2019 Gallery

Faves from the past year.

Among photographers, I’m sure this is not uncommon – at the end of each year, I take a look back at my body of work and pick out the photos I like most.

My choices may be due to a particular memory, maybe the composition, or the planning that went into a particular photo. It could be the happenstance, the color, or perhaps the light. Maybe it’s the mood or a good story.

For those reasons and more, this group of shots – and a few others – are my favorites for 2019 – please, take a peek at my year-end gallery.

 

Rusty shutters #30.

Canon Canonet QL17 G-III.

January 2006.

A good looking little rangefinder, the GIII is the last, high-end version of Canon’s famous Canonet compact cameras.

Mine was yet another eBay find. It had been CLAd and came with new seals at the time of purchase.

Great glass, fast ƒ/1.7, and the quick load feature all add up to an awesome camera.

This nearly 50 year old camera is still working. Nice little shooter.

Film type: 35mm
ISO: 25 – 800
Lens: 40mm f/1.7
Shutter speeds: 1/4 to 1/500sec and B
Focus: 2.6ft to infinity
Viewfinder: Coupled rangefinder with auto parallax correction
Battery: Originally powered by one 1.35V M20 (#625) mercury battery. Battery checker built-in.
Flash: Hot shoe
Size HWD 2.9in x 4.7in x 2.3in
Weight: 22.4oz
Canon Quick Load (QL) film loading system

Light reflection

Open

BUY

Spotted paint

O-Jay

$99 a year.

… and maybe get published.

Interesting what’s happening to JPG Magazine.

From what I’ve been able to gather, new owners, it’ll be an actual printed magazine again, and a 4 issue annual subscription is $99.

I was in at the start – around 2004 – and thought it was pretty cool.  It took me until Issue 6, Oops! to have one one of my pictures published. Then again in Issue 16. Plus I wrote an article about Through the Viewfinder photography that was published with accompanying TtVs in Issue 8.

It was awesome to see my work in a printed magazine.

I can’t recall the subscription details, but I seem to remember that if your shot was published you got a free copy of that issue. I think. Time and my memory are a disastrous combo!

It was awesome to see my work in a printed magazine.

After co-founders Heather Champ and Derek Powazek left – and largely because of the way they were treated – it lost its luster for me.

I stopped posting on JPG for a long while, then a few years back I started again. That didn’t last very long. No printed magazine. And like Flickr these days, hardly any engagement. Because, Instagram.

I still have JPG Issues 1-3, 6-9, and 16. And when I had the good fortune to be introduced to them at a San Francisco photo meet-up, I got Heather and Derek to autograph my copy of Issue 1. Nifty.

In a recent email announcement to current account holders, it was revealed that there will no longer be an online community. Just the mobile app for submittal and the printed magazine. No clues as to how images will be selected for each magazine.

I’m not bothering with downloading my old JPG posts because I have all that stuff backed up on external drives.

In the meantime I’ve saddled up with SHOTS Magazine. A black and white quarterly. I posted about it on RMSOWPS1964 back around mid-2018.

While I’m not yet ready to subscribe to the new JPG Magazine, I will be watching. Hopefully issues will be individually available for sale. I’m curious to see how this’ll work.

JPG Magazine was acquired in September 2019 by 100 Tribes, Inc. Dev Tandon is the new publisher.

Like I said, interesting.

 

Rusty shutters #29.

Nikon One•Touch Zoom 90 AFQD.

My recollection is shaky, but I believe my wife and I bought this little guy to replace the original One•Touch we owned. We’re talkin’ right around the time I got my first digital camera, 1999-2000.

Sadly, this Z90AFQD apparently didn’t get a whole lot of use – one of the pictures on the roll of Kodak Gold 200 that was in it I recently had processed/prints made from revealed a shot from close to 10 years ago.

It still works and is a really cool little shooter, though. Easy to use, nice viewfinder. Zoom is useful. I like it. I’ve already run a couple of rolls through it.

