Posted by Egor 
· January 2, 2010 

The Megapixel Thief (Part 1)

Ponder, for a moment, the humble point-and-shoot camera. Each year, over 100 million Homo sapiens will slip a new one into their pants pocket or satchel — thus fulfilling their species’ instinctual obligation to substantiate all travels and milestones with irrefutable photographic evidence. Interwoven with this primary biological need is a second — to periodically replace a perfectly capable gadget with a shinier, newer model. Camera manufacturers, ever willing to satisfy both of these basic instincts, introduce new cameras with new features every few months. January’s pricey innovations become July’s budget orthodoxies, as developers leapfrog each other’s specifications — all in the hope that us humans will discard our old cameras and purchase new ones.

Today, $300 will buy you a snazzy little point-and-shoot camera like the Nikon Coolpix S70. For all those hard-earned dollars, you’ll get a 3.5″ high resolution touch screen, image stabilization, HD video recording, and a plethora of bells that’ll smooth skin and fix red eye, whistles that’ll recognize faces and prevent you from photographing a frowny one, and sirens that’ll insure your personal photos are at least reasonable facsimiles of those in the brochure. It might also include (though I’m guessing here) a backscratcher, a flotation device, and an instant popcorn maker.

That’s a seemingly tremendous value. At least until you consider what you’re giving up in return — a camera. OK, I know there’s one in there somewhere. Slide it under a microscope, and you’ll discover that most point-and-shoot cameras capture your precious images on a tiny, 28 sq. mm sensor. If you’re having trouble picturing how small that is, here’s a visual aid: the fingernail on the little pinkie of my left hand measures 120 square mm — and I have small, girly-size hands. This means all those cherished memories of your adorable puppy, your daughter’s first birthday, and your once-in-a-lifetime trip to Rome are being captured on a device that’s only one quarter the size of your little fingernail.

If this revelation elicits no more than a nonchalant shrug, I’ll remind you that photography requires the capture of light. The bigger the light-capturing device, the higher the potential fidelity.

Consider this: 110 years ago, Kodak created a new camera — the Brownie — and a new film format to accompany it. That film, which recorded an image “only” 3135 sq. mm in size, was considered too small for professional use, but was quickly adopted by amateur photographers. In 1901, Kodak made some slight modifications to the format, and dubbed the new film “120.” 120 film became the format of choice for Hasselblad, Mamiya, Bronica, Rollei, and other medium-format film cameras, and it’s still manufactured today. If, in 1901, photographers considered a 2.25″ square negative to be “amateur” in size, what might they think of the sensor in today’s point-and-shoot cameras — a sensor 112 times smaller than the Brownie’s?

To make matters worse, marketing pressures require modern camera manufacturers to cram as many pixels as possible onto that tiny sensor. Theoretically, the more pixels you have on your sensor, the higher the resolution of your photograph. The problem is, when you stuff 12 million of them onto a surface that’s only one quarter the size of your little fingernail, each individual pixel is going to be mighty small. And, since each of these mighty small pixels is responsible for gathering, capturing, and properly identifying the color and luminosity of the light that strikes it, they’re not overly accurate. The result is that your combination backscratcher, flotation device, and instant popcorn maker will capture your memories with limited dynamic range, and a whole lot of digital noise. But to be totally fair, if your intention is to post these photos into your blog or print them on the ubiquitous 4×6 inch photo paper, their image quality is perfectly adequate. A point-and-shoot won’t make Steven Meisel fear for his livelihood, but it’s a heck of a lot better than having no camera at all!

The Quality Factor

Those who want their image quality to take a quantum leap forward are increasingly opting for the popular micro four-thirds (MFT) format. Although these cameras are significantly larger than most pants-pocketable point-and-shoots, they’re still lilliputian in comparison to the average, bulky dSLR. An entry-level MFT system will cost about 3x as much as that Nikon Coolpix S70 point-and-shoot but, at 243 sq. mm, its sensor is nearly 9x larger. The pixel count remains the same at 12 million, but they’ve become meaningful pixels — pixels that are now big enough and thirsty enough to suck up light, color, and intangible bits of sparkle.

MFT cameras are capable of producing excellent images under good light. But, for many, the low-light performance of MFT is still somewhat unsatisfactory. Another problem, unless you’re quite adept at compromising your aesthetics, is that the 12 megapixel sensor essentially limits you to prints no larger than 11×17. Also, if you’re not as skilled as Henri Cartier-Bresson at capturing edge-to-edge perfection, you’ll probably need to do a bit of cropping — which means your acceptable print size has likely dwindled to 8×10.

In general, the next step up from the MFT format is a Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera. Modern consumer and prosumer SLR’s have sensors that are larger than MFT, though still smaller than a traditional 35mm film frame. By now you’ve likely seen the developing pattern, and have rightfully concluded that the larger sensor in these entry-level SLRs will, all things being equal, provide even greater image fidelity than MFT.

For many professionals and enthusiasts, nothing short of a ‘full frame’ 35mm sensor will do. A sensor that’s the size of a single 35mm film frame has 864 square millimetres. All that extra elbow-room gives the sensor additional space for even more and even bigger pixels. The curious thing about the 35mm standard is that it — just like the 120 film format — was once considered “amateur.” In the 1920’s, Leica-designer Oskar Barnack chose the 35mm format because it allowed him to create smaller cameras, and because its aspect ratio conformed to the “Golden Rectangle.” Over the next decade, Leica’s popularity almost single-handedly established the 35mm format for still photography. In the earliest days, photographers were required to manually load the film into reusable cassettes before inserting it in the camera. In 1934, with the format’s popularity secured by Leica and its knock-offs, Kodak began to manufacture pre-loaded 35mm film cassettes, and the ‘135’ format was born. For the next 30 years, the 135 format would prove popular with hobbyists and photojournalists, but it wasn’t until the 1960’s that it finally overtook 120 film as the “King of Films.”

Today, the digital Leica M9 plops 18 million big, beautiful pixels onto its luxurious 864 sq. mm ‘full frame’ sensor. My 5D Mark II squeezes 21 million pixels into that same area. All that sensor area, dotted with all those cavernous pixels, gives you a wall-worthy 16×20 print. For a system nearly 4x the price of a micro four-thirds system, the 5D Mark II gives you a sensor that’s also nearly 4x larger, while also doubling the number of pixels.

Anyone not satisfied with this level of performance is usually shooting fine art, architecture, editorial, fashion, or high-end product photography. These endeavors are the domain of the medium format camera, which further extends the megapixel count while increasing the sensor size beyond that of the humble 35mm negative. Case in point is the new Leica S2. That camera puts 37 megapixels on a 1315 sq. mm sensor. It also gives us our first glimpse of the Law of Diminishing Returns: A basic Leica S2, with a single lens, costs about 7x the price of my similarly-equipped 5D Mark II, yet its pixel count has increased only 1.7x, and its sensor area only 1.5x. Ouch.

And the S2 still isn’t a ‘true’ medium format camera, which traditionally means ‘120’ film and a minimum of 2324 sq. mm on a 6×4.5 cm negative. To enter this rarified strata requires the new 60 megapixel Phase One P65+ system. If you must know, at the time of this publication, that camera will set you back $46,000. Well, $49,000 if you want a basic lens to put on it.

But what if you want more? What if you’re one of those guys (like me) who gravitates toward the 6×6 cm square format negative? If Phase One’s 60 megapixel, 2178 sq. mm sensor commands $49,000, what might a 72 megapixel, 3135 sq. mm sensor demand? $75,000? $100,000?

How about less than $100?!

(Virtually) Free Pixels

That’s right. I just purchased a medium format, 200 megapixel, 6×6 cm camera for less than half the price that Aunt Mildred gave the local appliance shop for her hot-pink point-and-shoot with 1/16 the number of pixels and 1/112 the sensor size.

The secret? Buy used!

Remember when, at the beginning of this article, I mentioned mankind’s instinctual need to replace perfectly competent cameras with newer ones? All I did is suppress this need and, instead, sniff around amongst the cameras cast off by generations past. Specifically, I ponied up $95 for a late 1950’s Yashica Mat with an 80mm f/3.5 lens. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “A camera from the late 1950’s? Surely they weren’t making them with more than a couple of megapixels back then, were they?”

Well, here’s the deal. The Yashica Mat captures images in analog format on that big, beautiful 120 film — a format nearly four times larger than today’s ‘gold standard’ for image quality — the 35mm full-frame sensor. The snag, of course, is that Adobe Camera Raw won’t read analog film files. To get your images into Photoshop, you need to scan them first — a process that’s a bit like strapping yourself into a DeLorean and traveling 10 years back into the past… only better. Better because, in a rush to convert to an all digital workflow, photographers have dumped their film cameras as if they were made of SARS, wrapped in H1N1, and sprinkled with Ebola. That means medium format cameras — still expensive a decade ago — can now be purchased with a few old coins and some pocket lint. Scanners, too, are far better and much less expensive than they were at the turn of the 21st century. And film formulations have evolved to become more scanner friendly.

The Yashica Mat gives me an image area 1.4x larger than the $49,000 Phase One. In combination with my Epson V600 scanner, it’ll also give me 200 megapixels — 3.3x as many as the $49,000 Phase One! In truth, scanning a 120 negative at 6400 dpi is overkill. To prevent my computer from melting down and my hard drives from filling too rapidly, I’ll likely scan my Yashica Mat shots at 3200 dpi, which still gives me a luxuriously large 50 megapixel image to dive into.

