Seasons in Chicago

What's there with the summer in Chicago?

It's a strange season, in which people really let it all hang out, dress strangely and meander in packs.  Look at this family crossing a street in the loop.  Only the kid noticed me.  The rest?  Lost in that summer daze... (M6TTL, Hexanon 35/f2, T-Max ISO 100)

Then comes winter... and the Kris Kindl Markt (aka Christmas Market), with its expensive, fancy trinkets that make Chicagoans feel nostalgic if they've been to Germany, and touristy if they haven't.  It's the best moment to watch people... (same gear, but in Scala film).

And then, there's that weird anticlimactic spring: wet, cold and unpredictable.  There may be beautiful days followed by others, gray, rainy and cool.  Of course, for an adopted DeKalbian, a rainy day in Chicago beats any rainy day in DeKalb (M6TTL, Elmarit 28/f2.8, T-Max ISO 400). 

The possibilities are just endless...  But, for now, the next one will be the seasons in DeKalb! 

Winter

These are trying circumstances. What to do with winter?

However trite it may sound... the best is to open one's eyes to it, face it and take it.  Speaking of "taking things," I was very tempted to ditch the slide above until my wife told me it looked like the University of Iowa football symbol: an eagle.  I had not seen an eagle here... but it saved the slide (Canonet G-III QL17 and Ektachrome 100). 

Now, I did go out on a night like this, looking an image like the one above.  Luckily, it made it to an exhibit assembled later that year (M6TTL, Hexanon 35, T-Max ISO 100). 

Not the place and time to abandon your bycicle (M6TTL, Summicron 50, Scala ISO 200).   

Winter should make us think, reconsider and ponder.  Instead, the wonderful light and the quirky weather (I'm being nice here) force us out, and so we walk, shake, complain and guess exposures in the bitter cold, instead of doing other things.  Why?  Any idea?  

Challenges (again, Denver)

How to make the ordinary look extraordinary?

With long lenses... (Windows in Larimer Square, Denver, M4-2, Summicron 90/f2, Superia ISO 400)

Moving fast... (Hotdog vendor in 6th Street, M4-2, Hexanon 35/f2, Superia ISO 400)

Acting quickly... (a view of Michigan Avenue, south of the river in Chicago, M3, Summicron 50, Ektachrome ISO 200)

Looking for the weird...  (Performing Arts Center in Denver, M4-2, Hexanon 35/f2, Superia ISO 400)

Some time ago, a photographer let me in his secret for succesful street photographs: visualize your shots.  Sounds easy... until one leaves the familiar environment.  That was my lesson (one of them, the other was that meters don't have it all with them) to take to Denver, CO, with my M4-2.  In Chicago, it is relatively easy for me to determine what is ordinary and common as opposed to what is not.  I can easily decide what details to pick and photograph and which ones to leave as done and overdone by other photographers.  However, Denver didn't offer me that choice... simply because I don't know what is usual to photograph there.  The challenge I faced, just like I do when in Chicago, was to render the familiar unfamiliar.  Otherwise, why bother photographing?

Here are some of my results.  My window shot, done with a Summicron 90, takes the windows and their awnings away from their surroundings.  They're no longer a "Denver sight" but rather a line of windows with a conforting routine about them.  Then, the hotdog vendor is so common and ordinary that he couldn't be any commoner.  Yet, the people around him steal his protagonism from the photograph.  My view of Michigan doesn't look any different from any other shot, except for the fact that it was done at dusk.  My favorite here is the yuxtaposition of a bear (apparently a begging one) and a nice VW Beetle (weren't they known as "Bugs"?), in a photograph that screams "postmodern" to me: irony, clashing categories (urban vs wild, or idealized view of nature vis-a-vis the equally idealized urban life in the VW).  I don`t know, but the VW in the forefront, and the bear in the background look so incongruent that I should frame the shot.

If you don't agree... just let me know! 

More Denver citiscapes & signs

More images with the M4-2... Can these be public art?

Nice coffee shop near our hotel. 

An example of public art (sign of life).

Thinking girl near the library. 

Let me brag... I metered these shots.  With my eyes, only.

Well... I also had some help from my meter.  Every time I had my doubts about lighting, I pulled out my faithful black Leica M4 meter and checked the lighting.  However, most of the time my guesstimate fell in the correct area, so for situations like the ones above, I relied on my memorized settings (applicable with ISO 400 film).  Proof that photographers in the past were guys with good memory!  

That, or I'm going to be a tough candidate for Alzheimer's. 

Back to Denver: Signs

When in Denver... read the signs!

This is part of a street that ends in Sixth.  Nobody complains about lack of information here.

The name of the place is just a hoot... and Brits probably crack up when they read it. 

Now, to think Silver Plume was a booming town and now it's reduced to a few houses (inhabited by very friendly people, I should add). 

Need I to say that these photographs were all taken with my M4-2 and my Hexanon?  I must except the first one, for which I used my Summicron 90mm.  The film?  Fuji Superia ISO 400, indeed.

The thing with signs is that they're silent witnesses of other times.  Like in the first photograph, they reveal what at some point existed in the world, things we needed to be aware of.  Otherwise, they show what was in the collective mind of a generation or a group.  Finally, like cemeteries, they indicate where something now lies.

