Tuesday October 16, 2012

NEW YORK NEW YORK – This is my third anniversary. I’ve posted a picture every day since October 16, 2009. I’ve reproduces below my October 16, 2009 picture, a Jean DuBuffet sculpture, that was my first post. This is my 1096th consecutive daily post.

I’m planning on continuing this indefinately. It takes discipline. It’s been like having a second job. I wake up every morning with the question “Where will I take my picture today?” But of course I’ve learned a lot about myself, photography and my subjects.

For today I got out on Second and Third Avenues with my Leica Monochrom with my Dual Range Summicron lens from the late 1950s.

I shot an image of an oldter building nestling into the arms of a new building on Second avenue on October 11. I struggled a bit with the very long dynamic range so I went back today and shot the same scene at the same time of day (but with a slightly different point of view and different lens) using an HDR technique. HDR is “high dynamic range” a technique that uses multiple exposures and specialized software to capture a longer dynamic range that is possible in a single image. The problem with HDR in general is that the resulting images have to have their dynamic range re-compressed (or “mapped”) back to the lower dynamic range of the viewing technology, a monitor or paper. The results are usually artificial looking. Some photographers have been using the technique, though, merely to tame highlights and make shadows transparent. So here’s the HDR rendering of the building on Second Avenue. Three exposures two stops apart taken with my Leica Monochrom and 18mm Super Elmar lens, and rendered in HDR Pro in Photoshop.

On this day last year: Picnic on the boat.

The first picture in my now three-year photo a day effort, from October 16, 2009: