11/25 - Back.

So I skipped a few days. I spent the time digesting what I had done while we were in Iceland, because it really felt like a lot.

On the way to the airport for the flight back, we stopped at the Blue Lagoon, which is conveniently located only 10 minutes from the airport.  It's a big, salty, egg scented, geothermically-heated wading pool with a spa built around it.  It's made blue by whatever minerals is loaded with, as opposed to the optical shenanigans going on at Jokulsarlon. We were there first in line in the morning and jumped right in to watch the orange glow of sunrise intensify over the mountains above the teal lagoon. Then dark clouds drifted in and our heads were pelted with a rattle of sleet, which had little effect thanks to the hot water we waded in.

I don't normally float very well, not even in the ocean, but the minerals in the water made me especially buoyant and for the firs time I could float on my back, and I bobbed between earth and sky and ice and fire.  

The contrast did not go unappreciated; it got my brain away from all the questions I was asking myself towards the end of the trip, which, of course, were photography related.  Did I expose for the right zones and do the right math?  How many shots did I waste with the lens cap on?  Was the lens fogged up when I took that photo by the waterfall?  How much did the tripod move?  Did I even remember to consider my composition in the midst of all this?

Sure, I was still having a good time towards the end, but whenever I had an idle moment my brain would wander to a shot I took in the previous week and wonder how it turned out.  It's all because I've never done serious landscape photography before, and it felt a lot like the first time I did wedding photography -- completely unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and overwhelming.  

I would trace my timeline back to when I took the shot and review everything -- what the meter read and what my settings were, what I wanted to take a picture of and where it was in the frame, where the light was and where it wasn't.  I can even remember how many segments of the tripod I had extended.  In between, I remember the sounds and smells and the rest of just being there that guided my framelines.

Not bad, considering I don't remember what I had for breakfast this morning.

Anyway, I'm waiting on the film and scans, which come back tomorrow. It's the usual excitement and fear of waiting to see if anything you shot on vacation even came out at all.  Shooting film makes you extremely aware of your success and failure. Here I am with 7 rolls in the lab without any idea if the time, effort, and money I put into them was really worth it. It's enough that there won't be such a thing as breaking even. 

For something like this it will be a very binary yes or no.

11/22 - Man.

I am tired of photography.

11/21 - F Roads

There are side roads branching off from the Ring Road called "F roads".  F for "fjall", or "mountain".  They are unmarked,  unpaved black gravel roads that usually lead to interesting places. You'll need 4WD, as the gravel is pretty loose. Do not even think of taking a 2WD rental on them. It sounded kind of scary at first, but for the most part our little 4x4 Suzuki Swift handled them well.

If there's a feature you'd like to take a closer look at, and there's an F road that points toward it, you should probably take it. Worst case it gets too scary and you pull a u-turn and get back on your way. Best case, you discover a hidden gem of a location. Also, it's likely that nobody else has thought to check it out, and you get the whole place to yourself.

Today we took a few scenic departures from the Ring Road. Originally I had wanted to go to this place, Eystrahorn, which would be the farthest East we planned on getting on our trip. However I guess it's not as scenic in the winter as it looks in the photos I saw, which must have been taken in the spring.

I was kind of sad about dragging the two of us 40 minutes to nowhere but on the way back Sharon spotted an F road leading to a valley with a small waterfall off to the side. We decided to venture in to have a look. When we got a little further in, a series of three more waterfalls revealed themselves! And, since there was nobody else around and we could see each other's bright jacket from a mile apart, we split off, Sharon scouting further into the valley while I stopped to plonk down my tripod. It was gorgeous.

I still don't even know the name of the location. It wasn't marked. I just dropped a pin on my GPS to look up when I get home.

11/20 - Jokulsarlon

Today we drove along the south coast, which transforms from peaceful farmhouses flanked by misty waterfalls to miles of flat desolate wasteland, populated only by moss and volcanic rubble.

Our highlight of the day and, probably, for the trip was the iceberg lagoon,  Jokulsarlon. It is a sheltered, peaceful lagoon surrounded by black sand and filled with icebergs. The blue is completely natural; I made sure to look this up when I got back because it is totally surreal.

