What's your project?

I moved to London a few months ago and started a street photography project on the city in general. I’m trying to capture my impressions of the town while my eyes are still fresh and everything hasn’t become ‘familiar’.

You can see some of it on my “site:”www.elanphotos.com under ‘London in Passing’

My Leicas are NOT for projects.
They’re with me all the time. I use them to photograph friends, roads, places, kids, cars, crap, me—you name it. It’s all fair game. Life is a never-ending film that unwinds in front of me and I snip out occasional frames with the Leica. Yeah, I know that’s pretty silly sounding. I have a pretty boring life, but it’s my life and it’s what I do. The Leica has been with me continuously since at least 1972 ( bought my first Leica, which I still have, at age 18). Okay. To answer your question—life is my project.

Just completed my new website last night, that I pushed live in time with the announcement of an image from my ‘Silver Peso’ project winning best in show in a local magazine photo contest.

Shooting with my M6, using only Fuji Neopan 1600, pulling to 800, and slow developing in a small tank w/ d76.

In documenting The Silver Peso, after 3 weeks of weekend nights, I was kicked out for raising my M6 to catch a moment of messy drunk friends (who asked me to photograph them). In a bar full of people firing flashes with their point and shoots cameras, and cell phones cameras.. I was asked to leave my local bar. A very disturbed bar tender, with no sense of how to ask nicely, made a scene out nothing, and made it clear that he thought what I was doing was wrong. So I walked.

The true irony came 3 days after getting kicked out, when I was informed that an image from the series was the overall winner in a photo contest.

The Silver Peso maintains it’s grit, and grasp on reality for the common man who just wants a beer and a game of pool. For a small town, a few miles north of San Francisco, where the housewives drive Porsche SUV’s, the price of a 700 square foot home with one bathroom is $1.5m, and boutique clothing shops for infants surround every Starbucks, The Peso will always be a walk back in time… at least back to 1970.

www.joelaron.com

Joel— a couple of things come to mind. Professional photographers have a way of shooting that your regular folk can usually spot. We shoot fast, we know what we’re doing, we don’t fumble with the camera. I’ve been told that when I’m not shooting that I have a way of looking around that people can tell I’m a “visual” person who’s always looking. What I’m trying to say here is that somebody called you out. They “spotted” a pro amidst the cellphones. Somebody probably asked/complained to the bartender. He kept his eye on you and then bounced you. This might have been avoided if you had schmoozed the bartender to begin with. Let him know what you’re doing. Also schmoozing the owner, too. Let them know that you’re only photographing people who ‘want’ to be photographing, and ofcourse explaining your project. Perhaps you did this but just got an sob bartender. Anyway good luck on your project(s).

I’m slowly collecting photography about life and events in Belarus. When the shit will hit the fan there, I will post a story. Used Contax rangefinders before, now M4.. nice body really helps.

Well now I just LOVE that picture Eugene. The spirit of it, the feeling of being there. Wonderful.

When the shit does hit the fan I hope I get an invite from someone to be there with you! P.

Thanks P! It’ll take a while until anything happen there though.

I am using mine to photograph how Europe is changing as the EU expands.

You can see more here

Damaso – your link doesn’t work. P.

An additional “e” helps ;-)

http://www.theeuropeans.net/

Yep, thanks I just fixed it too!

That’s a pretty large project you’ve taken on there Damaso! What do you intend to do with all the pictures in the end? P.

Right now I’m working on something I want to call ‘an imaginary dream’
.

I want to publish a book and have a travelling exhibition, lucky for me I have a few years to prepare ;) !

I moved to South Florida about six months ago and kept myself busy shooting an on-going project at the beach. You guys can check it out at www.edwardlinsmier.com <projects <the beach. Any feedback would be welcomed…

hi ed,

i love your beach project! really! actually i saw about 3 ‘beach projects’ in the last couple of weeks and i hated them, nothing but tourist snapshots.

i would like to ask you… i use tri-x and develop in xtol and whenever i shoot outside i get this ugly contrast, almost no midtones. your midtones are beautiful. what kind of film do you use and are there any other tips that you can give me so that i can get smoother midtones when shooting outside during the day?

thanks,

peter

I shoot tri-x and process it in tmax developer and scan on a really bad minolta film scanner at work. Sometimes I get really bad scanned files and have to do a lot of correcting. Not that I’m into photoshop for a look, but sometimes I get these really flat, jacked up files with the wierdest looking midtones. So to answer your question, I’m not sure what happens… I’ve had it happen is several lighting condtions. But I know what kind of midtone funk you are talking about. Do you think you could be getting the odd midtones from the scan?

