A good day
Earl beat me to the punch, so you might as well have a look at his post here. I was going to talk about the incredibly vigorous flow of water that I saw at Bull Hole, but Earl included video. Can’t beat that! 
Usually, on the weekend, the last thing that I want to do is drive. However, this morning, I felt in the mood to put the car on the road and head to Bull Hole in Coolomee, NC.
Fortunately, the weather was quite cooperative. The temperature was just above freezing, but the sun was playing hide and seek with the clouds. The drive on the way was interesting. Passing through Salisbury, NC, I noticed that here was quite a bit of snow on the ground, piled up in neat little piles in the various parking lots along the way. Also, there was plenty of snow to be had on the ground amongst the trees.
When I arrived at Bull Hole, some one hour and ten minutes after leaving home, I started to drive down the hill to the lower parking area. I noticed that the way looked rather slick. There was a good deal of snow and ice on the hill with nothing but a couple of small ruts that looked icy as well. Snow. Ice. Gravity. Two-wheel drive car. Not good. I backed up and decided that the top parking lot was the place to be.
I donned my Neos Adventurer overshoes, one of the best purchases that I’ve made in the last two years, by the way, and away I went. I am in no way affiliated with Neos. I just want to say that they make a fantastic and useful product.
I could hear the roar of the water from the parking lot, some 1/4 mile away.
As I neared the river, the sound increased and was almost deafening standing right next to it. I was in the presence of an incredible power. I sat on a bench about situated about 10 feet away from the river and simply listened, smelled, felt the spray of the water, and relaxed a bit.
After a while, I noticed this formerly small stream next to me. It was filled with foam, making all sorts of interesting patterns, especially when the sun danced across the surface. It pulsed back and forth as the comparatively small force of the stream, attempting to follow the laws of physics, headed down stream. The river attempted to break the law by pushing water up hill.
I stood there rather mesmerized by this play, back and forth, back in forth, knowing full well that the small stream would have its way eventually. Eventually the impressive force of this rain swollen river would be tamed, leaving it its wake a changed landscape, but tamed nonetheless. Upstream, the little stream remained unperturbed, placid.
In the background, I could still hear the incessant roaring of the river, but found this quiet place to be more interesting. I stayed in the area for nearly 3 hours. I was surprised at the time when I got back to my car.
It had been a long, long, long time since I had such a peaceful outing. There’s something about a river, trees, and snow that seemed to make a big difference.
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Nostalgia
Ilford Delta 400 – Rodinal 1:50 – Mamiya 645e
It has been a slow week around the blog. I’ve not had much to say and I’ve not had the opportunity to get out and shoot at all. This week has been kind of busy in the evenings. Those couple of evenings that I was free to go and shoot have been quite dreary or rainy.
I have quite a few rolls of film 120 film in the vegetable draw of the refrigerator, no vegetables though. Last week I was looking through the film and came upon a few rolls that brought instant waves of nostalgia. They were two of my favorite films: Agfa Pan 25 and Kodak Tech Pan 25. A couple of the rolls expired in 1999, the others, 2004.
Seeing those rolls took me back in time to when I used to make my usual Saturday journey to the local photo store, whose name escapes me, and plow through their outdated film bin. I’d cherry-pick out all of my favorite B&W films, purchase them at half price, or less, and leave happy. If that store didn’t have it, I’d move on to Metzger’s Photo or Van Photo hoping that they might have some. It was very rare for me to pay full price for a roll of film. Other friends like Robert Terry, who visits this blog, would purchase 100 foot rolls of film and would roll their own. It was cheaper that way, but I never did roll my own film. I just liked to grab and go.
After my fleeting bit of nostalgia, I grabbed a couple of rolls of Tech Pan and put them into my bag. I knew almost right away where I would shoot them, at least I thought so, but I needed to wait for the conditions to be right. Well, this week has taught me patience.
I’ve considered this subject before and have shot it with my D300 and liked the results, but there is something special about doing it in a film that is long gone. It just fits the subject. I won’t say what it is, but I pass it every day that I go to work and I’m just chomping at the bit to do it. I may actually wait until I have a Saturday morning available to do it because the light from the east just makes this subject look wonderful and I want to take my time with it. Further, as I can most likely not get anymore of this film, that makes it even more special.
Much thanks to Tom A, The Photo Father, for giving me these rolls. I am looking forward to using them. The photos may not match the nostalgia, but who cares! I’m thankful for the memories.
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Change … just because?
As a child, I used to watch The Jetsons. For those not familiar with it, I have included a link to a youtube video of the intro to the show. If you’ll notice the car, it’s basically the same shape of cars today, a little more headroom in these because they’re shaped like a bubble. Kind of reminds me of the ill conceived AMC Pacer of long ago, voted as one of the 50 worst cars of all time!
In many views of the future, the automobile is shown as seating 4 or 5 passengers in the same seating arrangements as you see today. The only difference is that the cars of the future drive themselves, or fly. The overall design of the vehicle is basically unchanged saved for some rounding here and there.
Now, on to the point. It’s always interesting to me to first see the fervor when something new is announced, as was such with the Leica M9. This post is not about the M9, per se, but about cameras in general. I’ve read a number of articles at Luminous Landscape and other sites about what Leica “should” do to be competitive and to bring their camera into the ‘present’. Some of the suggestions were interesting, such as provide a moving sensor that moved along the Z axis so as to make up for the rangefinders lack of accuracy when focused in certain areas. Others, like Michael Reichman, suggested the inclusion of auto focus, an electronic viewfinder, as well as an attachable electronic view finder for wide angle lenses. At that last suggestion, the EVF, I gasped in horror!
It sounded to me like taking a classic car, such as an old Mustang and putting a DVD player in the headrests! Not to mention taking a perfectly good view through glass and replacing it with a video image. Ick! Interestingly, he also mentioned adding an interesting anachronism to a digital camera, a film wind lever … a place to put your thumb basically.
Overall, the shape of cameras have not changed much, even though there is no need to provide room for film transport mechanisms. I would guess that the rest of the space is used for electronics. Perhaps the overall shape of the camera can change to morph into something else, but is it necessary? Would you want a digital camera shaped like a video camera? Hmmm, come to think of it, the Mamiya 645 is shaped rather like a video camera, but quite functional.
