Category: Portrait

Wednesday September 14, 2011

Post author By Woody
Post date Monday September 19, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – All day meetings. This evening I “appropriated” an image from our collection, shooting it with my Alpa TC. Wikipedia has a good article on appropriation in art. The original image is by Manuel Alvarez Bravo. Here’s a link to an uncropped version: Woman in shadows.

On this day last year: the Seagrams Building again.

Tags Appropriation, Photography

Interior Portrait

Thursday September 8, 2011

Post author By Woody
Post date Thursday September 15, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I have breakfast once a month with a small group of college classmates to talk about things. We’ve been doing this for seven years now, and find it very helpful in dealing with the various stuff that life throws at us. This was with my Leica M9 and a 28mm Summicron.

On this day one year ago: The Central Park Conservatory Garden.

Tags New York, Yale Group

Landscape Portrait

Saturday September 3, 2011

Post author By Woody
Post date Friday September 9, 2011

WARREN AND KENT BULLS BRIDGE CONNECTICUT – Terry Tanner’s barn, taken with my ALpa TC, 72mm Schneider XL lens and Phase One IQ 180 back. Two frames stitched. The resulting pixel dimensions are 16,300 x 8000, for an astounding 130 megs of total resolution. Actual file size is 1.5 gigabytes, near the 2.0 gig limit for tiff files. Needless to say it produces a lovely very large print.

Later in the day John Novogrod and I took a hike on a segment of the Appalachian Trail. Taken with a Leica M9 and 28mm Sumicron lens.

On this day one year ago: More infrared. This one from Park Avenue and 57th Street.

Tags Hiking

Portrait

Tuesday August 9, 2011

Post author By Woody
Post date Monday August 15, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – You’re probably wondering what this camera, this Alpa TC thing, is. The Alpa is a modular Swiss “technical camera” designed to work with a medium format digital back. Here’s link to the Alpa website. This is exotic stuff – you won’t find it in the B&H cataloque. The digital back that I use is a Phase One IQ 180. Ditto on not finding it at B&H. Using myself a a model I photographed the Alpa to show you what it looks like. It weighs about four pounds. The concept was to assemble an updated digital camera with functionality similar to the Hasselblad Superwide C – one of my all time favorite film cameras.

Today’s images were take with my Panasonic GH2. It’s the Alpa TC with the Phase One IQ 180 back and a 35mm Schneider Digitar XL lens.

On this day last year: Mocoto, a fabulous local restaurant in the outlying suburbs of Sao Paolo.

Tags Cameras

Family and friends Interior Portrait

Sunday August 7, 2011

Post author By Woody
Post date Sunday August 14, 2011

WESTHAMPTON, NEW YORK – More with the Leica and the 50mm Summilux. I’ve been shooting a lot in the past month with Alpa and a 35mm Schneider which for a number of reasons facilitates images with a lot of depth of field and corner to corner sharpness. The Leica lets me rebel from that a bit. today (and yesterday) I generally shot with this lens wide open at f 1.4, producing large far out of focus regions. Steve’s house seemed to call out for this treatment.

Like most modern Leica lenses the 50 mm Summilux has optimum sharpness at its widest aperture, f 1.4 (lenses from other manufactures often need to be stopped down two stops for maximum clarity), this is one of the reasons why these lenses are so expensive. The out of focus portions of the of 50mm Summilux images have a lovely, creamy character, a quality that is referred to as “good bokeh”. I also like the way it renders colors. I don’t often write effusive praise for lenses. I guess I just got carried away by this one.

By the way, sorry about the dog. You know how I feel about pictures of dogs and cute kids.

On this day one year ago: big boat.

Tags Pets, Self portrait, Still life

Culture Landscape Portrait Travel

Tuesday July 26, 2011

Post author By Woody
Post date Saturday August 6, 2011

NORTHERN KENYA – We made a long drive to a Maasai market. This is a one day only affair that appears periodically at various sites. The main trade is people bringing goats to sell and buying clothing, vegetables, household items and so on. According to Lemarti full-grown goat fetches $120 or so, which is a lot of money in these parts.

I’m going to trouble you with eight images today. Editing has been really difficult. I could probably do better if I had more time. At least the images aren’t of airport lounges.

First, four images taken in a small settlement that we drove through to get to the market – images that fit into my “small towns” body of work. All taken with my Alpa TC, Phase One IQ 180 back and Schneider 35mm Digitar.

Now four more taken with my Panasonic GH2 at the Maasai market:

On this day one year ago: 1185 Park Avenue.

Tags Kenya, Maasai, Small town

Family and friends Food and wine Portrait

Tuesday June 28, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – Our firm’s partners meet for lunch every Tuesday. I wouldn’t ordinarily photograph at one of these but this was a special occasion: it was the last lunch at which Rick Evans served as presiding partner, a role that he is retiring from after a record-setting 13 years of service. I sat across the table from my retired partner Andy Hartzell, who doesn’t make many of these because the conflict with the weekly “French table” at the Yale Club, which actually includes a French tutor. Anyway here’s Andy caught with my Leica M9 and a 50mm Summilux lens.

On this day one year ago: San Pablo del Lago

Tags Debevoise, New York