Friday, February 17, 2017

Have a beautiful weekend


Venice, off the beaten track





Most tourists do not wander away from the crowded streets where all the attraction are and miss what I call the real flavor of Venice, I believe that one must indulge in all the artistic, cultural ad touristy offerings of this incredible city and still find time to take in the places where very few tourists ever see. You see  the other side of of the coin.

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Old buildings



Like most places that are happening, Castellammare del Golfo, my birthplace is undergoing renovation. The old buildings that were abandoned when many moved into the new elevator apartments in new neighborhoods, are being renovated. Many of these are srtictly for the booming tourist industry but many people, like myself, prefer to live in the older neighborhoods. The top two buildings were about to be fixed uo while the bottom one was done a few years ago and looks like the way these homes looked once. I used some Photoshop editings to make the images stand out more and give them a more graphic look.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

The Meat Packing District

Manhattan's Meat Packing District was once a rather unsavory area that like most parts of the city it has been revitalized by the process of gentrification. Here we see the outskirts of this area but be assured that they soon will sport trendy shops and restaurants.




Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Happy Valentine's day


My love  goes to all my dear visitors. Thanks for stopping by.

A funny Valentine



These images are from the archives and date from the early seventies. Scanned Kodachromes shot with a Nikon FTn. Somehow I feel that this is appropriate for Valentine's day. BTW happy Valentine's day to one and all. I love you.

Monday, February 13, 2017

Low res scans

Followers of this blog know my position on this ever increasing mega pixel race and this whole techie trend toward greater definition. If I need this, I use my eyes. In specialized situations high definition is useful but here are  philosophical problems with this trend.
If one is to subscribe to the rather tenuous notion that photography is an art, then the HD model will surely put this matter to rest making photography just a tool and a craft. To be an art, one must interpret and instead of faithfully recreate a scene  and one must emphasize and compose. I call this decomposition because one starts with a scene as a given and them must remove items as to emphasize certain points while de emphasizing others. This ideal runs contrary to pixel peepers and counters who are always  tempted to buy the latest camera model unaware that the rest of the world is getting by with smart phones that are making everyone a photographer. It's just too easy. The big cameras are usually show off items but this is of course another matter all together.
The images here are all scans from medium format Tri-X Pan. In order to give them a more "artistic" feel. I used a cheap, low quality scanner. What results are more interesting images that are not naturalistic but graphic. This is after all what photography really should be. I have had arguments about this point of view on numerous occasions in photography sites and the replies are at times sanguine. Many just want their cameras to recreate as faithfully as the state of the art applies. One could argue that you first shoot with the greatest resolution and then lower it, The problem is that this usually doesn't work and it defeats the entire purpose because the mind set is such that HD will always come first. What can I do? I can only state my position. You be the judges. I do like theseresults and I hope many of you like them too.




Fall splendor