Month: August 2011

Categories
Family and friends Landscape Urban

Thursday August 11, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I took a walk in the Union Square area with my Alpa and the 35mm Schneider. Partly cloudy, but occasional burst of fine light. this is made from two images captured, hand held, and stitched in Photoshop. Remember that I’m shooting with an 80 meg back so the resulting file is very large. Stitching with this very wide lens results in a highly distorted image, which I corrected in Photoshop – a process that involved significant hard labor.

Union Square
Union Square

In the evening Alexander and his fiance, Laura, came over for headshot for their wedding announcement in the New York Times. This is the one that the liked – taken with my Panasonic GH2 and on camera flash.

Laura and Alexander
Laura and Alexander

On this day one year ago: Elio’s.

Elio's
Categories
Landscape Urban

Wednesday August 10, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I explored the UN area with my Alpa TC today. Poorish light – intermittent high clouds and a very bright sky. Some of the better ideas I had were in the deep shade in Stuyvestant Town, but the images are poor – the TC simply needs a lot of light or a tripod. Anyway this is the best thing to come out of the day:

Trump
Trump

On this day last year: Sao Paulo.

From the Emiliano
Categories
Portrait

Tuesday August 9, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – You’re probably wondering what this camera, this Alpa TC thing, is. The Alpa is a modular Swiss “technical camera” designed to work with a medium format digital back. Here’s link to the Alpa website. This is exotic stuff – you won’t find it in the B&H cataloque. The digital back that I use is a Phase One IQ 180. Ditto on not finding it at B&H. Using myself a a model I photographed the Alpa to show you what it looks like. It weighs about four pounds. The concept was to assemble an updated digital camera with functionality similar to the Hasselblad Superwide C – one of my all time favorite film cameras.

Today’s images were take with my Panasonic GH2. It’s the Alpa TC with the Phase One IQ 180 back and a 35mm Schneider Digitar XL lens.

Alpa TC
Alpa TC
Alpa TC
Alpa TC

On this day last year: Mocoto, a fabulous local restaurant in the outlying suburbs of Sao Paolo.

Rodrigo
Categories
Family and friends Transportation

Monday August 8, 2011

MARBLE DALE, CONNECTICUT – A friend just bought a 1956 Austin Healey that had major surgery in 1967: the Ford racing division replaced the engine with a 400 hp 302 cubic inch Ford racing engine. Of course adjustments were made in the transmission and rear end and the steering as suspension parts. Hear’s the car: Austin-Healey BN2. The sound this thing makes can’t be believed. The upgrades evidently didn’t include brakes. It’s a wild drive. Here’s my picture of the day, taken with my Alpa TC.

Doug and Marty have some fun
Doug and Marty have some fun

On this day one year ago: Paraty. One of the many lovely 18th Century colonial buildings in Paraty, Brazil.

Paraty
Categories
Family and friends Interior Portrait

Sunday August 7, 2011

WESTHAMPTON, NEW YORK – More with the Leica and the 50mm Summilux. I’ve been shooting a lot in the past month with Alpa and a 35mm Schneider which for a number of reasons facilitates images with a lot of depth of field and corner to corner sharpness. The Leica lets me rebel from that a bit. today (and yesterday) I generally shot with this lens wide open at f 1.4, producing large far out of focus regions. Steve’s house seemed to call out for this treatment.

Like most modern Leica lenses the 50 mm Summilux has optimum sharpness at its widest aperture, f 1.4 (lenses from other manufactures often need to be stopped down two stops for maximum clarity), this is one of the reasons why these lenses are so expensive. The out of focus portions of the of 50mm Summilux images have a lovely, creamy character, a quality that is referred to as “good bokeh”. I also like the way it renders colors. I don’t often write effusive praise for lenses. I guess I just got carried away by this one.

By the way, sorry about the dog. You know how I feel about pictures of dogs and cute kids.

Gil
Gil
Molly takes a break from reading
Molly takes a break from reading
Self
Self

On this day one year ago: big boat.

A day on a boat
Categories
Events and holidays Family and friends

Saturday August 6, 2011

WESTHAMPTON, NEW YORK – I carried my Leica M9 with a 50 mm Summilux lens around all day. I’m often surprised and delighted by the images that this combination produces – I think that if I were to limit myself to a single camera and lens this would be it.

Still life
Still life
Party
Party
More party
More party

On this day one year ago: a not so magic moment.

Party
Categories
Family and friends

Friday August 5, 2011

WESTHAMPTON, NEW YORK – We spent the weekend visiting our friend Steve Rubin in Westhampton. This was unusual for us, but Steve is a very good friend. We spend weekends in Litchfield County, Connecticut, which bills itself as the “unhamtpons”. We haven’t been to the Hamptons in 15 years but as I said Steve is a really good friend. It was a great weekend; Westhampton is the Hampton that is closest to New York City so the drive there was much less fearsome than I expected. I actually made the drive back to our apartment on Sunday in an hour and 20 minutes.

Taken with my Leica M9 and a 24mm Summilux lens.

Steve Rubin
Steve Rubin

On this day one year ago: Salman Rushdie and his son at FLIP.

Salman
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