the high road to taos

i drove the high rode to taos today. some photos on the way up at chimayo, cordova and truchas. the taos pueblo was closed to visitors for sacred celebrations. skipped taos itself. the church has been done by everone. i presume they also patronized every candle shop in town while they were there. sunday traffic in taos is just as jammed up up as trafic in santa fe. would hvae been better to skip and headed straight for the Classical Gas Museum in embudo. what a place and free. talked to the owner/curator but didnt have the nerve to ask how he funds the place. i hope he has some renewable private energy source. the place looks like luna park inside.  

so so day, ready to head inside and switch gears to portraits in the am. all todays snaps with the A7r.  the ouside shots mostly with the Loxia 50, a couple with a 35mm and the museum inside shots with the metabones adapted Canon 24 TS-E. Once again faux Kodachrome color by CaptureOne.

click on my first and likely only ever cat snap to see the gallery. this is the second of the santa fe galleries. the first is acessible from the blog item immediately below.

how do you say rockville pike in spanish...

cerrillos road!  first impresion of santa fe was rockville pike - a 40 shades of brown reincarnation.  this southwestern version of the pike even merits two walmarts between the interstate exit and the hotel. if forewarned is forearmed then i was on the alert. on the alert not to go to the main attraction — the plaza.

i eventually drove through after i had found a different target... when i was kid i had a big tube of interlocking plastic blocks (way before lego hit the scene, the us scene anyway). they were called plastic city if i remember right. i have been po'ed at my mother for at least four and maybe five decades becuase i thought she threw them out. wrong, wrong, was i ever wrong — sorry mom.  obviously, walt disney swiped them and brought them to new mexico and historical disneyized the plaza with them. plastic, disney... heinous!

fortunately, the federal government was unusually helpful today via nps.gov and the national historic register. the big reveal was a neighboorhood historic district just south of plastic plaza.  perfect.  it is called the Don Gaspar Historic District.  no idea who Don Gasper is/was but the place is full of fabulous bunglows and pueblo revival houses. a few sport something called pen tile, a work product of the inmates at the once nearby NM State Penn. place was awesome, three is the charm, santa fe is now meeting expectations. not to mention the killer light. working small towns between here and taos tomorrow before the workshop starts in the evening.

as is usual practice a click on the snap below will jet you off to a smugmug gallery where a thinly edited pile of snaps awaits. all with the A7r and the Zeiss Loxia 50mm — at f/8 or f/11. profs to CaptureOne for the Kodachrome trickery.

 

 

Holy shit!

The first words out of my mouth and truer words have never been said. While Baltimore does great fireworks, tonites replay of the 1814 repulse of the Brits, was without peer, at least in my experience (and I have seen a fair number of these things) and truely over the top. Five barges, from Fort Mc Henry to the Inner harbor (normally we get two) plus stuff firing off buildings downtown. Simply spectactular.

Two galleries, one with a normal focal length (45mm) from the Sony A7r and a 70-300 on the Canon 5D Mk III. Could have used more cameras, although tonite, the Canon had a mind of its own, choosing settings I didn't know it had. So I couldn't handle two much less five.

As is usual on this blog click the snaps below to see all of the rest on Smugmug.

Pow! Bam! Kaboooom!

Oh, as nice as tonite was, today was pretty non-conducive for much of an airshow. Blue Angles on again tomorrow, plus a ton of other stuff in Patterson Park (the Gov and his Irish Band, Navy Sky Divers, ...). So more posts will be forthcomming.

45mm — Ft. Mc Henry on the left70-300mm

Cease fire

Between the Blue Angles practice and the real thing and then the fireworks some shots around the photography venue — the fourth floor porch, balcony whatever it is called. All wide open with the Canon 85 @1.2, on the A7r manually focused. Click on the snap for the rest.


On the Avenue

No, not that avenue.  Not really even actually an avenue but a street — 36th Street in Hampden, its sobriquet being "The Avenue". Up early for a holiday, not many others out. Since this wasn't meant to be a people kind of street excursion, it was good. Once again the A7r with the Nikon 20 in pursuit of formal composition. No shortage of leading lines.

Click on the snap below to see the rest on Smugmug.


