Noctilux

UNBELIEVABLE. It couldn't be. Not at a garage sale.

OF course, this was more like an estate sale, no matter what the sign said. No cheap porcelain figurines, no landline telephones, no cables with connectors that might have been useful if your computer was from 1995. No, this was... amazing. A dozen milk-crates, maybe more, packed with mint condition LPs, most in their protective plastic sleeves. The hipster kids were already doing a bit of passive-aggressive elbowing to get to the goods. NO FUCKING WAY, Sgt. Pepper! White Album! MONO! I envy the kid. I really do. The vinyl monos? Are you kidding me? I wished I still had a turntable. Sly, Marvin, Ella, Pink Floyd, a ton of old Chess pressings. This old lady had it all.

THE house was in beautiful shape. Not one of those new buildings that just screams cheap imitation, this was a real edwardian from before the quake. The trim was gold and crimson, not at all faded, like shield walls of lacedaimonian hopla, red lambda lines popping out brilliantly in the sunlight; there were delicate egg-and-dart mouldings around the windowframes, an architectural design motif in use as far back as the minoans. I always liked seeing that. The tiny garden on the other side of the stairs was in disrepair, but you could tell it was laid out by a real gardener with a keen eye, not someone just seeking plant density.

AND there was the art. Not the stuff people buy at target and put up in their bathrooms. This was work by legit street artists. Doolittle. Campos. Plasma. For years I've seen many of their murals and sidewalk art up and down the mission. Their paintings are haunting--moon-eyed alien figures cavorting with feathered traditional dancers in mexican villages, giant cats taking up an entire half-block of building, massive tiger faces interwoven with human faces, human hands, the brilliant orange and deep blacks just mesmerizing with their intensity and delicate touch. Some oranges fierce as hot coals, others delicate like california poppies, it reminds me of one of my favorite phrases: chromatic spray ...like a paint-laden top spraying color in an infinite spin. I feel like I'm slipping into a Terry Gilliam film when I see them. A girl was holding a Campos canvas, four by three feet, a deep blood red background and a pale alabaster figure reclining in the foreground, his body wrapped in thorny vines, some of which pierce his skin and from which blood flows in little streams. He's looking off into the distance, where stand a receding row of columns, each enclosing a taut black figure. I didn't care what it meant, it was stunning. I envy the girl. Another girl held an old victorian window-frame, glass intact, onto which Doolittle had painted a brilliant neon aqua robot, menacing red and yellow eyes, massive teeth, molars really, chomping down on a tiny heart. It too was stunning. I envy her too.

ONE of my favorite movies in grade school was The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. It shouldn't be surprising, since the first movie I ever saw in a theater as a child was Gilliam's Time Bandits. I didn't understand half of what was going on at the time, but I fell in love with the fantastic worlds coming alive--a chromatic spray--on that big screen. My favorite part of Baron Munchausen is when the traveling party descends into Vulcan's smithy, where they are surprised that the god spends his days running a lucrative arms dealing business. He proudly shows off his wares, until they come to his latest creation, a prototype ICBM. It kills the enemy, All the enemy. And their wives, children, sheep, cattle, cats, and dogs. Everything. A terrible act, all accomplished by just the push of a button. The little girl is shocked. Who would ever want to do something so horrible? It takes all kinds.

AND then I saw it. Thick black metal barrel. Just a squat tweedledee on a table next to the stairs up to the owner's place. I couldn't believe it was just sitting there, ignored. The caps were on. Good. I opened the front cap and looked at the massive convex face, no scratches no pits, smoothly alternating purple and yellow lines in the reflection. Coating's still intact. I took off the back cap and pulled out a gray card. Slowly tumbled the barrel in my hand like a top losing momentum. No fog, good.

TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS. Um, ma'am, I'm sorry, but, do you know how much it's actually-- I don't care. It's my husband's old stuff. I don't want it anymore. Eyes turned away. A hard edge, but not angry. Strange. I didn't want to argue with her, but it would be wrong to take this thing for such an absurd price. The barrel wasn't in mint shape--the brass was showing through some rubbed paint near the shade mounts; it was clearly the tool of a real photographer who used it, not a collector's piece. But the glass was perfect. I ran as fast as I could.

BOKEH is a word often used by photographers. It refers to the out-of-focus areas of a photo when a narrow depth-of-field isolates an object or plane in focus. But no one can really explain what good bokeh is, it just is. Most people describe it as Aesthetically Pleasing. Smooth and soft shadows, easy transitions between dynamically varying lights and darks, no jagged or harsh grain. But these are just general and vague descriptions: like all such things, beautiful bokeh depends on the eyes. The same photo will elicit a hundred different opinions about the quality of the bokeh. And every lens has a different bokeh signature, which can change depending on focusing distance, the aperture, the object being shot, and even the film used. One photo may show outstanding pop in the foreground image and a calming bokeh, and the same shot taken with different aperture and shutterspeed settings might reveal a jagged and harsh background. Even then, some people like harsh bokeh. It takes all kinds.

MY card was out of my case before I was even in the door. HEY, lawya-MAN! Hey, Jaffar, how're you doing today? Dude, checkit: I got back wit my Lady last night! That's great, J-man, how'd you swing that? Check this: I found this old photo when me and her went to Santa Cruz last summer--you ever ride the coaster? when you get near the end, they got these cameras, see, and they sell you the picture, so I took it and put it in a frame I got down at that store down past brannan, and that, roses, my best falafel, BAM! Hot Night Last Night! I busted outlaughing. Jaffar was really hilarious and just ferocious, love, life, falafel, didn't matter, he jumped at it like it really did matter. I bought a coke and some smokes because it's pretty rude to come in just to get cash from the ATM. J-man, I'm happy for you--glad you got her back. You Know it man! and hey, come back after three, I should have some fresh falafel out then. Will do, Jaffar, see you later. He gave me his big open-mouthed grin and thrust his right fist in the air. I would be back. His sandwiches sustain me.

I gently put it down on the table. Four-hundred dollars. Half my month's rent. Really stupid since I had to watch expenses as of late, but fuckit, when was I ever going to come across one of these that didn't cost the same as a down payment on a new car?. She just took it and put it in her gray box. Looked away. Nothing. I wanted to say something, maybe offer condolences, but I was just another stranger taking away her dead husband's things. I walked away. I thought maybe I should send her money in installments to make up for the deficit, but really she didn't care about the money. Sending more money would just be an installment reminder of the stuff she was trying to forget. Cruel. Maybe I'll wait a year and just send it anonymously; maybe she won't make the connection. Maybe. As I walked away, I wondered what happened to her husband's photos. I felt dark, and I needed to find a dark place, fast.

NOCTILUX. The name is instantly recognizable to most seasoned photographers. Old rangefinder hounds especially speak of it in reverential tones. There is no production lens like it, and its uniqueness is on display right on the barrel: 50mm, 1.0. ONE POINT ZERO. That's a full two stops faster than the normal prime kit lens that comes with starter cameras (four stops faster than a zoom), a full stop faster than the "fastest fast lens" of the competitors. It's the difference between using a flash or shooting in moonlight, candlelight even. The name really says it all: night light. Canon once made a 1.0 lens, but it was widely regarded as a dog, totally unusable when wide open, which is the entire point of having such a huge hunk of glass. The Noctilux is different, it was made to be shot fully open, in near darkness.

IT'S one of my favorite bars. It's not particularly nice inside, but it's pretty friendly, and it also doesn't have a particular crowd. You see the hipsters, the college kids, the old drunks, the mexican guys who haul groceries back and forth for the local bodegas, other working guys, and sometimes guys like me. The bar is shaped like a big horseshoe, so it's pretty hard to avoid looking at other faces and making eye contact. It really tends to facilitate interesting conversations. And the music is good too.

