NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Breakfast with my son, Alexander Campbell, at the Brasserie, the other restaurant in the Seagrams Building (besides the iconic Four Seasons). Back with my ultra wide 12mm Voigtlander lens.
On this date a year ago: Jonathan Galassi’s birthday party
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Another eventful day. Midday found me in midtown with my Leica M9 and a very wide lens, a 15mm Voitlander. This is similar to an image that I posted last week – Park Avenue – I’ve got quite a few of these that I haven’t posted.
On November 2 last year we went to a book party for our friend Patrizia Chen at The Corner Bookstore: Patrizia tangos
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Back home from Chicago I attended a seminar on blogging for photographers. There were a number of important infrastructure suggestions that I’ll be implementing over the next few weeks. The hard issue that emerged from the discussions, though, is that the conventional wisdom on building website traffic is to focus. So if you want to be a successful wedding photographer you post sample work. You focus on backstories and relationships with clients. You find ways to link to you site from other wedding resources, and in fact you become a wedding resource.
If I were pressed to say what my focus is I guess that I’d say it’s the fine art market. Me and a lot of other good photographers who focus on landscape would like to sell fine prints to people. But I do think that how people consume images is changing dramatically – in the end the on-line product may be the only product. So the blog, rather than being a marketing tool, is an end in itself. I’ve got some serious further work to do on this issue.
Returning from the seminar I caught this crossing Park Avenue. Leica M9 and 15mm Voigtlander lens.
On this date one year ago: Mushrooms
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 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
WASHINGTON DC – I flew down to Washington for dinner at Nora. Nora’s menu. Nora Pouillon hosted a dinner for some of the participants in a food policy conference sponsored by the James Beard Foundation the following day. Not much time for photography but a fabulous meal. The menu included little gem lettuces with figs and cherry glen goat cheese; deep fried soft shell crabs with soy ginger emulsion (the best soft shell crabs ever); Amish veal roast with chanterelle sauce; champagne risotto and honeycrisp apple pie.
I spent the night in a hotel near the Convention Center – a part of town that was formerly a tenderloin area but is rapidly being gentrified. Not a good day for photography but I caught this building in passing near the Convention Center with my Leica M9 and a 50mm Summicron lens. Two frames stitched.
On this date one year ago: October 20, 2009
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.