Tradeoffs? Well, the Yashica Mat is manual focus, but I actually prefer manual focus. The Yashica Mat has no built-in light meter, but I often shoot using manual exposure anyway. Then there’s that film thing. OK, that’s a bit of a pain. I’ll have to purchase rolls of 120 film, load one into the camera and, after only 12 exposures, pop in a new roll of film. Then, before I can scan it, I’ll need to process it. If I’m lazy and let the local lab process it for me, this camera could end up costing me $1 every time I take a photo! Guestimating that a yet-to-exist 6×6 cm digital medium format camera would cost a minimum of $75,000, I can easily calculate that, should I eventually take 75,000 photographs, I would have been better off steering clear of the Yashica Mat. In other words, if I shoot one roll of 120 film every day for the next 17 years, I’ll have made a mistake. Be sure to check back in 2027 for my follow-up article.

So, that’s my plan. Obviously, I’m not expecting that a negative from a 50 year old, fixed-lens Rolleiflex copy, scanned on a budget desktop transparency scanner, will approach the quality of a Phase One camera system. But did I mention it cost less than $100?

Nor can I neglect the demands that a high-speed, high-pressure shooting schedule places upon a modern photographer and, by extension, his equipment. For me, the Yashica Mat is a luxury — a frivolity that will let me relax and take pictures in an old-world way, while still processing and sharing them in a way that’s thoroughly modern.

In Part 2 of this report, I’ll discuss the ups, downs, and sideways of the Yashica Mat and how it fits into a photographer’s workflow during this, the second decade of the 21st century.

©2010 grEGORy simpson 

If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

Categories : Photo Gear
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Posted by Egor 
· December 22, 2009 

Year One

What does the blurry, black & white photograph of a man skating on Vancouver’s newly re-opened downtown ice rink have in common with the following photo of a thoroughly humiliated tiger?

And how is that Victorian tiger rug related to a picture of my own feet (size 8 1/2 D), taken from the northernmost corner of my condo?

Or these wistful wisps of windblown grasses?

Fear not, faithful readers, for this is not (yet) a quiz. These questions, unlike those I’ll ask later, are wholly rhetorical in nature. The simple answer is that they’re this years’ orphaned images. Captured on a whim and appealing to me on a personal level (see “The Self Portrait“), they are the loose ends and the misfits. They’re not part of a larger story; they’re not marketable as stock; they’re not newsworthy, gallery-worthy, or noteworthy.

If you’re like me, well… first, you have my condolences. Second, you take thousands of photos a year and, in all likelihood, have at least a hundred or so that you actually enjoy looking at. But you have absolutely no idea what to do with them.

What do you do with your orphaned images?

That’s not a rhetorical question — I’d really like to know.

Assume, for example, that you have a jones for architectural abstracts and, every year, amass a couple dozen that your finger refuses to drag to the trash icon. What fate befalls them?

And is there any market for a portrait of Sandhill Crane with its mouth agape?

Or all those little “slice of life” street shots you’re obsessed with taking?

And what if you have a compulsion to photograph dogs, but the name on your passport isn’t “Elliott Erwitt?”

Clever readers will surmise that I’ve already answered my own question: “write a pointless blog entry, then fill it with pointless images.” Admittedly, it’s an effective way to deal with, say, 1% of the backlog — but what about the other 99%? What do you, my fellow photographers, do with all your leftover, orphaned images?

Don’t answer yet, because there are even more questions to answer in the next section…

The First Twelve Months

It’s been one year since I launched the ULTRAsomething photography blog. As a professional writer, I had my first article published 21 years ago and, as a photographer, I had my first photo published 18 years ago. I’m not sure why it took me until last year to think of combining these two disciplines…

When I conceived of this blog, I had three purposes in mind. First, I planned to review and discuss the various bits of photo gear that I use. Second, I wanted to write about the creative and intangible elements that make photography a “craft” and not a science. And third, I thought it would provide a nice home for all those orphaned images.

I began inauspiciously — writing several short, pithy lens reviews. Immediately after publishing them, I started to question their worth. Whether or not I like a lens should have little or no bearing on whether or not you like a lens. So how were my opinions helpful? I toyed briefly with the idea of brushing the cobwebs off my old engineering diploma, and devising a series of laboratory tests that would yield demonstrable data upon which I could base an assessment. But this is contrary to the way I think, work, and function as a photographer. Measurements don’t tell me how well (or how poorly) a particular lens renders a particular subject — real world experience does.

So, within the first two weeks, I’d seemingly rejected both of the traditional reviewing methodologies — subjective and objective. Unless I went avant-garde and employed the I Ching to rate product adequacy, something had to give. That’s when I realized that the best way to review a product was to review it within the context of a specific photographic need. The problem with most product reviews is they tend to make blanket assumptions about photographers when, in reality, we’re all under different blankets. You can’t say “Camera A is great” without qualifying the statement. Camera A might well be great for some purposes, but totally inappropriate for others. Once I grasped the necessity to define the scope of my expectations, my subjective evaluations gained relevance. This resulted in a kind of organic and personal approach to equipment reviews — in fact, I’d be hard-pressed to call them ‘reviews.’ Rather, they’re ‘impressions.’ Whatever name they go by, posts such as “Like a Leica” and “The M8ing Ritual” have been instrumental in bringing a tremendous number of readers to my site. And now, having grown comfortable with this form of ‘un-review,’ I plan to continue the trend in 2010.

It’s the reviews that drive the majority of new readers to this site each day. I’m grateful to all of you who read and link to them in various photo-related forums. Every link brings new readers, and every new reader is a potential subscriber. Also, I’m very grateful to Michael Reichmann at Luminous Landscape for linking to this site in one of his own reviews. Luminous Landscape is one of the most respected photography sites on the web. That single link lent my site an air of credibility that would, were it not for the fact that both Michael and I currently offer our content for free, be extremely valuable. And, speaking of free, I would be totally remiss if I didn’t thank everyone who actually clicked the DONATE button on this site. You know who you are, and I’ve let each of you know exactly how much I appreciate it.

My second goal, as mentioned earlier, was to write about photography as a ‘craft’ and not a ‘science.’ It’s my belief that too many photographers let their equipment define their photography. The web is full of photographers who think a photo is the sum total of its sharpness, barrel distortion, and noise floor. But a sharp, rectilinear, noiseless photograph of a dull subject is still dull. While a soft, distorted, noisy photo of a compelling subject is still compelling. We, as photographers, all want to capture images with the highest fidelity possible, but too many of us get so wrapped up in the gear that we lose sight of the image. My goal, when beginning this blog, was to balance all those equipment discussions with discussions about creativity, personality and soul. Obviously, you can’t teach “soul,” but you can remind photographers that they actually have one — and that they need to get in touch with it should they wish to capture images with a life and personality that reflect the photographer’s, and not the camera manufacturer’s.

When I began, I knew my ‘photography as craft’ articles would never attract as many readers as the equipment reviews. Human nature is what it is and photographers, being human, are more likely to search for the ticket to better photography within their wallets than within their own subconscious. Analysis of this years’ site statistics indicate that, sure enough, my gear-centric articles garnered twenty times the number of readers. But rather than being discouraged by this figure, I’m actually encouraged. To my knowledge, no one has ever posted a link to one of my ‘photography as craft’ articles. This means the reader base for these articles derives from those who initially visit the equipment reviews. Specifically, it means that one in twenty readers find my unorthodox equipment articles compelling enough that they dig deeper into the site. I can live with that because, frankly, I have no interest in writing a 100% review-focused blog — there are plenty of those already. Rather, as a fan of photography and a lover of captivating photographs, I have a self-serving interest in seeing more of such photos created. A camera doesn’t fashion a captivating photograph — the person behind the camera does.

Obviously, to continue attracting people to the ‘craft’ articles, I must also continue writing the ‘gear’ articles. I enjoy writing both, but neither to the exclusion of the other. But what’s the proper balance? Is there a tipping point between too many craft articles and too many gear articles? Are the articles too long? Too short? Too frequent? Too few? Your response can help dictate the evolution of this site as it embarks on its second year.

The third goal I had upon starting this blog — using it as repository for orphaned photos — is an abject failure. Flipping briefly through my Adobe Lightroom catalog, I see at least a hundred photos that I like, but have not published. Some are waiting for me to blog about them. Some seem too good to just toss into a blog. Others were commissioned by clients and, as such, are not really ‘mine’ to publish willy-nilly. Many are pleasing to my own eye but are so decidedly unfashionable that, if published, would probably diminish my professional marketability. Which brings me back around to my initial query: “what do you do with your orphaned images?”

These writings are, after all, for you — my donators, subscribers, and readers. What do you want to see in Year Two?

©2009 grEGORy simpson

If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

Categories : Musings
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Posted by Egor 
· December 1, 2009 

The Self Portrait

Vancouver’s midday sun sat low on the horizon. Most uncharacteristically for late November, neither clouds, nor fog, nor drizzle filled the air, and I struggled for a block or two against the full intensity of the sun’s blinding rays. The acute backlighting created an excessive contrast ratio that made photography futile. So I crossed the street to take advantage of the city’s 30-story man-made monoliths, which obliterated the rays and bathed the opposing sidewalk in a snapper-friendly spectrum of greyness.

As I crossed the street, my gaze — which normally scans a horizontal arc several meters before me — shifted downward so I could see and modify the exposure settings on my camera. I had long ago learned to reject a camera’s auto exposure recommendations, and was now setting exposures manually. With a little effort, the process was becoming as fluid and instinctual as the manual transmissions I preferred in my automobiles.

