Posts Tagged ‘Planar T* 50/1.4 ZF’

Maybe it’s not the typical time to be doing so but I did a lot of reading over the summer along with a lot of coffee drinking. Here is a summary of my cirriculum.

• Watchmen, by Alan Moore. Glad I read it but I felt let down for all the hype. On the other hand it lowered my expectations for the movie and ended up enjoying it unlike the fanatics.
• A Singular Man, by J. P. Donleavy. This guy is a virtuoso. I can’t wait to read more Donleavy.
• Beautiful Losers, by Leonard Cohen. Some great stories in here but something about this book felt dated to me, as if culture had moved on or at least I had. I bet it was amazing to read 30 or 40 years ago.
• The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. Not sure what to say about this but I think everyone should read it, especially you fence-sitting agnostics. As awkward as Dawkins comes across when speaking publicly, in print he has a charm which reminds us that he’s probably the most passionate and outspoken ultrageek we’ve ever known. (Note: It should go without saying that when we read books, especially books like this, we don’t read them to be told what to think, we read them to challenge and re-evaluate what we’ve thought and will think)
• The Runes of the Earth, by Stephen Donaldson. Book 7 in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. It was terrible and yet I’m still attached to the series for some reason. I guess it’s just because Thomas Covenant fucking rules.
• What is the What? by Dave Eggers. The story of a Sudanese refugee and his coming of age. It is disturbing and also humbling.
• Platform, by Michel Houellebecq. If he’s not my favourite author he’s the author I most wish will write more books.
• Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy. One book where I feel insulting to think of using mere adjectives as description. There is a quote from this book I might talk about in a future entry as it relates to photography. Some of you may have already figured out what quote that’s going to be!

But of course I do actually have some photography to share.

Down the block from my apartment this was happening.

But that evening in Yaletown something involving a bit of drinking was also happening.

By the way, many of these wides are from my little plastic Nikon Series E 28mm f/2.8.

In most entries you’ll see them playing instruments, but this time you’ll see them chewing chicken.

We both laughed after that and I said “you know what I got, right” and he said “yes, I know what you got.”

The next thing to do was to take a little walk…

And to get back just in time to witness Jonathan extract a shot from somewhere between Tanner’s legs.

By now you might have guessed that this was Jonathan’s stag.

We continued to drink into the evening outside on the patio. f/1.4 at 1/6th. Later we went to see dancing girls and due to my camera I was refused at the door. When I eventually got inside I realized why, the girls performing at that venue bored me sober.

How to transition from the peelers to hanging out with my family gracefully? No idea really.

This photo is best without context…

Shifting gears a bit, aheh. And films, shooting 125px in the Leica and Tri-X in the F100. On the first weekend of August my mother was giving her new dragster some break-in runs at Mission Raceway.

Catching the launch.

That was the first time I really wanted to have a rapidwinder on my M.

Here’s the crew before heading down to the end of the track to guide the dragster back. That’s my grandfather on the right wondering why she didn’t hit 3rd gear on that run.

I followed him back to the trailer. My grandfather made a name for himself racing in the 60’s with a car that he built himself, the Syndicate Scuderia.

He brought the car to put on display and it was difficult to get a moment when it was not being crowded with digital cameras.

My sister was camped down near the end of the track, the only place you’d ever find some shade, but it was a long walk back and forth.

The shutter on my M drags at 1/1000 so I made one at 1/500 just to see what I could catch of a nitro funny car. That car ran 6.739s at 207.08 mph.

It had been forever since I’d seen my nephew that weekend. He loves the cars but the sun was intense, it was one of the hottest weekends of the year.

Then my mom sent us a text to let us know it was time to drive again.

When I caught up with her they were in the staging lanes. I’ve never seen my F100 overlap a frame like that before but it hasn’t happened again fortunately.

The one time I brought my F100 to the line to make use of continuous mode, she was placed in the opposite lane. Sad face.