The quintessential Hampden establishment

High Plains and Misdemeanors

A trip through what the USGS calls 13d - the High Plains, at least part of the part in Eastern Colorado.  First that and then Denver.  Four days with snaps, here is the rota:

Day 1: Genoa, Arriba, Flagler, Siebert, Vona, Stafford

Day 2: Cheyenne Wells, Kit Carson, Wild Horse, Hugo, Denver (from Hotel)

Day 3: Kiowa, Calhan, Ramah, Simla, Matheson, Denver (Lo Do and Da Vita HQ)

Day 4: Denver (Colfax in Goosetown, a few residential snaps, a few in Cherry Creek)

Click on the snaps below to see the contact sheets - The captions indicate the days.  Great weather, until the typical Colorado afternoon cloudbursts. All with the A7r and mostly with the Sony/Ziess 55 1.8.  The Denver Lo Do snaps with the Nikon 20. Back to the grindstone early in the AM.

Slow uploads from the hotel, so likely another hour before they are all uploaded.  Not very consistent with the thinly curated contact sheet approach.

Day 1: Vona, CODay 2: Cheyenne Wells, CODay 3: Ramah, CODay 4: Goosetown, Colfax Avenue, Denver

I have heard it said...

that Baltimore is the New Brooklyn. So Mark Supik, next door, has taken upon himself to adapt the title of Betty Smith's 1943 novel.  He is "building" a new tree in what he calls the Empty Tree Pit project. Continuing with the mid-centuy theme, ala Joe Friday you can get all the facts, right here at the Empty Tree Pit BlogSpot. I got an email from the Supiks the other day annoucing the effort, along with some encouragement to take some snaps — not like a lot of encouragement was needed. So click on the snap below to see the tree from almost every available angle. BTW, it is not clear from the snap below whether the local tree experts are ready to accept it as one of thiers.

Really cool this tree.  Apparently there are nine more segments to go.  Mark says they are all finished but he is only adding one a day.  I am off on the road for a few days so I guess it will be a lot taller when next I get to shoot it. Presumably it is going to take a wider agle lens then.

Shot with the a7r with the Canon 45 TS-E and the Canon 100 Macro.  A number of the 45 TS-E snaps are using tilt to diminish the background.

Maybe next time when that guy isn't watching

Road Trip

A dose of cabin fever, coupled with the desire to fix the Carrie Furnace no batteries fiasco of several years ago - so off to Pittsburg on a last minute whim.  Hmmm, maybe a little too underplanned.  Rain in the forecast for Saturday, a Pirates game across from the hotel and a ticket for a guided tour.  

Ugh, traffic worse than Manhattan (everything in P'burg is worse than Manhattan — unfortunately), steady rain Saturday morning and a Carrie Furnace pipsqueek with a severe napolonic complex - "guided is guided". Bagged the furnaces (both short and long term - over photoed now in any case) and set off to some backup sites.

The ball game provided a closed Clemente bridge (the northernmost of three matched self-anchored suspension bridges in a short six block space over the last half mile of the Alleghany.  The others heading south are the Andy Wharhol (obviously the same evaluation of the relative merits of the two waterbound cities) and Rachel Carson (apparently from just up the Ohio). Lots of bridge shots with PNC Park (didn't it have a better name before being commercialized) in the background.  A few more around the hotel (right at the downtown side of the Clemente bridge, wrapped up by a few in the morning rain in Historic (ahem) Braddock, PA.  BTW, General Braddock has his name splashed on pretty much everything that doesn't say PNC on it in the greater P'burg region and out to very exburbs.

From there US 30, to US 119 and finally US 40 back to Cumberland, MD and the stunning I68 for the sprint back to B'more.

Lots of lenses in the bag but only the Nikkor 20 and the Canon 45 TS-E saw any use on the A7r. Pretty much trying to stay in the Friedlander mode with the 20, less sucessfully, faux Stephen Shore and Walker Evans with the 45 TS-E. One Evans knockoff in Mt. Pleasant of the WWI memorial (see below).  The towns along 119 surprisingly have very vibrant downtowns and for some unknown reason a plethora of Marriott properties. That intersection looks like a combo that will get worked, starting in the fall. Three F. L. Wright houses in the vicinity. All within in about a three hour drive of home. All good.

Four galleries, two each for P'burg and the US 119 corridor, split in B&W and color.  Color is pretty much done, B&W are just getting started. Click per the snap captions to head off to the respective gallery.

Click for P'burg Color gallery

Click for P'burg B&W gallery

Click for 119 Color gallery

Click for 119 B&W gallery

Getting drugs...

some Rx needed refills, so off to CVS on Exeter Street in Harbor East. Brought the A7r but wasn't sure what was going to be available to shoot, so I put on the street-people/compromise Canon FD 28 f/2.0.  Looks like the Yankee fans have left town because the place was empty - like 1960's Kennebunkport on Labor Day afternoon empty. Nothing much on the street so it got pointed mostly up.

Click on the image below for the rest.

