surprising my folks for xmas

So today, instead of going to hang out with some lovely people in oakland, I got on a succession of planes and didn’t tweet about it or facebook or instagram. I was flying over some of my favorite parts of the country, southern Utah and the Colorado Rockies (not to be confused with the baseball team). Unfortunately, the flight gods were not kind, and there was a kid sitting next to me that was afraid of flying, so I only got to open the window in brief moments when he was absorbed in his movie.

I didi like some of the photos (below), but I couldn’t post them in the moment to Insta, where my mom would see I was flying and figure the whole thing out. So here they are on the blog instead, while I can’t sleep because timezones.

The second leg, the travel gods smiled and there was an empty middle seat in my row, on an otherwise full flight. I was surprised at how tired I was; I fell asleep while we were taxiing and woke up when we were descending into OKC. Claimed my checked bag, and then got into a Lyft from the airport and arrived here, and talked for a couple hours with my folks.

Some day, I may be able to sleep.

second batch of leica photos

Another 2 days, and 20 more photos. I gotta say, I love the lens on this camera. Summicron wide open is just a really nice look. The fine detail you get out of this system is just unbelievable. That said, highlights are still garbage and the meter is so bad; not just a little bad but super inconsistent. My guess is that they’ve biased it to underexpose to compensate for the highlight issue. My conclusion so far is that there’s nothing I can’t do with my Fuji by using it in aperture priority and shooting with lower ISOs.

The house across the way from ours. Different house, same fence. Sophia takes an important call. Kage? This little toy just cracks me up. Not Santa. Me, by Sophia. Real Champagne. Classy joint. Much less classy. They made me take my hat off after 10pm; something about gang fights. Sophie, towards the end of the night.

first pictures from the rented leica

So the first 24 with this camera have been a little rough. You might say it’s a little peculiar. I’m not used to an exposure meter that’s center-weighted (and don’t tell me to use the live view). It takes kind of a long time to wake from sleep. The truth is, though, for all it’s problems, I really like it.

This morning, for no reason I could discern, I woke up at around 6:30, and I could tell that there was light behind the curtains, so I figured right then and there was as good a time as any to take the new rig out for a test ride. (The first photo is from last night, but I liked it enough to leave it in the edit). I pulled on yesterday’s clothes and my boots and went for a walk.

I didn’t walk too far before hopping on the 72M bus, which took me north to Albany. I’ve been meaning to go shoot up there for the San Pablo Project. I got to shoot for about an hour. The light was super contrasty, and the camera had a tendency to underexpose that I’m not mad about, really. At the lower end of the ISO spectrum it’s got tons of information before it’s really clipped. Probably an extra stop over the in camera warnings. On the other hand, highlights clip like it’s 2006. I’ll have to do some actual tests if I get a chance, see where this thing actually clips at each end, and calibrate my shooting accordingly.

I look at these photos and I can tell right away they’re mine. But there are a couple (the green one with the reflections esp.) that I simply wouldn’t have gotten with a different camera. This thing encourages shooting wide open, something I really miss, and also the focusing mechanism is set up so that it can’t get confused by the near objects in front of you. If you can see it, you can focus on it.

Of course, I’ve had an hour with it so far. And then tonight at the gym I did something to my knee, on the MCL side, that made me get one of my crutches out for support. So, I might not get to do as much walking and shooting as I’d like. I’ll still be shooting, though. I’m here till the light goes out.

(update after day 2: yup, didn’t get out to shoot at all).

dinner club picnic

So, yesterday, when I finished scanning these and started looking at them, I got so excited about them I started texting them to everybody in them. Sort of forgot about the whole Instagram thing and just sent them out. Sorry, Edgar and Annie, for blowing up your phones. Then I remembered, and dutifully posted the top one.

I’m not sure why I’m so jazzed about these; it may be shooting with a real rangefinder is working for me, or it may be that shooting film agrees with me for some reason, but I suspect it’s neither of those, and mostly that I’m shooting candid portraits again. With the landscapes, with the street pictures, there’s no urgency; they’re pure exercises in form (the objectification and the problems therein are not lost on me; I have read books and written essays on the subject, but I digress). I suppose I shot those kinds of pictures because they were available to me, but I’m not sure it was actually a good direction. Portraits of people, that’s the ticket.

So, I’m gonna try to do that more. I spent a long time (the first 10 or so years I was taking pictures) hating on landscapes because I thought they were too easy, that exercises of form were beneath me. I don’t really think that any more; not because they’re harder than I thought, but because I’ve taken enough of them now and found it a good learning experience. A meditation, if you will. But portraiture feels really good, and so I’m gonna do some more. (of course the next set I have in the queue is all landscapes from Point Reyes, but there’s at least a good shot of my dad in it).

These photos are of the dinner club where we went to lake merrit and had I don’t even remember what, because I didn’t have any other camera, and I didn’t want to take a picture of my food with the film camera.