Love in the Night

-

"Love in the Night" was shot on a Leica SL, using an adapted R-mount lens (the Vario-Elmar-R 1:4/80-200mm).  The Leica SL is a gorgeous camera and I really enjoyed the design ethos that drove its control scheme.  Unfortunately, I no longer own the camera, and I never took the time to take detailed notes on its operation while I had it-- a missed opportunity.  The design of cameras is fascinating to me, as it's one of the few ways in which I believe most modern cameras actually distinguish themselves from one another (as image quality has not been a 'real' issue for most bodies in years).

Composition sketch, showing a left-weighted frame with some leading lines at right

Back to the photo.  I caught this couple late at night while walking home from a favorite coffee shop in Astoria back in 2016.  I cropped this to a 16:9 aspect ratio in an effort to try out some different framing styles, and ended up settling on what I felt provided a more 'cinematic' feel.  Coupled with a muted color palette (both as the result of some editing and some natural desaturation from shooting at ISO 6400) and shallow depth of field (the 80-200mm is a fairly long tele, after all), the overall result feels like it could be a still out of a film.

This is a favorite of mine for a lot of reasons, and it's a good example of the interesting moments that happen every day and are generally lost without record.  I don't say that to wax poetic or to try and cast this as a tragedy; I just find many of these scenes interesting and try to capture them when I can.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Quiet Corner

-
Image
"Quiet Corner" was shot in 2017 on Kodak Gold 400, a personal favorite film for me.  At the time, I was using a Contax G2 and the associated 28mm f/2.8 lens, a stellar performer let down here by my uncalibrated (at the time) scanner.  The film was self-developed using one of the C-41 kits available at the time (potentially one by Rollei, although I do not recall).  I snapped this photo while walking through Times Square on a particularly bright day upon seeing the distinctive L-shaped light illuminating this man. Composition sketch, showing the strong set of intersecting lines framing the man using his phone While there's a lot of bright regions and colors throughout the frame, the strong contrast of the L-shaped "reverse shadow" and the lines of the building and sidewalk around the man at (33%, 33%) keeps the eye rooted around the subject. The purplish hue to the shadows may have been an artifact of improper processing.  I was not, and still am not the most fon...
Read more

Parallel

-
Image
"Parallel" may well be the best photo I have ever taken (dating back to 2017).  It would be a gross lie to claim that this shot was planned from top-to-bottom; there was a considerable level of serendipity involved in that both people crossing the street were at the same point in their walk cycle when I hit the shutter release.  This photo was taken with the Fujifilm TX-1 and the 45mm f/4, using Kodak Tri-X 400 at ISO 1600 (developed with HC-110). Composition sketch, showing foreground/background parallels and relative offset of the two walkers. As the title implies, this photo makes extensive use of both horizontal and vertical parallel lines.  There is an implicit horizontal line where the foreground crosswalk would be (partially made explicit by the pattern of the churned snow) that pairs with the background crosswalk, with the two walkers at first- and third-quarter marks along their relative paths. Falling and fallen snow adds texture to the shot, and the exaggerated...
Read more

Takeoff

-
Image
"Takeoff" was shot in 2018 on a Fujifilm TX-1 on Kodak Ektar 100 (rated at ISO 50).  This is one of only a handful of photos I've shot with the excellent, but somewhat unwieldy 90mm f/4 lens.  I've never loved the T-shaped configuration you end up with; the weight distribution tips the camera forward when it's not in use, and the longer lens is prone to snagging on things. Composition sketch, highlighting centered horizon and line connecting the airplane to the frame edge.  This was shot as part of a 'burst', with the prior frame catching the plane still on the water and the subsequent one capturing it well into the air.  This frame ended up being my pick, since it keeps the plane close to its wake and captures enough of the mountains in the background to keep the frame balanced.  Still, I waffled on this photo for a long time, and part of me is still not entirely convinced that I nabbed the right shot. This is the first post on this little blog, so I'...
Read more