Category Archives: Photographs

Wind Surfing

Photographs

Not exactly planned

I was driving up California’s finest road today, in search of elephant seals, but was distracted by a bunch (covey? clan? cult?) of wind surfers intent on doing their thing on this blustery afternoon. Given that the Pacific rarely gets above 60F, all these chaps come equipped with rubber suits. Indeed, some look as if they were born in them!


5D, 24-105mm at 55mm, 1/6000, f/6.7, ISO 250

I approached the beach where the surfers were only to find it covered with elephant seals. You make your own luck. A couple of quick snaps of the rubber-suited set (keeping the exposure short to preserve the highlights) and then a far friendlier ‘hullo’ to the somewhat chubbier lot lolling on the beach. I guess 65F is paradise for these denizens of the Pacific.


5D, 24-105mm at 105mm, 1/2000, f/6.7, ISO 250

As my 5D and a few lenses are always in the trunk, there’s no need to remember to ‘always carry a camera’. The surfer snaps reminded me that I must clean the 5D’s sensor – a rare bugaboo in a near perfect tool. The blobs in the huge expanse of sky were retouched in LR2 before publication. You can just see the internal reflection in the sky, as the lens was aimed almost directly into the sun.

Back when

Photographs

Remembering the old days

With the season-opening Australian Formula One race today, it seems only appropriate to celebrate the ‘business end’ of some 80 years ago, in the shape of the dash and wheel on a classic Bugatti.


5D, 100mm Macro, ring flash, 1/200, f/11, ISO 160

Made back in the days when men were men …. and women were men!

The brakes were no less refined and just as beautiful:


5D, 100mm Macro, ring flash, 1/200, f/9.5, ISO 160

And in case you thought pre-selector gearboxes were the latest and greatest in racing technology, Bugatti had that down in 1930 ….


Gear ‘lever’ on Bugatti’s pre-selector gearbox

Manet’s Bar

Paintings

Amongst the great benefits of a 1970s higher British education was the complete laxity shown at my school (University College, London) about attendance. Given that I was a mechanical engineering student and realized early on that there was not a living to be made in the subject, I naturally spent most of those three happy years (1973-76) in the art galleries and auction houses of London. As my net worth was my Leica M3 and one pair of jeans, I wasn’t exactly a bidder at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, but they let me in anyway and I managed to luxuriate in some of the greatest art works never to see the inside of a museum.

Of all these great works that became formative influences none surpasses Manet’s ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergère’. It didn’t hurt that it was owned by the Courtauld Institute which just happened to be across the road from my college.


Manet. A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. 1882

This is the most intensely photographic of paintings. The use of reflections, the amputated Kermit-like legs of the trapeze artist at top left, the action in the mirror, the sad ‘decisive moment’ look on the barmaid’s face – it’s all there. Best of all, the Courtauld exhibited it under a skylight, meaning that you had a 33% chance of catching the picture at its best (it was raining the other two times) when a beam of sun would illuminate the canvas. The result was magic. You could hear the unruly crowds, smell the booze and sweat and generally revel in the sheer reality of it all.

The most photographic of paintings.

And British beer aficionados amongst you will recognize the red triangles on the bottles on the bar.


An established brand for a few hundred years now

As for my grades, magna cum laude was a perfect ROE (Return On Effort) – six months’ work beating the three years’ worth which a summa dictated. A gentleman’s degree!