It's Just A Hammer

With me playing with film and large format again, it got me thinking about the emotional worth we invest in our tools. This can cut both ways - believing that without a certain set of tools, we are unable to make great photographs, or blaming our tools for the quality of work we do. Am I retrying large format film to achieve a quality not possible with digital? I don't think so, other than possibly being able to make bigger prints. Am I more efficient? Hardly! Is a ground glass really all that much better than a 3 inch LCD? You must be joking? Could it be that I simply like messing with view cameras, that the process is as important as the result? Absolutely?

But here's the rub. Does the equipment have an impact on our creativity? Might well be. If I spend 4 hours taking a dozen pictures, which I could have done in 20 minutes with a digital camera are the individual images made better? Probably not. But what about all that extra time absorbing the scene - noticing the light, checking the composition especially carefully before wasting film? Don't know.

Who has not at some time seen an amazing photograph in a newspaper. Given the tonalities of newsprint (ain't got none), and resolution of the 5 pixels per inch line screen (just exaggerating here), just about any damn camera could have taken the image and it would still be recognizable as a great photograph.

Is someone who likes messing with  cameras just a hobbyist by definition? Does caring about your tools prevent you from being or being considered as a serious photographer?

We do need to be comfortable with our tools - it's hard to be creative when you are cursing your camera. The right tool doesn't have to be the best tool, or the fanciest, or the most expensive. It doesn't need to be the fastest (and might even benefit from being slower). Wonderful images have been made with rickety old cameras mounting horrible lenses and exposing low quality film (or cheap point and shoot digitals. It helps if the person using said camera isn't letting dreams of better tools get in the way of making the best use of the tool that's in front of them.

Film At Four

AM that is, the time when I finished processing the first 8 sheets of 5X7 film from a hike on Friday. The backpack was about 35 lb. and at age 60 felt more like 50 lb. but I managed, using the waist belt to carry most of the weight it went fine, even taking it on and off repeatedly as I moved through the canyon. Finding a dry rock to lay the backpack and it's turned back flap was a little challenging but it had been raining all morning and conditions in the canyon were perfect.


The Shan Hao worked well, except for the 90 mm. lens which required the front and back standards to touch and which meant no movement in either. Given the depth of field with the 90 on 5X7, not a huge issue but something to consider. If I want to shoot architecture on 5X7, I'll get a 120 Nikkor SW - huge coverage.

There were a few times when I wished I had the simplicity of shooting digital, with a nice bright lcd to show me the image - but decent gr. glass should help - I have ordered a Maxwell screen and will report on it when it comes in a month or so.

I did wish for colour for one image in particular, but actually found it relieving that I didn't have any choice - I had to find subjects that would work in black and white and much to my surprise it was a good thing. I'm not sure that the extra size of 5X7 is worth the weight and bulk - but won't really know till I get some decent prints made.

I did like not having to stitch, not even having the option to do a focus blend, and having to decide which part of the image to let go out of focus, if any, was not a problem.

I made a mount board holder for the 5X7 negs. for scanning - only to have my scanner crap out on me - so no images to show you yet.

I went out last night after tennis to shoot some sewer construction materials lying nearby, this time with my ancient Technika IV. The view camera was ideal for the subject. I could align the focus where I wanted and blur the other areas.

Bottom line is I'm having fun. I fully expect that I won't be as productive (after all, I can't shoot colour), but it will be interesting to see if the quality of the images hold up, and if I'm able to get one good image per shoot, which is all anyone really needs.

Hopefully I'll get the scanning up and running soon and have some images to show.

First Shoot With 5X7

Went to Jura Canyon today. Have been there a few times shooting digital but was back with my 5X7. Pack weighed about 35 lb. and was ok with the waist belt carrying the weight instead of the shoulders. Working is slow, but where I'd take five shots of the same scene, with minor variations in position, each shot stitched or focus blended, not sure that in the end it was any slower.

Did find one shot that I wished I had colour film for, but I quite liked being forced to make black and white images and the real test will be in the quality of the prints made from the shoot. Made 12 images, most of them unique. Only once did I shoot the same setup, same lens, but different exposure.

Composing on the ground glass was frankly much harder than using the lcd - but to be fair this was because of a poor quality fresnel. A decent one is on order and we'll see how much difference that makes.

In the canyon, I used my 90 and 135 the most, and a few shots with the 210 and didn't touch the 450 but that's the nature of the place, narrow and confining and needing LOTS of depth of field.

Tried f32 and a couple at f45 and one at f64 - will be interesting to see if that is practical.

After the first couple of shots, I was thinking I liked that I had earned any images that work out. By the end I was fed up with putting the camera back in the backpack after every shot - carrying a wooden camera weighing sig. more than the tripod in a narrow canyon, water everywhere and some pools fairly deep, and having to traverse wet debarked trees to get past the deepest water - no I don't think I'd want the camera on the tripod for moving positions.

Still, it will come down to the percent of keepers. It will need to be dramatically higher than my digital ratio which is about 1 in 100 (I'm fussy). If it is one in 10, then that means I got one photograph I'll be proud of. In a way, it seems a waste to blow the other eleven negs, but one great image in four hours of photographing isn't that unreasonable.

Well, off to process the film in BTZS 8X10 film tubes - incredibly simple, just a bit slow is all. I wonder if there is a way to process two sheets at a time in each tube (since they are made for twice as large film. The film does move around so two loose sheets isn't on. Wonder what would happen if I used masking tape for the 7 minutes processing time, removing it in the fix. It's a thought. Might just try it on a couple of test pictures.

Quick And Dirty Comparison

For the full effect, click on the images and see them larger, but bottom line is the upper image was made with my 5D2, 50 mm. macro at f11, tripod mounted, live view (ie. no mirror bounce (in fact no shutter at the start of the exposure). The second is the result of literally tossing the 5X7 neg. onto my flatbed 4870 scanner, no holder, no glass to flatten it. It was made with my 210 Symmar S, f 32, 1/2 second exposure on TMAX-100.

At a guess, I'd say I'd need to use at least a double row stitch to get enough pixels to equal the resolution, possibly more. Note that one was taken in the morning, the other the night before, but that's a lot more information, I'd hazard a guess at significantly more than 100 megapixels worth.

Whether the ability to make 35X50 prints that can be viewed from 9 inches is worth the trouble of the 5X7 remains to be seen. I'm waiting on a backpack before I start seriously using the camera.

My plan so far is to use the lenses I have, 90 Nikkor, 135 Sinaron SE (which does in fact cover 5X7, barely), 210 Symmar S, 305 G-Claron and am getting a 450 mm. Fujinon-C.  If this actually becomes practical as well as fun, then I'll get a 120 Nikkor SW for architecture (for movements on the 5X7).

I'll continue to report in.

Light Meter

I'm using my S90 digital point and shoot as both viewing filter and light meter. In fact it took the picture above, which is more than you can say for most light meters. I set the mode to black and white, ISO to 100 and then take the shutter speed on manual exposure and f 8 and adjust it for the film and f stop I'm really using. Let you know how it works after I process the film.

Pictures Of New Camera

In the first photos, the camera looks pretty normal. When you look at the last image, the 4X5 looks like a toy in comparison.