Lens: 38-90mm (f/4.8-10.5) with macro capability as close as 12 inches
Flash: Built-in with 5 modes, including slow-synch
LCD: Frame counter, modes and date function
Viewfinder: Zooming with LEDs and dioptre correction
Film: 35mm auto-loading, winding and rewinding of DX-coded film 50-3200 ISO
Timer: Built-in 10 second self timer
Power: 3V CR123A lithium battery

 

Blue

Roundin’ the corner

Louvers

Numbers

Purple Clover

Walking among the dead.

Austin’s history under foot.

I met Kevin Thomas at Oakwood Cemetery in Austin last Sunday morning for a film stroll.

It’s a place I’ve been wanting to shoot since I saw Kat Swansey’s cemetery shots in her IG stream and her recommendation for a visit to Oakwood.

Foggy and a little chilly, it started clearing around noon. The drive down I-35 wasn’t bad at all.

I brought along the Yashica-Mat 66. I loaded a roll of Tri-X 400 in it the day before. Everything seemed pretty normal. Sunday I couldn’t get the film to advance properly. Hmmm.

Also on hand was my little Instax Mini 8, and I burned through two packs of Mono Chrome. Got a coupla’ keepers.

I thought I was prepared. Apparently not!

The Minolta XG-1/24mm ƒ2.8 + mystery roll, too.

I had the Sony RX100MIII in the bag, as well. Sadly, when I tried to use it, I discovered it had a dead battery.

So, I shot bunches with the iPhone 8 and Blackie App.

I thought I was prepared. Apparently not!

It was a good 2+ hour walk.

On my way back home I stopped at Austin Camera to pick up the negs/prints from the 4 rolls of C41 I left there last Saturday. Pretty cool to see what they contained. Around 20 keepers, plus I still have to scan the shots from the Sprocket Rocket.

Order

Early

Cross

Path

Bark

Flag

Dove

A.B.N.

Detail

Rusty shutters #28.

Pentax ZX-5n.

April 2007.

I’d amassed a decent collection of Pentax FA lenses after acquiring the *ist D a year or so earlier. It only made sense to find a 35mm camera that could share them. I bought the Pentax ZX-5n from KEH for around US $150.

I ran about 5 rolls of film through this camera. Then it sat unused for a few years. I pulled it out recently to document here, but also intending to run some Tri-X 400 through it.

I put a new battery in it, and went to do a film-free test shot. The mirror lock-up gear failed. Totally unusable now. Bummer. Apparently a problem common with these 20+ year old cameras.

It’ll be cheaper to replace than repair. Maybe I’ll get the ZX-7. Maybe the MZ-S. No hurry. No worry.

Launched: 1997
Type: single lens reflex camera
Lens mount: Pentax KAF2
Film type: 35mm film with speeds of 25 to 5000 ISO, with auto DX, 6 to 6400 ISO manual
Metering element: Silicon photo cell
Focusing: Autofocus
Programs: Av, M, P and TV modes
Flash: Built-in, Guide number 11
Shutter: Focal plane shutter with speeds from 30 to 1/2000 sec. B, 2 to 1/2000 sec manual
Viewfinder: 0.8 magnification x 92% coverage, shutter and aperture LED display.
Power: 2x 3v CR2 battery lithium battery
Dimension WDH: 5.3in x 2.4in x 3.5in
Weight: 14.4 oz

Pink Lincoln

Red

Clover

Peek-up

Tulips

Bookin’.

… and lookin’ so fly.

The Shutterfly book I put together using pictures from our Portugal/Spain trip arrived in the mail last week.

Except for a few text alignment issues and me not making the shot on the front cover large enough, it turned out pretty nice.

Love the materials they used for this basic order. The cover is quite thick, nice and glossy. The pages are sturdy and semi-matte finished.

I’m happy with the results.

Rusty shutters #27.

Polaroid one600|Ultra.

January 2006.

I’m pretty sure I bought this camera at Costco. 13 years makes an old man’s memory shaky.

At any rate, it was before Polaroid stopped producing their 600 film, which was available from Costco at a not-too-terrible price. As I recall, 5 packs were less than 40 dollars US.

