NEW YORK NEW YORK – Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday dear me, Happy Birthday to me.
With that out of the way we can move on to pictures. I spent the day walking around New York in lovely spring light. What better birthday present could one ask for.
All images with my Leica Monochrom and 24mm Summilux lens. The first is from the “No Limits” installation by Alexandre Arrechea on the Park Avenue islands.
Wiggly buildingCentral ParkLight on the street
On this day last year: The Ranble in Central Park. Oddly, last year on my birthday I did roughly the same think that I did this year.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – April is intense. We have an expectation on Spring that seems to be a bit frustrated this year and a heavy schedule of meetings in my legal life. I sneaked this image out our dining room window – a different take on a familiar scene. Leica M with 35mm bokeh king lens.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – That’s right . . . the date above says April 15. Tax day in the US. Ugh . . . We pay our first quarter estimated taxes today and it turns out that the recent tax increases have real teeth. I may have to give up photography for chalk drawing on sidewalks. My heart’s certainly not in imagery. Here’s what seems to be my best photo effort for the day.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Another day of experimenting with the electronic viewfinder (EVF) on the Leica M. There was a Leica reflex camera in the film era, called the Leica R, that had some remarkable telephoto lenses – the 180mm and 280mm are particularly highly praised. Of course in a post-film world the Leica R and its lenses are of little interest since Leica has not made a digital successor to the R. R lenses are accordingly not in high demand in the used market. Serious Nikon shooters buy them and have them converted to Nikon mount, a process akin to brain surgery and of course they don’t autofocus.
The EVF permits me to use a Leica R 280mm lens on my Leica M (by means of a simple adapter). So I spent a couple of hours shooting out my window. The view through the EVF and the 280 is poor: it’s slithery and jumpy (because of the slow refresh rate of the EVF) and too contrasty to make valid exposure judgments. The focus aid, however, works very well. Based on the viewfinder I thought that I was getting junk, but all of the images ended up being well focused, exposed and composed. The lens is indeed excellent, although the digital camera exposes some red/green chromatic aberration that was probably not evident on film – its easily corrected for in Lightroom. Here are some examples:
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Here we are at a dinner party for David Young, and English friend who has been here for an extended period of time but is now moving back to London. Shot with my Leica M.
Flowers
On this day one year ago: Where is Caravagio. The Whitney Biennial. Mostly evanescent art. I asked the question “When future generations look back on us who will be Caravagio?”
