hong-an tran

proof of life.

29 May 2012

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Last week, while transferring my Hasselblad from my desk to a nearby shelf, the camera slipped from my hand and landed on my hardwood floors — lens side down — with an awkward thud. The sound of this thud is not one I recommend you try to reproduce with any camera or piece of machinery that you care about. I was, in any event, horrified. There may have been some hyperventilating. The camera itself seemed to be working fine afterwards; the happy Hasselblad-y slap of the shutter opening and shutting was still there, thankfully. It was the Zeiss lens that concerned me more; it seemed, at first glance, that the aperture blades were potentially stuck. [Cue additional hyperventilating.]

There was some film left in the camera, so I took some test shots at different aperture settings, then rushed the film off to the lab. The developed negatives seemed to suggest that all was well — tests at f/2.8, f/22, and f/8 seemed to be true to setting. Phew. For additional reassurance, I took the camera out with me this weekend, with a couple of rolls of slide film (Provia 400X and Velvia 100). As these shots attest, it looks like everything is ok. Daylight shots were spot-on, and interior shots, while darker and more muted, seemed to be as precise as the film speed and 1/60 shutter speed could muster. Thank goodness!

I’m going to take the lens to a local repair shop, just to get a checkup for good measure, but I’m pretty pleased to see that, even if only this once, the tank-like qualities of the Hasselblad proved their mettle.
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shannon, early evening.

24 May 2012

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This photo of Shannon, taken at Marshall Stack last week, turned out much more painterly than I had intended; trying to take a picture, sans tripod, while standing on a chair (don’t ask) with the shutter speed at 1/15 will do that to a photograph. But I like it — just that little bit of 7pm light on her cheek and neck, the pink shirt peeking through the sweater, and those few strands of curls …. I am reminded a bit of Gerhard Richter’s famous Betty painting, if Betty grew up, dyed her hair, and discovered her love of beer.
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saturday stroll.

22 May 2012

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A leisurely walk around the Lower East Side captured a handful of really lovely street scenes. The very subtle but still very clear body language in the photograph above cracks me up. And I love the dappled light in the photograph below; I wonder what the building causing the reflections looked like.
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single shot monday: canal street.

21 May 2012

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Canal Street is wide enough, and the buildings relatively short enough, so that the spring and summer early evening light that comes down has a sort of wide, sweeping feeling. Sunsets have inched over into 8 o’clock territory (huzzah!), which means that there’s more time after work, as I head down to the local, to enjoy the long shadows cast by the slowly fading sun.

(I meant to step out a bit further into traffic after I took this shot, so that I could get a bit more of the light, but alas!, this was the last shot of the roll and I hadn’t packed any more film in my bag. A bit of a shame — I knew I’d underexposed this shot slightly, and wanted to readjust the exposure — but ah well. Such is film photography.)
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sunday afternoon.

17 May 2012

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After our long walk from Brooklyn into Manhattan, we rewarded ourselves with bowls of cold soba at Cocoron, then headed into Sara Roosevelt Park to relax a bit with our books and the Sunday crossword puzzle. On the way back to the subway, we came across a bike polo match in one of the park’s playing fields. These guys were amazing!

Back in Brooklyn, there were some post-wedding shenanigans at 4th Avenue Pub — the former high school friends contingent of the happy couple (congrats, Sam and Jon!) caught up while yours truly, the random photographer lady who hadn’t been invited to the actual wedding, wandered around with her camera.

This was just the afternoon part of Sunday! I wish I had photographic evidence of that morning’s lazing around while watching the last day of English Premier League matches (seriously, did you guys see that Man City – QPR match?!), some relatively speedy downing of some breakfast sandwiches at Mile End (we were trying to get back in time to watch the tail end of the matches), and then wandering first onto the Brooklyn Promenade and then into Dumbo, everywhere full of folks soaking in the glorious weather. In the evening Mike and I settled into our weekly tradition of pizza-and-Game of Thrones‘ing — a merry affair that involves debriefing each other on our respective weeks, ordering pizza from a fairly questionable (and yet still so weirdly delicious) delivery place, and you know, all of that fantasy/medieval swordsmanship stuff. Always with a wee nip of whiskey, too.

This entire Sunday: picture perfect.
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Congrats again, guys!
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east broadway.

16 May 2012

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One of my favorite vantage points in all of New York City is this spot on the southern side of the Manhattan Bridge — the pedestrian side, for all you cyclists who don’t know that the northern side is yours — right where it crosses over East Broadway. Every time I walk across the bridge I try to snap a photograph. The shot above was taken in the early afternoon this past Sunday, on a long walk from the Brooklyn Promenade, over the bridge, and into the Lower East Side.

It’s such a vibrant street, and I love the way the colors and the mood of the street changes in different light conditions. To wit:
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And even a badly-processed roll from CVS (thanks a lot, guys) can’t take away from the electricity of the place:
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single shot monday: post-wedding revelry.

14 May 2012

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An after-party that starts at 5pm says a lot about just how long the celebration has been going on (answer: ALL DAY). That it happened on a Sunday afternoon probably did not bode well for Monday morning office productivity, but by the looks of things, the hangovers were certainly worth it.

(Thanks for letting me temporarily crash the proceedings, guys!)
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jeffrey.

10 May 2012

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A man, his tie, a vest, a cigar, expired slide film, and a nearly-7pm walk from Nolita to the Lower East Side. Badassery all over the place.
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college town.

8 May 2012

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On an early walk from the grounds of the Institute for Advanced Study into town, we traversed the awfully quiet grounds of Princeton University. Classes had ended that Friday, and Monday would be the start of Reading Week; surely the campus hadn’t already emptied out? Perhaps everyone was inside disco napping, readying themselves for a late night of partying. Ah, youth.
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