Well the Christmas season is over, thank goodness, and I just need to get past the New Year to get started fresh! I always feel anxious for this time of year to be over. It seems all forms of life (business, creative juices, et cetera) come a halt in December.

During these slow December/Christmas days I've been giving thought to the next year: new goals, wishes, dreams, expectations and one of those was to get back into music.

So a Christmas present to myself was this nice new shiny double French Horn, or Horn as the pros like to call it. I played the horn for over 8 years and sadly sold it when I headed off to photography school. I always did want a silver horn and also always thought the detachable bell design was a good one, so when I saw this pop up on ebay I couldn't resist. Nice German (Geyer) designed wrap. I've already bought a music book of Puccini pieces, still need to find a nice book of Mozart. I also need a nice backpack style bag so I can carry my horn on my bike!

Photo: Ballard
Camera: Leica D Lux 3

I think I'm in holiday mode now. No, I don't have the holiday spirit I'm just sort of waiting for it to be over! All seems to be "on hold" for the holidays. I've done a bit of painting, printed a few photos, but other than that I'm just kind of hanging out, waiting for the new year, new projects, new adventures, new ideas.

I did buy a new pocket camera, a Leica D Lux 3 It's by far the nicest looking of the pocket digital cameras but more than just a pretty face it has a useful lens range(one of the few that goes to 28mm) and it produces quite nice images, although the sensor size is too limiting; but so are all the pocket digital. I'm waiting, waiting for a full sized sensor pocket camera!

Photo: Madera, Ca
Camera: Mamiya 6

I've been taking things pretty slowly the last week or so but I'm now thinking of the next Ballard Art Walk and what I will present. My last show was limited due to the fact that the frames I ordered for my NYC show was shipped short. I now have those frames and need to print off images for them.

Photo: Dresden
Camera: Hasselblad 500cm

Back from a week on the Oregon coast, where we had surprisingly nice, but very changable, weather. I didn't take many photos but I got several nice bike rides along the coast in during our time there.

Photo: San Francisco
Camera: Hasselblad 500cm

I've been going through my negatives from Tokyo, looking for images I missed the first time through and found quite a few good ones. My tokyo trip was some of the last street photography I did with my Hasselblad 500cm. I have since switched to a Mamiya 6 rangefinder camera (and I now find myself eyeing the new Leica M8 as a possible digital street camera option).

Tokyo was a difficult city to do street photography in as I was often the only non-asian in the area and people quickly noticed me. They also seemed to figure out what I was up to, unlike most places I've attempted my style of photography. Tokyo is a great city which I hope to get back to before long.

Location: Tokyo (Ikebukuro), Japan
Camera: 500cm

Good thing I got some bike miles in during our sunny yesterday as another tropical storm blew through town today. Ah yeah, if it's fall it must be "pineapple express" season. In other words, a storm from the south pacific blows through town providing warmth and rain, then we get a sun break of a day or two, then another storm passes through. It beats snow, hurricanes, hail, fires, earthquakes, but I'm already tired of it and am already thinking of migrating to Palm Springs!

Tomorrow is my new NYC gallery opening but the company I ordered frames from shorted my order! My walls will be a bit thin tomorrow but there's little I can do about it.

Photo: NYC
Camera: Nikon D200

I received an email invitation this morning to open a Saatchi artist's gallery page. Sure, why not. Received my inkjet paper this morning and got busy printing my November exhibit. Only one problem, I ran out of frames.

I sure love my new printer. Without doing more than clicking a few buttons this printer prints out prints exactly as they looked on my monitor. I guess I have Apple and HP to think for this simplicity.

Image: a hotel room in southern France
Material: Oil on Canvas

My new frames arrived today and tomorrow I will start printing my new exibition that opens Saturday. This will be my first exibit based on inkjet prints. I guess it would sound more impressive if I called them glicée prints but I'm not French so I'm sticking with the english term inkjet. I could at least call them pigment-based inkjet prints eh.


Photo: Berlin
Camera: Nikon D70s

Last week I took my paintings off my studio's grey wall and now today I rehung them very tightly on my dark red wall. So, I now have a wall pretty much solid with my paintings all the way to the ceiling 18 above. I'm now waiting for the frames and paper I've ordered to arrive and I will start printing black and white images for my new exibit that will hang on the grey wall. Exibit opens November 12th in my studio, hours that day (during the Ballard Art Walk) are 6-9pm and other times by appointment.