Though I do not own an M9, nor have I ever held one, I do think that they could dispense with the bottom load. It just seems weird that you have to take the bottom of the camera off to get to your memory card. On the other hand, I can understand why they might do that. They probably use the same manufacturing facility to build the M9 body as they did for the M6, M8, M8.2, etc. It would eliminate having to retool, I suppose.
I think that some things just work. I’ve held smaller, differently shaped cameras and, while you can get the shot, it still has to feel good. The 35mm design has worked for quite a while, though left-eyed individuals might disagree because the camera must cross their face and on digital cameras this probably leads to a lot of smudged displays.
Some things just have classic lines and I guess that’s the way that I feel about cameras. The shape is great for the function. Is there a need to change it?
I’m interested to find out what Paul Butzi’s account of the M9 will be as he is waiting for his to come in. He usually has a pretty straight-forward, unbiased opinion and doesn’t hold back in his assessment of the tools that he uses.
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Winter: It’s a wrap
Though I did not brave the icy streets in my car, like my friend Earl did on his Winter Tour; I don’t have a four-wheel drive. I did go for a walk this morning with Hobbs, of course. The temperature was about 15° F, but the sun was shining brightly. I did have fun watching Hobbs slip and slide on the ice. I saw him take several nose-first dives to the ice. He’s short, so not to far to go from head to ground.
Today’s forecast called for clear skies, abundant sunshine, and rapidly rising temperatures. They indicated that the temperature would reach into the mid 30’s by about 2:00 PM. It is now 12:05 and the temperature has increased some 21 degrees. It is now 36 degrees outside and rising. I would imagine that it might hit 40.
The neighborhood kids are trying to get their last rides on the sleds. They can go down the street for a while, then they hit the slush and have to push themselves. I would imagine that they have about 30 more minutes. The snow is no longer crunchy, but is glistening a bit.
Hobbs, as usual, is doing his bit to welcome the sun back. He can enjoy himself in any type of weather … except rain! As far as winter goes in these parts, that’s probably a wrap, though old man Winter could drop by for a surprise visit, but who knows.
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Photographic Prognostication
The other day, I was thinking that it was almost time for our annual snowfall. I went back through my photos of the last few years, looked at the dates of the snowfalls, and determined that the snow would fall sometime between 1/20 and 2/1.
I promptly forgot about it. Yesterday, I looked at the forecast for Charlotte and saw that they were calling for a “Wintery Mix”. In general, this means snow and sleet. As I was riding along the highway yesterday morning, the electronic signage above the highway read: Anti-Icing operations underway. Slow moving traffic possible.
Usually, for whatever reason, the snow seems to skip us, but I was pretty sure that it was coming. After all, I do have four years of photographic data to back my assertion! How’s that for scientific?! I have proof!
And, so it started yesterday around 5:00. Snowflakes so light, so small that you needed a dark background to see them. My wife suggested that I had over to Blockbuster and grab a few movies. I liked the idea, but groaned to myself because I know this area and we all get the same idea at the same time. As I guessed, the line at Blockbuster was pretty darn long. Usually, I end up 2nd or 3rd in line, even if we go by there on a Friday night. Not yesterday. The aisles were crowded and I was number 12 in line. Sigh.
Having successfully secured the movies, making a quick stop at CVS, I headed back home. It was now snowing in earnest and was a little bit disorienting. It has been a while since I’d driven in snow. It wasn’t sticking to the ground, but it was coming down rather fast and blowing directly towards the car. All those little flakes flying towards the windshield were distracting. Rookie!
The wife and I popped in one of the movies and settled down to watch it. Outside, it continued to snow, some of which was now sticking to the grass. In short order, Vera was asleep. I was left watching one of the worst movies that I’d seen in some time! The name of the movie is Fragments, staring Forrest Whitaker. Do yourself a favor … skip it!
So, off to bed we went. At about 3:00 AM this morning, I heard what sounded like an insistent tapping on the window. At first, in the fogginess of my sleep, I couldn’t figure out what it was. Then it came to me, sleet. I got up, looked out of the window and everything was covered in white. Nice, I thought. Hobbs will enjoy that tomorrow morning.
When I awoke at 7:45 this morning, the first thing that we did, Hobbs and I, was to go outside and have a look. It’s hard to say what his favorite things are, as he enjoys so many things that involve running freely. There were no birds to chase, nor salt water to sample, but there was plenty of room to run. As a matter of fact, he took off on one of his adventures and went down the street and around the corner, but he was easy enough to find. Foot prints! So, I quickly forgave him this ‘adventure’.
Now, as I write this, he’s lying on my lap, snoring softly. Too bad I can’t take a picture of it, but I’ll just have to enjoy the moment.
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By Request: More thoughts about the Leica
In my post, Exploring something new, Chris Klug asked:
Those trees really give the image some nice framing. I wonder: have you come to any conclusions yet about people and their love for Leica cameras? Any insights?
The bold emphasis is mine. Chris seems to have knack for asking those interesting questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no, but hey, it keeps me in business.
I’ve been pondering this since he asked, thinking about my own experience with the M6 since I’ve had it. First, a little side step.
When I was in NYC with Tom, The Photo Father, we were walking up 5th Avenue. I spotted a man with a Leica around his neck. Leica’s, it seems, to someone who knows about Leica’s are very noticeable. To those who don’t know, they seem to be nearly invisible. As we passed, I stopped, turned around and called the man back. Not only did he have a Leica, is was the brand new M9. Tom and I engaged him in a short conversation and found that he was from Spain. What I remember most, though, is that he said: I really like the M9. It’s cool. It’s digital, and it’s fun. BUT I will probably go back to shooting with the M6 because I like it better.
My own experience with the camera has been quite favorable. I wrote about it here in September of 2009. Nothing’s changed. Ergonomically, I like my D300 better. It fits my hand better, but nothing that I own, beats this camera for stealth. If I were to compare it the Olympus 35 LC, well, they both get the shot, but the Leica just feels better. It’s heavier, the controls are positioned better, and it just gets out of the way and lets you do your job. Take photographs.
I just read a post on T.O.P. called: Leica, could be worse. Mike asserts that Leica cameras are a Veblen good. A type of product that defies normal market trends. In other words, the desire for the good does NOT decrease once the price goes up. In some cases, it can actually increase. Well, personally, the M9 is priced out of my range and I have no desire for it anyway. I like my rangefinders to be film, I think.
