Camera doesn't matter

As long as you know what your camera can do and cannot do, a crappy camera from a cell phone cal take great shots. The camera on the iPhone is by no means crappy though.

Boston in Spring

Tree top

Taken by Leica MP Summicron 1:2/50mm

Fall colors

The weather is weird. The summer had only lasted 2 weeks. It snowed for 2 hours in mid-Oct. But the temperature is still in the teens now at the end of Nov. I took this picture 3 weeks ago in Winchester, MA. The leaves are long gone. But a friend said she saw new yellow flowers on the street.

Suebee honey

Salisbury Cove

We stayed in a cabin near Bar Harbor for two nights. We arrived just before sunset and I braved the mosquitoes to take a few shots across the bay. I got over 10 stings but gladly a few nice shots. They were taken by my 50 years-old Rolleiflex on expired Kodak Portra 160VC.

Best of this summer

It started at NYC. I picked Sue up at JFK and spent a day at NYC. We only planned to go to the ship graveyard at Staten Island and the Guggenheim Museum.

The ship graveyard is now not letting people take photos since someone fell and got hurt. Sue managed to snatch a few before the guy who worked there discovered us and escorted us out.

The ship graveyard of Staten Island, NY

The Guggenheim Museum is having a special exhibit of Frank Lloyd Wright's work for their 50th anniversary. FLW is the architect who designed the museum among other great buildings. The exhibit and the museum itself are impressive, and it made me think about an alternate universe where I got into an architecture school and became an architect. The regular exhibit of this Guggenheim is simply dwarfed by the neighboring MoMA and the Met.

The glass dome of Guggenheim Museum NYC on a redscale Fujifilm Superia 400 film

Between the ship graveyard and Guggenheim we walked the Central Park a little on our way from the subway to the museum. The cloud was gathering and as Ansel Adams had said the sky is most interesting before a thunderstorm. Unfortunately we were caught by the storm when we came out of the Museum.

Central Park West as seen across the reservoir on a redscale Fujifilm Superia 400 film

Freddie lost a baby

Freddie comes back with only one chick these days. She must have lost one to the foxes. Stay close to mom my dear.

Camera: Olympus 35RC; film: Arista Premium 400

Freddie and her babies

Freddie is a wild turkey who loved to perch in our porch in the last two summers. This year, she came back with two babies. I picked up my camera and adjusted the focus by the distance before I approached the window. I shot out of the window through the bug net. I didn't have time to meter and the exposure was way off.

They were so vigilant as soon as I made one more step toward the screen door, they walked away.

Two days later Freddie only came with one baby. I am afraid the other was eaten by the foxes..

ADOX CHS

I tried this ADOX CHS 100 with my Olypmus 35RC with a dysfunct light meter recently. This film is awesome. It is a black and white film manufactured in Germany. It has an old-school single layer emulsion dated back to the 1950's. As quoted from the manufacturer's website (with some editing):

These films were introduced by ADOX in the 1950's and quickly became the preferrd films for reporters. In those times when lightmeters were inaccurate or very expensive they preferred the wide exposure latitude of the 50 and 100 ASA fims.

The film has an ultra high silver content enabling it to produce rhichest grey scales and many tonal differences between black and white.

If developed in sharp working developers such as ADOX APH 09 the film develops a visible edge effect and very detail depth.

Because of its low diffusion single layer technology the film is ultra sharp compared to modern multilayer films where the light will be diffused when penetrating through the different layers.

Here is one of my shoots. It was scanned by CanoScan 8800F as RGB to give the dark sepia tone.

More on my flickr.

Boston at night

Boston Public Garden

Cherry blossom in Boston

Run of the Charles

This is the second year I do the race. Our company does the race every year. We don't have enough women for a women's team, so we only have a men's team and a mixed team. I do the same leg I did last year, which is famous for its half mile (800 m) portage - run with the boat - in addition to the 2 miles paddling down the river. The weather was warm so as the water. It was a great time.

Tiananmen Memorial in Boston

It was hidden in a small shabby park in Chinatown. I only learned about it from the news when a prominent person from Hong Kong came and laid down the flowers. I hope I live long enough to see one set up in Tiananmen Square.

Paddling on Ipswich River

Spring is still reluctant to come. But we have to get prepared for the canoe race. It is only 2 weeks away. Dan and I went to Ipswich River and paddled a bit. I needed to practice my steering also.

At one point we came across a couple of nesting ducks. Dan said we would get killed if we ran into their territory. We drifted slowly by them, but the male duck didn't take a chance and flew at us and yelled at us (literally), trying to chase us away.

Dan also spotted beavers twice. Freaking sharp eyes.

I brought my underwater camera Nikonos-V along and took a few photos on the boat. This camera is truly a tank. It also has some funky orange color rubber on its body for practical reason. It is just beautiful.

April 4

I went to a photographic event of the Yankee Photographic Society at Danvers High School. The two talks in the morning were interesting, but the model shooting and high-jinx that came afer were less so. I wandered the campus and sneaked out to Danversport and took more interesting photos with my 58-years-old Rolleiflex.

Someone is still using the first generation iMac.

Danversport Marina

Getting away

I've spent too much time at work lately. Just want to get away on my own. My colleague was selling a couple of half price ski tickets for Ragged Mountain. It is only 2 hours away. I snatched them without thinking too much. I didn't even bother to get someone to go with me and I spent a quiet day on the snow.

It turned out they have a very scenic green trail. I had 3 runs on it.

The resort closes after next weekend. Perhaps I will go again and use the other ski ticket.

Spring snow

It was March 8 and it had been snowing since the day before. I arrived at my lab and dropped my gloves and my hat by the window to let them dry.

Hopefully this snow marks the end of the winter.

Taken by Olympus 35RC

Oishii at Chestnut Hill

Oishii at Chestnut Hill is probably the most authentic and best sushi bar in Boston area. There is only 1 L-shape sushi bar and a small round table. It was a Thursday night and three sushi chefs and 3 waitresses served about 15 people at a time.

The sushi was very good, but it was the toro tatar and the grilled yellowtail that were most impressive. I have never had grilled fish with skin so crispy and flavored and meat so soft and juicy.

March 5, 2009. Oishii sushi bar at Chestnut Hill
Taken by Rolleiflex 3.5 M-X (1951) and Agfa APX400. Developed using Arista D-76, 15 min at 20degC.