Category Archives: Cameras

Cameras, Digital cameras, Photography, Travel, Washington DC

The DC High Heel Race 2012 – part 3

November 4, 2012 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

For those who are too old (or too young!) to be aware of the video game, the above characters are from a video game series called “Street Fighter”. The series is immensely popular and has been around in some form or another since 1987. To me, they’re a little out of touch with the High Heel Race thing, as nobody in their group is actually in DRAG – it seems more like this was an excuse for them to wear their Halloween costumes one more time.

Until they got close enough to read their signs, I thought they were imitating the Carnival samba girls in their huge feather headpieces, just with balloons, as you could see their contingent from two blocks away.

And another pop-culture reference that may be lost on some – it’s Honey Boo-Boo and her Mama June, characters from a reality TV show about a trailer-trash child beauty pageant contestant and her dysfunctional family.

Cameras, Digital cameras, Photography, Travel, Washington DC

The DC High Heel Race 2012 – part 2

November 3, 2012 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

Sophia Grace and Rosie, all grown up. Be Afraid, Be VERY Afraid!

Candy tits, hairy pits and abs to die for... — Candy tits, hairy pits and abs to die for…

All shot with my Canon 5D, 24-105 L zoom lens and 580EX flash.

Cameras, Digital cameras, Photography, Travel, Washington DC

The DC High Heel Race 2012 – part 1

November 2, 2012 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

This is Cookie Buffet, the drag persona of Christopher Dyer, a long-time DC resident and sometimes politician –
Cookie Buffet, from Wikipedia

Asian Schoolboys in Heels - the closeup — Asian Schoolboys in Heels – the closeup

Asian Schoolboys in Heels, showing their school pride

This is the first in a series – I’ll finish posting over the weekend, as I have over 200 shots to edit through.

All these were shot with my Canon 5D and the 24-105 L lens.

Cameras, Color, DC Cityscapes, Medium Format Cameras, Photography

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood

October 28, 2012 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

House Wrap, Black and White, 14th Street

Two shots of a former house turned liquor store turned redevelopment project on 14th Street.

A perspective study of the brickwork trim on the front garden retaining wall of some houses on 13th Street.

Ben's Chili Bowl, Evening — Ben’s Chili Bowl, Evening

The front of the world-famous Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street in Northwest DC. You can see the new mural in the alley that depicts Bill Cosby (and Dr. Martin Luther King, not visible in this photo) – one of the two people who can eat at Ben’s for free (the other ‘person’ being the Obama family).

Door, Ben's Chili Bowl — Door, Ben’s Chili Bowl

I just liked the way the door caught the reflections in the glass as it was closing.

Just another one of those quotidian things we see every day and don’t pay much attention to.

The entrance to a new Japanese restaurant that is very much in keeping with the spirit of a real Izakaya in Japan – spartan in appearance and compact in size, but still welcoming. Rumor has it that the food is excellent – I will have to give it a try some day soon, although their menu is a bit seafood-intensive for me as I’m allergic to shellfish (shrimp, crab, lobster and scallops).

To close out the show, here’s a manhole cover that has been thoroughly inscribed with graffiti. I liked the contrast formed by the regular geometry of the manhole cover and the grid of the concrete with the organic shapes of the leaves, setting up a man-vs-nature conflict, only to be complicated by the man-made disorder of the graffiti.

More adventures in Rolleiflex-land for those who care about such things. All of these were shot on Fuji NPH 400.

Cameras, Color, DC Cityscapes, Medium Format Cameras, Night-time, Photography, Washington DC

Two More from Chinatown

October 25, 2012 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

This is looking West on G Street, across the street from the National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum (they’re housed in the same building, the former US Patent Office, once the largest building in Washington, occupying an entire square block. Designed to be fireproof (although proven later due to budget cuts during construction to NOT be as fireproof as designed), it was home to Abraham Lincoln’s Inaugural Ball). If you saw photos of this street from 30 years ago you would barely recognize it – the entire neighborhood was in rough shape, and despite the museum’s presence, not a safe place to be. They wouldn’t let school groups wander beyond the museum – it was straight from the bus to the building, and back directly into the bus in those days. The whole neighborhood smelled of Eau de Homeless. Now, drinks at Zola are $10-15 each for bottom-shelf liquor, and dinner for two at Rosa Mexicano around the corner will routinely set you back $70-100.

As you can see, sitting on the steps of the Portrait Gallery is a popular pastime, although not as popular as it used to be amongst teenagers who used to congregate there in large numbers pretty much all year round. The downside was that they weren’t absorbing culture – they were there being teenagers, being rowdy and noisy, sometimes getting into fights, and other inappropriate behavior. So the museum installed speakers that play classical music. Beethoven, the ultimate teenager repellant!

Cameras, Color, DC Cityscapes, Medium Format Cameras, Night-time, Photography

More Chinatown at Night, Rolleiflex plus Fuji 800Z

October 25, 2012 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

More of my DC nightscapes- I was testing out the Fuji NPZ 800 that I had in my film inventory. A surprisingly good result from a film I’ve had sitting around again for the better part of a decade.