I don’t own this camera because other people cannot own it. That wouldn’t make it more important to me. I bought it because I got a good deal; I could help out a friend, and I was very curious as to what was the big deal. I still cannot fathom what is the big deal other than my personal feelings that when I hold the camera, it feels like a quality engineered tool. Could I get the same shots with my Olympus? Absolutely. I have no doubt about it. I might miss a few more because it is so easy to upset the settings on the Oly, but as far as image quality and the ability to get the shot, I think that I’d be hard pressed to tell.
Personally, I think that people want to believe that it is better because they paid more for it. It’s kind of like going to a retail store and buying $100 audio cables and believing that you are seeing a better picture on your screen than I get with my $25 cables. Maybe you are. Maybe you’re not. Both are conducting electricity. One may have a little more loss than the other, but not so much as to make a difference to the eye. Also, more important, is the legacy that the camera has. History counts! During the time that it was made famous, it was certainly the best instrument made. Now, there are many other cameras that can match its abilities for far less money.
So, Chris, that’s what I think. Now, hang on for the contradictory statement: I don’t think that there is anything special, certainly not magical, about the camera, but I’m glad that I have one.
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Context
Leica M6 – Ilford HP5 – Rodinal 1:50
I’ve not gone to a gallery in a while. However, when I do, one of the first things that I try to do is look at the photographs and get a sense of what they might mean to me personally, if anything.
The same goes for visiting blogs that include both text and images. I like to look at the image first, to see how I see, with all of my personal baggage, beliefs, etc. Then, if the photo is associated with the text in anyway, get an additional bit of context to lend even more meaning to the photo.
In response to Saturday’s post, Exploring Something New, Juha said:
For some reason, I was so fixated on looking at the bench that I didn’t see the background (and the mill) at all, until I read your posting. Strange how this image works, now it seems to be very different from the first impression.
In that photo, before reading my words, that bench held some significance for him; however, after reading my words, it resulted in a change of perception. I find that very interesting how that can happen. We can use words to change perception and focus (no pun intended) on what is important.
I think that it would be a very interesting thing to hang a set of photos, say 10 or 12, include no captions, or context of any type, and survey some number of individuals from different countries, walks of life, etc, to see what they got out of it. It would be similar, I imagine, to our futile efforts in high school English Literature class where we had to read a story or a poem and try to ‘understand’ what the author was really trying to say.
In a way, a photo without a caption or text is a lot like a Rorschach inkblot test, except in the case of a photograph, we know what the items are; that is clear, but the underlying understanding or meaning, is very subjective and dependent upon the psyche of the individual.
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And I don’t know why
Leica M6 – Ilford HP5 – Rodinal 1:50
Let’s keep this short and sweet. Sometimes a scene grabs you and you have to capture it. I saw this as I was leaving work. It had been raining all day and was rather dreary when I left, sometime around 5:00 PM. Usually the parking spaces would be full and, as it was around 5:00 PM … let’s just say that good parking spaces were easy to come by.
As I walked to my car, I saw this tree and the pattern that it had worn in the paint on the wall behind it. Or perhaps the tree has protected it from the fading effects of the sun. I didn’t investiage. I started to ignore it, but felt that I simply must take this shot. I went to the car, grabbed the Leica, took about 3 shots, and went on to shoot other things.
Perhaps my mind was receptive:
A very receptive state of mind… not unlike a sheet of film itself – seemingly inert, yet so sensitive that a fraction of a second’s exposure conceives a life in it. — Minor White
Why I took the shot, I may never know, but I felt that I could not ignore it. I’m sure that I’m not alone in this.
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Exploring something new
Leica M6 – Ilford HP5 – Rodinal 1:50
Within a few days of arriving in Charleston, I remember thinking: OMG! What is that smell? There must be a paper mill nearby. Sure enough, there was, right in the same neighborhood where I worked. Great! People who had worked in the area for some time assured me that I’d get used to. They assured me that I wouldn’t even notice after a while. Well, they didn’t say exactly how long that would be. I imagine, now, that it is on the order of years, as 18 months have passed and I can still smell it.
Perhaps, though, I only smell it now on the stronger days. I don’t seem to remember smelling it everyday, though, in the winter time the smell is less pungent because of the lower humidity and temperature, I suppose.
I’ve been looking for other, non beach, venues to shoot. Charleston has a few parks, but mostly tourist spots where you have to pay $25 or more to get in. I was looking for a spot a little less quaffed, tony, and more everyday folksy. I wanted a spot that would be a challenge to photograph or that I could take some time to explore and have to work at it a bit.
Since we moved to a different building this past summer, instead of being about 2 blocks away from the paper mill, I have to drive by it every day. It never ceases to capture my attention. It seems to have so many different looks depending on weather condition. I have a feeling that I’m going to find some good locations from which to photograph it, but not at the moment.
Right next to the plant there is a very small park. The park is just big enough to have a playground, small restroom facilities, a place to launch your boat, and, of course, a few trees. It is bounded on the western side by a busy street, a chain link fence and some oil processing company to the south, and a river occupies its north and eastern edges.
On the way home from work, I decided to stop by. What I noticed was that, for sure, the smell of the mill was strong. Also, no matter where you went in the park, you saw the mill. You can see it from the playground; it’s reflected in the water of the river. It’s everywhere.
At first, I tried to find some framing that didn’t include the plant, but was unsuccessful, save for shooting macros. So, decided to try to incorporate the plant into the shots. Add to this that highway I-526, a major Charleston highway, runs right above the park and it’s support structures can be seen in most any framing attempt.
Over the next few posts, I’ll be using photos from this park. As a matter of fact, the photo from yesterday’s post was taken in this same park. Also, strangely, I’m eager to return, despite the smell. It appears to be an interesting place to photograph.
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Cameras that I’ve owned
Leica M6 – Ilford HP5+ – Rodinal 1:50
I was reading a post over at Shutterfinger. Gordon was talking about the cameras that he’s known and loved. In his post said that he made a list of all the cameras that he’s ever owned. That list came to 30 or so cameras; unfortunately, he didn’t share the entire list, but did share some information about a few of his favorites.
I began to think about how many cameras I’ve owned over the years and came up with slightly less than half that many, 14. Here is the list of the cameras that I owned at one time. They are in purchased order as I remember them.
