News about the M4-2

Well, this was a decision I made a while ago: my M4-2 needs a bit of TLC.  In short, it's going for some repairs with Don Goldberg, the owner of DAG Camera Parts.  He revived my M3 some time ago, so I know this one will be in good hands.

(M6TTL, Hexanon 35, some slide film, Oak Park IL)

Let me add one thing: I don't like the idea... but then, I haven't used my M4-2 since I returned from Denver, and there's a number of other things that need to be taken care of here.

(M6TTL, Summicron 50, chromogenic film; door long gone)

What can one do in the meantime?  It's going to be a loooooong period of time without my M4-2.  Granted, I do have other toys, but this one is the only one with a blog.

We'll find out.  In the meanwhile, I'll keep posting seasonal stuff and browsing the sites I've posted on the sidebar, under the title of "Blogs and sites to check."  Feel free to do so yourselves!  

Fall again (the season, of course)

A bright fall morning...

(M6TTL, Summicron 50)

A bright fall afternoon...

(Canonet G-III QL 17, BW Plus)

A chilly early evening in the fall...

(M6TTL, Summicron 50, chromogenic film of some type)

The fall is definitely my favorite season.  I already explained the reason why... and have enough photos to prove it.  These ones, however, aren't the best, but by no means are they the worst.  They are all very, say, experimental.  In two of these, I was learning how to see through the Leica viewfinder; in the other, I was just playing with my Canonet (which has been in retirement for a long time, but despite its forced rest I cannot bring myself to sell it).  This particular one, the bird feeder, was just a snapshot, something I shot on impulse, and that added to the surprise I experienced when I saw the print.  There was very little work on it at scanning it: no need to adjust the exposure or anything: I just loved the out-of-focus area as background for the sharp bird feeder.

Something sad to me about that shot is that we lost that feeder.  The branch on which it hung was deemed sick, and it had to be cut off.  The feeder is probably in the garage, gathering dust as we never found another branch from which to hang it.  Lots of birds visited this feeder, and it was a lot of fun to observe them even fight for the seeds, completely oblivious that there were two sides to pick from. 

We have another feeder, but that's for another day. 

Short Visit to Denver

Family that travels together...

(16th Street Mall, Sunday morning, 90mm Summicron)

People reading in the sun.

(Larimer Square, Tuesday morning, 90mm Summicron)

Nights of color.

(16th Street Mall, Monday evening)

Very recently I stayed in Denver for about four days only, and enjoyed it thoroughly.  It's a vibrant town, full of people who enjoy the outdoors because they don't get to see much sun throughout the year (apparently, there are some eight months of snow per year).  Hence all the life that happens in the streets, documented here for posterity with my M4-2, my 90mm Summicron and my Hexanon 35, with Fuji Superia ISO 400. 

Be back soon with some more photographs from Denver.  And will continue the fall motif too!  After all, winter's a-coming, and I need new snowy shots, be it with this camera or any other in my hands.

More about the fall

A street lined with golden trees.

(M6TTL, Hexanon 35/f2, Ektachrome ISO 100 VC)

A silent witness of stories from long ago.

(M6TTL, Hexanon 35/f2, T-Max ISO 100)

The nice color contrast between light and shadow on the street.

(M6TTL, Hexanon 35/f2, Ektachrome ISO 100 VC)

I did these images starting from a visualization.  In other words, I scouted the neighborhood, looking for the type of spots that make people go "ooooh..."  Fortunately, I found them, and here they are.  The day I took these was a gorgeous Sunday in which my (patient) wife and I went out for a walk.   The air had the foreboding air of things that will come, a kind of melancholy that makes the light seem like aching.  Those are afternoons that I love to waste doing not what I should, but what I damn well like to do: take photographs.  I must have burned half a roll of film in a few minutes... and, since I had bought those ten rolls for a pittance a few days earlier, I sensed I deserved to play. 

This film is probably out of production now, or rebadged or replaced as part of some marketing gimmick.  The slides turned out as glorious as the small windows into another world that they seem to be, and I was quick at scanning them so as not to forget (which happens often) that I have them. 

The fall is, as I said, my favorite season.  It announces the end of certain things, mostly, like an exit door for the summer, or the path that leads us into the bleak winter but that at least helps us understand that even if the earth can be as predictable as it is, it still has a lot of surprises (days like this one, for instance). 

What next?  Winter?  Naah... not yet.  Let's see which other fall shots I can dig out of my computer.  Because there's always something else before it all ends.

Until then! 

Plans for the Fall

Ben, our older cat, peeking into the porche,

(M6TTL, Summicron 90, Ektachrome 200)

A lonely leaf, hanging of a tree in our yard,

(Nikon F100, 24-85 AF-S G, Ektachrome 100)

A fiery red in the middle of a yellow sea, 

(M6TTL, Summicron 50, Fuji Superia 100)

With the fall comes the weird feeling that something is about to happen, that we're wasting our time trying to figure things out, that we'd be a lot better off planning, deciding what to do, storing food and taking things one at a time.  These are days of painful beauty (as my wife likes to put it), because we know they're coming to an end. 

Plans, projects, ideas?  

Besides keeping up with my own work, I intend to file all the slides I have, scan others, print some, see how to get them nicely framed and try to cheer up the house.  Winter forces us to think and ponder, and, to be quite honest, I am not in the mood.  In fact, I am planning on getting myself a new toy, a digital behemoth, to keep me occupied during those days.  The Leicas and Nikons shan't be forgotten, of course, but will enjoy something of an extended vacation.  

Going digital is so much work I don't know if I'll be able to stick to it.  But we'll see.  In the meanwhile, I'll see how to scan some fall color photos and return to post them here.  

Now, let's go for some cider!

More Portraits: People at Work

An artisan in his shop (M6TTL, Summicron 50, Scala ISO 200) in Barcelona, 

A girl in her dad's photocopy shop (M6TTL, Summicron 90, some color film) in Bogotá, Colombia,

Women selling lottery tickets (M6TTL, Hexanon 35, Scala ISO 200) in San José, Costa Rica,

They're all working.  I felt a bit intrusive by breaking into their routine and stole two of the three shots above (the women kindly accepted to pose for the camera).  In a way, my meeting all of them constituted a kind of crossing of our paths, as I was working in that very moment.  Working, at least, in one thing I enjoy doing, which is taking photographs with my Leicas.  

Working people fascinate me... probably because while I "work" photographing them, I don't feel as if I were working myself.  However, I am, only not for a living, but to overcome my own limitations as a photographer and documentarian (I have never considered myself an artist).  In the end, I'd really like to document all possible occupations in the world.  I have a few, but, oddly enough, not mine.  However, one of these days I'll set up my own self-portrait at work, and post it here.  In the meanwhile, I have some more work to do.

Portraits: People at work or leisure

Here's a young reader at Borders, in Chicago (M3, Elmarit 135 on Fuji Superia ISO 400):

And here is an old calligrapher in the Art Institute of Chicago (M6TTL, Summicron 90, T-Max ISO 400):

And last, a young vegetable vendor at the Tibás weekly open air market in San José, Costa Rica.  She was kinda shy (M6TTL, Summicron 90, Kodachrome 200):

I like these shots because they're kind of candid portraits, pretty much like the candy vendor in San Juan, PR (see below).  Now, not all were taken in the street but all were done with one purpose in mind: to document people in their daily life.  Granted, the calligrapher probably doesn't do what I photographed him doing all the time, but if he is one who is always called to demonstrate the beauty of Chinese characters, we can safely assume he is doing something familiar and relatively ordinary to him. 

What goes into the perfect portrait?  Let's get some ideas...