Photographs, Photographers and Photography

A brief personal history.
This piece addresses macro lenses - those which provide significant image scale when focused close. Regard this as a teaser for the unfolding story of my macro photography experience.
In Themes have their uses I ruminated on the need for themes - goals if you like - in your photography, if quality […]

The low stress way.
I doubt there’s a bird I don’t like. Even the turkey vultures which call this area home, with a face only a mother could love, once on the wing are a thing of beauty.
The other day on our daily ramble, Bert the Border Terrier and I observed a red tailed hawk […]

Just the thing the 5D ordered.
My last sensor brush - for the Canon 5D’s eternal love affair with dust - gave up the ghost so a new one was called for.
I splashed out major coin ($9.95 actually) at B&H for a Pearstone brush.

The brush retracts and clicks at both ends of its travel. The […]

No, not the planet.
Everyone knows this one:

Botticelli. Venus, 1486. Uffizi, Florence.
And here’s today’s version:

Towel advertisement, 2008
Maybe not as powerful a rendition as with that Raphael but a good effort nonetheless, the towel replacing the hair. Notice how the towel has been cleverly sculpted to imitate the shell in the original.
And if you are […]

Accidental lighting.

Light pools. Lumix LX-1, 1/50, f/4.9, ISO 80
This building in San Francisco’s charming North Beach neighborhood is being patched up but all I could see were rays of light falling on the wall. Plus, of course, a touch of Bonnard in that strangely inclined table.

Pierre Bonnard. The dining room in the country, […]

Another neo-Hopper.

In North Beach, San Francisco. Lumix LX-1, 1/50, f/4.9, ISO 80
I actually had to use the LCD screen to frame this, as the lens was zoomed to maximum, invalidating my glued-on optical viewfinder.
A recurring theme for me is the loneliness of the big city, crowded as it may be. You have to love the […]

Scenes in San Francisco.
The master is everywhere to be seen.

Columbus Avenue, San Francisco. Lumix LX-1,1/160, f/4, ISO 80

Columbus Avenue, San Francisco. Lumix LX-1,1/500, f/4.9, ISO 80