The Social-Distanced Camera — №2 — Some nostalgic “comfort food” on a Summer Afternoon
…from a photographer’s notebook
The late afternoon sun brings a translucent glow to trees, as a rustic fence casts its shadows in the grass. Nearby, an inviting bike and jogging path.
Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia is a favorite venue for nature photography and expansive, verdant landscapes.
It also recently became an oft-visited spot in my social-distancing forays with the cameras, with several visits made during the golden light of late afternoon in May and June. No, I haven’t fallen out of love — it’s just the steamy, soggy summer heatwave currently in progress, which makes me prefer sequestering in the air-conditioned comfort of my “cave,” catching up with previously enjoyed moments.
Like this one, from an afternoon in late May.
Thus, while technically not a “summer” shot, as I worked up this image this week, the result actually said “Summer” to me…and who am I to argue with that…or with the gentle Leroy Anderson gem (*) that spun up in the Gray Matter Gramophone while so engaged.
Considering the climate (and I do mean beyond the weather), how it fits. Perhaps the photo’s subtitle should be “Forgotten Dreams?”
Prints available on fine art paper…
Whatever title you think fits best — including one of your own — I wanted to let you know I just created some small prints on a lovely Watercolor Rag 100% Cotton fine art paper, and was very pleased with how the image translates to something one can hold and touch. Matted they will measure approximately 8 x 8 inches. Larger versions will be available as well. If interested, just contact me via my web site.
So much for the shot, now about the shoot …
My recent shooting at Meadowlark has been both digital and film…and sometimes a “synthesis” which I rather enjoy — that of combining some favorite film-era manual focus lenses with digital SLR cameras. It’s a sort of photographer’s “comfort food.” There’s the welcome slowing down of the process, necessitated by focusing manually with lenses that — additionally — do not electrically transmit their aperture settings to a digital camera’s “brain.”
There’s also the oh-so-satisfying tactile part of the equation that comes from luxuriating in the satisfyingly precise feel of the aperture controls and focusing collars that were common to the solid metal construction of lenses of the mid-1960s into the mid-’80s.
And that’s the other part of this comfort food equation, as it keeps me “honest” — and connected with my photographic “roots,” and all the stuff one had to learn before cameras got so danged “smart.” A tasty ingredient of this appetizing comfort food “stew” has been my re-connecting with the beautifully made Asahi Takumar optics, from back when I was scrambling about on more youthful legs with two Spotmatics ‘round my youthful neck.
It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the feel and the build quality of these Super Multi-Coated (or just Super-) ‘Taks’ back then — it’s just that such build quality and focusing feel was, well…common during that era.
As “space age” materials (read: high-tech plastics) and auto-focus became more the norm, this re-acquaintance, a few years ago, with the first of my “new” Taks (the 50mm f/1.4 that had been a constant companion in my Pentax Spotmatic days) was such a tactile — and optical — joy that I had to acquire some more minty samples of the genre, including another one I’d used “back then,” and two I had not previously owned.
It has also been a welcome ingredient of the “stew” that, when used for color shooting on a D-SLR, such lenses also often do manage to add a nostalgic warmth in their renditions, as compared with the cooler, more “clinical” renderings of many of my digital-era lenses.
On the May afternoon the photo up top was taken, I happened to be in that film-era-lens-on-digital-camera mood, using, among others, one of those that were relatively new in my experience. The lens used was by no means a typical length in my shooting of such motifs, for which I normally use wide-angle to normal focal lengths, but I found I actually liked some of the results of the exercise.
I’d actually purchased the SMC Takumar 150mm f/4 lens more with thoughts of using it for tele-compressed street-shooting or cityscapes, or trains…or NYC Subways. And using it on a crop-sensor D-SLR made it even more “unlikely” for a “gentle” landscape, as the effective length becomes a hefty 240mm. But that’s why God made little green apples…and tripods.
©2020 Steve Ember
(*)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPJJKVt5-Y
You may view more of my photography by visiting here, or
If you’re partial to Nature images, you may peruse more of my work in that genre here. And more Eastern U.S. landscapes, including Meadowlark Gardens, may be viewed here.
Most of my photographs can be purchased or licensed by contacting me via my web site. You may also view a sampling of my framed work, note cards, and other photographic iterations at https://steve-ember.pixels.com/
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