Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/05/06

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Subject: Re: Cruising for snaps...
From: "Jeff Segawa" <segawa@netone.com>
Date: 6 May 97 09:22:48 -0700

On Tue, May 6, 1997 3:37 AM, Ian Stanley <mailto:ian@mos.com.np> wrote: 
>To make
>a long story short - I got the shots I needed in Panauti, got some great
>shots of golden wheat in the fields with the Himal in the background.

A great story, thanks Ian!

I like photographing grand vistas, but when those aren't working out, I
like turning the ordinary into something extraordinary: While in London, I
found myself queued up for a cab outside of Victoria Station and became
fascinated with the muted colors of the line of cabs, as well and the
bright glass front of the station entrance beyond. Taking out my M4-2 and
50 Summicron, I began happily firing away, as though it were the greatest
scene I had ever seen. To my amusement, soon others started taking notice,
and before long, everyone was snapping away! I figure that everyone who's
ever been to London has pictures of Big Ben, double-decker buses, The Tower
and Picadilly Circus, but to the best of my knowledge, I'm the only one
who's got a photo of punk rockers performing outside of Burger King, or of
blue-and-white lawn chairs set out near the daffodils on a cold spring
morning. When I visited Yosemite Nat'l Park, my favorite shots were not of
grand vistas (the sky was uniformly bland every day) but of tiny, metallic
beetles on the milkweed plants, and of dried grasses which seemed almost a
series of ocean waves, rendered in gold. Closer to home, I am intrigued by
the quality of morning light, as it shines through a grove of ponderosa
pines. Unaltered photos have too much of a soot-and-chalk appearance and
lack the luminosity that I see in person. I may try again using a blue
filter and perhaps lowering the contrast through processing. This should be
most interesting.