NEW YORK NEW YORK – We saw and apartment on the Lower East Side that our daughter is interested in buying; then spent and hour in the office; then walked home via the East River and the Vinegar Factory. All the while carrying (and occasionally shooting with my medium format Leica S2). Have I told you that I hate my daily workout on an elliptical machine. Well I do. It’s boring. I only do it because its preferable to instant death from a cardiac problem, but just barely. So I’ve decided to try to get my daily exercise by walking everywhere, wearing a doodad on my wrist that monitors my activity to make sure that I’m getting enough. We’ll try this for a few months to see how it works.
Images from the walk along the river, all with the Leica S2 and 70mm lens.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A very busy day so I approached the photo-a-day aspect of my life by putting my Sony RX100 in my pocket. I snapped away with it as I went about my business and was disappointed by the results. One tends to treat a small camera casually. Actually, to get good results you need to do everything that you do with a larger camera: see the opportunity; stop; pre visualize; consider depth of field and exposure; focus and compose carefully; wait for the magic moment; expose, minimizing camera movement. All of the foregoing steps take a few seconds but if you skip anything you get nothing of any worth. Here’s the one image that I liked.
On this day last year: Rain at dusk. A lovely image in lovely light.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Some nice results today with my Leica Monochrom and 50mm Summicron Asph. lens. Abstractions. Let me know if you get tired of them. This is turning into a major thread in this long-term project, maybe the best in my eyes, but self-editing (like self-surgery) is not totally reliable.
ChairCiticorpPark Avenue
NEW YORK NEW YORK – There’s an unfriendly and disused public plaza on 57th Street between Madison and Park Avenue. Why do some of these work and others not?
Taken with my Fuji X100s.
Quiet spot
On this day last year: Basil shakes it off. Another violation of my “no cute dogs” rule. This is actually my ninth shot of Basil since I started this project roughly 1,400 days ago. Nine violations is a lot; if the DMV were in charge of this blog I would loose my license to photograph. On the other hand it’s an error rate of well less than one percent, which I guess I can live with.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Ten years ago a friend of ours had a horse running in the Belmont Stakes (a few weeks earlier she had finished well in the Kentucky Derby). I bought a Panama hat for the occasion. Here it is, showing the effects of extensive travel and wear.
PanamaFreezer compartment
NEW PRESTON CONNECTICUT – I stopped the New Preston Congregational Church on my Sunday morning newspaper run. This is not a new subject for me but this time I took in some details with my Leica S2 medium format camera. On reflection the angel is not a great work of art – the face lacks the plasticity that a talented sculptor can provide – but hey, who doesn’t like an angel.
Warren Congregational ChurchWarren Congregational ChurchWarren Congregational Church
WARREN CONNECTICUT – A perfect day for a lovely party put together by some neighbors. As you scroll down you’ll see an Aunt Alice shot – a lineup of people squinting into the setting sun. I object to these in principle but have decided to start taking them as a documentary record. Complain to my editor if you don’t like it. All images take with my Leica S2 and 70mm lens.
JohnMariaAunt Alice
On this day last year: Urban poetry. A construction site in Manhattan. Proof that color has a function, despite by bias toward black and white.