As my eyes dropped, I saw my toe inadvertently scuff across a pebble and propel it toward an open metal sewer grate. Clang!

I analyzed the reflectivity of the pavement. I looked at the softness of my shadow. I judged the extent to which the skyscrapers were blocking the direct sunlight, then set my aperture and shutter speed accordingly. Kerplunk!

“What was that?” I wondered. I had already forgotten that I had kicked up a pebble, so the sound of its splash startled me. “Must be a deep one,” I surmised as I paused to peer down through the grate. Far below my feet, in the blackened depths, I saw my own reflection peering back. Without thought or hesitation, I focused the lens at infinity, then held my camera parallel to the grate and took a photo. It’s what’s known as a “throw away” shot — the kind we photographers take every day and, more often than not, throw away.

Back home, clicking through the day’s captures, I was drawn to the sewer grate photo. It was odd, strangely unappealing, geometric, and a bit grainy. It seemed to invite scrutiny. What armchair Freud wouldn’t delight in the analysis of a photo in which the photographer’s own image appeared behind bars? What could be inferred from the notion that my likeness was reflected in a sewer? Or that it rest at the bottom of an inscrutably deep pit? Even I wasn’t sure exactly why these elements appealed to me. I deemed the photo a “keeper,” and a respectable “self portrait.”

It’s unlikely that anyone would argue with my description of this photo as a “self portrait.” After all, it’s a photograph in which the photographer, me, is the subject — pretty much the de facto definition of self-portraiture. But over the last couple of years, I’ve come to define “self portraits” in an entirely different way. To me, a “self portrait” is a photograph that reveals something about the photographer’s true soul — his proclivities, fantasies, aesthetics, and personality. The photographer, himself, does not need to be the subject. Nor is there any requirement dictating that the photographer need appear anywhere within the photograph at all! Rather, a “self portrait” is a photograph that divulges something of the photographer’s inner self.

Consider my previously-published photograph of a girl waiting in a nightclub queue. Even though I don’t appear in the photograph, and even though I’ve never met the girl, I regard this as a “self-portrait.” There’s something within the image that’s a reflection of myself — the way I see things, and the way I respond to them. There’s a sort of dreaminess to the girls’ expression that speaks to me in the same intangible way as Robert Frank’s classic Elevator Girl. Obviously, a photo like “Girl in a Nightclub Queue” isn’t going to speak to everyone. In fact, the image has received a bit of online criticism for being out-of-focus or, as one photographer noted, for being something that he would have simply deleted had he captured it. But, to me, there’s magic here. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what compelled me to take the photograph. I don’t know what continually draws me to it. I do know one thing though — I’m not the least bit bothered by any criticism it receives. That’s because it’s a photograph made for me. It exists for only one reason — it pleases me. When we shoot for clients, we rarely have the luxury of pleasing ourselves. Even amateur photographers have “clients” in the form of friends or family members, who often feel compelled to approve or disapprove of the images.

When I photograph for clients, I must constantly consent to fashion. When I photograph for myself, I am gloriously unconcerned with it. If I were to present my ten favourite “self portraits” to a prospective client, I’d be laughed out of the office. However, if I selected a random collection of pedestrian photos and processed them with excessive micro-contrast to get a faux-HDR look, then 9 people out of 10 would think they were ‘great.’ They wouldn’t be. They would just be fashionable. Too many photographers confuse fashion with passion. In a never-ending quest for acceptance, they constantly strive to ape the popular techniques of the day, and never develop in a way that’s true to themselves.

If you think I’m throwing stones, I am. In fact, I’m throwing them in a glass house since I, too, was once guilty of confusing fashion with passion. Several years ago, I got a very good job because my portfolio contained photos like the ones shown above. I assumed, because they were the sort of photos that solicited the most enthusiastic response, that they must be my “best” photos. Yet I was, in many ways, embarrassed by them. It took me a long time to realize why I was embarrassed — it was because the photos weren’t a true reflection of my own self. They matched a fashionable aesthetic, but not mine. They pleased others, but not me. Such photos are still in my portfolio, and I still happily capture them — but they exist as a representation of my ability to fulfill the desires of a client, and not as a representation of my own psyche.

I used to only take photos that I thought would please others. As a result, I was forever displeased with my own work. I now no longer reject a photo opportunity simply because it’ll produce an unsellable or unpopular image. Last week, I took the “yellow chair” photo because I found it to be a compelling ‘landscape.’ The reasons why it’s compelling are obvious to me, though I’d be shocked if more than a smattering of the world’s population shared this view. But I don’t care. It’s a photograph for me, not for a client. It’s a photo for my soul-searching portfolio, not my job-hunting portfolio. It’s passion, not fashion.

Successful photographers have many masters, and possess the proficiency, knowledge, and vision to satisfy them all. But unless a photographer also seeks to satisfy himself, he is ultimately nothing more than a technician. In his most joyfully pure manifestation, a photographer has only one true master — himself. And, if left to contemplate which of his photos he most admires, an honest photographer will rarely choose the shots that earned him the most money or the most praise — he’ll choose the shots that, somehow and in some way, reveal something of himself. Those are the photographer’s “self portraits.”

©2009 grEGORy simpson

If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

Categories : Musings
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Posted by Egor 
· November 2, 2009 

‘Tween the ‘Weens

I have spent the bulk of my lengthening life blithely unconcerned with Halloween. Even in my childhood years, the day’s significance was slight. For me, its annual occurrence was as much about raking the leaves as about putting on a mask and begging for a bag of unwanted candy. By the age of 13, I was done with the costumes and the candy — though my leaf raking duties continued for another four years.

As an adult, I have been (and continue to be) a devout city dweller — sheltered from the suburban demands of rotting leaves and sugar-fueled trick-or-treaters. For several years, I would have been completely unaware of Halloween had I not needed to pass through mountains of candy, costumes and artificial cobwebs on my way to the local druggist’s cold & flu aisle.

As more years passed, I began to notice an increasingly large number of adults ‘dressing up’ for Halloween. Costumed adults always struck me as somewhat ‘unseemly’ — an idea I likely formed in High School when my classmates would all dress as hobos, hop in their cars, and drive to the rich neighborhoods in hopes of scoring ‘higher quality’ candy. And seriously, does anyone visiting their proctologist feel any less trepidation when a blood-drenched zombie asks for your insurance card?

But that was then. And this is now. And I’ve got a whole new take on Halloween.

I first softened to the day when my wife, a woman of seemingly endless talent, began to carve an annual Halloween pumpkin. I used to equate pumpkin carving with butchery. Essentially, using the biggest and sharpest knife in my kitchen, I would hack out a couple of triangular eyes and a grotesquely toothy grin — all the while hoping the handful of butterfly bandages in my medicine cabinet would effectively close my inevitable gaping knife wound.

So that first year, when she informed me that she would carve a pumpkin, I made certain to pick up a fresh box of bandages during my annual late-October druggist run. I needn’t have bothered. In her hands, pumpkin carving became an art form rather than an act of savage ritualism. And with each passing year, I found myself actually looking forward to Halloween and to her pumpkin carvings.

My wife’s pumpkin carvings cracked open the door to my potential Halloween re-indoctrination. But it was “street” photography that kicked it off its hinges.

Those of us who photograph the human experience spend 364 days a year trying to be ‘the invisible man.’ But for one glorious day each calendar year, we street photographers can drop our disguise, emerge from the shadows, and proudly hold our cameras aloft. All Hallows Eve is our night. It’s the night when man’s silliness bubbles to the surface and begs to be photographed. It’s a night when bashfulness is banished and even the werewolves carry cameras. It’s a night when a demure damsel can throw caution to the wind and dare be photographed on the arm of a superhero.

Halloween is the night when guardians of the velvet rope relax their nightclub’s homogenous patron policies, and accept all types: hillbillies, post-apocalyptic warriors, spacemen, Roman Goddesses, and masked avengers. Halloween is, quite frankly, the easiest pickins a street photographer can get. It’s our Labor Day, Christmas, and Thanksgiving all rolled into one.

Decades removed from childish notions that equate Halloween with candy, I’ve come full circle. Halloween is, once again, all about the candy — but this time, it’s candy for the eye. And, like a child with a bucketful of treats, I’ll spend the next several weeks rummaging through the disk full of photographs I scored on Halloween night. Halloween is no longer just another date on my calendar — it’s a date circled in red. And all the other dates are just days ‘tween the ‘weens.

©2009 grEGORy simpson

If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

Categories : Musings
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Posted by Egor 
· October 29, 2009 

The ‘Match Technical’ Advantage

I used to carry a fairly large camera bag. I needed one for all that big, bulky SLR gear I’d lug around the streets.

But this year, after having spent the previous twenty viewing the world through the lenses on my SLR, I took a step sideways. It was a small step — only 3 or 4 centimeters in distance — but its impact was huge. No longer was I peering at my subjects through a complicated configuration of optical discs and pentaprism mirrors. Instead, I began to frame my photos through a simple little window just a little to the left of the lens. In other words, I began to use a rangefinder. Suddenly there was a lot of room in that old camera bag of mine. And, though tempted to join the ‘puppy in pack’ trend, I instead opted to downsize my bag.

Some would argue that the little sideways step that your eye takes when using a rangefinder is, in actuality, a step backward. But for candid photographs — in which responsiveness, size, vision, and intuitiveness weigh heavily on your ability to capture the shot — the switch to a rangefinder was, for me, a monumental leap forward.

