Sunday, September 6, 2020

The Morning Before Labor Day, Downtown Prescott, Arizona




The pandemic is still with us, but the city has opened to most outdoor events. So, Labor Day will see artists displaying their works around the city square. People will be out with their dogs and their hopes of returning to a lifestyle that has made this cowboy citya cherished spot 5,500 feet high in the mountains.

This morning, I took my dog for a walk just before sunrise. The city was mostly asleep and the downtown still empty. I took my Nikon F3 and a 1970s Nikkor 50mm 1.4 lens with me. I consider that lens a specialty lens since the 1.4 opening has to be used for special moments only. It has aberrations, the bokeh/ackground blurr is not smooth, and it is almost a spot focusing lens. But since it was still dark outside, I wanted to see what I can do with the quickly changing light.

… On early morning walks in any city one finds empty bottles of beer or hard liquor, testimony of a night when someone had tried to drown sorrows or celebrate the moment. This morning, instead of the bottle, there was a discarded facial mask. A vivid example of the new times.




This is a taxidermied Mexican wolf in the window of a historic Trading store. With the first rays of the sun, I wanted to see how the Nikkor lens would capture the reflection of light through glass.


Finally, when the sun hit the store walls facing west, the memorial statue of fallen soldiers from Prescott seemed to welcome the day. I like the photo at the outset of this page as it seems to give a different meaning to the statue, given the angle of view and the interplay of light and shade.

Street photography before people arrive to the street!

September 6, 2020
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2020

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