Category: Out my window

Wednesday January 5, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – More mementos – these from our living room in New York. I really am in a sentimental place. There is a digital technique called focus bracketing that lets you extend depth of field. It turns out that this is actually easier that messing with tilts (the classical view camera technique for achieving a similar result) as long as nothing moves between exposures. This was taken with my Hasselblad H4D-60 and a 150 mm lens. It’s 7 exposures focusing from near (the front of the tea chest) to far (the speaker grill in the lower left). The frames were stacked in Helicon Focus, specialized software that combines focus bracketed images to produce one in focus composite. The moire on the lampshade is actually not an digital artifact – it results from the interaction of screens in front of the window that illuminates the scene.

On this day last year: Dangerous tree.

Tags 1185 Park Avenue, Home

Interior Out my window

Tuesday January 4. 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – This is a slightly melancholy week for me – it’s my first week serving as of counsel in my law firm – I’m officially no longer a partner. I photographed the “work wall” in my office, a design feature common in offices that includes file drawers and bookshelves. A lot of effort went into its design. (Gensler was the architect, the wood is anigre – ours is a light wood office.) Everything about it is obsolete. The file drawers are empty; their contents have been supplanted by on-line resources. There are almost no books on the bookshelves; books have been supplanted by on-line resources. What you see on the bookshelves are mostly “deal toys”, mementos of completed transactions past, but for the present and future a luxury that most clients are not willing to pay for. Pictures of my family at younger ages. Anyway . . . . Here’s the work wall shot with a Leica M9 and 35mm Summilux II lens.

On this day last year: Balloons!! This is really as good as it gets. On reflection one of my favorites from last year. Taken with my Leica M9 and a 35mm Summicron version iv lens.

Tags New York, Office

Landscape Out my window

Tuesday December 28, 2010

WARREN CONNECTICUT – A quiet day in the snow-covered countryside. This with my Hasselblad H4D-60.

On this date one year ago: Out my office window in lovely light.

Tags Connecticut, Snow, Warren, Winter

Home Landscape Out my window

Friday December 17, 2010

Post author By Woody
Post date Wednesday December 22, 2010

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I’ve taken advantage of a Hasseblad offer the upgrade my H3D-39 to the latests H4D-60. That’s a medium format system with 60 megs of resolution. I’ve spent a fair amount of time working with a piece of equipment called HTS 1.5 and the new camera – it adds the ability to tilt and shift lenses (as one can on a view camera). The HTS 1.5 provides 18mm of shift in either direction. So theoretically f you do three images, one centered, one with the lens shifted all the way left and the other shifted all the way right, in portrait orientation, and stitch them, you end up with a frame in landscape orientation with a perfect 2×3 aspect ratio and pixel dimensions of 12,762 x 8,488, for a whopping 108 megs. Nice but does this actually work?

The image below was captured with the Hasselblad 100mm lens and the HTS 1.5 – three images with the HTS 1.5 shifted as above and stitched in Photoshop.

Out our window

Here’s a 1:1 crop from the left side of the image – the Robert Kennedy Bridge (formerly the Triborough Bridge) at night.

This is very impressive – I’m going to have some fun with this thing.

On this day last year: Shopping on Fifth Avenue.

Tags New York, Night, Night phography

Landscape Out my window Urban

Saturday November 13, 2010
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Post author By Woody

Post date Saturday November 20, 2010

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Perfect late fall weather here. But I was house-bound preparing for meetings the following week. This is out our dining room window with my Hasselblad H3d-39. Nice light. Too bad that I didn’t get out into it. The Hasselblad makes lovely images but it gets the most use when I’m driving to where I shoot, because it’s heavy and awkward to carry, and not very well suited to urban walk around use.

On this day one year ago: Diana Fiskejon’s birthday party

Tags Lexington Avenue, New York

Landscape Out my window Travel Urban

Monday October 25, 2010

Post author By Woody
Post date Monday October 25, 2010

NEW YORK, NEW YORK and CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – Well I’m two for two on out the window shots for the day. I started the morning in New York with a lovely sunrise. Yes, I’ve said that I don’t do sunrises and sunsets but this seemed sufficiently spectacular to warrant and exception. Out our dining room window with my Leica M9 and 28mm Sumicron Asph. lens.

Midmorning I left for Chicago to attend an two day mutual fund directors’ conference. By the time I got to my hotel and registered for the conference the day’s rather poor light was failing. I took a walk along the Chicago River but didn’t take anything that I liked. When I got back to my hotel I got this out the window. Leica M9 and 90mm Elmarit lens.

On this date one year ago I was in Portland Oregon at a farmers market: October 25, 2009

Tags Chicago, Manhattan, New York, Sunrise, Urban

Landscape Out my window Urban

Thursday October 14, 2010

Post author By Woody
Post date Thursday October 14, 2010

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – A crap day for photography. The weather was an appalling mixture of wind and rain. I carried my Leica around all day, but didn’t get much use out of it: My schedule consisted of lunch at the Harvard Club with an old friend (photography isn’t appropriate here) followed by a trip to B&H with the same friend but I didn’t have the wit to use my Leica there. An evening concert at Carnegie Hall, guest of a professional friend so again photography wasn’t appropriate. I arrived home after the concert empty-handed photo-wise, so I set my Nikon up on a tripod with a long lens and shot the rainy night out my window. Long exposures with long lenses are technically demanding and I was tired, so the results are so-so at best. Here’s the best of a poor lot, shot with a Nikon D700 and a 200mm lens with a 1.7x tele-extender.

Tags New York, Night