Photo: Berlin, 1992
Camera: Hasselblad 500cm

I redid my painting gallery again, added some paintings that haven't been shown before and I am now offering 5x7 inch archival prints on a nice "moab" art paper; signed for just $15. I can also do larger sizes upon request.

Painting: oil on canvas
Location: Krackow, Poland

Updated my painting gallery today and added the option of ordering an archival 5x7" inkjet print. I'm am also getting ready for the November Ballard Art Walk, redoing my walls with black and white prints from my recent NYC trip.

Painting: Taos Mission, New Mexico

I received my new printer this week. I have been holding off on buying a photo printer for some years years, as I couldn't see offering prints that might fade in a matter of months. Well now, with the introduction of the HP b9180 pigment-based printer I feel I can finally start offering prints I feel won't fade. The claim is 100-200 years. I'm not sure I believe that, I'm testing a print in my west-facing studio window now, but I am hopeful.

So, I have added a new link to my images offering 5x7 inch and 8x10 inch injet prints at what I believe are very reasonable prices; signed even. I will continue to offer hand-printed "wet" prints as well.

Photo: Tacoma, USA
Camera: Hasselblad 500cm

I need to do a little venting, make a little rant. I was at the grocery store tonight and the woman in front of me, she was in her 70s I suppose, took about 5 minutes to write a check. Hello, it's the 21st century!!! Writing a check at the grocery? That is really really old school! There we are waiting for her to find her check book, find her pen, fill out every-single-space not before the bill is totaled but after of course. She also filled in the register part before handing the check to the clerk. Oh!

I'm not one for trendy gizmos, like text-messenging, or mobile phone email but gees when you can get cash back by using a credit card, and pay just one bill per month, why not! This isn't 1978 where the clerk has to phone in each CC transaction to get approval, a present day CC transaction is actually quicker than cash in most sitations.

Get with it lady, get a debit card or credit card, or carry cash. Thank you.


Photo: NYC
Camera: Mamiya 6

Developed more film this weekend and will continue scanning in the morning. I'm getting down to the last rolls and I would be happy to head back to NYC to shoot some more. Well, I don't think I can get away with that so I'll have to settle for downtown Seattle for a while.

This woman was at the SE corner of Central Park at a book seller. She had a great way of way about her, which didn't come across in my photo very well. Very expressive body.

Photo: NYC: Central Park
Camera: Mamiya 6

It is a beautiful fall day and here I sit in front of a computer! Well I mean to do something about that right now. I'm off in a moment for a nice bike ride down along Lake Washington then up to Capitol Hill to pick up my Beans and then back to the grind; or not.

Photo: NYC: Soho
Camera: Mamiya 6

Added a few more images from NYC but I need to now get back in the darkroom and develop more of my film. The woman in this image is singing opera. It was beautiful, just what this noisy metro station needed.

Photo: NYC
Camera: Mamiya 6

Still the same old story, scanning images from my NYC trip. This will be my story for a few weeks here I think. Just got news my new printer shipped and should be here by the end of the week. It's a month late but I still hope to have an exibition up before Thanksgivings. I will also start offering a cheaper, injet version of my work. This new printer, the HP B9180 claims to have a 200 year print life so I finally feel comfortable offering injet prints (or giclee as some people like to say (French for inkjet)).

I'm already missing NYC and would gladly go back anytime. I still don't think I want to live there but I could imagine at least a yearly trip if not biyearly visits. I don't think I have ever been in a city that offered so many chances for street photography. I lived a year in Paris, and while I hadn't discovered street photography at that point in time I don't think it's the same, there isn't the variety of subjects like NYC, same with London, Berlin, Tokyo. Big cities, yes, but for interesting faces I think NYC wins easily.

Photo: NYC, manhattan subway
Camera: Mamiya 6

I got a few more images from NYC scanned and uploaded today. You can see them here. For most of my street photography I take the photo by pre-setting the focus and it appears I did a pretty good job of estimating focus this trip. I've only developed 8 of the 30 rolls of film I took but so far I'm able to use about half of each roll. That's quite good. This image from taken in Soho at a book and record street sale. Light level was quite low, so I was shooting down at 1/60th of a second and f5.6 or so, so there wasn't much room for focus error.

