WARREN CONNECTICUT – More images with my Leica Monochrom and 35mm Summilux lens. I’m basically black and white shooter so the Monochrom is a dream. It took some balls in Leica’s part to build it – it’s the only black and white digital camera ever and it was probably fairly expensive to develop. It really is a breakthrough.
Our garden is very productive this time of year:
Not an exciting image, but a test of high dynamic range capability. I’m in heaven.
On this day last year: Subway stairs.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – A big day on the Fedex box front. MyLeica Monochrom arrived today thanks to Jeff Hirsch at Fotocare. Here are a couple of other links:
Jono Slack. Farkas Review. This is a dream come true: a digital camera that only shoots black and white. Farkas refers to it as an iconic camera. I’ll be shooting with it exclusively for the next few weeks. Also packing up some of my other gear to sell.
It will take me a while to sort out image quality on this thing – particularly at high ISO values.
Examples taken with my 35mm Summilux.
From my poker game:
On this day one year ago: Hopper light.
WAAREN CONNECTICUT – We had some fun today. We were approached by a film production company called Lost Highway Films. Lost Highway is producing a television commercial for State of Connecticut tourism folks. They came across our new old boat (the 1952 Chris Craft) on this website. After some negotiation on fees, insurance and so on we agreed that they could film the boat in action in a segment of the commercial that they were shooting on Lake Waramaug. Today was the day. We had a stressful hour dealing with a dead battery but finally got things running.
I was surprised at the number of people involved. There must have been sixty or seventy in total. So the “talent” (five actors) got costumed up in into the boat, and we spent four hours running around the lake being filmed from a pontoon boat. A lot of fun. I’ll post a link when the commercial is finished, probably around the end of September.
Anyway, here are some images, all taken with my Leica M9 and Noctilux.
The Pontoon boat.
The production company had a still photographer on the team. He had set up a Profoto with a soft box which I borrowed (along with some off duty talent) for this.
Riding back to the barn.
On this day one year ago: A mud slide caused by the remnant of Hurricane Irene. We subsequently built a retaining wall here.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I took a walk with my M9 and the 24mm Summilux. Surprise! I found a distant, solitary figure. Still doing this.
Film from Doug and Judy’s:
On this day last year: Ganesh meets Irene. This is the anniversary of prep for a major storm headed to the Northeast.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – It’s a relief to be back home. Salt Lakers (and people from almost anyplace else in the country) find it hard to understand how New York can be home. It’s hard to explain but browsing through these pages may give you a sense. I celebrated my return by seeing a Yankees game with Alexander. That’s my fourth baseball game for the season – an unprecedented level on interest for me, driven more by the strong sense of place that Yankee Stadium (and Fenway) have, than an abiding curiosity about the game.
So here’s a street scene and Yankee Stadium, taken with my Leica M9 and a 12mm Voigtländer lens. As a non-fisheye this wide it’s amazing that it even produces an image. It produces serious color shifts with digital cameras, shifts that I correct for by “developing” the images in C1 with an llc correction. No veiwfinder is necessary – I just assume that it takes in everything in the general direction of the front of the camera. Focusing is redundant because of the long depth of field. Results can be weird and unpleasant because of wide angle geometric distortion – I tend to get a lot of junk with it but also an occasional gem.
I got film back today so I’ll be including a few film images each day until I run out of them. Generally taken with my Leica M4, Ilford Delta 100 film, and a dual range Summicron lens.
On this day one year ago: a Nash Metropolitan.
SALT LAKE CITY UTAH – I took a slow drive through Salt Lake on a mining expedition for interesting houses. I came up with a few – A lage portion of jSalt Lake’s East side was built during the post-war housing boom. Sort of Levitown goes west. Images taken with my Leica M9 and 35mm Summilux lens.
On this day last year: Bedroom.
PARK CITY and SALT LAKE CITY UTAH – Still in Utah. I spent last night in Park City for a couple of reasons. In the first place there’s actually not a first rate hotel in Salt Lake – all of the action is up where the ski resorts are. In the second place it Park City presents an opportunity to take in some landscape. So I stayed in Park City last night and woke up to this Disney-like former mining town. I grabbed some store fronts with my M9 and then put together an eight mile hike above the Stein Eriksen resort. Stein Eriksen has grown dramatically since I was last here. Sort of Los Vegas in the very, very high desert. There’s nothing alpine about the scenery here. It’s semi-arid bumps at very high altitude. With some selective framing I managed to get some reasonable scenery.
I ended the day at the Salt Lake Country Club. This was the social institution when I was growing up but I’m not so certain now. Highway construction has ruined the golf course, at least from a scenic standpoint and it feels old. Who know. Anyway, the second evening of my high school reunion happened here.
Images above Dear Valley are with my 25mm Summilux lens; at the reunion I was shooting with my Noctilux. All on my M9.
On this day last year: Hallway.
