NEW YORK NEW YORK – A day of preparing for meetings. I took a break to go out and refresh my printer supplies. This from our local Staples with my Leica and a 35mm Summilux lens.
On this day last year: sunset from my office.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I went to a lunch sponsored by the ICP that included a panel discussion by a number of photojournalism luminaries. Discouraging. They all said that its easy to produce good or even very good pictures. It’s the brilliant ones that are hard to come by. Everyone has long term projects and takes assignments in hell-holes at the ends of the earth. What’s the point of my daily photo blog from cosy New York and Connecticut (and various one-percenter hang outs)? What’s the narrative? What (if anything) makes my pictures interesting?
Tough issues. Maybe the narrative is my life; but wouldn’t that require me to get closer (photographically) to the people around me – family and friends? That’s difficult because they didn’t volunteer for this (another issue discussed by the panel) – I’ve had one situation where the subject of a photo asked me to take it down; for now I’ve resolved the issue by designating the post as “private” (if you look back carefully you’ll see one day gap in the public record) – I’ll figure out what to do with it at some later date. The lunch was in Tribeca; I had my Alpa with me (not much good at the lunch) and the light in the streets was flat and poor later in the afternoon. I finally settled on this.
On this day one year ago: breakfast at Kitchenette.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Out on the street on a bright day between meetings with my iPhone. This image has been altered; I took a number of images in rapid succession; I added the shadow to the image of the walking man.
On this day one year ago: snow drifts. This seems odd, now. This winter we haven’t had any real snow since the end of October.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – So . . . . still relying on my little bitty Ricoh GRD 4. There was some splendid light this afternoon. This image (and some others) prove that good light trumps poor equipment choice. Three frames stitched.
On this day one year ago: winter in Warren. Another tree line, no more than 200 yards from where this year’s image was taken, but with a radically different angle and lens choice, and radically different light.
KENT CONNECTICUT – We took a walk today along a segment of the Appalachian Trail that runs through here. I thought that I had left my Alpa in Connecticut; it turns out that it was in New York, so I only had the camera that travels in my pocket, my Ricoh GRD 4. Not the best tool for landscape. Here’s a branch off of Ten Mile River taken with the GRD 4, three frames stitched.
On this day one year ago: a really crappy day.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Well here we are in Connecticut a day earlier that usual. Blah light on the landscape end of things. The secret of great landscape photography is to be there ready to shoot when the light is brilliant, novel or moving and shoot whatever is at hand; otherwise keep your camera in the bag. This was a camera in bag day. So I shot dinner (risotto all a Milanese) made with a goose stock left over from Christmas – very rich and satisfying). Shot with my iPhone.
On this day one year ago: four images of the Chrysler building in sensational light.
CHICAGO ILLINOIS – We had a layover in Chicago;s Midway airport on our way back to New York. Shot with my iPhone.
On this day one year ago: mementos.