Observations:

the camera is pretty sturdy and sets up easily. At full extension there is a little sag in the rails (you can see it in the second last picture), still very useable, but you'd need to be careful loading film. I'd probably try and avoid this much extension. As this is about 600 mm., and the longest lens I plan on using will be a 19 inch, it shouldn't be a problem.

I have ordered a backpack for it - going with the people at photobackpacker.com and I'll tell you how that turns out.

My new used camera comes with a 4X5 reducing back (as well as the 5X7) and also bag bellows. I'm investigating getting a Maxwell screen for the back.

Today, a three tube, six cap set of 8X10 BTZS processing tubes arrived. I had thought to tray process the 5X7 film but I'm not good at it and have screwed up tray processing of 4X5 any time I tried it. The BTZS will be slow - I can only process one sheet of 5X7 per tube, two tubes at a time. On the other hand, I can adjust development as I go and to suit. As development times are around 7 minutes, to processs 6 sheets will take an extra 14 minutes - not a lot to get custom developing for every single sheet.

I've been talking with other large format photographers and almost everyone is shooting digitally as well, but they continue to enjoy large format, so we'll see. It was the printing that was always a pain, trying for good prints that were reproduceable.

I'm happy with inkjet printing for the most part, but at some point I'll try contact prints, just to see - going back to how I started at age 12 making contact prints from 2 1/4 film.

Shen Hao HZX57 ATII Has Arrived

Big, Beautiful, Heavy - my thoughts on first revealing the camera. It is 8 lb. 15 oz. which is pretty decent for a 5X7 (the Ebony weighs 10 lb). I can remember years ago seeing a 5X7 and thinking it must be an 8X10 so I
m not too surprised. Made of teak and titanium alloy, it is very attractive, the ground glass huge after working in 4X5. The other Shen Hao 5X7 or a Chamonix would be a lot lighter but I'm not prepared to compromise on the swings (on the lighter cameras the swing moves the ground glass off to the side thus reframing the image) - been out twice now with the 4X5 and used a swing both times.

This camera comes with a Technika board adaptor so I can swap lenses back and forth. I'll have to give some thought to transporting the camera - will need space for camera, 3 lenses, and 6 holders.

I already have a Nikkor 90, Symmar S 210 and a 14 inch R. Dot Artar in Copal - might swap that for 19 inch but we'll see. First to see if I make use of it - or do I start thinking of the 4X5 as plenty big enough.

It will be fun.

I'll post pictures soon.

Monarch Coal Mine

On the hillside near the Atlas Coal Tipple, S. of Drumheller, Alberta.

Film Vs. Digital

I was shooting both this evening - hiked up a steep hill, so took the digital (which had a backpack), saving the view camera for some work nearer to the car. I'll need to set up a backpack for the view camera.

The digital seems almost too easy - I like the process of shooting with the view camera - of knowing what I'm doing and going to the trouble - as if somehow I'm earning the image. Whether the images will be any better remains to be seen - still haven't processed any of the film - perhaps tomorrow.

In looking at 5X7 cameras, I had seriously considered the Chamonix 5X8, but it won't take my 90 mm. Nikkor which does cover 5X7. Also, although I have never used a Phillips type camera with the two arms reaching rearwards to the back, it is quite apparent from photographs showing back tilt that in order to use back tilt, one has to swing the camera sideways a considerable amount and the camera is no longer pointing at what it had been - I think I'd find that frustrating - swing - rotate camera - swing more - rotate more - swing a little less - re-aim camera yet again... If anyone has experience with this type, I'd be interested in hearing about their experiences.

In the mean time I have purchased a used Shen Hao 5X7, the more traditional one - heavy at 8 lb. but reputed to be solid, and has the proper type of swing - which by the way, I had to use again with my 4X5 Shen Hao. I was photographing a small rusted cylinder of about two feet height, diameter a bit more than a foot and ran out of near focus with my 210 - the 5X7 extends to 610 mm. so that won't be a problem.

Again, using the 4X5 was fun. Don't know that I'll be using it to take exciting pictures, but hopefully good ones, and who knows, I might try some contact printing.

I Shot Film!, And Enjoyed It

Well, having had fun yesterday with the stump and not feeling I had got the best of it, I emptied out the darkroom (no mean feat itself), wiped down some surfaces and took some clean holders. I threw out all the old film (does film that was thawed in 1992 (God knows when I bought it) still work?). Anyway, I loaded six holders (12 sheets) and headed out for the stump.

I have found that for 4X5, the best tripod is my Berlebach 9043, with no head on it at all, just using the leveling centre post to aim up and down. The wood legs and metal spike feet work better than my carbon fibre Gitzo for the bigger camera. It does weigh a couple of pounds more, and by the time you place 4 inches of ball head on it, isn't as stable, but with camera right on the centre post - pretty good and quite versatile, grabbing the bottom of the centre post to position the camera.


I used both back tilt and back swing to get the plane of focus just right - actually quite fun and much easier than on a tilt shift lens on my dSLR.

I found the dark cloth a bit of a pain, either slipping down over the lens or more commonly off the camera entirely, or falling down between me and the camera - and it was hot under there (on a not especially warm day). My bifocals were a pain, only being able to do much with the bottom 1/8 inch of my progressives for  viewing. I have astigmatism so simple cheaters are not an option.

I once had a BTZS dark cloth which was small and closed at the back and elasticized round the camera - it worked perfectly with my Kardan Color - a couple of plastic clips on the metal body of the camera holding the cloth nicely in place. I might just have to do something similar to my Shen Hao 4X5.

The camera performed flawlessly with both the 135 and 210 lenses and interstingly the 210 stood in nicely for the 70-200 zoom on this occasion (ie. working from roughly the same distance).

Arrguably the fun part is now over - I have to clean the darkroom and the developing equipment thoroughly, process the film and then scan it. I made six shots, using two sheets for each shot. Perhaps I didn't need to do that since I can deal with spots and scratches in Photoshop, but you never know and it's what I always did.

I'll scan one neg from each holder at 300 dpi and consider that my 'proof sheet' from which I can then pick the negs I want to do hi res scans from.

I'll let you know how all that works out.

Of course, the obvious solution is to purchase a $40,000+ medium format digital system but like most of you, I'm doing this as an artist/hobbyist and no way can I recoup the cost of such a system. Factoring in the cost of the divorce,...

Hobbyists and artists just have to lump it and do it the hard way. Whether it will hold up to my 5D2 and have any artistic merits to the workflow remains to be seen.

Never Know What You'll Find

Was on my way to photograph some industrial equipment and though it was there this morning as I returned from the farmers market - it was gone when I went out to photograph four hours later - sigh. So I headed for a city park that is entirely wild - first growth firs - but the path was closed - washouts. On my way back, I noticed a giant tree stump in the garden of a rather modern and ordinary looking church - and spent a delightful hour photographing it in the rain, looking for the best compositions.

Can You Restore?

Last Sunday, I lost the hard drive that contained the upcomging book - everything - images, portraits, texts, even the list of photographers. Fortunately I use a combination of Time Machine and a redundant array Drobo 4X 1 terabyte backup system. Although it took 24 hours to restore all 500 gig. from the lost drive, it came through perfectly. This morning, my fourth drive on the Drobo gave up the ghost, but since the backup is redundant, I simply pulled out the drive and plugged in a spare one, which happened to be twice the size of the other three, no fuss, no muss, nothing lost. It will be a day or two before the new drive is loaded and the redundancy back in force but it doesn't get much more painless than this.