Location: NYC, Soho
Camera: Mamiya 6

Developed 8 rolls of film last night and had time to scan a few images today. They can be seen here. Tomorrow I should have more time for scanning and over the weekend more time to develop film.

Photo: NYC, Soho
Camera: Mamiya 6

I posted some color images from my recent NYC trip. Didn't get around to developing film last night, perhaps tonight once all is quiet in the house.

Image: NYC: mid-town east
Camera: Nikon D200

Back from the big city to the little village named Seattle. I know I will miss the constant photo opportunities NYC offers but I also appreciate the nice salt air here, and finally, after a week, having a really good Latte was pure bliss. New York was great and I'm thinking I need to make a yearly pilgrimage there, but I doubt I could actually live there (I would like to spend 6 months to a year there at some point). Not being able to see the horizon, lack of mountains, and a few other points I fear would get to me with time. It's a very nice place to visit.

Busy today catching up with business, and adding my new images to my Mac Pro. Tonight I'll start developing my 30+ rolls of B&W film. Could be a week before I start adding any black & white images but I should have color gallery up within a few days.

Photo: NYC:Soho
Camera: Nikon D200

Today was just the opposite of yesterday. Today started off bright and sunny and ended up with rain. Rode the subway out to Coney Island, ate a Nathan's hot dog, of course. I should have some good B&W photos from the shopping street of Brighton Beach. Came back to Prince Street and got several rolls of images at a book and record flea market. I can hardly wait to develop my film and see what I have from this very productive week!

In the evening I went back to Soho for dinner and stopped at a place that claims they introduced the cappucino to America. Well, I hate to keep complaining about coffee but if I was blindfolded and was just handed this drink I doubt I would have associated coffee with it. It was mostly milk! No wonder there are so many Starbucks here; but I refuse to drink there (even if they are from Seattle). There are man bumper stickers in Seattle that read "friends don't let friends drink at Starbucks". I agree.

location: NYC:Soho
Camera: Nikon D200

The day started off looking very grey and rain prone. It looked like a museum day. Instead I Wandered the West Village and hoped for the weather to change; and it did. I finally found a few coffee houses, the one I tried made a pretty decent Latte although the extraction time was too long and the coffee was a bit bitter. I think I like the villages the best; both east and west . Smaller streets and pace, good photo opportunities, and many nice shops. Found a nice place for with beer and cheap food, the Soho Park (at 62 Prince St).

Went to Union square last night to watch the critical Mass but it was quite a let down. There weren't more than two dozen bikes. Too bad. I guess they've been cracking down on the bikers here and most are staying away now.

Photo: NYC:Lower Eastside
Camera: Nikon D200

Yesterday the weather was great in the big apple but this morning it has been raining and is now very grey. Might be a good day to see a museum.

I'm beginning to form some opinions about New York, for one all the talk I hear that "Seattle ain't got no delis". I never knew what that meant as we have plenty of delis to buy a sandwich at. I now think they mean "I can't or don't have time to cook so I need a big spread of prepared foods on display to scoop into a plastic container to take home.". I am also realizing some of the claims are just plain over-blown, like the pizza being so great or the beagles not to compare. Yes, they're good but not that amazing. Seattle has some great Greek pizza places for instance. Coffee, now there is a subject that Seattle clearly wins; no question about it. I have yet to find a decent coffee! I have had to leave two cups on the table, they were so bad, and now yesterday in Little Italy, surly a place to find a good coffee, I had to stop my order and walk out after seeing the woman start to make my cappucchino using pre-made espresso!!! All I see here are Starbucks, no coffee carts, no little coffee houses. Oh, how I need a Vivacé espresso!

I'm not seeing many bike riders here either. More than L.A. but far fewer than Seattle or San Francisco. That's strange considering the terrible traffic, how flat it is here and how NY has millions more citizens than either Seattle or S.F. I notice every bike is secured with a giant hardened chain, and most are wrapped with tape; to look bad. Nice.

