Downtown Ft. Myers, Fla. 3/23/22 Paul Goldfinger. M10M. Click image to enlarge. See comments for photographic notes. ©
EMMA STONE AND RYAN GOSLING From La La Land soundtrack.
March 24, 2022 by Blogfinger
Downtown Ft. Myers, Fla. 3/23/22 Paul Goldfinger. M10M. Click image to enlarge. See comments for photographic notes. ©
EMMA STONE AND RYAN GOSLING From La La Land soundtrack.
Photograph notes: This image was obtained about 45 minutes before sunset. The sunlight was soft, but it lit up the light colored taller building creating some nice contrasts. The other buildings are lower and are now in the shade.
It is an urban scene, but I was standing in an open lot. A tree can be seen along with some sort of electrical tower on the right. And the sky adds some drama.
The composition suggests the sort of urban feel found in the rejuvenated downtown area of historic Ft. Myers a city where herds of cattle were moved down McGregor Blvd to be shipped from the nearby docks to help feed the Union army. On the way the herds ate grasses growing where this location now is.
Ft. Myers was occupied by the Union army, even though Florida was in the Confederacy.
We have discussed skies before on BF. Some black and white photographers use yellow filters to make the sky more dramatic, but even a blank sky is OK, as I learned from Andrew Wyeth’s paintings. But here, the nice light allowed the sky to have some interest.
What is unique about this photo is that it was shot with a Leica M-10 Monochrome digital camera (only takes black and white photos.) I doubt that there are many such published images.
The camera has only been out for the last year, and it is the first Leica to have a sensor specifically designed for black and white images. It has many high tech features, but I did not use any of the automatic options, instead sticking to the manual controls that I have used since the 1970’s, with Tri-X film.
But the image quality was helped here thanks to that special digital sensor hiding behind the lens.
The lens is important, of course, and this 28 mm Leica (made in Germany) lens is at least 30 years old. New photo technology has created some incredible digital lenses to go with cameras such as the M10M, but the older lenses have a certain quality and charm that adds, in my opinion, to the performance of this camera. It’s a matter of taste and cost. The new 28 mm Leica lens can cost more than the camera.