Three cheers for Time Machine and Drobo.

Thnking About Film - Continued

Well, I may be kidding myself, but I did pick up 100 Sheets of Ilford Delta 100 4X5 today. I won't consider any larger format till I have shot all 100 sheets, then we'll see. I might just pick up some colour negative 4X5 too for just in case.

Here's a few images from today - all could have been done with the 4X5 - just more trouble - and iffy whether it would have done any better. On the other hand, if you assume that 4X5 has about 60 megapixels of resolution, that would make 5X8 120 megapixels and it's going to be some time before I can afford a 120 megapixel camera.

Now I have to clean out the darkroom so I can load film. By the way, the middle picture is a two exposure blend, the first and last are focus blends. Wonder if I could have stopped down enough to get adequate depth of field with a 4X5.

Scott Peters Recommended, and Do I Try Large Format Again?

Have been wondering about shooting large format again, just for a change. Was checking out Chamonix cameras from China and their gallery had an image I reecognized - by Scott Peters, who shoots with 8X10 and more interestingly, with a 7X17. I highly recommend viewing Scott's website. He has some lovely 7X17 images in particular.

Of course, enlargine 7X17 is difficult. Hell, scanning it would be difficult - it really encourages you to make contact prints in the wet darkroom. I still have my darkroom - ok, it's a mess and I'd have to remove the crap now being stored in it, but it would be intriguing. Lens coverage for 17 inches wide is problematic - but oddly, old lenses like the Red Dot Artars and even new lenses like the Nikon 450 M or Fujinon C are possibilities.



Another far less expensive and much more mobile option would be a 5X7 or even 5X8, scannable for inkjet printing, even a decent contact print. The ratio isn't as extreme, nor as intriguing. Film is half a sheet of 8X10 - which is still available in colour. I'm guessing you could even get it processed using 8X10 hangers.

I'd lose focus blending, though exposure blending wouldn't be the same problem.  Perhaps the biggest issue would be losing my 70-200 with which I make a lot of my photographs - could I learn to love modest focal lengths? I'd def. have issues with the limited number of shots I could make - would it even be possible for me to change from my one good shot in one hundred formula I have found about right for the last 10 years, even before digital - simply not practical in this format? It might be too frustrating. I suspect that 5X8 could probably work with my current 4X5 lenses, 90 nikor, 210 Symmar S, doubt the Fuji 400 telephoto would work but I could pick up a 450 non telephoto and it would be a fraction of the size.

As to weight, 7X17 would definitely be more, but I'm horribly overweight and have lost 20 lb. of 100 I need to lose - surely I can lug one third of that in camera gear after the weight comes off?

5X8 with a limited selection of lenses wouldn't weigh a lot more than my 1Ds2 and camera kit when it includes my 300 - even with a modest number of film holders.

No question it would be different - I'm 60, could be I'm going senile - hope not. Last time I took out my 4X5 it reminded me of all the reasons I quit large format. I'd have to make sure I have my kit simple and reliable. I wonder....



It's all just dreams at the moment,

Why Photographs Work - the Book

 I was asked about the upcoming book. As excellent progress has been made and we have a definite list of photographers, I thought I'd bring everyone up to date on this exciting project.

The book is a discussion by me about what makes each of the 51 photographs work, followed by a description by the photographer of making the image (why more than how), a short bio, picture of the photographer, reference to their website and publications and who were their influences.

Photographers include:

Bruce Barnbaum
Charlie Cramer
David Maisel
Beth Moon
George Jerkovich
Sandra C Davis
Hans Strand
Michael Kenna
Carol Hicks
Francois Gillet
Joe Cornish
David Ward
Pete Turner
Larry Louie
Cole Thompson
Susan Burnstine
Kim Kauffman
Louie Palu
Michael Levin
Freeman Patterson
Craig Richards
Elizabeth Opalenik
Bengt Ekelberg
Sven Fennema
Harald Mante
George E. Todd
John Sexton
Roman Loranc
Wayne Levin
Tillman Crane
Christopher Burkett
Shaun O'Boyle
Gordon Lewis
Brigitte Carnochan
Lawrence Chrismas
Dennis Mecham
Charlie Waite
Brian Kosoff
Milan Hristev
Paul Mahder
Blair Polischuk
Billie Mercer
Huntington Witherill
Ryuijie
Joe Lipka
John Wimberley
Mitch Dobrowner
Nick Brandt
Phil Borges
Dan Burkholder
Thomas Holtkoetter



Each photographer has one image in the book. Many of the images are famous but perhaps people don't know why they like the image and therefore can't create similarly great images and the book will help. Some are quite unknown images and will suprise and hopefully delight.

The book will be 10X10 inches. Printing will be good but not coffee table quality (check my previous books for similar quality - very good) but it will also be reasonably priced, some 200+ pages.

The status of the book is it has been written and edited by the publisher (Rockynook) and I am in the process of re-editing. it is hoped to be out before Christmas but it's going to be a close thing.

I should say that each photographer has donated his or her photograph and writing to the project with no compensation other than some free copies of the book and I'm extremely grateful to them for this (the project could not have been done otherwise).

There is a significant variety of photography in the book. 46% is in colour, there are 8 women, photographers from Canada, USA, Britain, Sweden, Germany and Bulgaria. There are nudes, traditional landscapes, manipulations, abstracts, allegories and more. I pushed my middle aged white guy background to select images but love every one of them, in some cases for years.

Not all the photographers are famous, not all have great depth of wonderful work behind them, but each has risen to the occasion to produce a beautiful and or meaninful image.

Even in the time that I have collected photographers and done the writing, some of the least known photographers have been or ar about to be published or have won international awards - I think I have chosen very well, even if I do say so. My writing in the book isn't terribly different from the style used in my blog.

The book is for photographers who want to learn from the greats, and for viewers of photography who want to better appreciate great images, and for everyone to push their taste boundaries a little beyond comfort, while still paying strict attention to traditional print values. None of the images stands on concept over skill, idea over craftsmanship.

George

The Right Light

The right light is critical to good photographs. Both brillant sun with its black shadows and really flat light result in dull boring pictures, especially in black and white. HDR has helped the sunlit images but really flat lighting just plain sucks.

Predicting what light you will have for your photographs can be really difficult. Some photographers will only go out at sunrise but of course sunset lasts just as long and can be every bit as nice. I have found it practical in summer to head out in the afternoon, photograph at sunset, either camp or motel and then go out very early to photograph before and during sunrise, heading home again.

Weather conditions often change though and by not heading out you may be missing on the wonderful light that followed the crap light. A thunderstorm develops and the light is magic. Perhaps you end up photographing something in the shade, with somewhat directional lighting provided by other objects reflecting into the subject area. When photographing the small, local conditions trump overall lighting and even holding up an umbrella, shirt or you can be enough to change the lighting from poor to great.

Box And Pipe Version 2

In keeping with getting the shot quickly into the camera before things change, I made the picture posted on the weekend, but I also then stopped to think about what I was doing. I decided to include more of the curve in the upper left, while at the same time exposing only the lid of the box. Moving back a few inches and adjusting the zoom allowed for what I think is a better composition. Again, Helicon Focus is used for near infinite depth of field, and this time I was careful to consider the framing with the closest focus as the image is slightly magnified (ie. cropped) which means that if you do your framing with the distant part of the image in focus, you may get the framing wrong.