My chosen rangefinder, the Leica M8, does not replace my SLR. The SLR’s adaptability — particularly with long focal lengths and tilt/shift lenses — insures it a permanent place in my professional kit bag. But the rangefinder has become my ‘go to’ camera for reportage, street, documentary, candid, travel, and just plain ‘fun’ photography. It has changed the way I approach these subjects, and made me a better photographer for it.

I took to the Leica instantly — coming to grips with its myriad quirks, methodologies, and differences quite easily. Strangely, in spite of the ease with which I was able to mentally grasp the M8, I had no such luck physically. Frankly, the Leica M8 was a hard camera to hold. Gripping it in one hand was a pain — both figuratively and literally. After several months of walking around town squeezing the heck out of the Leica, I finally caved to my internal wimp. I decided to order a “Thumbs Up” device from Match Technical.

Upon landing on the Match Technical website, I was presented with a plethora of products designed to soften many other minor, but irksome, Leica issues. Not only would the Thumbs Up solve my need to securely and comfortably grip the camera, but Match Technical also offered viewfinder magnifiers to improve the focusing of longer lenses. And they sold a lens coding kit, which would enable me to place precise little scribbles on my non-coded lenses — whether vintage Leica or modern Voigtlander — and thus unlock all the benefits of digitally coded Leica lenses. Needless to say, my order grew to include all these items and, for good measure, Match Technical even threw in a free “soft release” button.

So, the big question is this: Do Match Technical’s products belong in my camera bag? Can they really improve the handling and usability of the Leica? Let’s take a look at them, case-by-case:

Thumbs Up CS-3

This is the product that first drew me to Match Technical. Leica’s digital rangefinders, while hanging nicely from a strap, do not dangle nearly so ergonomically from one’s hand. Unlike modern SLR’s, their rectangular shape offers no curvy, organically-shaped mound around which to wrap your hand. If you walk around with your Leica gripped in-hand — finger on the shutter release and ready to capture whatever fleeting images flash before you — then you, too, will experience the same kind of wrist and forearm fatigue I did.

But that was before I purchased the Thumbs Up. Even though it’s nothing more than a curved piece of metal that slips onto your camera’s hot shoe, its effect is profound. Like its name suggests, it’s essentially just a thumb rest. If, like me, you learned your craft back in the days of film, you were probably accustom to using the film advance lever as a kind of thumb rest. With the demise of film came the demise of the film advance lever and, consequently, a key ergonomic pressure point on rangefinder cameras. The Thumbs Up gives us back our thumb rest — only now it’s more ergonomically shaped and positioned than the old film advance lever.

Thanks to the Thumbs Up, I can wrap the strap around my wrist, rest my finger on the shutter release, and carry my Leica in one-hand: ever ready to fire off a shot at a second’s notice. Cleverly, a cold shoe mount is built-in to the CS-3 — essential since the CS-3 attaches to the Leica by sliding onto the hot shoe. Without the cold shoe, us wide-angle guys wouldn’t be able to attach our external viewfinders. In those very (VERY!) rare instances when I need to mount a Pocket Wizard to trigger an external flash, I simply slide off the Thumbs Up to access the hot part of the shoe.

I’ve also discovered another unforeseen benefit of the Thumbs Up — stability. With the CS-3 mounted on my M8, I’m able to hold the camera a little steadier, meaning I can use slightly slower shutter speeds. The effect isn’t huge — maybe a half stop — but in difficult low light situations, I appreciate any advantage I can get.

Truth is, I wasn’t going to review the Thumbs Up because I assumed everyone already knew about it. But photographers (including experienced Leica shooters) who look at my Leica, all claim to have never seen nor heard of this device — so I thought I’d do my part and “spread the word.”

Bottom Line: I’d weld the Thumbs Up to my Leica if I didn’t occasionally need to mount a Pocket Wizard. It makes a great product even greater. What more could you ask for?

E-Clypse MAG 1.25x 34 Viewfinder Magnifier

I rarely use long lenses on the Leica. Repeatable focusing precision with telephoto lenses is simply not one of the rangefinder’s fortes. Fortunately, for those times when one needs the extended range of, say, a 90mm lens, Leica’s viewfinder has a thread mount for accepting optical adapters — adapters like Match Technical’s 1.25x Magnifier.

Match Technical didn’t invent the rangefinder eye magnifier, but they certainly made it affordable. I purchased their 1.25x magnifier to use with my 1991 50mm Summicron. In reality, I found little need for it. Even though the 50mm has a 67mm field of view on the M8’s 1.33x crop sensor, I was able to focus it just as accurately without the magnifier. So the magnifier saw little use. It was only recently, when I picked up a beautiful 1996 90mm Elmarit, that the magnifier’s benefits became tangible — making that lens focus quicker and more accurately. That’s how I was able to quickly and accurately focus the 90mm when I spotted this handsome pup stretching his legs after, I assume, escaping from his owner’s backpack.

The magnifier is well made. It threads onto the Leica perfectly, and does not — in spite of its wallet-friendly price — give the impression of being “lesser quality” in any way.

There is one caveat worth mentioning to anyone who has never used a viewfinder magnifier: you may need to use a different diopter with a magnifier than you do without. This is something I hadn’t actually considered but, in retrospect, makes sense. I’m a near-sighted contact lens wearer who has reached that “certain age” where I’ve also become far-sighted. Rather than spend my day fumbling for different pairs of glasses, I choose to wear monovision lenses. This means the contact lens in my right eye is optimized for viewing distant objects, while the contact lens in my left eye is optimized for seeing objects at arms’ length. I’ll spare you the gory details about the near-psychotic brain malfunctions I had to endure when first adjusting to this kind of vision. Suffice to say, once your brain finally adapts to monovision, it’s great. Since my right-eye is focussed for distance, I’m able to use the Leica without any diopter on the viewfinder. But, when I use the magnifier, I actually have to switch to my left eye. That’s because the magnification makes objects appear ‘closer’ and, as a result, I can no longer see them clearly with my infinity-focused eye. So, when I use the magnifier, I need to switch from right-eyed shooting to left-eyed shooting. Since I normally shoot left-eyed with an SLR and right-eyed with a rangefinder, this isn’t a problem for me. But, for those of you who need reading glasses and don’t wear monovision contacts (or aren’t comfortable switching viewing eyes), keep in mind that you might very well need to purchase diopter correction when you purchase a magnifier.

Unlike the Thumbs Up, which I would describe as a “must have” product for any Leica M-series digital shooter, the E-Clypse Magnifier is more of a specialty product that becomes beneficial mostly for long lenses (though I have, on occasion, also used it to improve my focussing at night).

Coder Kit

With the release of the digital M-series, Leica introduced a new lens coding system. Coded lenses identify themselves to the camera body, meaning the camera’s software can apply the proper optical corrections to the RAW file while also identifying the lens in the camera’s EXIF data. You can send your older, uncoded lenses to Leica and they’ll code them for you — for the usual astronomical Leica fee. If your lenses are all new, you’re fine. But if you have vintage Leica lenses, you’re stuck paying for an update. And, if you’re using third-party lenses from Zeiss or Voigtlander, then what?

That’s where Match Technical’s Coder Kit comes into play. Leica uses a 6-bit coding system to identify lenses. The code is simply a series of black and white dots on the flange of the lens. A sensor, built-in to the lens mount on the digital M body, scans the dot pattern on the lens and codes the RAW data appropriately. The Coder Kit is nothing more than a circular stencil, a pen, and a reference chart. The stencil has six tiny holes stamped in it. When you snap it over the lens flange, the holes line up exactly where the black and white dots would be on a Leica coded lens. Use the reference chart to look up the dot pattern for the particular lens you want to code, and then use the permanent marker to blacken the necessary holes.

Using this technique, I was able to code my Voigtlander 35mm f/1.4 Nokton as if it were a Leica 35mm f/1.4 Summilux and, thus, take advantage of the in-camera RAW adjustments. Similarly, I coded my Voigtlander 15mm Heliar as if it were a Leica 16-18-21 Tri-Elmar. As shown in this photo, this allows the camera to automatically fix both the color and luminosity vignetting that would normally be evident in that lens.

There are, of course, work-arounds to coding your lenses. You could use a program called Cornerfix, which produces excellent results, but significantly slows your workflow. Those fortunate enough to purchase the new M9 are less likely to need the Coder Kit, since users of that camera can manually select the mounted lens from a list; thus negating the necessity for automatic detection. But for anyone who uses an M8 or M8.2 and has non-coded lenses, the Coder Kit is a must-have purchase.

“Bip” Mini Soft Release

I didn’t actually order the soft release. In fact, I didn’t even want a soft release. But when I placed my order with Match Technical, they tossed one in for free. “Just give it a try,” said Match Technical’s Tim Isaac, “and you’ll never want to shoot without it.”

For those who aren’t familiar with this age-old concept, I’ll give a brief overview: The soft release is a little brass button that screws into the Leica’s threaded shutter release, raising the button’s height significantly. Once installed, you no longer use the tip of your finger to press down directly on the shutter button. Instead, you lay your finger over the shutter button and, because of its height increase, you can now trigger the shutter with only the slightest twitch of your finger.

