Friday June 4, 2010

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I spent a few hours today getting to know some new equipment.  Most of the images on this blog are taken with a Leica M9, which has the advantage of sensational image quality but is very much a traditional Leica.  The manual rangefinder focus and limited high ISO capacity has presented issues for me in poor light like Martha McPhee’s book party.  I also shoot Hasselblad digital medium format, but it’s unwieldy at parties and events.  I’ve been experimenting with a Nikon D700 and fast prime lenses for parties and events – this is the new (to me) equipment that that I referred to above.  This is a torture test for lens flare but I liked the image well enough to post it.  An Andrew Moore photograph, a Venini ice cream glass, a Venetian candle stick form 1914 or so and a Deruta cachepot.
Link to Andrew Moore
Link to Venini
Link to Deruta

Andrew Moore and Murano Glass

Nikon D700 and Nikon 35mm f2.0 lens.

Tuesday June 1, 2010

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – This from the very early evening on Park Avenue.  The sculpture is newly-installed.  I don’t have any information on it but I’ll keep looking and revise this post accordingly.  Of course the background is Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building, one of the icons that I stalk.  The perspective is from the front door of the Racquet and Tennis Club.

Park Avenue Island

Shot with a Hasselblad H3D 39 and an HC 100 lens. Three exposures stitched. This produces a very large file.

Monday May 31, 2010

NEW PRESTON, CONNECTICUT – There are two Congregational Church buildings in New Preston.  For most of the year the congregation meets in a lovely classical New England structure on a hill near the center of the village, which I photographed at sunrise on November 7, 2009.  Here’s a link: New Preston Church During the summer months the congregation meets in a stone building a few miles away.

New Preston Stone Church

Taken with a Leica M9 and 35mm Summicron Asph. lens. Three frames stitched with Autopano Pro. Perspective touched up in Photoshop.

Sunday May 30, 2010

WASHINGTON CONNECTICUT –   Boating on Lake Waramaug.  The following is from the Wikipedia entry on Lake Waramaug:

“Although natural in origin, the surface elevation of the lake has been raised by a small concrete and masonry dam. The surface area of the lake is approximately 680 acres (2.8 km2). The lake has a maximum depth of 40 feet (12 m), an average depth of 22 feet (7 m), and contains approximately 4.8 billion gallons of water. The lake is fed by Sucker Brook (Lake Waramaug Brook), numerous small streams, and groundwater that enters through the lake bottom. Drainage from Waramaug Lake flows southward into the East Aspetuck River. . . . The lake is named after a chief of the Wyantenock tribe. Chief Waramaug and his followers summered in the area now covered by Lake Waramaug.”

1956 Chris Craft