03.05
Sometimes, you have to play around with your equipment, just to keep in touch, or to explore the characteristics that the equipment and you bring together.
It has been a while since I’d worked with this fine vintage lens. It’s pre-1975 vintage, Ashai Takumar 135mm f/2.5. It has it’s quirks, but the creamy out of focus area is one of the hallmarks that I love.
In this tableau of pens, sitting in a candle cup on top of my desk, I love the isolation that makes the pens stand out. That dark blob in the background is an office chair. I focused with a wide-open aperture on the top of the silver pen to the right.
Something simple.
I’ll be working a bunch this weekend on a server upgrade, so I might find more simple things to explore, if I have any down time waiting for something or another to finish. I’ll just look around and see what I see.


The arrangement of the pens, at various angles, brings to mind a phalanx of missiles and this sentiment, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Also, this is the composition of a master Penning, who uses these instruments while penning the missive that goes with each photo. I know, awful ‘punnishment.’ I can’t help it.