WARREN CONNECTICUT – Still here. Warren. This is the best time of the year for this little patch of the Berkshire foothills. It’s foggy and rainy but I managed to shoot some foliage and record a tractor pull moment from the Warren Fall Festival. Leica Monochrom.
foliageAntique Tractor Pull
On this day one year ago: Central Park Reservoir. This in a single image captures why I’m selling my medium format kit to really specialize on my Leica. Once I get up on a tripod everything turns static and predicable.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – It’s the leading edge of leaf season up here in rural Litchfield County. Colors are fabulous. Of course I’m shooting with my Leica Monochrom, a black and white only camera, so I’m going to have to get creative. Autumn foliage in black and white. Pretty excentric, hun?
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Twelve or so years ago I did a series of projects where i set a camera up on a tripod and took an image each hour over a 24-hour period. I generally used a 4×5 view camera, but also an 8×19 view camera and a 35mm (generally my Leica M7). I typically shot images that were set up to mimic a well known piece of art, “appropriating” the organization and subject matter. For example I did a 24 hour series at our pool in Connecticut and a Balinese statue after Jennifer Bartlett’s study of her pool in Italy. (See Jennifer Bartlett pool for example.) I stopped doing the 24 hour sequences after I went digital. The fact that you can put a digital camera on a tripod and set it to take a picture every hour made it too easy and took the life out of these projects;
Enter the Alpa and the Phase One IQ 180 back. The aesthetic is similar to 4×5 or 8×10 and it’s entirely manual – you really can’t automate taking a 24 hour sequence. So I decided to give a 24-hour project a try. No reference to any only other works of art – just a shot of a tree line at our place in Connecticut. I shot 24 images, one each hour from late afternoon October 8 through late afternoon October 9. I’m please with the results and have resolved a couple of technical issues, so I’m starting work on a serious series, again borrowing from a well-known work. Here’s the image from 5:57 PM (local time). My self-imposed rule is that all images need to be taken within 10 minutes plus or minus the hour. Precision (i.e. exactly on the hour) really isn’t possible because of the vagaries of cat napping and so on. I’m pleased with the results so I’m searching for a project with a fine arts referent. By the way, I’ve also included an image of the Alpa set up to capture the tree line.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – You’ve noticed by now that I’m experimenting with my superwide lens at extreme angles and extreme speeds. So far in this series the extreme angles have been in New York (and for that matter in the dark). Today I pushed forward to extreme angles in the countryside in daylight. Still interesting stuff.
Here’s one of a number of similar shots this afternoon from our woods. Note that the leaves are finally off of the trees so I’ve been relieved of the curse of beautiful fall foliage.
WARREN, CONNECTICUT – We were plagued by another beautiful autumn day. Very hard to make good on my “no more fall foliage” pledge, but I caught a break midday, visiting the construction site of a house being built by my friend Doug Hamilton, who has a serious serial housebuilding habit. The Mustique construction gallery to the right is the result of a multi-year project documenting a house under construction by Doug in Mustique – he’s doing it again in Connecticut. Leica M9 with 15mm Voigtlander lens.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I’m suffering under the curse of a long New England autumn. That’s right, I said curse. Since September 25 I’ve posted no fewer than ten images where the main subject is New England autumn. That’s a lot of yellow and orange foliage of really dubious artistic merit. It’s not like I can discern a development of a theme – the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Autumn is a bit like a sunset: it comes around periodically for all to see. It’s unlikely that I’m going to have a deep insight, a personal epiphany or add to the richness of human knowledge and experience by photographing brightly colored leaves. I promise not to do this any more, at least not without more of a theme and purpose. But . . . what I happen to have for October 23 are images of . . . fall foliage. Here you go with number 11:
Yup. It\’s Fall Foliage.
Leica M9 with 90mm Elmarit lens.
On this date one year ago i was shooting in infrared on a dull, rainy day in Oregon: October 23, 2009
WARREN CONNECTICUT and BROOKLYN NEW YORK – We started out the day in Connecticut (with power restored) – photographed a neighbor’s cornfield in the rising sun. We drove back to New York to attend an engagement party for our son in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn.
Cornfield; Leica M9 and 1954 Dual Range Summicron lens.
