The Wall

While walking around the North Beach district of San Francisco, I saw the exterior of a restaurant I found interesting. On the left is a window. The colors were very interesting and so I just wanted to capture an image of it.

Eric

Doorknob Reflection -- Bodie, Calfornia

Nikon D100

I was initially attracted by the rich, brown, woodgrain finish on the doorknob of this ancient door. I then noticed the interesting reflection on the knob.

--Warren

Ghost Town Saloon -- Bodie, California

Nikon D100

I couldn't wait to post this. We took a long drive from Tahoe to Bodie, California, an extremely well preserved ghost town.

This was taken through a hole in the door of an old saloon. The hole made an interesting, ghostly effect.

--Warren

Tahoe Sunset

Nikon D100

This was from our first night at Tahoe.

--Warren

Shift Knob Half Moon

Nikon D100

This is the shifter of an American muscle car, seen at this year's Stanford Concours (car show).

--Warren

Fence by the Coast

While waiting out some of the wind at the beach, I caught a photo of this fence at sunset. I thought it had an interesting pattern.

Eric

SF Coastline

Genie and I went out by the Cliff House last Saturday evening. It was beautiful and it was cold. The wind was really blowing (as usual around that area). I caught a shot of the sunset.

Eric

Carnival Mask in North Beach

On Saturday, after checking out a little classical sextet from the SF Symphony, I headed over to the North Beach fair. It was a zoo so I stayed behind the booths and took my time looking around. I saw a booth selling masks and saw this one. These masks always gave me a sense of elegance and scariness. Not too hard to see why.

Eric

Nature X

Nikon D100

This tree was in the backyard behind the rental house up in Sonoma.

Everyone liked the naturally occurring X pattern.

--Warren

Bricks, Stones, and Mortar

Nikon D100

Seen at Jack London State Park.

--Warren

Da Vinci Codes

Sony DSC-D770

I just finished reading the Da Vinci Code. While walking down Pine Street the other day, I saw this gate at a local hotel, and I thought, "Hey, how many da Vinci clues are on there?!".

You can also see the limitations of a 1.5MP sensor because the image did not stand up well to cropping. You really need to compose in-camera and not rely too much on cropping during post-processing (like I did here).

--Warren

playing with negative space

I went to downtown SF this past Saturday to take some shots. It was beautiful and I figured that the big public places would be target rich. Anyway, while on the subway, I got to thinking about the discussions in the past on using negative space. So, I tried playing around with it. I got a shot of this statue in Union Square (the shopping district). The sky was a nice shade of blue that day and I thought the statue stood out nicely against it.

Eric

Elderly

Sony DSC-D770

We were enjoying the San Francisco Symphony Brass Quintet's free concert at Portsmouth Square in SF Chinatown, along with some of the local residents.

--Warren

Foxy Produce

Sony DSC-D770

Seen in Chinatown.


--Warren

Chinatown Tourist Stalker

Sony DSC-D770

This woman has the thankless and difficult task of handing out restaurant flyers to tourists in Chinatown.

I decided to take my old Sony DSC-D770 out for a last hurrah. I'll probably be selling it very soon.

--Warren

House in Rhode Island

This was a shot I took of a colonial style house in Wickford, RI. It was built in the 1700's and it's in really good shape. I originally shot the photo in color and the house was pink. I then did some work in Picassa and Photoshop turning it into b&w and using a red filter for a slightly different effect.

Eric

Taking a Break on the Trail

Nikon D100

Gail took a rest stop on our way back up the trail from the canyon floor at Canyon de Chelley in Arizona.

It was a beautiful day, but a bit hot on the trail. This was the only trail that visitors are allowed on without being accompanied by an indian guide.

We went to see the "white house" ruins. I'm picking random shots to post from our vacation. I may get to the pictures from these ruins one of these days.

--Warren

Blue Balls

Nikon D100




--Warren

Painted Desert, in Arizona

Nikon D100

This was taken in Petrified Forest National Park.

--Warren

American Idol Contestant in the Neighborhood

Camera: Sony DSC-P72

I shot these at a local Asian Heritage Street Fair in our neighborhood. American Idol contestant, Jose "Sway" Penala, was one of the live performers that day.

--Warren



Interested:


Disinterested:

Madison Series

Nikon D100, Nikkor 50mm f1.8D

Last Saturday, Benson and I went to a local camera store to check out their big sale. Madison came with us. These were taken when we were having lunch. We were sitting right next to the noisy kitchen.

--Warren

Fun at the SF Zoo

This is our daughter Madison having a great time at the San Francisco Zoo. This picture was taken by my wife with a disposable film camera. Processing was through Costco's Kodak processing with a CD to digitize the prints. Not a very clear picture but not bad for a disposable. The Kodak processing at Costco is pretty good, in my opinion. And the convenience of having it on a CD so you don't have to scan all the prints or negatives is a plus.

There Warren. I've posted a project photo. ;-)

June Project -- Fun at the Street Fair

Nikon D100

This was taken at the Union Street Fair last weekend.

Hey, is anyone else going to try shooting for this month's challenging theme?

--Warren

A Poor Masonic Lodge

D70 / 24mm
With all the talk about the rich Masons, caused by the Da Vinci Code, I thought this poor lodge was interesting. The best was this dog out front eating from the garbage.

Train Cars in the Morning Sun

Nikon D70 / 24mm
Two all train cars that ran from Boca Raton Florida to New York. The morning sun, tainted by some smoke from a fire in the Everglades provided for a sparkling shine on the cars.

