Category: Leica

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 24, 202410:53 pm

Server @Work

Only one unopened @Work Android Collectible remains, after today’s unveiling: Café Worker / Barista / Roaster. The box is nearly empty. What disappointment that is, too. Maybe I can share some other past purchases from Dead Zebra.

In the real world, this fine fella could either be unemployed or object of customer complaint. On April 1. 2024, California raised the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 an hour, which oddly is four bucks more than the mandate set for everyone else. Cost-cutting layoffs are rampant at burger joints, pizza, places, and the like—as are increased prices (hence, those disgruntled customers).

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 23, 202410:12 pm

Color Me Orange

Chill. Don’t complain about more flowers. Appreciate them—as do I. Walking along an alley today, I passed by clinging-vine Nasturtium that had taken over a backyard gate and fence.

The simple, cheerful scene charmed me enough to pull out Leica Q2 and take a single shot. Vitals for the Featured Image, aperture manually set: f/4, ISO 100, 1/500 sec, 28mm; 3:17 p.m. PDT. I reduced orange saturation during post production.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 21, 20249:27 pm

Pretty Poppy

The calendar hanging on our refrigerator correctly designates April 22 as Earth Day. I consider the celebration to be a year-long event. Our celestial home deserves more than 24 hours out of the 8,760 during a typical year.

So, commemorating today before you do tomorrow, I present the Featured Image, taken because of the California Poppy’s color. Unfortunately, breeze blew by just as I clicked the camera’s shutter, so point of focus isn’t exactly where intended but close enough.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 20, 20249:58 pm

This is No Fairy Tale

Third weekend of the month means the book sale room is open at my local San Diego Public Library branch (University Heights). My wife and I stopped briefly by, but we didn’t stay long. The crazies, as I call them, are all over the place on Saturday mornings, loading up massive amounts of books into bags and boxes.

Based on the choices, such as physical condition, the early birds appear to be buying books to resell. (Can you say Amazon?) We checked out with two DVDs for Annie and one Aesop’s Fables for me behind some dude paying more than $90—at standard price of buck-a-book, the number is obvious.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 5, 20249:20 pm

Be a King or Queen for a Night

While black-and-white photography might seem, ah, colorless, it is striking coming from Leica Q2 Monochrom. Take, for example, the Featured Image, which is sharp edge to edge. Pixel-peepers, please, go for it—and to assist you the companion capture is a close-crop for your perusal.

Vitals, aperture manually set: f/8, ISO 200, 1/160 sec, 28mm; 2:31 p.m. PDT, April 2, 2024. The original is composed as shot. Venue: Lafayette, the recently remodeled, iconic hotel located in my San Diego neighborhood of University Heights.

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 2, 20249:32 pm

Changing Priorities

With increasing mayhem—everything from armed robbery to migrant mischief to unpredictable homeless encounters—self-protection gurus council people, particularly among vulnerable populations like older folks, to practice situational awareness. Stated simply: Pay attention to your surroundings.

Most people are clueless, at least around my San Diego neighborhood. Every day, I see dozens and dozens of folks, many of them walking dogs, wearing Apple AirPods—and thus tuning out by tuning in, so to speak. They don’t pay attention—as they should, if for no other reason than the increased amount of traffic precipitated by increased population density. Previously quiet streets suddenly are quite congested.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 29, 202410:47 pm

Doll and Books

Because Cali overtook my lap—and I let her—posting is later than planned and topic changed. Please pardon another black-and-white Featured Image—from Leica Q2 Monochrom. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/4.5, ISO 200, 1/3200 sec, 28mm; 1:01 p.m. PDT, March 26, 2024. Composed as captured.

I came upon the doll and collection of reference books—put out free for the taking—while walking along Madison Ave within the corridor where North Park wedges between San Diego neighborhoods Normal Heights and University Heights.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 28, 202410:05 pm

Graffiti Booth

This morning, my wife and I visited with the owner of Guido and Little and long-lost neighborhood favorite Bruce; all three appear in my “Cats of University Heights” series. Meanwhile, despite her disconcertion, tree cutters ravaged her rental property’s plants and trees; landlord’s doing.

Chitchat bounced about topics and somehow trapsed upon payphones—or the lack of them; their disappearance. Coincidentally, on March 26, 2024, I photographed the remanent of one in black and white at the corner of Howard and 30th in North Park.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 26, 20249:30 pm

The Sitter

I had planned to close-crop the Featured Image but altered after looking at the context in relation to some past posts (follow the links). The young women sits on a wall alongside the Sprouts market; that sidewalk stretch is a frequent homeless hangout.

To the far right is the entrance to the local library’s book sale room, which is open the third weekend of every month. My recent purchases include the first five volumes of Talk to Me in Korean and ye olde history books.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 25, 202410:39 pm

Whom Do You…

The answer related to the Featured Image is easy: No one. I am a fact-oriented journalist, who trusts nobody—nor should you in this era of mass misinformation. With perhaps the exception of Matt Taibbi, there isn’t a soul among my profession whose news reporting I would accept as factual—that is without some independent verification of my own.

We live at a time when commentary and editorialization—narratives, if you prefer—supplant real reporting. Everyone is an armchair analyst with an opinion, and not enough emphasis is placed on gathering facts and assembling them into a meaningful story that unfolds some current event or reveals something legitimately in the public interest.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 23, 20249:31 pm

A Fine Fence

There is a purity to black-and-white photography that can make the mundane more—or at least, not less. The Featured Image, captured with Leica Q2 Monochrom, is today’s proposed proof. I unlikely would have stopped to shoot the fence in color, which would have distracted from the rather plain object.

But B&W draws attention to the straight lines of the wood, and even to the structure’s apparent purpose: To protect the tree, which could attract dogs and their owners willing to let the mutts defecate or urinate either upon the grass or at the trunk. Park Blvd in San Diego’s Hillcrest neighborhood bustles with pedestrians and leashed animals. The simple fence is purposeful.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 21, 202410:19 pm

By the Grace of God

Along Park Blvd, barely outside my San Diego neighborhood of University Heights, is a church I hadn’t stopped to regard—until yesterday. I simply don’t walk that way often enough to have noticed the stately structure.

Near as I can gather from the official website, Grace Lutheran is a family-oriented, traditional Christian church located in an area where other places of worship cater more to the licentious, cultural mob than to God.