People? There is no doubt NYC wins in having the biggest selection and quantity of people. No doubt about that. People people everywhere, and they are all in a big big hurry. Breakfast, Fast!, Walking, Fast! Subway, Jammed-in! Yes for a photographer this place is great, there is never a shortage of people. I would love to live here for 6 months, maybe a year, but for life? I think I would quickly tire of never seeing more than buildings. Because it's so flat one never sees the horizon. Seattle, S.F. you can almost always get a view to the water (plus mountains in Seattle). Yes I think I would miss the hills and views the most.

Location: East Village
Camera: Nikon D200

The weather is turning for the worse here, quite grey today and rain expected tomorrow. In Seattle? Oh beautiful sunny weather all week; of course. So with the grey dark day today I had to pick and choose my subjects carefully and hence I took fewer photos than previous days.

Photo: Central Park, NYC
Camera: Nikon D200

Greetings from New York City. No, I didn't bring my bike, although I wish I had, it would be great to have a bike here but then I would be busy riding not walking and getting all the people pictures I am.

Second day here and I have already shot over 150 black and white photos of people and hundreds of digital color photos as well. I have been to NYC a few times but this is my first real chance to focus on my own photo projects. It is indeed a treasure chest of photo opportunities. The variety of people is amazing and the density is like nothing I've seen other than Tokyo. Even Paris and London don't seem as packed with people.

At the same time the areas down around Greenwich Village are, well village-like.

Photo: Times Square, NYC
Camera: Nikon D200

I didn't scan a single negative today, instead I was busy getting ready for my Sunday departure for NYC.

I have been totally focused on scanning black and white negatives for pretty much the entire summer it seems. I may regret I wasn't out taking new photos (more), I don't know, but I felt the need to get my old and current negatives into my computer. My new printer should be here by the time I return from NYC and then I will start working on creating an exhibit in time for the holidays. I also expect to start painting again once winter sets in.

Photo: Kunming, China
Camera: Nikon F3

Uh oh, didn't I just rant about people thinking it rains here all the time? Well it rained a bit in the morning and threatened to rain the rest of the day; but the rest of the week should be sunny.

Any way, I did more scanning today, after attending my son's school birthday party. Had two, yes 2 flat tires over the course of 22 miles today. Man oh man, I guess it's time for new tires.

Photo: Seattle
Camera: Leica MP

Rant. Ok, I already made a post today but after getting off the phone with LLBean I just had to rant a little. So I call them to place an order for new flannel sheets for my VW Camper. The first thing out of the woman's mouth, once she hears I'm calling from Seattle is, "is it raining there?". Uh, no, it's not raining, in fact it hasn't rain but a few drips for months and months; I would venture to say we had, as usual, one of the nicest summers in the U.S. here in the NW. No need for A/C, no bugs to mention, just nice mild sunny days. No doubt Maine has triple the rain Seattle did during the summer, and no doubt New England had as much rain last June, when things were floating away up there, as Seattle had in the last 12 months.

This Cliché that it always rains in Seattle drives me crazy! NYC (47"), Cleveland (36"), Washington D.C. (40"), (not to mention it's cold and snowy in winter in these places) and a dozen other cities in the US, not to mention many major world cities, like Paris, Berlin, London, Amersterdam,get more rain than Seattle. Seattle only gets about 32-36 inches per year, and only a few days per year below freezing. Los Angeles had 35 inches of rain last year!!! I think even S.F. had more rain this last year than Seattle.

Truth is we have great weather. Yes it's grey much of the winter, as is Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Copenhaagen, etc., but it's very mild as well. Not many places in the U.S., outside of California, can claim one can bicycle every day of the year (and even there it's often too hot to ride a bike). I guess my response should have been "is it snowing up in Maine?". Well, any way, no, it's not raining in Seattle, it's a nice mild fall day, and here's another photo from San Francisco. Thank You.

Camera: Leica MP

What camera to take? That question has been on my mind for the last week. What camera to take to NYC next week: the Leica, 500cm, or my beloved Mamiya 6. I worry about losing my Mamiya (a difficult camera to replace), the 500cm is heavier but actually quite good for street photography (with the mirror pre-released) and easily replaced (in the current digital world used Hasselblads are pretty cheap), and while I love my Leica I'm not that crazy about 35mm negatives; they're simply too small. Well, now the Leica is off the list any ways, as my 35mm lens got knocked off the shelve it was on (off the camera both caps on) and now the barrel is stuck!!! So it is off to the lens doctor leaving me with the choice of just two.

