summicron sunday.

A few Sundays ago, my pal Mark and I had one of those long, traipsing-about New York weekend days that started in Williamsburg, at Pies ‘n’ Thighs, and ended back in our neighborhood at Sosta, a new Italian place on Atlantic.  The biscuits and gravy at Pies ‘n’ Thighs, we decided, are hands down the best in the city (though they did come out a touch less hot than they should’ve); skip the lackluster huevos rancheros.  After brunch, there was a trip into town to the International Center for Photography, where there are two really wonderful exhibits currently on display: The Mexican Suitcase, which features previously unseen photos from the Spanish Civil War by Robert Capa, Shim, and Gerda Taro; and Cuba in Revolution, which showcases Cuba political and daily life from the Batista regime through the July 26th Movement and Castro’s rise to power.  (There’s an amazing photograph of Castro playing golf that needs to be seen to be believed.)

From there it was downtown into Soho for some shopping, then afternoon green tea at Teany, and finally back into Brooklyn, where we tried the pizzas at Sosta.  They’ve got pretty decent Neapolitan pies, with good toppings and a solid sauce with nice tang, though the crust could be a bit saltier and the dough a touch less chewy.  But it’s a good addition to a neighborhood that doesn’t really have very many neighborhood pizza joints. (I’m not counting Lucali, since a neighborhood spot shouldn’t involve a two-hour wait.)  Afterwards we checked out the new Barney’s Co-op on Atlantic, to marvel at the prices (there goes the neighborhood, my friends!). 

But the day also marked one of my last days with the borrowed Leica and the Summicron lens.  I’d convinced myself since then that I didn’t need such a lovely machine, and that my cameras and their accompanying glass would suffice just fine.  Then I got these photos back and dear me!, I nearly started weeping.  The crispness and clarity of the images is just …. wow.    And sigh.  And would someone like to donate $3k to my Leica fund?

(Addendum: The photos above — well, all the photos on this blog — get compressed a bit funny on WordPress, such that the image quality is not as high as it ought to be.  If you’d like to be properly wowed by Leica glass, go to my flickr pictures here.)