- Minolta XG-1
- Minolta SRT-101
- Minolta X-700
- Minolta XD-11
- Minolta XD-11
- Yashica Mat 124g (6 x 6, film)
- Canon Powershot ??? – My first digital
- Minolta Dimage A1
- Nikon D2x
- Nikon D300
- Nikon D40
- Mamiya 645e (6 x 4.5, film)
- Olympus 35 LC (film)
- Leica M6 (film)
As you can see, I used to shoot nothing but Minolta. My first Nikon was, believe it or not, their flagship (at the time), the D2x. What a thrill that was!
The ones in bold are the ones that I still own. I’m sure that you probably wonder which was my favorite. Well, that’s hard to say. In the digital realm, I’d probably have to say the D2x. Man! That was a tank and an impressive camera; however, the D300 outperforms it every step of the way, but it was close to my heart as it was my first real digital camera.
My favorite film camera … Minolta XD-11. That camera was way ahead of its time and could seem to do no wrong, although I did enjoy my SRT-101. I know, you expected me to say the Leica, but it runs a close second. Also, I really liked the square frame of the Yashica Mat 124g.
Least favorite of the bunch? By far, the DiMAGE A1. I never did get to like electronic view finders. I know that EVFs have improved a lot, I’ve looked through them, but, I’m still not feeling them! I like to look through glass!
Sometimes it’s nice to take a trip back down memory lane. Let’s see. I’ve been shooting for about 31 years. 14 cameras, or about 1 every two years? I’m quite the moderate camera buyer!
Think you can remember all of the cameras that you ever bought?
Addendum: I forgot that I also owned two view cameras. A Sinar 4×5 monorail and a Shen Hao 4×5 wooden field camera. It was some kind of wonderful.
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Sputtering
I do find it interesting that I have managed to post 21 posts in a row. Today is the 21st of January, and this is my 21st post. The last few posts have generated a great number of views and a number of interesting comments. Thanks to all of you for your input.
On that side, things are going great. There seems to be no problem finding something to post about.
The other day I received an e-mail from a friend of mine who I’ve not seen face-to-face in a few years. In it, she says that she starts off her day reading my blog, which she likes to read because I seem to have it all together. When I read this, I laughed aloud because certainly I’m a walking midlife cliche right now. No, I don’t have a woman on the side or a new car, but my emotions are in tatters most of the time and I find it hard to focus on much of anything. The photo to the right, though taken sometime in early October would be a good representation of those feelings when they manifest. Notice the huge, ominous clouds and the tiny, lonely figure walking the beach.
When it seems particularly gray, I do something like I did today. I picked up one of my Tao books and turned to a random page and there always seems to be the message that I need to see. So, I did it this evening and found this:
Misfortune is what fortune depends on
Fortune is where misfortune hides beneath
Tao Te Ching chapter 58
Of late, while the words have been able to flow, the camera refuses to speak. It remains mute, waiting for me to breathe life into it, into myself. I’ve taken some photos here and there but they were, shall we say, uninspired. Hmm, I’ve heard that word before … somewhere … I just can’t put my finger on it.
Looking back at this photo I can remember that those clouds were there but for an extremely brief moment, the prevailing breezes won out, the clouds moved on, and it was sunny again, or at the very least, the clouds hung around and made for a great light show when combined with the sunset.
And so it shall be with me. The clouds will roll in and then roll out. Balance in all things. Tomorrow, I have some free time in the evening, let’s see what the morrow will bring! Sputtering is no cause for alarm, it’s just growth in progress.
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A wordle
Thanks to Cedric for posting his Wordle and cluing me into what a Wordle was. I thought that this would be a good experiment. Basically, a Wordle is just a text cloud, picking out the most used words in a blog. You can generate your own Wordle here.
I’m not really quite sure how deeply the algorithm mines a blog, but it returned pretty quickly, so I would imagine that it didn’t go much deeper than a page. Also, I experimented with it giving various URLs that probed deeper into my blog, but it always came back with the same set up words; those presented here.
It’s all fun anyway. I rather liked the way that Zen appeared in there, but don’t particularly care for the size of opinion or the appearance of the word crap. In all fairness, though, I did use the word “Crap” in one post were I was poking fun at myself for missing some shots. 
Update – 2010-01-21: Thanks to Cedric for giving suggestions on how to include more content. I went back and redid my Wordle for content from the past 30 days. It cause the Wordle to change quite a bit. I suppose I could have gone back a year, but just wanted to see what my ‘thoughts’, or words were for the past 30 days.
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Time out for tea
I must say that the debate over the last few days was one of the most spirited that I’ve had on this blog ever. Much thanks to those of you who commented. When I woke this morning, I was thinking about tea for some reason. I no longer wonder why, I figure that the reason will be known eventually.
As I was doing a bit of light surfing this morning, after eating breakfast, I came remembered a Zen parable that I liked:
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
This is one of a very few Zen parables that I actually understand where it is pointing. Many are very simple in their statements, but profound in meaning. And, it was very appropriate for statements that I had made earlier. It was a great reminder to come to the table with an empty cup.
Again, thanks for all of your comments and the great participation. It was enlightening and gave me lots of food for thought. I shall be chewing on that ‘food’ for a while!
Near the end, Gordon showed up with some more tea. I had to empty my cup several times and, upon filling and drinking more, found that I liked the taste of some of the teas that were presented.
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Poll
Wow! The last couple of posts were pretty intense in the comments section, but well worth the effort. So, now for something completely trivial and light.
I’m really curious about the age groups of those visiting this blog, whether they comment or not. Please take a second to ‘vote’ in the poll in the column on the right. It’s completely anonymous, so please click your real age range.
I can’t get these type of stats from Google Analytics and I’m really interested.
Thanks!
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Contemporary Photography: I still don’t get it.
Last conversation of the evening.
A couple interesting things about writing a blog for a number of years:
- You are likely to repeat yourself, perhaps, by visiting a topic again.
- You are likely to contradict yourself
About two and half years ago, I wrote this post: Contemporary Photography. In it, I wrote that the photography that I viewed, that had been labeled as contemporary, I found banal and uninspired. During that time there was an entirely different group of people who commented. Looking back at the comments, none of my current, regular posters are listed, so this should be interesting. People come. People go. People bring different ideas.
