A pair of A.U. students were having fun with fallen leaves as we cut across the campus. Leica M Monochrom, 50mm Summilux, 2x ND filter.
When they realized a photographer was enjoying what they were doing, they really got into it.
Archive for October, 2012
The Leica M Monochrom And The Showering Of Autumn Leaves
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 50mm Summilux, Leica Monochrom on October 7, 2012 by johnbuckley100Chinatown Station
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 35mm Summilux FLE, Leica M9 on October 6, 2012 by johnbuckley100Leica M9, 35mm Summilux FLE.
John Cale’s “Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood” Is Solid
Posted in Music with tags John Cale, Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood on October 6, 2012 by johnbuckley100John Cale and Bob Dylan are about the same age. Cale still possesses one of rock’s greatest voices. Dylan not so much. We know that it can’t be because Cale’s lived a life free of vices; the former Velvet Underground mainstay has been quite upfront about the stretches when he dodged clean living. No, more likely the Welshman’s baritone, still gorgeous, is a simple genetic marvel, like Keith Richards’ heart. And when we listen to Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood, released this week, we’re grateful.
It has been seven years since Cale released blackAcetate, which was as strong as anything he’s done since those classic albums from the ’70s, Fear, Helen of Troy, and Slow Dazzle among them. Last year, he released a compelling e.p., Extra Playful, but we weren’t prepared for how strong Shifty Adventures is. Starting with “I Wanna Talk 2U,” in which, natch, Danger Mouse helps it achieve liftoff, Cale makes clear he’s not some septuagenarian ready for the shuffleboard deck, but as vibrant and determined a rocker as ever he was. This is an album that is at once utterly contemporary and timeless, gorgeous and sharp-edged, melodic and urgent. In short, a classic John Cale album.
Maybe the comparison to Dylan is inapt, as Cale has had different personas over time — balladeer, hard rocker, experimental artist, viola player and punk rocker. He’s released great albums in each of the last six decades — yeah, six decades, going back to the Warhol-banana festooned Velvets intro in ’67 — and Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood continues the streak.
Quick, Which Path?
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Leica Monochrom, Summilux 21mm on October 6, 2012 by johnbuckley100Leica Monochrom, 21mm Summilux. As always, click on the image to see the resolution of this camera and lens.
Stereogum’s Great Bill Doss Compilation Post
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Apples in Stereo, Bill Doss, Olivia Tremor Control, Stereogum on October 6, 2012 by johnbuckley100Noble Stereogum, making an equivalent use of the medium as Bill Doss made of guitars and tape recorders, has just posted an amazing tribute to the late Bill Doss, replete with songs he graced with Olivia Tremor Control, The Sunshine Fix, The Apples In Stereo, and Chocolate USA. Hell, they practically have the whole Elephant 6 Collective starring in “The Story of Elephant 6’s Bill Doss, Told In 10 Songs.” In these here parts, it’s Friday night. Go have a nice weekend listen. Maybe this will tide us over til the posthumous OTC reunion album gets released. Thanks, Stereogum.
The Power of Black And White Portraiture
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Leica Monochrom, Leica Noctilux on October 5, 2012 by johnbuckley100The Leica Monochrom, and our attendant focus on the power of black and white photography, raises the issue of why the absence of color renders images of people in a more arresting manner.
Leica Monochrom, Leica Noctilux f/0.95, 3x ND Filter
No doubt there is a literature on the topic, but our initial belief is that just as selective focus isolates the person or people who are the photograph’s subject, there is something about the desaturation of color that renders the image out of the context of (contemporary) time.
Leica Monochrom, Leica Noctilux f/0.95, 3x ND filter
And sometimes the combination of isolation and timelessness, even on a shot that you don’t quite get, reveals the power of photography in a way that’s compelling.
Leica Monochrom, Leica Noctilux f/0.95, 3x ND filter
The Lost Glove Is Happy
Posted in Uncategorized with tags "Love Dust", Arthur Koestler, Dean Wareham, Luna, Nabokov, Pale Fire, Synchronicity on October 5, 2012 by johnbuckley100For much of the past week, we have been thinking about synchronicity. No, not the Police album. More like the theory outlined in Arthur Koestler’s The Roots Of Coincidence, which described causally unrelated events occurring.
This flows from the following: last Saturday, while traveling, we began reading Pale Fire for the first time since college… for the first time, come to think of it, since we read Koestler… and we chuckled when Nabokov’s gloriously unreliable narrator Charles Kinbote relates a proverb from the mythical country of Zembla, that goes, “The lost glove is happy.” Kind of struck a chord, but we chalked it up to having read the book so long ago.
And then on Monday, for some strange reason, we played Luna’s great 2003 album Rendezvous, whose first song is “Love Dust.” And about three verses in, Dean Wareham sings:
I’m bad with faces
And worse with names
But the lost glove is happy
It’s all the same
And we about launched from our driver’s seat. What are the odds of that? Haven’t played “Love Dust” in a year or more…
Tulip Frenzy 