You can definitely see the grain in these images, but it’s nowhere near as pronounced as the grain in 400 speed 35mm film. It also handles mixed lighting pretty well, but it’s not Kodak Portra.

Oh, by the way, these were all hand-held. THAT’s why you shoot 800 speed film!

35mm Cameras, About Art, Cameras, Large Format Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Photography

Great Article from Petapixel

October 22, 2012 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

What I’ve Learned About Photo Gear Over the Past 40 Years

Terrific summary and great dispelling of the constant upgrade myth. A great photographer can make great images with a pinhole or a Brownie box camera, in addition to a CaNikSonEikaBlad. A mediocre photographer gets caught up in an upgrade chase thinking gear is the solution to a skills problem. Don’t get me wrong, gear is fun, and its always nice to have the right tool for the job – there are photos you can take with a Canon 5D that you can’t take with a Hasselblad, and photos you can take with an 8×10 Sinar you can’t take with a Leica (the old “don’t use a hammer to do a screwdriver’s job” adage). But when it comes down to it, it’s far to easy to blame the tool when we don’t get what we were looking for (“I would have gotten the photo if only I had an xxxx”). This is part of why I’m fixating on my Rolleiflex. It’s just one camera, with just one lens – it’s forcing me to pay more attention to what I’m shooting and how I’m shooting it rather than running around with two or three bodies and half a dozen lenses in two or more formats. My Argentina trip of a few years ago was a prime example – I had the 5×7 with six (SIX!!!!) lenses, 13 film holders (13!!!!), and a tripod, along with my Contax G1 with 45mm and 28mm lenses. While I did take some wonderful photos in each format, I’m pretty sure both suffered as a result. Certainly, there were photos I could not have taken with one that I did with the other. My Recoleta cemetery photos would not have happened with the Contax, and my street scenes in San Telmo and La Boca would not have happened with the 5×7. But by dividing my attention between the two systems and two ways of thinking probably meant that I wasn’t fully in the mindset of either system and then tried (and failed) to make images with one that would have been better done with the other.

Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography

Rolleinar 1

October 20, 2012 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

If you’re familiar with twin-lens reflex cameras, you know that they have certain limitations (close-focus capability or lack thereof, parallax compensation required, non-interchangeable lenses) for the most part (the Mamiya C22/33/220/330 family being the notable exception to most of the above). My Rolleiflex certainly falls into that category. One thing Rollei did was they came up with a special close-focus auxiliary lens set, which they called Rolleinar. Rolleinars come in four strengths, with the #4 being a rarity, and the #3 uncommon to find today. They’re basically diopters, but with a twist – because parallax worsens the closer you get, they include a special diopter plus prism for the taking lens so you can still compose a frame with relative accuracy. I have a Rolleinar 1, and I’ve been playing around with it. It’s good for getting closer for tight head-and-shoulders portraits, and for doing simple macro-ish photos of flowers and textures and the like. Here are a couple of shots I took with it outside the florist’s by my office – as you can see, it will get you close-r, but it’s far from 1:1 reproduction. Both of these were shot at or near minimum focus for the camera. Film is that same expired Fuji NPS 160 that I’ve been shooting through.

Cameras, Color, DC Cityscapes, Medium Format Cameras, Photography

Capitol Bikeshare Bicycles

October 19, 2012 dcphotoartist 1 Comment

Here are some semi-abstract shots of the bikes of Capitol BikeShare, docked in their parking docks at Farragut Square. I saw the bikes’ shadows and the repeated patterns of wheels, spokes, seats and handlebars caught my imagination.

More Rolleiflex 2.8E/terminally expired Fuji NPS 160 action.

Cameras, Color, DC Cityscapes, Medium Format Cameras, Night-time, Photography, Washington DC

Nighttime in the fog

October 12, 2012 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

A few nighttime photos in the fog. I think these really captured the atmosphere of the evening. It had been warm in the daytime, then rained, and when the rain stopped, it was already dark, so we ended up with this cool fog. I wanted to capture that feel of the streets at night in the fog, and since I live somewhere very residential, I figured this was a pretty safe place to do it as there wouldn’t be much traffic to worry about if I stepped into the street for a four second exposure. All these were taken with my Rolleiflex, on expired Fuji NPH 400 film. The reason why I’m shooting all this expired film is not that I’ve got some kind of outdated film fetish, or that I’m a cheap-ass bastard and refuse to buy fresh film, but rather I’m just having fun experimenting and I don’t want to use “good” film on experimental stuff if I have some old film that nowadays is for all intents and purposes free but for the processing cost.

But what about the square, you say? Aren’t all Rollei photos square? Well, I do love square photos, and that’s one of the reasons why I love the Rollei so much. But there does come a time when you have to look at the photo and decide if a crop makes the image stronger. In all of these cases, the original square composition had too much something – too much sky, too much foreground, etc. So I cropped for more dynamic compositions that didn’t have so much dead space in them. I think these are much better.

Red Light, Green Light, Fog, 11th & Euclid

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