Four Squares...

not houses but sunflowers from the McKee-Besher Wildlfe Management Area in Poolesville, MD — cropped square. All B&W, the one below with the 14mm Canon, the rest with the 55mm Sony-Zeiss — all on the A7r.

Yesterday afternoon — not such a brilliant idea vis-a-vis traffic. Friday night in the summer on 95NB (avoided via MD-200 and US 29) and the Yankees playing the Orioles at a sold-out Camden Yards, unavoidable even including a eastern diversion to 895.

All B&W because everyone else's will be in color — the meetup photography groups are attending in regiment if not batalion sized groups. Only four because, well... the rest look like everyone else's even in B&W. Click on the snap below to see it and the other three bigger, if not full size.

p.s. Likely the sole "wilderness" excursion for the year. Will pass on the insects, back to the streets and alleys.

For some reason I thought I was facing north at 5PM. Clueless

End of the long weekend

Wanted some snaps to compliment the St. Magnus, Kirkwall ceiling shot.  Washington Photo Safari had an event today at the National Shrine in DC, so off I went. Got the two shots I wanted, botched a wider attempt at both becuase of the need to get out of the aisle fast. Anyway, a sucess vis-a-vis the original objective.  Wasn't much else that interested, kinda skipped the gift shop and the cafe, so worked some lines and a few Friedlanderesque shots that won't make Sister Anita James happy. As I recall that wasn't much of a regular occurance anyhow. And, hey, that is what it really looks like, the first glance from the official parking lot exit — right on the way from all of the coaches (buses).

All with the A7r and either the Canon 24 TS-E or the Canon 14. I guess I am pretty much a wide-angle guy these days, in fact probably a low-angle, wide-angle guy.

To zoom off to the rest of the snaps, click on the faux Friedlander below.

The National Shrine ala Lee Freidlander

Glyndon, MD — 4th of July

Went back to Glyndon again for the annual seven minute Fourth of July Parade.  Three fire trucks, three cars (a 20's ish antique, a minimoke and a 911T Targa - lots of diversity) three golf carts and then what looks to be half of the town with the kids on bikes and the adults walking their dogs.  The other half of the town is sittiing on their front lawn taking it all in.  Hah!

The increasing disdain for telephoto lenses meant the 5D Mk III and all of the longer stuff stayed at home. Took the A7r with the Nikon 20 mounted and the Zeiss 55 in a pouch. Shot it all with the 20, not such a good idea, really need some fore/middle/background interest to make the wide-angle work and so it didn't.  

The images I am willing to show are all, except for one, snaps of structures and mostly those I saw on the way out, I guess it took a while to get warmed up — the inbound structures snaps were as bad as the parade images. All with the A7r and the Nikon 20 f/f2.8 AIs at f/8.0 all converted to VSCO faux Tri-X 400.

The snap below likely the best of the lot, on Bultler Road in town.  Click here or on the snap below to see the rest on smugmug.

PS. Just noticed this snap wears a serial number of 30257. It was close to but not the last of the AM - that means over 30,000 snaps with the A7r since it arrived on December 3rd of last year. Hmmm, quite a lot of practice in a relatively short period of time

Aberdeen — Fittie, Esplanade and St. Machars

Snaps from Footdee or Fittie (if you wanna know look here), then Esplanade which abuts, then back to Fittie,a short drive to Old Aberdeen (site of the University) and St. Machar's Cathedral. Quick peak inside St. Machar's didn't look promising so just the outside.  St. Machars in B&W (because color didn't work) and Fittie and Esplanade in color (because B&W would be criminal). St. Machar's with the Canon 24 TS-E, everything else with the Nikon 20.

Once again contact sheet curation, resulting in 205 snaps between the galleries, 160 in color and 45 in B&W. Not so sure about the post processing as they were all done rapidly this afternoon, which even for me was a large number of snaps to run through.  Started out with 414 so only boiled down to just about half.

Click the snaps below and head off to the color (Fittie and Esplanade) and B&W (St. Machar's) galleries respectively — both images chosen because they are square which is the best aspect ratio for the blog format. The Fittie snaps start out slow but really get rolling after a while. Oh and finally, don't expect to see these colors on residences anywhere else in Scotland, where the paint palette is composed of 40 shades — of shit brown.

BTW, this is the second blog item posted in as many days, the Orkney gallery is linked to the last item, see below.