Over the past 30 months, my ideas of things have changed greatly; however, I still stand in awe that anyone could like contemporary or postmodern photography. I still find it banal, uninspired, and generally lacking. It seems, to me, to be an exercise in intellectual self-gratification.
I came back around to this topic because of a number of posts that I read over the past few days:
- George Barr’s post: Is Crap Still Crap, Even When it’s Important
- George DeWolfe – Deconstructing Postmodernism
To give you a flavor of George Barr’s post, here is how it starts:
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. (Behind The Lens – Is Crap Still Crap, Even When it’s Important, January 2010)
After reading his post, I went immediately to Review Santa Fe, clicked on the Photographer’s Listing and went through ALL of them. Out of the whole bunch, and there were quite a few, I found one, exactly one, that I thought had anything worth viewing. The rest were, you got it, banal, uninteresting, and …well, you get the idea. I won’t even mention the one that I liked. I’m curious about your take on them, should you decide to take the time to have a gander. I was able to speed through them because they were so uninteresting as to require only a very short view of each.
Continuing on with the other post, George DeWolfe’s – Deconstructing Postmodernism:
There are so many quotable passages in this post, which he says that he’s been writing over the course of several years. You can tell. It’s very well thought out and I shall have to visit it again to absorb a bit more. It’s not easy reading.
Without Form to add relationship and structure to an image Postmoderism reveals all chaos without connection. Without Form there is no “visual” message in the picture. Form holds the Content together. (Deconstructing Post Modernism – George’s Holler – January 2010)
I think that the above quote crystallizes what I feel when I view such works, nothing but chaos, noise. There’s little about the vision, all about the context, ideas, and the photographer’s opinion about what is important. The photos are so weakly structured as to not be able to stand on their own, crippled.
I wanted to keep this short. I’ve added lots of links, so you’ve got lots of reading to do, if you want. I guess that over the past 30 months, my opinion has not really changed, but I know now more of why I don’t care for this type of photography.
Of course, as always, I’d love to hear your opinions about what I’ve said, the articles that I’ve referenced, and your own opinions. And, of course, none of what I have said is to be construed as truth, just one man’s opinion.
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MarsEdit
I never shy away from hijacking a great idea. I was reading Earl’s blog one day, this post, and came across this sentence:
As if that wasn’t enough of a challenge, I may also switch from Ecto3 to MarsEdit 2 as my Mac client blog editing application — new year, new things to learn.
Well, to me, Earl is the Guru of Gadgets. I always look to his blog to find the latest-greatest-most-up-to-datest information about all things Mac! I’d never heard of Ecto3, MarsEdit 2, or dare I say, client blog editing applications. How embarrassing. I found, also, a link to a quick look that he did on several authoring tools.
I decided to have a look at MarsEdit 2. I figured that if it was good enough for Earl, it was good enough for me. I downloaded a trial version and am giving it a spin. It’s basically the same tool that Earl reviewed, but has more features. It makes authoring pretty easy. They even have a customizable template that you can use to make your preview look exactly like your site.
Setup is very easy. You add a blog, type in your URL, enter your user name and password, and setup is done.
Authoring is pretty easy:
- Create a new entry.
- Write your entry.
- Add media – This actually takes the photo, music, or video, places the HTML code into the page, and uploads the file to your web server. I really like this feature a lot, much better than using Wordpress’s image upload, which broke a couple of times during the early versions because it depended on a particular version of some Adobe Flash uploader software. I resorted to using FTP to upload the images and type the links in myself. I don’t have to do that anymore. That saves a lot of time and frustration.
- Send to the blog as published or draft. Optionally, if you don’t want to send it yet, you can save it as a draft locally.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve not explored all of the features, but have only done enough to get it to work with my particular setup. The only thing that I see missing is the ability to schedule an entry to post at a later date. However, this is easily accomplished by logging in and setting the date/time through Wordpress. I would imagine that this is not a standard feature as different blogs probably do it different ways.
Anyone else use authoring tools? If so, which ones?
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What would convince you to buy a new camera
I saw on T.O.P. that the Canon reduced their price on the 5D MK II in an effort, as Mike says, to get a few fence-sitters into the Canon camp before Nikon releases it’s newest camera to the market, rumored to be the D700x or perhaps D700s having 24+ mega pixels, HD video, blah, blah, blah.
Unless I missed it, Nikon didn’t really introduce much of anything around Christmas; however, I may have missed some point & shoot offerings, but I’m talking prosumer and above. Of course, we realize that in order to stay in business, they must keep us buying.
I have no desire for a new camera, whatsoever. I’m not interested in HD video. I tried a bit of videography and decided that it wasn’t my cup of tea. It’s a different realm of expression. A very different realm! I’m not so much interested in full frame digital as I am quite happy with film, or as Ken Rockwell calls it, the real raw! And all of my film cameras are full frame! As for more megapixels, well, I demonstrated to myself that a 6 MP (Nikon D40) can make great 13 x 19 prints from JPEG files (Uh oh!)!
I guess that I fulfilled all of those desires last year. I am, however, very much interested in getting out and shooting some more film. It has been a while.
So, are you sitting on the fence? Waiting? Hoping? Thinking about a new camera? And, if you are, what feature are you waiting for before you get the green light?
Come to think of it, something that would be interesting would be a B&W digital camera that would allow you to customize it, somehow, to mimic a certain type of film … but then again, why not just shoot film? Certainly, the market for such a thing would be nonexistent and not worth investing in, but a guy can dream, no?
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Growth
Carmel, California – August 2007
I didn’t think that I’d have a post for today. No matter, I thought; I’ll probably have one for tomorrow, better get ready for work. So, that’s what I did. After getting dressed, having a bowl of oatmeal, and relaxing for a few moments, I decided to practice my guitar for a little bit.
The guitar, and associated music, sit on the floor, ever-ready for me to tickle, or torture, those strings and misread that music. I have a lesson today at 5:30. As I picked up the guitar and made my music selection, a thought hit me. It was a comment from Gordon that he made on my post about practice. Here’s what he said:
I remember reading about ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ practice. Essentially, the ‘vertical’ practice is the hard stuff – going beyond your current abilities, trying something new, failing, trying it again – learning new chords, switching to finger picking from strumming, learning how to using lighting gear if you always use natural light, approaching strangers if you always shot still life, that sort of thing. Expanding your skills and growing.
