About Photography – KB Photography

Macro photos on the cheap

May 17, 2021 May 19, 2021 / About Photography, Photo Tools / By Kristen Brochmann

These were taken with a standard kit zoom lens, in this case a Fuji xf 18-55 lens, with an extension tube that allowed close focus. I have a set of cheap extension tubes of 11mm and 14mm from a generic Chinese source, JJC. This technique of using a zoom lens with an extension is not considered best practice, but it works. I printed the left image as a card at 5×7 and it looks very good.
I sold my Canon 100mm macro and the and the adapter for it to mount it to Fuji cameras. I thus reduced my travel kit for macro photography from carrying an extra lens and adapter to carrying around two very small tubes.

My New Series of Postcards

May 12, 2021 May 12, 2021 / About Photography, Photography on the Go / By Kristen Brochmann

During the pandemic I spent a lot of time in Central Park enjoying being out of the apartment and being very socially distant in a space that had very few people. One of my joys was riding my bide around the 6 mile loop through the park. But I also carried a camera with me and I would stop and walk around for a while and take some pictures. In the past weeks I have gone over these images and find I have a lot, especially of the spring. The spring of 2020 occurred in the middle of the worst times for New York City. I biked past the oxygen trailers giving off clouds of condensate vapor and the morgue trailers parked on the street. But nature did not care. Spring last year was a riot of color and surging new growth. Being there gave hope on one hand, but on the other, it was harsh to know that nature doesn’t care—life goes on regardless.

But this spring feels more hopeful and looking at my images from this year and last I realize that there are some good ones and I wanted to do something with some of them. As many people know, I have over the last 20 years made a seasonal card from a Polaroid transfer. The project might be coming to an end or at least in its current form as 4×5 Polaroid is unavailable to me. More on that later. But with the seasonal images of Central Park I have decided to make a series of cards for Spring, Fall and Winter. I plan to do them in groups of four, and the first set is done. One of them is shown back and front. The inside is blank for notes. And they will envelopes.

So stqy tuned for more. I will post just the images without the text on the back to Instagram. Go to: https://www.instagram.com/kbroch77/ to see my posts, or go the the front page of my site. brochmann.com

It’s been a long journey

April 20, 2021 April 20, 2021 / About Photography, Photo Tools / By Kristen Brochmann

From East 3rd Street to 77th Street. Almost 40 years and I am still here. There is a nostalgia for the days of film now, and here is an image on Kodachrome taken from my apartment back in 1982. I had no idea how it would turn out, and I wouldn’t know until I went uptown and had if processed. A courier would pick up the film from the lab in the “Photo District,” now the “Flatiron District,” and take it to New Jersey somewhere where Kodak had its lab. Several days later, unless you paid for rush service, you would see the film.

I am not nostalgic for those days when you had to wait for the lab before you could strike the set and move on to the next shot. Now you shoot it, show it, change it, shoot again, everyone loves it—next.