TO the left of me were two girls, punk-hipsterish, early-twenties, one with kool-aid hair, tartan plaid miniskirt, the other full of piercings, black skinny jeans. Cute. But what drew me most was kool-aid's boots: they were green patent leather knee high boots, with neon orange zippers that ran all the way up the back. I had never seen anything like them. They were discussing the best burrito joints in the neighborhood. I waited for a break as they were talking pork and chimed in that guadalajara had really good carnitas. It was all good. We didn't get into a burrito jihad, and they told me about a few places I hadn't tried. Crystal castles was playing and we talked about music for a bit. Piercing girl was a DJ and loved sampling motown into her trance mixes. I tried to think what that might sound like, but I couldn't wrap my music brain around it. She promised to send me a track through email so I could listen for myself. I thanked her.

I asked kool-aid where she got her boots. I got'em in austin last year at southbysouthwest, aren't they cool! I told her that she had great taste and that I had never seen boots so strange and stunning, and that if it didn't creep her out I would like to take a snap of her boots. It's always a good idea to ask, even if on the street, lesson learned from a trip to seattle a few years back--just because you have the legal right to do something doesn't mean you're not violating a social norm. Some people don't care, but others get really upset, as if you're really stealing their souls. Kool-aid was actually very flattered and proud to show off her boots; I could tell she really loved them. They spoke volumes, both to her and to others. Snaps. They went back to talking, this time about boys. Whenever they laughed in unison it made a really lovely sound, like that waterfall I really like near emerald lake up in sequoia. They were really nice.

THE Noctilux's bokeh is often admired for its highly Aesthetically Pleasing quality. Many say the bokeh signature is as unique a triumph as the speed or flare suppression. Fully open, out-of-focus elements are rendered in a delicate and swirly haze of light and shadow. Candles glow as if through a frosted bell-jar. Background figures ghost in place, enveloped in a thick fog. Nothing harsh at all. Painterly. And the sometimes surreal and dreamlike bokeh is even more visually stunning because of what the Nocti does to in-focus subjects. Fully open and at most reasonable shooting distances, its depth of field is astonishingly narrow: as one photo writer put it, "measured in inches, not feet." Subjects truly Pop. Out-of-focus areas descend into the swirly bokeh so quickly that at minimum distance a coke can's sharp letters fade into impressionist smudges. Very unique, strange, and to many, beautiful.

I asked Tanner to change the music to something more modern. I thought you loved the Beatles! A voice to my right boomed in: Kid's right. One of your speakers is out, and those old stereo records ain't like today--they just put singin' on one side and music on the other. Right now we're listenin’ to Eleanor Rigby and only hearin' Paul, nothin' else. You are So right! I was so busy I didn't even notice! I'll go see if Ian can fix it. I looked at the man, Old, black, big guy, receding hairline and a shock of hair in the back, tired. He was maybe in his fifties, a working guy having a couple quiet beers after his shift. He was in street clothes, jeans, but they were neat and still fresh--not what he wore to work. Hey, you knew that, about the Beatles! Son, I got all these old records.

I stepped outside and lit a cigarette. Deep inhale.

Hey, DICKHEAD. Standard black hoody. Followed me out of the bar.

Slow exhale. Yeah, can I help you?

I saw you in there, ASSHOLE, taking shots of *boots*, poser. Now you're gonna use that fucking garbage glass when you got one a these?

He swung his bag around--a really nice leather number, really nice--and quickly pulled out a black paint M3--with a Noctilux attached. It was the newest version, the one with the integrated shade. His kit was in great shape, even the black paint near the advance lever was pristine.

You got one a THESE--why would you fuck with that weak shit? poser.

Sorry man, just... playing around today. Nice M3 by the way, I had one but didn't like carrying a meter when going light. What do you use?

His eyes flared red before rolling back. Meter? Fucking TOOL. Real photogs don't... whatever, you wouldn't get it.

He and his Nocti went back in.

Deep inhale.

I started walking, time for falafel.

I guess it takes all kinds.