Firesticks in fading Tucson light captured with an early 1950s Thorium 50 mm Leica collapsible summicron lens. The light was interesting and the way the firestick plants lit and glowed as I saw with my eye. As seen through the EVF on my Leica M11 EV1 with a 1950s thorium collapsible summicron had a remarkable tone. This fire stick in my backyard is almost 10 feet tail grown from a small cutting it really likes the spot we picked for it.
A candid street shot from my afternoon outing today. One of only two shots that mad the cut today. But it was a beautiful sunny day to be out enjoying our city.
My only other image from yesterday. I had noticed the red bike and was focusing on that when this woman with an almost matching colored purse walked by. I liked the connection so shot the image as she passed. This street leads to the City Court House and she was very determined in her stride. I image she may be a Lawyer on her way to an appearance. She never acknowledged me in any way.
Today I was able to get out and shoot uninterrupted for a few hours. Turned out to be a very productive day for the Parma project. I saw this woman in red coming down the street from about a block away. Who could miss her, right? I was just getting ready to duck into my favorite Punjabi Restaurant for lunch so I wasn't really ready to shoot. So I had to scramble to turn on my very slow to boot M11 (Leica fix this please on the M12) and find a good background. Luckily I am in Parma and backgrounds are plentiful. This is what I managed to pull together. Almost no editing in this shot. I actually turned down the Saturation and Vibrance i LightRoom. Otherwise the red was just too intense. She kind of inspired me a little to go Communist, but no can't do that. 😜
Took some shots of a few of my kaleidoscopes yesterday for another "project". Used my SL2 with the 24-90 mounted on it. Nothing fancy, just used light from a window with my old slide Lightbox on the other side to try and even the lighting out a bit. Hung white paper in the background as the back drop. Shot off a tripod with a remote.
Not too bad for a spur of the moment setup. These are just a sampling from the 60 shots I took. I did forget to clean the sensor and lens before the shoot. So the shots taken at around f/22 showed the dust on the sensor against that white background, !
I am always on the lookout for interesting people when out and about. IT is a target rich environment here in Parma given the colors, architecture and the Italian love of style that is so prevalent. This pair of images were taken at the end of my shooting day yesterday. I saw the gentleman with the red scarf (I am somehow drawn to red like a Moth to a flame) coming towards me and had just seconds to set up and shoot the image. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw the woman coming out of the tunnel to cross in the other direction. So, I shot a quick image of the man, and then pivoted to take one of the woman. They were both walking quickly and neither acknowledged me. It sometimes amazing me how quick and agile shooting an M camera can be. According to the EXIF data these images were shot exactly 14 seconds apart. Manual focus, manual exposure. At times it seems that shooting M is as fast or even faster that AF/AE cameras. Or maybe I just get lucky sometimes. I plan on keeping these as a set, printing to display together, and in the book on facing pages.
brick33308 wrote:
these are great shots of Key West that I love. We're leaving in about 10 days, not returning until November.
Thanks Brick and we love Key West too. Haven't been in a while. We have an older dog that doesn't travel well and because she has some health problems we don't feel comfortable leaving her with others. But we'll be back there as soon as we can.
An Argentinian friend of mine here in Parma owns an upscale tattoo parlor. He and his staff are very talented artists. A couple of them asked me to take a picture for them. I decided to do very different styles rather than give each one the same basic composition. The interesting corner was right outside the parlor's front door. So, despite the cold I had him strip from the waste up to show his tattoos and made the image. The B&W was made in the waiting room under vary harsh multi colored LED lighting. B&W was the only way to handle it.
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