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Tag Archives: Street

Leica very much!

05 Feb

Google Leica M8, M8.2 or M9 and you find thousands and thousands of terrible pictures. And today I learned why: it is such a fun to use!

I rented from Keeble and Shuchat, a terrific company. Really great cameras and friendly employees in a store that doesn’t exist merely virtually. A revelation for me. Since I have to work on Sunday, I decided to make the most out of my Friday with the M8.2. The quality is amazing. I am used to a 5D mark II. The image quality that camera gives is surpassed by almost no other 35mm camera. Granted, the autofocus isn’t all that (only the center af point works well on mine), but the keepers are truly keepers. Therefore I was sure the m8.2 would disappoint. It isn’t full frame, has a sensor that has been designed in 2005-2006 and works on manual focus only. However, I was also told that this is a great camera for those who enjoy setting the camera themselves and not let the dumb CPU decide the parameters. Some comments on that.
1. I can manually focus very quickly. It is easy and even works well in dim light. I only had one out of focus shot out of the 300 today, and that one turned out to be a keeper (you can see it below).

2. The image quality is amazing. I used a *very* old 35mm summilux on the M8.2 (given that I love the 50mm focal length so much), but the images were so sharp and contrasty, that I didn’t need *any* surplus sharpening or local contrast enhancement. Wow. I didn’t see that coming!

3. The camera is small and silent! Incredible! I took a series of 15 pictures of a student and a professor (see the pictures below) from about 3-4 meters distance. They didn’t notice a thing. This is definitely a great feature for me and the kind of pictures I like to take.

4. I don’t think this is really a camera for those pure manual shooters. Setting the shutter speed is done by a dial on top, that is very hard to operate when looking through the viewfinder. AV mode is often said to be a form of manual mode too, but I disagree. It is manual in the sense that you determine the depth of field, but still the camera decides on the exposure. Sure, you can use exposure compensation, but I find that this makes for very inconsistent exposure series. I need to get used to setting the dial. That is a major point for me, someone who wants total control over his pictures.

Tomorrow I will take the camera to San Francisco. I have to be careful though: I can only take about 180 pictures and the battery dies rather quickly. I guess that further enhances the Leica film experience, doesn’t it?

One of those series of the student and his professor

A different angle - I like his umbrella

Thank God he stood there for a full minute. I had trouble changing exposure quickly to match the mood here.

I really like these kind of scenes. Am I the only one?

A hombre at Borders

I walk by this house every single day. Those shoes make it very home-like, even for me.

A dumb shot. But I really feel cool walking around with this thing!

Funky people in the street

This is the out of focus one. I love it for the light and the expression on the guy's face. Amazing how people can be some place else when they are on their cellphone!

At Abbey's

 
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Posted by on February 5, 2010 in Available light, Personal, Photography

 

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Back to the future IV *updated

31 Jan

PHotography Means CCreativity for US-S is more mnemonic than useful. The letters stand for the areas I have visited in San Francisco today: Potrero Hill, Mission, Civic Center, Union Square and Soma. I tried to focus my photography on people, but I found it a bit difficult today. On the returning train I thought I had some good material, but it is a bit disappointing.

Nonetheless, it was a beautiful day – the best so far. The sky had a deep shade of blue and hosted a powerful sun. Walking around was a delight. I hear that it snowed again at the home front … I’ll best refrain from making any comments on that.

The coming week should be a bit more relaxed than the previous one. And on Friday morning I can collect my rented Leica! It’s the M8.2 whereas I really wanted to try out an M9. But with an old 35mm Summilux on it I can at least pretend I’m holding my M9 50mm Summilux dream combo, right? Rangefinders are completely different tools and I’ll let you know how it turns out! I still have to remain patient until Friday, though. And since my mind is constantly karaokeing this song, it might become a long week.

Composition wise, it's too bad her mother stood right behind her the few seconds she was playing around

Potrero Hill

Looking out over the city from Potrero Hill

Some kids

Style

Colors

Stop reading, man! Reality beats fiction.

There's oil underneath, Bob! I feel it in my guts!

For Composition 1

For Composition 2

 
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Posted by on January 31, 2010 in Available light, Personal, Photography, Street

 

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Extended Mission

23 Jan

The plan for the weekend was to work on Saturday and reward myself on Sunday with a trip to San Francisco. But the Spanish kid mentioned in a previous post caused me to change my plan, as the weather forecast on Saturday was much better than on Sunday. This change of plans turned out to be a good thing, as Chris – one of our studygroup – just mailed that he cannot make it on Monday and we thus have to meet on Sunday.

