In the local diner.
iPhone6 snap, processed in Silver Efex Pro 2 (TriX)
Category Archives: Photographs
Memorial Day
At the National Cemetery, SF.
The military always puts on a great show on Memorial Day at San Francisco’s National Cemetery, and today was no exception. This being the 50th anniversary of the Viet Nam war the crowds were heavy, complete with TV crews. Ugh!
A stiff breeze, with the GGB still in the mist.
Regimental flags.
Navy.
Grim database.
Family affair.
Vintage cars from the WW2 era.
Young recruit steers a classic Willys Jeep.
In memoriam.
Zooed, with the Mayor present.
Keeping Hishonner safe is not cheap. Alcatraz behind.
Flower vendor.
All snapped on two Panny GX7s, mounting that estimable pair the 14-45mm and 45-200mm Panny compact MFT zooms. These optics may be almost a decade old yet continue to provide a broad and versatile focal length range while weighing (and costing!) little.
Traveling in style
On the great liners.
In an age where (mostly white) trash pervades the news cycle, and one in which such human detritus is headed for the Oval Office regardless of one’s vote, it’s a pleasure to contemplate an earlier age of paparazzi which saw the rich and famous photographed crossing the Atlantic in the luxury liners of the inter-war years.
Fred and Adele Astaire on the S.S. Majestic, 1927.
The New York Times reminds us of that age in a splendid piece with many period images, which you can see by clicking the picture above.
For those interested in the great liners I recommend ‘The Only Way to Cross’ by John Maxtone-Graham, available used through Abe Books. The book looks exhaustively at these floating palaces, from the Mauretania and Titanic through the QE2, in both aesthetic and technical detail and is highly recommended. It includes many period photographs.
If you are seeking to get a sense of just how special these great ships were, you can stay on the Queen Mary in Long Beach which is now a floating hotel.
Royally well done
The Queen turns 90 today.
Age has seen to it that Her Majesty no longer rides a horse to review the Guards at the Trooping of the Color, but her energy and commitment remain undimmed. Her life as monarch spans the greatness of Churchill, the first Prime Minister in her reign, the loss of Empire, the even greater loss of Englishness hoist on the petard of multiculturalism – the fruits of Empire – and the loss of English industry to Germans and their ilk.
If she is guilty of poor judgment it is solely in the case of that press whore, Diana, who made the masses her own while executing some sort of confused agenda quite beyond the bounds of logic. Mercifully, a lucky accident solved the Queen’s dilemma.
The beauty of the design of the United Kingdom’s constitutional monarchy is that the moment a majority of voters tires of the system it can be abolished by plebiscite, a process no more difficult than the signature event which crafted English parliamentary democracy in the first place, the beheading of Charles I in 1649. And no blood need be spilled. Sure, ruling monarchs came and went after him, Britain flirted with totalitarianism in the guise of Cromwell, flirted with disaster in the guise of that feckless fool Edward VIII, but somehow common sense prevailed – even if Guy Fawkes did not – and the tide of representative democracy was not to be denied. So if you have petty resentment in your soul for the system of monarchy, forget it. It’s the choice of English voters, after all, and quite likely one of the best economic bargains on the planet. For a pittance of an allowance the Queen does more for tourism and what little remains of British industry than you do. And she provides an invisible governor on the excesses of prime ministers which redefines soft power. The Prime Minister still meets with her weekly in Buckingham Palace and if you think it trivial to stare down the descendant of Queen Victoria, think again.
The hilarious picture above says everything you need to know about the stiffness of upper lips and I was reminded of it when last visiting London, where I grew up, in 1999. Needless to say I attended the Trooping of that same Color and a jolly good time was had by all.
On Pall Mall. Leica M6, 90mm Asph Summicron, Kodachrome 64.
All those images of the Guards remind me of a favorite Churchill story. On being informed that a senior cabinet member was caught importuning with a Guardsman in St. James’s Park he inquired of the circumstances, over his adviser’s determination to have the cad canned:
“At 2am, Prime Minister.”
“2am, you say?”
“Yes sir, in the middle of St. James’s Park.”
“In the park, you say?”
“Yes, sir. In the middle of winter.”
“In the middle of winter you say?”
“Yes sir, and without an overcoat”
“Without an overcoat? Makes you proud to be British, doesn’t it?”
Happy Birthday Queen Elizabeth. May you have many more.
Prompted by the above, my friend Santo Wiryaman sent me a gorgeous video documentary which he filmed in 4K on his new Panasonic G7, narrated by Richard Colton, a retired Park Service historian. If you want to learn more about the forbidding power of the British Army and its Grenadier Guards at the time of the Revolutionary War, this is compelling watching.
Click the image to watch the video.
Santo writes: “…Vitaliy K in Russia sells the G7 with unlimited length 4K recording. Grey market notwithstanding, I ordered one from him (through his shop in Hong Kong) and sure enough, a week later I got a G7 with the 14-42 kit lens with unlimited 4K recording. I should say limited only by your card size. I can record 90 minutes on a 64GB card. Having 4K footage is like shooting with an 8×10 negative to produce 4X6 prints. You can keep your shots wider and zoom-in in post later.”
Northfield, where my son will start prep school this fall, was in the thick of the action, and is mentioned by Colton at 14:31.
Thank you, Santo!
Pierre Bonnard
Rich and good.
The oft held belief that great painters have to suffer great poverty on the road to success is at best a poor generalization. None of the greats of the Renaissance were exactly struggling to put bread on the table, for they were busy turning down commissions. Jump to the late nineteenth century and for every starving Monet or Renoir you will find a wealthy Degas or Bonnard painting with genius and abandon while enjoying a life of comfort and plenty.
San Francisco’s Palace of Legion of Honor is holding the first west coast show of Pierre Bonnard’s (1867-1947) paintings and photographs in fifty years and it’s a fine summary of the artist’s best work, many pieces plucked from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
The canvases are well lit and captioned in something approaching readable font sizes, and while the miniscule photograph reproductions really should be larger (they are from Bonnard’s Kodak Brownie) they convey the sense of experimentation which is often seen in the paintings, limbs cut off at the edges of the canvas just as in many Degas works, the latter also a keen photographer.
It’s a fine show of beautiful work and strongly recommended.
iPhone6 snaps.