I took advantage of the colour sliders in the black and white conversion layer in photoshop to give the grass just the right tint through adjusting the yellow and green sliders while slightly darkening the beige box by darkening the red slider, none of which affected the relatively neutral concrete. Considerable work was done with curves adjustment layers to get the tonalities right (some 10 layers of adjustment), as well as subtle highlight dodging near the end of the workflow - just as I wrote about in my second book.

I have just realized that the bottom corner of the grass looks a little weak - so before I make my first print, I'll darken that (but have left the problem here for you to see the kind of thing that I adjust to make a good print).

Local Sewer Construction

Gardening Leads To...

I was just thinking I should do more with my rust images, but after working on the book for months, the garden was sadly neglected. I repaired the wheelbarrow, flipped it over after replacing the wheel which was always going flat, and lo, rust, lots of rust, in interesting patterns.

After taking the picture, I hauled a couple of barrow loads of compost for  a new flower bed. Not a great photograph, but a nice one.

Merg Ross

As part of the new book project, I'm asking photographers to name the people they admire. More than one name was unknown to me. I had a look for Merg Ross and was delighted to find all manner of interesting images. In checking out the site, I see that he was a student of and friends with Brett Weston and one can certainly see Brett's influence in Merg's photography, but his images are definitely his own, very strongly designed and an interesting variety of subjects, well worth checking out.

Toning In A Digital World

My persistent absence from posting is of course because I'm hard at work on the next book, but it's months away (and longer if I don't keep my nose to the grindstone). For the book, which is about photographs by other people, I have had all manner of methods of delivering images to me, from digital files ready for the book, sized and everything, to prints, to unedited scans from transparencies and colour negatives as well as monochrome. Some of the photographers print on silver, others platinum. So, reproducing their work as closely as possible has not been a simple task.


Dennis Mecham sent a beautiful silver print, monochrome and not toned (or so I first thought). I scanned the print for him and to check on quality, made a print from the scan. Wow, his print had a lot of colour compared to the totally neutral inkjet print from my 3800.

I noted that the blacks were black, but the midtones warm, almost pinkish rather than sepia, yet so subtle I hadn't even noticed it till I made the comparison print.

Someone had the suggestion on the net that a good way to tone images is to forget quadtones, stay in RGB and do the following. I regret not being able to credit the photographer but I dare say the idea has multiple sources anyway. Here it is:

Add a new fill layer from the layers menu in Photoshop. In the layers palette, set this layer to colour - thus applying colour information to the previous image layer but not luminance, thus tinting the image.

In doing this you are asked for the colour of the fill layer and you specify the hue you want. For my first effort, I chose R 208, G 201 and B 185. I later reddened it a bit, making the toning look more pink than orange by moving the colour slider on the right downwards when setting colour. (you can change the colour by double clicking on the layer icon for that layer in the layers palette, just like bringing back up the controls for any adjustment layer).

Now, here's the bit that I found helpful in the above project.

1) roughly set the opacity of the fill layer so that the middle and lighter tones in the image look right.

2) double click on the layer (to the right of the layer name) and you get up the blending window. Here you can change all manner of blending. What I wanted was neutral blacks and a gradual switch from toned in the lighter colours to neutral. I did this by using the underlying image slider at the bottom of the window. You will find a split black mark on the underneath of the slider. Holding down the option key, I dragged the right half of the dark slider nearly all the way to the right. This had the effect of determining which parts of the underying image would have the toning effect applied by the fill layer.

Essentially in pure black I had no toning, and a gradual switch to full toning where the split marker had moved to on the left.

Now, with the saturation of the fill layer and the controls of the blending window, I could get the toning close to perfect on screen. A few prints later, I not only had the colours of the two prints, one digital, one silver, matching extremely closely, I had the prints matching for luminance as well.

I did notice one phenomenon. Though I don't worry about metamerism these days (digital prints changing colour in different light sources), I did note that the strength of the toning to the two prints changed in relation to each other as I moved from flourescent to north light. It isn't a problem, just something to note. Anyway, the two prints are on their way back to Dennis.

Try this method of toning your black and white images, I think you will like it.

April Blizzard

Wednesday was a lovely 17 degrees C., Thursday morning I walked the dog in warm sunshine. That afternoon the wind whipped up to 30+ mph and the temperature dropped below freezing and the snow started falling horizontally.

Friday I headed to Edmonton to see my Dad and found snow drifts along the highway and in one spot, they were black, dust blowing off the newly tilled fields.

Today the snow was almost gone and the temperature back up and my friend Lawrence Chrismas and I headed for the badlands of Drumheller. Lawrence is one of the photographers in my next book and we needed a portrait of him, so we stopped off at his small miner's house property adjacent to the Red Deer River and made this portrait.

The Process

I walk into the living room, and see my wife's harp sitting in a sewing basket, with the sun shining on the harp and casting interesting shadows on the end of the sofa. I am not thinking photography in the least, but this is too good to not do something.

I know that the sun will hide behind our spruce tree within a few minutes, so I grab my Canon S90 for a "
grab" shot. I try about five images but think this is worth recording with my "good" camera, so dash downstsairs, switch lenses on the 5D2 to my 24-105 IS, pop in a memory card and run up stairs.

I quickly realize that the best shots are going to be with me lying on the floor, camera looking up so the curve of the harp complements the curve of the end piece of the sofa. I zoom to fit where I flopped down and start shooting. By luck, I happen to be at roughly the right exposure, even though the camera was left on manual, but I start using my head. I convert to program mode, and up the ISO to 400 as the first exposures were 1/8 second.

I realize that I may not be at the best spot, so I move back and forth, making minor lateral adjustments so that the gap between harp and sofa end are ideal, using the zoom to fill the frame. Closer in looks nice, but I also zoom back so I can fine tune the crop after the fact - recognizing that the light is already fading from the top of the harp.

In all, I shoot about 20 images, moving back and forth, fine tuning one edge only to realize that another one needed adjusted. Eventually the light had changed enough it was time to quit.

I would have preferred to use my tripod but with its centre post it wasn't going to get low enough and I didn't think I had the time to go get it anyway. In hind sight, I should have gone back to manual control and used a wider f stop so the background sofa was more blurred. Certainly the images from the S90 had way too much depth of field - and the highlights were blown on auto exposure with it.

With the 5D2 shooting raw, I did need to recover the highlights a bit. Several of the images suffered fatally from hand shake (I was in an awkward position on the floor). The light was better in the earlier images. I did though have several exposures to choose from, showing various crops.

Above is the first shot I tried to work with - sharp, decently exposed, encompassing most of what I wanted - though it didn't include the top of the harp or the very top of the sofa. I worked with the full size image and made a print and decided that although the shape at the bottom right was nice, the seat if the sofa sticking into the image didn't help. I thought I'd concentrate on the lower part of the image and so cropped the top so that the left edge of the harp would meet the top left corner of the image.

But I wasn't entirely happy - too much space int he middle and I missed the opening up of the gap between harp and sofa at the top (here it got smaller and smaller till the top edge).

I decided to look for another image. Better.

