Leica Noctilux F1.0 Lens at the RSA

On Wednesday I went to the RSA to listen to a talk by Brian Christian about his new book The most human, human "An eye-opening inquest into human imagination, thought, conversation, love and deception (David Eagleman, author of Sum )" His talk proved David knows what he is talking about. Brian is a brilliant explainer of things in a quiet, humorous deeply thoughtful and cultured way and made us realise what complex and wonderful beings we all are and that proving you are a human to another behind a wall is not so easy as it may sound.

 

I took my Leica M9 this time with my F1.0 Noctilux lens and snapped some pictures on the way there including this sad but amazing "Mummy/Vagrant" sleeping in a doorway and at the presentation itself and some menu cards in a restaurant afterwards, all shot at F1.0 to see how the tiny depth of field and beautiful Bokeh worked out.

 You can judge for yourself in this slideshow.

Do buy the book - its wonderful!

A tale of two Leica's

Last weekend, I had a very pleasant tasting of Portuguese wines at Vagabond Wines in Fulham when I got chatting to another customer who was from Denmark and turned out to be a Cognitive Neuroscientist and we of course ended chatting about photography as I spied he had a Leica D-Lux 4. Finding out that I was a photographer, he asked that I take a few snaps of him with it and later having sent to me jpgs back from Denmark I was blown away by the results. What I liked about this camera, was the really intelligent face recgnition focusing software, the good LCD screen, easy controls and quiet shutter and the astounding quality of the resulting jpgs.

You can see two of the pictures here and all five that I took, each interpreted twice in a slideshow. Jon Wegener is a partner in Cogency a consultancy the works to improve organisational judgement and decision making.

This morning I went as usual to my 6.30 to 8.30am BNI Notting Hill networking breakfast and took along my Leica M9 with Noctilux F1.0 50mm and Elmarit F2.8 135mm lenses to take pictures for a new website we will be developing.

Using only available light whilst members networked and took part in the 18 step agenda, the two lenses worked their magic, whilst the unobtrusiveness of the camera and its near silent shutter meant i photographed everyone as they were. With both lenses working fully open the bokeh and quality of light was wonderful to behold.

 

You can see more of the pictures in a slideshow

Chartwell Partners Breakfast Club - Eurozone Discussion 30/3/2011

In what is becoming a regular monthly habit of mine, I wended my way to the RAC Club at 7.45 this morning to attend the Chartwell Partners Breakfast Club this time with three former British Ambassadors: Sir David Madden, (Greece, 1999-2004), Sir Stewart Eldon, (Ireland, 2003-2006), and Dame Denise Holt, (Spain, 2007-2009) who discussed the future of the Eurozone. The discussion was moderated by Robin Niblett, Director of Chatham House.

It proved a fascinating discussion exposing levels of complexity, between national, european and wordwide, social, economical and political issues that left me gasping. All the speakers showed great knowledge and understanding of the matters discussed and Robin Niblett, chaired and questioned and summarised matters deftly and with great skill.
I took my Leica M9 with the wonderful Noctilux F1.0 lens and was able take pictures without disturbing the speakers or the audience.

You can see more pictures in a slideshow.
On collecting my coat from the cloakroom I snapped this scene which caught my eye, because of the light

 

and later a view from a bus, as some balloons in a tree whizzed by! caused a pleasant juxtaposition of colours and shapes.

Portrait of Marek

I took this portrait of the photographer Marek Wezdenko with my Leica M8 and the amazing F1.0 50mm Noctilux lens at full aperture simply focusing on his eyes and overexposing by about 3/4 of a stop to give a high key effect.

The resulting image is simple, direct and visually pleasing, in my view. I await yours?