Don — Page 65

Experiments and Surprises

July 17, 2018 at 8:54 am by Claudia

Playing with digital cameras and film cameras. It was so frigging hot and humid yesterday that I’m amazed we managed to take any pictures at all!

First, let me show you a close-up of Don’s new baby:

It’s gorgeous. He practiced putting it together and taking it apart yesterday morning. Fortunately, he had taken a video of Louis showing him how to do it.

In the meantime, after writing a blog post, I started to unbox my new Canon 77D. I’d show you a picture, but it doesn’t look all that different from my Rebel T3i. But it’s definitely an upgrade and I can tell by the quality of my photos. It came with an 18-35mm lens, which can take wide angle shots like this one of the kitchen:

I’ve never been able to get this much of the kitchen in one shot. (For better or worse!)

I took a lot of pictures of this pink and cream moth I found on the lavender. I’ve never seen this kind of moth before. So pretty!

I took a lot of experimental photos, just to get an idea of what the camera can do. There’s a lot to learn and I’ve just started.

Don bit the bullet and started experimenting with his Crown Graphic. I was the model. Since the shots are polaroids, there’s much to learn about not only manually focusing the camera, but finding the right light and figuring out how long to wait until the photograph is revealed.

He’s texting Louis about his photos.

I took this with the new camera.

Considering this camera weighs a ton and that this kind of photography is new to him, he took some pretty good shots. The challenge is that the film is expensive, yet he needs to play around with it for a while, so we’ve just accepted the fact that this first week will be about using a lot of film.

So far, I’m loving my new camera. I’ll use both of my cameras, of course, but for now, I’ll concentrate on the 77D.

And speaking of cameras, if you follow Don on Instagram, you’ve probably seen some of his Holga photos. Holgas are made in Japan. They’re plastic and were manufactured for children as a way of teaching them photography. In the years since they first appeared, they’ve become popular with photographers and now they have a huge following. The fun thing about these film cameras is that each camera is different; they have their individual quirks. There’s often vignetting around the image. Sometimes, light does funny things to the film. My camera’s pictures look different than Don’s.

We take the film to be developed at B & H and then we have the negatives digitally scanned and emailed to us. I got my first batch back yesterday and I’ll be sharing them with you off and on for the next few days.

Taken on Ninth Avenue in NYC. This guy was taking a break, sitting next to his bike. I love black and white photography, though I also shot a roll in color.

Gosh, I love film! And the funkiness of the Holga makes me happy! You never know how the shot is going to come out.

Before I close – in the garden:

I didn’t plant white coneflowers here. They’re volunteers from the big garden bed.

Photography, Holgas and the garden are full of surprises.

Happy Tuesday.

Camera Day

July 16, 2018 at 8:36 am by Claudia

We are exhausted this morning!

We didn’t get into the city until about 1:00. After the deluges of rain that hit this area, the humidity increased, both in the city and here at home. Let me just say, it wasn’t pleasant. We headed south to B & H (which is on 34th and Ninth Avenue) and entered the highly controlled craziness of that mammoth enterprise on a Sunday afternoon. Don had been thinking about getting a used 35mm camera for creative photography – he’s very much into film right now – something lightweight, in contrast to the mammoth vintage camera he was going to get later in the day. So he went off to the used department and I trotted off to the new Canon camera department. When we finally met up, I had the order for my camera, and he had the order for a vintage Canon a1 (which, I believe, was the exact same camera my dad used many years ago.)

I dropped off my Holga film to be developed, we moved through the ultra efficient checkout and then moved on to the pick-up section, where our cameras magically appeared, bagged and ready to go.

All that high tech and the vast amount of people shopping on a Sunday afternoon made us tired from sensory overload, so we stopped at a diner for a piece of pie and some water. Then we looked at the clock and made the decision not to visit the community garden. (Sorry!) There just wasn’t time to travel up to 48th Street and then back down to 43rd for our visit with Louis Mendes, all the while lugging bags and sweating.

So we sat on a bench and rested. This was our view.

On to Louis. He was waiting for us on 43rd and Sixth Avenue, holding Don’s camera.

There it is! I’ll get a better picture of it when Don reassembles the whole thing. The bulb flash is part of the package, it sells the camera, but the electronic flash on the right is the only flash that is actually used. It has a Polaroid back. Don will be using this camera for street photography.

We moved on to Louis’ apartment, which had no air conditioning and was sweltering. Apparently, he is impervious to the heat, because he had this jacket and hat on the entire time we were there. Meanwhile, yours truly had sweat pouring down her back and beads of sweat were rolling down Don’s face!

I love Louis, he is truly an original, like no one else I have ever met. He taught Don how to assemble and disassemble the camera, gave him the original vintage case and after about an hour or so, we departed.

As we headed to the car with not one but three cameras, we were tired and hot and overstimulated by all that happened in the six hours we were in the city.

Heading across the George Washington bridge.

And later:

I have yet to open the box my new camera is in! Another cup of coffee first!

Happy Monday.

Re-Entry

July 10, 2018 at 9:21 am by Claudia

Tired, tired, tired. That’s how I feel today. For several days, I haven’t been sleeping my usual 7 hours, more like 6, and it’s taking a toll. Plus, Don tends to stay up later than I do because his body clock is tuned to nighttime performances. Our respective rhythms are quite different at the moment and we are definitely having to get ‘used’ to each other again. Plus, we are having ‘control’ issues, which is to be expected. I am used to being in control here because I’ve had to be for the past 6 months. Don is used to being in control of his environment. So we’re having to negotiate. It’s re-entry time.

One of the hollyhocks is blooming. The other is not. It’s growing, new leaves are emerging, but the flower buds stay small and are brown. What the?? They’re right next to each other, too.

This is stonecrop and it’s growing in the memorial garden. I had to look it up because I have absolutely no memory of planting it. None. And it’s not as if this little garden bed has been in place that long. Yikes.