NEW YORK NEW YORK – We’ve taken advantage of being in New York on a weekend to go out to dinner with some friends to a local place offering French comfort food. The light’s very low but not bad so portraits all around. Earlier in the day harsh light on the street. Both with my Leica Monocrom and 75mm Summicron lens.
On this day last year: Grating.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A busy day with my cameras. We drove back to New York (from Warren) to get Maria to a doctor – she’s had a hacking cough for two weeks now. When I arrived I found that FedEx had delivered two packages, one with my 2x tele-extender for my Leica R 280mm lens (which I can use on my Leica M camera), one of the great long lenses of all time. I also received a 75mm Leica Summicron Asph., which it turns out is a marvelous lens. The first two frames below are Baby V (our granddaughter) taken with my Monochrom and the new 75mm. In the next image I’m experimenting with the quality of the out-of-focus portions of the image (so-called “bokeh”), which is creamy and lovely, a real accomplishment for such a highly corrected lens. Finally a couple of out my windows with the 280mm and 2x tele-extender set up on a tripod. Looks fine but this combination is really fussy in use.
Apologies for the gear talk. What’s more important here is that Baby is making the transition, at just short of two months old, to having a personality. You begin to get a bit of that in the series of pictures below, taken over about a five minutes period.
On this day last year: Lipstick building. Taken with my Leica Monochrom and 5cm. Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar from 1945 – this lens rocks.
WARREB CONNECTICUT – Has someone mentioned that its been cold here? I grabbed an image on my way back from picking up a newspaper (I get my news online, Maria reads the paper). This is two frames stitched, taken with my Leica Monochrom and 1958 Dual Range Summicron lens. Typical Northeastern deciduous forest in typical winter weather. Kind of ho hum.
On this day one year ago: Local Law 10 work.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – New Years Day is a quiet day. A time for reflection and list making. My resolutions this year include improving my mastery of my Twitter account and having more fun in the office. Also more time with our grandchild, Baby V, who is in the process of turning into a “who” rather than a “that” and is pretty well documented here. Anyway, I did take a picture today with my Leica Monochrom and 1958 Dual Range Summicron:
On this day one year ago: Maria grunged up. The only usable (on technical grounds) image last year was this genuinely pedestrian picture of Maria, so I resorted to trickery on my iPhone to try to make it more interesting.
SOUTH KENT, CONNECTICUT – We got together with some friends this evening at a Jason Wright’s house for a New Years Eve celebration. Most of the lighting was provided by halogen down lights, which make the art look good but aren’t great for photographing people (look at the pattern on the wall in the background below). I struggled a bit but finally ended with a nice images of John Novogrod, taken with my Leica Monochrom and Noctilux lens.
On this day last year: Junk Truck.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – We had some friends over for dinner. Here’s an image of Aleksandra made with my Leica Monochrom and Noctilux lens by candlelight.
On this day last year: Snowshoe. Taken with my Monochrom and Dual Range Summicron.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – We’ve been here almost two weeks – this is the longest that we’ve actually stayed in Warren in one stretch. We had large ambitions but a bad cold has laid Maria low, which is disheartening because she’s never sick. Our friend Leigh Butler paid us a visit. Here she is hiding from the me and my camera.
On this day last year: Litchfield. Taken with my Monochrom and 1958 Dual Range Summicron, three frames stitched.
