoration.
Day 1,900 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
RuinsRuins
On this day three years ago (804): Baby cloud. One of my favorites from 2011.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I’m continuing to shoot with my antique Carl Zeiss 50mm lens, which stopped down is excellent for landscape and wide open has a lovely signature for portraits or just about anything else. Paraphrasing myself from a few years back my research indicates that the optical cell (the optical workings of the lens) was produced at the Carl Zeiss works in Jena, Germany in December 1945. So it actually is a Zeiss Jena 5cm f1.5 Sonnar. The lens cell was subsequently fitted to a Leica screw mount body by an unknown third party, probably in Germany, the UK or US, for sale in the UK or US. The distance scale is denominated in feet and Zeiss itself didn’t make any lenses in Leica mounts as Leica was a competitor (Zeiss and Leica were the equivalent of Nikon and Canon today). I can see why it would have been worth the trouble to convert this lens to a Leica mount: it is actually the equivalent of an modern lens in most respects at f4 and beyond – its performance is simply breathtaking and as noted above it has a lovely signature.
Day 1,899 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Here we are in Holiday recovery mode – making concentration on the visual present tense difficult. So . . . here are some backlit ornamental grasses.
Day 1,898 of one photo every day for the rest of my life.
Yawn
On this day two years ago (day 1,168): Night blizzard. One of my favorite images from the past five plus years.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Christmas day. We’re here with our children and grandchild, Baby V, who is now 14 months old. She’s walking and sort of talking. Today I’m shooting with my 1945 Carl Zeiss Sonar lens.
Day 1,897 of one photograph a day for the rest of my life.
Go ahead and kiss my ringBasil lurksGo ahead, kiss my ring
WARREN and BANTAM CONNECTICUT – Christmas Eve. The process that I’ve adopted for this project presents a real challenge around holidays. In the course of my one picture every day project I generally shoot the equivalent of a roll of film a day. So over a 365 day year I end up with 10,000 to 11,000 images. I post about a week after each shot, which gives me a chance to edit with a bit of detachment. But as a result of the delay these posts are never breaking news. For typical landscapes, cityscapes and people this isn’t a problem, but it is with holidays. Here I am on New Years Eve (when I’m writing this) posting Christmas Eve. The solution is simply to avoid holiday themes on holidays, which makes me look Scrooge-line, which I’m not.
Anyway here are some non-Holiday images taken with my Leica M Monochrom and an 18mm Super-Elmar lens.
Day 1,896 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
GardenCabbage
On this day five years ago (day 70): Monarchs. This is rare color for me these days. It was taken near Tualpujahua Mexico. Here we witnessed a remarkable phenomenon: there is huge annual migration of Monarch butterflies from Canada and the Northeastern United States to this mountainous region of Mexico, about a three hour drive from Mexico City. Â The Monarchs arrive in early November, which coincides with the Day of the Dead – the pre-Spanish people resident in the area believed that Monarchs were the souls of their ancestors. Â They cluster in very high density (estimated at about 20 million butterflies per hectare) at very high altitude. Â It’s possible to visit them by driving deeply into the the mountains and riding a horse for about a half hour from a nomadic base camp. Â It’s possible to walk, but not advised because the elevation is very high, 11,200 feet (3,400 meters) and the half day one is there is too short a time to become acclimatized to the altitude. Â The Monarchs cluster quietly on every surface until the temperature goes above 50 degrees F at which point they take to the air in breathtaking density, Â The Monarchs we see in Connecticut take part in this migration.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I got my shot for the day at 6:51 AM on my way to a breakfast meeting. I saw the opportunity and took two exposures. that was it for the day. I knew that I had it so a could stand down on December 23 and worry about more pressing matters, like Christmas shopping. The image is taken with my Leica Moncogrom and 28mm sum micron lens, a classic combination.
Day 1,895 of one photo every day for the rest of my life.
