Category Archives: Black and White

Black and White, Cameras, DC Cityscapes, Medium Format Cameras, Night-time, Photography, Washington DC

Neighborhood Walkaround – The Coffee Bar

October 7, 2014 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

As many of you know, I like walking around my neighborhood with the Rollei on my neck, photographing what I find. I went out this past weekend to put some Ilford Delta 3200 through the camera, to test how it performs as a low-light film. I wanted to shoot some interiors and some street scenes in low light, hand-held. Ilford Delta 3200 is really the last man standing in this game, as Kodak has discontinued their Tmax 3200 in any size, and even when available, it was only available in 35mm.

I was out to meet a customer who was interested in my photography – I made a print sale! (that will be a different blog post). In celebration, I was out exploring the neighborhood and took a different route home and came by this (relatively) new coffee shop, simply named, “The Coffee Bar”. It’s very cute inside, and they serve a really tasty chai. They did a fantastic job renovating the place and gave it a very inviting atmosphere. I love the sayings on the chalkboard menu – “decaf coffee is like a hairless cat – it exists, but that doesn’t make it right”.

One of the things that happens when you test out a new film is that you discover character quirks that help you decide how and when to include it in your palette of options. Delta 3200 is a high-speed yet (at least in 120) relatively fine-grained film. Since my Rollei has a top shutter speed of 1/500th of a second, the film’s speed severely curtails my ability to use it in daylight situations. In low light, though, that vice becomes a virtue and I can hand-hold photos that I would ordinarily need a tripod for. That was, as Donald Rumsfeld would have put it, a “known known”. A characteristic I did not know until I actually developed the film was that apparently Delta 3200 does not have an anti-halation coating. Anti-halation coatings prevent ‘blooming’ in highlights that give a “glow” to light sources within a scene. When you don’t want that, having it can be bad. However, in a scene like this, it really works and gives a warm atmosphere to the scene. This is a shot that I think when I make a silver-gelatin enlargement of it, I’ll sepia-tone the print to give it that extra warmth, and give it a real ‘coffee’ atmosphere.

The doors to The Coffee Bar were catching the last blush of sunset in the sky, and the reflection of the street lamp just starting to glow in the twilight. I love this kind of light at this time of day, where the sky is dimming to be just as bright as the landscape below. This is one shot where I wish I had the second Rollei with me and some color film loaded, as I would have liked to capture the deep blue sky, the patina’d green lamppost, and the orange glow of the street lamp globe reflected in the window, the gold leaf of the street number and ‘The Coffee Bar’ on the glass twinkling in the sun’s last rays. Another time – I know where it is, and I can always go back in for a good chai to warm me up on a chilly fall evening.

Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

Teddy Roosevelt Island – single frames

October 1, 2014 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

Just some random thoughts from walking around Roosevelt Island. The south end of the island anchors one end of the bridge that carries Route 50 over the Potomac River. Looking through the arches of the bridge, you can see the Lincoln Memorial. Without a twin-lens reflex camera like my Rollei, I wouldn’t have been able to take this photo – to get the Lincoln to show more than a hint of a roofline, I had to hold the camera above my head, upside down, my arms outstretched. Doing this, I can use the waist-level finder to my advantage and gain an extra two feet of height. I’m sure it must look as utterly awkward to a third party observer as it feels when you’re doing it, but sometimes there’s no better way to see over a crowd (or a wall, in this case).

Turing around 180 degrees from where I was pointing the camera for the under-bridge shot, you can look up the estuarine inlet on the island, and feel like you’re a hundred miles from civilization. If you look very carefully you can see a snowy egret crossing the stream in the center background.

And then there’s the Roosevelt Monument in the middle of the island. It feels a bit like a Soviet Realist architect was designing a set for 2001: A Space Odyssey. White marble monoliths ring the perimeter with quotes from Roosevelt chiseled into them. Looking at them I half-expected to hear the strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra come wafting out of the woods if I stood there long enough.

And thinking of Ubermenschen, the statue of Roosevelt really feels like you could swap out his head for Lenin’s and nobody would even notice. This monument would be equally at home in Moscow. Of course, the placement within the natural environment and the environment’s intrusion into the monument belie its non-Soviet origins. When was the last time you saw something like this with so many trees and shrubbery dedicated to a Communist icon?

The bowl of this fountain is monumental in itself. It kind of reminds me in a weird way of Napoleon’s tomb at the Invalides. Fortunately nobody is buried in the fountain. But it is big enough to be a bathtub for William Howard Taft.