So, at Tim’s suggestion, I tried it. And I disliked it for several reasons. First, I’ve been releasing shutters with my finger tip for a couple of decades. It felt very unnatural to release the shutter with the inside of my knuckle joint. Second, the shutter becomes very sensitive with a soft release. I know that’s the whole idea, but I spent two full days taking hundreds of accidental photos of people’s feet (which is not, in spite of appearances, how this blurry and edgy street photo was taken). Third, it kept running down my battery. I know this last complaint seems implausible, but there’s a logical reason: every time I put the camera in my bag, the shutter release was so sensitive that the bag itself would trigger it. I’d go out with a fresh battery, put the camera in my bag while I grabbed a cup of coffee, and by the time I’d pull the camera back out of the bag, I’d have a couple hundred photos of the inside of my lens cap, thus draining the battery. When Tim wrote to ask how I liked the products, I told him of my troubles with the soft release. “Stick with it,” he said, “and I guarantee you’ll get to like it.”

I’m no quitter, and I could easily see the theoretical advantages of this device. So I decided to give it another week. First, I got in the habit of turning off the camera whenever it went in the bag — that prevented my camera from constantly taking photos of its own lens cap. Next, I learned to relax my index finger when carrying the camera and, within a day, I’d put an end to accidental shutter releases. Finally, I got comfortable with triggering the shutter with the inside of my knuckle.

Within three days, I’d gone from annoyed to enamored. I was able to fire off shots quicker, easier, and with far less camera movement. With the soft release, I was able to hand-hold long shutter speeds that would have previously been impossible. I could no longer imagine using the Leica without it, and I lived in constant fear that it would come unscrewed, and I would lose it. On several occasions, I pulled the Leica from the bag to find it sans soft release. A wave of panic would wash over me, but I would always find the little button in the bottom of my camera bag — breathing a sigh of relief as I’d thread it back on to the shutter release.

It was then that I realized Tim Isaac wasn’t just ‘being nice’ when he gave me the free soft release — he was simply practicing the sound marketing strategies taught in any “Drug Dealing 101” class. Specifically, “Give the first one away to get them ‘hooked,’ and they’ll forever have to buy from you.” Sadly, last week, I finally lost that little soft release and my Leica just isn’t the same without it. Curse you, Tim — now I’ll have to buy a case of ’em.

Conclusion

The Thumbs Up, E-Clypse Magnifier, and Soft Release button add only a minimal amount of weight and volume to my camera bag. But the effect they have on my camera’s usability is profound. These products, like the Leica itself, accompany me everywhere. The Coder Kit stays home — not because it isn’t a useful product, but because I don’t need it in the field. I’ve had to code my Voigtlander lenses only once, and the blackened marks have remained on the flange. This isn’t due so much to the ‘permanent’ ink, as to the fact that Voigtlander cuts a shallow groove in its flange, and the lens markings are made inside that groove — thus preventing them from wearing off when the lens in mounted and unmounted from the camera.

Match Technical products may not visually accessorize your camera bag as well as a puppy, but they’re a darn sight more practical.

©2009 grEGORy simpson

If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

Categories : Photo Gear
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Posted by Egor 
· September 29, 2009 

What Color is Happy?

We humans are quick to embrace new technologies, aesthetics, techniques and trends. We are equally adept at discarding the old ones. And, while few of us would choose to live in the past, its wanton abandonment comes with a heavy price — ignorance.

In 1905, George Santayana elegantly summarized one manifestation of this ignorance when he wrote, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

A second manifestation of ignorance, stated much less elegantly but dating back to at least the 15th century, says “don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.” It’s a curious phrase with murky origins, so I’ll translate it into photographic terms: “Don’t ignore black & white simply because your camera shoots in color.”

Photographs are an exaggerated reality. A captured moment passes in an instant but, by freezing that moment, we allow the eye to explore it at a leisurely pace — discovering tiny details while, simultaneously, using our own prejudices and proclivities to fill in those that are missing. Because of this, photographers need to direct the eye through a photograph — helping the viewer identify the most important elements. One way of doing this is to make sure that no unwanted elements are included in the frame. A good photographer will always carefully consider the geometry and perspective that best conveys his message. Just because a wide angle lens captures a greater percentage of the world in front of your camera doesn’t mean you should use it. After all, the wider the field of view, the more likely you are to photograph elements that are of no importance to the ‘story’ you’re trying to tell. The harder it is for the viewer’s eye to find the subject, the less impact your photo will have.

Which brings us to color. Just because your camera can capture a color image doesn’t mean that color is an important element to that particular photo. In much the same way that an inappropriately used wide angle lens captures unimportant and distracting detail, so too can color be a distraction. Unfortunately, since most humans see the world in color, they expect to see the same vibrant hues in photographs — rejecting anything black & white, and thus limiting a photographer’s ability to tell a story.

When I produce an image, I let the photograph, itself, tell me whether it should be black & white or color. If color detracts from my message, I’ll process it in black & white. This is why most of my street photography is monochromatic. Look, for example, at each of the images in this article.

The four little girls dancing beside the stage attracted my attention for two reasons. First, they were absolutely adorable. And second, they were as oblivious to the audience as the audience was to them. I want the viewer to be aware of only two subjects: the little girls (primarily) and the background audience (as a single entity). Including color in this image would ruin it — the audience would no longer be a homogenous object but, instead, a cacophonous sea of multiple colors. Brightly colored balloons, banners, and clothing would all compete for the attention of the viewer’s eye — attention I want directed at the girls.

The same reasoning applies to the ‘street corner therapist’ photo at the top of this article. There are, again, two important elements in this photograph: the woman holding the sign, and the reaction of the crowd upon seeing it. Nothing else is important. It doesn’t matter what color her jeans are. It doesn’t matter that the leaves on the trees are starting to change color. The passing car is equally as insignificant — so why bring attention to it by showing its color? The impact of this photo is diminished significantly by color.

Look at the night photo of the club-goers. The image is about expression and body language. It’s about the confident attitude of the woman and the sheer delight of the two men. If it were in color, the eye would migrate away from the trio and toward the multi-colored neon in the background. But that’s not where I want the viewer’s eye to focus. Again, color would distract the viewer from my intended subject, so I’ve chosen black & white.

It’s unfortunate that, in the name of ‘progress’, photographers have been forced to abandon one of their most important tools — the ability of black & white to create a kind of visceral impact that color can’t always provide. New technologies, aesthetics, techniques and trends are, ultimately, a good thing — but not if they come at the expense of those that came before.

©2009 grEGORy simpson 

If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

Categories : Musings, Photo Techniques
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Posted by Egor 
· September 9, 2009 

The Mythical Invisible Shield

I was approximately 100 feet up a vertical mountain face when I first became aware of my “invisible shield.” It was the summer of 2008, and I was on a photo assignment for BC Parks. Thirty minutes into my slow but steady ascension, I paused briefly to survey my predicament. I had my left foot wedged firmly into a small crevice. My right hand clutched a tree root protruding through a solid rock ledge immediately above my head. My eyes searched fervently for a place to anchor my two unsecured limbs, but there was nothing. The rock outcropping above me was impeding my upward progress, and the small fissure through which I had chosen to ascend afforded no obvious means to circumnavigate it. I was intent on giving the BC Ministry of Environment a singularly unique view of this particular provincial park, and was convinced such a shot was waiting at the pinnacle. All I had to do was haul my body and an extra thirty pounds of photo gear up to the summit. Undaunted by the dead end, I reckoned I would simply have to descend the scarp, re-survey the mountain, and find another face to scale. I was on a mission and, motivated by the photograph I saw in my mind, I was determined to finish it. I scoffed for a moment at the thought of the ‘old me,’ and how he would never have climbed a treacherous mountain face. The old me was soft — a musician who sat in a chair all day and designed music software. The ‘new me’ was an outdoor photographer — strong and rugged. I felt almost as if an invisible force was shielding me from any danger that would prevent my capturing that image.

Ten seconds later, I was in the exact same spot, approximately 100 feet up a vertical mountain face, when I first became aware that my “invisible shield” was a myth. Doggedly determined to find another route up the mountain, I began my descent. But descending a mountain means looking down. And looking down from a tenuous perch upon the face of a cliff gives one a radically altered perspective — one that injects a potent dose of reality directly into the brain. In my case, reality meant that I was 100 feet up a mountain face, held in place by a root no bigger than a hot dog and a toe crevice no larger than its bun. Reality meant that I wasn’t actually a mountain climber. The cameras, lenses, and tripods strapped to my back made me no less ‘soft’ than I was a few months earlier when I was still making crazy synthesizer sounds in a darkened recording studio. Reality also meant that I still needed to find my way down. With my invisible shield shattered and primal motivations supplanting artistic ones, it took me twice as long to go down as it took to go up.

Once safely at the base, I was surprised to find myself considering another climb. I still hadn’t captured an iconic image of this particular park, and I was certain it lie at the top of this precipice. I was a mere two minutes removed from an hour-long bout with mortal fear, yet the photographic image I’d formed within my head had already rebuilt my invisible shield of invincibility.

At that moment, a team of real climbers shuffled past. I knew they were real because, instead of cameras, they carried ropes, belts, picks, helmets, and all manner of carabiners. They had just witnessed a portion of my descent. One of the climbers stopped, looked at me, looked at the rock, then looked back at me.

“You weren’t really climbing that rock all by yourself, were you?” she asked with an expression that registered both admiration and admonishment.

“It’s OK,” I answered. “I’m a photographer.”