Then I thought, what if I converted it to black and white, and what if I used the filtering capabilities in the conversion (CS4 b&W adjustment layer) to enhance the wood.

Now, this is the end of the story, so far. I might pick a diff. image which includes more to the left so that I could have the edge of the harp meet the top left corner (though so far I actually don't like it as much - I tried). The wall needs more work, a bit uneven, and the walls showing between harp and sofa end should perhaps be a bit darker too, but I find that this is a good spot to stop, put up the image where I can see it several times a day, and in a few days I can see if further work, or even a different image will be the best.

Congratulations To Chuck Kimmerle

Chuck has a lovely portfolio of Prairie winter photographs in the latest Lenswork. To see the images you have to purchase the magazine of course but here's a link to Chuck's home page. There are a couple of points we could make about this portfolio. I was raised on the prairies and these images speak to me of my experience. The images are not dramatic, they aren't scary or depressing, they don't have any political agenda unless it's to remind us of our roots. Each image quietly goes about illustrating one aspect of winter in the middle of North America, the flat lands. Many find photographing flat difficult, being only able to see the grandeur of peaks and canyons as being worth while. Here is a reminder that closer to home can be very productive.

The other point is that each image of the portfolio reinforces the others, fills in a few gaps in describing prairie winters. Brooks Jensen has always had a preference for and encouraged and promoted portfolios of related images rather than a "best of" strategy and it's very clear here that the photographs work together.


It might be tempting to think that weaker images combined can have sufficient strength to make a good portfolio but in reality, any portfolio is heavily biased by the weakest image therein. Two weak images and the portfolio is in trouble, three and it's more than likely game over.

This does not mean that photographers who are eclectic are precluded from creating portfolios - it simply takes longer. If every year or two, you illustrate a particular subject again, then within 20 - 30 years you might well have dozens of potential portfolios. Many well respected photographers did exactly that. The downside is it takes patience and we do not live in a time or a society that is enamoured of patience - we want fame and we want it now. The only possible solution would be some sort of a compromise - mostly eclectic but one or two projects which could turn into portfolios in a reasonable length of time. After all, since you photograph all manner of different things, surely there must be fodder there for a project.

Anyway, this started out as a heads up to Chuck's images and I think they well well repay careful study.

The other portfolios in Lenswork 87 are quite different and perhaps not to everyone's taste. Here too study can repay. Brooks presumably thought them worth bringing to our attention and perhaps we can figure out why they work. Sometimes we can learn from styles entirely different from our own, while not compromising our own style and taste.

This Isn't Photography

There are a lot of things we do in our pursuit of the craft/hobby/art of photography, which often distract from the real job of DOING photography. For example:

- talking about photography
- reading about photography (except for my books of course)
- playing with cameras
- running tests
- checking out the local camera store
- trying new papers
- checking out online reviews/anecdotes/stories
- writing about photography (oops)
- thinking that we should be photographing, except that (here add your own excuse - weather, time, money...)

Gee, when you add it all up, that's a lot of time NOT photographing - what would happen if we spent an equal amount of time photographing - just think how good we'd get, how many marvelous images we'd make.

Sigh...

Working With What You Have

Howard Grill has a nice essay and example of fighting the subject, then realizing that it makes more sense to work with what you have.

One In A Hundred

Doesn't seem to matter who you are, or even what style of shooting you do, most people report that they are really happy with about one in one hundred photographs. This explains why I was so frustrated as a large format shooter as the same odds seemed to apply there - and it would appear they applied to Ansel Adams. Of course, his one was better than our one, but he probably didn't feel any happier with the one than we do.

Common sense would suggest that if you approach each scene methodically and find the absolutely best position and wait for the perfect timing, light and wind, success should be much more common. But, for every picture that you spend 20 minutes (or more) fussing over, you missed 19 other photographs which from my experience quite often turn out better than the one you stopped the car for in the first place.

We will distort the figures if we start shooting 10 images to do a focus blend, 5 images for a stitch, 3 for an exposure blend, etc. but discounting those inflated  numbers, the rule is pretty close to right for many of us.

Knowing the odds, we can relax about shooting (it hasn't been one hundred yet so I shouldn't be kicking myself for not getting a great image). In fact, the more desperate we are for a good image, the less open we are to seeing what's interesting in front of us and the more rigid our thinking about what will make a good photograph.

It would be rare to shoot 100 different images at a single scene. I find this takes about three separate scenes. So, if I want to come as close as possible to guaranteeing a decent photo today, I'd better plan on photographing more than one scene/setup. This is relevant in terms of setting up the day, but also in being open to finding something interesting on the way to or from the main work of the day. Some of my best images have been photographed after the light turned bad, while travelling to or from the scene, or from finding something different at the scene from what you expected to photograph.

This willingness to be flexible is crucial to being successful in getting a good image and getting good images is what drives us out there the next time.

Emotion In Landscape Photographs

Photographers often struggle with creating emotion in their landscape images, without actually photographing rubbish heaps and urban sprawl and industrial pollution. I think there are at least two ways in which emotion plays a part in really good landscape images.

For a start, instead of asking what emotion an image generates, think instead of mood of the image - is it peaceful, dramatic, bold, quiet, subtle, shouting, sad, angry, agitated, scary, shy, loud, brash, rude, sublime? Does it make the viewer feel awe, wonder, puzzlement, curiosity, calm, smug, satisfied, complete, uncertain, doubtful, regretful, wistful?

Awe and wonder can be generated without dramatic light, huge canyons, storm clouds and long shadows. The awe can be created (in some viewers) through subtlety, by showing something not usually seen, through the detail shown and the careful arrangement of the elements of the photograph.

ColorMunki

I had been frustrated with the quality of my prints, especially on some papers - great on Harman FBAL gloss, quite far off in the bottom half of the tones with Enhanced Matte, despite using the proper profiles.

I decided to pick up a ColorMunki - even if it didn't work out for printer profiling, I hoped it would do a decent job on the monitor.

The first thing it did was measure the room brightness and announce that even though I didn't have the monitor anywhere near the top of the brightness range, it was WAY too bright. Now it's set less than half way to brightest (any further dark and I'd need a candle). Other than that, not a lot changed in the monitor profiling before and after as shown in the ColorMunki software - better skin tones - more pink and less yellow. Anyway, on to the printer profiling. Complete disaster. First round, second round, third round, with considerable reading on the net to find out what I was doing wrong. It wasn't whether I used perceptual with or without black point compensation, it didn't matter if I used relative colorometric, all were awful. Colour management was off as requested, I was getting frustrated.

On the fourth attempt, I found a youtube video on the colormunki by Oliver Neilsen. He pointed out that the colormatching setting in the print dialog box was critical. In photoshop, when you select no colour controls in the second print dialog, it overrides color matching, but when you print the test prints from Colormunki, it doesn't and you have to manually change the setting from colorsync to Epson (or other vendor if dif. printer).

The printed sheets looked hugely different - much darker and more saturated colours. The resultant profile is miles better than the Epson provided profile for Enhanced Matte (my standard proofing paper).

Why x-rite didn't control this (Photoshop did) or at the very least mention it in their help, I don't know. Why wasn't it mentioned in the dozen articles I read about problems with Colormunki?

Anyway, thanks to Oliver, I now have the best color matching between monitor and print I have ever had.

