So Let Me Introduce to You...

Greetings from SteveR! 

It occured to me that I hadn't yet properly introduced myself, so here goes...

I grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland, but moved to Manhattan in the mid-70's. While I was living there, I met my wife, Sandy. I've been married to Sandy, a wonderful girl from the Anglophone side of Montréal, for almost 25 years. We have two great kids, Leah 22 and Ben 18. and have lived near Annapolis, Maryland since Ben was 3 months old. Last week, I turned 55 years old. So much for the stats.

A few weeks after I graduated from high school in 1967, my friend Roger showed me how to develop B&W film and prints. The very first time I saw one of my images start to emerge under the safelight, I was hooked.

My first camera was Dad's old German-made Kodak Retina I - a beautiful rangefinderless folding 35mm camera with a good Schneider lens. Roger gave me one of his Dad's old 1940's-style GE light meters, and I was on my way.

Within a year, I bought my first serious camera, a 1965 Nikon F, Photomic T. Around the time I moved to New York City, I switched to a couple of Olympus OM-1's and even had a Leica IIIf, an M-3, and a Minolta CL at one time. In short, I was an enthusiastic amateur all during the '70s, shooting B&W that I developed in my Manhattan kitchen and Kodak slide film.

All that somehow stopped in 1980 or '81, when marriage, first house, and raising a family gave me new priorities. I sold all my cameras, and photography for the next many years meant family photos using Sandy's Canon Sure-Shot (not that their's anything wrong with that!)

The spark came back to me in 2001, and now I'm back into photography stronger than ever. Although I re-started my born-again photographic life with some wonderful old metal-mechanical-manual cameras and film, since mid-2003 I've gone all digital.

Although we live on opposite coasts, Warren and I "met" each other through the "Commie Camera Forum," thanks to our mutual obsession... uhhh.... I mean, interest, in cameras from the Former Soviet Union.

Athough my job is as a database developer and I work with PCs all day every day, I'm still amazed at how PCs and the Internet have enabled people like us, with common interest, to come together - distance and location is no longer an issue!

I'd like to thank Warren for setting up this great forum for us to share and enjoy.

Best regards,
SteveR

Toy Guitar - Canon Digital Rebel w/ Canon EF-S 18-55mm, 1/200 @ f/6.3 ISO 400

My wife says I'm a junkaholic, and this photo proves it!

This toy guitar was sitting with a pile of other cool stuff that someone in the neighborhood left to be picked up as garbage. I liked the color and the shape, so I ventured to take a few photos. The guitar was sitting on a small nightstand, and I just let most of it hang over the edge while outside the frame, I held the bottom part with one hand. The mottled background is just good old Anne Arundel County street paving.

- SteveR

Mr. White Cat at Bob's House, Nikon D100, 50mm f1.8D, 1/45 f3.5

Notes: Our friends Bob & Joao are fellow cat lovers. They have a pair of indoor Burmans, Lucy & Linus. They also feed an outside cat who has been coming around the back porch for food for around 10 years. They think that he once belonged to someone, but somehow ended up in the wild. They don't let him inside because of the possibility of disease being transmitted to Lucy & Linus. One day, Mr. White Cat disappeared and didn't come back for a couple of years. They thought that he died. He just reappeared one day as if nothing had happened. Mr. White Cat is scruffy, and he has a haunting look in his eyes. If only he could tell us of his experiences.

Shooting through the tattered screen door, I thought it looked almost like a painting.

-- Warren

Pier 14 on the Waterfront, Nikon D100, Sigma 15-30mm @ 15mm, 1/250 f16

Notes: Here's another from the waterfront series. I saw the converging lines of the pier and bridge, and I decided to see if I can get a decent shot using the ultrawide Sigma zoom. It looks like you can walk to Treasure Island via the pier.

Where are you guys? Is anyone still looking at these?

--Warren

SF-Oakland Bay Bridge, Nikon D100, Tamron 24-135mm @65mm, 1/500 f11

Notes: Yes, I know, this is your standard postcard shot of a City landmark, probably of interest only to tourists, right? This is part of my series from the recent waterfront walk & shoot. This shot is cropped, I cropped the woman and cell phone out of the bottom of the picture. The sun angle was perfect to light up the bridge towers. It really highlighted them, and I liked the look. Folks, I feel like I'm posting pictures into the twilight zone. I need to know that I'm not wasting my time here. Any form of acknowledgement will work.

Thanks for reading.

-- Warren

Seen on the SF Waterfront, Nikon D100, Sigma 18-35mm.

Notes: I liked the black/white pattern, then I decided to add the whimsical mannequin on the side who looked like he was reading the poem.

-- Warren

SF Bay Bridge Scene, Nikon D100, Tamron 24-135mm @ 105mm, 1/1000 f8

Notes: We went for brunch today (Sunday, 1/23/2005) at Town's End Restaurant on the Embarcadero & Townsend Street. I decided to shoot the D100 today with the zoom lenses (18-35mm and 24-135mm). We walked from the restaurant to the Ferry Building and back. On the way to the Ferry Building, I was shooting the 18-35mm when I came upon this woman talking on her cell phone with the Bay Bridge in the background. I took a few shots with that lens, and I continued walking because it was too wide for what I was looking for. I didn't think any more about it, but on the walk back to the car about half an hour later, I decided to mount the 24-135mm just to get a different perspective for the other direction. I found that the woman was still there talking on her phone, and the light was even better than the first time I saw her, so I grabbed a few more shots, this time with the right lens.

-- Warren

Tulip Field in Butchart Gardens, Victoria, Canada -- Konica Hexar w/35mm f2.0, Fuji Sensia slide film

Notes: This was taken in the mid-90's. I thought the Konica Hexar was the answer for my desire for an affordable camera that had the handling qualities of a Leica M. The Konica was the identical size and shape of a classic early Leica M series rangefinder. It had an absolutely superb 35mm f2.0 . The lens was critically sharp, had good color rendition, and excellent bokeh. The Hexar featured such innovations as built-in winder, auto exposure, and autofocus. The original version also featured an ultra-quiet mode that really worked. This could have been the perfect street camera. The problem that caused me to eventually sell the camera was the Hexar's poor AF performance. It did not have a manual focusing aid, so to focus the camera, you have to rely solely on it's AF sensor, and it was too inaccurate for my standards.

I took the camera as my only camera on a short trip to Canada. Butchart Gardens was in full springtime bloom and tulips were everywhere. I noticed the color transition and shape of this particular patch and decided to try for a field shot with a different look.

--Warren

Carmel Mission, Carmel, Calfornia, Nikon D100, 24mm f2.8 AF, 1/200 f8.

Notes: Gail and I managed to escape on a very short, one night trip to Carmel in between taking care of my father who has not been well. It had been raining all week, but as we arrived in Carmel, the rain turned to intermittent showers. After lunch we decided to visit Carmel Mission to try taking some pictures there. I was actually shooting with the F4s w/50mm lens and Gail was using the D100 w/24mm. While in the courtyard, I noticed a fountain and I wanted to incorporate the mission and fountain into the same shot. I took a few with people standing next to the fountain, but I chose to post this one. Rather than swap lenses, I just decided to swap cameras in order to take advantage of the 24mm on the D100.

--Warren