Woody Campbell – Page 613 – 16 years of one photograph every day for the rest of my life

Saturday December 27, 2014

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.

On this day last year (day 1,534): Cemetery, New Preston CT.

Friday December 26, 2014

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.

On this day two years ago (day 1,168): Night blizzard. One of my favorite images from the past five plus years.

Thursday December 25, 2014

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.

On this day last year (day 1,532): Basil and Maria.

Wednesday December 24, 2014

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.

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. 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. They cluster in very high density (estimated at about 20 million butterflies per hectare) at very high altitude. 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. 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. 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, The Monarchs we see in Connecticut take part in this migration.

Tuesday December 23, 2014

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.

On this day last year (day 1,530): More fog.

Monday December 22, 2014

NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’ve had an iPhone 6S for a month or so – I bought it because of the improved camera but really haven’t used it much. This morning I shot around the house with an updated version of ProCamera, a camera app, to get to know it a bit better. It does a marvelous job; the app has a very good implementation of HDR, which helps solve many exposure problems. Here are some samples.

Day 1,894 of one photo a day for the rest of my life.

On this day last year (day 1,592): Fog. This image really pushes to fog concept pretty hard.

Sunday December 21, 2014

WARREN CONNECITCUT – I stopped on College Farm Road today and shot stubble fields in a very light dusting of snow. College Farm Road takes its name from the fact that it passes through the Tanners’ farm; the Tanners hold the farm under a 500 year lease, dating from 1798, from Yale College. The lease is the first recorded instrument in the Warren Town Hall.

Day 1,893 of one photo every day for the rest of my life.

Terry Tanner's field — Terry Tanner’s field

On this day two years ago (day 1,163): Subway. This image was taken with my 1945 Carl Zeiss Sonnar f1.5 lens. More on this in a later post: reviewing this image inspired my to strap this lens onto my Monochrom again.