I will have to test with a variety of prints and with various papers before I can give an unlimited endorsement to the Colormunki - but now that I have the problems out of the way, I am very impressed.

So:

when you print the test image from ColorMunki, you need the settings both above and below:

 

I don't really know if 2880 makes a difference on enhanced matte - now that I have the colour right, that will be a reasonable thing to find out - with a different profile of course.

High speed deposits ink while the head travels both to AND fro, and with modern printers doesn't seen to be an issue. In theory, were there play in the head or belts, you'd want to do all your printing in one direction but test so far have not convinced me there is a need to take almost twice as long to print.

I'll update you on my experience with the ColorMunki as I gain more experience with the new profile and work with other papers.

More On Meaning

Following up on the thoughts about whether photographs have to have meaning, I went through my images to find an ideal pair of photographs, one with meaning, and another which has been well accepted, is beautiful but has no message. In truth, I found it very hard to find even a few images that didn't have an obvious message or mood.

With landscapes, typically there are no messages sent but the photographer has a reaction to a scene and that will show in the photograph. The viewer however will bring their own circumstances, education and personality to interpreting the scene. The photographer may have been full of wonder as the sun came over the mountains at 6 am while the viewer, reminded of visiting a similar scene with their parents, may feel sad. In general, when an artist creates a work that reflects how they feel there is the potential for great work. When the artist wants to manipulate the viewer to the artist's viewpoint, we have propaganda and the odds of great art are much less. If you really want to manipulate peoples thoughts, join an advertising agency.

Do Photographs Have to Have Depth?

I'm busy with the next book and have written more than 50 essays about why particular images work. I have noticed that many of these great images have or create or allow one to imagine a story to the image. A photograph might make you think of your childhood, or galaxies or feeling trapped. Other images are what they are and one isn't directed, encouraged towards or supplied with any kind of story at all. A picture of a flower is a picture of a flower - no nebulae, no sex, no childhood memories, just a flower - but it's a fantastic picture of a flower, made by Mapplethorpe with his 8X10 , the print magnificent in its detail and subtleties of tone.

So the question is: do all really great photographs work on multiple levels or can a photograph indeed be quite simple (not just in design) and yet be magnificient?

"Simple Gifts" is a wonderful tune. Of course, it has been used as a hymn, but I discovered it through Aaron Copeland's Appalachian Spring, and in the movie Witness and I don't have any imagery when I hear it, it just works for me, and apparently a lot of other people. Same story with Amazing Grace. As someone put it it, "a bloody great tune". No complicated mathematics like a Bach Cantata, no imagery like Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony or the moods of the Wagner and Mahler.

Could it be that some photographs are simply themselves, without pretentions of depth and sophistication, yet done so well that they stand on their own?

Elliot Erwitt's photographs are pretty simple - the small dog, large dog, lady's boots image for example.  Many of Cartier Bresson's images are magnificent without having a political, economic or even cultural statement to make (many do, but that's another story). These non involved images are just as revered as his ones of concentration camps and exotic countries and poor people.

This would suggest that extra layers of meaning are not in fact requisite to greatness, that an image can simply be itself and still be loved and admired.

This raises the question then as to whether an image which doesn't have these extra layers of imagery and message needs be that much better composed, more perfectly printed, more interesting in subject and what does this mean for our own photography and does this have anything to do with the discussions we have had recently about "crap" photographs and not getting images?

Perhaps some people don't actually appreciate "a bloody great tune" and choose music you can't hum to in the shower.

Rust and Stripped Paint

Photographed this morning. Had actually planned on photographing locomotive, but this particular old passenger car had wonderful peeling paint patterns and cracks and I spent most of my time exploring it. The sun was just barely off the car side as I started and by the end was just glancing it.
5D2, single image, f 16.

Slamming What You Don't 'Get'

Warning: RANT AHEAD

There were some quite negative comments about my article and my images on Luminous Landscape in the last week, something I fully expected and I have written some counter arguments to the critics, both on the luminous landscape forum and here, for what it's worth. Today I read the extremely negative comments about the latest artcle on Luminous Landscape, Light Fantastic, denigrating both the article and the images. I cannot leave this alone.

Two issues come to mind.

1) a remarkable number of photographers seem to feel that if they don't like an image, it is automatically junk and should never have seen the light of day, and most certainly doesn't belong on a recognized site like Luminous Landscape.

I don't 'get' jazz, but the idea that I'd suggest to anyone that it is rubbish is bizarre. Not only am I sure that it isn't rubbish, I would be afraid to look stupid if I wrote a criticism of the genre or a particular piece - I simply don't know enough to comment. This is my problem, my deficiency, my ignorance and I feel bad enough writing about it here - to pontificate on its worth is unimaginable. Apparently to a lot of people, commenting on what they don't understand, appreciate, 'get' or like is not only fair game, they feel it's their god given right if not duty to do so in extreme terms. It's one thing to say you don't like an image - that is simply a statement of fact. To say that it is rubbish, and shouldn't have been published is an entirely different thing.

2) I am surprised at how many photographers seem to be entirely satisfied with their photography, apparently not aspiring to improve it. They suggest that talent is inate, that creative expression has nothing to do with skill and craft, and therefore they have no need to practice, learn, consider alternative views, or expand their horizons.

I have taken the trouble several times to look up the work done by these people - ther attitudes show in their work. But they are happy, and I have no intention of belittling their work - perhaps I just don't 'get' their work.

Such happiness with one's work must be very nice for them, I just don't see why they need to shoot down other people.

Of course, what I have done is to criticise the criticiser - almost certainly a futile task, and perhaps not a little ingenuous - ranting about ranting?

Anyway, I have got it off my chest, and YOU were warned, and I'm sure no one is going to change because of what I have just written. People who like to improve (and I'm guessing that's close to all of us involved in this blog) will continue to stretch and try and learn and look, worry and doubt, fret and obcess - and the others won't and, yes; I know I shouldn't care.

Have a nice day, if you made it this far, thank you for listening to my rant, you have helped a poor man in his suffering...

Sigh...

Michael Kenna Video

As part of my next book project, I have been checking out information on Michael Kenna. On his site are a number of interviews and one in particular, a video; shows Michael out photographing and gives an excellent sense of "working the scene", as Michael wades through thigh high snow, and moves about the scene, trying different angles, getting down on his knees for a better view point, and stopping to think about the image rather than rushing about maniacally. View it Here

Michael Levin

Michael is one of the photographers who will be represented in my next book and he happened to be in town to open a new show of his work this last weekend so I attended, and we had a good chance to chat. I have written about Michael's work before but know a bit more about him.

Michael was a restaurant owner before becoming a photographer. He has no arts training whatsoever and only started photographing some six years ago. Rather than do like so many of us and read all the technical stuff he could get hold of, he flew to California and checked out all the galleries and found out what good photographs look like, particularly the work of Michael Kenna. He then found out what these people photograph with and purchased the same equipment (medium and large format up to 8X10 cameras). He never experimented, he didn't read lens reviews, didn't experiment with dozens of developers. He put all his effort into his seeing and worked single mindedly until he too could produce those luminous tones that represent the finest printing. He hasn't changed his techniques since, still working with film. He has however, taken advantage of modern inkjet printers to produce large print (why wouldn't he, he was shooting with 8X10 after all). He wouldn't mind a medium format digital back, but can't afford one (typical of most fine art photographers).