The icebergs are blue instead of white because they are broken off from old glaciers, rather than formed from water meeting cold local weather. Because the ice has been packed under tons of pressure over long stretches of time, there are no bubbles to cause internal reflections, which would show as white. Instead, light passes all the way through  with the longer wavelengths, like red and yellow, being absorbed. That's how we get this crazy Gatorade blue.

We were there between tour busses and the place was dead quiet except for the activity in the lagoon. You hear the icebergs clock gently against each other, with big and small pieces occasionally breaking off and splashing into the water.

You can pick up the pieces that float ashore; they are glass-clear in smaller pieces, completely smooth, and they taste like fancy water.

11/19 - Countryside

This insomnia is making this blogging thing pretty easy. And vice versa, I guess. 

We saw a whole bunch of waterfalls today and a beach. This place really is beautiful. The sun rose across the countryside while we were about an hour past the city limits and lit everything up like a painting. I had to fight the urge to stop the car every mile to take a photo.

The destination for the day was Vik, a town on the southern coast. It's a very, very scenic 2 hour drive from Reykjavik, with all the phases of water along the way, specifically in the forms of waterfalls, steam vents, and glaciers. I think I did okay with the Velvia, but that is to be seen. 

Oh, don't feel too obligated to go all the way up the stairs at Skogarfoss. It's way more enjoyable at the bottom. Just make sure you have your Gore Tex on.

Oh, one hiccup - at the black sand beach at Reynisfjall, I turned my back on my tripod setup for a second and turned back around to find it face first in the sand. The 15mm Heliar took a bunch of small scratches on the front element, which I am far from happy about. I'm going to keep shooting it for the rest of the trip, but I think its days of shooting into the sun are over -- a sad fate for a lens named "Heliar."

11/18 - The Good Stuff

Going to see some waterfalls and glaciers today and loading up the Velvia. Hope I don't screw this up.

11/17 - Jet Lag

Turns out, the wine pairings in Iceland are very generous. I was in bed by 8 pm.

11/16 - On the Ground

I asked security to hand inspect my film for the first time. I was worried they would give me grief over it because it was just another thing for then to do, but it didn't seem to be to big a deal to them, and my 1600 ISO film escaped the wrath of the X Ray machine.

We got in at around 6 in the morning, with a hotel check-in at 3pm, so we had a lot of time to kill. First order of business: nap.

We parked the car outside the hotel and went to sleep. The sun wouldn't be rising until 10, anyway.

We woke up around 1 and went for a coffee. I had three.

11/15 - Ready to Fly

I'll be switching to my phone camera for now, and hopefully I'll get to keep posting things from Iceland. However, I'm also traveling with 3 cameras, 3 lenses, 15 rolls of film, and a tripod. The photos from those will have to come later. 

I'm a little bit nervous, actually.  I brought all my photo gear -- 10 pounds of it -- and I'm on my way to the most beautiful country in the world and I'm a bit shaky on my confidence to do it justice. 

It sounds kind of weird because you'd figure the photos will just take themselves, but the way I look at it, I want to be the one taking the photos. 

Ah well. Here goes. 

11/14 - 42nd St. Times Square

Fuji X100S

I always watch for when they're changing the ads at the Times Square station on the way to work.  Sometimes, it's kinda cool.

11/13 - Busker 2

Fuji X100S

Of course, after I write a post about how I don't take photos of buskers, I take a photo of another busker.

Also, this morning the blog hit 10,000 page views.  The number is drastically bolstered by a few posts to Reddit, but there are definitely core readers.  Thanks for reading, everyone!

11/12 - The Mexican Suitcase

Score!  I stopped by at the ICP yesterday just to look through the Salgado exhibit and kill an hour waiting for a dinner date, and as usual I took a peek at the gift shop.  They had a few copies of their compilation of the Mexican Suitcase on sale for $20.

For the sake of clarity, what I bought was a 2-volume set of books that contain text, photos, and contact sheets from and regarding the Mexican Suitcase -- not the suitcase itself.  The books just happen to be packaged in a nice box with a handle.

