New York June NYC Meet-Up

[kkdanamatt]

Hey, Cal:
Nice bumping into you in Queens yesterday.
Afterwards, Paul and I walked almost the full length of Queens under the #7 train.
I think we passed through 42 countries along the way.
No problems street shooting with our Leicas, except for one nasty drug dealer who "asked" us to move off his corner. He said we were "too hot" in Spanglish. I had taken a quick candid shot of his girlfriend before he got really pissed off.
Other than that we had a fantastic shoot.
Going back to Queens next time for some more street shooting followed by some Ecuadorian food.

See you at Puck Fair on June 7, and maybe at the Mermaid Parade on June 6.

 

[Calzone]

Hey, Cal:
Nice bumping into you in Queens yesterday.
Afterwards, Paul and I walked almost the full length of Queens under the #7 train.
I think we passed through 42 countries along the way.
No problems street shooting with our Leicas, except for one nasty drug dealer who "asked" us to move off his corner. He said we were "too hot" in Spanglish. I had taken a quick candid shot of his girlfriend before he got really pissed off.
Other than that we had a fantastic shoot.
Going back to Queens next time for some more street shooting followed by some Ecuadorian food.

See you at Puck Fair on June 7, and maybe at the Mermaid Parade on June 6.

K,

I walked the dog from East Harlem over the 59th Street Bridge. Visited Greenpoint and Williamsburg visiting all the neighborhoods I once lived in that I helped gentrify. 5-Pontz now is just a hole in the ground, only the main building of the Domino sugar refinery is still standing, and now a new high rise in LIC blocks the Empire State Building in a shot I once took. Walked back into Madhattan via the Williamsburg Bridge.

Anyways I'm glad I did a lot of documenting of the old urban landscape that is now gone. I figured that I personally made the bankers and real estate developers a ton of money over the decades developers, but in return I got no benefit in return. Meanwhile NYC gets suburbanized more and more each year.

On Saturday I did a "Tour de Bronx" on my bike. Caught some perfect light under these Amtrack tressles in Mott Haven shooting a Whiteface Rollie 3.5F loaded with Acros. Eventually made it to City Island and Ochard Beach.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

See you at Puck Fair on June 7, and maybe at the Mermaid Parade on June 6.

K,

The Mermaid Parade is Saturday June 20th at 1:00PM and not the 7th.

I'll be going very-very early. For me Coney Island during the set-up of this event is where I get my best shots.

Cal

 

[Range-rover]

K,

I walked the dog from East Harlem over the 59th Street Bridge. Visited Greenpoint and Williamsburg visiting all the neighborhoods I once lived in that I helped gentrify. 5-Pontz now is just a hole in the ground, only the main building of the Domino sugar refinery is still standing, and now a new high rise in LIC blocks the Empire State Building in a shot I once took. Walked back into Madhattan via the Williamsburg Bridge.

Anyways I'm glad I did a lot of documenting of the old urban landscape that is now gone. I figured that I personally made the bankers and real estate developers a ton of money over the decades developers, but in return I got no benefit in return. Meanwhile NYC gets suburbanized more and more each year.

On Saturday I did a "Tour de Bronx" on my bike. Caught some perfect light under these Amtrack tressles in Mott Haven shooting a Whiteface Rollie 3.5F loaded with Acros. Eventually made it to City Island and Ochard Beach.

Cal

Cal,

Your getting closer to my neck of the woods.

Bob

 

[kkdanamatt]

K,

The Mermaid Parade is Saturday June 20th at 1:00PM and not the 7th.

I'll be going very-very early. For me Coney Island during the set-up of this event is where I get my best shots.

Cal

Yes, I realized that they changed the date.
It usually was the first Saturday in June, but not this year.

I agree, the early staging area is the best place to shoot.
The actual parade does not lend itself to my shooting style.
See you there.
Karl K

 

[Calzone]

Wednesday afternoon I was coming home from work. At the front door of my building was a UPS driver trying to get into my building via my Ciber Doorman. I used my FOB and was holding open the door for the UPS driver when a cab that was trying to get out of a tight parking spot mistakenly guned the gas hard thinking that he was in drive while he was in reverse.

