NYC and Photography

2004-09-20T14:30:00

I was down in the city again yesterday, specifically to photograph the reflections in buildings using my 100mm macro lens. I wanted to isolate small areas where two textures intersected, as my most successful photograph from Color1 was of this genre and I wanted to explore that further. (I will most likely eventually post the photograph, but I am still deciding in what form to present it and the pictures which go with it).

One of the neat things about NYC (for me at least) is that I often run into professional photographers working. I think it is natural for photographers at every level to check out what equipment others in the field are using. As described in Shutterbabe (see last entry) there is a sort of pecking order. Pros use Nikon or Leica, locals use Minolta or Olympus. (What does that make me? I use both Nikon and Minolta equipment, not to mention the TLR Rollieflex).

In Grand Central Terminal I saw a photographer with a medium format camera (not a Hasselblad, but nothing to be scoffed at either) photographing a pair of models dressed as you might see in a fashion magazine (next month, you probably will see them). With all the noise and the hub-ub, I probably would not have noticed them at all, since the photographer was up on a different level than the models and shooting down on them, except that the photographer was setting her camera exactly where I had planned to set my camera to do one of those highly cliché pictures of GCT in black and white with some people blurred and some not due to a long exposure. I can't remember what kind of camera she had, but it got me to thinking (again) that I really would like to have my own medium format camera. I want a Hasselbald though, since that is what I learned with in my lighting class and the glass the lenses are to die for. Can't afford it though.

Then as I was out doing the real work I had set out to do (down in south Manhattan) I passed someone with a Leica. Leica make these really high quality 35mm range finder cameras with incredible optics. I wouldn't mind having one of those either. Can't afford that either though.

The coolest spotting ever was one day I was going to see the Concord with a friend of mine, and we passed by Jesus Christ being photographed by a photographer with a large format view camera. Forget about Jesus for a minute though, that view camera was cool. It's so big and bulky that you carry it around with a large tripod attached because you really can't use it without one it is so big and heavy. I had seen a view camera once before, but not one this big. It probably exposed 8x10 negatives. That's 8 inches by 10 inches. You could easily blow up a neg or slide that size to cover the side of a small building without noticing any grain. Can not even come close to affording that one. Guess you have to choose your economic battles.

About a month later I was looking thorough one of those tasteless men's fashion magazines (which I do sometimes to critique the photographs) and right there was Jesus Christ walking through Manhattan. One of the shots was at the very same location we had seen him at too.

Maine

2004-08-30T01:24:00

I arrived in Concord at about 8:30pm. Only half an hour late, and had I not been delayed at departure, I would have probably been on time. I circled around a couple of times while Sherry tried to describe where her apartment was over my cell phone, but eventually I found the place and parked in a slot marked "Visitor." I was on my way up to Maine and had asked Sherry if I could crash at her place on the way up so as to break up the long drive. That was what I had said anyway; my main reason was to see Sherry a friend of mine who had recently quit The Company to go to back to school to study patent law.

She showed me around her new apartment, which is entirely too cute, if a little noisy from the nearby street. She showed me her schedule for each week which was blocked out every weekday from 8:00am to 10:00pm, and then told me, without a hint of irony that she hadn't really gotten serious about school yet. I showed her my portfolio from my Color1 class, and we talked about numerous things, including what would happen to "The Group" now that Joanna had left the Hudson Valley for Berkeley. She told me how much her apartment was costing me, which was low compared with the Hudson Valley, but high for a student, which is pertinent, since she is a student now. I told her how excited I was for her in her new endeavor. I would have liked to have told her how proud all of us were of her, but the thought didn't come into my head until later. I slept on the floor that night and the traffic outside didn't bother me too much.

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The Twilight Report

NYC and Photography

Maine