What is the Mexican Suitcase?  To be honest, I'd only heard about it last week, from this video by Ted Forbes at The Art of Photography.  You'd probably learn more from Ted's video than you would from me, so I highly recommend you take a look.  It's a collection of lost negatives from the Spanish Civil War from David "Chim" Seymour, Gerta Taro, and my hero, Robert Capa, that only resurfaced relatively recently in 2007.  The story of what happened to the negatives after they were taken is as interesting as the photos themselves.

The best part of the story to me is how none of this would happen with digital.  The Mexican Suitcase was actually three wooden boxes full of film -- not an SD card or files that can be uploaded via satellite.  We definitely have it way better nowadays, but then this story would not have happened.  Capa was in Paris in 1939 when the Germans came.  He left, leaving the negatives in Paris with his darkroom manager, who took them and got on a bike to try and get them shipped to Mexico.  Along the way, something happened and he had to hand the Suitcase off to a Chilean guy he ran into on the street and tell him to take it to the Chilean consulate.

After a long blurry story, with the negatives disappearing and resurfacing repeatedly, they finally ended up almost 60 years later in the hands of Robert Capa's brother, Cornell, at the International Center of Photography, where they were restored and scanned.  The compilation I bought last night was the result of the ICP's conservation effort.

Robert Capa's name may sound familiar because I've mentioned him in several previous posts as a smooth motherfucker, total badass and all-around cool dude.  Yesterday, it happens, Ted also released a video about Robert Capa, so you should watch that.  Hopefully this doesn't come off as blog piggybacking -- I just ran into the Suitcase by coincidence yesterday, and I figured I'd save you any more of my Capa fanboying.

11/11 - Hold the Door

Voigtlander Bessa R3A, Zeiss Planar 50mm f/2, Kodak Ektar (expired developer)

I'm pretty sure there was a NYC Tips and Etiquette about this.

Working in the office, I come across this situation a lot, and I'm sure a lot of people do too -- holding the door for someone.  Sometimes the other person is farther away than you thought, and you're stuck awkwardly holding a door while they're stuck awkwardly hurrying up to minimize inconvenience to you, and nobody really wins.

Usually it's pretty clear cut -- someone is right behind you and you smile and give the door an extra shove.  Sometimes though, it's hard to tell how far away someone is, and you either end up with the hurry-up situation, or letting the door close on someone who was a lot closer than you thought they were.

11/10 - Interesting

Olympus XA, Ilford HP5+

I think this is at the Bryant Park B/D/F/M station.  The ground is actually on an incline and the door is plumb.

Sometimes when looking for a photo,  you're looking for things that line up perfectly and make a pleasing arrangement.  But sometimes, it helps to look for things that are just a little bit... off.  With all the work people put into making things interesting and unique, there are just as many things were just made that way and just want to go unnoticed.  I think both endeavors make for interesting stories.

I think about those questions that people ask artists all the time, "wow, how did you come up with this idea?" or "what inspired you to do this?" or "what does this mean to you?"

It sounds pretty banal, but I think they're all perfectly legitimate curiosities.  They all basically boil down to the same basic question:
Why did this happen?

And it all comes to the same basic answer:
Because it had to.

11/9 - Soho

Olympus XA, Ilford HP5+

I dunno, the hat just looked pretty good on him.

11/8 - Nasty Flash

Okay, this wasn't on purpose.  Apparently when you mess around with the XA's flash mode it gets kind of confused and leaves the shutter open for longer than it should.  Notice the funky diamond bokeh from the XA's 4-blade aperture.

 You know what I kind of miss?  The brute force dead-on flash.

Okay okay, so Terry Richardson still does it and always has, with his cute little drop shadow on the white background.  But other than that, on-axis flash has kind of disappeared in favor of the quite costly fast-lens/high-ISO combo.  On-axis flash is kind of a symbol of the 80's and 90's, before radio triggers got big.  There's not much light around, so you have to make your own and you have to take it with you.  Foreheads get hot and backgrounds go black, but it doesn't matter because everyone is having a good time. However it's incredibly obnoxious because it's pretty much a 12-gauge blast of photons to the face while your pupils are wide open from the dark.

