Bicycles

 

I just started riding bicycle again after a long summer break. I wonder how long it's been since anyone's ridden these two bicycles.

Self Portrait

 

Frames

 

Nikon F6, Kodak Portra 160

These look like frames for something, but I don't know much about construction. I really like the soft greens of Portra film.

Bicycle Repair Man?!?!

 

About a month and a half ago I wrote that I was going to start a sketch series using mostly black and white film. The really nasty summer weather struck just after that and the will to do anything other than crawl to the air conditioner remote control evaporated. 

But now it's getting close to the end of August and temperatures are back in the mid-twenties and the humidity is sufferable if you don't move too quickly. My bicycle had been sitting in the hallway with a slow leak in the front tyre since July, but today I pumped it up and zipped off to the bicycle repair shop. I got the tube replaced and now I'm ready to start riding again. Happy days! The cooler weather also means photography is possible again, so I'm even happier.

I waited for the man to bend forward a bit so that he would fill in the upper right part of the photo. The bicycle frame is on a diagonal and his upper frame is on a diagonal. Both diagonals end in large circles. A nice bit of symmetry, no? When I made the photo, I was only thinking of the man's posture and getting the front wheel completely in the picture. I noticed the diagonal of the crossbar when I looked at the photo at home. But it's possible I saw it unconsciously at the time. Too bad the tube crosses the seat in the background, but maybe it's not that important.

There may be a bicycle repair man closer to you than you think.

Door No Door

 

I'm not sure if this is a missing door or an open door.

If you went to the trouble to fill in the doorway, why not put in another hour and paint it over?

Both photos were made on my F6 using Kodak Portra 160. I would say the light passed through the Nikkor AF 50mm 1.4G before drawing these scenes on the film.

Waiting for a Friend

 

Unexplained

 

Nikon F6, Kodak Portra 160

I don't know why this towel is tied up around the place where two ropes and a tarp meet on a wall. But it's photogenic and that's all that matters to me.