Horizontal practice is doing more of what you can already do. Learning a new song, taking new pictures of new things, in a way that you’ve done before. Developing your skills but really more enjoying the skills that you have.
Both are good, but the vertical growth and practice is the stuff we often shy away from, because its hard, because we might fail, but often where the rewards are really found, if you are willing to be bad and make mistakes for a while.
The reason that this jumped into my head was because of my music selection. I initially picked up a piece of music, Ode to joy, that I’ve almost ‘mastered’, that is, I can play it through, albeit slowly, while making few mistakes. It is my most pleasurable piece to play. It strokes my ego. My most difficult piece, for whatever reason is Greensleeves. I tend to shy away from that one like the plague. Why is that?
Well, quite frankly, it’s an ego thing. I want to have control. I want to ‘feel good about myself’, etc. Dodging pain, disappointment, and lack of control has never facilitated growth. That is something that I learned (am learning) in spades this past year and a half. It goes for photography, too.
How does one grow photographically and what does that even mean? It means, I think, trying new things that are likely to fail the first few (hundred?) times. It means having a good laugh at your missteps. Let’s face it, it’s not that serious. It’s part of learning. What’s the harm in learning something new? We aren’t good at everything that we do.
If you are uncomfortable about shooting pictures of strangers, but you deeply desire to, confront that fear and give it a try. Get yourself a wingman that does it and have him/her show you how. Believe me, it works better in a small group the first time that you try it. Continuing on with what Gordon mentioned: Want to try lighting but afraid that you’ll be no good at it? So what?!!! Buy some lights and give it try. What do you have to lose? Grow! If it doesn’t appeal to you, then there’s not need to pursue it, but you only obtain growth when you step out of your comfort zone and start to explore that which you previously feared. So, find that something that appeals to you that you’ve been scared to try and … try it. Sure, it’s scary because we’ve heard it thousands of times: don’t do that or ________ (You’ll get hurt, other people will laugh, no one will like it, girls don’t do that, boys don’t do that, etc)
In the end, I did pick up Greensleeves and crash, clanged, and squeaked right on through it. It was barely recognizable when I finished with it, but I gave it a go, had a few laughs, and was glad that I tried. There was no one around to listen, critique, or help. It was just me and this strange, squawking instrument called a guitar. So, for the next few weeks, that’s what I’ll be attempting to play until I get much better at it, then I’ll move on to something more difficult.
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Believing is seeing
Frequently life will provide a little humor for me and allow me to gain a little bit of insight into myself. Yesterday was such a day. You’ve heard the term, seeing is believing? Well, to turn the phrase a bit, believing is seeing. An example:
I left work at about 4:30 PM thinking that I’d have about 1 hour to shoot a bit. I wanted to take the Leica out and shoot with it as I’ve not really shot with it much since coming back from New York. My thoughts on the way to the parking lot were as follows:
- It’s been cold every day for the past week.
- Cold drains batteries. My batteries are probably dead, but I hope not
- I remember that I didn’t load film into the Leica the last time that I emptied it.
I got to the car, opened the trunk, took out the Leica. Sure enough, it was empty. I noticed, also, that I’d left the shutter speed dial set to 1/60 of a second, which means that if the shutter was pressed, the battery would be dead. No matter, though … batteries not required. I picked up the camera, looked through the viewfinder, pressed the shutter release, and just as I ‘expected’, no battery! Dang! Oh well, I can guess at the exposure or use one of the other cameras to give me the exposure.
Next, no film! I was right, there was no film to be found! I had several rolls of 120 film and a 645e just waiting for action. But I couldn’t ’see’ it. I was so focused on using the Leica, when all that I wanted to do was to shoot a bit of B&W film.
Well, I gave up and when home only to find out, after taking the cameras out of the car and into the apartment, that the battery in the Leica was just fine. I hadn’t cocked the shutter! Doh! And the batteries in the other cameras were fully functional as well. I just couldn’t see the forest because of that one Leica tree! I saw everything that I believed. Everything!
All I could do was let out a nice big laugh when I thought about it. It happens that way too when shooting photos, especially when I go out with expectations of shooting something in particular. When I have those expectations only 2 things can happen:
- I will get what I was after
- I won’t get what I was after
If my mind is not open to other possibilities then I miss all other opportunities with such limited thinking. I have to remember this. It was shown in a huge way yesterday! Maybe I’ll try again, today!
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How often and when should I practice?
Practice before going to work
The other day I took my 3rd guitar lesson. Therefore, I’ve been playing/practicing for about 2+ weeks. At first, I thought that if I wanted to get really ‘good’, I’d have to practice everyday for 2 hours+! Silliness. I’m in this for the fun of it, just like my photography. If it happens that I practice 2 hours a day because I like it that much, then that’s what I’ll do.
During the week, I leave my guitar sitting out of its case on the floor with the music next to it. When I get the desire to practice, I do. If not, I just walk on by. What I have found is that in a given evening I’m likely to pick it up 3 or 4 times and practice 15 or 20 minutes at a time. I might be watching a movie and decide to stop in the middle, pick up the guitar, try a few things, and then go back to watching the movie. Of course this doesn’t go with the classic setting aside a time to practice, which is more like the old school work schedule.
I’ve been asked a number of times how much I practice my photography. Though I don’t keep track of the hours, I’d have to say that it is frequent. The camera is usually nearby, ready to be picked up, and ready to be used. I certainly don’t carry it everywhere, but there are too many times when I wished that I had, especially when I see some of the shots that Monte brings back! However, I do spend a lot of time shooting and even more time observing, but there is no schedule.
I believe that if you have something that you are interested in, be it music, or photography, or any other type of hobby, you’ll practice it whenever the opportunity arises, or if those opportunities are not arising enough, you’ll create room for them to do so. There is no fixed schedule of practice that one needs to adhere to.
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Recurring thoughts
Still enjoying NYC
I’ve written about this before, nearly 18 months ago or so, but I feel the need to revisit it for myself from time to time because my thoughts are always changing.
These thoughts were dredged up again by Chris’s post about Jay Maisel. I’d never heard of the guy and in visiting his site and looking at his photos, it naturally brought up some questions.