Olympus XA with A11 Flash, Ilford HP5+

I think it's worth it sometimes, though.

A low-light shot looks a lot more like how things looked at the time you took the photo, but the thing about low light is, sometimes it kind of sucks.  It can suck even with your f/1.4 lens and your 12800 ISO.  If you give me a choice, I'd rather light with anything other than an overhead halogen and a little tea candle on the table.

I forgot who it was who said, "I am an available light shooter.  Sometimes my flash is available."

Usually in the studio you have flash modifiers, softening everything and spreading it out evenly over your subjects.  You also get to actually be in control over everything -- a luxury you usually don't have when you're out and about.

Unmodified flash has a chiaroscuro effect.  It's just a focused cone of light in a single direction.  It makes harsh, contrasty shadows that wash out curves and accentuates crags, but it also separates what is from what isn't.

The reason a lot of flash photos suck is because everyone is looking straight at the camera and grinning.  What happens is, the forehead goes normal to the direction of flash and goes completely white and shiny/greasy looking.  The same happens for the rest of the face to a slightly lesser effect.

Flash is best used when things are happening.  It's not ideal for capturing details and facial features, but it's perfect for illustrating the things that are happening.  You need to overpower the former with the latter.  Because the light is coming from the same direction as the point of view, everything is just shown as what it is.

I don't find having to work with flash as a hindrance because the way things happen is more important to me than the way things look.  I just feel a little bad for the subjects sometimes.  Since I've been shooting rangefinders I've been able to see how bright things get through the viewfinder without the VF blackout, and it's pretty damn bright.

11/7 - Ferry Beer

Olympus XA, Ilford HP5+

Except for college, I have lived my entire life in Staten Island.  It's actually been a while since I've had to hear about the Fresh Kills landfill.  For a while, it was the only thing anyone had ever knew about Staten Island.

Well, that and the Staten Island Ferry.  That's still there, and all you really need to know about it is that there is beer.

Staten Island was never really my home of choice.  I was just born there and kind of got stuck there.  It takes 30 minutes to get to the ferry, 30 minutes to ride it, and then I have to get where I'm going from the very southern tip of Manhattan.  Things have been getting better, though.  The Ferry terminal is now heated and much cleaner, and the express bus has been a lot more dependable.

The one thing has always made the ride home much better, though: Ferry Beer.

There aren't many distractions on the ferry.  Everyone gets a seat, the ride is quiet and smooth, and everyone gets their comfort bubble for 30 minutes.  You get to read, get your laptop or phone out, listen to music, or just take the time to think.  All of the above are made much better by beer.  The selection has expanded from Bud and Corona to include more interesting choices, like Sierra Nevada and Lagunitas, but I stick to my go-to, a 24oz Coors.

I love nice beers and thinking about nice beers, but the bar is where I go when I want to think about beer.  When I'm on the Ferry, I usually have other things I need to think about.  The American pilsners aren't exactly works of art, but because of that they don't demand much of your attention and just do their job.  It's nice to have one along as a quiet travel companion on the way home to leave your mind free to digest the happenings of the day.

11/6 - More Fun with the Horizon Perfekt

Note: these are not stitched or cropped.  They're panoramic shots with the swing-lens Horizon Perfekt.  

I've learned that with this camera, and with any wide angle lens, you really, really have to use your corners.  Otherwise lines get really sloppy.

11/5 - Framed

Olympus XA, Ilford HP5+

The example above is a little too literal and obvious... let's pretend it has nothing to do with the rest of the post.

I'm just using the word "framed" because I watched the movie 12 Angry Men yesterday, about twelve jurors and a reasonable doubt.  Not that the suspect in the movie was necessarily framed, but the whole movie was a search for the truth.

It's tempting to think of a photograph as the truth, but even when completely unaltered, a photo can only be a part of the truth at best.  It's merely a record just like any other eyewitness account, and just like any eyewitness, the camera can omit important details.

