I got my M3 back yesterday afternoon. It looks beautiful; amazing! The 35mm lens also looks great. I’ll shoot a roll this afternoon and develop it tomorrow.

It made up for my being dumb on Monday.

I bought the wrong paper; $109 worth of wrong paper. I bought plastic instead of fiber paper, and I should have known better because the price was only $109, and earlier when I had googled the price and it was $145+. However I was in such hurry running down to Calumet and back at lunch that I just grabbed what I was given and ran out the door. In fact I didn’t really look at the box until I was printing. I was not happy.

So arriving back in my office at 10 p.m. and seeing my camera made me happy!
I still have to go out and buy $145+ worth of paper. I’ll use the plastic for test strips and if its a very complicated  image I use it for test prints.

Getting in touch with my inner child. Here is repost of a Fire Island photograph; one of the first images I took with my Rollei. This is a scan of a print.

When I first scanned this negative it came in with a sepia/copper tone. For some reason I have not worked out why but the tone brought out the flowers. So Karen Marshall helped me with the print and toned it in Berg’s Brown/Copper toner and the flowers popped again.

I have tried to recreate this effect in the scan; it hard to tell on this screen though so I may redo this image tomorrow at work.

I tried but I need to rework this. On my iBook monitor this looks fine on this screen the sky is green with some red and the grass much too sepia.

Queen Ann’s Lacy, Fire Island July 2007

[Click on thumbnail for larger image.]

Image made on iBook.

Image made on Mac Pro with Dell monitor:

I was reading a post on God Does Roll Dice entitled Wikipedia on 0.999…. Its an interesting post. It lead me to Cantor Sets; they are fascinating and very beautiful; go read about them and read the post, Wikipedia on 0.999….

Funny, every time I stumble on the name Cantor something intriguing and beautiful is attached.

An aside, I got new glasses, frames and lenses. The lenses are progressives; new progressives take several days to adjust to; I’ve adjusted to the lenses BUT the frames! Many frames hurt my nose or behind my ear or both. These have been hurting behind my ears. If by Wednesday they are not better, in for adjustments.

I need to buy some paper larger than 11×14. I thought about 20×24 BUT the price! So it will be 16×20 Ilford glossy fiber at $143 for 50 sheets. I am using Ilford for my 11×14 prints so it will present no surprises. I had been using Seagull Oriental but I could not find for a while so I switched to Ilford. I liked the Oriental because it popped nicely when toned with selenium and Berg brown/copper toner while Ilford does not seem to change much. Paper seems to be the weak link in B&W film photography.

16×20 prints for someone who has always printed 8×10 are very big. Scary big. That’s just about $4 a sheet. You don’t want to make too many dumb moves at $4 a sheet. I better check two or three times that I have the level on print and not focus.

Anyway, Monday I will run off and spend $143 on paper.

I am now focused in on what I am doing; recording the neighborhoods of South Brooklyn. I’ll still shot Fire Island when I am there, and for a break walk around Greenpoint and LIC; but no more: “Lets throw everything out of focus” or “Lets put a dark red filter on and make the sky black.”

Truck and legs.

[Click on thumbnail to see larger image.]

This is a small street garden between the sidewalk and a fenced lot in Red Hook.
When I was printing this, Brian Young suggested bleaching [ferricyanide] the busted to help bring it out. The bleach really made the bust jump.

[Click on the thumbnail for larger image.]

I went to the ballet Sunday. It was good. Very cutely entitled Matters of the Heart, Valentines Day was the previous Thursday.

During the first ballet, Raymonda Variations, one of the ballerinas [I feel bad I can not remember which one - if anyone out there knows please tell me] did two ’steps’ that is amazing. First, with her left leg up and curled, she rose from having the soul of her foot flat on the stage to point and then down again - she did this several time never losing balance; such grace and strength. Then she went up on point and hop on point across the stage. Both moves require amazing strength and yet when you watch you are impressed with the grace and beauty.

The Nightingale and the Rose was great, I am sorry to hear that Christopher Wheeldon is forming his own company. It will be a big loss for NYCB.
I remember once when every season would bring new Balanchine and Robbins ballets. I also miss Patty McBride and Susan Farrell. Here is a good article and and great picture of a young Susan. McBride was always my favorite; I loved her long dark hair and her precision. I could not find a good picture out on the www of Patty. If I find one in the future, I’ll post the link.

We ate at Rosa Mexicano. It was good also; though I am disappointed that they no longer serve a real chocolate mole, this changed about a year ago.

I sent my DNA off to be analyzed.
In the last three days, I’ve got my first batch of YDNA and mtDNA back.
So far I found out of of European descendant.

This is surprising finding.
It  was surprising because my mom always told us that she had a Cherokee ancestor; and in fact a cousin, a descendant from the woman I believed was Cherokee also had hear this story from her father. However my mtDNA came back European.

Last night I saw the Manhattan School of Music Jazz Orchestra at Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall. The first half of the program was mostly Gil Evans and Miles Davis with a smattering of other composers/arrangers. The second half was Evans and Davis’s Arrangement of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

The original recording is with Miles Davis is something I have been listening to for years, this was one of the few times that I have listened to an orchestra play jazz. Its different; few solos not much improvisation. Dave Liebman did well and it was interesting to listen a non-trumpet play the lead. At a couple points he soared.

I suddenly realized that in my mind I was listening to a quartet: Lieberman on saxphone, the orchestra, Will Clark on drums and Linda Oh on double bass. Linda and Will were impressive. I was very impressed and moved with Oh’s playing; she has got a commanding sound, so much so that sometimes it was a duet. I would love to see her in a smaller setting, a trio or quartet, where she could let herself fly on long improvised solos.

Its just over a year since I picked up a my camera again.
I finally feel I’m getting legs, that some of my images work and I can print them decently.

As I said I am reposting some images, these are scanned from prints not negatives.
Very little ‘Photoshop’ has been done - converting to B&W and sharpening.

From a print.

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This is also a scan of a print.
I’m trying to great the best scan I can get off of my prints rather then scan a negative.

This is something I have to learn in the next weeks.
Tuesday I will compare my prints to the image on screen, to see how close I am getting.
All I am doing to the scans is converting to B&W and sharpening.

[Click on thumbnail to see larger image.]