Carved Pumpkin

New York, New York

Union Square Park farmers market last Friday. The guy in the wool cap just finished carving and is taking snaps of his handiwork.

MAKE ART

New York, New York

Around Mid-Town

New York, New York

One of the benefits of teaching a weekend workshop at The Penumbra Foundation, as I did twice this past month, is that outside of the time spent teaching platinum printing, I get quite a few hours to wander around mid-town Manhattan with a camera. The same place, and the same activity, where I learned photography as a teenager in the mid-60s. Back then I was shooting Tri-X in a Pentax H3v with 55mm Takumar lens. This past weekend it was a Lumix G7 and 17mm Olympus (more or less equivalent to 35mm.)

A lot has changed, but a lot seems to stay the same, including the things I look for, to make into pictures.

Weeds and Scooter

Derby, Connecticut

Parked in the runaway bittersweet.

IMPEACH!

New York, New York

Steak House

New York, New York

Another from Friday afternoon, on a crowded west 34th Street.

Decorative Plants

New York, New York

Yesterday afternoon around mid-town.

Parking Lot

Derby, Connecticut

Overgrown

Derby, Connecticut

Photo Class

New York, New York

Union Square Park. Several students were taking turns making stills and video of the model in the orange top.

BUSINESS FOR SALE

Derby, Connecticut

Low tech signage.

DO NOT REMOVE

New York, New York

Life is GOOD

Torrington, Connecticut

An optimist.

St. Francis

New York, New York

Midtown churchyard.

Bread

Torrington, Connecticut

Lunch in the Park

Madison Square Park, New York, New York

Update on HDR

New Preston, Connecticut

Back in August I posted some pictures using the relatively new HDR function in Lightroom, not available at the time in Photoshop itself. Just the past couple days a slew of Adobe CC updates have been released, including PS, ACR, and Bridge. The new ACR has the same HDR function. You highlight the set of bracketed exposures in Bridge and hit command+R to bring into Adobe Camera Raw in filmstrip mode. Highlight the set there, open the filmstrip dropdown, and select merge to HDR. As in the previously available Lightroom version, the data from all the pictures is merged into one file that you then save as a new, gigantic DNG. Then you can open the DNG and use all the normal ACR controls, but working on the data from the whole set of captures.

I don't often find myself wanting to use HDR—but that could be because I never much liked the results until this new DNG approach. I might begin to use it more often now that it's available directly in my normal Bridge/ACR/PSCC workflow.

BEWARE OF THE DOG

SeaTac, Washington

We were scheduled for an eight AM flight Saturday, 9/15, so quite early Friday afternoon we checked in at a Motel 6 just ten minutes from the SeaTac airport and rental car return. I decided to go for a little walk, partly to see if there was a nearby gas station. Our car had developed a not so slow leak in the right rear tire overnight Wednesday, and I'd been having to stop and buy air at least once a day. I wanted to overfill the tire when we went out to find dinner, instead of dealing with a nearly flat tire at 5:30 Saturday morning. I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did find this place, which I kind of like. Something about the sky and the trees tells me immediately that we're in the Pacific Northwest, not New England or, say, West Virginia, where you also find hilly land with evergreen forest. I pulled up Maps on my phone and saw that I needed to turn around, or walk for several miles through a probably dull residential subdivision to make a loop of it, so back I went.

In the morning, having pumped the tire up to 40 pounds on the way to dinner the night before, the car told me the tire was down to 17 pounds, so I reported this to the efficient and friendly Hertz agent at the rental car terminal. I also reported that the car's trunk didn't lock. Lock up the doors, and you can still go hit the release and open the trunk. I'd left my carryon bag with the temporarily useless, $2K+ MacBook Pro in the unlocked truck for several nights before discovering the problem. Luckily, nobody else did either. Then I told him how the left rear seatback latch was broken, causing the seat to shake and rattle annoyingly. He rolled his eyes and silently mouthed, "whoops," while entering data into his tablet, before sending me my receipt by email. The Chevy Malibu had less than 6,000 miles on it when we picked up—1,616 more when we turned it in. Rental cars lead a hard life, I guess.

Somebody

Olympia, Washington

Not a Gilbert and Sullivan fan, I guess.

Drive-in Theater Presentation in Woodbury, CT

The Warner, Franklin, West Virginia

In case anyone interested might have missed the first announcement—

Presentation:

Drive-in Theaters in the Regional American Landscape

Sponsored by Flanders Nature Center

Tuesday, October 16 at 7:00 PM

Woodbury Public Library, 269 Main Street South, Woodbury, CT 06798

The presentation will feature photographs of about 100 of the 250+ drive-in theaters I’ve photographed over the past twenty years across the country. The talk will give a brief history and timeline of the drive-in, along with extensive stories and anecdotes collected from the scores of theater owners I’ve interviewed in the course of the project.

Admission is free, but please use this link to register so we know how many to expect.

YOU'RE VIP HERE.

Olympia, Washington

Bright Tomorrows

Shelton, Washington

Busy teaching a platinum workshop at The Penumbra Foundation in New York this past weekend, so back to regular posting today.

Thrift Store Shopwindow, and Back Alley

Shelton, Washington

As I was shooting this window display, a young man walking down the sidewalk stopped and asked what I was taking pictures of—in a friendly, completely non-belligerent way. I answered, "anything that looks interesting." He said, "then be sure to go around to the back alley behind these buildings, there's all sorts of interesting stuff back there."

He was correct.

Motel

Port Townsend, Washington

Bike

Centralia, Washington

Picture Takers on the Ferry

Puget Sound, Washington

Seattle / Bainbridge Island Ferry

Puget Sound, Washington

A Symbol of Sacrifice, Faith, Hope

Port Townsend, Washington

Castle Rock Lions

Castle Rock, Washington

ONE WAY

Castle Rock, Washington

Nobody gets out of here alive.

LIBRARY

Castle Rock, Washington

The library annex seemed to have a quirky outdoor reading room.

Drive-in Theater Photography Presentation in Two Weeks

"The Pike, Montgomery, Pennsylvania, 2001"

Drive-in Theaters in the Regional American Landscape

Sponsored by Flanders Nature Center

Tuesday, October 16 at 7:00 PM

Woodbury Public Library, 269 Main Street South, Woodbury, CT 06798.

The presentation will feature pictures from about 100 of the 250+ drive-in theaters in 44 states that I’ve photographed over the past twenty years. The talk will give a brief history and timeline of the drive-in, along with stories and anecdotes collected from the scores of theater owners I’ve interviewed in the course of the project. There will be a Q&A session afterwards.

The drive-in theater is an iconic feature of the American landscape. Once there were over 4,000 of them, but now fewer than 400 remain in operation. No two theaters are alike—vernacular architecture on a colossal scale—but they all share common elements and I find it fascinating to see how these elements relate to the different regional landscapes across the country.

Admission is free, but please click here to register so we know how many to expect.