Rolleiflex shot of a now For Sale ice cream location. Used to be Frosty Freeze in Garwood for 20-30 years, then closed and renamed somewhere around the pandemic. Now FS again. This taken in late June, now in late July the For Lease is gone. This taken with my Rolleiflex, but needed extensive Ps work to correct perspective and clean up the area around the structure.
Behind Young Paint in Fanwood, NJ, there sits an old shed. Probably used by that business for storage. Young Paint was a great, local paint store with a bunch of very knowledgeable guys who would spend the time to work with you to get the right paint or varnish for your needs. Founded in 1957 it was a fixture of the community. I don’t know what actually happened, but I imagine it succumbed to the big box Lowes and Home Depot like so many neighboord hardware or paint stores. Regardless of the service, the big paint companies don’t want to
Quick shot of a dandelion plant trying to take over a now-abandoned garage. Sevelle’s Auto Garage, sold by the family, now slated for a pocket park and multi-family housing, just like so many old businesses around here. The days of all these gritty businesses clustered around the train lines on North and South Ave in Westfield and Garwood is numbered. Nobody wants large industrial businesses, of course. Stuff like metal bending, textile mills, ets. The time for that is LONG gone. Now the commercial businesses are being scooped up by landlords who have decided that rather than have an Auto
Dandelion taking over Full Post »»»»
Sprocket photos from Atlanta. This is 35mm, Double XX film in my Lomo LC-A 120. I did make the mistake of not setting the focus before the shot, which I find is the most irritating aspect of this camera. Because it’s so much of a Point-and-Shoot camera……and it’s viewfinder camera, i.e. no rangefinder, it’s very easy to forget to focus. What I need to do is develop a better routine when shooting these sorts of cameras, i.e. those with no focusing aid. With a rangefinder patch or an SLR’s focusing screen, it’s super-intuitive to remember to focus, or something is
Sprockets in Atlanta Full Post »»»»
More fun with the Lomo L-A 120. This time with FPP X-Ray film, an orthochromatic, medical X-Ray film cut down to 120 size and format. I exposed it at ISO 100 and developed it in HC110-Dilution B at the recommended 6 min. The negatives were nice, but boy were they dense. So next time I’ll cut the ISO to 200 (1 stop less) and cut the development by 1 minute. The canoes are dark green, while the wood planks are teak-colored brown, even they show almost the same tonality. I not only love the patterns, but the delicate tonality of
Winter Canoes in X-Ray Full Post »»»»
Got a Lomo LCA-120 camera a couple of months ago and have been really having a fun time with it. In case someone doesn’t know, it’s a point-and-shoot 120 camera with an autoexposure aperture and shutter speed, 4-position scale focus, and an ultra wide angle 38mm lens (equal to a 21mm on 35mm film). Not super sharp on the edges, but a lot better than a Holga. Super-expensive for what it is at around $400, but the only alternatives are a Hasselblad SWC at $3k or a 3D-printed camera, and the closest you can get is probably a 47mm Angulon.
LCA-120 and 35mm Film Full Post »»»»
Had the Noblex 135U out in Westfield, NJ in February for urban shooting, definitely my favorite type of photography right now. I really like this camera, but like all panoramas, you really have to be careful with your levels, so I have both an in-camera and a hot-shoe, 2-way level on the camera. I find that the best shots come from holding the camer at waist level where you can really get the level right or on a tripod. You also have to be very careful with fingers and side subjects given the 140 degree FOV. No tilting.
Wide Angle Urban Full Post »»»»
Back in Westfield, NJ, Walking around behind the businesses. The sterile store fronts in this “bubble town” are lovely with their windows and bucolic shoppers (I do live here), but the backs of the stores are where the interesting stuff is. This all with the 120 film LCA-120 ultra wide angle P&S.
More LCA-120 Urban Full Post »»»»
Got a new, to me of course, Nikon S2 Rangefinder camera from Igor’s Camera Exchange (highly recommended, by the way), got it CLA’s by Pro Camera in Charlottesville, VA (also great guys and great work). Loaded it up with Delta 100, which I love in HC-100 Dil B and went to a local, very tired nature preserve. Most of the local town nature places here in Northern NJ are overrun by deer, so they are devoid of much understory. Not good. But this can make for nice patterns. This one, in Fanwood, NJ, also has a boardwalk that has nice
Nikon S2 in the woods Full Post »»»»
“The Bench” got another treatment in February when, as the post in the snow, was lit by that wonderful late-afternoon sun. The light comes through just over my neighbor’s house for about 10-15 minutes about an hour before sunset and creates this great light. I looked out my office window and saw how nice the light was and grabbed my Kodak Retina IIa, that had a roll of the wonderful Kodak Double-XX black and white film it. I metered with an incident meter, because I wanted the highlights properly metered. I decided to allow most of the shadows to fall
The Bench in Black and White Full Post »»»»
Just got my new IIa 016 back from Chris Sherlock today. Boy, he does good work. My only other Retina is a IIIc 021 (non-working meter) so now I have a comparison of two cameras that were a few years apart. 1. Size / Weight difference – It’s significant when you pick up the cameras. That increased top holding the meter makes the IIIc camera feel a lot bigger. In addition, the front of the IIa is flat, whereas the IIIc is curved, which makes the IIa easier to hold and it feels narrower. The overall impression is very different
Kodak Retina IIIc vs. IIa – Newly serviced Full Post »»»»
Something dug out from the archives. NYC somewhere: Fall 2003. Shot on Delta 400. Probably with a collapsible Summicron on a Leica, but I can’t remember if that’s right or not. Scan via Epson 850i
NYC Street Scene 2003 Full Post »»»»