The cab climbed over a parked car by side swipping the nose of the car, and luckily ended up getting propped up on a metal frence/tree guard, otherwise the UPS drive and me would of gotten "pancaked." Also know that the cab would have driven into the lobby of my building.

CSI later determined that the black car that the cab rode over was a cop's personel car from the 23rd Pricinct jus around the block. Anyways came pretty close to being a news story. Really lucky no one got hurt.

Cal

 

[Particular]

Cal,
You can't make this stuff up. It is lucky that no one was hurt. I do expect to see pictures.

Speaking of distracted drivers, last week I watched a car tap the bumper of the car that stopped ahead of them at a stop sign, while the driver was staring at my green bike. Some drivers are just not all there.

 

[Calzone]

Cal,
You can't make this stuff up. It is lucky that no one was hurt. I do expect to see pictures.

Speaking of distracted drivers, last week I watched a car tap the bumper of the car that stopped ahead of them at a stop sign, while the driver was staring at my green bike. Some drivers are just not all there.

Cristian,

About 2 years ago I came pretty close to being hit with a 1 liter plastic bottle filled with water thrown from a high floor from a housing project. The bottle splattered a few feet away, and there was no doubbt that I was the intended target. Probably just some kid messing around. I was walking to work and this happened by the ASPCA animal shelter near First Ave.

Anyways another almost news story.

Had another "Street Bowling" incident by the French school again. Elbowed a kid in the collar bone really hard. The kid was distracted going through his backpack. I yelled at the kid, "You walked right into me," on an otherwise empty sidewalk. "My bad," was his response. Pretty easy to break someone's collar bone without them knowing it. For me I just quickly braced myself by leaning forward for impact and the kid kinda just crashed into the point of my elbow.

BTW I was wearing my Louie and had a camera in my bag.

Cal

 

[Particular]

You could smear some thick black tar on the bag flap, so that anyone walking into you will really regret it. The trouble is that you will mostly be covering yourself in the gunk.
Perhaps chalk is better.

 

[Calzone]

Looks likew Randy is considering medium format. I'll be bringing my Plaubel 69W with the 47/5.6 Super Augulon that offers a 21mm FOV and shifts.

I didn't forget the SL2-MOT.

Lately I've been shooting the D3X as a black and color camera, meaning underexposing color shots for deep shadows with a pop of color. Since "Maggie" wears mostly B&W any incidental color really pops.

Been biking to Port Morris to capture early morning light with medium formats. I really like these 18 wheelers under the Amtrack tressles.

My MM9 might have a spot of corrosion. A check with my illuminated magnifier showed no defect, but on some recent shots there is what looks like an oil stain in the upper left sky. I'm in no rush to have this fixed. Only visible on white skys.

Cal

 

[Particular]

Cal, I would consider your plaubel as a 'gateway drug' to large format. It is a slippery slope...

 

[finguanzo]

Hopefully I can make this meetup, Its been awhile...
Im in the process of setting up a darkroom, still looking for some odds and ends, hopefully soon... See what comes of it..

 

[jsrockit]

It's this Sunday right?

 

[Calzone]

Cal, I would consider your plaubel as a 'gateway drug' to large format. It is a slippery slope...

Christian,

I'm definately on that path for big negative/high IQ. Some of my recent experimenting is shooting small grain slow speed film (Pan F and Acros) at 50 ISO and usind Rodinal at 50:1 as a developer. The slow film will show its "honest grain" but still be small, and the tonality long. I want to see if Rodinal will work for me even though it might limit my use to slow speed films that inherently have fine grain.

Also going to experiment with Acufine for use as a mixed tank developer where I can possibly utilize 5 1/2 minutes to process a mixed tank of Tri-X, Delta 100, FP4 and some other film. You know me: always a lazy, but clever slacker.

