I went to the Albuquerque Railyards to see the 2926 locomotive which had made a short trip there from the restoration site across town. While awaiting the tracks to be made accessible to spectators I decided to walk through the site to look at the big buildings that comprised the repair facility many years before. To my surprise, the doors of several of the building were open and there were none of the usual guards to deny entry to visitors.
We awoke to heavy clouds and wet streets. It seemed a perfect day to visit the Rio Grande Zoo with my Spotmatic and the 75-230mm Yashinon zoom. The big old lens retains good sharpness even wide-open, but the lens' f/4.5 aperture and the not-too-bright screen of the SP makes finding the perfect focus point a challenge. With the zoo animals always in motion, one is never sure if the decisive moment made it onto the film. At the end of my visit I was really uncertain what my scans would reveal. As I pulled out of the zoo's parking lot in my truck I switched on the radio, and there was Dave Brubeck playing Take Five ! I took it as a good omen.
 |
| Complaint |
 |
| Pretender |
 |
| Snack |
 |
| Bird Watching |
An ill spent couple of hours in Old Town. Nice overcast light. A camera and lens that have always made nice pictures for me. I'm tempted to blame the results on the film having gone through at least two airport x-ray scans. More probably, I was just careless with my shooting technique.
New Mexico's intense summer sun can often overwhelm photographic aspirations. Some respite can always be found in Albuquerque's Botanical Garden. I went there on a Friday morning with my twin lens reflex Yashica-Mat.
When I return home with one or two frames remaining on a roll of film I frequently call on my cat to help finish up the roll. In this case I also used the opportunity to make a shot with my new accessory close-up lens set. This time I relied on the accessory's automatic parallax correction to fit the subject properly in the frame.
I picked up an accessory close-up lens set for my Yashica-Mat recently. To my surprise, I managed to misframe all the shots on the first roll of film I put through the camera using the new lenses.
I had assumed that I would need to aim high to get the image properly centered as I do with my Mamiya C330. However, it turns out that the Yashica close-up viewing lens is constructed to automatically compensate for parallax error. So, the Yashica-Mat is actually somewhat easier to use than the C330 which really requires the Paramender on a tripod to properly capture the image on film as it is seen in the viewfinder. Close-ups with the Yashica-Mat also do not require any exposure compensation as is the case when the C330 bellows is cranked out for close shots.
A tripod is actually a good idea with both cameras as depth of focus at close distances is very narrow.
These two shots were made with the normal 80mm lens which provides greater DOF.
Ate breakfast. Walked the dog. Margaret went off to have breakfast with a friend. Nothing left to do but to head for Old Town with a roll of Fomapan 100 in my Voigtländer Brilliant.
I asked if I might take a picture of this fine looking Scottish Deerhound. The owner agreed, but insisted the picture be made in the shade as she said he would not stand still on the sun drenched sidewalk. I would have preferred to picture him in motion as his gait was incredibly buoyant; it seemed he might suddenly float off the pavement.
If the weatherman can be believed, Sunday was the last of the 100 degree temperatures in Albuquerque for at least a week. We may even get a little rain down the road. It took me a couple weeks to finish up the roll of film in my Olympus Infinity Stylus. We'll now see if the cooler weather motivates me to do better.
I came across this interesting post about Flickr on the Design Observer website in which Jessica Helfand heaps praise on the photo sharing site:
I was half way through the article before I noticed that it was written in 2005, early on in the history of the site. In that same time frame, digital had still not totally steamrollered analog and Helfand pointed to one of the weak points in digital camera design then.
Helfand has produced an astounding number of essays about design issues over the years; I thought her last post on an exhibit about typography, Type is (More Than) Image, was particularly nice.
I came across an article in La Vanguardia about a retrospective exhibit of the work of French photographer, Jacques Léonard. What caught my eye, of course, was the much used photo of the photographer with a camera to his eye -- a Kodak Medalist!
I had not bumped into Léonard's work before, but a quick Google search shows he does not lack for fame in Europe. He is best known for his extensive and exquisite documentation of the gypsy communities of Spain, particularly of Barcelona.
None of the many articles turned up in the Google search results mentioned Léonard's gear, so I turned to Google Bard:
What camera was used by French photographer, Jacques Leonard?
Jacques Leonard used a variety of cameras throughout his career, but his most commonly used camera was the Leica IIIf. The Leica IIIf was a 35mm rangefinder camera that was introduced in 1954. It was one of the most popular cameras of its era, and it was known for its high quality of image. Leonard used the Leica IIIf to document the Roma community in Barcelona in the 1950s and 1960s. His photographs from this period are some of the most iconic images of the Roma people.
In addition to the Leica IIIf, Leonard also used other cameras, including the Rolleiflex TLR, the Contax IIa, and the Nikon F. He also used a variety of film stocks, including Kodak Tri-X, Ilford HP5, and Agfa Ultrapan.
Leonard's choice of cameras and film stocks reflected his commitment to high-quality photography. He wanted to capture the Roma community in as accurate and realistic a way as possible, and he believed that the Leica IIIf and other high-quality cameras were the best tools for the job.
 |
| Ken Rockwell's Review of the Medalist |
I had a fresh roll of Arista Edu 100, so I decided to shoot it in my Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim and process it semi-stand in RO9 (Rodinal) at 1:100 for an hour. I thought that should give me good control of contrast and tonality. Wrong. The pictures were excessively contrasty and the tendency of the vuws to vignette was emphasized. Here are the best ones from the roll.
I found a couple rolls of 2006 Delta 100 in my refrigerator film drawer, so I loaded one in my YashicaMat and took some walks through the neighborhood and along the trails of the riverside forest.
