NEW YORK NEW YORK – Familiar ground today: the Empire State Building. I’ve been following it for years as one of the icons that I fuss with. Of course the challenge is adding anything to the state of the art and mankind’s understand given that there are thousands of iPhone photos taken of it every day (some of them very good).
Day 1,852 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
Empire State
On this day two years ago (day 1,122): Hay bails. Hay bails were rectangular back when I was a kid. They now have the proportions of soup cans. The march of technology.
KENT and WARREN CONNECTICUT – I’m continuing to experiment with my newly-repaired Leica f.95 Noctilux, shooting landscape and still life wide open, with a neutral density filter if necessary. The results are more dreamy than the hart-edged look that I’ve been cultivating for a lifetime, and thus a really good exercise for me. I’ve also included an image of Baby Victoria, our fabulous 12-month old granddaughter.
Day 1,851 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – We got a late start driving up here today and ran into endless traffic – actually a bit unusual. I was in no mood for photography but pretty good late afternoon light gave me an opportunity to capture an image.
Day 1,850 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
Late Autumn
On this day three years ago (day 754): Francesca’s birthday. Looking back I’ve selected a different image from November 11, 2011.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Another Friday evening here – this time for Francesca’s birthday. I shoot with my Leica Monochrom and f.95 Noctilux lens in situations like this. The light was very poor so an evening of shooting yields few keepers.
Day 1,849 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – The Union Club. Taken with my Leica Monochrom camera and f.95 Noctilux lens. Three frames stitched.
Day 1,848 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
Union Club
On this day five years ago (day 22): 30 Rock. On reviewing November 6, 2009 I’ve decided that I like the following better than the stitch of 30 Rock that I originally posted
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A heavy package arrived from Leica today. It was my 50mm Leica Noctilux f.95 lens back from repairs. This is a major object. The f.95 isn’t a typo – it’s the fastest 35mm format lens ever. It’s a beast – heavy and it blocks the lower left-hand portion of the viewfinder, so as I’ve reviewed images taken with it there are occasional surprises. This lens renders magically wide open, but is very demanding in terms of focus. Perfect images take a lot of practice. Stopped down it performs similarly to the widely-acclaimed Leica 50mm f1.4 Summilux. This is one of the reasons why I go through the expense and bother of owning Leica. I’ll be keeping this lens on my camera for the next week.
I’ve gotten rusty with this thing since the repairs have taken four months. I shot around home with it at f.95 practicing focus and seeing whether it really can work magic with every day objects. Here you go:
Day 1,847 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
Noctilux
On this day two years ago (day 1,117): Movie poster. Two frames stitched; shot with a 35mm lens on my Leica Monochrom.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I strapped my Carl Zeiss 16mm lens onto my Monochrome today. This sense is really wide and has major charisma. It allows me to make ok images of mundane subjects. More on lenses later this week.
Day 1,846 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
PedestriansTrash
On this day three years ago (day 750): Really close.