This is almost comedic, especially if you haven’t tried to shoot something like this before. Anticipating a bit too quick, but it is a barrage of the senses, feels and sounds much more beautiful than it ever looks.

Looks like she bounced there.

And the crew setting off to meet her at the end again.

Mom wanted to run alongside him but their crew told us their car wasn’t running straight so they did seperate runs. He ran straight, but slower. Good thing for his ego I guess ;].

Lady spectating in difficult light. f/2.8 @ 1/4000.

Bringing the car back after the burnout.

Catching some air again.

Pulling back up to the trailer. She was running pretty consistently about 140mph that weekend, but I don’t remember the times. Right around 9 seconds I’m guessing.

Went to watch the funny cars from another angle. Even in the first half of the 1/4 mile you can’t stop them at 1/500.

I think my good man maybe needs some shades.

Getting some shade again with my sisters friends.

Finishing off the roll back in the city.

We had some lovely mini-taco things.

If you take a dollar every day and put it in a jar it will just take 20 years, kids.

In February Tenant played at the Anza Club with Bridges Out, Ninja Spy and Callahan. I didn’t get up to much shooting that night but thanks to the alcohol factor it seems I became somewhat artistically inspired.

I ran into some dA gallery admin at the show. We recognized eachother and nodded but it was way too loud to have a conversation. In lieu of verbal conversation I decided to play a game with him to anticipate his shots. He was running around shooting with a remote off camera flash and so I went to bulb mode.

It was a silly idea because the venue was really well lit unlike most places but I guess I could a couple cute results. A lot of them became more esoteric in nature…

I guess it wasn’t long before we’re getting some 1am fast food at Wendy’s.

Looks like Andrew also found some timbits. I’m trying to remember if that was the night where there was this disturbing old man in a wife beater, shorts, a baseball cap but with the most prolific body hair and all of it was white. It was so dense that it puffed his undershirt up from his chest and back. He had some odd behavior and seemed to be harassing customers or the staff from time to time and always returning to the counter to ask for more of something useless. He was also the guardian of the front door which was not swinging shut automatically and so every time someone walked in or out of the place through that door he would adopt an exasperated look and stand up to close the door again. When at last we stood up to leave we walked past his table and he was eating from 4 tins of  sardines. We walked out the door that didn’t shut properly.

Yeah, it wasn’t the same night but oh well.

Tenant was also playing at the Media Club. That might be the Media Club. If it isn’t the Media Club then it is the Biltmore but I think it is the Media Club.

Over the winter there were a number of these Denny’s trips. Usually after clearing Naxxramas.

Visiting at my fathers with my sister and my nephew.

One of my favourites.

For reading break Kevin came back to Vancouver.

Somehow ending up back at Denny’s again with John.

One day someone was playing with cards in the window seat at Slickity Jims.

Difficult to determine at this size I guess but the cards are of Hooters and feature the female body.

Inside Slickity Jims it looks like this.

The mens room at Foundation.

One morning that came with beautiful light, someone was sleepy.

And eventually awake, for my dads birthday party we made Super Mario Brothers power-up mushroom cookies.

We ground fine sugar with this mortar and pestle that Kevin once gave me as part of a greater  joke. I bet he never imagined I’d find a practical use for it. It felt like some kind of profound victory.

He thought to put out the candles on his birthday cake with the dust buster.

But he was forced to do it like the rest of us.

The Vancouver Darkroom Co-op where I used to print held a gallery show next door at this space. It was interesting to see what other members were printing in there.

I guess I’m getting in trouble here.

But I’ve always been a very smooth talker.

He’s kind of like a horse here but his snout is a beer glass. More about horses in a later entry…

Eventually Tenant played another show where I again I didn’t make much use of the camera.

But that weekend we celebrated Norms birthday and played some Beer Frisbee League in the back yard. It was dumb we didn’t start sooner because he was difficult to see the frisbee. As dusk passed I think I made that one at f/2 1/8th.

Teaching pool.

We spent most of the night outside where I enjoyed some Laphroaig and we passed around the hookah and cigars.