It was, perhaps, the most utterly ridiculous thing I ever said. But as I reflected on it later, I realized that cameras have an odd psychological effect on me. They have a way of heightening one form of reality, while diminishing others. With my camera in hand, I’m singularly focused on creating the perfect image — one with the potential to entertain, enlighten, inform, or influence those who view it. When I’m on assignment, everything in front of me is filtered through my eyes as if it were already a photograph. Realtime is no longer time at all, but a series of contact sheets from which I’m choosing the images I want to preserve. Is the geometry intriguing? How’s the lighting? Is there energy? Expression? Emotion? It’s not that I actually believe in an invisible shield. It’s that I’m so intent on finding, framing, and capturing the intended images, that non-photographic impulses fail to trigger proper cognition and, subsequently, adequate defenses.

Because I possess this idiosyncrasy, I’ve promised myself I will never willingly volunteer to photograph violent conflicts (though I suspect this is exactly the sort of characteristic that would make me rather good at it). Of course, this means the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award will never be mine, and that my miniscule chances of joining Magnum Photos become even that much more miniscule. But, for me, decisions involving self-preservation are best made without camera in hand.

Despite its potentially detrimental effects, the invisible shield is not entirely a negative phenomenon. There are, after all, two types of fears — rational and irrational. If the invisible shield masks a rational fear like, say, climbing mountains without proper training or experience, then that’s an obvious negative. But when the invisible shield obscures irrational fears, the effects are quite beneficial. Once I recognized my tendency to suffer from the invisible shield syndrome, I soon realized I could harness it to my benefit.

Consider, for example, the discipline of street photography. For me, my shyness was always an impediment to my success. Although I had both the interest and desire, the mere thought of photographing strangers at close range filled me with enough anxiety to keep me off the streets. But once I recognized that I became fearless behind a camera, I had only to wrap its strap around my wrist and rest my finger on its shutter, and all my apprehensions disappeared behind my invisible shield. Although the shield is nothing but an illusion created by an unbalancing of the senses, the benefits are real. That’s because the fear it prevents is, itself, an illusion created by my own diffidence. One artificial aberration masks a second artificial aberration, and I become a healthy and emotionally-balanced street photographer. And here, all this time, I’d been lead to believe that two wrongs don’t make a right.

©2009 grEGORy simpson 

If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

Categories : Musings
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Posted by Egor 
· August 18, 2009 

Alaskan Cruise Photo Gear Guide

Shoelaces. Room deodorizers. 19th century percolators. Pick any topic you like and, if there are at least two interested parties amongst the world’s 7 billion inhabitants, there’s an internet forum dedicated to discussing it. Within each forum is an assortment of hotheads and trolls, teachers and students, givers, takers, scholars and dabblers. Skim any one of them and you’ll find the dialog as predictable as their cast of characters. You’ll read numerous threads in which belligerent brand-loyalists argue amongst themselves; threads in which the terminally lazy ask basic questions that are answered in Chapter 1 of the owner’s manual; and countless threads started by Googlephobics who post questions identical to ones posted 48 hours earlier.

Nestled amongst these threads are the inevitable solicitations for equipment recommendations. That shoelace forum will be chock full of posts asking which laces are best for a Himalayan hike, or what length shoelaces to buy for a pair of vintage 1978 high-top Converse All-Stars™. Glance in that room deodorizer forum and discover questions like, “I just broiled some salmon. Should I use a pine or floral scent to mask the odor now emanating from my sofa?”

In photography forums, these solicitations usually manifest as “which lens” questions. “Which lens should I use for my cousin’s wedding?” or “Which lens should I take on my Alaskan cruise?” Having, myself, received merciful help in a few web programming forums, I felt obligated to return the favor. But, as a programming doofus, I have nothing of value to offer that community. I can only give back by contributing to a subject I know — photography. So I decided to tackle that Alaskan lens question head-on. Making the supreme sacrifice, I booked an Alaskan cruise. It was, after all, the only way I could offer a truly informed opinion.

Most Alaskan cruises depart from Vancouver, my home. Unencumbered by the restrictions of air travel, I’d be able to board with as much photographic equipment as I could drag along the 10 block walk between my condo and the cruise ship terminal. So I loaded myself down like a rented pack mule, and hauled about a hundred pounds of photo gear onto the Volendam. The purpose? To answer, once and for all, the persistent questions surrounding Alaskan cruises and photo gear selection.

On this 1-week cruise, I shot in excess of 1500 photos. Upon returning, I immediately trashed over 200 for the usual reasons — poor exposure, poor composition, poor focus, and so on. That left exactly 1300 photos in my Alaskan cruise photo pool — a fairly significant sample size from which to build a statistical model.

Camera Statistics

Let’s begin with cameras. I packed three of them: a Leica M8 rangefinder, a Canon 5DmkII SLR, and a Panasonic DMC-G1 micro four-thirds. My pre-cruise plan was simple: I would use the Leica for on-board street-type shots, the 5DmkII for landscapes and wildlife, and the G1 for typical “tourist” shots while walking around towns. Examining the EXIF data for those 1300 shots reveals the following per-camera shot totals:

  • Canon EOS 5DmkII: 590 shots (45%)
  • Panasonic DMC-G1: 513 shots (40%)
  • Leica M8: 197 shots (15%)

The usage breakdown between the three cameras mirrors my expectations. Because of its bulk, I knew I’d carry the 5D less than the other cameras, but actually take the most shots with it. The reason for this paradox is simple: it was my wildlife camera. Photographing wildlife means firing off a flurry of motor-driven shots whenever something critter-like comes into view. This eats frames in a hurry. In marked contrast to the 5D, I knew I’d carry the lightweight G1 everywhere — whether I planned on using it or not. Even when it wasn’t my primary camera, I’d still sling the G1 over my shoulder in case I needed rapid access to an alternate focal length. Because of the nature of rangefinders, I knew photos taken with the Leica would be more deliberate and, consequently, less plentiful in number (though widely varying in subject).

Once I set sail, my usage assumptions proved rather accurate. For example, I would have expected to use the Leica for such shots as women dressing and lovers staring into sunsets. And, indeed, I did.

Similarly, I would expect to (and did) use the 5D to take such photos as the whale triptych that begins this article, and the following two bear photos:

Since my in-town wanderings were accompanied by the G1, I expected it to record a hodgepodge of subjects, and it dutifully obliged with the following shot of the Flume Trail…

… and Creek Street (shown below).

Lens Statistics

To compliment my choice of cameras and their intended functions, I selected several lenses for this trip. The per-lens shot totals are:

  • Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS: 320 shots (25%)
  • Panasonic 14-45: 298 shots (23%)
  • Panasonic 45-200: 215 shots (17%)
  • Leica 28mm f/2 Summicron: 128 shots (10%)
  • Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L: 127 shots (10%)
  • Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS: 115 shots (9%)
  • Voigtlander 35mm f/1.4 Nokton: 69 shot (5%)
  • Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II: 28 shots (2%)

As is usually the case with statistics, these numbers aren’t as cut and dry as they might appear. Take, for example, the 300mm lens. It was my most frequently used lens, yet it essentially captured only two subjects: bears and whales. If your Alaskan cruise doesn’t involve excursions into the wild, you’ll rarely use a lens of this length.

There are times, onboard the ship, when you’ll see whales, bears, otters, mountain goats, and other creatures in the distance. On such occasions, I popped a 1.4x teleconverter on my 300mm (giving me a 420mm f/5.6 lens), but the combination still wasn’t long enough to adequately capture wildlife seen from the ship. If your goal is to get quality wildlife shots from the deck of your cruise ship, you better plan on hauling a 600mm lens and a 2x teleconverter with you. Personally, there’s no way I’d bring something that monstrous on a cruise — it would limit my mobility. If you really want to shoot wildlife, book an excursion and bring along a manageable telephoto. Let the guy who didn’t bother to read this article struggle with taking 600mm ‘armchair’ nature shots from the Lido deck. He’ll be miserable.

You’ll notice, in the previous lens list, that I had one other long lens with me — the Panasonic 45-200. With the G1’s crop factor, this lens acts like a 90-400mm zoom on a full frame 35mm camera. 17% of my shots were taken with this lens but, as always, statistics aren’t telling the whole story. To avoid changing lenses in the field, I always had the G1 with me — equipped with a focal length that would compliment the one on my primary camera’s body. If I carried the Leica, for which I brought all wide lenses, I’d outfit the G1 with the 45-200 to cover the long range. Similarly, if I was packing the 5D with its 17-40 attached then, for the same reason, the G1 was also fit with the 45-200. What these statistics don’t show is that 90 of the 215 shots taken with the 45-200 were taken at the widest setting — 45mm. What this implies is that, although I took 215 shots with the 45-200, it was probably too long for 90 of those shots. In an ideal world, I would likely have chosen a different lens.

The best way to analyze my lens usage is not to categorize it by lens, but by focal length:

  • Wide Angle: anything shot at less than a 50mm (equivalent) focal length = 516 shots (40%)
  • Mid Range: anything shot between 50mm and 90mm (inclusive) = 274 shots (21%)
  • Telephotos: anything shot over 90mm (equivalent) = 510 shots (39%)

Again, the telephoto shot total is skewed by the rapid-fire shooting tactics I used while photographing two subjects: bears and whales. Without those two subjects, the vast majority of my shots were taken wider than 50mm.

Other Gear

Before this trip, I could find no consensus regarding the question of whether tripods or monopods are useful onboard the ship. So, in order to provide a definitive answer, I packed three support options: my Gitzo carbon-fibre tripod; a carbon-fibre monopod; and a 1 lb sack of lentils.

