Allergy Season

It's not hay fever. It's just an itch that keeps on itching. And it's not going to stop till I scratch it. I stopped into the Leica Store on West Broadway to look at the different options that are available full frame. The M Monochrome looks really yummie. So, either Saturday or later in the week I'm going to bring my Leica 35mm f2 lens with me and take the camera out for a test run. Then I can take the SD card home, plug it into my software, and be either over or under-awed. In either case my itch will be assuaged, and I'll either plan to purchase the camera or forget about it, done, for eternity (maybe).

Now that the weather has become so spectacular in New York, I plan to be out shooting often. So I need to get caught up on my cataloguing and processing. I've already got several weeks of shooting to catch up on, and it's only going to get worse. So here's a set of random shots from the past week.

Women, expressive hand gestures, wild hair, cigar smoke, the city is jumpin' with stuff:

Shooting With my two X's

If it were my two exes, the title might have been 'Shooting my two exes. But the title refers to my two Fuji X cameras - the X-Pro1 and the X-T1. The weather on Monday was perfect for shooting. The light was soft and there was a breeze to help things look more dynamic. I took a long walk from Penn Station up and around and back down to Penn Station - about 5 miles.

It's been said so many times before, but bears saying again. The camera is just a tool. It's a box made of plastic or metal with some sophisticated mechanics and electronics. I need to say that for myself because to be honest, when I read on the Fuji Rumors site about a whisper that the X-Pro2 could be a full frame camera (for which the current x-mount lenses will not fit) my brain and guts started to churn - OMG what to do? Then I got out to shoot for a couple of days. The two cameras I have now feel great in my hands, they and the lenses I have work well for the type of shooting I do, and the image quality is really fine. I'm good with that.

But .... there's a tug of war about which body to pick up. I love the rangefinder feel of the X-Pro1, and the optical viewfinder works great on the street. I love the compactness of the X-T1 and the electronic viewfinder doesn't give me what the OVF does, but it has its own merits. And the X-T1 responds much faster. As I've worked the cameras in tandem, their strengths and weakness become clearer and I've refined my expectations of the tasks that each performs.

The first three shots were taken with the X-Pro1 and the 14mm lens. The fourth image was with the X-T1 and the 10-24mm zoom lens. When I had my Nikon D700 I used a full frame 14-24mm zoom, but hardly ever shot at the super wide angle focal lengths. With the 10-24mm zoom on the X-T1 those focal lengths just seem so much ore natural. The lens has no barrel or pincushion distortion, but shooting super wide naturally elongates elements of the image near the edges, which can be mitigated only slightly. But the lens is a killer! There will be more to come.

The LOOK (1):

The LOOK (2):

The LOOK (3):

Lock Step:

I Was Framed!

Last Friday I took my Fuji X-T1 in to the repair facility in New Jersey to have a light-leak defect repaired. Today was the first day I had to get out and shoot with it. The fix for the problem must have required the settings to revert back to default. So re-customizing the camera to my preferences was a process of trial and error. By the end of the afternoon I thought I'd managed to get everything back to my personal settings .... except for one. I always shoot RAW, but the default setting for the camera is for 'fine' JPG. I didn't realize there was a problem until I loaded the images from the SD card into my Lightroom catalog. This is the first time since I've been shooting with either the X-Pro1 or the X-T1 that I shot JPG. This image is SOOC (straight out of the camera) with no post-processing.

I'm quite impressed. Nice to know I can get this kind of quality without having to shoot RAW. But I'm still going to shoot RAW anyway. I like to work with as much data as possible.

Some Shots on a Cold Spring Day In NYC

Too cold in NYC yesterday to have much fun on the street shooting. If this were January I'd have been OK with it, but the end of March?

So I took a bus, shoot me!

Leaning into the wind:

Don't you have anything better to do but sit out here in this cold and annoy people?

Wrong finger, babe:

Garry Winogrand Retrospective

I had the very good fortune to view the Garry Winogrand retrospective that is currently on exhibit at the National Gallery in Washington D.C. The show originated in San Fransisco, and after Washington will travel to the Metropolitan Museum in NYC, then on to Paris and Madrid. Presented as part of the exhibit in Washington was a twenty minute video excerpted from a talk that Winogrand gave at Rice University in Texas. I first found the excerpt on YouTube, but after some searching discovered the entire talk. Winogrand is very outspoken about his estimation of Robert Frank and Walker Evans, and about his disdain for Bruce Davidson - which was fascinating to discover. There are gems and jewels throughout the more than 100 minutes of the video, well worth the investment of time to watch.

There is an extensive book available on Amazon covering the show, but as usual, actually seeing the actual prints in the show is a much more moving experience. There are images in the book that were less than impressive, but the actual prints look much more dramatic. And after seeing the video I understand how drama and visual poetry play an integral role in Winogrand's work.

Last week while visiting one of my usual spots for street photography, I ran into a fellow streettog and we both saw the same image at the same time. Interesting how different our takes on the moment were. Here's mine -

Almost, But Not Quite .... Spring

When, oh when, is it going to get here! I was in Washington D.C. over the weekend and Saturday was absolutely glorious, as it was in NYC (so I heard). Last week I was on the streets on a bitter cold day, but just couldn't deal with it today. One more blast of weather Tuesday night and then no more. Right?

Here's some couples I caught on that cold day last week.

Almost Spring

It's in the air. Warm-ish days are bringing the people back out on the street with fewer layers of clothing. I've been busy the past week, and no letup in sight, but time enough to do my flaneur thing. Just about have worked out how to use the X-Pro1 and X-T1 in tandem, but when I get the new Fuji 10-24mm f4 zoom lens, I may have to start all over again. Definitely a first world problem.

Body language:

Oh those cigars, love 'em:

That hair!: