Street Stories: Coco

 Photography, street stories  13 Responses »
Oct 232009
 


Coco

This image has been hanging around in my camera for a couple of weeks now. I didn’t finish the roll until today. I’ve been wanting to tell her story, but wanted to wait until I had developed the picture. So, here it is:

This is Coco. She works for Bluegreen resorts, a timeshare seller, but not a very pushy one. She works in downtown Charleston at a place that was, I guess, formerly a camera store. It was called Kamera Korner. I was out shooting one day and noticed that my Leica’s battery had died. No light meter! Oh well, I’d have to wing it! I have since learned to place the shutter speed dial on “B” before placing the camera in the bag. If the shutter button is depressed, the light meter will not come on. Or, I could not cock the shutter, but I like to be ready!

I rounded a corner and happened to spy a store called Kamera Korner and figured that they would have batteries, but lo and behold, there was nothing there but the name, Coco, and lots of tourist information. Outside of the former store stood Coco. To say that Coco has personality would be, well, quite an understatement. Let us just say that she is vivacious and has much effervescence. She’s downright bubbly!

When I walked over she greeted me with a smile and we struck up a conversation. She was interested in my ‘old’ camera. :-) While we talked, she continued to offer potential customers discount tickets, etc, as they were walking down the sidewalk. As I have noticed with most street vendors, or businesses, most people will give them a wide berth.

Coco told me that most people ignore her, some are very rude, others cross the street. She said that it didn’t bother her because she has a pretty thick skin and if someone was rude to her, she knew how to be rude back to them ‘in a nice way’.

While we were talking, a young man from Hyman’s Seafood Restaurant, a couple of doors down, came by. Coco stopped him and suggested that I try one of the free hushpuppies that he was giving out. I did and it was fantastic. Probably one of the best that I’ve ever had, honestly. She, as you can see, helped herself to two. She says that she probably eats at least a dozen every day that they give them out. She also made the guy give me a discount coupon to the restaurant, which I have in my wallet.

We had a great conversation and then just as quickly as she appeared, she disappeared, back into the Kamera Korner for a break or something. I went on about my business and continued to shoot without batteries.

Most of my shots were pretty spot on. I guess that I had a good idea about the light. :-)

 Posted by Paul at 12:00 am  Tagged with: , ,

One of those weeks!

 Photography  6 Responses »
Oct 222009
 


It has been one of those crazy weeks where life gets in the way of photography. Usually, I can make time for photography, but this week, not so much. I’ve not developed or scanned any film in the last 17 days! Yikes! And, as I realized yesterday, daylight is becoming a very precious thing, especially for those of us who like to go out to the street and shoot. Sunset is now at about 6:39 PM and loosing about 1 minute in the evening each day.

If I leave work at 5:00, I can get downtown at about 5:30, which leaves me, technically, about one hour to shoot, but it turns out to be much less than that due to the numerous buildings that happen to be there. :-) Not that downtown Charleston has any large buildings, it doesn’t. It’s just that the angle of the sun is so low by the time that I get there that I have maybe 30 minutes to shoot. Perhaps I’ll have to load up with higher speed film, or, dare I say, get to work earlier so that I can leave earlier. Hmmm? I’ll have to think about that.

Not only is it the sunlight factor, it seems that most every day this week, I’ve had something that I have to do right after work. Today, I have to come back to the apartment to pick up a FedEx overnight package, sign some papers, and return it. The apartment closes by 6:00, which usually means about 5:45. So, were I to come here, get the package, and attempt to go downtown, it wouldn’t work. Downtown is 45 minutes from here. Sigh. Yesterday was my volunteer day, so that was out. Maybe tomorrow evening I’ll get to go and shoot. We’ll see.

I’m chompin’ at the bit here. I feel the need to get out and shoot, but life just is not cooperating. Sunrise isn’t until 7:30 AM. I would get up, go downtown, and do some morning shooting, but for the most part, there are only joggers in the morning. Not much to see. Also, traffic coming out of downtown and going towards work is nightmarish. Not a good way to start the day.

Oh well, I’ll get to do a lot of shooting next week when I go to visit Tom, The Photo Father. More about that later! :-) I ought to put myself in a massive backlog of film needing to be developed. At least I hope to!

 Posted by Paul at 8:15 am  Tagged with: ,

Is a picture worth a 1000 words?

 Photography  13 Responses »
Oct 202009
 


Day at the beach? Family? Baby’s first steps? Missing fathers? Same sex marriages? Sisters? Point & Shoot Cameras?

