The Chicken Says Don’t Drink the Water.

Listen to the Chicken.

I enjoyed the simplicity of this water spigot – in Philly, we pronounce that ‘spicket,’ The simple plaster background really helped isolate the subject and the rooster shaped handle truly fit the theme of Chanticleer Gardens, where I took this photo. I enjoy the tiny splatters and drips on the wall – along with he cracks and texture it creates such a subtle background. The patina in the metal, along with the strange angle the little metal sign is resting, all lent to the subtle whimsy of the shot. I made this image with expired film in a vintage camera using an old lens, shooting patina and decay. We all have our hobbies. I guess it doesn’t take much to amuse me.

And there is a lesson in this image for all. When a chicken tells you not to drink the water, you should listen to the chicken. I shudder to think of what could have happened if had ignored his advice.

About the Photo: Shot on my of my three favorite Nikon film cameras, the Nikon FM. The whole FM family is great, but I like the FM and the FM2N, they are small, handy, light and have everything a film purist needs. My other two film camera bodies are the F3HP and the F100, which are both great cameras in their own right. It took a lot of camera tests and a lot of film to come up with this triad. The lens used here in the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 Ai. It’s a fast, small, light autofocus lens that does an excellent job for manual and autofocus cameras. Truly one of my favorites. The film was Kodak Gold, long expired and of dubious origin, found in an iced over freezer on an abandoned farm in Oregon wine country. Really. What could possibly go wrong.

Darkroom Fun With Lightroom

This photo is my favorite visual analogy of how I felt emerging from the pandemic. I felt like the boat – beached, abandoned, broken, and a target for pigeons. I spent a lot of time on this negative in the Fleisher Art Memorial Darkroom, working contrast filters and dodge and burn techniques in order to bring up the clouds and minimize the shadows enough to bring detail, but without losing the mood.
This version is what I replicated in Adobe Lightroom, which is so much faster and intuitive. Still the darkroom teaches these concepts so much better. Both tools, the darkroom and Lightroom make me a better photographer in different ways.

This was a borrowed camera shot and the biggest problem with borrowing a classic camera and a classic lens is that I usually have to go out and buy one after I’ve had a chance to play with them.

About the Photo: One of my favorite photography friends and my film processor of choice, Professor Gina Talley of https://www.femmefermental.com – lent me her 50-year old Nikon F2 camera along with a Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 Micro lens for my first post-pandemic vacation in Chincoteague, VA. The camera was amazing – it has a tactile feel that I can only describe as what a film camera should be. We discussed this and we decided that it had great ‘clickiness,’ which meant something at the time. The heft of the camera, the feel in the hand, the smooth throw of he film advance lever, the feel of the shutter button and the lovely sound of the shutter release all bring home a feeling of pure correctness. All though I slightly prefer the F3 due to its weight and its ability to be pure manual and also autoexposure – I like having options – I would rate this as one of my favorite 35mm film cameras.

The lens – the Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 Micro – is joy. It is primitive; It doesn’t have autofocus and you can’t meter through it, but it is one of the finest lenses I have used in the Nikon universe. I just had to buy both an F2 and a 55mm Micro after this exercise. Darn you, Gina!

Film used for this shot was Ilford HP5 400, it has a nice grain and I love it as much as Kodak Tri-X, well almost.

The Russian Insanity Lens: Monkeys Made This

Okay, I admit it. I’m a total sucker for a nifty fifty. Subject separation with a wide, fast aperture makes me shiver. Dreamy highlights that look like fireflies in the background jiggle my puddin’ – so a couple years back, I decided to buy a Zenit Helios 58mm f/2 lens. I had seen them discussed on-line from time to time and some of the images from these lenses looked amazing. Most specifically, it was the out of focus areas that made me take notice. It seemed like the background swam with constellations of delicious, blurry boceh. I had to have one to see if I could warp the world with it.