Great stuff Damaso. I’ll have to spend some more (much more) time in your galleries.

Beach project is very cool, Edward. I esp. like the shot of the woman held by the two men.
http://www.edwardlinsmier.com/projects/beach/index.php?page=5

These are my two ongoing projects with a leica M6 and tri-x. Both are street projects. Well, at times the border project is more dirt road photography than street.

Texas-Mexico border.
http://www.clifwright.com/border.html

Puerto Vallarta street project.
http://www.clifwright.com/pv.html

Thanks for sharing,
Clif

Clif – that Borderlands projects is great. It seems like another world – with no shortage of fabulous subjects. Great stuff. PHC.

Ed – what an interesting website – some really interesting work there. I like working around the beaches here in Spain too – this picture is a favourite. The problem is the police here are now under instructions to consider everyone with a camera on the beach some kind of pervert, trying to take pictures of topless bathers for internet sites. It makes for a difficult working environment! PHC.

Backlogged a couple of years with street shots from CA, MI, NV, IN, NY…a whole lot of sortin’ going on.

www.mvlimbert.com

the impossible task of documenting love…

I’m trying to get an exhibition going this year of some work I did in Spain last year.

Pics are here

Cheers, PHC.

a graveyard at the moment…

www.southphoto.com features, no space to breathe,

john

Romania, with M7 and Tri-X…
www.guywalder.com/romania2.html

I’m busy shooting various squatter camps inside South Africa and abroad, and mainly concentrating on the people who make up the communities.

hi all putting my stuff out there, what do you think? j

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/africa_life_among_the_dead/html/1.stm

Good work John. Do the BBC pay well for this kind of story?

here’s where i use my m&m’s leica, if you have time please visit www.katumbukan.blogspot.com

Documenting my home state of Oregon between assignments. http://www.jcdphoto.com/?goto=wanderlust
All done with an M3.

Hello guys, this is my first post here in this group.

Those days I am in the road following a crazy type who performs acrobatics with his motorcycle in a big wooden barrel.
He sets up this barrel in local fairs, festivals and bazaars in the Greek province were he and his son run into the barrel performing the so called famous “Round of Death”.

They use the centrifugal force to climb on the barrel’s inner side walling and when they achieve the necessary speed and altitude they perform acrobatics on the motorcycle.

This is a mediterranean traditional show which took place mainly in the 60’s and 70’s.

The guy is a 3rd generation performer as he receive the barrel from his father, who received it from his grandfather. Now he is ready to pass it to his son, a 20 year old motorcycle acrobatics talent.

He is supposed to be the last person in Greece who involves in such a show, and as far as i know there must not be anyone else in the Balkans-south Europe who does that. So it could be the last person in the world.

I would like to ask you here if you are aware of someone who performs the “Round of Death”, anywhere in the world.

I use my M6 with an 28mm Elmarit to record this, shooting films ranging from 400 to 3200 ISO.

I initially thought that it would be a lot better if I use a “faster” camera, like an SLR, but i finally decided that this project is an “analogue classic” one, if you know what i mean.

Anyway, I discover lately that for me every project that I am willing to do is an “analogue” one..

I don’t have any photos to show you at the time but I commit myself to do so when the all think come to an end and all of my rolls are developed and selectively scanned.

J.J.

J.J. – Sounds like a great project. Good to hear you’re keeping that M6 busy. I borrowed an M8 for two weeks and my M6 is feeling a bit neglected. Good luck with your project.

“Good to hear you’re keeping that M6 busy.”

Thanks John.

Considering lately that quality with aesthetics is my main concern regarding the result of a photographic essay, M6 was the only way to go.
You may think that I completely went bananas, when I say that I got 2 high professional DSLRs parked in my trunk, while I am trying to persuade the editors who I am working with to wait for my rolls to be developed and scanned after I finnish a project or story..!

I don’t like digital photography. Actually I hate it.

I have thousands of debates and conversations with fellow photographers about it and I assure you that my firmness has not to do with idealism or iconic traditionalism.

Its really has to do with the damned result.

I cannot make compromises when it is about the tonal breadth, the crisp, or the depth that M6 can produce.
I NEED those things and (so far) DSLRs cannot deliver them.

Photos have lost their character today with the digital crap that we have to use, for reasons that refer only to speed, inexpensiveness and easiness.

So analogue and specifically Leica M system is a one way road for me, at the moment.

Let’s see what the future has in store for us.