Silver Belt, Black Stockings

Waterbury, Connecticut

I imaging there may be more found objects like these scattered on the streets by tomorrow morning. I guess this will be the last post here in 2013. Best wishes to all for the coming New Year.

Shadows

Torrington, Connecticut

DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE

Waterbury, Connecticut

WILL BUILD TO SUIT

Waterbury, Connecticut

NOT WHAT IS LEFT

Waterbury, Connecticut

I made a trip to pick up supplies for our cats this morning, and under threatening skies did a bit of walking around looking for some pictures near the shopping center before the rain came in. When I downloaded the card I noticed that the counter had flipped into a new folder. So in a day less than two months using the GX7 camera it looks as though I've made three thousand exposures with it.

As always, if you click on the image area you'll get a somewhat larger version of the jpg.

SCHOOL OF BEAUTY

Torrington, Connecticut

There was interesting stormy, moody light this morning, but by the time I got out to try some photo walkabout, the sky went completely blank, with sunlight so harsh it was actually painful. So lots of walking, not a lot of shooting, though I did find this one thing.

Earthbound

Winsted, Connecticut

No Sleigh

Torrington, Connecticut

More Urban Trees

Torrington, Connecticut

More Exurban Trees

Southbury, Connecticut

Reds in the Rain

Ansonia, Connecticut

OPEN

Winsted, Connecticut

Cold Winter Evening Light

Hudson, New York

25

Torrington, Connecticut

City Tree, Country Tree

Hudson, New York

Woodbury, Connecticut

56

Hudson, New York

Red Jacket and Little Black Dresses

Hudson, New York

Exurban Tree

Southbury, Connecticut

Too far from NY to be a suburb, too large a bedroom community to be a small town, much too developed to be rural, I guess it's an exurb.

The Large Head

Hudson, New York

More Fog

Winsted, Connecticut

From a couple weeks ago. No chance of fog along with the slow steady snowfall today. At mid-day it was only 15°F and it's not expected to get above 20° all day.

'Tis the Season

Southbury, Connecticut

NORTH WEST CONNECTICUT MANUFACTURING CO.

Winsted, Connecticut

Earlier this month, warm enough for rain and fog. Dead clear skies and bitter cold around here today, snow predicted again tomorrow. Some of Winsted's old factory buildings have been rehabbed as loft space, but this one clearly has not.

With and Without

Torrington, Connecticut

Or, three seconds.

Cold, Lonely, Fireplug

Southbury, Connecticut

A couple hours ago. We haven't had all that much snow but the temperatures have been low. Got just over freezing for a little while for the first time in several days.

Flag, Steeple

Hudson, New York

PRIME ELECTRIC

Winsted, Connecticut

More rainy day light. The cyan color of the vinyl siding (the rgb numbers are 193/205/205, depending on the exact spot) is faithful to the scene, though the camera's auto white balance made a more neutral, warmer, and inappropriately cheerful, interpretation. A click in ACR on a custom white balance setting I've recorded for this specific camera ("heavy overcast"—the actual K/T numbers will be different for every camera) came much closer. Then a bit of tweaking got the color just the way I remembered.

Most of the things I learned from David Vestal, who was writing about small format b&w photography, have been universally applicable in the medium—to color, color printing from negatives, color digital capture, faking monochrome from a color digital capture. A particularly important train of thought was that, "good pictures are easy to print." (Preparing a capture file for web publication of course is one of the many ways now available to us, "to print.") The point was, if you find yourself struggling to make a successful print from a negative, move on to a different one or, better yet, go out and make a better picture. Here, the white balance adjustment was the strongest one needed. I moved the Exposure slider a tweak of +20 from the uncompensated camera exposure, moved the Shadow +30. Nothing else needed. I often end up with minor (sub 50) tweaks to nearly all the sliders, but generally find that heroic efforts end in lost battles.

So a thing that comes up whenever I teach (one that I can't remember David ever saying, so I'm not quoting) is that the vast majority of badly printed photographs in the world, from any era, result from the photographer/printer exercising heroic efforts, darkroom magic, fix-it-in-Photoshop: not from being lazy and not working hard enough. Shooting well lets you print lazy. Win-win.

Finally, I began this blog a surprisingly long time ago, with posts that included a lot of text. It has continued with a lot of pictures. I don't have something to say about photography every day, but there are always new pictures. Meanwhile, the pictures I've been making, a lot of them, took on a form similar to the classic "Quote Without Comment" feature in the New Yorker Magazine. If anyone wants to provide feedback on whether more discursive prose would be welcome, or, shut up and show the pictures, I'd be interested to hear.

More Country Trees

Woodbury, Connecticut

VINTAGE CLOTHING UP THE WAZOO!

Hudson, New York

At a very cold and windy evening town-wide "winter walk" last Saturday.

More City Trees

Torrington, Connecticut

Weeds, Field, Trees, Fog

Woodbury, Connecticut

Country Trees

Woodbury, Connecticut

City Trees

Torrington, Connecticut

Transformer Station

Torrington, Connecticut

Early afternoon, threatening a storm.

More Snow, Ending at Sunset

Woodbury, Connecticut

After a very light but steady all-day snowfall, and shoveling off the driveway twice, just minutes before official sunset (about 4:20 today) the snow stopped, the clouds thinned out, and a wash of rose colored light swept in from the west.

Snow

Woodbury, Connecticut