OT: Feedback Please

[absinthe]

I just threw together a quicky on my site of some photos I have taken

at

Asbury Park last week.  They were all shot with my old Pentax

& a 50mm

lens on Tri-X.  This is my first serious foray in using B&W

film

only.   I don't plan on keeping all of these, but it helps

me to get

others opinions before I return to shoot some more.  I plan on

making the

prints myself once I finish shooting & narrow down my

selections.  I

want to add some people shots, but I am chicken poo poo & need to

get over

it.  This is the first time I have focused on a project like

this. 

Please be honest, but buffer your harshness with a sense of humor or

something

:-)  </p>

<p>Link:<br>

<a href="http://absinthe-green.com/AsburyPark">Asbury Park</a></p>

<p>A little background history...<br>

Asbury Park is on the NJ Shore.  It used to be very elegant

& swank

back in the early 1900's.  Over time, it became less swank &

more a

place of amusement.  It has a fairly rich music history with

some famous

bands & artists getting their start there at the Stone Pony such

as Bon Jovi. 

Springsteen mentions places Asbury Park frequently in various songs of

his.  In the lat 80's, the boardwalk amusements & such were

bought out

by a contractor who had plans to build seaside condos.  The

contractor went

bankrupt & left one half-finished building & the rest in a

state of

disrepair.  The property changed hands a number of times, but

nobody ever

tore down or restored anything.  The town without its bread

& butter

declined rapidly & became known as one of the nastiest places in

NJ.   There is a lot of political corruption & such

involved with

the mess.  Anyways, recently there have been changes &

landmark status

has been doled out & the town on  whole is on a slow

upswing. 

Houses are being restored and a large number of artists are investing

in the

community & opening up shops.  However, while buildings like

the Palace

& the Casino are now official landmarks, the company that owns

the land

still wants to demolish & rebuild so the boardwalk area is in a

kind of

limbo state.  If you ever seen the movie "City By The

Sea", it

was largely filmed on location at Asbury Park (the film uses it to be

Long

Beach, LI).  I always enjoyed photographing there & have

even entered

into the Casino (but those photos are crap as it was when I was just

starting

out).  I can write a book about the place.

[m_.]

Heather: Welcome back. We missed you for quite some time now.

 

I am not sure why you won't keep any of these - they are nice. These are some better ones I have seen from you, IMO. I think you should keep them and do something about it.

 

I do like the thought of walking out with one lens and one lens only for a project. It definitely gives you the consistancy for the entire project. That's what I most likely will do when I travel in Bolivia in the coming month.

 

Keep up the good work and come back more often.

 

WenTong

[al_kaplan1]

You have a very nice set of photographs there! It's amazing what you can accomplish with just one lens. It gives you a sense of dicipline. Pentax has made some good cameras and great lenses. (Of course using the latest edition 50mm Summicron on a shiny new unblemished Leica MP, only handled while wearing cotton gloves, would make all the difference in the world in your pix...LOL.) Don't forget to post some photos of your trip!

[al_kaplan1]

You have a very nice set of photographs there! It's amazing what you can accomplish with just one lens. It gives you a sense of dicipline. Pentax has made some good cameras and great lenses. (Of course using the latest edition 50mm Summicron on a shiny new unblemished Leica MP, only handled while wearing cotton gloves, would make all the difference in the world in your pix...LOL.) Don't forget to post some photos of your trip!

[connealy]

Your style, with an emphasis on formal composition and abstraction, holds it all together very nicely. The tonalities are delicious. If you write the book, I'll buy it.

[andrew_lee2]

Good black-and-white work I'd say. The Pentax 50/1.4 is fine equipment also. What developer did you use? <p>

Standouts, for me: 1, 2, 6, 8, 12, 20.

[d._p.1]

Beautiful compositions, impeccable. Interesting read too, thanks. As it is, it looks like a ghost town. If you want to bring it to life, get over it and do some street portraits, kids, or just signs of human life (clothes hanging to dry etc).<br><br>cheers, diederik

[________1]

Good stuff Heather, keep going!

[absinthe]

Wentong:<br>

I didn't leave, I just wasn't posting :-) I won't get rid of any I scanned, but I want to come up with a decent portfolio of about 30 or so prints all shot with my 50mm with a few portraits included. There are somethings I want to go back & shoot in different light to see how it comes out & I want to have something that represents the resurgence & renewal of the town as well (the ones I took this past week of the downtown area are largely for the round file & not scanned).

<p>

Al:<br>

If I could afford an MP, I'd have it. Alass, my growing <b>Pot 'O Change for Leica�</b> is on hold due to my newly unemployed status. <p>

I like working with one lens for now because it allows me to focus on my project & also forces me to think outside of my norm to make that lens work in my given situation. It makes me think about how I choose to frame the photo more. I find that I am too used to depending on my glass to get up close or to fit everything in. With one lens, I force myself to move closer & to not see the object as a whole, but rather as a starting point fo times when I can't fit everything in. Right now I am scanning in some protest photos that I shot with my canon & two zooms, one normal & one wide angle. There are some good photos, but most just don't utilize the space of the frame. I am not close enough in most shots & I find many will be filling up only the frames in between the good ones. I need more dicipline with my framing so for now I allow only one focal length when I shoot. <p>

thanks for the kind words. Its a work in progress. I developed the film in D76 1:1 for 9 1/2 minutes (I just started doing my own B&W so I do it the way I was taught for now). I plan on experimenting with chemicals soon.

[Troll]

I fail to see the Leica connection.

