A Whale of a Whale
I was rooting around in my New York City negative archives from the early 1990's. I came across a bunch of 4x5 negatives. I didn't realize how much street photography I did back then with an old hand held 4x5 Crown Graphic. Not much of the work stands the test of time, but I like this one. Aside from the graphic quality of the billboard, I like the two cabs waiting for their turn in the carwash. Like old movies where you can date the film by the vintage of the cars that appear in the movie, the same holds true for photographic images. Looking at the two cabs, you know you looking at something late 80's to early 90's.
Hots Seats-Lake Titicaca, Bolivia
I've been looking at my body of color photographs which has a chair or a seat as the common theme. My first inclination was to set up a slide show in this post showing about a dozen or so of the images from the collection. Then, I thought I'd just show this one. Hot Seats epitomizes what really works for me with the chair/seat work: I love the seats themselves (I wish I had a set of four of these little numbers for my deck on sunny, summer afternoons). I really like the pattern of the re-bar grill over the windows. And, of course the poster of the two children which was pasted on the wall across the street, and becomes scaled just right in the photograph, is what makes this image exceptional for me.
I was going to get into where this was in Bolivia, how I got there...blah,blah,blah...I'll spare you...you know the old cliche...a picture is worth...
Alex in the Morning Sunlight
My 16 year old son, Alex, is home from school for winter break. I was about to step down into the kitchen this morning when I saw him sitting at the kitchen island about ready to have breakfast. The sunlight pouring all over his back from the glass wall was just too stunning to ignore. My little four-thirds cameras was lying on a table close by and I made this capture before he moved or I had to ask him to pose which he usually hates.
Everything is Snow Covered and Frozen
There's been a couple days' reprieve between weather events. Yesterday, it actually got above freezing for several hours, and today it was sunny and cold. January light can be so blue and crystal clear. Everything stands out in sharp focus. Some one told me that it hasn't snowed this much in Southampton since 1925. Anything on the ground is frozen and buried in snow and ice.
Walking down by the bay beach where I live, I found a small patch of water that wasn't frozen; it's part of a small inlet and because of the big tide, it has remained ice free so far. I really like the pattern of the duck's feet in the snow. It amazes me that they can sit and frolic in that ice cold water, happily quacking, and flapping their wings.
There's Been This Octopus Sitting on my Desktop
Several weeks ago, I photographed octopuses for a post on my foodblog, www.2gourmaniacs.com. A couple of days afterwards, I was looking at images on cellphone's memory card, and I found a capture of an octopus in a colander that I made at the same time as the octopus shoot. And, yeah, I seriously manipulated the digital file in Photoshop; something I really don't do all that often. Anyway, I like this one: it has that painterly-cartoon quality which is pretty interesting, and I like the positive-negative of the holes in the colander and the suckers on the octopus's legs.
Wok the heck.
I was photographing my Chinese steel wok for a submission for my food blog (2gourmaniacs.com) to tastespotting.com. They're celebrating their fourth anniversary on line with entries entitled tastespotting100. I put my wok on the floor in my dining room and I had a single strobe bank overhead. The image I captured wasn't exactly what I had in mind; in fact, it wasn't the image I ultimately chose for my submission. But looking at this image with the catch light in the center of the wok started me
thinking about parabolic curves, college physics and long forgotten (and never to be remembered) mathematical formulae to describe what I was seeing in this capture. It looked very Asian, it smacked of a science that I use to know something about...
...or I could just have a very serious case of cabin fever here in snow bound Southampton.
Another Foot of Snow
I'm house bound today, possibly for the immediate future. It snowed another foot or so last night, and with the high winds, there seems to be some significant snow drifts. Finally this afternoon, the sun broke through the clouds, and I went out to make a few captures. The little pond is on a golf course which borders my property, and it looked incredible in the weak afternoon light with just a little blue sky.
And this a piece of my gnarly wild cherry tree next to my driveway. I've photographed a lot of times in the past, especially with snow on it. I really like the sculptural quality of it and of this image.
Snow Trees
After the blizzard two weeks ago, everyone was a little edgy about the last night's weather prediction for 2-7 inches of snow. Before I went to bed, I stuck my head out my kitchen door and I quickly realized that this was going to be a mere dusting. When I awoke this morning, everything outside had a dusty white coating. I had a cup of tea as I looked out my kitchen slider. I watched the cat that we're cat-sitting checking out the new snow. So I picked up my little four thirds camera and screwed the tiny cine 25mm f1.5 onto it, and I went for a walk around my property. The bush and undergrowth is normally so thick that it is impossible to walk in many places. This is the only time of the year that I can easily access many of the nooks and crannies of my immediate environment. I made a bunch of captures this morning. I like this one because it's a good visual ambassador for what my immediate surroundings look like.
Okay, I took another look at the captures I made this morning, and I have to add this one. It's kind of like nature's way to saying, "don't give up hope in January, spring's just around the corner."
Coolest Building in NYC
This the IAC Building on the the corner of 11th Avenue and 18th Street in Manhattan. Frank Gehry was the architect: if you know his work, from just looking at the building, it's pretty obvious he designed it. It's my favorite contemporary building in New York. Every time I go the Chelsea Market to purvey food stuff I always find free parking on 11th Avenue (there goes my "go-to" parking secret.) And I always make a couple of captures of the IAC building as I walk by. Yesterday, the afternoon light was dull, the sky was overcast, and there was a serious threat of snow in the air. Just right to photograph Gehry's building.
New Kitchen Art
It's been a while since I framed a new piece for my own home. I had a bunch of flowering chives sitting on my island counter in my kitchen for two weeks. Everyday I kept saying I've got to take a picture of them. Finally the other day, I put them on a piece of seamless and photographed them. Yesterday, I made a small print of the capture, and I immediately made a larger 16x20 print. I went into the kitchen and took one of the cherry frames which had a horizontal B&W landscape in it, brought it to my framing table and swapped my still life print for it. It works really well in my kitchen. (Actually, I like the print quality so much better than what you're looking at on your monitor: the background color is a deeper, richer color which makes the greens of the chives jump off the paper.)
Now if someone had told me twenty-five years ago that I'd be photographing plant still lives, framing them and hanging them on my wall, I'd would told them that they were nuts. Just goes to show you, you can teach an old dog new tricks.