I took the same route as last week, and started in Mission. The rain was pouring down (see the first two pictures)! This only lasted for half an hour and soon I was on my way. During the week I was thinking to go and see the Haight, but there was no direct transportation to it. And if I was going to walk straight through Mission, I couldn’t visit it later on and still be surprised. So I limited myself to the Mission neighborhood for this weekend. The final highlight on my list was Mission Dolores itself (wasn’t this the name of one of Jerry Seinfeld’s girlfriends?). At that point, I was so close to Castro that I decided to visit it as well. By the same token, I ultimately ended up in the Haight. Too bad I was quite tired, because normally this place would be great for photographs and for me – apart from the omnipresent weed smell. But the sun coming through while wearing a winter coat, the walking up/downhill all day and the heavy camerabag made me less ‘trigger happy’. The highest point I visited was the Painted Ladies (see the final picture). I walked back to the BART station and returned around half past five.

On Mission

On 22nd or something

At the hair dresser's

At the original mission

Around 16th street

Castro Street

At Haight Street

A mandatory image when visiting SF

 
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Posted by on January 23, 2010 in Personal, Photography, Street

 

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Photo Contest by De Standaard

20 Jan

In November and December, the number one Dutch speaking newspaper in Belgium (De Standaard) hosted a photo contest on their website. In total, 16968 pictures were submitted by over 8000 photographers. You can see the article by clicking here. If I run it through google translate, it comes up as below.

Yes, I got the second place with a street photograph called ‘Street Religion’, taken in Harlem in New York (the photo is included below). Since there is no money in street photography, it is hard to value or rank street pictures. But this is certainly an encouragement!

The photo contest ran from November 9 to January 3 at De Standaard Online. Readers were submitting their pictures around four themes: portrait, action, street and landscape. Based on the number of votes on the site, each theme was also granted an audience award.

In total, 16,968 photographs were submitted by over 8,000 photographers. This made the task for the jury intensive. “It was relatively easy 20 to 30 images to select a break in level tasks,” said juror Sofie Stevens, chief photo of De Standaard. “Inside it was difficult to select a winner.”

Titus Simoens finally got the upper hand with his photograph “Las Vegas, Sun City”. “It is a very powerful image that emanates from” Sofie Stevens said, “You are sucked into it. The subject is however trivial: a group of people cross the street. It is the light of the sun, probably through a building just off screen, reflected on the faces. Their shadows make for an interesting game on the ground.

The second place was Wim Van Gestel ( “Street Religion”), the third spot for Martin Devoldere ( “Moving”).

The game was also on our French sister site Actu24.be. There the winner Guy Delwiche the picture “Mer”.

The jury consisted, besides Sofie Stevens, Joachim Devedeleer further, Canon professional imaging specialist from Belgium, Jacques Duchateau photographer and photographer Jimmy Kets.

Street Religion

 
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Posted by on January 20, 2010 in Photography, Professional, Street

 

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For I am a Rain Dog too *updated

17 Jan

Even though I planned on working the whole Saturday, I managed to find some time to go out with my bike and drive to the bay east of Palo Alto. Expecting to see some nature, I was actually disappointed. It took a 200mm lens to frame out all obvious human elements (see the first picture). Yet the air was fresh and it gave me the boost I needed to continue work in the evening.

Sunday I slept in. After taking the 11.30 train to Millbrae and the Bart to Mission, I walked (through the rain, see picture 2) to my promoter who showed me around in San Francisco. Our first stop was Twin Peak, from which you have a great view over the city (picture 3).  After that we drove through the gigantic Golden Gate park to the ocean (see picture 4). While a bit more exotic than the North Sea, the weather give it a familiar Ostend feel. Next, the trip went towards the Golden Gate Bridge, which was more overwhelming than I expected. In spite of forecasts and the weather in the early afternoon, the sky was rather clear for Golden Gate norms (see picture 5). The tour ended with driving through the most important neighborhoods of San Francisco to take stock of the richness of the city. This will surely help me plan my next trip(s) better. Thank you!

East of Palo Alto

East of Palo Alto

A Rainy Day

Downtown SF, viewed from Twin Peaks

I love how the blues on the left compete with the yellows on the right!

All that glisters is not gold

 
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Posted by on January 17, 2010 in Available light, Personal, Photography, Street

 

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A quick post

14 Jan

I’m really tired lately, so today’s post is a little short and uninspired. It was a “successful” day, however. In the morning I got together with my promoter. After that, there was lunch at Nexus with people from Belgica. This is an association for Belgian people (both students and staff) at Stanford. They get together at least every two weeks and I plan to make this a habit as well. In the afternoon there was PolEcon class. Chris and Gustavo, two fellow PhD students, invited me to get together to solve the weekly problem sets. We’ll probably do this next Monday (which is Martin Luther King day). I’m happy about that.

Today’s picture was taken outside of the Nexus restaurant. That guy walking there just makes the shot for me. I had to wait there for a few minutes, though. :-)

At the Nexus restaurant

 
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Posted by on January 14, 2010 in Available light, Personal, Photography, Street

 

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Silver paint

11 Jan

Because I worked yesterday and classes are on Tuesdays (and Thursdays), today was calm. Unexpectedly it was a bit too calm as I didn’t know what to do with the time. A first since my arrival here. Before noon I visited the campus. In the afternoon I wandered around and ultimately ended up buying myself a Henri Cartier-Bresson book – the one I read at Borders last week – and a couple of burgers at University Avenue.

