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John, I hope your view of New York as a lonely place is simply a premise for a photo essay and not your actual view.

 

Please check your e-mail for a message from me on this subject.

What character!

 

I'm a sucker for portraits of dogs, but this one is really something special. However much you may appreciate this picture now, I can guarantee you from experience that you will value it even more in years to come.

 

Congratulations on a beautiful capture of a true friend.

I'm now looking at the image on a computer in a brighter room...and the effect much more closely approximates platinum!

 

I guess the appearance depends on the apparent contrast of the screen, which in turn can depend on the room lighting. Maybe it's a pretty good platinum effect after all.

Tim, I like this image, but I'd be more convinced it's platinum if the blacks weren't so deep and the highlights weren't so bright.

 

Platinum is a great medium for putting a long tonal scale negative onto, basically, a very soft grade of paper. But it doesn't achieve the same black blacks as silver gelatin, at least not in any of the platinum prints I've seen; and the lack of optical brighteners in the paper prevents it from having the brightest whites. Platinum's great beauty lies, in my opinion, in how it handles the midtones.

 

I think it would look more like platinum if you printed it with less contrast overall.

Is this the ceiling of the arcade of the Municipal Building? If I'm right about the location, I'm impressed at the sense of brightness you have imparted to it...it's always seemed somewhat dingy to me -- unless it's been cleaned since the last time I saw it.

 

If I have the location wrong, would you mind telling where this is?

Durr, for me this is an easy call: the B&W is far preferable. This picture is all about shapes and lighting; in particular, the profile of the young lady in the center and the rim lighting on the young lady on the right.

 

With the color version, I find my attention distracted by the colors in the background.

 

Now, if this were a picture of a colorful flat, and two dancers wandered in front of it as you tripped the shutter...but somehow I don't think that was the intention behind the photograph.

 

The color version isn't a bad photograph. It's just that the B&W is a great one.

Remarkably good shot under difficult lighting conditions. Reminiscient of Eisenstaedt's rehearsal shots from the 20s or 30s. Care to share any details on equipment or technique?

Bruno, this is a really lovely portrait. I'd be interested to know more details about how you created it: exposure info, developer, lighting, handheld vs. tripod, etc. But, however you did it, it's something you can be proud of.

I like the shot, but it appears to be flipped left-to-right. Was that intentional?

Frederic, I have taken the liberty of calling attention to this image in the Leica forum, in a thread dealing with the three-dimensional effect that can be achieved with a Summicron.

 

Several contributors -- myself included -- suggested that the effect depends on using a fairly wide aperture and a lens designed for its rendition of out-of-focus areas.

 

With this image -- taken on an aspheric lens at, apparently, a small aperture -- you have made me reconsider my assumptions. You have achieved a remarkable illusion of depth by virtue of the perspective and the lighting.

 

I admire all your work, but this image in particular is spectacular. Congratulations.