WARREN CONNECTICUT – Hideous time of year in rural Northwestern Connecticut. Spring arrives late every year and this year it’s really late. But . . . heavy ground fog this morning provided some photo opportunities.
Day 1,633 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
Pear treesbirdbathOld Snow
On this day three years ago (day 534): Big yellow bear. No kidding on this one. This is not photoshop trickery. Urs Fisher’s Big yellow teddy bear lamp was actually installed in the piazza in front of the Seagram building. Three frames stitched.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I drove up to Connecticut this morning to fetch our dog and catch up with what’s going on here. Not much in the way of Spring. Last year at this time the forsythia were in full bloom. This year: a couple of sad little snow drops pushed through the snow on the ground.
Day 1,632 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
snow drops
On this day three years ago (day 536): 1930s again.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Over the years we’ve developed a park-like area to the East of our house here, systematically clearing out underbrush and encouraging grass and ferns, and emphasizing the large, mature red and white oaks and sugar maples. In early spring the oaks have clusters of small light green flowers that look like nothing and shed pollen like the devil. Visually they lend a light green haze to the landscape – one of my favorite times of the year. Here you go, photographed with my Leica S medium format camera and a 24mm super wide angle lens.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – We drove up here early today, in time to catch the golden hour here. I’ve turned again to my Leica S, which I struggled with a bit yesterday – it’s a big complex system and I’ve been shooting mainly with my Leica Ms for the last few months so my skills operating the S have slipped a bit. I’ve resolve to tune up my approach to it over the weekend. It does produce remarkable files. Here you go with the Leica S and 120mm macro lens.
Callery Pear
On this day last year: Gas explosion. Back to back duds last year.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – This really was a New York New York day. After morning in the office I decided to treat myself so I took the subway to Brooklyn Heights, walked around a bit, ended up in Brooklyn Bridge Park, caught a water taxi, ended up at 46th street and the Hudson River via the Statue of Liberty, walked up the extended Riverside Park to the 79th Street boat basin, and took a taxi home. All in about four hours. I love this place. Both images with my Leica S2 medium format camera and 24mm lens.
Riverside ParkRiverside Park
On this day last year: Jeans. Whatever. No one’s perfect.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – We haven’t been here for a while. We love Warren so I actually resent (a bit) our recent travel that has made it hard to get here. Basil the Norwich Terrier stays up here we we travel so I drove up today to fetch him. We’re actually going to be in New York this coming weekend for a vey close friend’s Birthday.
I’ve got a Leica lens from the 1950s called a Dual Range Summicron. The DR is an iconic lens that has produced thousands of iconic images in the hands of the most famous photographers of its era. It has two focusing ranges, near and far, and an eyeglass-looking doodad that clips on to activate the close focusing range and adjust the view through the viewfinder for close focus. Very cool, except that on digital Leica Ms the DR can’t be mounted because the close focus cam on the lens doesn’t fit through the opening in the camera body. The solution (which I’ve adopted) is to send the lens to a machine shop to have the close focus cam machined off. It then fits a digital M but in the close focus range the lens lo longer links with the rangefinder so the close focus feature really can’t be used.
Enter the new Leica M, a rangefinder camera that also permits focusing through the lens with an “electronic viewfinder” attachment. I strapped the DR on the the M, set the lens to close focus range and fired up the electronic viewfinder and voila it worked. This brings the focus distance down to .5 meter. Here are a couple of images taken in Warren with this combination.