I turned 25 today. An age at which I could use a new coat of paint, as Tom Waits puts it (If you click on the link, you can listen to the song once). Too bad I couldn’t celebrate it with my friends and family. But in that very same Tom Waits song, he also sings “fishin’ for a good time start with throwing in your line”. Great advice if you ask me.

They have *the* best burgers!

 
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Posted by on January 11, 2010 in Available light, Personal, Photography, Street

 

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Sittin’ On The Dock of The Bay

09 Jan

From this day forward the letters SF will no longer invoke the thoughts of aliens, obi-wan or time travel. Well, not immediately at least. The first thought is reserved for San Francisco.

I got up early. Too early actually. The plan was to catch the second or third train, but I stood at the Palo Alto station a half hour before the first one. The ride itself is nothing special. Aside from Menlo Park, most stops don’t look that attractive. Even the final station wasn’t all that and it took me a while to get in city trip mood. Something (or somebody) was clearly missing. This also manifested itself in going to the city center: I couldn’t figure out how the transportation worked (yes, I am a doctoral student), so I ended up walking to it. It wasn’t as far as I thought beforehand, a benefit from also not being very able to read a map. But I got around and after a while I even got the hang of it.

The route started in Soma at the Caltrain depot and made a weird detour in that area, attributable to my disability mentioned above. It subsequently led me to Union Square, the Financial District, Chinatown, North Beach, the docks and then back down to The Hills. I went home with public transportation (yes we can!).

North Beach is my most favorite neighborhood, closely followed by Chinatown. Even though still very touristy, ordinary life came through and I was a happy witness to it. Strolling around the docks with Otis Redding’s song on my ipod was quite an experience as well. Rob De Nijs got played too. People at the home front will probably know which song.

There still are sea lions, just not many. There were plenty of large sea stars though. I got into a conversation with Michael (a homeless man) and he never saw them before. Maybe in 10 years people come to pier 29 to see them instead of the sea lions.

I also got on these cable trains, but think they are overrated. It’s nice not having to walk uphill (and it can be really steep!), but otherwise the sight is prettier if not on them. I particularly liked how certain bus companies copied these cable trains’ appearance so you can ride in a bus that looks like such a train. It looks dumb, but it made me smile.

At around 16.30 my train home stopped at the PA station and I went out for a pizza. I hadn’t eaten anything decent all day. Just a large McDonalds menu and some pastry at Starbucks. Hardly anything decent, I said.

Below you can find some pictures. People say that providing both a color and a monotone version of a picture is amateurish and I agree. It should never be done if one wouldn’t like coming across as an unprofessional newbie in photography. Fortunately I don’t care if you think that (or secretly hope you don’t have any doubts about that anymore), so here are they.

A typical view in Soma - I like the birds in the right upper corner

At Union Square

Color version of Chinatown

Monotone version of Chinatown

Very nice pastel colors

In North Beach (Washington Park, I believe)

A view at Fisherman's Warf

Fishermen

In the cable train - the boy and the woman laughing make the shot for me

 
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Posted by on January 9, 2010 in Available light, Photography, Street

 

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That’s a wrap, people

08 Jan

Even though technically there is still a weekend ahead of us GMT-8 people, it feels like the first week ended. Time to take stock of it. It is so overwhelmingly beautiful here but I am already getting used to those palm trees in spite of it. I also learned a lot in just a few lessons. How to look philosophically at the mathematics of discounted continuation values for instance. Previously using them only by directly calculating them, I now have a better feel for them. 20 nerd points for Wim, but that actually makes me happy since it’s the number one reason why I’m here.

Tomorrow I’ll be heading to San Francisco by train. The forecast shows rain but I hope it will be a pleasant experience anyway. Sunday will be reclassified as a workday as there are some assignments due for early next week.

Here are some pictures of today. The central theme is ‘odd shadows’. I also have one of my lunch table, but guess you guys aren’t interested to see what kind of beans were in my burrito-wrap, so they got put away in the ‘personal pictures’ folder.

Some odd shadows

That is not her shadow ... A Secret Meeting

 
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Posted by on January 8, 2010 in Available light, Personal, Photography

 

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Palo Alto Daily News

07 Jan

The jet lag was pretty bothersome the previous evenings. I spent them trying to stay awake by watching The Sopranos. This show deserves better than being used as caffeine, but as Tony often says: Hey, what ya gonna do?

The worst has passed, though. I went for a walk on University Avenue and stopped by Borders, a books/music/café place. A couple of hours of gazing at the work of Cartier-Bresson later I got back and took some pictures in the street.

They have some great books: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams, ...

Palo Alto Daily News

This reminds me of Tom Waits' "What's he building in there?" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaLjwSpZ6Cs

 
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Posted by on January 7, 2010 in Available light, Personal, Photography, Street

 

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