Who are all these people? lol. Looks like… hmm. Maybe, maybe not. Who’s to say? A bunch from the Nikon days.
My Paparazzi
street photography
“Tell Jackie to walk faster… ” – Repost
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. 😉
Black and white night shots with the Leica M-E
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.
Man stalks the urban jungle… (repost)
I always feel like somebody’s watching me
Wilshire Blvd Gatsby – Redo
Frappuccino Pirates – Reposted
Feeling the California Light – Repost
Nikon D70: My First DSLR – Reposted
I’m going through some archive realignment ordeals lately but the upside is I am relocating older images as I go. These were all taken the few months with what was then a really hot number, Nikon’s big splash in the consumer enthusiast DSLR market, a camera that was a true game changer, the D70. Anyone remember custom tone curves?
Here are some of the shots I’ve always remembered for various reasons.
Student Crossing – Reposted
Hooray for Hollywood – Repost
At any moment, it will always still be the 1920s in Hollywood. The light will never change. There’s nothing like the light in California. Throw on the right costume on the right bodice and hit the DNG with the right vintage black and white filter and anyone can be Mary Pickford. If only for a moment. The girl with the tattoo? That’s another story entirely.
Untitled: Pico Blvd, Santa Monica – Reposted
Walk of Life – Repost
Contemplations on a Tree – Again!
Camera Corner – Repost
I shot an M7 with tons of drug store film for two years, scanned the negatives with a Plustek scanner. I think that impacts or influences my choices in post processing. Images like this look a lot like some of my film scans in similar light. Colors are maybe a little punchier. They don’t, at all, look like or remotely even remind me of the color results I got from my M9.
You’d have to ask the manufacturer of the camera as to why that might be. 😉
There seems to be so much mystery surrounding this subject in terms of clear and exact information from Leica. But that’s okay. I don’t care. For the most part, I remain very happy with the color results I get from my M-E. Every once in a while I seem to run up against a dead end where I can’t seem to shake the weird color casts, but that’s actually rather a rare occurrence. Happy times!
Pondering the Infinite – Reposted
A Day in the Life – Reposted
All That Thing Called Green – Repost
All That And He Reads Books, Too. Reposted!
Rodeo Dr. and Santa Monica Blvd (Repost)
Look! – Reposted
An Excellent Adventure – Reposted for April’s Fools
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.
Not the Last Saturday in March (2014)
Hollywood Blonde – Reposted
For me a breakthrough image taken and posted here early in 2013. One of the first images where I was able to come up with the approach to color that suits me and this type of shot in this light… but also one of the first shots from my Leica Elmarit 90mm f2.8, which is a gem of a lens in terms of color and overall look. Anyway, thanks for looking!
Clusters of People, Downtown LA – Reposted
The Graphic Landscape Reposted
Greetings From La-La Land – Repost!
Ascension – Reposted from 2014
Western Life Reposted
And as usual, someone watching me… repost!
The image above is mine. The words are William Klein’s but I can certainly identify with them . He says this in an amazing contact sheet analysis film I’ve included below.
Everyone with an interest in photography should watch it and should look on YouTube for other contact sheet discussions by photographers like Sebastião Salgado and Josef Koudelka.
As always, thank you for looking.
The Tender-Cruel Camera
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.
No Comments Will Be Permitted Today
Gestalt Moment (Detail)
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!
Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, December 2012
Wilshire Boulevard Bustop, Beverly Hills, December 2012
Leaning In
My Little Light of Mine
Soldier of Fashion
Hollywood Boulevard Tableau
In Cognito
Repost: Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 8/24/14
Untitled, Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica
Sisters Reposted: Beverly Drive and Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills
Shadow Reposted: Westwood, CA
Untitled: Pico Boulevard, Santa Monica, June 25 2006
Comfortable – Repost
Add Media: Repost from Sept 2014
We 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.
Repost – Metro Stop: Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica CA
Return of the Mack – Reposted!
Repost: Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, November 2014
Viewers of Landscape
Each landscape is formed by the point of view of the spectator; it is a spiritual experience, the reflections of a culture. In a sense, therefore, the photographer first has to make a portrait of the people who muse over the landscape they behold. In thus placing himself behind them, he expresses both complicity with the natives and irony towards the invaders.
– Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1988
Magnum Landscapes
PHAIDON – 1996
50'Lux 