So many of us get distracted by the inadequacies (assumed or real) of our equipment and this detracts from our efforts to make better photographs. So many of us older geezers wanted to be Ansel Adams but refused to use large format and spent way too much money and time trying to squeese large format quality out of small format cameras. Some of you will remember using special copy films and tricky soups, which produced sharp results of lousy pictures.

Michael did it the right way. He found something he wanted to say, found great photographers who knew how to say similar (but not identical) things and made the intelligent assumption that using their methods was the way to go. Questions of convenience and cost didn't enter into it. When you think of how much some of us spent on the wrong films, wrong cameras, wrong developers and bad prints, we could easily have afforded decent equipment. Besides, there are always ways to do things cheaply - it just isn't sexy to do so. Some of my best images have been shot with a 10D - you probably couldn't give one away these days - only six megapixels - useless, well, not really...

Food for thought.

Check out Michael's work and if you ever get the chance to view his prints...

By the way, he recently had an offer of an inexpensive print, funds to be donated to Haiti relief - I placed my order.

He has a book out, which is currently out of print but is soon to be reprinted. The quality is good and I'm going to get one.

Photographer Interviews

In doing work for my next book, "Why Photographs Work" it was necessary to do some research on Pete Turner and this led to an interview at Berman Graphics

Not only did I find a great interview, there are more for the reading, complete with photographs by these great photographers. Check it out. They have Jay Maisel, Eric Meola and several others.

Can You Learn To See?

My essay on learning from the best images has generated considerable controversy. Attitudes have varied widely but several have suggested that artistic expression has little if anything to do with rules and advice and practice and even learning. Interestingly that attitude seems to be stronger amongst those who have gone to Art School, which begs the question of why did they go, and did they think they got their money's worth?

Article On Luminous Landscape

CHeck out my latest article at Luminous Landscape, on learning from the best. As expected, it has generated some controversy, along the lines of "rules and tricks and guides have nothing to do with artistic expression". my response is that they have nothing to do with ideas and everything to do with expressing them.

I think this is fundamental to the issue of traditional photographers being frustrated with the low level of quality in much of the work being promoted by the more "Arty" of organizations and publications. They worship the idea while downplaying communication skills.

Thoughts on the subject?

Fuzzy Filters

Much is made of image quality when no low pass filter is used in front of a digital sensor - as per Leica, medium format backs, and Foveon sensors. It's always been assumed that once pixel counts got high enough, the fuzzy filter which blurs the image so patterns like cloth don't create moire patterns in the Bayer algorithm interpretation of the sensor data would no longer be necessary. Despite this the Nikon D3X has one at 24.5 megapixels, the Canon 5D2 at 21.5 megapixels has one, so it isn't clear when we are going to be able to drop it. People talk about better software solutions for removing moire but the reality is it is darn hard to know what is a repetitive pattern and what is an artificial effect of the interpolation.

In reality, the problem isn't in the math, it is in the regular rows and colums of colour filters that sits in front of the sensor. The printing industry found that stochastic printing, in which the dots that make up half tone images was the way to produce a jump in print quality. If we could somehow produce a colour filter array in which the red blue and green filters for each pixel were placed randomly, or at least in a pattern that appears random but is known, then we might see the end of the filters.

Myself, the easier solution would be to make the rgb filter removable - what about creating it with an lcd screen in front of the sensor - you could have your option of three shot green then red then blue exposures for full colour pixels - or no colour so we are doing a black and white sensor, or random but known pattern as needed. Wonder if that is possible. After all, the 7D has an lcd filter in the viewfinder for displaying focus points and leveling.

Who knows where this will lead.

Harald Mante

Let me highly recommend Harald Mante's Photography Unplugged. This is a beautiful book superbly printed, 193 photographs on their own page, or occasionally a group of four photographs. All the work is in colour and the book is a celebration of colour.

I met Harald at Photokina 2008 - he was still running around with his ancient film Minolta and Kodachrome. You can see from his photographs that he was trained in the graphic arts, that he came out of the Bauhaus tradition of Germany and was both taught and influenced by Kandinsky.

This book can teach a lot about design to all photographers and even black and white photographers will find his colour enjoyable.

You can see many of the images at his website
although the images are unfortunately watermarked - still, it will whet your appetite to have the book.

The price is an incredible $50 list - a huge bargain.

Elbow Canyon - Self Critique

Don't forget to click on it to see it in a decent size.

The subject matter is good, the areas of snow contrasting with the colourful rocks. There isn't any overall pattern however and particularly the far left is a bit weak, kept from cropping it only to preserve the arc of the water's edge across the bottom of the image.

Arguably, cropping it tighter on both left and right would help, though I still have a sense that it isn't quite right. The most obvious flaw is that there is nothing in the composition to balance the huge rock on the right.



It isn't necessary for objects to literally balance - size for size. For example,



in which the small object works with the large. The issues are that the background is plain so the relationship is easy to see, and there are not dozens of other shapes to confuse the relationship, as is happening in my image.

It might be possible to help, there is a blue almost horizontal slab on the left which is already a little lighter than the rocks around it - lightening it further would make it more prominent and reinforce its relationship to the right hand rock - but one is almost round, so perhaps I'm kidding myself.

That's one of the problems in editing - you think you can fix things, but the fixes are iffy at best and sometimes you have to recognize when to quit and find another image.

I like the image, I like the crop better, it just isn't a great image. I'd be willing to display it, sell it, but I probably wouldn't submit it to an editor - just not quite strong enough.

Culvert

Shot this afternoon near Elbow Falls, west of Calgary. Helicon Focus used for depth of field (the tunnel entrance is sloped so I could not keep all of the tunnel entrance in focus at f16. Canon 5DII, 70-200 f4IS lens, tripod, live view.

Banff

I was in Banff for an office function but had the morning to photograph. Headed for Bow Falls. The falls themselves are more of a rapids than a fall, but in Winter, the ice can be interesting, especially if not too cold. I did manage to find some open water and ice edges to photograph but actually found more interesting material further upstream, back towards town.

Is Crap Still Crap, Even When It's Important?

I have had the dubious privilege of looking at some thousands of bad images as I work to select images for "Why Photographs Work". I had a look at Review Santa Fe as you can go to their website and look at previous accepted photographers - I was horrified at the quality of the images. There seems to be the idea in fine art circles that if an idea is sufficiently original, or if the subject is sufficiently important, that image quality matters not at all. The result is an incredible number of very banal, very ordinary, very boring images.

It is true that good composition and proper lighting and care to emphasize the important within the image are simply tools, and not goals of themselves. These tools exist however to help us get the most out of images, to understand the message as clearly as possible, to find hidden depths in images and to pick up the emotion created.

In many of the images I saw, of poverty and violence, of pollution and of life in genera, there has been no attempt to make the message clearer, to help the viewer understand what's going on or what's implied.

It is helpful to use other creative endevours to illustrate the point.

It is possible to write a novel about poor people in which the boring ordinary daily details of the characters lives overwhelms any message. There is no plot, we don't care about the characters because they have not been properly developed. Books like these rarely get read beyond the first chapter because they are boring. The worst don't even get published because the publisher knows they don't have a hope.

Oddly, in photography, there is no one who filters work, who says "thank you for your submission but your work is unsuited to our needs".

