Woody Campbell – Page 796 – 16 years of one photograph every day for the rest of my life

Friday July 1, 2011

CAPRI ITALY – Still no bag from Air France. They say it should arrive late afternoon. Anti-French images crowd out every other thought. “Cheese eating surrender monkey” doesn’t begin to capture it. The wedding is at 6:00 PM. This is no joke. I’m in Italy. These people take their wedding seriously. Everyone is beautiful and well dressed. I have a theory that on Capri the Carabinieri round up all of the ugly people every night, take them out to sea and drown them. You actually can’t show up at a fancy Italian wedding in jeans and a three-day polo shirt.

We made the most of the day. I bought a swimsuit and spent the day with my family on the “beach”. Beach is in quotes because there are no actual sandy beaches on Capri. People pay mega-euros to lay out on the rocks near the water. I’ll cover that beat in tomorrow’s post. Anyway at exactly 6:00 PM my bag arrived at my hotel room door. I dressed and was out the door in 15 minutes and got to the church by 6:30. This was the full mass version of a wedding so things were just starting to move along. I’m posting several images from the wedding, not necessarily in narrative order, all taken with my Leica.

The enthralled crowd at the Piazzetta.

All kidding aside the bride, Emanuela Volpe (Maria’s niece and perhaps Francesca’s closest friend), was radiant.

Some ambience.

Francesca and her great aunt.

On this day one year ago: Quito.

Demonstration - Ecuador National Assembly

Thursday June 30, 2011

CAPRI ITALY – What a difference a day makes. After a rushed set of connections (New York-Paris; Paris-Naples with exactly 25 minutes to make the connection; meet Maria, Alexander, Francesca and Laura at the Naples airport; taxis to port; aliscafo to Capri; madhouse disembarking) we finally made it to our hotel and Maria and Francesca made it to the pool. Caught with my Leica M9 and a 90 mm lens. The calm of the setting bears no relation to the chaos of getting here. I made the connection in Paris but my bag didn’t. I now hate Air France. When I made the reservation they swore that there was plenty of time for the connection. As it is I’m stuck on Capri in the jeans and two-day polo shirt that I wore on the flight while my bag tries to find me. No swimsuit. This is why I’m not at the pool.

When I added this post I found out that I didn’t have an “Italy” tag – we haven’t been to Italy in the past 20 months which is unusual for us. We go to Italy almost annually, often to Capri or the Amalfi Coast.

On this day last year: sunrise outside the farmacia.

Wednesday June 29, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I’ve gotten behind posting. Today’s picture is in the Air France lounge at JFK, where I’m waiting to board a flight to Paris with a connection to Naples, where I’m meeting Maria and our children to go to Capri to attend a family wedding. You’ll see a lot of this in the following days.

I’m way behind in my postings because right after returning from Italy I came down with a nasty flu (which might have been the coxsackievirus as there has been an outbreak of it around here). The English refer to unspecified disorders as the “dreaded lurgy” so I guess I could say that I had a lurgy. I did manage to photograph my way though it, though.

Anyway, back to the Air France lounge. I caught this less-than-magic moment with my Leica M9 and a 50mm Summilux lens. As I’ve noted before travel days are not my best days for photography.

On this day one year ago: A very odd mask –

Tuesday June 28, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – Our firm’s partners meet for lunch every Tuesday. I wouldn’t ordinarily photograph at one of these but this was a special occasion: it was the last lunch at which Rick Evans served as presiding partner, a role that he is retiring from after a record-setting 13 years of service. I sat across the table from my retired partner Andy Hartzell, who doesn’t make many of these because the conflict with the weekly “French table” at the Yale Club, which actually includes a French tutor. Anyway here’s Andy caught with my Leica M9 and a 50mm Summilux lens.

On this day one year ago: San Pablo del Lago

Monday June 27, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – So I took the subway downtown to return the IQ 180 to Digital Transitions. They are on 35th just off of Fifth Avenue so this gave me a chance stalk one my favorite icons, the Empire State Building, in very interesting light with my Leica M9 and a 90mm lens. Three frames stitched.

On Fifth Avenue:

On this day last year: Festival

Sunday June 26, 2011

KENT and WARREN CONNECTICUT – Well the IQ 180 (see my posts from the previous two days) is starting to sing. I went for a hike today carrying my Alpa TC with the 36mm Schneider Digitar and the Phase One IQ 180. This is a compact, hand holdable combination. The form factor and functionality are very similar to the legendary Hasselblad Superwide C (one of my favorite film cameras ever), but the 80 meg digital back delivers much higher resolution than medium format film. The trick is mastering this oddball combination of exotic stuff to the point where I can stop thinking about it and start really shooting.

I joined my old friend John Novogrod for a hike on the the Appalachian trail.. I’m posting three images from the hike.

Earlier in the day I shot the Warren Congregational Church again.

On this day last year: Hacienda Zuleta

Saturday June 25, 2011

WARREN CONNECTICUT – Second day with my loaner Phase One IQ 180. Very high performance photo equipment is like a very high performance car – the photo equivalent of noise, vibration and harsh ride are part of the experience. This thing doesn’t auto anything, and getting the most out of it takes some work. I spent part of the day experimenting with shifting the back on my Alpa Max technical camera. Initial results are technically good but uninspiring as I focus on technique rather than seeing. Here’s our pool in Warren and the perennial border next to it with the IQ 180 on the Alpa Max and my 47mm Schneider Digitar.

On this day one year ago: Baptismal Iglesia de San Roque

Baptismal Iglesia de San Roque