Public transportation, the lowly bus, doesn’t roll over the rarified pavement of Santa Monica’s Montana Avenue anywhere near as often as it does a mile or so south, on the more common asphalt of Wilshire Blvd. So these ladies were waiting a long time on a gloomy chilly late afternoon just a stone’s throw from the icy Pacific. July notwithstanding. Sooner or later people will do what they have to to keep warm. The not-poor things. 😉 Top photo is the last (or thereabouts) in the sequence.
Reposting an old entry from last year for all my new beauty and fashion followers.
Getting back to some Leica photography. The date has been announced for the annual Fashion’s Night Out 2012 and it is September 6th.
Sooo… this entry today here at 50lux.com has a triple purpose.
First, I would like to give Leica and other lowlight shooters a heads-up to the coming FNO extravaganza, Vogue Magazine’s world-wide phenomena and to let you all know that this very impressive event is probably coming to a city somewhere near you.
It’s an incredible opportunity to get out and photograph great style and beauty and all in the vibrant colors and exact low-light conditions where our super-fast Leica glass really shows its stuff.
Second, of course, I want to showcase my own humble efforts in that regard from last year. All the images you see here were shot on film, with my trusty M7. Mostly with a Zeiss 50mm Sonnar f1.5 mounted, but there’s more…
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Whenever I remove the $4000 Leica 50mm 1.4 Summilux ASPH lens from my Leica M-E and mount the Leica 50mm 2.0 Summicron, 20 years or so old, made in Canada, that set me back just $475, I’m always blown away.
There often seems to be a color explosion on my M-E’s monitor. The lens is so incredibly capable. So sharp. So perfect. So much color and contrast. If you think you have to spend thousands to shoot the very best Leica glass, you’d be wrong.
The 50 Summicron lacks NOTHING in terms of the sharpness, color, and contrast that you find on the 50 ‘Lux. In some ways, it seems to exceed the ‘Lux.
With the Summiluxes you get a capability provided by the extra stop of light available and the fact that the performance of the lens at that 1.4 aperture is stellar. But that capability and the expense of making that lens does not mean that it’s a better lens than the Summicron. Leica says their 50’Crons are ‘without compromise’, implying what many know, that in order to create a lens that will perform at 1.4 like the Summiluxes perform, there will be some compromises.
This website is named for the 50’lux, but my heart belongs to my 50’cron. Here in iffy iffy light, all shot at f/2 from a moving car. Huh?
Not our upstairs, mind you. We don’t have an upstairs. We have Leica GEAR! 😉 Our friends are very proud of all the work they’ve done. Their home is about a half mile from the Pacific Ocean, which you can see from their back porch and even better from their roof. So that light is the real deal. These were taken in a rush as we were given a quick tour on the 4th of July. I’d like to have a couple of hours down there shooting the great detail work with all that light and the great Leica and Zeiss glass I’m lucky enough to own. Instead of an upstairs. 😉
I promised (or threatened) politics when I started this blog. You had to know the bloody day would eventually come. I want to apologize in advance. There Will Be Cursing.
I just want to wrap up in a neat little ball my feelings about some things I’m seeing of late.
I had a dream once that there was a revolution and I was watching it on TV. It happened in a flash in some place like South or Central America at the meeting of the Organization of American States. lol. Seriously. And the POTUS was there and so there was a big American media contingent. Bob Schieffer was covering it for CBS. The revolutionaries stormed the conference area, security never had a chance, and they cut the TV signal coming out of the country right as the mob was overtaking the conference room where the president was. Last part of the dream was Dan Rather calling out to Bob Schieffer and saying something like, I think we’ve lost Bob. lol.
Man. Did I wake up with the chills. I’m serious. This was like in the early 90s. Tried to write a short story of it but it was and would have been a silly tale without a political perspective.
The real fear of the dream was that something could overtake the world media. Shut down or steal the voice or the truth or whatever, etc.
Although I still have that concern, actually that it might have happened a long time ago, but the feeling, the chill, is long forgotten. Until now.