Photo: San Francisco
Camera: Leica MP

Photo: New Bedford, MA
Camera: 500cm

Made more minor adjustments to my new black and white page, scanned a few more images, got in a 21 mile bike ride. The days are really too short though. I can never do as much as I need to do. I have piles of black and white images to scan, old color transparencies to scan, digital images for stock agencies to upload and annotate. I guess it's a good thing, the day going by fast. I know it can also go by really really slow if one is doing something boring; so I won't complain.

Photo: Santa Barbara
Camera: 500cm

Alright then, I got all the new links working, I think, and add a few more galleries. I still want to make a few changes, like the "flash" images need redoing and expand my painting tab. At least it all works.

I took this photo at the Folklife fest some years back and have had several people come in claming to know this guy. Then one day HE came in! Just wanted to see his photo I guess. He looked for a bit, at himself, and then left.

Photo: Seattle
Camera: 500cm

So late this afternoon I started the switch on my website www.RonGreer.com creating black and white tab, combinning architectural with commercial, and my artwork will have it's own tab as well. Yes there are some bad links on the renamed "artwork" tab. It was a perfect sunny afternoon so I had to leave early for a bike ride, and I needed to pick up beans at Vicacé as well. Tomorrow, I'll work on those bad links, and redo the "artwork" page. That will pressure me to start painting again! Not that I don't want to or don't have ideas for paintings it's just that I've been so bent on scanning my old black & white images I haven't had time. But fall and winter are coming which is typically when I do my painting any way.

I am getting ready to re-organize my web site, combining Architectural and Commercial into one tab (and correct that spelling error that been bugging me for over a year) and separating my personal photography from my art work (paintings). First I don't like the tab called "fine art". I have a problem with term like that. I also don't like it when people call themselves an 'artist'. I believe you can claim to be a photographer, painter, potter, etc. and that it is up to those that look at your work to decide if you're an artist or not. But I 'm getting off course here.

While getting ready to rearrange things I realized having my people galleries by time period only makes sense to me, that most people would want to see images by location. So I'm working on building new galleries by location, and I realize that my trip to Lisbon brought quite the bounty of images. Here's another image from that trip and I have still more to scan.



Photo: Lisbon
Camera: 500cm

Back to hot weather; today it's 80 degrees! But I got a nice 45 mile bike ride at lunch time, did a bit more scanning this morning, and am doing some research for my up coming NYC trip in a few weeks this afternoon.

Photo: Seattle
Camera: Nikon D200

Photo: St.Louis
Camera: Hasselblad 500cm

Still scannng even though I should be downtown, or somewhere, making new photos. I know once winter hits I will be wishing for nice weather; like we're having right now! But I can't help myself, I must scan! I need to scan.

Photo: London
Camera: Hasselblad 500cm

Took a few days off and climbed some mountain passes with my bicycle. 30 miles up to Chinook Pass and then over and up to Sunrise on Mount Rainier. Beautiful late summer weather, did some blueberry picking ontop of Chinook Pass even.

Today it was back to the studio and more scanning. The time always flies past there and before I know it I have to leave to go home. I'm starting to plan my next trip, to New York City, at the end of September. I've driven through NYC and taken photos ( I have some of those photos online but not many) but to go by foot will be a new experience.

Photo: Lisbon
Camera: Hasselblad 500cm

As I scanned this photo I had to laugh. You see, I'm married to a German and every time we go for a visit to Germany it never fails that people we meet have these crazy ideas (stated as fact) about America that I get to listen to. There are only Mcdonald's for restaurants, all people are fat, we drive everywhere (that may actually be true for parts of the U.S (like San Fernando Valley.), and crazy questions like "can one walk in big cities (or just drive)?". These statements are, of course, made by "experts" who have never been to America. Here is proof it's not only Americans that can get fat. As for Mcdonald's, I think Dresden, a city 1/3rd as big as Seattle, has as many if not more Mcdonald's outlets.