Look at it this way: we live in a 4-dimensional reality (let's not get into String Theory here), with three spatial dimensions and one temporal.  When you take a photo, you freeze it, frame it, and smash it down into a flat, motionless rectangle.  You've removed two entire dimensions of context, and the viewer is left to fill in the blanks themselves.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  In fact, you can use it to your advantage in order to tell a compelling story.  Photography removes a lot of things, but if done right, it can remove a lot of noise.  By doing so, you add to whatever it is you've kept in frame.  If you want to take a photo of something, you need to emphasize it.  You need to frame out unwanted, distracting elements while keeping all the things that give context to your subject.  When you fail to do so, you make a boring photograph.  It's just like telling a story.

And just like telling a story, you're allowed to embellish.

This is my favorite thing about photography -- the paradox of something made entirely of the truth being anything but.  Think of all the boring photos of interesting things, and all the interesting photos of the utterly mundane.

The camera is just a hunk of glass and a shutter button.  It doesn't care how pretty the flower is.

11/4 - Pigeons

Yesterday on Reddit, I learned about Cher Ami, a homing pigeon that served under the 77th Infantry Division of the US Army during World War I.  She played a vital role in saving the lives of over 190 men during the Battle of Argonne in 1918 who had been surrounded by the Germans and had also begun to receive fire from friendly artillery.  They needed help immediately, and they needed to stop the friendly fire.

The men had three homing pigeons with which to deliver messages to their allies.  The first two were shot down.  Cher Ami, their third and last pigeon, made her way through the enemy fire and despite losing an eye and a leg and being shot through the chest, delivered her message 25 miles away at divison HQ.  Her message:

We are along the road parallel to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven's sake, stop it.

She was treated for her injuries and given a wooden prosthetic leg, and sent home to the US, where she died at Fort Monmouth, NJ.  She was awarded the Croix de guerre by the French for her actions during the war, and she is now on display at the Smithsonian in DC.

Leica M3, Zeiss Planar 50mm f/2, Kodak Tri-X

This was on the ferry a while ago.  These two pigeons were sitting on the door next to a mirrored column, preening each other.   When I walked over towards them, one of them tried to hobble away on gnarled, toeless stumps and gave up, sitting back down. The other one was in better shape and started scurrying off but quickly turned back, deciding not to leave its companion's side. That's when I took these photos.

Pigeons were some of the first things I photographed.  They're readily available in NYC, easily identifiable, and (to me, at least) extremely interesting.  If you spend enough time looking at a flock of pigeons, the dynamics of pigeon politics will begin to emerge.  They are simple creatures, but complex things arise when you put a bunch of them together.  You'll see greed and contentment.  War and peace.  Love unrequited.

And they do this all without facial expression or any gestural cues other than their actions alone.  Not interested in this male's pirouette?  Fly away.  Want the spot this other pigeon is currently occupying?  Peck him and take it.  There are no pretenses or social obligations. Things are just done in the name of nothing other than eat, mate, and stay alive.

Here are some videos I took a few years ago in San Francisco, when I had a camera that could do so:

So, next time you see a bunch of pigeons, or one pigeon or two pigeons, have a look at what they're up to.  You might end up learning something.  At the least it might end up being kind of interesting.  

Look at it this way: the next time you come across a pigeon with an entire fallen slice of pizza all to itself, try to think of the last time you were that content with your life.

Some more pigeon related reading/watching:

New York Magazine - Pigeon Pinups
New Yorker - Feathers
National Geographic News -  Seattle Pigeons Attacked with Darts
Youtube - Tom Knapp shoots 10 clay pigeons in a single throw
Oeuf NYC - Pablo Pigeon
The Pigeoning (My favorite play of all time; no longer showing, though)

11/3 - Getting Caught

Olympus XA, Ilford HP5+

It happens in street photography.  You're not invisible, and people will see you taking pictures of them.  Usually though, my subjects are away from the center of the frame, and it isn't always apparent that I am taking a photo of them, even if they see the camera pointed in their direction.

Some people say pictures of people looking at the camera "take them out of it."  I find it interesting if there's any emotion at all, whether apprehension or curiosity.  It's when people have that indifferent look that makes a boring picture.  That's usually when their eyes have glanced over you but haven't really registered what it is you're doing.

