117/365 Leica Landscapes

4/27/2013

I took Josie to softball practice at Whitney Lane Baptist Church in Kensett this morning.  Across the street from the church, was a wooded field with a bunch of wild flowers and daffodils.  Normally this would be easy pickings for me and my iPhone, but today I had a Leica M8 with a 35mm F1.4 lens that has a close focusing distance of .7 meters ( 27.5 inches ).  I really enjoyed trying to make sense of these landscapes and flowers with the rangefinder camera.

 Working with a different camera type is a creative challenge I used for years in the film era.  Anytime I felt uninspired I would trade out the Nikon camera bag for the Bronica medium format camera bag.  With the bag change I lost zoom lenses, built in light meters, motor drives and auto focusing, a complete change of pace and a new way of seeing.  I really miss that with digital cameras.  I use P&S cameras and my iPhone to take up the slack but it is not the drastic change I enjoyed in the film days.

 Using the Leica today took me back to those old days of a completely different way of working.

Happy Fridge

This is what a happy fridge looks like. Coke Zero is my cola of choice these days. This photo is old but it never got blogged and I really liked it. My fridge currently has Peach Tea and Sam's Choice flavored waters in Peach, Lime, and Strawberry Kiwi. You might wonder why I have a fridge in my office? FILM. I used to keep this fridge stocked with Tmax 100, 400, 3200 and Kodak Portra 400NC in 35mm 100ft rolls. I also kept Tmax 400 and Ilford 3200 in 120. Now I am a Tri-X fan but for all those years I used Tmax 400 because it was supposed to have better grain which it did but the latitude was not the same of Tri-X. I did also keep Tmax 400 in 4x5 as well but it seldom was used. In color we used Fujichrome 100 in 35mm and 120. We shot the 120 in our Bronica ETRS. That was a fun camera. We have the 40mm, 75mm and 150mm lenses for it. I miss film sometimes because in the old days when I felt like I was stuck in a rut I would just put the 35mm cameras up for a week or so and shoot medium format. There is no real digital equivalent of that these days, unless I bought an digital back for the Bronica and that is not going to happen. If you are still reading this I applaud your dedication to the randomness of my thoughts this morning. I bought 4 rolls of B&W 35mm film this week. Now........which camera will be called up for service.

Summer Camp

Jenna, Jamie and Jackson are headed to camp today. This is the first year for Jackson and I think he is excited. He has his video camera packed and his headlamp flashlight. My niece,Casey, is coming to go to camp with Jamie. Camp Tahkodah is run by Harding and the director is Ross Cochran one of Harding's Bible Professors. Ross and Nita have run camp for the last several years and they do a great job. I look forward to the time when I can go and spend the week at camp with all the kids myself.
PHOTO NOTE: The top photo is a real Polaroid. I was inspired by watching the movie Martian Child to shoot some Polaroid film before it is gone forever. I got my Polaroid camera from Julie. She took a pre-school seminar on using photography in the class room several years ago when she worked for the educational co-op in Bebee. I have a couple of other Polaroid cameras and HU has a Polaroid back for its Bronica 645 camera.