Photo: Kassel (Germany)
Camera: Hasselblad 500cm

A world record was set today. I scanned something like 32 images (all can be seen at my site, www.rongreer.com). I've never scanned even half that many in a day! I keep this up I will be caught up and need to get busy and shoot more.

I heard my new computer laughing at me today; it's true. As I was scanning in Photoshop, building a html gallery in Iview, and uploading in Dreamweaver, all at the same time, I heard my computer laughing "is that all you can throw at me?". All that number-crunching only slightly slowed down this beast; a tiny bit! I couldn't be happier with my new computer (in case you can't tell).

Ok, time to run, need to get ready for the Critical Mass bike ride tonight, and I'll be stopping off at the Pike Street Market for a King Salmon to BBQ later. Oh boy.

Photo: Puyallup
Camera: Hasselblad 500cm

I've said it already but I'll say it again, wow, wow! is my new computer fast! Fast and powerful in fact. It just plows through scans, sharpening, html gallery builiding all seemingly without effort. One reason I was in a hurry to divide my galleries into year periods was to cut the processing time each time I added images to a gallery. it simply isn't an issue any more. Even a 100 image gallery takes less than 8 minutes.

Photo: Seattle Hempfest
Camera: Mamiya 6

Spent the morning getting my new computer operational, like adding Dreamweaver, Photoshop CR2, Iview Mediapro, Quickbooks, and all my files. Had to download a new plug-in before PS would recognize my Minolta scanner but here are the first scans using my new Mac Pro.

Wow, is it ever fast. Before, with my old G3 PowerBook, while waiting for an image to, say, sharpen I could go down and make a Latte. Not any more! It will sharpen a 68mb file in under 10 seconds!!! It will make a html gallery in Iview in under 8 minutes, something that use to take almost an hour. nice. So, how much quicker will photoshop be once it is running native? too fast? is that possible. I may need to hire a barista!

Photos: Seattle Hempfest, taken on Saturday
Camera: Mamiya 6

So! It's here! My shiny new Mac Pro: 2.66ghz, 3 gb memory, 1.25 terabyes of storage. I had just ridden a very fast 10 miles so I don't look the freshest in the photo but doesn't my new baby look great! It looks beautiful inside too, like a work of art. The interior is amazingly clean and well thought out. I added two 500gb additional hard drives and 2 additional Gbs of memory in about 5 minutes. Now for the task of creating the RAID1 configuration and loading all my software and files. Then the fun begins.

Took the day off and drove down to my favorite Bar, The Olympic Club, in logger-chic Centrailia. A "must stop" for anyone driving between Portland and Seattle. Wonderfully preserved 1902 interior, a dozen pools table, big big big pot belly stove, good food, and of course good beer. Kids welcome!

Photo: Hollywood, Ca
Camera: D200

So! I placed my order today for the just released Mac Pro 2.66ghz dual processor computer! It should ship this coming Friday. This ought to be one powerful computer, to help me speed through scans and processng of my images. I can hardly wait. Yes, photoshop won't be native until, I'm told, the beginning of the new year but until then I don't think it will be slower than my 1ghz powerbook G4 I'm using now. First addition will be a pair of 500gb hard drives in a RAID 1 configuration as the main storage; then more ram.

Photo: New Jersey
Camera: Hasselblad 500cm

The universal Trabant, or Trabbi. In its time one had to wait upward of 10 years and fork over a years pay (and prove one had a garage to keep it in). In 1992 I bought one for $110 and drove it three times to Paris and thousands of miles through Germany and the Czech Republic. It's air cooled 2 cylinder 2 stroke engine put out something like 30 horsepower and had a top speed of about 70 mph (at that speed one needed nerves of steel and a steady hand on the wheel or you would find the "car" on its roof!). The body was made of a formica-like material. Sadly most of them ended up like this one and it is now quite rare to see one of the road.

Photo: Dresden
Camera: 500cm

Had a productive day of scanning and a very nice BBQ of wild Sockeye salmon this evening. While most of the nation bakes in record temperatures while the NW temperatues were perfect. Soft defused light during breakfast this morning, just right sun in the afternoon and a rosy sunset over the Olympics this evening.

This is one of my images I scanned today, taken in Prague in 1992.
Camera: 500cm