[absinthe]

I fail to see why you have a hero icon

[michael_paris]

Hey Asbury Park, sounds like a great idea for a photoshoot tommorow, have the day off

and maybe get to try my new 90mm 2.8

[al_kaplan1]

I was just kidding about the Leica MP, Heather! I've shot plenty of photos with an old Asahi Pentax S3 I had back in the 60's and 70's which used to mostly wear a 180/2.8 Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar. I was also kidding about the cotton gloves. Beat up cameras take much better photographs!

[absinthe]

If'n you wanna give me a shiney new MP (pref the Hermes edition), I'll gladly take it :-).

[skeeter]

great shots heather. my favorites are #6 and #15.

 

blow these up, girl. 11 x 14 minimum. send one to bill. maybe he will chill.

[._._z]

<i><blockquote> I fail to see the Leica connection. </blockquote> </i><p>

 

Try reading the forum rules. <p>

 

<u><A href = http://www.photo.net/bboard/policy?topic_id=1548>

Leica Forum Rules:</a></u> <p>

 

<b> <i><blockquote> Photographs posted for critique or display are allowed provided

that they can be classified as fitting within the "rangefinder" style. It is preferable that

posted photography be made with a Leica, but this is not a hard rule. </blockquote> </

i><p> </b>

[melvin_bressler]

Heather: If Asbury Park is near Monmouth, I was there a lot when I was in the service, a long, long time ago. Is was then very nice, but I wasn't really interested in the buildings.

 

Why would you not keep all of them? They are all technically good, and well composed. But some of the outdoor shots of buildings, fill the frame, and have no sense of place. In time, you should go back and reshoot, using either a 35 mm lens, or backing up 15 or 20 feet for a slightly different perspective. Keep posting; I enjoyed looking.

[m_.]

>>Heather McHale , apr 25, 2004; 07:15 p.m. Wentong: I didn't leave, I just wasn't posting :-)

 

So Heather, this whole time you were peeking. Geez, I feel my privacy was terribly violated. :-)

[Karim Ghantous]

Thank you for showing us this wonderful place. I kind of hope it stays exactly as it is now! We need places in the world like that. There's a depth to these places that somehow a tall, hideous condominium building can never match.

 

By all means stick to one lens on a given project but this exercise should really be for you and not for us. By that I mean you should develop your skills by limiting yourself to certain equipment - and then go back with a more flexible array and do it again, only this time with more variety.

 

I'd like to see you go back there for several days, shooting scenes in different lighting and weather conditions.

[Troll]

Okay, I read the Forum Rules. I still fail to see a Leica connection.

[jack_lo_..._t_o]

Bill you're a prophet in the wilderness. You've been preaching this sermon for months. You've gotten your attention, made your point, no one listens to you (and you listen to no one either). Please start your own website elsewhere or throw your keyboard in the terlet.

 

Heather those are wonderful shots as so many have said. I grew up 6 miles north, in Long Branch. We often shopped at Steinbach's as it was the best department store in Monmouth County. The Convention Hall in one of your pics used to feature the biggest acts in show business. The Art Deco Merry Go Round is on the cover of Springsteen's 1st big album (I assume the Stone Pony is still alive-where Bruce cut his teeth as a performer). There was a club on Springwood Ave., in the black district, where Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley among others, played.

 

Might be a complimentary essay to cross the little bridge to photograph Ocean Grove, still prosperous because it was protected by it's owners, the Methodist Camp Meeting Association. In my youth tenants could be evicted if the landlord noticed a beer in their fridge.

 

What's good about these shots is they are consistently good, and show the urban/resort decay that Asbury is such a stellar example of.

 

I'll be flying down there next month, and I want to get my fix of the ocean. I'll be bringing my M3(ok Bill?).<div></div>

[jack_lo_..._t_o]

Oh yeah, John Sayles' film "Baby It's You" was filmed there. Lotsa boardwalk footage.

[._._z]

</i>

<i><blockquote> Okay, I read the Forum Rules. I still fail to see a Leica connection.

</blockquote> </i><p>

 

The point is that you don't need a "Leica" conenction to post here. Sorry you didn't get that.

[paul alexandre]

Heather: I love the architecture, I love your sense of geometrical

organization, I love the grain and contrast of the pictures, and I

love the atmosphere of decayed splendour. Your pictures are

great, and I'm glad you put them in the Leica forum because,

otherwise, I probably wouldn't have seen them. If there's to be a

book, consider me as a buyer.

Paul.

[Jeffrey L.T. von Glück]

Heather,

 

The pictures are great. When I go down to Ocean Grove, I usually bring my camera and venture into Asbury by the old casino and carousel.

 

I don't know if you're old enough (I'm 49) to remember Asbury in its heyday in the mid 1960s. My parents rented a house in Allenhurst every summer for most of the 1960s. At least three or four times a week my mother would take me after supper to the boardwalk in Asbury Park to go on the rides, play in the arcade, etc. The parking situation was so congested that we would circle for what seemed like hours trying to find a parking space. If she didn't want to cook, we'd go into Ocean Grove and eat at one of the cafetarias, the one I remember best was the Grand Atlantic. We'd eat a full hot meal plus dessert for something like $4 or $5.

 

After the riots--which I think were in the late 60s, early 70s (not quite sure)--Asbury was on the decline. Things are perking up now and I attended a concert at Convention Hall and the Paramount Theatre. It's important to document Asbury now because with gentrification and the inevitable yuppie influx, in 10 or 20 years from today, you probably won't recognize it. Thus endeth my trip down memory lane.