Woody Campbell – Page 779 – 16 years of one photograph every day for the rest of my life

Friday October 28, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – A great day for late fall light. I found myself at Columbus Circle with my Alpa. This was an easy day for me, photographically. The subway image prints at 24×36 nicely and has a vigor that I’m trying to achieve in every image, but actually don’t often realize.

So dear reader, here is my self-portrait from 3:58 AM on February 14, 1999. We’ll come to the end of these soon enough. I generally disapprove of blogs that feature pictures of their creators, but since we got off on the subject of appropriation in art in an earlier post I just thought it would be interesting to post my own examples.

Thursday October 27, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – A very wet day. I went out in the rain with my Leica and a 35mm pre-ASPH version IV Summicron lens, known as the bokeh king. (Here is Ashwin Rao’s terrific article on bokeh). “Bokeh” for you non lens nuts is the causality of the out of focus image; good bokeh is creamy with smooth transitions between in-focus and out of focus areas; bad bokeh is crunchy with abrupt transitions between in-focus and out of focus. Modern highly corrected designs tend to have poor bokeh; older designs tend to have good bokeh.

From 3:03 AM on February 14, 1999.

Wednesday October 26, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – Another busy day for my day job. Managed to have my leica with me as a walked home from 86th Street. I tried a lens that I rarel use, a 40mm Summicron-C. It was designed for use with the Minolta CLE. It’s character is similar to the 35mm pre-asph Summicron, but it lacks the creamy out of focus areas of the 35mm. The 40mm lens is the most compact M-mount Leica lens that I know of. The composition of today’s picture in uncomfortably tight – a result of the 40mm focal length.

Still running through the hourly self portraits, this one from 2:00 AM on February 24, 1999.

Tuesday October 25, 2011

NNEW YORK NEW YORK – So I’m using my Alpa and a 35mm Schneider as my walk-around camera. This only works on sunny days – I’m a sunny day kind of guy so I prefer these anyway. Here’s in image from Madison Avenue and 55th Street

Here’s the next in my series of 24 self portraits taken in 1999. This is from 12:58 AM on February 14, 1999. I slept on a cot in my studio, setting an alarm to wake my hourly for a picture. I clearly haven’t been to sleep on yet because I still look fairly well put together.

Monday October 24, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – More fussing around with my new iPhone 4S. I tried my classic out my window brick wall torture test, shooting with the phone braced against a window sill to approximate the effect of being on a tripod. I used the “HDR” (high dynamic range) mode given the phone’s tendency to blow highlights and the long dynamic range of the scene. It turns out that this was a mistake – on close inspection there are ugly white bands where the buildings meet the sky. After a bit of digging online I came to the conclusion that Apple dramatically over sharpens in HDR mode – so for future reference I’ll be avoiding it. Later in the evening I shot a Martini at the Monkey Bar – odd that this famous bar serves a Martini in a sherry glass. Whatever . . .

The next installment in my 1999 24-houe self portrait project – this one from 12:08 AM on February 14, 1999. As always taken with an Arca Swiss 8×10 inch view camera.

Sunday October 23, 2011

WARREN CONNECTICUT – I went out hunting for late fall landscape today, mostly in the garden. I used my Leica M9 and 24mm Summilux, which if you follow these posts closely you will have noted is my most used camera/lens combination by far. But I also found a new tool, a new iPhone 4S. The camera is surprisingly good. Dynamic range is only so-so – highlights tend to get blown, and prints are marred by jpeg weirdness (white fringes is the like) but this thing is surprisingly usable and always at hand. It’s quite serviceable for web resolution.

First the Leica and then some iPhones.

The iPhones, with a little help with post-processing in Lightroom.

Finally, what post would be complete without a self-portrait from the 24 hour series. If you think that you’re getting tired of these, image how I felt sitting for them and pushing the cable release, then processing the film, etc. Part of what I’m doing with these ix exploring repetition and the passage of time. Anyway 11:05 PM on February 13, 1999 with an Arca Swiss view camera.

Saturday October 22, 2011

WARREN CONNECTICUT – A friend had a birthday celebration at has house under construction in Warren. There was no heating so we build a large fire in the fireplace. There were no kitchen appliances so we grilled the food. the wine selection was over the top with a 2000 Ch. la Conseillante (one of my favorite Pomerols) and 1996 Pichon and Latour. Not bad. Pictures taken with my Leica M9 and 24mm Summicron lens.

Here’s my boring self, from my hourly series, at 10:03 PM on February 13, 1999. Again taken with an Arca Swiss 8×10. This is the only image in the series where I’m wearing glasses, which we will see as we display some of the variants on these pictures (probably in mid-November at the pace we are moving at) has odd consequences.