The Helios Zenit was the perfect lens for its time and place. It was created in post-war Soviet Russia where crystal clarity was the last thing The Party wanted to give to the people. Instead they warped everything with propaganda, lies and disinformation. Where else would you expect to find a lens that will show you – not what was in front of you – but what the lens wanted you see? It was insidious, but in an artistic way, so again, I had to have one. And I named it my Russian Insanity Lens.

One of the cool things about these lenses is that they each had their own character, so the web posts said. I purchased mine online and found just what I was looking for. Since Soviet manufacturing standards in the 1950s were not exactly up to Japanese or West German standards, actually, I’m not sure if they were even up to Kindergarten Arts and Crafts class standards, I looked for a ‘Used Imperfect’ grade lens. Unfortunately that search didn’t bring me much on Ebay, but I did find a sketchy guy in the Ukraine who – after a few weeks of wondering if I had been scammed – sent me a lens that looked like it had been taken apart by the monkeys in the photo and put together backwards – the aperture ring actually did work backwards to the markings. But the package wasn’t even soggy from the transAtlantic crossing, so I figured it was a win.

With a the right adapter, I was able to mount the Helios on my beloved Nikon Z7ii, which is kind of like using hamster on a treadmill to power a space shuttle, but the focus ring still worked, and when I pushed the shutter button, the lens went click and a photo appeared on the display screen. So then, it was time to experiment. It seems multiple light points or spread out backgrounds are best for these lenses and the narrow field of vision make for some nice subject separations in strange environments. And this isn’t my only insanity lens. I also own a 7 Artisans 35mm f/0.95 lens – dubbed the Chinese Insanity Lens – that I use on Fuji X bodies for the same purpose as the Russian – to play with reality.

Look, if reality is going to be such a pain in the ass every day, why shouldn’t we mess with it?
Thanks for looking.

What Do You See?

With all art, you have a message that is intended by the artist, and the message received by the viewer. Often – usually – those messages have at least some level of disconnect. Posting this shot for viewing and critique seems to bring up some strange interpretations. What do you see?

I have been told it looks like ice, plastic, and a bunch of other materials. It’s actually water and air. As a scuba instructor for more than 25 years, I taught people how to blow bubble rings while underwater. If you puff them out just right, you can watch them float to the surface, expanding the whole way, before they break apart. They are astonishing to watch, they seem alive, and they catch the light in ways that are incredibly beautiful. This photo is of one of those bubble rings, caught as it is rising towards the surface. Very few viewers have ever figured out what this photo is about.

Scuba geek, meet photo geek.

Life is a Bowl of Freakin’ Cherries

In the dead of winter, up here in the northeast US, great color and indirect light can warm the mood to the point of being almost bearable. And when you are dreaming of Margaritaville and feeling like a mushroom, it’s great to have a visual reminder of how pretty, colorful and light filled the world is around us. Consider it a bit of visual hygge.
It’s no secret that I love old cameras and old, expired film. The grain and anomalies give me ‘warm and fuzzies.’ And the process of shooting with this great old gear, and the surprises you get after development, all make it a worthy pass time. Using the wide aperture of the f/1.8 lens, the focal plane is narrowed and that gives a dreamy, off-focus effect to much of the image. And life is, indeed, a bowl of freakin’ cherries.

About the Photo: The camera used to make this photo was the less-than-remarkable Nikon 2020 35mm SLR film camera. I purchased it for $25 at a camera show. After carving a huge pile of battery corrosion out of it, I got it working, loaded it up, and ran a few rolls through. I call the camera less-than-remarkable because it is not the best example of Nikon’s electronic capabilities, but still, it is perfectly competent for hobbyists who don’t need instant autofocus and can live with a few missed exposures per roll.

The film used is long expired Photoworks 200, which was never more than just OK when it was fresh. I’m not sure, but I suspect that this film stopped being fresh when Ronald Reagan was president. The lens was the underrated, compact, and delightful Nikkor 50mm AF. It’s slow to focus, but utterly competent in all other ways – an inexpensive, must-have lens for any Nikon film shooter on autofocus or manual cameras.

A Kinder, Gentler Age.