Back in June I was fortunate to wake up one morning, log on to the internet with my PPP dial-up TRUMPET WinSOCK pipe and find a Nikon Coolscan V ED on eBay for a decent price from a seller I’d dealt with a number of times in the past. I have been using it for a bit now and it only has one minor issue but, specifics aside, I have scanned at least 300 or so frames with it wondering why I bought it at all since I’ve scarely transmitted any of these bits to this wonderful and festive environment and by that I guess I mean the webernet, not just this bloggery. Somehow I have not been as enthusiastic about it all as I expected to be. Some of this is probably due to the usual fun (;wackel) factors of gear problems none of which I can afford to fix properly (promise I won’t whine long) and seeing the varying results of my attempts to compensate for focus and shutter problems does not always give me the encourangement I might like. Then I post a stupid thing to test my blog and in response people say nice things and it totally changes everything.

So I have been working up the courage and playing with the devices a bit, dropping things on dA, Facebook, and flickr in some random ways. But also, I kind of want to ramble. So let’s get to it.

Let’s pretend it is the summer of 2008 and ladies are nice.

In the backyard of my grandparents home we sat in the grass for a while. It was Canada day.

Yep.

Some good scratching going on. In this shot actually you can see the problem with the scanner. Guess it was too much to ask that one thing I bought ever worked properly.

My nephew and his grandma. Figure that one out, right?

I think that is the longest I’ve seen his hair before. He has gotten this under control recently, I am happy to report.

I’m still not sure what I was doing here. I think I just really like bricks.

We should build more castles.

Sorry, kids. I am self-taught at photography but one day I will get to college and learn how to focus. This is the balcony outside my apartment. Actually, to ruin my amazing sense of humor, the focus is bang on (at least where I wanted it) but the Zeiss 50/1.4 is a little soft wide open, the contrast drops off significantly below 2.8 although hey try doing this with an ASPH…

His shirt ended up looking so strange here. I’m lovin’ it. ;]

When I make my portfolio I won’t neglect to mention that I specialize in shoulder photography.

I don’t know what it is but I still find scooters the most irresistible subjects to be personified.

Somewhere inside I want to be good at these. Practise makes perfect.

It looks like this when I take my glasses off.

Geez, dust your elbow off, Beardy.

The beers are good as ever.

Erotic beer photography. Beerotica. And Leica straps.

It seems there may have been some dispute as to the contents of that glass. Odds are that Kevin was putting something like salt and pepper, hot sauce and french fries into someones nearly empty beer and then challenging everyone to drink it. In these scenarios it is impossible to convince anyone to actually drink that horrible shit and he ends up drinking it himself once he feels guilty enough for having ruined the remains of a beer. Pretty sure that’s exactly what happened this time. He manages to pretend that it tasted just great too.

Beardy is congratulating me. I suggested that we complain about the length of time it took for our food to arrive. Not always the most noble suggestion. The manager visited the table to apologize. He seemed very sincere and as recompense he brought us a massive plate with samples of every dessert on the menu.

The elevator at work.  We went back to finish some work still waiting.

Randy likes to point out that he has Leica glass too. This has to be the focus assist because I figure the flash would be way too bright but I’m really not sure. Caught some flare. Too cute.

Later that week we went to Las Margaritas to enjoy the authentic Mexican cuisine. After dinner we asked for a round of tequila but didn’t know what to order. The waitress asked her husband and she brought his favourite. I have never been a tequila drinker and don’t know how to appreciate it well but I was surprised by how good it was.

Looks like it also affected Kevin well.

Okay, that covers one roll that happened over a year ago. It was Tri-X +1. Fortunately (or not) between then and now I didn’t shoot much because the absence of a darkroom from my life took its toll. That was kind of fun. I think I will do this again.

Not found.

Sorry but you are looking for something that isn’t here.

Not seriously.

As I consider off and on the possibility of talking to the internet through this tube, I record this entry and test to make sure the internet still works.

How about an image, internet? What do you think about that?