Morning Paper 1

Photographs

Mooching about in the Bay Area

This one’s a tad unusual for me.

First, I actually used the LCD screen to frame it on the Lumix LX1; indoors, it’s usable.

Second, the reason I had to use it is that my glued on viewfinder only frames accurately (well, sort of in the ballpark, if you get my drift) at the 28mm setting and here I had to zoom the lens all the way out to 100mm to get the composition right.

Shades of the Leica M2 and the 90mm, but much quieter!

I cranked the ISO up to 200 (400 is really too grainy) and held the camera as steady as I could.


Lumix LX1, 200 ISO, 1/13th, f/4.9. Processed in Aperture.

The Panasonic’s image stabilizer did its job as best it could and the result is more pointillist than blurred; the palm in the foreground was pure luck and the Lumix’s native 16:9 aspect ratio doesn’t hurt either.

Well, I didn’t know what would come out and the sparse color palette is my sort of thing.

Go where the money is

Software

Economics 101 and Photoshop CS3

Well, the glowing reviews are coming in from the big magazines extolling the genius of Photoshop CS3.

So, what are you going to do? Trash your biggest advertiser? I don’t think so.

Heads up, class, for Dr. Pindelski’s Three Rules of Economics:

  • All control drives up price
  • A fool and his money are easily parted
  • When wondering about decision making, always go where the money is

I have been using Photoshop CS3 in beta form for some four months now so let me write in clear, unconflicted language.

This remains the hardest to use, worst user interface, clunkiest photography software available. Rather than improve on previous versions it just gets worse. The menu structure is so poorly organized we now have new options like “Show all menu items” in drop down lists of umpteen selections! Just try to find something basic like Image->Contrast/Brightness without this option.

Increasingly, real world photographers – those who prefer to take pictures rather than process them – are adopting user friendly products like Aperture and Lightroom. For the average person who does not need a zillion variables applied to his snaps, CS3 is simply God’s way of telling you that you have too much money, time or both.

About the Snap: The Painter

About the Snap

The Painter.


Date: 1982
Place: Broadway on Manhattan’s Upper West Side
Modus operandi: More intent on grocery shoppng than photography.
Weather: Outdoors overcast.
Time: 3pm
Gear: Leica M3, 50mm Summicron
Medium: Kodachrome 64.
Me: Looking forward to the smell of all those cheeses at Zabar’s.
My age: 31

The Story: Few who are familiar with New York City’s west side would deny that amongst the greatest cultural attractions to be found there are the Julliard, Carnegie Hall, and the Carnegie Deli. And let’s not forget the greatest deli grocery store in the world, Zabar’s, up the road a few blocks on Broadway.

Now Broadway holds many precious memories, not least of them being this snap.

Once, lazily catching a Broadway bus rather than walk the few blocks home from 80th Street to 56th and Eighth, I sat transfixed opposite none other than the gorgeous Lauren Hutton, and found myself getting out on the opposite side of town, having missed my stop. On that same Broadway I lost my seemingly nuclear war-proof doorman’s umbrella, double struts and all, in a blast of wind when coming out of the Met with my mum in 1986. The umbrella died magnificently, sacrificing itself under a massive Checker cab. Every Thanksgiving you would have found me during the years 1980-86, cheering the Macy’s Parade on Broadway. And every winter, there I was on Broadway at Columbus Circle, watching the marathoners come home.

Now Zabar’s is far more than a European grocery store. It’s a place to meet, to argue, to debate. Art, politics, food, music, ballet, it makes no matter. A place where I sometimes went to gaze at the arcane cooking instruments, trying to work out their uses. A sure cure for depression. Add a pumpernickel bread my Polish forbears would have died for and a selection of coffees unparalleled in the Western hemisphere, and you have a special place.

So intent was I that Autumn day to get my provisions that I shot right by this amusing scene. Nothing gets between a hungry polack and his food. My mind’s eye caught this little piece of drama, however, and a few seconds later, disregarding the urgent messages from my tummy, I was retracing my steps. The tableau was still to be had!

After that, I was on autopilot.