Fittie reflection

Across from St. Machar's @ Tillydrone House

Orkney B&W — First Pass

Well almost all B&W. One I wanted to show makes no sense as B&W the only reason for it is the colors — so it is in color. One hundred and twenty-four snaps, 107 from the Orkney workshop and 17 from a drive on the north coast of Aberdeenshire, all of those from Sandend which merits a trip back as today's vist was curtailed by a driving rain squal.  

All with the A7r, many with the Nikon 20 and the Canon 14 and 24 tilt-shift. Some with the Canon 45 tilt-shift and a lot fewer with the Sony 35 and 55 eMount lenses. Only perhaps one with the Canon 100L Macro. It seems that I am becoming a wide angle guy.  Some with the tripod, many not, if there was enough light likely handheld unless it required precision like the ceiling and Audi snaps. 

Will post some more from Aberdeen and surrounds before I leave on Tuesday.  Not sure when I will be able to go back through and post the color versions - possibly not until next weekend. Some of the B&Ws need aditional work, expecially, many of the windows in the St. Magnus Cathedral shots need blending with other less exposed images, as the single image versions shown on SmugMug have blown out windows, those will get done down the road as well.

As always click here or on the snap below to see the rest on SmugMug. 

The first night - about 11:15PM

OCD? Perhaps...

Yet more snaps — the third post and fourth gallery of the weekend. Short drive today, Mount Vernon and Station North Neighborhoods. Actually, the only images in Station North are from Graffiti Alley. Once again working lines and layering the bad on the good. Not going to get too many architects calling with comissions — quite all right with me. A7r with the Nikon 20 f/2.8 AIs again. This combo is likely to be the go to configuration until I get a prime in the 16 - 17mm range for the A7r.

Time to cut mats and foam core for four more snaps to join the eight already done in 12 Ikea 20"x20" Ribba frames. Well at least the frame and the glass is cheap. The rest is archival, Rising Museum Board with the prints on Canson Platine Rag. Tomorrow will be a blast hanging them all — six each on each side of the LR fireplace.

But for now, as soon as the mats are done, a Hendricks and tonic awaits — in a glass designed and sized for Guiness.

Click on the snap below or here to check out the rest of the snaps on smugmug.

Holiday Fizzle

Maybe an over statement because expectations were not high. A swing down to the District once again in the hopes of snaps of people drawn to the Mall on Memorial Day weekend. Not many there except for the rollng thunder ragamuffins — i much prefer the representation of the greatest generation than that of my own. A relatively quick loop; Lincoln, Vietnam, WWII, DC, MLK and FDR then skedaddle. Maybe I'll do better in the neighboorhood over the rest of the long weekend. I seem to be losing interest in all but urban opportunities. 

Anyway a gallery reachable from here or via the snap below. Once again working lines, shadows — and layers when I could create them. All with the A7r, this time with the Canon FD 28 f/2.0, the current lens of choice for people on the street.

This one comes hard upon last night's post so if you are checking per a update message, check the prior post out as well.

Long week in Manhattan

Up Sunday at noon, back Friday at noon. Photo Ops on Sunday afternoon and Tuesday evening. The rest of the time occupied with clients. Sunday walk from the Algonquin to the Hudson and back along the 40's, Tuesday along 44th to the east up Lex from Grand Central to Citicorp Center, then a zigzag route back to the Algonquin. Only about 250 snaps over both days — not many for me. Forgot the Mac at home so only some inital post processing done on the iPad with Photogene up there. Actually wasn't too bad. A7r Wifi and the Sony IOS app got the snaps into the iPad.

All with the A7r and the Nikon 20 f/2.8 AIs and finished in VSCO faux Tri-X 400 — cropped square. Most of the crops from the center which is what I am trying to compose using the grid in the Sony viewfinder.

Click on the day Sunday and Tuesday or the snaps below to head off to the smugmug galleries. Basically contact sheets, so a fairly large number of snaps in each.

Sunday afternoon Tuesday evening

Preakness Saturday

Has nothing to do with the race, only the date — thanks to Butts and Bettys for the reminder. Still working in the neighboorhood which seems to be evolving into the area south of East Baltimore Street, west of Patterson Park Avenue South, North of Aliceanna and east of Broadway. All with the Canon 14 although I am not sure that is going to yeild the quality of results I want until there is ultra wide native eMount. Maybe it is still my focus skills but I am not sure, missed several shots I was retaking — all becasuse of poor focusing. Lens or me? May need do more with the Nikon 20, although that seems too narrow.  

Snaps from Durham Street are ok though and that is the origin of the one below. Rest of them in smugmug here or click on the snap below.

Prints of these are working well at 15"x15" in 20"x20" frames. I especially like the latest ones on Canson Platine Rag. More printing on the agenda for this evening.