Somebody wants cake
In SoHo, a woman chats on her cell phone, worried that the children passing by may suddenly rush past her for the best chocolate cake in the world. Meanwhile, Spiderman waits to make his move.
Waiting for the Bus
I had the opportunity to shoot a few rolls with a Leica M7 last week, and absolutely loved the experience of shooting film. At the risk of sounding trite, it made me more considerate of the images I was taking and more patient in the process of taking them. The time and cost of getting from film to prints or digital images was another story. However, once I saw the prints, I was bowled over. The texture, contrast, and color of Kodak’s Portra line of film is just outstanding. There’s something very cinematic about the prints, that I don’t recognize in digital images.
Walking through the square
This group was walking through Alamo Square after Bay to Breakers when I photographed them.
Panasonic GF1 + 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens, processed in Adobe Lightroom
Mid-race texting
I can’t think of another race in which a participant would dress up as a ballerina or stop halfway through to message her friends on her BlackBerry. But this is San Francisco, and this is Bay to Breakers.
Leica M8 with 40mm Leica Summicron-M, processed in Adobe Lightroom.
Is the history of France the history of love?
The juxtaposition between this awkward looking couple and the advertisement was too good to ignore. Click on the image for the actual, uncropped version.
Leica M8 with 40mm Leica Summicron-C, processed in Apple Aperture
At the starting line
At this red light, two bikers look left and two look right. Who’s going to come out ahead? My money is on the woman with the Kookai bag.
Leica M8 with 40mm Leica Summicron-C, processed in Apple Aperture
Getting a light
This young man takes a break from his kitchen to smoke a cigarette, standing just out of the shadows and in the light on the Boulevard des Italiens.
Leica M8 with 40mm Leica Summicron-C, processed in Apple Aperture
When the light changes, the texting stops
This man in a suit typed furiously on his BlackBerry while he sat at a red light near St. Germain. As the light turns to green, he places his phone back in his pocket before he pedals away.
Leica M8 with 40mm Leica Summicron-C, processed in Apple Aperture
The best cheap camera ever
It’s often said that the best camera is the one you have with you because being able to get the shot even with compromised gear is better than not getting the shot at all. It’s a phrase that people use to defend iPhone cameras, and sites like Cellular Obscura show that cell phone cameras can, indeed, capture decisive moments. My iPhone goes with me most places, but I’m sure I’ll replace it within the next year or two.
However, before the iPhone and before digital pocket cameras, the camera that went everywhere with me was the Olympus Stylus Epic. It was small, stylish, and had better and faster optics than most point-and-shoot cameras produced in the 1990s. It spent five years in my backpack, going, literally, everywhere. Eventually, I stopped using it around the time I became more serious about black and white photography and also found a digital camera whose quality and controls I felt were up to my standards.
A couple weeks ago, I found the Stylus in a drawer. I popped in a new battery, rewound the roll of film that was in it, and had it developed. On that roll of T-Max 400 were a few decent shots, which I’ll be posting on this blog over the next couple weeks. The one in this post I shot on the street in San Francisco in 2001. I don’t know if I was driving or walking but I do know that this is the very sort of scene that you shoot if you have a camera and you don’t if you don’t. I had my camera, and you can see the result. It’s not great, but it’s better than nothing.
And twelve years after I purchased the Stylus, it still shoots as well as it did on the day I bought it, which I can safely assume is more than people will be saying about their Canon digital ELPHs and iPhone cameras in twelve years.
Waiting for Superman, or something
This KRON reporter and her cameraman were waiting for their live spot on the local evening news to begin during the March 4 protest at the Civic Center.
Panasonic GF1 + 20mm f/1.7 Pancake lens, processed in Aperture
Impeach Obama protesters: friendly but insane
Of course, you can’t go to any large gathering in San Francisco or Berkeley without seeing some vocal supporters of Lyndon LaRouche. And here they are at the March Forth protest at the Civic Center on Thursday.
March Fourth
On Thursday thousands of people all over California and the country protests budget cuts to education. I went to the protest at the Civic Center in San Francisco, where this woman seemed to be hiding behind her scarf from the crazies.