Here's what I do:

1. Decide that I want to take a picture, and look at something in the background as I bring the camera to my eye.
2. Once I'm looking through the viewfinder, I'm free to look at the subject and wait for a decisive moment.  Even if he were to look at me, all he would see is the camera.  It's kind of a weird one-way eye contact.
3. Take the picture.
4. Look back at that thing in the background before taking the camera away from my eye.
5. Move on.

From their point of view, I saw something (not them) that I wanted to take a picture of, took a picture of it, and kept looking at it.  As long as you're not making eye contact with them as you take the camera away from your eye, everything is fine.

In the picture above, I even brought the camera back to my eye and pretended to take another picture, and he looked overboard to see what the hell it was I was taking pictures of.

11/2 - Time Out

Leica M3, Zeiss Planar 50mm f/2, Kodak Portra 400

This was from the summer in my parents' backyard.  I'm not much of a ball sports player, but kicking a ball around sure is fun as hell.  The name of the game was for me to maintain control of the ball, and for my niece and nephew to chase me around until I got tired.

Photographing kids is tough.  They're unpredictable, constantly running in and out of the plane of focus, and never follow instructions.  Sometimes all you can do is wait till they're sitting down next to a plate of food, or until they've just plain run themselves out.  It's nice to catch them during their moments though.

I was using the M3 and I hadn't brought my light meter.  A lot of the stuff from the backyard that day was pretty underexposed.  I didn't want to give up too much depth of field or shutter speed, and it was 400 speed film on an overcast day, so I just went with it.  An extra stop or two would have helped, though.

Also today I took some time to write up this cheap workaround for dim rangefinder patches.  The XA really works a lot better now.

11/1 - Busker

Leica M3, Zeiss Planar 50mm f/2, Kodak Portra 400

I don't normally photograph buskers -- it just kinda feels too touristy and easy.  But this guy was just putting out the most amazing boot-stomping blues down at the ferry, so I got in and took a picture and dropped a dollar in his case.  His name is Mush Hosotani and he sounds like this.  It's kind of funny because if you were to just look at this photo, you'd think he was playing some sort of chill classical guitar thing like what they play at Muji.

I guess if I had the chance to take this photo again, I'd probably want to get a lot lower to get some of his boot in the frame.  There wasn't much room to work with though, because there were just people all around him.

Ah well.

Anyway, this will be the first of 30 daily posts I'll (hopefully) be making in the month of November.  It's part of an initiative a friend of mine started to get us blogging more.  Normally I go like two weeks between posts, which is pretty slow, but I think I'll start splitting rolls up across more posts, rather than posting huge essays.  Also, I have some unscanned stuff queued up, so I should probably have enough material to get me through the month.

Olympus XA Tuneup

My plan was to bring the Olympus XA to Halloween last night.  The nasty on-camera flash coupled with the contrast of Kodak Ektar would have been a pretty good match for the things I would be running into.

But after I fired off the first test shot, the shutter locked up.  This is something that's happened before.  Luckily it's pretty easy to fix, but it still requires unloading the film and removing the bottom plate.  Somehow I figured out that there was a tab in there that doesn't always return to its cocked position after advancing the film.  A quick poke with a screwdriver loosens it up and the camera returns to normal, at least for a while.

While I had the camera apart, I decided I'd finally take a look at the top part of the camera and tidy it up a bit.  The viewfinder was getting kind of hazy and the sliding cover could also use a cleaning.  The top of the camera is slightly more complicated to remove than the bottom, but I managed to get it off eventually.  There was evidence that the previous owner had also done this in the past -- screws had signs of screwdrivering and things were suspiciously clean for a 35 year old camera.

After everything was all nice and clean, I started putting it all back together.  I was surprised I hadn't broken anything or lost anything but right then, I knocked over the cup that I had been keeping my screws in and lost one.  I guess that's par for the course for any electronics repair job I have no business doing.

In any case, everything is working nice and smooth now and it's loaded with a fresh roll of Ektar.  I don't really have any plans for what to shoot with it, though.