NEW YORK NEW YORK – Here it is, Saturday on a gorgeous Fall weekend, and we’re not in Connecticut. What’s going on here? Well Laura and Alexander (our daughter-in-law and son) are having a baby shower today for the daughter they are expecting in five weeks. We started calling her “.2” in Laura’s 10th week of pregnancy and the name seems to have stuck for now. Probably spelled Point-Two. Anyway a lovely event and well worth missing a couple of leaves in rural New England. Take with my Sony RX100 II, which works well at events.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Hmmm . . . you’ve seen this one before – yesterday. I decided to go back and reshoot yesterday’s image to get a technically better image. Indeed this time I got a sharp picture of the former Pan Am building, but the light, framing and composition aren’t as good as yesterday. Interesting right brain – left brain contrast.
While walking from a meeting I saw a composition in a trash container that seemed to have a bit of poetry.
Look familiar?Poetry
On this day one year ago: At the Knick. We were at a party for a close friend at the Knickerbocker Club one year ago – we’re giving a party for our wedding anniversary in the same room two days from now.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – The former Pan Am Building and the former New York Central Building were illuminated by nice morning light so I caught them with my Sony RX100 II. This was a nicely seen image, but poorly executed: using dummy settings the Sony selected a shutter speed that was a stop too slow so the image is not perfectly sharp. I’m still working my way up the learning curve.
BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS and NEW YORK NEW YORK = I started the day in Boston with a walk at sunrise to get the cobwebs out and to collect some pretty conventional images with my Sony RX100 II. Back in New York I shot snap shots out of the window of a taxi and got an nice purple street light along the stretch of Park Avenue that deviates around Grand Central – a very difficult area to photograph because there’s no pedestrian access.
BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS – I spend a lot of time in Boston. Both of today’s and last year’s images are in Boston, not a coincidence because I’m in Boston for client meetings every year in mid-September. Shot with my Sony RX100 II at a Red Sox game at Fenway. A demonstration of how ubiquitous security cameras are, and of the Sony’s ability to throw backgrounds out of focus (a rare talent for a small sensor camera).
NEW YORK NEW YORK – You may remember that a couple of weeks back I suffered a monumental toothache, which caused me to reconsider my photo equipment for days when I’m sick or otherwise out of it. This blog project requires that I take at least one credible photograph every day for the rest of my life, even when I don’t feel like it. The Leica M style camera that i shoot with most of the time is too demanding in terms of concentration and being in the visual moment for those really bad days. So I’m spending the week with my Sony RX 100 Mk II. It has the advantage in a social or professional setting of being more conventional looking – less geeky and eccentric – than my Leica gear. It’s very, very good in terms of image quality, focus speed and accuracy and high ISO performance. It may even have a little bit of mojo. I’ve set it up as a “dummy camera” – fully automatic. I’m going to shoot with it all week to see what happens.
Fully automatic this camera’s default shutter speed settings in low light situations are a stop or two too low for me, giving me a bit of camera movement when shooting very quickly or offhand. Using this thing is actually going to take some practice. It raises the question of how I feel about interesting images that aren’t technically perfect. There may be a few of these, starting with the image below taken in Grand Central Terminal.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Look’s like I’m officially giving the Luxochron a rest (remember “Luxochron” is my name for my Leica 50mm Summichron Asph. lens). Slightly wider today with my 35mm Summilux Asph. lens on my Leica M. I’m shooting with a three stop neutral density filter so I can shoot wide open (at f1.4) in daylight, which permits throwing backgrounds way out of focus but demands very accurate focus of the main subject. Here you go:
Morning Light
On this day last year: Early days with the Monochrom. It’s hard to believe that my Leica Monochrom is just a year old. It was a life changer.