First, after looking at some of his photos, I thought that I could have taken any of them myself. I’m sure that many people would look at my work and say that they could do the same thing and it’s true, they could. Continuing on down the thought path I read the myriad testimonials of his former students and was, to say the least, impressed by their impressions of his abilities as a teacher. I hope that this is not ego or hubris, but perhaps it is.
Many talked of life-changing experiences. Then, I looked at the price of the workshop, $5,000 for 5 days, all meals included. I’m not sure if it included lodging as he owns a complete bank building, so he has the room. The PDF said to expect 5 days full days of photography, 9 AM – 10 PM, which comes out to about 65 hours of photography, food, and lodging. Overall, it might not be a bad deal at all! Without question he is by all rights a successful and prolific photographer. Yet, I was unmoved. I cannot say why because I don’t know, but his photos just didn’t speak to me. Were I to take another workshop, I would rather it be with George DeWolfe.
Still, I go back to some of the reading that I do about discovering self and wonder how much can a teacher really teach you about being yourself, artistically. He can be the guide, I suppose, but to what extent? Certainly, I am not saying that I don’t have anything to learn, but these are thoughts that pop up from time to time. I think that I’ve mastered the technical part and am constantly on a journey to discover ’self’ and what my own photography is about … I think that it is a moving target, sometimes, and I just shouldn’t worry about it.
Part of this goes back to thinking about an online class that I took about how to make money with your photography. I learned a few things about being critical of your own work and picking out strong pieces for your portfolio. These were valuable; however, I did start to move away from what the teacher thought when we wanted me to hype up the saturation and the WOW! factor. I guess that this was in line with making money because your stuff has to be commercially viable, I suppose and “WOW” sells.
Anyway, just more food for thought. In reading other people’s blogs, you never know how much you will start to question your own ideals, motivations, and beliefs.
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A non-snow photo for Paul M.
In his post, I can dream, can’t I?, Paul Maxim was lamenting the cold weather and subsequent photos posted on various blogs of cold, snowy places. He posted a beautiful shot of Middleton Place, one of the tourist areas in the Charleston area. A place that I’ve never been.
So, I just thought that I post a nice shot of the Ashley River that I took the other day. There is no snow. Mind you, the wind was blowing and the temperature was plummeting, but you can’t tell that from the photo, so it’s OK.
The weather here in Charleston, SC has been pretty chilly. We’ve had 20 degree temperatures most every morning. Right now it’s 27 degrees outside, but fortunately, we’ve not had any of the white stuff. I can hardly imagine what would happen here if the flakes started to fall. I think that it would be worse then Charlotte. Last year in Charlotte they closed some of the schools because there was a FORECAST of snow!!! No actual snow fell, but the schools were still closed. Amazing!
Anyway, here’s a non-snow photo just for your Paul M. Just doing my little bit to help out against S.A.D.
Oh, and about that T.V. watching. I’ve not had a T.V. for months and months. This morning, I was at a hotel in Fayetteville, NC, in the lobby. The television was on. I could only stay near it for about 5 minutes, before I had to leave. I thought that I was going to go insane! I don’t miss the boob tube!
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Now how do you use this damn thing?
Evening Flight
Standing calmly near the edge of the Ashley River, waiting with eager anticipation as the sun began to drop below the horizon, I mounted my D300 on the tripod, framed up the scene before me and then a thought occurred to me. I’ve not used auto bracketing in a long, long, time. As the contrast was fairly high, I figured that this would be a good thing to do. Later, I could come back home and combine a couple of exposures using Photoshop and have a nice looking image.
For some reason, my mind would only bring up memories of how to do it on my D2X, which I sold more than a year ago. I hunted through the various menus and could not remember how to do it. Damn! I always carry my book with me, but I never want to waste time when the sun is sinking trying to thumb through a book and figure something out!
All of my simplifying left me a bit clueless. Suddenly, I started laughing out loud and thinking to myself: Dufus! What would you do if you had a film camera that didn’t have all of that cool technology in it? Of course, I’d change it to manual and kick it old school, which is exactly what I did.
Sometimes that guy behind the camera is so funny! What a knucklehead! Of course, when I got home, one of the first things that I did, while the photos were being copied to the computer, was look to see how to do bracketing. Maybe I’ll be ready the next time, assuming that it isn’t too long between those times.
Oddly enough, there were a few of the bracketed ones that I liked, but none quite as much as this one, which isn’t bracketed. I was looking at the clouds after the sun had dipped below the horizon and noticed this jet flying through what looked like a corridor between the clouds.
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Call and response
Call and response is a way of doing music and has heavy African influences. It can be heard clearly in blues, R&B, jazz, and Hip-Hop. One can hear it clearly in blues music, as the first verse usually repeats itself like:
I’m a crosscut saw, baby just drag me across your log.
You know I’m a crosscut saw, just drag me across your log.
I’ll cut your wood so easy for you, you can’t help but say, “Hot Dog!”
–Albert King
Or from Hip-Hop:
Just throw your hands in the air
and wave ‘em like you just don’t care
and if you’re not a square from Delaware
and yo momma ain’t on welfare
somebody scream, Oh Yeah!
Oh Yeah!
After the call, there is typically an expectation to hear a response. I was thinking about this and it hits to the core of why I like certain blogs better than others. I just love the whole call/response things. I prefer to frequent blogs where the author will make a post, people will make comments (responders), and the author will respond in kind. I just like the whole community of it.
Should a blogger not really be into responding, instead only making posts and then remaining silent, I eventually will move on.
Does this appeal to anyone else, or do you mind that the blogger is silent after the initial post? Here, there’s always going to be a call and response paradigm! I just like to talk!
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Standing in one place
At work we often joke about our lack of abilities. Sometimes we call ourselves “Google Engineers” or “Google Navigators”. We say this because when we are trying to learn something new, our first stop is Google for code samples, etc. Also, if we have an obscure error message and cannot seem to find a solution, off to Google we go. Our jobs would be a lot harder were it not for this wonderful search engine!
I don’t know the names of many photographers, nor their work when I see it. If it were a membership requirement to be a photographer, I’d probably not be in the club. So, after reading this blog post by Chris Klug, off to my favorite search engine I went. Google. I had a look at the work of Jay Maisel, which I’d never seen before, nor had I heard his name.