I used the tripod for only one shot. I wouldn’t have used it at all but, since I went to a lot of trouble to bring the darn thing, I thought I should at least give it a try. It was a colossal pain in the butt. It hampered my mobility and gave me nothing in return.

The monopod went on one excursion with me. I used it for five shots. Three of the shots I could have captured without it. Only a pair of waterfall photographs benefited from its use. 2 shots out of 1300 — and neither are exactly gallery quality, as you can see here. In contrast, I took about 20-30 shots with the homemade beanbag, and found it quite useful for evening shots like the one below:

The beanbag cost me $1 to make, and occupied almost no room in the suitcase. Another advantage of beanbags is you don’t even have to fill them before traveling. Take an empty 1-quart Ziploc™ bag and a small mesh travel sack of equal size. You can buy some lentils when you get to your destination, saving weight during travel. Fill the Ziploc with the lentils, zip it, then put that bag into the mesh travel sack. I have a carabiner attached to the sack, which I hook on the camera strap. This prevents the bag from accidentally slipping off the railing and falling into the ocean.

As always, I packed a backup battery for every camera — a practice that saved me on two occasions. The Kata raincovers that I brought, which would also save me in the event of a rainstorm, were not needed on this trip.

What I Should Have Packed

On several instances, I actually wish I’d brought a flash. I had planned to bring one, but space-constraints forced me to choose between the Kata rain covers and a speedlite. It rains a lot in Alaska and, although it flies in the face of the whole internet strobist craze, I usually try to avoid flash. So I chose to bring the rain covers, meaning I’d need to handle any low-light shots with fast lenses, high ISO speeds, or both. Of the 69 shots taken with the 35mm Voigtlander, the majority were shot, wide open, at f/1.4 and ISO 640. When that combination failed to let in enough light, I used the 50mm f/1.8 on the 5DmkII, which I could shoot at a much higher ISO than the Leica. When that combination failed, I had to resort to the G1’s hideous little on-camera flash. I ended up trashing every one of those flash shots during my first RAW file purge.

Conclusion

Leave the tripods and monopods at home. If you’re worried about stabilizing your camera, take a 1-quart Ziploc bag and, when you get to the port city, buy a pound of lentils and fill the bag.

Unless you’re shooting wildlife, your shots will probably skew toward standard and wider focal lengths. Wildlife excursions will, of course, require the addition of a long lens.

If you have a fast lens, bring it — it’s dark in the ship’s interior and beautiful on the bow at twilight. If you don’t have a fast lens or a camera with stellar high-ISO performance, you’ll probably want an external flash. If you’re the type who thinks the camera’s built-in flash will work just fine, it’s highly unlikely you’re even reading this article.

Always take a backup battery, charger, and three times as many flash memory cards as you anticipate needing. If possible, take along some kind of device to which you can offload and backup images. I had my laptop and two small external hard drives. I’ve experienced numerous hard drive failures in my life, so I never trust valuable images to only one drive.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which camera you choose to take — it’s how you use it. Normally, I would have chosen to shoot the following with my Leica, but it wasn’t with me on deck, so I used the 5DmkII.

Conversely, I would normally choose to take the next photo with the 5D, but the Leica was on my shoulder. Did it really much matter, in either case? No. I got a shot, even if it wasn’t the shot I wanted.

What about the following two photos? Normally, I would have grabbed the 5DmkII for both of them — but for the top photo, I had only the Leica at hand. And for the bottom photo, I had only the G1:

Neither is it overly important which lenses you bring. I don’t always reach for the 300mm lens when heading out to take landscapes, but that’s the only lens I had on the bow when these shot opportunities presented themselves:

This entire article has been a long-winded answer to the popular “what lenses should I take on an Alaskan cruise?” query. If you’ve chosen to “cut to the chase,” and skip reading the bulk of this article, here’s the short answer: Unless you’re shooting for a client with specific needs, it doesn’t matter. There are no bad photo opportunities on an Alaskan cruise. Luck, skill, and planning will all contribute more to your final image than any one piece of photo gear. Your eye will gravitate toward capturing shots that match your gear. Shoot with the camera you know best. Shoot the subjects that interest you most. And enjoy the trip — it’s a vacation, after all.

©2009 grEGORy simpsonIf you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

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Posted by Egor 
· August 3, 2009 

Listen to Your Leica

This past Wednesday was hot — so hot that the city of Vancouver broke its all-time temperature record, which had stood since 1960. Wednesday also coincided with the third night of the annual 2-week fireworks competition on English Bay. Although I love this event, I had never considered photographing it. To me, the only thing duller than a fireworks photo is a fireworks video. But that night, blinking away the sweat that had puddled in my eye sockets, I caught a glimpse of the Leica as I headed for the door.

“Bring me,” it said.

“Excuse me?”

“Bring me,” repeated the Leica.

“But I have no interest in photographing fireworks.”

“Not even in black and white?” countered the camera.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said.

“Exactly,” replied the Leica, knowing my weakness for incongruity.

“I’m not too keen on the idea of lugging a tripod down to the beach.”

“Then don’t.”

“You want me to photograph fireworks and you don’t want me to use a tripod?”

“There are a hundred thousand people out there,” argued the Leica. “You need to be mobile. You’re a street photographer.”

“But it’s pitch black,” I challenged.

“The fireworks will provide some light.”

“So let me make sure I have this right. Using black & white, you want me to take street photos on a beach in the middle of the night, hand-holding ridiculously long exposures because a fireworks display is going to be my only source of illumination and I’m not going to have a tripod?”

“Yup,” said the Leica.

“I’ll do it!”

And, with that, my sweat-swathed palm grabbed the camera and headed down to Sunset Beach, well after sunset on a sweltering summer night. Typical of inanimate objects, the Leica had told me what to do, but not how to actually do it.

With the camera gone mum, I scanned the crowd looking for a shot. Initially, I thought I’d photograph the faces of people as they gazed skyward toward the light, but there simply wasn’t enough of it. And, more importantly, there would be nothing in the photo to convey that the light had come from a fireworks display. I knew then that I’d photograph people from behind — using the fireworks as a source of rim lighting to outline their silhouettes. I also wanted to impart some sense of the setting — the trees, the bay, the ships on the water, and the crowd on the beaches. So I strolled around until I found a nook through which I could frame everything. I held the Leica firmly against my slippery brow and released the lazy shutter, capturing the first official fireworks photo in my 20-year camera-toting career.

The next day, Thursday, was even hotter — breaking Vancouver’s previous all-time temperature record, which had stood for only 24 hours. I won’t bore you with a recount of my conversation with the coffee machine.

©2009 grEGORy simpson

If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

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Posted by Egor 
· July 17, 2009 

Geeking Out with a 50 ‘Cron

There are geeks and then there are photo geeks. In the old days, geeks worked in carnivals and were oddly entertaining folks who swallowed swords, hammered spikes into their nostrils, and decapitated chickens and snakes without benefit of a cleaver. The photo geek, by contrast, is not nearly so riveting. In fact, photo geeks are downright dull. They photograph things like test charts and brick walls, and talk about spherical aberrations and aperture diffraction rather than composition, light, and shadow.

In general, I tend to avoid partaking in the nerdier aspects of photo geekiness. Although I enjoy reading about lens coma and apochromatic lenses as much as the next (obsessive) photographer, I scarcely resort to photographing graphs or grids for the purpose of quantifying camera or lens performance. Instead, I quantify performance by how capably the gear enables me to capture real-world subjects. I choose these subjects for a multitude of reasons, but rarely for the purpose of measuring or calculating subtle optical flaws.

I only consent to such behavior when these real-world photos display optical aberrations that are either problems to rectify or mysteries to solve. In these instances, I put on the white coat, descend into my metaphorical laboratory, dust off the old slide rule and begin photographing charts, graphs, and dreadfully insipid objects… which brings us to the purpose of today’s article.

Ever since I began sharing M-mount lenses between the Leica M8 and the Panasonic DMC-G1, I’ve been consciously aware that they perform quite differently on the two cameras. Specifically, photos on the M8 tend to be consistently sharp across the frame, whereas photos from the G1 (when fronted with an adapted M-lens) tend to get rather soft in the corners. Because of the way I use these lenses on the G1, this hasn’t concerned me much. I’ll pop an M-mount lens on a G1 for one of two reasons: either I need faster glass (to compensate for the G1’s rather poor high-ISO performance), or I’m taking advantage of the G1’s 2x crop-factor to ‘convert’ a lens into a mid-range telephoto. In both cases, I tend to shoot subjects that are somewhat centrally-located, and the reduced depth-of-field more than masks any softness in the corners.

Quite frankly, if it weren’t for that darned internet, I would probably never have fired up the Tesla coil, filled the Erlenmeyer flasks with brightly colored liquids, nor had my assistant fetch me a fresh corpse. I’d happily continue to mount M-lenses on the G1 — mindful of the subject and whether corner softness would negatively impact the photo — never bothering to ‘quantify’ the softness in a lab. However, because of my various blogs about the M8 and the G1, many readers have written me to ask specifically about the differences between these cameras when using M-mount lenses.

Sean Reid was, to my knowledge, the first to publish the fact that the G1/M-lens combination produced a rather fuzzy periphery. His tests, conducted with a 28mm Summicron, confirmed what I saw in my own images. Crazy as it may seem, I’ve never actually mounted my 28 cron on the G1, but I have mounted both my 35mm and 50mm lenses — and they do display soft edges. But look at the two generic “street portraits” below. Both were taken with my 1991 v5 50mm Summicron lens. For the woman’s photo, the lens was mounted on the M8. For the man’s photo, it was mounted on the G1.

