As befitting any event that centres around mostly scantily clad women and large crowds, there was a strong police presence. This particular officer was amazing – he was asked "how do I get around this thing?" so many times that I was getting ready to snap after only twenty minutes, while he must have dealt with it for hours. Each time he answered it as politely and completely as if it was his first time hearing it.
There's a reason why he has a gun and I don't.
There's a large parade in Coney Island to mark the beginning of summer. I accidentally booked my bus tickets for that Saturday, which dramatically changed all of my plans for New York City.
The parade frequently resembled collections of people in costumes loosely walking in roughly the same direction, but made up for its lack of cohesion by lasting for hours and hours. The huge crowd dominated the area for the entire afternoon, and left it in such a shambles that after five hours I needed to return to the calm, quiet, and cleanliness of midtown Manhattan.
All of these photos were taken with my Zeiss Ikon rangefinder using the 4/85mm lens, which I brought specifically for photos of the parade and its participants.
My final image from my trip to Markham two weeks ago; I was trying to see the flare characteristics of the f/4 85mm Zeiss tele-tessar lens. Not bad, as it turns out - the sun was just outside the frame lines, so the hood wasn't helping at all.
I really like the look of Ektar colour film with the Zeiss Ikon, but I'm increasingly thinking of using this B&W film (chromogenic XP2) for my honeymoon in New York City one month from now. I'll also have the GH1 for colour digital, so the Ikon won't be my primary camera, and keeping to one film will increase my chances of building a consistent portfolio.
Besides, the world needs more black and white photos of New York.
This is blog post number 799, figuratively speaking.
I've divested all of the long-lens autofocus SLR gear that I've used to take my previous air show photos. I told myself that this year I just wouldn't try, and let the long weekend go by without spending hours waiting for planes to roar past.
Not so easy to do.
So instead I decided to work a little differently, and used my seriously underlensed rangefinder camera - and chose black and white film as well. Like the man said, if you can't join 'em, beat 'em - and with lower technology and capability came less pressure and more fun. Set the focus to infinity, the aperture to f/16 (seemed appropriate), and track the planes through that gloriously huge viewfinder as they turned past my apartment building. Sit on the balcony with a beverage and a book, or wander the pool deck on a chilly afternoon, and look up when I hear a plane. No problem.
It's not that I couldn't have taken these two photos - from a single pass - of the Snowbirds with an autofocus digital camera. It's that I never would have thought to try.
And I like the photos just as much the ones from 2009 and 2007, specifically because they're different.
