NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I promise that I’m going to quit this. I mean the wide angle thing. Quit it real soon now. Maybe it’s becoming a crutch. Or worse. My name’s Woody and I’m a wide angle junkie. But later. Maybe. For now I had my Leica and my super wide lens in hand as I walked by the Guggenheim earlier today. If you’ve been following these pages closely you’ll know that the Guggenheim is the one icon that I’ve been struggling with. Well today with Mr. wide I caught it – the first image of the museum that I’m really happy with. Here it is (this is another one of those shot straight up images that could be oriented any of four ways, but I prefer this orientation):
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I’m exploring other daily photo blogs – I’m working on a page of links and critique that I’ll post here when its finished. There actually aren’t many of them. The one I like best is one polaroid a day over an 18 year period, to the photographer’s death. Someone has lovingly scanned and uploaded the 7,000 odd images, and built a very nice flash gallery. Here’s a link: hughcrawford.com. Anyway, I’ve been doing more in Manhattan in the early evening with my ultra-wide 12mm lens:
November 19, 2010November 20, 2010
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Feel free to go to one of those other daily photo blogs that you follow if you find that my voice is getting a little whiney. Yes, another week of all day meetings, at least through Wednesday, including a trip to Boston. You may ask “Why doesn’t Woody just quit the damn day job?” Actually I like my day job – it’s just that sometimes it gets in the way of photography – why I like it is beyond the scope of a two paragraph discussion. Today I spent some time shooting going to and from my meetings. Sometimes this is not very productive, but today it was, so I’m posting two images. They are both with my Leica and the 12mm Voigtlander lens – I’m getting more interesting results shooting wide right now. Let me know if you think it’s a gimmick.
Anyway here’s a night shot looking straight up at the facade of the New York Central building (now known as the Helmsley Building) at the foot of the North segment of Park Avenue. Wikipedia entry on the Helmsley Building. The Wikipedia entry is oddly ambiguous on who the architects were. It’s actually Warren & Wetmore, who were also responsible for Grand Central Terminal. Here’s a link to the AIA website.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – I was in Chicago for a mutual funds directors conference and managed this in magical early morning light. It’s the Wrigley Building taken out of my hotel window with my Leica M9 and a 50mm Summilux lens. Is it iconic? If I were from Chicago I might have a view on this. It has the great advantage of being on the Chicago River which permits viewing from a distance. The Chicago chapter of the AIA features a thumbnail of it on the header to its website: Chicago AIA. I’ve categorized it as an icon despite some misgivings (is it really in the same league as the Chrysler building?).
I collected a bunch of images in and around Millennium Park but most were tourist-style very wide angle images around the cloud gate. I thought this one on the walk back toward the Chicago River was interesting.
On this date last year we were at Full Sail Brewery in Hood River, Oregon.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – In midtown for meetings. This was a good day for photography. The light was soft and encompassing – about 4:00PM is a great time of day to photograph Manhattan this time of year. I had enough good ideas that I had trouble selecting a single photograph. I initially posted a a new take on an old friend, the iconic Seagrams Building, with a very wide Voigtländer 12mm lens. After further review of the images I edited the post (on October 13) to include an additional image. I get feedback offline from a number of sources who help out as an informal editorial board (for example the Leica forum on GetDPI.com).
Seagrams Building
Here’s the second image captured with a Leica M9 and 54-year-old 50mm Dual Range Summicron (modified for M9).
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – New York was sideswiped by a tropical storm today – I spent the day dodging rain. I caught this image of the Guggenheim Museum with my 16mm Hologon. I’ve been stalking the Guggenheim for some time, and have shot from this angle in the past, but not with this lens and in this light.