Continuing on with some more thoughts based on the Gary Winogrand video, I’m wondering if a picture is really worth a thousand words. Gary Windogrand said:

The fact that photographs — they’re mute, they don’t have any narrative ability at all. You know what something looks like, but you don’t know what’s happening, you don’t know whether the hat’s being held or is it being put on her head or taken off her head. From the photograph, you don’t know that. A piece of time and space is well described. But not what is happening.

In one respect, I would say that yes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but only in describing how something looks. I would have to agree that you can get little or no story from it. QBP rather solidified this point for me in her comment yesterday where she said:

For me, it depends upon what is presented. I think a photo can be as impactful, if not more, than someone’s writing. I was recently reading a blog where the author had written a series about a farmer who had to close his farm due to the corporate competition. He could no longer keep up. Although the writing was quite impactful, I found myself turning away and skipping over some of the many photos he’d taken to document the event. It was powerful, the sadness and emptiness captured in those photos. Painful.

For me, that ability to hit an emotional nerve with either the reader of the word or the viewer of the photo makes the difference.
–QBP

From what I can infer, she read the article, or at least part of it, then went to the photos. By the simple act of reading the article, or even the title of the article, she had context, was able to gather feelings about the article or situation, then looked at the photographs, which just added additional impact, allowing her to add her own narrative and feelings about the subject. If the pictures of the farmer were not included in the article, I would say that the article would have much less impact, but certainly more impact than photos alone; however, I would say that if the photos were in a spread by themselves, well, they would have just been photos of some farmer and no one would have a clue as to what they meant. Therefore, no narrative ability whatsoever.

I could go back to my photos of the poetry reading. Without the context of the poetry reading, the photos might hold up on their own, but as what? As I write this, I’m hit by another thought. This is probably why I’m not so attracted to photo-only blogs. There’s nothing to go along with the photograph to help me along, to frame it, I suppose. I want context. I can appreciate a pretty picture, or perhaps a disturbing one, as much as the next guy or gal, but give me some words with it and it takes it to a new level!

In the end, I guess that I’d have to agree with Winogrand 100% that photos have no narrative ability by themselves. Probably some of you would disagree. I’d like to hear your take on it. Can a photo stand entirely on its own as a narrative piece? I’m not talking about can a single photo evoke an emotion, I know that it can, but can it tell the entire story? Should it be able to?

 Posted by Paul at 7:57 am  Tagged with: ,

Lessons Learned

 Photography  11 Responses »
Oct 022009
 


In my job, one of the deliverable items from a software project is a document called: Lessons Learned. This document contains a list of things that you learned along the way that you believe would benefit another project. Some examples are: Get requirements before coding. Have the customer involved in nearly every step of the way, don’t add risk to your project by adding ‘stuff’ at the end, etc.

Tuesday’s trip downtown to one of the MOJA Arts Festival poetry reading was a first for me in a few of ways. First, I’d never been to a poetry reading. Second, I’d never been to the East Bay Coffee House, which was where the readings were taking place. Third, I’d never taken this particular camera, the M6, and shot with it indoors.

Things that I learned in no particular order:

  • Survey ahead of time: If possible, do a survey ahead of time. Make a visit to the location to get a feel for the lighting and seating. In this case, I really had no choice with lighting, but could have had a better seating choice. I would imagine that showing up early would work almost as well. I did show up early, but could have chosen a better seat.
  • Bring the right tools: In this case, a roll of 400 speed film would have gone a long way in getting better photos. Certainly, I’m not talking about composition, but I did have a few blurred ones do to shutter speed especially as the sun began to set. An earlier visit would have shown that this was an ‘intimate’ setting. In other words, very poor lighting.
  • Plan ahead a little bit, if possible: Had I known that I would want/need 400 speed film, I could have ordered some and had it ready. I have 5 rolls on order. They should be here Monday. I’ll keep them in reserve for just such a situation.
  • Seating: If possible, move around and find the best vantage point for what type of photos you want to shoot. Initially, I thought that I’d want to take photos of the poetess; however, it turned out that I was more interested in the crowds reactions to her poems, especially when I saw where they set up the microphone. She would be backlit! I would have taken a seat a bit further back and more to the left so as to see the maximum number of people. Also, a few of my photos had lens flare even with the lens hood on. It’s kind of hard to get good shots shooting into a backlit situation, as you can see. Getting a better angle on the window would have helped … perhaps.

Given that there were a few things that I learned, I was pleased with the photos that I took. I came away with a few that I really liked. Certainly, a couple of items could have been taken care of by using digital; however, it just wouldn’t feel the same. :-) I really like this process a lot. I don’t get the same feeling with digital. There’s nothing wrong with it, for sure, but I don’t get the same sense of gratification.

I’ll share more images in the coming posts.