In selecting images for this book, I have found some wonderful images and some are far removed from the kind of thing I normally like. There is a manipulated SX-70 image that is wonderful, a Holga image, some composite exposures. There are HDR images in which the HDR serves to help instead of make the image look peculiar. There are images in which nothing is sharp, or where trickery has been used to great effect.

But people, there is so much bad photography out there, that has been promoted, celebrated, awarded, and admired. it is very sad.

Another analogy would be music. I don't especially like jazz, but I can recognize the skill involved in creating it. Rap music is 21st century poetry, I can admire the linguistic skills, but with all this crappy photography, I can't see the skill. The deficiency might be mine, but I suspect not. The emperor wears no clothes.

Happy New Year

A Happy New Year to all.

"Why Photographs Work"

You'd think I'd take a break after finishing book 2, but I couldn't leave well enough alone. Some 40 photographers later and 37 essays written, the book is a go, the publisher on board, the project will fly.

It has been interesting communicating with as many famous photographers. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. I'm not ready to release names at this point - I still have to get formal agreements - hell, I still have to write the formal agreement, but lets just say a lot of very famous photographers think the book is a good idea and have been willing to support it by supplying an image free of charge.

I feel a significant weight of responsibility to them to do justice to their work and their generosity.

There have been some observations I have made in writing all these essays and over the next few months, I'll try to write about them.

Happy New Year to all and to all a good night.

Another Old Find

Shot in 2005, I happened to be looking for another image and noted this three image sequence waiting for stitching.

Size Matters

Just picked up a print I made on the recent trip to Death Valley for the PODAS workshop, printed 17X22 on Epson Exhibition paper. I thought to myself, what a nice paper surface. Now, I had tried this paper before but in 8.5X11 and found it not glossy enough and also too textured for images at that size. Point is, the smaller the print, the smooother the texture you want, the larger, the more texture you can enjoy.

My standard gloss paper for 8.5X11 is Harman FBAL, but it is perhaps a bit too glossy and smooth for large prints. I can see myself using more of the Exhibition paper for 13X19 and up. Micheal Reichmann really likes Ilford Gold Fibre Silk which I find way too textured in small prints, but now I see why he likes it as he typically makes big prints (why wouldn't you with a 60 megapixel camera?)

It means that more than likely you won't have a single paper that is your standard for all sizes.

Recent Industrial Shoot

These images were made on a commercial shoot for a local industry and I now have permission to use the images for any artistic purpose.

Dearth Of Great Colour?

My next book is going to be "Why Photographs Work". It will consist of some 30 - 40 images along with a 3 page essay on why the images work - at least that's the theory - it isn't written yet.

In considering photographers and images to put in the book, I had no difficulty coming up with a goodly list of black and white photographers and colour landscape photographers - but when it comes to non landscape colour - boy it's not easy.

I get announcements from a few galleries and that hasn't given me much help. I get the book announcements from photo-eye but can't say anything they have sent me recently got me excited (about colour non-landscape).

So this begs the question - is there really a dearth of good colour work on subjects other than landscape? Does it mean that street photography and still lifes and portraits are more artistic when in black and white? Is someone automatically handicapped when doing this kind of work in colour?

The more immediate issue for me is I need suggestions. The editors of photo-net used to recommend photographers but now they just have their themes and the images aren't as original - and they too mostly chose black and white before and colour now - interesting.

If you have either a favourite photographer or image in colour and it isn't a landscape, please point me in the right direction.

I'm happy to receive one of your own images that you think qualifies as "wonderful" but I won't be able to give any feedback other than if I'm interested in the image I will contact you about permissions.

More Images From Trip

Both images used Helicon Focus to increase depth of field.

First Review And It's A Great One!

Discovered that while I was away, my book not only started shipping, early copies started arriving and I had a few emails already from readers. Further, the first review is out at amazon.com and it's a five star rating for From Camera To Computer

You come up with an idea for a book, you think it is a good one, a useful book, but a year later and thousands of hours of writing and editing, you start doubting yourself - will it catch on - will people get what I'm trying to do. Such a relief to find out that the goals have been met.

Images for "From Camera To Computer"

I have just finished uploading the images from my book From Camera To Computer to my website as a series of zip files - one for each chapter. For those who have the book, they can bring 1000 pixel wide versions of the images into Photoshop for your own editing ideas = from cropping to tones and see how the results compare with mine. You can also load a series of editing steps as layers in Photoshop so you can see the more subtle differences that might not be as obvious in print.

Back From Death Valley

I have just returned from a five day workshop, sponsored by PhaseOne and taught by Michael Reichmann, Mark Dubovoy, Bill Atkinson and Jeff Schewe. The PhaseOne staff were terrific ,working extremely hard to keep us happy and producing images. The facility, Furnace Creek Resort was great, an oasis of palm trees, surrounded by almost nothing living.

Highlights of the trip were the casual conversations, at lunch or in the classroom or while driving with the individual instructors as well as a series of lectures. Jeff showed some neat tricks for controlling midtone contrast, Mark talked about achieving maximum quality, Bill did a cool demo of how to stretch canvas prints for framing, while Michael showed us some of his prints, talked about fill flash and presented the opening talk.

That Claus Modegard, head of development at PhaseOne was there was great, that he was so open with us talking about various aspects of the PhaseOne camera and P65+digital back was exceptional. So young, so smart, so nice...

Kevn Raber and his group are to be thanked for a huge amount of effort that went into making sure things ran smoothly. That none of the cameras had focusing screens until the afternoon of the evening start of the workshop yet we had functioning cameras that night because one of the New York staff flew out with the screens to be sure they got there, well that's the kind of effort that was made.

Were things perfect? No. Personally I had trouble taking a sharp picture all week - my use of a centre post was blamed (even though not raised), I shouldn't have been using manual focus (but auto focus didn't work on all lenses, there being some teething problems with this brand new DF camera, of which we had the first batch shipped, and a variety of other issues were raised - probably it's a combination of a number of factors, most of them mine rather than Phase One.

The 210 lens sometimes locked up the camera after a while, with the fix being switching to the 80 and back and things would work for a while. These are firmware issues which will be addressed in the next few months.

I liked using the PhaseOne camera/back combination and despite our first shoot taking place in the dark of early morning, the cameras were quite easy to use. That 15 out of 25 photographers ended up purchasing a back or camera or both by the end of the week speaks to the experience.

I couldn't afford one, and even if I could, would probably wait for live view, which I found so helpful on my 5D2. Claus, whose obcession is image quality isn't happy about laving big sensors on for any length as heat adds noise and degrades the image.

Even though I personally had trouble getting the best resolution from the camera, others did not and the quality of the tones was exceptional - shadows areas were exceptionally rich. Dynamic range was excellent.

The above image was my find of the week, taken of some steel sheets lying on the ground at Death Valley Junction. Yes, I did take pictures of Zabriski Point and other classic landscape areas and yes, it seems odd to go to a national park and to be happiest with a junkyard image, but all that matters is the satisfaction of the image.



An important part of attending a workshop is chatting with fellow participants, comparing notes, looking at prints, discussing problems and how they have been solved.

Part of my hopes for the workshop were to rejuvenate my enthusiasm for picture taking after two years of slogging at producing the two books and the workshop did that in spades - this is one very satisfied customer.