Leica 50mm f1.4 Summilux ASPH

Untitled, Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, 10/2/16

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Sunday Color Sundae

“Tell Jackie to walk faster… ” – Repost

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Former press secretary in the Kennedy administration Pierre Salinger told a story that shows the late president’s wit when the press secretary came to the Oval Office with a problem. “Mr. President. We’re getting into trouble with women’s groups over the fact that the First Lady is always seen walking three steps behind you.” (paraphrasing there.) The president thought for a moment, then said… well, I guess you can figure it out from here. 😉

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Black and white night shots with the Leica M-E

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The issues shooting the Leica M9/M-E sensor at higher ISOs are well documented. But it should also be well documented that, when shooting black and white, you can forget those noise concerns almost entirely.  I very often will shoot JPEG FINE mode on the b&w setting when I make that decision to shoot b&w. I like the way they look and I always have since my first M9. I’ll tell the story of how I came to love shooting b&w JPEGs straight out of the camera some other time. But I love them. And at 18 megapixels in b&w, how much image data do you need? That was my attitude three years ago and it’s still my attitude today. Much more on that sometime soon.

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Girl Not on Bike – Repost

20130426-L1012827Have to be very careful what I call my blog entries lest I incur the wrath of the Internet. 😉

An Excellent Adventure – Reposted for April’s Fools

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Suggested Captions:

3. Please keep it down, ladies. People are trying to shop.

4. Is that P-Diddy?

5. I’m going to need a bigger Coke.

Deep Blue – Reposted from Jan 2014

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Click on image for larger version.

The Tender-Cruel Camera

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I’m linking today to an essay on William Eggelston called The Tender-Cruel Camera written by Thomas Weski. Here’s an excerpt.

The choice of subject matter seemed to some critics to be totally indiscriminate, as though William Eggleston has applied no criteria at all. ‘Eggleston’s photographs often seem to have been taken not by a photographer but by a motorized camera swinging around the photographer’s head on a string. Whatever happens to be in front of the lens when the shutter was tripped got photographed. Whatever was not, did not.’ But even this negatively meant criticism reveals a further important aspect of Eggleston’s work, namely his democratic approach to the subject matter. Eggleston speaks again and again of the ‘democratic camera’ which considers every object worthy of depiction. Naturally, this seemingly impersonal way of seeing things makes no distinction between ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’. In other words, William Eggleston does not operate with the usual visual hierarchies, but rather accepts those motifs which illustrate his concept correctly.

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Waiting for Jimmy

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Gestalt Moment (Detail)

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Crop from the image that launched my own moment of recognition here in California by the Los Angeles Center of Photography. The uncropped version of this shot was selected to appear at the LACP’s first juried Member’s Exhibition.

This is almost an example of photography that you can barely take credit for. lol. Who can claim to have created something that depends so much on the fact that this woman bought this jacket at some moment in her life probably years before I even bought the camera that took the picture.

How much does the image depend on the fact that this lady decided to wear this jacket on this day and be just at that very moment stepping from the sun into the dark shadow of a doorway? So the shot is almost a miraculous piece of luck.

That said, I think this crop captures the gestalt effect more perfectly than any photograph I’ve ever seen. I can’t take any responsibility for that because I’m sure it wasn’t my intention to make an image of that sort. I saw colors and contrast and a good subject and that was it until I looked at the image later.

Anyway. Hope you enjoy this! Thank you all for visiting!

Repost: Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 8/24/14

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Add Media: Repost from Sept 2014

L1062986-EditWe all see the button there. Imploring us to choose what we should post. What we should reveal to the world about the state of our art, work, and minds. I have probably a hundred images in my media library that were uploaded with the intentions of being shown but then something stopped me.

Usually it’s not just ambivalence about the image itself. But there’s a lot of that. I think what holds me up more than anything else is the matter of sequencing the images as a group which I think is always so key as to how they will or even should be seen or perceived. That is the hard part. And when images don’t go or make sense with other images, and in my case that’s probably most of them, it’s very hard to find a way to post them that works in my head.

Believe it or not. lol. But this blog has always been a reflection of those kinds of choices and rejections. I have to try to let go of that for a bit because I’m uploading now so many images to my WordPress media library that I am NOT using that I’m losing track of whatever plans I had for them or weak grip I had on something called organization.

So the point is, I suppose, to look for a lot of images and posts with images that don’t necessarily look like they should go together. At best. And thank you everyone who follows this blog and who ‘likes’ my posts or comments. I very much appreciate each and every one of you.

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Repost – Metro Stop: Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica CA

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Reposted: Pico Boulevard, Santa Monica – 03/07/15

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Dedicated to our friend Eric’s dad, a great photographer and father, who passed away this week.

Reposted: Weekend in LA (February 18, 2014)

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Dressed Smart in Beverly Hills

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