 Posted by Paul at 8:13 am  Tagged with: , ,

Aesthetics

 Photography  9 Responses »
Sep 232009
 


For Earl: A 645e shot!
My friend, The Earl of Salisbury, brought up an interesting point in his comment to yesterday’s post. Earl said:

Paul, I’m going to toss my two cents into the ring and hope it doesn’t get tossed back at me. While recent photos taken with the M6 have been excellent, I’ve personally found there’s something I liked better about the earlier Mamiya 645e photos. They had a different feel and I can’t put my finger on the exact reason why they seem “better” to me–it may be a matter of personal taste. I’d be interested to see if anyone else agrees or disagrees.

To Earl, the 645e photos had a bit more appeal, but when tasked to find the answer of why, he couldn’t put his finger on it. It’s just like trying to define what quality is. You know it when you see it, but you cannot describe it. Now, I certainly didn’t take Earl’s pondering as an attack on my photography or way of doing things. Instead, I looked at it as more of a question to himself as to why he preferred one over the other.

It is in interesting question to try to get a direct, quantifiable answer to. Why is that when we see a particular color, a shape, sound, etc, it is aesthetically pleasing to us, but may not be so to many others? I think that what is pleasing to us comes from all of our past experiences and our preferences that we have built up over time. Who knows? It may be the more evident grain pattern in the smaller frame, the subject matter, even something so subtle as the format of the image that engenders a preference. The format of the 645 is 4:3, while the format of the 35 mm frame is 3:2. These are small differences, but differences nonetheless. Perhaps someone might favor more blurred background, while others prefer razor sharpness from front to back, side to side.

Personally, I like it either way. My only slight dislike, in the beginning, between the two was the apparent grain in the 35 mm film. It’s no larger than that on the 120 film, but it is just magnified more during the scan. However, I have since crossed that barrier and am pleased with both. Probably this weekend I’ll take the 645e and the tripod out for a spin. The shot to the right is from the Leica.

Earl, I had wondered what I was going to talk about today. Thanks for the post! :-)

 Posted by Paul at 9:48 pm  Tagged with: , ,

Leica M6: Impressions thus far

 Photography  12 Responses »
Sep 222009
 

This post has been put together over a number days, perhaps weeks. I have no idea when I will post it. It will sit in reserve for a while, I suppose.

A number of you are interested in my impressions of the Leica M6 that I recently purchased and I am interested in the ‘mystique’. First, how the heck did I even get here? A Leica? I must admit that I was influenced by Mike Johnston’s article about spending a year with a Leica and a single lens. I became intrigued. First, I went and purchased a film camera, a Mamiya 645e, shot that for 3 months continuously, then looked in my bag, saw a lot of stuff that I was not using that I could use to finance my Leica purchase, then just did it. Now I have it and I need to use it.

I’ve always admired simplicity in design, which was why I was so comfortable with manual cameras. Simple devices. With the Leica, it’s back to the ultimate in simplicity. It’s nice to know that I have a camera where even if the batteries were to die, I could keep on shooting. Pure mechanics involved here. Truth be told, I could do the same thing with a Olympus 35 LC/RC rangefinder, which I happen to have. But, I really just wanted to know what all the hubbub was about!

2009/09/08:
I have used the camera a couple of times: Once, in downtown Charleston; The other time when I was at home this past weekend. I like the heft and the feel of it. One of my friends, upon holding the camera, remarked: “It’s got some ass to it! It doesn’t feel cheap.” Translation, it’s fairly heavy for such a small camera. It feels solid. :-) That was my initial impression, too. Although expensive, it didn’t feel like I had to treat it kindly like it was some sensitive, high maintenance prima dona. Nope. This certainly feels like a workhorse, definitely blue collar.

The controls are very few. There is an aperture adjustment, shutter speed, and ISO. That’s about it. However, what more does one need?

The viewfinder is very crisp and bright, save for the times when I accidentally place my thumb on the rangefinder window and leave a smudge, but a simple wiping off of the viewfinder with a part of my shirt brings the brightness right back.

The only issue that I have with the viewfinder is that while using the lens shade for the 50mm lens, the lens shade gets in the way and cuts off the lower right corner of the viewfinder. This is a bit annoying. Now, I understand why pancake lenses would be useful. They’d stay out the way of the viewfinder. This would be especially useful for shorter focal lens that have such wide angles of view.

Film loading:
Many have heard the legend of how strange it is to load a Lecia. Well, it is strange, that is until you read the manual and understand how it works, then it is quite easy to do. Simply slip the film in, guide it into the take up spool, make sure that it is engaged in the sockets. Close the back, put the bottom back on and it never fails. My first load took about 3 minutes. The second about 1 minute. The third just a few seconds. What’s the difference? I found an online manual and read the instructions. Presto-Changeo-Alakazaam! Easy!