I saw this man sitting, reading his book, attended by his thermos. I think it’s a fitting image to close with as it re-humanizes the monument and makes a statement about how public places can have meaning and emotional resonance for the people who use them.

Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Panoramics, Photography, Washington DC

Teddy Roosevelt Island – Panoramics

September 30, 2014 dcphotoartist 1 Comment

As you’ve seen, I’ve been playing around lately with the panoramic head for my Rolleiflex, trying out some two and three frame panoramas. With each additional frame in the panorama, it gets harder to stitch together and keep aligned, and to match exposure. Not to mention the people who get caught at the periphery of a frame and then move so they’re missing a limb or something in the second frame.

I can’t explain what my fascination with traffic cones is, but this one, marking out the collapsed section of the middle of the observation deck, was just so perfectly positioned that it needed to be photographed, both as a single frame and as a panorama. This couple strolled in to the scene as I was shooting, and I decided that they added an interesting dimensional element to the scene, so I kept photographing while they were there instead of waiting for them to leave.

This is one scene where a three-frame panorama just doesn’t quite fit. I think the imbalance of the fountain basin makes it more interesting than having everything balanced and proportionate. What do you think? Do you like the way the imbalance pulls your eye back and forth across the frame from lower left to upper right? Does that feel natural or uncomfortable to you?

I’m getting in more practice with including people in scenes. My instinct is, for some reason, to photograph places without people in them. But now that I’m getting better at doing it, it’s starting to feel more appropriate to include them. It certainly humanizes the place, and helps give it a sense of purpose and utility, like this is somewhere that people actually want to go and do things, and not some empty monument to a long-dead dictator who, like Ozymandias, has no meaning to the people of today beyond his statue and inscription.

I didn’t photograph the inscriptions on the marble slabs around the periphery of the Roosevelt monument because I think that A: those kinds of photos make for very boring photos, and B: the rendering of those quotes into two dimensions grossly undercuts the meaning of the quotes and the experience of reading them in-situ. I would strongly suggest, though, that anyone interested check out The Theodore Roosevelt Center website for the full extent of the quotes. They are profound meditations on the nature of man and his environment, politics, and government every bit as appropriate and relevant today as they were when Teddy was president at the dawn of the 20th century.

Black and White, Cameras, Infrared, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

Teddy Roosevelt Island – Infrared

September 30, 2014 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

This past weekend I took a hike on Teddy Roosevelt Island. For those not in the know, Roosevelt Island is an island in the Potomac River across from Georgetown in Washington DC. The island is accessed from the Virginia side of the river. I have driven past TR for the past 35 years but never stopped to visit because I was always on my way to something “more pressing” and/or I was on the wrong side of the expressway passing it at the time I thought about stopping (The parking lot is only accessible from the northbound side of the expressway). Well, on Saturday, I had no place I HAD to be at any specific time, I had the Rolleiflex with a bunch of film, and no better excuse to not stop. So I pulled in and parked and took a walk around the circumference of the island.

I loaded up the camera with some Maco 820c Aura infrared film. I’ve had this film sitting in my fridge for eight, nine years, (it outdated in 2007) so I wanted to try a couple rolls and see if it was still any good. I was concerned because other Infrared films I’ve used have NOT aged well. The infrared sensitizing dyes apparently are the bits that degenerate quickly and help build base fog (a bad thing). Obviously, this has not been a problem with the Maco IR.

One downside to the Maco is that it is a VERY slow emulsion. Using the Hoya R72 filter, consensus judgment is that it is best to set your meter to ISO 1 and use those readings, or if your meter won’t go that low, use the Sunny 16 rule and base your exposure on 1 second at f16 and go from there.

In this image, I was winging it on the exposure – my meter doesn’t have ISO 1 as an option. I was in some pretty deep shade, so I figured I would have a very long exposure, just guessing from overall lighting conditions and knowing that the film has very poor reciprocity failure – an indicated 1 second exposure needs two seconds, an indicated two needs four, a four second exposure needs eight, an eight second exposure needs 24 seconds, 15 seconds needs 60, and 30 seconds needs 180. I guesstimated this would require between 30 and 60 seconds, accounting for the reciprocity. Well, I overestimated by a good 50-75%. But as you can see that wasn’t that horrible a thing – I got a very useable image.