The coverage of this second phase of what I am thinking of as the ongoing Egyptian revolution by the American media is just flat out chilling. It’s obvious the Obama administration thought they had their boy in place in Egypt in Morsy. If that wasn’t obvious before these past few weeks it’s obvious now. Old school American politics in the middle east at its traditional best. We’ll exchange one dictator for another, for what we like to call stability, and this one was extry special (TV hick colloquialism) because he came to power in a democratic election. So the US government is apoplectic over events in Egypt and that’s been made very clear by their many statements, threats, and the decidedly negative take they’ve expressed so far.
But the American news media? Oh my God. It’s like they’ve all been to a party at Judith Miller’s house and drank something she had mixed up in a punch bowl. It’s like they’re all mouthpieces now for the American government. Noam Chomsky has to be just stroking out right about now.
I’ve been seeing it for days now but what I just witnessed on CNN with Christiane Amanpour and Anderson Vanderbilt Cooper … it just recalls for me on a visceral level the feelings I had when I woke up from that dream. The Egyptian overthrow of Morsy seems to be some sort of nightmare from hell, if these people are to be believed.
Then they interviewed one of the guys behind the movement to ouster Morsy. God he was so real. He was PLEADING the truth. It was nothing I didn’t already know or suspect … ten thousand miles or more away. I knew that the ‘people’ of Egypt were always very uneasy about what kind of government Morsy and the Muslim Brotherhood were going to give them. And their worst fears were realized over the course of the last year as he abolished and dissolved avenues of self-determination by the people of Egypt. Always underreported by the American media… but it was out there.
Even during the initial overthrow of Mubarak the Egyptian people made it very clear that if they didn’t get an actual government that gave them a voice over their own fates the first time out and if they found out, at worst, they’d just traded one dictator for another they would be right back out in Tahir Square. And Allah bless their fucking hearts, there they are.
All of this was baked into the cake and none of it is really news or a surprise. But the American-centric perspective is so dark you’d think the Russian tanks had just rolled through fucking Poland.
I don’t know if I can ever figure out how to digitally capture something from my TV onto a Mac. But I really implore everyone here to be on the lookout on YouTube for Anderson Cooper’s interview with one of the main inspirations for the revolution in Egypt and watch especially his treatment of the Egyptian and the condescending ’emotions are running high’ crack pipe he and Amanpour share at then end of the interview.
I said I wanted to wrap this all up at the top of this page. Here’s what I mean. And I know a lot of people are really anti-Edward Snowden and everything that he did. But forget about Snowden personally for a moment and his actions and really consider the media and their behavior of late.
The Snowden situation has become a catalyst for a lot of criticism of the American media, which, hello, I happen to agree with. And here is a really blistering example of that perspective which, hello again, I happen to agree with.
This is from Gawker. The link to the complete article is at the bottom. Everything from here on is not mine.
“The Washington Post Is a Bitter, Jealous Little Newspaper
The Washington Post Has the Worst Opinion Section in America. The Washington Post, the pre-Politico newsletter of choice for The Political Establishment, has the worst opinion section in America. Today, they once again prove why: the paper, which helped to break the NSA Prism spying story, editorializes that the U.S. government must stop Edward Snowden from leaking any more of that awful news.
Presumably so that Washington Post reporters cannot cover it? The editorial board of the Washington Post—a newspaper with some of the best national security reporters in America, a newspaper whose reporter Barton Gellman was approached directly by Edward Snowden, and a newspaper that chose to publish only four of the 41 Powerpoint slides that Snowden gave to Gellman— is practically praying for Edward Snowden to be muzzled, so that no more of those news stories might be leaked to papers like, you know, the Washington Post. “How to Keep Edward Snowden From Leaking More NSA Secrets,” is the editorial’s headline. (“…To Us” is only implied.)
At least we know that the Washington Post’s terrible editorial board is fully independent from its shrinking newsroom!
