NEW YORK NEW YORK – Fuji has furnished a firmware update for the XPro-1 which I installed last night so I took the Fuji out for a spin today. The autofocusing is improved as promised. The problem with this camera, though, is that there are not a lot of lenses for it – the 50mm equivalent is terrific but that’s about it. Later in the day I met up with Maria and some friends for dinner and carried my Leica Monochrom and an f.95 Noctilux lens. The Monochrom fits my shooting style much better than the Fuji – I suppose that I’ll be putting the Fuji up for sale soon.
First with the Leica Monochrom:
iPhone lightCandle lightYou’ll need a bigger one than that to impress her
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Back in New York, still shooting with my Monchrom and Dual Range Summicron. It’s hard to find tenderloin-style sleeze in Manhattan at this point – porn shops have been zoned and priced out of the real estate market. There is, however, still a pocket of porn shops around the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – It’s a relief to be back home. Salt Lakers (and people from almost anyplace else in the country) find it hard to understand how New York can be home. It’s hard to explain but browsing through these pages may give you a sense. I celebrated my return by seeing a Yankees game with Alexander. That’s my fourth baseball game for the season – an unprecedented level on interest for me, driven more by the strong sense of place that Yankee Stadium (and Fenway) have, than an abiding curiosity about the game.
So here’s a street scene and Yankee Stadium, taken with my Leica M9 and a 12mm Voigtländer lens. As a non-fisheye this wide it’s amazing that it even produces an image. It produces serious color shifts with digital cameras, shifts that I correct for by “developing” the images in C1 with an llc correction. No veiwfinder is necessary – I just assume that it takes in everything in the general direction of the front of the camera. Focusing is redundant because of the long depth of field. Results can be weird and unpleasant because of wide angle geometric distortion – I tend to get a lot of junk with it but also an occasional gem.
The news meets weeniesYankee Stadium
I got film back today so I’ll be including a few film images each day until I run out of them. Generally taken with my Leica M4, Ilford Delta 100 film, and a dual range Summicron lens.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’ve just come through a couple of poor days from a photo point of view. A major mistake and a major blah. I resolved to get serious today so I bolted the Nocti on to my M9, screwed on the .9 neutral density filter (so I can shoot wide open at f.95 in daylight) and went out into the world (actually to 22nd Street to put some film in for processing). Not bad. A day of looking up. It looks like my mojo just went into hiding for the last couple of days.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Another dinner at Pizza Fresca, so I found myself on foot in the rain on lower Park Avenue at dusk. Here’s some interesting light captured with my Leica M9 and 24mm Summilux lens.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – We went this evening to the premier of the Bourne Legacy, the fourth of the Bourne movies, the first without Matt Damon. Here is a picture of some onlookers as we went into the theater – taken with my iPhone.
Bourne Onlookers
At home shot with my Fuji X-Pro1.
At Home
On this day last year: more Lamu. Riding in a dhow.
SARATOGA NEW YORK – We (the real we, not the editorial we) went to the track this afternoon with Alexander and Laura. Four adults. We bet on five races. A total of 20 bets, each of us taking a different horse for each race. We consulted tout sheets, horoscopes and fortune cookies and plumbed our color preferences. We didn’t have a single winning ticket. Not one.
At least I got some pictures. The track at Saratoga isn’t elegant (for that matter neither is Churchill Downs). The NY Racing Association depends on small bets from thousands of t-shirted bettors – who are here indeed in large numbers. Here are some punters on the rail captured with my Fuji X-Pro1 and 35mm lens.
At the races
One of the large houses on Union Street on the walk back from the track.
Union Street
On this day last year: A bad travel day. Not much of a picture. Really.