This is the view from the north end of the island, with Key Bridge and Georgetown University in the background. I took a gamble on this photo because there were two kayakers in the river and I would normally have expected them to turn into indistinct blurs with a two second exposure like I gave this scene. But I took a chance as they were in a spot in the river where they could effectively “hover” – and they did. So it worked.

What is it with me and safety cones? I keep finding them everywhere and photographing them. This time, in infrared.

Safety Cone, Marsh Overlook, Teddy Roosevelt Island

35mm Cameras, Black and White, Cameras, Night-time, Photography, Washington DC

Twilight Walkabout, Contax G2

September 25, 2014 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

A while ago a friend of mine asked me to shoot a roll of Tri-X through my Contax G2 so he could see how it performed in low-light situations, as he was thinking about getting one himself. I took a walk around my neighborhood one evening in the spring, put a roll through the camera, and these are some of the results.

One thing I notice about the shots I’ve been taking with the G2 is that my composition has been freer, less formal and less insistent on everything being nice, tidy, plumb and square. I’ve been shooting more off-angle shots and I don’t know if that’s because I’m shooting hand-held, eye-level, or because I’m trying out more ‘grab shots’ where the camera isn’t even really being brought to my eye, I’m just aiming and trusting the auto-focus. I know in the past I would have found a lot of these off-angle ‘grab shots’ objectionable and they’d have gone straight to the reject pile. But I’m reconsidering them now and I’m starting to like them. Well, maybe more appreciate them for what they are, and not reject them out of hand.

Cars at night are interesting. Depending on how you shoot them, they can be sharp, they can be blurred, or they can even disappear, leaving behind only the light trails of their head and tail lamps as proof they were once there.

The BMW was stopped fully at the traffic light when I started the exposure, but the SUV next to it was in the act of stopping, and the car turning onto 14th Street was in continuous motion.

Cars and people have to co-exist on city streets. Here a pedestrian follows a speeding car through the intersection, hoping to make the other side before the change of the light.

People in low light are a similar problem – they don’t ever really sit still. Combine that with needing to use large apertures with shallow depth of field in low light, and the requisite slow shutter speeds, and you have a recipe for blur. This was something else I used to always find objectionable; blurry people. Now, I think of it more as a sign of our humanity and our alive-ness.

This isn’t to say we always need to be in continuous motion – quiet contemplation in a sea of motion is often called for and a needed respite.

Architecture at twilight is in some ways easier to shoot because the subjects aren’t moving. But that still has challenges because the contrast range of dim exteriors and bright interiors, combined with hotspots from outside spot lights, can be just as difficult to balance.

The fun thing about these lighting situations, though, is that it sets up the viewer to make a psychological interrogation of the building- you are literally being pulled into the interior of the space to examine, investigate and interpret something illuminated from within that in daylight is muted if not hidden.

35mm Cameras, Black and White, Cameras, Photography

Contax G2, 35mm f2 Planar

September 23, 2014 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

Most of you know me as a medium format and/or large format photographer. But, every once in a while, I do like to break out my ‘toy’ format stuff and use my Contax G2. I was asked to take some photos for the office picnic as a second shooter, so I popped a roll of Tri-X in the G2, put on the 35mm f2 Planar lens, and shot a dozen or so shots. For whatever reason, they decided to have the picnic INSIDE the garage instead of on the top deck of the garage, and it was painfully dim, thus the lack of volume on the photos. I had two thirds of a roll left, so I went for a walk and burned some film. These are two shots that came from that quick walkabout by my office, and I think are very much in keeping with the general themes of my work, even if they’re shot on tiny film 🙂

The 35mm lens for the G2 has this odd reputation – by all standards, it is an outstanding lens. However, its siblings are so much better that when compared to the 45mm f2 Planar, or the 28mm f2.8 Biogon, it comes up a little lacking, and doesn’t get much love from the Contax aficionados. After shooting with it for the picnic/walkabout, I’m re-evaluating how I feel about it, and it might get more use from here on out.

Black and White, Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

Neighborhood Walkabout – 9/21/2014

September 23, 2014 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

I’ve been past the PanAm Market for years and wanted to photograph the outside, but never got around to it. Several times I’ve walked past and been on the verge of taking a photo but gotten the hairy eyeball from patrons or folks just hanging out on the sidewalk in front, so I’ve moved on and not taken the shot. This time there were not so many folks around and I was able to get a clean picture of it.

