Packards

Rumor had it my grandfather had a thing for Packards. I can't verify that as there is no one to ask and by the time I was around he wasn't diriving at all. Anyway at car shows I am attracted to them so when I had the opportunity to pop into the American Packard Museum in Dayton, OH earlier today I grabbed it.

Was outside of Cincinatti with a couple of days of meetings with a client and some potential suppliers.  We knew we were going to end early today and I had shifted to a 5PM flight from Dayton last night. Turned out we ended even earlier than planned and I had a couple of hours to kill. The Dayton airport isn't competitive with Schiphol so I looked for a photo op along the way. The first thing that appeared were some native american mounds. Interesting architectuarlay but not all that much of a thrill photographically. Next up were some NPS sites in Dayton that featureed an odd combination of the Wright Brothers and Paul Lawerence Dunbar, after whom many inner city high schools are named, a big cheese afro-american poet. That didn't much appeal either but lead to the USAF museum at Wright Patterson. I would have settled for that but planes, especially military planes, aren't my favorite either. So as a last stab I did a search on 500px for Dayton and a series of shots of Packards showed up. After a couple of google searches, I had a target. Five bucks to get into what was a Packard dealership with a bunch of cars in two buildings. Plenty of value for the fiver.

As usual the A7r was in my briefcase along with the FE 35 and FE 55. So I walked out through the museum with the 35 mounted, switched to the 55 and walked in. Was great and I still had enough time to do some initial scoring at the gate waiting for the flight. Did some in color initially but the mixed incandescant and daylight was not yeilding great results so I wound up doing them all in B&W.

As usual click here or on the snap below to be taken to the smugmug hosted gallery.

 American Packard Museum — Dayton, OH

Uncurated

Today resulted in 498 images without the usual bracketing — a whole lot of snaps.  I had planned to go to the Museum of Industry but figured I would be in and out in an hour or so.  For some reason I was up early, early enough to park just off the Lincoln Memorial Circle just before 7:30.  The natural first stop was the Lincoln Memorial looking for shadows, that was followed up by the Korean, FDR, Jefferson, WW II, Vietnam and a revist to the Lincoln. After that it was a visit to the two Union Markets, the one missing letters in its sign and the one that got lost on its way to New Caanan, CT. After grabbing some lunch and a loaf of rye, Charlotte got pointed north to Museum of Industry. The earlier prediction was right about an hour stay — possibly abetted by free admission becuase of the prescense of a robotic contest.

The 498 images didn't get cut by much and I am not feeling very ruthless and the Florida/UConn game has just started. As usual I am recording it but I am not inclined to get too far behind tonite. So 200+ images from all the venues all stuck in one giant sized smugmug gallery. The intention was to shoot strangers but I wound up with some of them, some statues and some museum exhibits.  There are no cherry blossom snaps for two reasons (i) they aren't out yet and (ii) I wouldn't shoot them even if they were. There are plenty of other people shooting them — if you are interested try Flickr. I am only interested in the cherry blossoms as fly paper to increase the number of strangers around DC strreets and the mall.

This time of year is also when the honor flights come to the mall bringing vets to visit memorials. I happened across a groups of Korean and WW II vets.  The shot below was taken going into the Pacific end of the WW II Memorial.  The guy's name is Frank Mastrella, he is from Rochester, NY (from his name tag). The woman told him that she was sorry he was going home becuase other wise they had a date tonite. I blew getting the shot of her planting one on his dome. For sure it is the best shot of the day.

Lots of narcissism in this gallery with a pretty large number of shadow selfies ala Lee Friedlander. Click here or on Frank's snap below to see the entire uncurated bunch. All in B&W — too many Friedlander books I guess.

Best I can figure, that was an interracial, same sex marriage at ~ 8AM at the Lincoln Memorial.

Now that they have uploaded, it is clear I need to scrub out the dupes and the out-of-focus snaps.

Frank Mastrella, Rochester, NY Honor Flight Mission 33

Quick trip to NYC

Up late monday afternoon — back down just before 6PM on Tuesday. Two photo opportunities and a client meeting. All the photos with the a7r and the FE 35mm.

First group, right after arriving at the Algonquin, along 44th Street and 5th Avenue from 44 to 54th. The second while they were retrieving Charlotte from valet parking.  Most from Bryant Park, a few from Fifth and a few more from 44th. The rest out Charlotte's open windows and sun roof until the battery quit around 23rd Street. Click on the snaps below to check out the galleries — including several mirrored selfies. Hah!

Rock around 30 rock

Erstwhile Needle Park

Once again a rainy day...

today worse than yesterday. The camera into a taped and rubber-banded baggy pending the arrival of a more official and costly wrapper. Was counting on the dog owners to need to go to the park. Only a few out but almost a 100% of the encounters although I botched most of them with lousy camera settings. Didn't spot anybody else with a camera — going to figure out this "get what nobody else gets" sooner or later. Today's experience would say you don't need to go to Patagonia to snap solo.

Took only the "weatherized" A7r with a 35. Just that and one of those $200k umbrellas. Despite or maybe in-spite of limited personal precautions — soaked again. Nothing a bloody won't fix.

Prepped camera

The only color snap, the gallery is all B&W.  Click here or on the snap below (clearly the best of the lot in color or B&W) .

Prepped umbrella

The day before Paddy was stretched...

or something like that. Was hoping for a replay of yesterday's gorgeous weather. Got into Charlotte and quickly discovered all the windows down and the sunroof open which were quite inconsistent with this afternoon. Off to Harbor East for some casual architectural stuff with a planned foray over near the aquarium. Turns out B'more celebrates St. Patricks Day with a parade today - presumably because Philly's was yeterday, freeing up a large number of string and High School bands to travel an hour and half south.

So took some architecural stuff (mostly the black and whites) and the parade (largely the snaps in color). Wrong camera for the parade, the A7r,  the 5D Mk III would have been a far better choice but then who knew about the parade. Once again travelling light and once again started out with the Canon 28 f/2.8 IS and moved on to the FE 55.  The FE 35 once again just filled my pocket.

Wasn't the niceset weather, got pretty raw by the end, knocked the chill off with a visit to Paco and some Hendricks.

Half a hundred or so on smugmug, click here or on the parade snap below. For those of you just getting around to looking after Saturday's email alert those snaps are below — was a prolific weekend.

Completely wrong color for a March 16th parade.

Graffiti Warehouse

meetup.com surfing uncovered a photo event today at Grafitti Warehouse here in town. There is an ally behind the building where it is legal to paint grafitti. A lot of the snaps and I think the best of them came from the ally. Inside, more grafitti and sudios — today a model/photographer event. Turns out I was more interested in the structure than the models. At $20 it is cheap by inside building access for photography standards. Lots of dude photgraphers and a few dudettes all with pretty much the same stuff taking the same shots of the same models (looked like a different version of the eagle shooters at Conowingo). I always try hard not to do same. So no flash and no tele lenses — not that I actually own a flash. Turns out it is pretty boring, very unlike street photogrpahy no adrenline rush — like shooting fish in a barrel. Also, a gazzilion photographers... along with doing something different I prefer to do it alone. Lastly there is the creepy feeling. Not likely to do this kind of stuff again. First time = last time.

Anyway, some interesting snaps of the alley, parts of the building, the expected stuff and some street-like shots of the players, the later being the most fun to shoot.

Was going to haul a lot of stuff with me but in the end went light, the A7r, Canon 28 f/2.8 IS on the Metabones, the FE 55 and the FE 35. The 35 never made it on the camera. Started out with the 28 and the snaps on the way in were with this and a few early ones inside. With photographers all over the place I needed more length to keep them out of view (pretty rude bunch stepping in front too) so on went the 55. A good chunck of the 55 snaps were with the Zeiss Softar I soft focus filter attached, they are pretty easy to spot. As usual one snap here, the rest on smugmug.  Click here or on the snap below to head off to the gallery.

Ingress

The same but different

Once again a same place but differnt from last week. Had intentions to try some street shooting in DC, DuPont, M Street, wherever. Just find it hard to think of shooting strangers on the street in DC — not even Philly action much less Manhattan. Got a late start, traffic cross town in B'more was slow, so said the hell with it and headed closer.  To Ellicott City.

That gym stuff must be working becuase I saw a lot more of the place today, mostly the up part of it. Place is really in a gulch, no wonder it gets hammered with flash floods. Nobody on the streets to speak of so settled for the usual structural stuff. Finished up at Birroteca with a Kale Salad and some other stuff not quite so on the recommended list.

Click here or on the snap to see a bunch in a gallery over at Smugmug.  All with the A7r — travelled very light just the FE 35 and 55. Is nice. All processed with VSCO faux Kodak Gold 200.

It was the same old song...

same old walk, same old snaps, same old song. Saunter down to Fells Point and hike back up.  Always seems to be the same stuff that attracts. This time with the A7r and the FE 55 on the way down, the FE 35 on the way back. A polarizer on the 35. I guess the A7r has found a home — right at 10,000 clicks in a week less than three months.

Click here on the snap below to see the gallery.

Modernism along alley street

Marietta on Susquehanna — Redux

Back after quite some time to Marietta, PA.  On the Susquhanna River in Lancaster County. This was a backup location to the Ephrata Cloister, deeper into Lancaster County, which was not appealing given the weather.  This was last visted a number of cameras ago with the Canon 10D in Septmeber of 2005. Was probably time to go back if for technical improvement reasons only.  A few more pixels with the A7r at 36MP vs the 10D's 6MP.   The place hasn't changed much, still rather strange, caught between restoration aspirations and just plain rundown. Proximity to Three Mile Island might be part of the reason.

A favorite snap from 2005 redone below.  Click it or here to see the rest on smugmug.