NEW YORK NEW YORK – A visually impoverished day. I resorted to a selfie, which violates my “no selfie” rule on this project. Some days you just don’t have a better idea.
Day 2594 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
On this day two years ago (day 1863): Motel 6
BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS – Here again and still shooting with legacy Carl Zeiss Jena lenses. Today I strapped the tiny 2.8 cm (28mm) f8.0 Tessar from 1937 onto my Sony 7rii. The best image of the day was a shadow selfie with security camera, but because of the difficulty of managing and shooting with this odd lens it was slightly out of focus. It’s ok at web resolution so I’ve presented here flaws and all. Also some images of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank in brutalist light. Did I mention that turning the Sony color images into something that looks like my work is a huge time sink.
Day 2281 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
On this day six years ago (day 90): Poets Walk, Central Park. A common tourist shot for a good reason, reasonably well executed here. One of the commenters on Twitter on this image referred to The Third Man, the fabulous film noir from 1949. Indeed this film has been an important influence on my visual style. Ironic that I’m shooting now with lenses from that era.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Here’s a challenge in my ongoing photo every day project. I’m sick as a dog with a really severe head cold, a sinus headache and a raw sore throat. I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. I didn’t manage to get out of the house today. Relatively late in the day I managed to strap a very wide (12mm) lens onto my Leica Monochrome and put it in the oven with a self timer, photographing myself through the oven window. That’s it. My image for the day.
Day 1,810 of one picture every day for the rest of my life.
On this day last year (day 1,445): Fog on Lake Waramaug.
tNEW YORK NEW YORK – A day of experiments. There’s a scanner app for the iPhone called Turbo Scan. It’s a document scanner that I use to scan documents (often after I’ve annotated them) and send them to people. Very high contrast. So using it as a camera is like photographing with a copying machine. Sometimes it works and sometimes it’s weird. Here’s a selfie done with Turbo Scan.
I’m putting a second image up today. I walked around all day with my Leica M with my f.95 Noctilux attached. For those of you who don’t know about it the Nocti is a very, very fast 50mm Leica lens. I had a 3-stop neutral density filter on it so I could shoot at f.95 in daylight. The Nocti is very large and heavy. It’s the devil to focus at f.95; I’m using it on the M with an an attachment that lets me focus through the lens. Just seeing if this combination works. It was just ok. The look of this lens, which I’ve always had an ambiguous relationship with, isn’t really me. As you will see below it is quite distinctive, rendering from the 1950s. For now I’m going to stick to Luxochron (the Leica 50mm Summichron Asph.) as my main normal lens. Of course I’ll continue to hold the Nocti as an investment (one of the best that I’ve ever made). The second image below is with the Nocti.
On this day last year: Bride of Franenstein lighting.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – A selfie taken in Dr. Lodge’s office. I’m here for a flu shot but in the process we found a deer tick so I get a blast of antibiotics (against Lyme disease) as well.
On this day last year: Tractor pull..
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I spent a couple of hours today messing around with the Fuji X100s. With a new camera there is always a process of getting it dialed in to my shooting style and practicing so that managing the controls becomes second nature. It’s also important to explore its limits: what’s the practical highest ISO and the lowest-hand held shutter speed, for example. Here’s a 12,500 iso shot in a dark hall in our apartment. The Fuji’s autofocus is reasonably good under these difficult low light circumstances (even much larger SLRs have a tendency to hunt a bit in near dark conditions). From the hall in near darkness with a secret selfie in the form of my shadow.
On this day last year: Perar 35. Experimenting with a tiny triplet 35mm lens called the Perar on my Leica M9. I ended up selling the lens – I really don’t have much use for lenses with a lot of “character”. Here it is on my M9 (which I subsequently traded for my Monochrom).
MUSTIQUE – Our last day in the Grenadines. I’ve gotten a strong positive reaction to the photo of Maria’s bathing suit below (taken with my Leica Monochrom and 50mm Noctilux lens), probably because that it carries a suggestion that Maria has shed it and is nearby sunning. Actually she’s off packing and the swimsuit is just on the post drying off. Context is all. Then a selfie of me in a mirror that I quite liked.
On this day one year ago: Thanksgiving.