After scanning the negative I noticed that there’s a kid’s hand on the window that looks somewhat disembodied. All the security bars on the windows and doors make it look like a prison rather than a store, which was certainly NOT my intent. But it is what it is, and there’s no changing that. The kid was sitting by the door and holding it open for people with full carts trying to get out to their cars.

I’ve photographed Barbara’s Beauty Salon before, close up. This time I shot from across the street, to include the crosswalk stripes and more of the context of the neighborhood. I think you can really see the “Ajax Was Here” phenomenon in this shot. The Premium Title company to the right is brand new and spiffy looking, Gloria’s Pupusas to the left is cleaner, newer and bright and busy. Barbara’s, I still can’t tell if they’re even in business.

Here’s the older photo I posted of Barbara’s for comparison:

Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

Changing Neighborhood – Chickas Jeans

September 23, 2014 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

A sign of the times? A year and a half ago, I ran across this display of mannequin bottoms outside Chickass Jeans. The name was highly politically incorrect, and the mannequins seemed equally so. For those not conversant in Spanish, “chica” is the word for girl (or young woman). The store is in a heavily Latino neighborhood and caters primarily to young Latina women.

In the intervening year, they’ve renovated the shop, and changed the name. It’s now Chickas Jeans. I have mixed feelings about the name change- there was something amusing about the blatantness of the sexual pun in the name. Amusing in the same way that Hitler jokes in “The Producers” are amusing – seeing the old sign was just so jarring to the sensibilities that you couldn’t help but chuckle at it from discomfort. Perhaps it’s a sign that Latina feminism is starting to take hold and the message is getting through that women don’t want to be objectified.

Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Panoramics, Photography, Washington DC

Playing with Panoramics – Diptychs

September 21, 2014 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

Ok- here are some twosies I did, still with the Rollei and the panorama adapter.

The first one is a shot of a street corner with the skeletal remains of a police call box from the first decade or so of the 20th century. The building behind it is now a charter school. I’ve often thought of how to photograph the wall around the playground fence behind the school. This is the first shot I’ve done that really does it justice.

I came upon this mailbox leaning at its crazy angle and decided it would make a good subject for a diptych that emphasized and even exaggerated the tilt of the mailbox. What is it with me and mailboxes?

Both of these scenes are in my neighborhood – I walk past them regularly on my way to run errands or get some dinner. I’m really starting to appreciate the advice of Edward Weston, “There’s no good photos to be made more than 50 feet from the car”, although I’m expanding the perimeter and rephrasing it a little: “There are plenty of good photos to be had within a mile of your house”.

Black and White, Cameras, Medium Format Cameras, Panoramics, Photography, Washington DC

Playing with Panoramics – Triptychs

September 21, 2014 dcphotoartist 2 Comments

I’ve got this really cool little toy that goes with my Rolleiflex – a panoramic head adapter. It’s basically a little plate with a disc in it divided into twelve segments, and an integrated bubble level. The plate goes between the Rolleiflex and the tripod head. The disc has a locking mechanism and click stops that allow it to be rotated a fixed number of degrees, corresponding to 1/12th of a circle (30 degrees) which is also more or less the field of view of the lens on the Rolleiflex. This would allow you to photograph a 360 degree panorama on a single roll of 120 film.

A 360 degree panorama is a bit much, and pretty tough to pull off. I’ve been playing with doing two-frame and three-frame panoramas, which seem plenty wide already. Here is one I took this afternoon at the little plaza in front of the Tivoli Theater in Columbia Heights.

It does a pretty good job of matching up the frames, with just a few degrees of overlap, enough to make the blending and alignment relatively easy. If you’re paying attention you can see the seams where some things just don’t match up angle-wise, and where the car gets cut off between exposures.

This one I composed a little differently – in selecting what to include, I left a little bit of film border in between each frame because I think it compliments the overall image – the black borders echo nicely the black bars of the fence in front of the bikes. Although I have two bikes in the center frame, and one each in the left and right frames, each frame does feel distinctly different.

I decided to get a little playful and have fun with the crazy angles you can get from a panorama when you aren’t level to the horizon. I wanted all of the conical roof of the turret on the house on the corner in the picture, so I tilted the camera up (the other option would have been to go home and bring a step-ladder, and raise the tripod to its maximum height, and even then I might not have gotten the shot I was looking for).

And last but not least, back to the fully merged panorama. This one I didn’t get the horizon quite as straight as I should have, and so the outside images were a little crooked, and the center one was definitely not level, so I had to play with how I aligned them and cropped them to make it look relatively normal. I like the look of this one despite its flaws.

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