The simple joys of simple photography

A little over a week ago I went out for some late night shooting around my neighborhood in upstate New York. After walking around for nearly an hour and only taking one photo I was about to give up on getting a really great shot, you know that shot that gives you butterflies you know it's so good—I know I can't expect that every time but I'm always hopeful. The whole night I kept noticing the moon peeking behind the clouds over the river but I didn't come across a good scene to shoot it in unless I pointed the camera skyward but that's against what I want to capture so I was patient, I knew something would reveal itself to me. As I was circling back to my house I decided to walk further up the street past my house to where the street started to ascend up a hill and there I saw it, the moon peeking behind the clouds and the trailer home of a neighbor illuminated by a street lamp. I bracketed three four minute exposures (shot with Kodak Portra 160NC), one at f11 (which was more like three minutes since I had to get out of the way of a pickup truck), one at f8 and a final exposure at f16 which I left for an additional minute, again for a passing truck but on the opposite side of the road (covered the lens with my hand). All three exposures worked but the f8 won out. I'm considering cloning out the bright orange light peeking below the trees on the left but for now I'm leaving it as-is and enjoying the fruits of pure, simple photography.

The camera of my dreams

Recently a Pentax Digital 645 Camera has been recurring in my dreams, always a different scenario but the same camera. Now, I know Pentax had announced a digital 645 a few years back and it looked like it might have been a reality when the prototype was displayed at Photonika in 2007 but was dismayed to learn the project was scrapped last year. A few things about my drems are odd; I haven't thought of the Pentax 645 Digital since I read the little blurb of it's demise over six months ago and I really never spent any time looking into the specifications of the camera other than it was a 645 Digital using a 31mp Kodak sensor and would ship with a 55mm lens. The camera in my dreams isn't quite that camera, it was more like a classic Pentax 645 manual focus with a digital back but it was one whole unit, the camera had a very classic feel to it. However ti did have a feature I thought was incredible, the sensor could be upgraded later. Ihave since learned this was a rumored feature.

I don't know what this dream means. Do I desire this imaginary Pentax 645D? Do I desire a digital medium format? Well, yes I do. However, I don't find what camera makers such as Hasselblad and Mamiya are making desirable. I want a digital medium format that feels and performs like my beloved Mamiya 645 Pro, it's simple, it has manual focus, it's modular and I can use it with or without a grip. I hate auto focus and I hate manually focussing with auto focus lenses even more since there is no prism. What's going on?

Maybe it's my Mamiya getting back at me, seeping into my subconcious. I took her out and put rolls of Portra 160 in the two backs and two spare magazines in preperation for a shoot but I never picked her up. I did feel bad and yearned to shoot with her so I decided not to leave her in the studio locked away for weeks at a time and brought her home. I still haven't shot anything. She was probably jealous that I took the FujiFilm S5 pro with me this weekend and not her. Why did you take me out of the studio just to leave me behind on a long weekend? I need to get back home and show her some love, maybe I'll finally take some photos on the east river or those night photos I keep saying I'll do.