Color and Love

May 31, 2020 by Ming Hung in Chicago, Colors

We are at the start of the sixth month of 2020 and it has been a doozy of a year. I cannot say that I am looking forward to the rest of it. I felt like we can use a little color and some love right now. These images were shot several weeks ago, but they were not fitting my current monochromatic aesthetic on my other platforms so I have just been sitting on them.

As a country we are currently fighting two diseases: COVID-19 and systemic racism coupled with police brutality. Protests around the country have started following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. The protests have turned violent. I do not agree with rioting and looting, and there are plenty of bad actors to blame. They are making matters worse for peaceful protesters who are out trying to spread their messages of change and demands for justice.

I have been to a number of protests and rallies the last few years—anti-Trump ones, women’s marches, rallies for science, etc. Fortunately they were all non-violent. I thought about heading out Saturday morning to join in solidarity with African Americans. The photographer in me also wanted to document some of the proceedings. I did not go.

The ongoing pandemic is the reason I chose to stay home. I have been a proponent of social distancing, mask wearing in public, and staying home so I am not going to violate that. Taking care of my elderly mother I do not need to bring the virus home to her. I hope that these huge crowds of citizens and police officers alike do not contribute to a spike in cases of the virus. Protesting during a pandemic is a confluence of two terrible situations. I cannot help my mother if I get physically hurt, which is a distinct possibility given the volatile nature of why people are protesting.

At the very least please sign some petitions or donate to organizations fighting for justice if you can. As individuals we can work on our implicit biases. We must learn to love one another. And, most importantly, we should listen to the oppressed and not ignore societal problems any longer. Stay safe and healthy, everyone.

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Dragon Lights Festival

June 03, 2018 by Ming Hung in Art, Colors, Culture

There was a Chinese lantern festival in Chicago at the end of April-beginning of May. This was a festival based on the idea of Chinese lanterns. These exhibits were not made of paper and they were lit electrically. Different companies and organizations sponsored different lantern displays. At the time these images were taken I only had one lens for my Leica M9-P, the 35mm Summicron, so I did not shoot very many images with depth like the one above.

I timed my arrival in order to get images during blue hour, just to have a little bit of interest rather than just a black sky.

I took this shot in to the light to see the qualities of flare from the 35mm Summicron. The colors from the M9-P's CCD sensor are still blowing me away. See the little baby turtle following?

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Exploring Colors

May 31, 2018 by Ming Hung in Photography, Chicago, Colors

I am still very pleased with the colors produced by the Leica M9-P's mid-2000s CCD sensor. In the images above and below I used different presets to add warmth and saturation to really make the colors pop. Buildings under construction are not places normally associated with being overly colorful, but these two were really showing off. It is a little hard to see, but there is an American flag hanging from the yellow crane in the image above. It was Memorial Day weekend and the crews were off.

There is a soft and "quiet" quality to the images that also add warmth of a different kind to the images. They are more inviting.

This image was not processed with any preset, throwing off the theme of this post a bit. There is still a lot of warmth in the image and the complementary colors work. This is/was the home of photographer Victor Skrebneski, who was born in Chicago in 1929. Many credit him for launching Cindy Crawford's career. Skrebneski has produced many well-known images during a remarkable career. There used to be a car--I think it was a Benz or a Jaguar--with plates that simply said "V" on them. I wonder if he still lives here.

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Colors of the Leica M9-P

April 12, 2018 by Ming Hung in Photography

I learned photography back when there was only film. I shot with Nikon F-system cameras. Fujifilm Superia, Kodak Portra and Tri-X, and Ilford 3200 were the films I shot the most. I am not one of those people who can look at an image and instantly tell you what film it is. I cannot tell that many films apart. And so when it is said that my Leica M9-P's CCD sensor simulates at Kodachrome profile I do not know exactly what that means.

I have been spoiled recently by the wonderful color reproduction and film simulations of my Fujifilm X-Pro2, as well as spoiled by the camera's wonderful EVF. Prior to purchasing the M9-P I had watched a few videos about the camera and its sensor. One reviewer even said that to get the best results I would have to overexpose a bit, which is not what a lot of people do with digital cameras. Couple that with highlight clipping and that presents a minor challenge. The X-Pro2's EVF has definitely made me lazy, but I am enjoying the slow process again.

I have done a little shooting since I bought the Leica a month ago, and the following are just a few images that show off the M9-P's colors. They are very pleasing and I do not have to do much at all to the DNG files--mostly contrast adjustments via the curve tool.

This first image was taken in a hallway in an abandoned part of the building where I work. The auto white balance kept the image pretty true to life. The indirect sunlight coming through the door at the end of the hall was cool, but the light from the "STAIRWAY" sign is pleasantly warm. I believe I shot this wide open and the focus was on the door frame in the center of the hallway on the right so there is not sharpness throughout the image. This was also shot with Voigtlander glass. The remaining images were shot with Leitz glass.

Again I left the camera on auto white balance. This scene is a bit cool to me, but the sun was right up above rather than lower in the sky. I titled this shot "RGB" because you can literally see the colors red, green, and blue as your eyes go across it. I was really after the yellow of the machinery in the center of the frame as well as the viaduct columns to the right. It was only lucky timing that the truck drove down the ramp and made this turn, giving me two additional colors to look at.

Looking down on flowers looking up at me

The image above and below are from a visit to the Garfield Park Conservatory this afternoon. It was a good place to capture some color.

In the 1987 movie "Predator" when the protagonists first shoot and injure the alien it left its luminescent yellow blood on the leaves of the jungle plants. Every time I see a plant like this I am ALWAYS reminded of that movie. Silly, I know.

Those are just a few samples. I have found that performance is indeed poorer at relatively high ISOs compared to modern cameras, and the images get a bit muddy if I have to use a lot of noise reduction. But if properly exposed, well lit, and in focus the colors are beautiful and image quality is superb. I need to get some shots of people next to see how the M9-P renders skin tones. Stay tuned!

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