[Leica] Saturday Afternoon In Denver

[Jeff S <4season@boulder.net>]

Nothing like kicking off the weekend with a heavy duty dose of
Leicaphilia.

Following a more-than-adequate fueling of all-you-can-eat sushi and
tempura at Todai Restaurant, I spent a sunny Saturday afternoon
photographing around old downtown Denver: I've become especially drawn
to an alley between the Tattered Cover Bookstore and Wines On Wyncoop
with it's puddles, fire escapes, loading docks, pedestrians and old
bridges connecting the buildings. I was particularly keen on revisiting
this site because last week on a similar outing, I discovered a terrific
vantage point from within the bookstore but in my excitement
photographed mostly window sills, not the alley!  The M6's parallax
correction does't work for objects right up against the lens! This time
I was extra careful about framing as I blasted off a couple of rolls
from the bridge and other spots in the alley using the 35mm Summicron
almost exclusively (I needed to spend more time with this critter),
shooting about half through a Helopan orange filter (didn't have a spot
meter to check the effects but the aim was to lower contrast between the
reddish brick buildings and the sky). No question about it; I really
like that Heliopan machining-filter goes on and off without a fuss, much
better than B+W which is thicker and awkwardly marked (can't see what's
what if you stack filters for transport)

>From there, it was off in the direction of Union Station and Coors
Field. The station is a grand grey building with high vaulted ceilings
and a wonderful red neon "Travel By Train" sign up high. Unfortunately,
the bulding's front is tough to photograph well, sitting as it does in a
sea of asphalt parking lot. The eastbound California Zephyr wasn't at
the platform (it seems to *always* be late), but the Ski Train,
consisting of restored Denver & Rio Grande orange and silver cars behind
Amtrak F40PHs is always a fine sight (okay, the cars would look better
behind matching D&RG F9s!), and the American Orient Express is a
frequent visitor also.

Moving on in the general direction of Coors Field is The Ice House, now
an eatery and I think, trendy housing as well, built into the shell of
an old industrial plant. Something about it's color and the tall
smokestack has always reminded me of Pink Floyd's "Animals" cover art!
The effect is best late on summer afternoons when there are mixed
sunshine and black clouds to be had. On this day, all I had were blandly
clear skies but the evening light was good, so I had at it, again with
the 35mm Summicron. Finding a good vantage was tricky but I made do with
the raised outdoor seating across the street, used by the area pubs. No
easy way to avoid an expanse of street and sidewalk, so I waited for
passing cars to fill the void and for that last awkward empty triangle
of sidewalk in the lower righthand corner, lucked out as a family got
out of their car and hovered in the area long enough for me to snap off
a number of frames.

The orangey light was fading as I walked back up towards Market Street
but I enjoyed the reflections cast by plate glass onto shadowed
buildings opposite and got a real kick out of  gallery windows
displaying Russian pop art--one painting, in the style of a liquor ad
had flames and the word "Molotov"; I couldn't resist juxtaposing that
with the car parked in front--wish it had been a Pinto! The 50 Elmar was
just the ticket here, though I think I'll replace it with the Summicron
at some point--I don't collapse it much, and the screw-in hood makes
filter changing a fuss. Not far away, a new building is going up, and
this one's gleaming steel skeleton and bowed-out corner seemed to beg
for an ultrawide, so that I could capture not only the whole building
but views down both surrounding streets as well. Problem: As I stood on
the opposite corner framing up the shot, the building looked puny and
the expanse of street, huge! Halfheartedly snapped off a few shots,
trying to work the various lines on the road and turning cars into the
composition, though nothing really grabbed me; need more congested,
claustrophobic conditions for this lens!

Equipment-wise, I'm still annoyed at the framing accuracy of my M6; line
up a rectangular object perfectly within it's finder lines and what you
get on film is horizontally keystoned. Keep meaning to get it tweaked
once and for all but probably won't until I have another M onhand due to
a probable 5-week lead time on repairs. Other than the Leica, I've been
really enjoying the wooden 4x5 field camera particularly since I
brightened the viewscreen by adding a $5 magnifying sheet purchased at a
bookstore. Must be careful about light leaks though--some of of the
joints in the wood had opened up a bit ruining a number of rather nice
photos! I might've gotten away with it had I kept the back of the camera
covered with the dark cloth, but it was too windy that day and the cloth
was flapping in the breeze and doing a good job of shaking the camera.
Those big negatives are a joy to work with and make terrific contact
prints though! This leaves my medium-format SLR largely unused at the
moment and I've been thinking of selling it off and getting a 35mm SLR
or Fuji RF in it's place but haven't decided yet--why do the more
interesting 35mm SLR cameras and lenses always seem to be on the hefty
side, while the big MF rangefinder cameras have slow optics that don't
work well in low light, and low top shutter speeds which complicate
standardizing on fast film?

Caught a good movie on video this weekend: The Red Violin. I won't be
giving the story away by saying that it covers the 300-year life of a
violin and how it affected those who owned it; maybe someday someone
will do such a movie about a Leica camera! Makes me wonder where my IIIf
has been since it left the factory in the '50s!
- -- 

Jeff Segawa
Somewhere in Boulder, Colorado