Another Ad for Wine Country

Nikon D100

Jill went to take some pictures around the house in Sonoma, and temporarily set her wine glass on top of the BBQ. I thought it kind of summarized our stay that weekend, great food and wine, and great company, in a country setting.

--Warren

Curves

D2X

This was taken at the Dunes near Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley. Its amazing the kinds of shapes that can be created by the wind blown sand.

Outside the Ferry Building in SF

I took this while at the Ferry Building last weekend. The weather was fine and the crowds were great!

Eric

Lens Shootout at Lincoln Park

My Nikon D100 was used for all shots. The following lenses were used:

Sigma 15-30mm
Tokina 17mm ATX
Nikon 18-70mm "kit" lens
Tokina 12-24mm

This session came about because Dennis was trying to decide which superwide lens to buy for use with his D100. I thought it would be cool to gather our existing wide angle lenses to let Dennis try them all at the same time. I borrowed Benson's 18-70mm and 12-24mm to use with my Sigma 15-30mm and Tokina 17mm (prime).

Can you tell which lens was used in each picture? The 18-70mm is probably easier to spot (when used at 50mm or longer). Like I mentioned before, I found that I basically forgot that we were testing lenses, and ended up just concentrating on making the pictures. We thought that all the lenses were very good.

--Warren

River in Spring

I was looking thru some photos I was thinking of posting and came across this one. I forgot all about it. It's a photo of the Charles River in Massachusetts. It was once an extremely polluted river you would never want to go in. It's pretty clean now and people go boating in it all the time.

Eric

Dynamic Dual

Shot with my D100.

Here are my two F4s cameras, as mentioned in my previous post, sitting on top of my HP 5400C flatbed scanner.

I bought the one on the right in the mid-1990's for about $1200 used, and it's been supremely reliable since then. I bought the one on the left, a late model body, last year for under $500 including a MF-23 multi-function back. I intended to sell my older F4 body after I got the newer one, but I can't bring myself to do it :).

If any of you (FPCF members) in the Bay Area want to try one of my F4's or any of my other cameras or lenses, just ask me.

--Warren

Summer is Almost Here

Hi Gang,

How is everyone doing? What are you up to?

This month's project theme (proposed by Pat) will, in my opinion, be a very challenging and interesting one. As you know, the theme is: Joy vs. Sorrow. I enjoyed shooting last month's theme (people at work) even while I was on vacation in the U.S. Southwest.

Last weekend, I had occasion to do a family portrait at Stanford University for a friend of mine. I shot both digital (D100 w/24-135mm) and film (Tri-X w/Nikon F4 and 50mm). I had no problems transitioning between the two cameras, but whenever I switched to the F4, I REALLY noticed the bright and clear 100% viewfinder of the F4. It was a great pleasure to shoot with it. I recently saw an excellent condition F4s sell on Ebay for under $300 (!!!). That's a ridiculously low price for such an incredible camera. I already have two F4s bodies, and I know this sounds crazy, but I sometimes like to just put the two of them on my desk and just admire the design of them. When I have a chance, I'll post a few from this session after they're all processed.

Dennis Fong is getting back into the swing of things with his recent acquisition of a D100. He badly needs a lens wider than 24mm, so I got him out with four superwide lenses one evening to do a comparison session. I borrowed Benson's Tokina 12-24mm and Nikon 18-70, and I brought my own Sigma 15-30mm and Tokina 17mm (prime), and we did some shooting at Lincoln Park in San Francisco. At first, I was going to use my tripod to try some direct comparison shots, but we decided to just go handheld and unscientific. For myself, I can report that I basically forgot which lens was mounted on my D100, and after a while, I just concentrated on making pictures. I will post a few from this session soon too. After all this, I lent Dennis my Tokina 17mm for his trip to Yosemite. I hope he posts some shots from his Yosemite trip, and his own conclusions from the test shoot.

I also asked Steve Fong to post a comparison of his new D2X with his old camera, the D70. He agreed to do this when he has some time.

The other day, I watched a biography of photographer, Robert Capa, on PBS. Did any of you see this? It was a fascinating program. As you probably know, Capa is arguably the most famous war photographer in the history of photography. He was the only photographer present at the D-Day landing at Normandy, and the story of what happened that day was amazing. He shot over a hundred images using a pair of Contax II rangefinder cameras (w/50mm lens). They rushed the film to London where the lab technician, in a rush to get the film ready, forgot to open the vents in the film drying closet and MELTED almost all the film!!! Only 11 images survived, but these images were published, and were incredible documentation of the drama that day.

The documentary also included an interview with Henri Cartier-Bresson that I enjoyed very much. At one point, they compared the styles of Capa, Bresson, and David Seymour (nickname: Chim), by showing images from the 3 legendary photographers, and sure enough, the stylistic differences were immediately obvious. Bresson: impeccable composition, Chim: intimacy with the subject, Capa: dynamic movement and drama.

I laughed when I saw a picture of Capa when he shot the British handover of Palestine at Haifa. He had cameras draped all over his body. I saw 2 TLR's (probably Rolleiflexes), 1 Hasselblad, 1 Contax or Leica, and what looked like a medium format folder, and he was holding a tripod in one hand.

Martin, I would love to hear your thoughts on these legends of photojournalism. You lived the PJ life, so I'm sure you have a unique perspective on this subject.

Administrative reminder: Please respond to comments on the forum instead of replying to the email. Some of us do not get the email notifications, so will never see the reply.

That's all for now, happy shooting!

--Warren