In fact, the first U.S. priority should be to prevent Mr. Snowden from leaking information that harms efforts to fight terrorism and conduct legitimate intelligence operations. Documents published so far by news organizations have shed useful light on some NSA programs and raised questions that deserve debate, such as whether a government agency should build a database of Americans’ phone records. But Mr. Snowden is reported to have stolen many more documents, encrypted copies of which may have been given to allies such as the WikiLeaks organization… The best solution for both Mr. Snowden and the Obama administration would be his surrender to U.S. authorities, followed by a plea negotiation.
Take note, potential leakers and whistleblowers inside the U.S. government: the official stance of the Washington Post’s editorial board is that you should shut up and go to jail. Would-be Washington Post sources may wish to take that information into consideration when choosing where to leak to.”
http://gawker.com/the-washington-post-is-a-bitter-jealous-little-newspap-645608016
Two weeks ago today we started out down Pico Blvd., oblivious, enjoying our afternoon taking pictures. President Obama was in town and in the Santa Monica area so all the helicopters made perfect sense. So did the police barricades far down Pico near Santa Monica College. People milled about as if the President were likely to come right past them.
Well, that’s what we thought anyway. Had I known that there was a shooting rampage near the campus resulting in multiple fatalities, a sadly common occurrence in the United States at this particular time, I would have come away with an entirely different set of images, I think. But incredibly, even after seeing up close the disruption caused by the actions of a madman, we went about our day continuing to believe that, once again, the president had caused a major interruption to the already crowded Westside.
It was only much later in the afternoon that we found out what had really happened. So here are some random shots from that afternoon. Some capture the tense scenes around SMC, some reflect the degree to which we were completely unaware that this was unlike every other day in LA.
As so often is the case, in retrospect things look much different.
Great New York Times feature on HCB. With audio.
In 1971, Sheila Turner-Seed interviewed Henri Cartier-Bresson in his Paris studio for a film-strip series on photographers that she produced, with Cornell Capa, for Scholastic. After her death in 1979 at the age of 42, that interview, along with others she had conducted, sat like a time capsule in the archives of the International Center of Photography in New York.
Why the 50-millimeter lens?
A.It corresponds to a certain vision and at the same time has enough depth of focus, a thing you don’t have in longer lenses. I worked with a 90. It cuts much of the foreground if you take a landscape, but if people are running at you, there is no depth of focus. The 35 is splendid when needed, but…
Read the rest HERE.
I actually bought, if not the first, then one of the first digicams marketed to the masses, the Casio Something or Other. Thanks to a liberal return policy at the now long gone Good Guys, that camera, which I believe set me back somewhere in the neighborhood of $800, was quickly taken off the charge card. I didn’t even think of buying another digital camera until about five years later. There was a very cool-looking camera from, I believe, either Canon or Olympus. But then there was the camera that won the highest ratings from all the camera reviewers. The Nikon. And I’d always been a Nikon guy.
But this camera was a weird looking thing, with a twisting body type, and it had a decidedly uncool name. Coolpix 950. But I went with the consensus opinion anyway and honestly never looked back. Until now. 😉 In retrospect, it WAS a cool camera. So cool the idea of shooting a ‘Coolpix’ camera again, this time the allegedly fantastic Coolpix A, is an intriguing thought. It would be like coming home for me actually. Stay tuned. As an aside, I love that this blog gives me the opportunity to traipse through my entire photo history, dragging any visitors here along with me. So stay tuned for more of that, too.
Most if not all of these images would have been taken prior to 2004.
Ha ha ha! That’s from David Letterman’s writers, by the way. Runner up was, “Hey Dad, thanks for teaching me to smoke.”
Just my way of saying, Happy Father’s Day!!!
Learned today of the passing, not unexpected, of such a beautiful woman from my home town. She was way beyond my biggest grade school crush. She was a wife, mom, and young grandmother of an equally beautiful family. Gone way too soon. She was the consensus most beautiful girl in a town of beautiful women. I said that when I realized what was sitting behind me in the 6th grade it was like Columbus discovering America. Sad day for many people.
Another old Nikon street shot.