Chris was talking about a podcast in The Candid Frame. Podcast #87, Jay Maisel. Chris alluded to a difference of opinion between George DeWolfe and Jay Maisel, between what he read from George’s book and heard in Jay’s podcast. So, away I went to do my homework. I wanted to hear the podcast so that I could be ready to discuss the differences, whatever they might be.
As is often the case, when I go to do one thing, something else happens. I listened to the podcast, which was enjoyable because of Mr. Maisel’s candor. Listener be warned, there is a bit of profanity in there. Not much, but more than I’ve ever heard in a photography podcast.
Jay Maisel really is in love with photography. You can tell the way he speaks of it. One thing really struck me and it’s something that I already knew, but, honestly, not something that I practice a lot. Jay said that one day one photographer, whose name escapes me, looked at his portfolio in the early years and said: You’re walking too fast. Jay said that he was taken aback and wondered how this guy knew that he was walking to fast. None of that information was in the photo! The mentor, let’s call him, told him that he could see that in his photography, the story never developed. It was one shot, then move on.
I have found, quite often, and then forgotten nearly as often, that when I pick a spot, especially when shooting photographs of people, that all manner of opportunity will pass right before you. He speaks of this quite well, saying that New York is the ultimate in opportunity. I would have to agree. You could pick a single corner, hang there for an hour and have image after wonderful image.
One might be tempted to say that this will only work on the streets of a busy city. I’d have to disagree because I’ve seen it work equally well in a quiet bit of woods or even in my own living room as I looked at the shadows doing their shape-shifting routines.
This is just something that I need to keep reminding myself of. Linger, tarry, delay, dawdle, all of those things that are so counterculture, so different from American culture as a whole.
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Well, I hadn’t intended to, but …
I rather liked the Simple Paper theme, but after working with it for a while, it was just a bit too clunky in the way that I had to do things. I won’t go into detail except to say that in some areas it wasn’t put together too well and I just didn’t want to deal with it. The search didn’t work well, especially when trying to go to other pages within the search. I didn’t care to much for the navigation plugin, which that theme utilized, and a number of other things.
So, I searched for another theme, found this one, Shades Of Blue, and was rather taken with it. I like the font better and it has great support for widgets. I didn’t have to do any extra coding to get the things that I wanted onto the right sidebar. That was nice. Also, there is room in the footer for other widgets, should I decide to add them.
As they say: Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. I guess that I have lots of time in the evenings! What else is a guy to do after he finishes practicing his guitar?!:-)
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Winter’s Light
The windows of my apartment face northeast. Each evening, year round, if I am paying attention, I get treated to the brush of a new artist. Sometimes it paints the walls, the couch, the floor. Sometimes it uses yellows, or whites. Sometimes the shadows are inky black, other times, a pale gray. But, as I said, if I’m paying attention, it’s always a treat.
The other day I was sitting on my favorite chair, feet resting on the ottoman, thinking about a blog post. It was then that I noticed that the painting had begun. I closed the laptop, bolted out of my chair, and grabbed my camera. I went outside to experience this wonderful light. Winter light is different. The best that I can say is that whatever strength it lacks for imparting heat to the skin, it makes up for in placing joy in the heart.
Certainly, winter gets a bad rap. Not many people like it when it’s so cold, but the light is awe-inspiring. I think that all of these words get in the way. I wish that I knew poetry well enough to say what I feel, but I don’t. I’ll just have to let the pictures talk and hope that they can tell the story that I cannot.
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Stats and stuff
Nope! It’s still free!
I’ve mentioned before that I have a Google Analytics account. For the most part, I ignore it. There are times when I’m curious about what has happened over the last X period of time. I think that it is rather natural to have a look back at the previous year and see how things looked.
As I’ve been running Google Analytics for about 2 years, I had something to compare. I compared 2009 to 2008 and found that this blog is remarkably consistent. Remarkably! Both years, on nearly every statistic were very close. Now, in this super-duper-grow-grow-grow American economic ideal, this is a very bad thing, indeed. Very bad. My blog has been tagged with the “S” word. Stagnant! Well, that’s not entirely true. My visits were up 25% but my page views/visit was down by about 3%.
I don’t get all wrapped up in these things, but they are interesting. I guess that the blog is showing growth. The one thing that was consistent through both years, visitor loyalty (THANK YOU!). That is, 60% of my visitors are repeat visitors. I’m not sure if this is a good or not good thing. I think that it is good. So, I’m keeping a steady flow of new visitors as well as keeping a good number of the ones who stop by.
A good amount of traffic was driven here by SoFoBoMo. People really like the Taking Basketball Photos article. It’s among the favorites, along with D300 Auto Focus.
This is the beginning of year 5 and I have no plans to make any major changes, or even minor ones for that matter, but who knows?
I heard a quote yesterday: If you want to prove that god has a sense of humor, make a plan and try to stick with it!
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Comments and Courtesy
Posted by Paul on January 17, 2010 · 17 Comments
Passing emotions
I read a very short post by Paul Butzi the other day about his comment policy.
During the 4 years that I’ve run this blog, I’ve only had to delete one or two comments because they were directed at the person who made the comment rather than the the subject.
In my post, Contemporary Photography; I still don’t get it. I gave my opinion about that type of photography and, intentionally, did not mention any specific photographers, as I was talking about the genre, not the photographer him/herself.
Everyone debated the merits and gave their opinion. Some agreed, others did not. Cool. It was just a topic for discussion. However, this morning when I awoke, I had one comment from Martin Doonan that ended:
At first blush, I wondered what I had done to cause such an attack, if you will, and almost deleted the comment. Then I took a moment to look at it, for what it was, an opinion, nothing more, though directed at a particular photo of mine. Quickly, the anger receded and I realized that he did have a right to not like my work, in total, or in single. It doesn’t matter. Had this been directed at another commenter, I would have deleted it for sure.
I did, and still do, think that it was rather rude, though, but that’s my opinion and based on how I would conduct myself in someone else’s ‘house’. Perhaps he revels in contemporary photography and took offense where none was intended. I’m not asking anyone to agree or disagree with me or to throw arrows toward Martin Doonan, or to even validate my opinion that it was rude. Should you decide to hurl arrows, I will delete those comments.
I simply ask that when you leave a comment, please stick to the topic and leave the arrows at home.
If you have your own blog, I’d be happy to hear about your opinion on comments.
Thanks!
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