Working around the problem.
Sometimes when life confronts you with obstacles, you just have to negotiate around them. Or, as Churchill put it, “Difficulties mastered are opportunities won”.
The 24-105mm Canon ‘L’ is the ideal walking about lens for this sort of thing. If it weighed half as much it would be perfect. Snapped in downtown Paso Robles, California this past Tuesday.
Almost done for the year.
The row of cottonwoods on the old estate, thoughtfully planted by the original owner, is about finished for the year. These lovely trees need little maintenance, grow fast and have leaves which flutter beautifully when in full bloom. I give each a massive fertilizer spike in the spring and lots of water in the summer and that’s about it.
At sunset, they are glorious to behold.
Pure serendipity.
I wa staying downtown San Francisco at the St. Francis at the turn of the millennium, and when I leaned out of the hotel window, this is what I saw:
Natural Redhead. Christmas, 1999, San Francisco. Leica M6, 50mm Summicron, Kodachrome 64
The original slide was digitized on a Nikon 2000 film scanner and is otherwise unprocessed.
I have been lucky to own many Leitz 50mm Summicron lenses, as befits the greatest optic of the past century. These included a collapsible screw mount one (very early) which I used on a IIIG ‘Barnack’ body. For my M2, M3 and M6 I variously owned single and dual range versions of the fixed mount 7 element design in that gorgeous chrome that only Leica could do in the 1950s. Then there was the six element variant – the one without the infinity catch and the last with a removable head which you could use on your enlarger. I did. And finally the magnificent first version of the Summicron-R for the Leicaflex, which I used on my SL and R4. That one combined Nikon vibrance with Leica subtlety in your color snaps.
All were dear friends, participants and collaborators and if I admit to a favorite – a cruel task indeed, as to elect one for the top rung is to relegate all the others – it would be the six element on my M2 or M6. Many knocked it, and the satin black finish was so …. ugh!, but I liked the high contrast compared to the earlier versions and the low weight. In some respects, its images felt more Nikon than Leica. You know. Where you elect punchiness and contrast over detail.
It’s a trade off I was willing to make at that time of my life – a long time, come to think of it, as that Summicron was a colleague for nigh on twenty years. Do you think you will be able to say that in twenty years regarding your latest purchase?
Wading about
On a favorite, secluded beach off Highway One the other day, I was wading about in the tide pools at low tide and came across this beautiful collection of kelp. Well hidden in the shade of a giant boulder, it was a moment’s work with the ring flash to bring out the gorgeous cornucopia of colors, shapes and textures otherwise hidden from view.
The auto-everything E-TTL of the ring flash makes this sort of thing close to child’s play. Just bring your imagination.
Tide tables are very useful for this sort of thing as you don’t want to arrive at high tide. These are my local ones.
This chap knows a thing or two.
Mooching about Morro Bay the other evening and what do I see?
Why, the very best fisherman there is, and he uses no rod or reel.
Wander out to the central California Pacific coast any evening and you will see whole squadrons of these experts, trolling for an easy meal.
Once I saw maybe fifty or so, all hovering at twenty feet, then executing a power dive, wings back, and swimming underwater after their prey. I often get the feeling we have learned little from the animal world.