Then there is a "Calzonized" use of Microphen with minimized aggitation and say a 25% increase in time to dial in a compensating effect that is fine grained. I'm cool with loosing some film speed as long as I get a great long tonal scale. The minimizing of aggitation gives me fine grain, but one needs a very active/strong developer.

At this point I have a lot of film that needs to be developed and analized.

I also bought a lot of Delta 3200 which I plan on seeing if I can get high IQ that is better than Tri-X at 1250 ISO developed with Diafine 7+4. I liked the results of Diafine 7+4 better than Diafine-Times-Two, but with both methods the grain got big, although I had some midrange. My goal is to get an honest 1250 ISO out of Delta 3200 using Microphen as my developer and minimizing aggitation to get a long tonal scale via a compensating effect. I just want to minimize the grain so I'm not so limited by print size. Not sure if 1250 ISO is enough to do urban night shooting with 120 hand held. The Delta 3200 might be limited for use with my F3P/Noct-Nikkor.

Somehow I have to come up with ways to justify all the film cameras that I own. When I get to it I'll be bringing out the Pentax 67II and lethal flash to shoot Acros at night.

The slippery slope you mention is both time and money. Been biking to Port Morris to capture the 9:00-10:30 AM light that creates some spectacular highlights illuminated by morning sun. The Amtrack tressles are gritty and have deep shadows. Parked 18 wheelers set a moody industrial lonelyness. I'll be hitting this location again and again to capture this light. My bike covers the spread out area nicely. I love the vast emptiness and the lonely space it denotes.

Two weeks ago I found a bag of weed. Last weekend I found a wallet in Port Morris. Didn't encounter the pack of ferel Pit Bulls or any hookers.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

It's this Sunday right?

John,

It is this Sunday.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

Fidel,

Let me know if you need any 1000ml (1 liter) graduated bottles. I have been collecting these from my chemists at work. They are made of clear plastic and are bought from Fisher Scientific.

Also what other darkroom crap do you need?

Cal

 

[Particular]

Cal,
C41 is the same process for all film. It is the ultimate 'slacker brew'.
Those bottles sound pretty cool, do they have large caps like snapple bottles?

 

[Calzone]

Cal,
C41 is the same process for all film. It is the ultimate 'slacker brew'.
Those bottles sound pretty cool, do they have large caps like snapple bottles?

Christian,

Cap diameter is aproximately 1 3/4 inches. Overall bottle diameter is 4 1/4 inches, and the bottle stands at 7 inches tall.

It is really handy having graduations clearly marked on both sides, and having a modular bottle somehow just feels pro.

I count 18 in my lockers at work that I will bring to the Meet-Up to recycle. At home I have about 50 in use because I use HPLC grade lab water that basically chemically pure, so pure that it is not safe to drink because it will erode living tissue due to being more chemically active. "Only the best for Calzone," I say. My chemically pure water measures over 18 megaohms in resistivity.

HPLC water is what I use for my mixing my developer, stop bath (pure water stop bath) and for diluting my fixer. For years I have not used photoflow or any other wetting agent.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

Another day: another close call where I could of been hurt.

I was walking to work, heading downtown on First Avenue. On one of the cross streets traffic was stuck behind a NYC garbage truck, the cross walk was clear, but one car remained turning in from the avenue.

Anyways usual protocall is to cross the street since traffic was stopped, and especially since traffic on First Avenue had a green light. Some woman on the crosstown sidestreet decided to backout without looking, and she crashed into the car on the other side of the crosswalk. Mean while I was just a few steps away from getting both my knee caps crushed and "pancaked" between two car bumpers.

This is the second time where I came pretty close to being hit by a motor vehical that was going in reverse.

What does this all mean? Hope to make it to the Sunday Meet-Up.

Cal

 

[jsrockit]

Jeez, Cal, and I never see anything like this...the couple of times I've almost been pancaked, it's been my fault!