I like photographing signs.  Not all are necessarily fun, but many have that particular trait of working as silent voices, testament of last and lost wills, or very late reivindications (or indictments).  In cities, while I look for them, not always do I photograph them unless something evidently obvious or funny leads me to immortalize them in film.  Whatever the case, the signs I have photographed, however trivial, have always told me something beyond their initial intentional message.  And that's just the beginning of the fun!

More signs later!

Monochrome

Who shoots black-and-white these days?

Old photographers, perhaps (M3, Agfa APX ISO 400, Summicron 50)

Adventurous individuals (same)?

Lonely souls?

How about all of the above?

The truth is that B&W ain't easy.  In short, it's not for wimps.  Not for chimps either.  And not for every one.  As a particular thing, the scene matters more, there are less distractions and more things to see in a B&W image.  

How does one do that?

My approach is that the image has to be relatively strong, or anchored in a good element, or else the viewer will not "see" it.  The best way to create something that catches the eye is to place an element that leads to the image, something that indicates perspective and tells us where to look.  When this added element is absent, the image gets watered down.  It simply fails to emerge from the gray. 

Now, this is not a rule, as I can think of many photos in which it is simply impossible to add perspective.  In these moments, the two-thirds rule comes to save the day.  At least to me.   Besides, in B&W, if the composition isn't strong, the photograph has nothing else to "grab" our attention and enter our memory.  

This is perhaps a simplistic trick, but it's worked for me ever since I came up with it.  

In any event, something I keep in mind all the time, when I carry my Leicas loaded with Agfa or Ilford stuff: color allows us to enjoy life, while monochrome film makes us think about it.  What could we say about all the photographs above?  They were shot in Thayer St, in Providence, RI, during a conference in Brown University in which I took my recently refurbished Leica M3 and the faithful Summicron 50 collapsible. 

For the next, we're going back to Denver.  

Color

Some time ago, a good friend of mine and very old-school photographer said to me that "color came to wreck everything"...

I think I agreed with him... out of courtesy.  Color, as the photograph above shows, didn't wreck much... provided that there was something to wreck in the first place.  These chatty girls (M6TTL, Hexanon, Ektachrome ISO 400) wouldn't look good in monochrome.  Try it yourself...

I can see where color works and where monochrome looks better, but I don't see them as direct opposites or, worse yet, mutually exclusive.  However, I must admit that I have a different attitude when I shoot color and when I load monochrome.  In the shot above, both ways would work well... but I like it in color as it adds a bit of familiarity to the scene (Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, with an M3, Summicron 50 and Ektachrome 200).  In monochrome... the observer probably would do a double take before figuring out what the image shows. 

And here we have a case for color: these chairs in a now defunct store from Esmond, IL, really had to be photographed in color (with my M6TTL and trusty Hexanon 35mm).  The wood under the light and the general cast are pleasing... at least to me, and the effect (hanging chairs, kind of a weird image) would get lost in monochrome. 

Did I settle the controversy?  Of course not!  However, if color came and stayed, why fight it?  It does help... or else, what would life be like without it?

Next time, monochrome. 

Need to photograph

Do you feel too the absolute need to photograph things? Just to hear the shutter go off and know that you have an image in the roll of film?

I do.  Not just occasionally.  Often.

This shot was part of a "challenge" in the Rangefinderforum some time ago.  It was the month of February, and we were supposed to find "Shadows" around us.  Shadows?  In February?  I found them, and photographed them with one of my M6TTL bodies and my Hexanon 35mm.  Of course, the end result is a crop; from what I recall, the frame was quite larger.  And the film was the nice Kodak chromogenic BW400CN... or was other type?

One of my early rolls of Scala yielded this image of one of my neighbors's street lamp.  Since I was mortally afraid of pushing it, I had to contend with the ISO 200 rating of the film and shot this image in the bitter cold of December, early in the evening, with one M6TTL and a Summicron 50mm.

This image is something I like coming back to ever since I photographed it first in Ilford SFX and my M6TTL with the trusty Hexanon.  Once in B&W, I needed it in color.  Once in color, I needed it under a different light.  I've been shooting the same image for so long that I could make a history of that corner at this point.  This version was shot in Velvia, shortly after a snowstorm, probably in 2005.  Scanning it was a pain, because I couldn't help getting those blue tones on the snow.  However, after examining the slide... yes, those corners ARE blue in the original slide.

Is it normal to have the compulsion of taking a photo just because?  Probably not, but then, who would object to it when it does give you nice shots more often than not?

Something nice about film

There's something very nice about film... 

Snowy house in DeKalb

Peeking at the menu in Barcelona

Leading an intense inner life (Barcelona too)

I get to make all the decisions!!

For instance, which photos I will scan (and potentially print), how I want them to look, what size I want them to be (and resolution).  Granted, these same things come up with a digital camera, although I don't think I have much of a say in some areas.  Of course, there are settings to arrange, but what if I want certan photos for certain purpose?

On the other hand, I'm just quibbling with myself.

These photographs (all made with film Leicas) have nothing in common.  I simply felt like posting them because some of them have never been seen elsewhere, and others, even if seen, didn't seem to attract much attention.  For instance, my snowy house was completely unknown.  Will it merit a comment here?  I certainly hope so.  The Barcelona shots, on the other hand, were admired by friends.  Does DeKalb stand up to Barcelona?  Easy to find out; check my other photographs. 

Be back soon!