Focusing:
I’m getting better at focusing. Rangefinder focusing is a little different, but accurate … I find that zone, or hyperfocal, focusing is the way to go. It allows one to simply frame and shoot. What could be easier? At first, I was rather against it, that is, until I tried it. I’m not doing any sneaky shooting from the hip. I’ll put my camera to my face, frame, and shoot. It all happens in just a few seconds. This kind of shooting is interesting in that lots of times, you’ll be surprised at what you captured in the background. There’s not a whole lot of time futzing around trying to get the elements just right. The moment could be gone before you know it.

DOF:
This, I think, is the most difficult part to get used to. I’m used to looking through the lens and seeing what my DOF looks like. I rarely use a DOF preview, knowing somewhat intuitively what my DOF will look like at about the first 3 f/stops of my lens; I’m not there yet with the Leica. Looking through the viewfinder, everything is so bright, clear, crisp, and in focus. Nothing is out of focus, so there is no starting point to imagine DOF. You just have to ‘feel’ it. It will take a number of rolls of film and a lot of paying attention for me to figure it out.

2009/09/21:
Exposure meter:
So far, I’ve shot about 5 rolls of film. I’m not shooting just to be shooting. I’m taking my time with this. I’ve finally gotten used to how the shutter speed dial vs the exposure arrows work. If the left arrow is on, then you need to turn the shutter speed dial to right to get the other arrow to come on. Of course, the opposite is true: Right arrow on, turn left to make the left arrow come on.

Funny, there’s not a whole lot to say about this camera. It’s very simple in it’s design. My only problem that I’ve had with it is that it seems just a tad small for my hands, but it does feel good. As mentioned earlier, I tend to smudge the rangefinder window with my thumb. This only happens when I’m focusing. If using the hyperfocal method, it’s not an issue.

I’m curious to see how it compares to the Olympus 35 LC, whenever I get it back from its cleaning.

 Posted by Paul at 8:06 pm  Tagged with: ,

4 cameras?! WTF???

 Photography  16 Responses »
Sep 192009
 


Hi! My name is Paul and I have a problem … I collect cameras, sometimes unwittingly, unknowingly, and unintentionally! Well, that’s probably not so true about the unknowingly, etc. :-) About a year ago, more or less, I sold down my camera ‘stock’ to 1 camera, a Nikon D300. I don’t count the Canon Powershot point & shoot that I never use. Well, the other day I had a look and that one camera has now grown to 4! 3 film cameras, one digital. Huh? Say what? I know, I’m just as surprised as you are, maybe even more!

So, here’s how it happened: I’m going to blame the first film camera on Chris Klug for telling me about the the Mamiya 645e. Yeah, he came all the way from Arizona, at the time, twisted my arm, took out my wallet and made me order it. Honestly! He did!!! Well, after absolutely falling in love with medium format and those glorious negatives, then somehow, I got bit by the Leica bug. I think that I’ll point the finger at Mike over at TOP and his Leica for a year article!!! Yeah, that’s it. It’s his fault! You can’t trust those people from Wisconsin!

I thought: Hmmm, it would be nice to have a rangefinder. I’ve never shot one of those before, so I went to eBay, saw the price of the Leicas and decided to go with something a lot cheaper. I made a bid, $25, on a Olympus 35 LC rangefinder. I placed my maximum bid at $35, I think. During that time (7 days), I decided to treat myself to an extravagant expenditure, a Leica. After all, I had some glass to sell and could more than make up for the cost of the Leica, right?! (Yeah, Paul! Whatever helps you to sleep at night!!!). I had a friend in need who wanted to sell his camera to me and Presto! Changeo! I had a Leica.

Not a problem, right. I figured that I’d never get that other rangefinder for $25! Wrong! No other bids! We have a winner!!! Crap! Oh well, so that’s how I got 4 cameras. I’m waiting for the Olympus to come back from Camera Repair dot Com. I sent it in for a CLA, Clean, Lubricate, Adjust, which cost nearly 4 times what the camera did! If you’re going to use it, it might as well be in tip-top shape!

I plan to load the Olympus and the Leica with the same film, head to the streets, shoot both of them, and then let you try to decide which was taken with the Leica, and which was take with the Olympus! It will be an interesting test, to be sure! I’m interested in the outcome myself. Naturally, I will use the same developer/temperature/agitation on both batches of film.

Of course, I’ll have to photograph different scenes with each one because one has a 42mm lens, the other has a 50mm and you might be able to tell based on crop/object size within the image. I imagine if no one can tell the difference, it will amount to heresy and I may be censured by the Leica community for even suggesting such a test, let alone actually performing it! :-)

Stay tuned!

 Posted by Paul at 12:00 am  Tagged with: ,
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