This guy got a lot of use before I moved on to the SX-70. I shot it around downtown San Jose and my old neighborhood in Santa Clara, CA.

Sad thing is I no longer have this camera – or if I do, I don’t know where I stashed it – but I do have a few other Polaroids that’ll use up my remaining packs of 600 film.

Body: Two-tone silver/darkgrey, pop-up
Lens: 100mm, 2 element, plastic, fixed focal length
Aperture: ƒ/2.9
Shutter speed 1/3 – 1/200sec
Flash modes: Auto mode, flash off mode, red-eye reduction
Viewfinder: LCD info screen shows flash mode, film counter and self timer status
Focus: 2 ft to infinity
Size WDH: 4.7in x 6.2in x 3.6in
Weight: 18oz

Vapor

Balloons

Brent

Walk on by

SSS

Moody.

Willie, too.

I made it down to Austin this morning for a stroll with the PhotowalksATX gang. Simi had us meet beneath the sculpture of Wille Nelson, outside the legendary Moody Theater of Austin City Limits fame – attending a show there is on my bucket list – and by 8:30 am we’d reached a quorum of 8.

Besides Simi, I knew Michael and RJ (that’s his Kodak Pony, above) from previous walks, plus Ed, who I know from NAPƒS, showed up. That was pretty cool. George, Ina, Sean, and Timothy were the new folks I got to meet this time around. (I hope I got their names right!)

We started out by walking over to West Cesar Chavez St., stopping to shoot around Austin City Hall.

After that, we slowly made our way west on Cesar Chavez until we reached the Austin Library. We made our way to the butterfly bridge, crossed it then inched our way eastward on 2nd till we ended back at Lavaca Street.

I… found myself shooting in B&W mode. And square. A lot.

I took the GX8 and X100s with me, but used the Panny mostly and found myself shooting in B&W mode. And square. A lot. That’s okay, though. I got a few decent shots.

It was pretty close to 11 a.m. by then, so everyone headed over to the downtown Whole Foods for lunch. We had a hell of a time finding enough chairs to seat all 8 of us around the larger of the two sizes of tables they had, but eventually everyone had a place to sit and we ate then talked for at least an hour.

Great fun. Simi is awesome. If you’re in the Austin area, you should give this once-a-month gathering a try.

I headed out a little after noon, driving up Lamar until a left on 45th then a right on Burnet Road got me closer to my last stop. I finally dropped off the 4 rolls of 35mm C41 at Austin Camera. It’ll all be ready for me to pick up next Sunday. Yay!

 

Jenga

Bare tree

Celebration

Michael

Nun

ONO S

Registered

RJ

Shadows and silhouettes

Willie

Rusty shutters #26.

Samsung NV11.

May 2007.

I really liked this little guy and was getting a lot of use out of it. I even took it to Omaha, Nebraska. I walked all over town with it in-between attending a conference for the university. Got amazing results. I absolutely loved the user-interface and menu system.

And then one day after work I was getting out of the truck and I dropped it. It wasn’t the first time that had happened. It was the third. And final. Dead.

It came with one strap lug and a hand strap. Not my favorite set-up. I’ll never be a fan of that configuration.

Over the years, I’d occasionally scour eBay to see if anyone was selling theirs. In early November 2018 I finally found a used Samsung NV11 in near mint condition for an extremely reasonable price.

Back in the saddle, you might say.

This time ’round I attached a lanyard. Better safe than sorry… again.

Resolution: 10 megapixels
Max image size: 3648 x 2736
Display: 2.7in LCD @ 230,000 pixels
ISO: Auto, 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600
Shutter Speeds: 4 sec – 1/2000 sec
Aperture: ƒ/2.8 – 4.4
Focal Length: 7.8 – 39mm
Macro: .39in
Zoom: 5x optical
Metering: Center-weighted, multi-segment, spot
Dimensions WDH: 4.2in x .9in x 2.5in
Weight: 6.8oz
Power: Rechargeable Li-ion Battery (SLB-1137D)
Memory card: SD/MMC/SDHC

Dahlia

Tine

1905

Bus Stop

Violet Rose Petals