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Events and holidays Family and friends Interior

Monday December 6, 2010

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – You’ve probably noticed that I’m a gear nut. Apart from the camera problem that’s pretty well documented on these pages, I have an issue with telescopes. I actually own telescopes with apertures (a measure of light gathering capacity) from 3.5 to 18 inches. I sorted out telescope gear in Connecticut last weekend – basically getting organized to use a smaller, quick-to-set-up, scope in the cold winter darkness here. I have two choices, a 4 inch Astrophysics Traveler and a 3.5 inch Questar Duplex.

The Questar is a charismatic object – it offers perfect optical performance in a design that is thoroughly rooted in the 1950s. Here’s a modern review of a Questar. In digging through my gear I found a Questar to 2″ adapter (the Questar stuff is sui generis), a 2″ to Nikon F adapter, and a Nikon to micro four-thirds adapter. By golly maybe I could put all of these together and mount my Panasonic GF1 on the Questar. Based on sad past experience any Nikon F mount body is way to heavy to balance properly on the Questar, but the GF1 is compact and light and has good image quality. I brought the Questar and all of the small bits an pieces to New York to see if I could take a picture through it.

The Questar is a 1300mm f14.6 optic. With the Panasonic camera that’s the equivalent of 2600 mm in 35mm terms! I fit the various small parts together and it seemed to work as planned. Shooting citiscapes out our dining room window was impossible – the air was too unsteady for photography through a telescope. I finally set up in one corner of our kitchen and shot a fitting on a water sprayer in the far diagonal of the kitchen. Here’s the result – the Panasonic GF1 through the Questar, six focus-bracketed images stacked with Helicon Focus software, and minor clean up of focus stacking artifacts in Photoshop.

Metal fitting photographed with a Questar telescope

Here’s a picture of the kitchen sink (taken Tuesday) – I’ve circled the fitting that’s the subject of the previous photo:

Woody and Maria's kitchen sink

And finally, the real reason for this post, a still life of the Questar with the Panasonic GF1 mounted on it, shot Tuesday with my Leica M9 and a 50mm Dual Range Summicron (a design contemporary of the Questar):

Questar Duplex Telescope

This has been a very active day, photographically, so this will be a long post. This evening we went to a benefit for the Center for Fiction at the Racquet and Tennis Club. The event honored Binky Urban. For more pictures from this event follow this link to my flickr page.

Anyway, I captured some available light images with my pocket Panasonic. Here’s a picture of Karl Marlantes and me. Karl is the Author of Matterhorn – the best Vietnam book ever and his first novel. He was awarded the Center for Fiction’s prize for best first novel. I preceded him in Vietnam by about a year – we were both Marines. Since I’m in the picture it obviously wasn’t taken by me. Rachel Cobb is our guest photographer for the day.

Karl Marlantes and Woody Campbell

Since Rachel took this where’s my picture for the day? Here’s a portrait of Rachel – in satisfaction of the one picture a day requirement:

Rachel Cobb

One more from this event – Karl with Susan Lyne:
Karl Marlantes and Susan Lyne

On this date one year ago: Sunrise in Connecticut after a storm. This was one of my most highly-praised images of 2009.

Sunrise Litchfield County
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-Woody's Picks Events and holidays Family and friends Interior

Thursday December 2, 2010

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – We had a dinner party for Michael and Penny Hayward, visiting Australian friends. This image was caught with my Nikon D700 and an 85mm f1.4D lens. For more pictures from this dinner see my flickr account: Dinner party for the Haywards.

Party

On this day one year ago: Seagrams Building from the balcony of the Racquet and Tennis Club. This is one of my favorite images of the past year.

Seagrams Building
Seagrams Building
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Events and holidays Family and friends Food and wine

Thursday November 25, 2010 (Thanksgiving)

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WARREN CONNECTICUT – Near the end of our family Thanksgiving dinner in Connecticut. Our daughter Francesca in a pensive moment.

Thnksgiving 2010

On this date one year ago: Party in Bethlehem Connecticut.

Party, Bethlehem. Connecticut
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Family and friends Food and wine

Tuesday November 23, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – We had dinner with our friends Kimball and Patrizia Chen. I’m using my Panasonic GF1 now in situations where the light permits. Here’s Kimball declaiming on a bottle of Gaja Barbaresco (I think a 1997).

Kimball Chen

On this date last year: Guggenheim Museum, New York.

This is one of several not very successful images of this iconic Frank Lloyd Wright building that I’ve attempted over the past year.

The Guggenheim Museum, Manhattan
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Events and holidays Family and friends Food and wine

Wednesday November 10, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Another heavy day of meetings. We ended the day at the James Beard Foundation’s annual gala at the Four Seasons restaurant (my life seems to be centered around the Seagrams Building), I chair the board of the foundation – here’s a link: James Beard Foundation. I had planned on getting my photo of the day at the gala and came equipped with my Nikon D700 and a fast lens. But as I tried to take my first image I had a major “oh shit” moment: I had left the camera’s compact flash card home in my computer. This is a first for me. I always turn the camera on when I pick it up to leave home to check the battery and settings, and take a picture to make sure that everything works. Lesson re-learned.

So what to do? David Young was kind enough to lend me his iPhone. The iPhone is the Holga of this generation. There’s a bit of a learning curve to get a plausible image out of these things – I’m a long way from mastery. I took a couple of dozen images, one of which (ironically of David Young) seems ok to me. So here’s David on David’s iPhone:

David Young
November 10, 2010

On this day one year ago: Out my office window The subject matter suggests (accurately) that I was struggling to keep up with the photo-a-day pace in November of last year – November really is a rough month for me.

Out my window

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Events and holidays Family and friends

Sunday November 7, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – We gave a birthday party for our daughter, Francesca. We’ve done this before, actually quite a few times, but they stopped playing pin the tail on the donkey quite a few years ago. I’ve posted a bunch more pictures of this event on my flickr account. Here’s Francesca and her mother, Maria (in her vintage Emilio):

Francesca and Maria Campbell

On this day a year ago: New Preston Congregational Church

New Preston Congregational Church

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Events and holidays Family and friends

Friday November 5, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Another party: a publishing party at the Pace McGill Gallery celebrating the publication of a translation of Giacomo Leopardi by Jonathan Galassi. Here’s a link to Jonathan’s translation, and another link to a Wikipedia entry on Leopardi. Interestingly when I Googled Jonathan (who’s an old friend – he and my wife think that they went on a blind date in college) the first entry in the drop down menu was about his divorce, which was years ago. Anyway, here’s a picture, taken with my Leica M9 and a 28mm Summicron lens, of literary agent Andrew Wylie. Andrew must be here as a friend such Jonathan doesn’t appear on Andrew Wylie’s client list.

One interesting note about this and the two previous posts is they are from social events – as are the images from one year ago for all three images. This confirms my intuition that we’re overrun with social events at this time of year.

Andrew Wylie

This day a year ago another party (that’s the problem with this time of year): tango demonstration at Edgar and Elie Cullman’s apartment.

Ellie and Edgar Cullman's apartment

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