I took this shot about five years ago and have never really shown it to anyone. I think the reason for that is that I never thought I could adequately explain how amazing it is to me. I guess I’ve felt it needed explaining and I guess I’m finally in the mood now to try.
No part of the West LA area is really that bad. But this is nearly as gritty a corner on the Westside as there is. It’s directly underneath the intersection of the 405 and 10 freeways, which is to say, the junction of the two busiest roadways in the United States of America. There are homeless people camped out under the overpasses and exit ramps. It was fairly late in the evening. The feel there at that hour is probably worse than the reality. Or vice versa. Who really knows?
I travel by that way innumerable times a year. At any hour, but especially late in the evening, the very LAST thing you would expect to find there is three truly lovely sisters, possibly triplets, on bicycles, cooling their jets waiting for the light to change. Trust me, you just don’t see this in LA at that hour. In most of Los Angeles, they kind of roll up the sidewalks. That’s a common complaint of people from New York and elsewhere who have moved to LA from cities with a more active night life.
I’m a man. The car was being driven by my lady of 38 years. We both were like, DID YOU SEE THAT? And then she asks, Did you GET it? I don’t know how I got it. The green light was with us and we never even slowed down going through the intersection. I probably was pre-focused to some degree and the amazing Nikon D3 sang the song. I put the camera to my face, framed the ladies and slammed down the shutter release. It just happened. It’s one of those moments that makes me so happy that I had a camera, not to create some work of art or anything like that, but just to capture the natural beauty I witnessed there at the grimy and otherwise unsightly corner of Sawtelle and Pico Blvds that night.
Alone, a younger man, I would have probably slammed on the brakes and went down the line asking for their hands in marriage. Because these sisters are not afraid of the dark or probably anything else. I thought maybe there was someone filming them, like a reality show or something. Truly gutsy young ladies. And reason #90454 I’m glad I never had children.
I know it’s Polish model Joanna Krupa. But I don’t understand the photography aspect. Can’t be paparazzi, they’re too geared up and professional and paparazzi would have NO interest in whatever her name is. Can’t be a photo shoot. Photo shoots uh.. usually involve ONE photographer. Why would there be so many photographers fighting for a shot? Of Joanna Krupa. I just don’t get this. Someone enlighten me please. The only thing I can think of is that she’s got a really good publicist and it was a slow day in pseudo-celebrity land.
I got food poisoning yet again. This time it landed me in the hospital. I’m out now and feeling better but still have no oomph to post to the blog. Please forgive my absence for a bit while I get my oomph back and thank you everyone who visits, follows, and ‘likes’ here on 50lux.com.
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Okay, I officially don’t like the reblogging button here on WordPress. So I’m rePOSTING this post from last summer.
Throwing a bunch of pics up that have been given the Instagram process. Even though none of them were taken with my iPhone.
Someone just paid that much for Barnett Newman’s “Onement VI”, a painting which consists of two vibrant blue rectangles neatly divided by a single, light blue line, an arrangement that Sotheby’s called “a portal to the sublime.”
Won’t someone please kindly pay Barnat Donald a million or so for this fine image taken late last year entitled “Is This Leica a Righteous Bitch to Focus Already? #10465”
Since so few people actually were visiting 50lux.com in the early days, and yet that was when I posted some of my better older images and stories… I’ve decided to REBROADCAST some of my better efforts. If Mad Men and Breaking Bad can do it…
This is a very different picture of people in a car than probably anything else I’ve ever captured. In many ways.
When I saw it and shot it, I didn’t really expect that it would have the glow that popped up on my D3’s LCD. But sometimes light and a piece of glass like the legendary 85mm 1.4 Nikkor D combine to create something that goes beyond what we could reasonably hope for when we snap that shutter.
It is of a place and of a people. California, and Cali-fuckin’-fornians. There they are. I got them and I’ve brought them here to show you all, like pretty tropical birds in a zoo. Only, in this case, it’s just an old T-Bird, but whatever.