I like old cameras, I like old film, and I like old houses, so this image gave me a happy. I’m not so fond of the pickup truck, but you can’t always get everything that you want.
Cape May, New Jersey is the last town heading south on the Jersey shore. It’s a throwback in many ways – more civil – calmer – and less overtly obnoxious than the glitz and over-the-top ostentation of the New Jersey beaches to the north. It’s not like they don’t show off here, they’re just more subtle about it and adhere to community set standards. And what that creates is a beautiful town with grand old houses that make for wonderful photography.

About the Photo: This shot was made with a small, handy Ricoh AF-5 point-and-shoot camera – manufactured around 1983, and shot on long expired Kodak Gold 400 film, most probably from the 1990s. The house is at least 100 years older than either, and the truck, well who really cares?

The great thing about the Ricoh is that it’s cheap and small and has a great lens – a 38mm f/2.8. It produced such lovely colors and awesome grain, even with ancient film. On beach excursions with this camera, I usually bring a quart ziploc bag with me to keep it safe from water and to keep it free from sand. And then I slide it into my backpack pocket to have a great, light and compact film camera always ready to go. One that I don’t have to worry about.
Cheap film cameras (relatively cheap, anyway) are great. I purchased this one five years earlier for $20. I see they’re now going for $75-$100 on ebay. Retro fun doesn’t mean that you have to break the bank, but as these cameras start to disappear, it’s getting more expensive every day.

Unexpected Wildlife

Sometimes I feel like someone is watching me…

It’s kind of disturbing to look out your office window and see someone looking back at you, but it’s also OK, when you’re a nature geek. This cute fellow is a Screech Owl who spends his days sleeping in my tree, Just a few feet from my house, and on a busy suburban street. He’s a wonderful reminder that nature has been finding ways to integrate with us, and even though this is probably because the animals have no better option, it’s really nice to see them, at least until they break in and have a party in your attic.
Since moving into our home ten years ago in a very suburban neighborhood we have hosted a deer, several foxes, this owl, red-tail hawks, an opossum, and a racoon or two. I won’t mention the flying squirrels, but they are there and they keep coming back. Especially the we adopted – Squeakus. I’m a sucker for cute fuzzy tail and a long lens.

About the Photo: This one was shot with the legendary Nikon D500 camera and the under-appreciated (by the media, not by me) Nikkor 28-300 G Super Zoom lens on a frigid cold day. The owl did his best to look nonchalant as I worked in for a good shot. He was a good sport and patient model. I’d definitely work with him again.

I like to consider this one as an effective ‘two-beat photo,’ if you are going to use the terminology of Michael Rubin, the creator of the Everyday Photography, Every Day podcast and his book Photo Haiku. The first beat being an effective, high contrast photo of a tree in the suburbs, and the second beat, the punchline, if you will, being the discovery of the owl in the knot.

Cormorants at Niagara Falls

Sometimes the challenge in creating impactful travel photography is to isolate the photo from the environment. Originally I was taken by many cormorants occupying bare trees along the Niagara River. Try as I might, I could not compose a decent photo as the background and the subject matter were much too busy. Finally, I decided to zoom in on a just a few of the birds and carved this shot out of the background. While the entire scene would have been unremarkable, in the cropped shot the cormorants seem to be engaged in a meaningful conversation in their own blue universe.

Kingston, on the Hudson

Sometimes life throws you fog. When that happens it’s best to get out your camera. For this image, I used the old, trustworthy Nikon N90, Kodak Portra 400 Film, Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 lens. The camera did a great job of metering a fairly tough image despite the fact that it is more than 30 years old. The colors came up great with the Kodak film. What amazing grain!

Woodstock Dog

This dapper dog and his personal slave were very happy to pose for a portrait in on New Year’s Day in Woodstock, NY. Because of the cold light and the overall lack of color that you get in mid winter, I chose Ilford HP5 400 black and white film and tried to leverage the rich contrast on this overcast day.

My camera was a Nikon N90 with a Nikkor 35mm f/1.8g lens. The dog was the best model I have worked with in years.