Monthly Archives: March 2013

Worn

A spider’s home.


A spider has made this worn balustrade home to his web.

Nikon D2x, 35mm AF-S Nikkor G at f/2.8 – a lens which, despite its cheap feel, I have nothing bad to say about.

Chinatown

Crowded.

One of San Francisco’s more crowded areas, complete with garish tourist stores and cigarette smoke. It’s hard to take a really bad picture here, even harder to take a really good one, what with the mass of visual noise seemingly omnipresent.

All on the Panasonic G1, kit lens.

Pioche

The middle of nowhere.

Pioche, on the east border of Nevada, is an old silver mining town which saw a boom and bust in the 1860s when silver was discovered. Once home to more brothels and gunfights than even the most violent of Western movies, it’s now dead as can be, although signs of the old days remain.

When it’s time to get out of town, you can be in Ely, to the north, for breakfast in exactly one hour, as my ride on a BMW K100LT proved back in 1994. The worst praise you could give this machine was ‘competent’, for it had all the charisma of a washing machine. Or Tim Cook. Always started. Never surprised you. But 110 per is no biggie in the middle of nowhere; there’s no place for the cops to hide and the only thing you will encounter is some crows munching on carrion.

W.C. Fields once remarked that Philadelphia was “A good place to be from”. He was mistaken. He meant Nevada.


Lyric theater, Pioche, NV.

Pentax ME Super, 40mm pancake lens. Kodachrome 64 scanned in a Nikon Coolscan 2000 35mm film scanner. (Re)processed in Lightroom 4.

Yuma

A true desert town.

Yuma, on the CA-AZ border in Arizona, pretty much died when the freeway bypassed it. The old town is a fascinating place, much beloved of period-piece movie makers and a visit is recommended. The gaol was built by the inmates who were then locked in it, and has an interesting exhibit on its grounds.

All images on a Leica M2, 35mm Summicron, in 1995. Kodachrome 64 scanned on a Canon 4000US 35mm scanner. The greatly enhanced processing tools in Lightroom 4 make recovery of shadow detail, which I thought was long gone, easy. If you have yet to upgrade from earlier versions I recommend you do so right away. The cost-benefits are very favorable.

An amusing review

The competition neatly skewered.

Atlanta based music photographer Zack Arias has an amusing review of the Fuji X100S, well illustrated with excellent photography, on his blog. I think my favorite bit is about the two old duffers, Canon and Nikon, sitting in the corner, resentful of the newcomers, and perennially arguing.

Click the image below to go there.


Click the picture.