That’s the stereotype right there. Straight blond hair that’s sun and saltwater bleached to go with that classic black California license plate. But of course!
You know…
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I very briefly shot women’s soccer a few years back. I wasn’t very good at it. I don’t think anyone noticed. Certainly nobody complained. But after the league’s inaugural match here in Los Angeles there was a short euphoric moment when fans and the press gathered near the tunnel and got to get up close with some of the truly greatest women’s soccer players in the world, including the consensus greatest player of them all, the Brazilian marvel known simply as Marta, pictured above and in the last two shots.
Metropolitan Opera, 1951
“Mr. Winogrand had no patience for the phony sympathies he thought connected too many photographers to their subjects. In the exhibition catalog, Mr. Rubinfien writes that the most successful pictures, in Mr. Winogrand’s mind, were the ones “that told you that the world was a jumble of fragments, that the truth was more complex than any account could be.”
Okay, that first one is just to give you the general idea. Here’s the kicker.
Men can say something is ‘orgasmic’ can’t we? If not then disregard the use of that word by me. 😉
Point is, it’s almost like that. What specifically am I talking about? What’s so special about shooting Leica that is different than other cameras or systems? MANY things, but I’m thinking of one in particular.
The other night we jumped up into Beverly Hills for a couple of margaritas at Chipotle on Beverly Drive. I brought the M-E and the 50mm 1.4 Summilux ASPH. Many great opportunities for low light shots along the street up there but, unfortunately, after two or three of those Chipotle margaritas I’m just lucky to be walking upright.
So I’m shooting some store windows etc. and the young lady I’ve spent my life with points to a window and says something effusively positive. But what’s behind the window is unlit and there’s a large store front awning shading the glass itself from any visible ambient light from the surrounding stores or street. So I go into the photographer’s speech about, well, honey, you don’t understand, there’s NO light here. It’s a nice display but your eyes had to practically adjust to even see it.
We photographers look for LIGHT, silly non-photographer. Etc.
Then I thought, well, of course, we can SEE it. So there must be some light illuminating it. So I have my camera on 800 ISO and I don’t even open the 50 ‘Lux all the way. It’s at f2. I stand very still, press the camera against my cheek. Dial the shutter till I get a solid dot. And then I watch something in my image as the shutter is open to make SURE I don’t move. That is the Leica Death Stare. Master it. Lock on an object and YOU WILL KNOW if you’ve moved and have to retake the picture.
Honestly, this has become one of the most fun things I do with my Leica cameras. I LOVE shooting at disgustingly slow shutter speeds. I’m not happy if I’m not doing it. It’s orgasmic.
The old photographic rule of choosing a shutter speed that’s faster than the focal length of your lens in order to eliminate camera shake? If you shoot Leica, you should know that, OF COURSE, this rule does NOT apply to you.
Not to be a jerk, but you SPENT that whatever thousands of dollars you spent to shoot this gear. And you’ve all too often heard people say… What’s the difference? What’s the point? It’s the photographer, not the camera!
Well this is a difference. A huge difference. And one of just many. I shot Nikon pro gear for most of the last ten years. A heavy D2Hs and D3 and D700. Massive lenses that jut out 6 inches from the body of the camera, and more. I wasn’t comfortable shooting less than 1/250 of the second! You’d BETTER adhere to photographic rules and guidelines like the one stated above. And then, hold your breath!
But with a Leica M-anything? Just never mind all that. It’s not your concern at all. If it is, you’re doing something wrong. The flatness of the M bodies and the slim center of gravity allow you to hold the camera firm against your cheek and there’s NO long heavy lens to teeter the center of gravity and blur your photograph.
And, as a result, you can practically make your own light. Yes, the light is bad. No, I don’t really care. There IS light, that is the only relevant point to a Leica shooter. We just have to operate in a different universe of expectations about how much is there and what we have to do with our camera to capture the light that is there. And these cameras do that like no other cameras on Earth.
The above shot was taken with a 50mm lens in almost no visible light at all. The shutter speed was 1/8th of a second. And I was drunk.
50'Lux 