Both cameras did exactly what I asked them to do, so using real-world images to contrast and compare the two cameras is somewhat futile. So I descended into the laboratory to devise a more controlled test that would tell my readers what they wanted to know.

The problem with performing a direct comparison is that the M8 and G1 have different crop factors. A 50mm lens mounted on an M8 gives a field of view roughly equivalent to a 66mm lens on a full-frame 35mm camera. That same lens, mounted on a G1, gives a field-of-view roughly equivalent to a 100mm lens. Compounding this difference is the fact that the two cameras have different pixel counts. So, before I could even begin to compare the two cameras directly, I had to partake in some mathletic exercises.

I positioned the M8 90cm away from a board on which I glued some coins. At that distance, a 50mm lens mounted on a camera with a crop factor of 1.33 yields a 48.72cm horizontal field-of-view. Photos from my M8 are 3916 pixels wide so, for this test, my M8 would capture 80.38 pixels/cm.

I needed to insure that, when this same lens is mounted on a G1, the coins would appear to be the same size. Since the M8 test yielded 80.38 horizontal pixels/cm, I wanted the same from the G1. Its photos are 4000 pixels wide, which meant I’d need to capture a 49.76cm horizontal field of view. Working backward and factoring in the G1’s 2.00 crop factor, I calculated that the G1 would need to be 139cm from the target in order to capture an image that was dimensionally equivalent to the M8.

Below are thumbnail views of the uncropped test photos. As you can see, the field of view captured by each camera is nearly identical. On the left is the M8. On the right, the G1:

For each image, I focused manually on the Loonie in the center. Already I’ve learned something: I had always assumed it was easier to focus the G1 using its magnified focus assist feature than it was to focus the M8. But, as you can see in the following comparisons, I actually obtained slightly better center focus with the M8. I ran each test twice, and these were the best f/2 center focus results from each camera. I then tried to get sharper center performance from the G1, but could not. I can only theorize that the M8’s sensor (with its thin glass coating and missing anti-alias filter) is simply able to resolve analog, unprocessed images better than the G1. And you can’t get more “analog” than an M-mount lens.

More caveats: I shot the M8 at ISO 320 and the G1 at ISO 400. You can see that, at ISO 400, the G1 is much noisier than the M8. This doesn’t really have any effect on what we’re trying to learn, but it does account for one visible difference between G1 and M8 captures. To minimize camera shake, I used a release cable on the M8 and the timer on the G1. Light came from a big, filtered window directly to the left of the test target — not the most ideal lighting, but identical for the two cameras. Finally, because each camera renders colors a little differently, I desaturated these images so that color variations wouldn’t affect one’s perception of sharpness. I used the same default Lightroom (Camera Raw) settings on all captures.

Below are the results at f/2. Images from the M8 are on the left, and images from the G1 are on the right. Because the lens behavior was uniformly concentric — affecting all corners equally, I haven’t bothered to show crops from the other corners — just the top left:

Below are the results at f/2.8. Already I’m seeing quantifiable evidence of why I really like using this lens on the M8 at f/2.8:

And here are the results at f/4. Note that there seems to be a slight bit of focus shift happening here. Center crops at f/4 aren’t quite as sharp as they were at f/2.8, whereas the corners are a tiny bit sharper:

Here we see the results at f/5.6. Again mild focus shift is apparent. On the M8, the corner is decidedly sharper than the center. On the G1, which suffers from soft corners, the center softness and edge softness are now nearly identical.

At f/8, depth of field begins to obscure the focus shift differentials. However, we can still see that the M8 corner image is slightly sharper than the center, whereas the G1’s corner image is about equally as soft as its center. For the G1 tests, I focused the 50mm lens only once at f/2 — this was to insure any focus shift issues that existed on the M8 would be duplicated on the G1. In reality, one is most likely to focus a G1-mounted lens at the selected aperture (unless it’s too dark).

Obviously, when my 50mm Summicron is mounted on a DMC-G1, the corners are softened across all apertures. At f/2 – f/4 this is extremely apparent. On this test it isn’t as apparent at f/5.6 or f/8… until you consider that this lens has mild focus shift issues and, as such, one would expect the corners to be sharper than the center at those apertures.

What’s my conclusion? The plain and simple truth is that the M8’s sensor was designed for M-mount lenses; the Micro Four-Thirds (MFT) sensor was not. MFT cannot do justice to M-class glass. MFT really comes into its own when you use dedicated MFT lenses, since their aberrations are automatically corrected within the camera’s software. The snag, of course, is the paucity of MFT lens offerings. Personally, I’ve only used the G1’s 14-45 MFT kit lens, but I find its renderings too clinical for many of my images. It’s like the visual equivalent of Autotune™, which singers use to correct pitch errors. The problem with Autotune™ (to my ears) is that removing all of a singer’s pitch variations also removes all of the singer’s soul. I’d rather have soul than perfection, so I often choose to mount M-lenses on my G1. Your needs and aesthetics may differ. If edge-to-edge sharpness is important to your photography, you probably won’t be happy buying M-lenses to mount on your MFT camera. Also, if you already own a collection of M-lenses and are dying to use them on a digital body, you’ll be much happier spending a few extra bucks on a used Leica M8 instead of a new MFT body. If, like me, you frequently carry around both an M8 and a G1, then its hard to beat the convenience of having two “looks” for the price of one lens.

©2009 grEGORy simpson

If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

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Posted by Egor 
· July 8, 2009 

Torment of the Innocuous Query

“What do you photograph?”

Inevitably, when someone discovers that I’m a photographer, this is their Pavlovian response. It’s a question framed in an expression of utmost earnestness — as if they were asking a medical doctor to state his specialty, or an actor to enumerate the roles they had played. I’ve heard other photographers respond to this inquiry without missing a beat. “Weddings,” they answer. Or, “I’m a corporate photographer.” “I shoot sports,” say others. “Wildlife!”

How do they do this? How do they answer this question so effortlessly? How does anybody photograph only one thing? Photographers even ask this question of each other. If you respond with an answer that’s too broad, or name even more than a single discipline, you’re labelled a dilettante.

“What do you photograph?”

My heart sinks. I know how to answer the question correctly, but I haven’t the correct answer. I photograph what fascinates me; what amuses me; what saddens me. I photograph what I find poignant, aesthetic, horrifying, delightful, beautiful, inspiring, strange, ironic, truthful, exotic, funny, or revealing.

If I’m entertained by human expression, I’ll photograph it. But I don’t label myself a ‘portrait photographer.’

If I see a levitating dog, I’ll photograph it. But I’m not a ‘pet photographer.’

A Device for Levitation

If I find a zen-like tranquility in an everyday object, I’ll photograph it. But I’d never call myself a ‘fine arts photographer.’

“What do you photograph?”

It’s a question the inquisitor wants answered as succinctly as possible. And, for this reason, it’s a question I’ve never answered adequately. “I like to photograph people,” I’ve said on numerous occasions and to unsatisfactory result. It’s certainly true. I do enjoy photographing people — but not to the exclusion of everything else. And how can I reconcile this answer with the fact that a landscape assignment has, to date, been my favorite? I can’t. So why must I declare a specialty when I’ve delivered quality work across many disciplines and enjoyed them all?

“What do you photograph?”

It’s a very specific question, and that question is not “what do you like to photograph?” The question is “what do you photograph?” The implicit meaning of this is, “As a professional, you must have a narrow specialty. What is it?” That’s why an answer as banal as “I like to photograph people,” doesn’t cut it. “Photographing people” is not a job. Wedding photography is a job. Fashion photography is a job. Taking snapshots of babies at Walmart is a job. So when people ask this question, they’re really asking, “Where does the money come from?”

For this reason, I’ve sometimes heard myself answer the question with an even less satisfying response: “I’ll photograph anything my clients ask for.” It’s an answer that directly and truthfully addresses the real question behind the question. Indeed, I will photograph anything people will pay me to photograph. I need to earn a living and, if at all possible, I’d like to earn it with a camera. If a cooking magazine hired me, full-time, to photograph culinary creations for their monthly publications, I would give them the best photographs money could buy. But I still wouldn’t answer, “I’m a food photographer.”

“What do you photograph?”

It’s a question that, if answered to the satisfaction of the inquisitor, would be void of any and all truth. When my camera is in my hand, I have a heightened awareness. I do not shut myself off from anything. I do not narrow my vision to a single discipline. I photograph with my eyes wide open. I am a hunter — hyper-sensitive to geometry and motion, passion and emotion. I see everything… but I can’t photograph everything I see. I can only photograph the smallest subset of the images that bombard me. So the things I choose to photograph are dictated by my own personal principles, emotions, and ideals.

“What do you photograph?”

My soul.

Although I will never dare utter such an affected response to a casual acquaintance, potential employer or industry peer, it is the most honest and complete answer of all. It is, ultimately, what every true photographer photographs, because the photographer’s soul dictates where the lens points, how its settings are chosen, and when the shutter is released.

People in some cultures claim that, with each photo taken of them, they lose a little piece of their soul. But, in actuality, the subject’s soul remains intact. It only seems diminished because it’s been diluted by the addition of the photographer’s soul. It is the photographer who determines the exact moment of capture — the exact expression. And, by the choices they make, photographers impose some of their own biases, beliefs and soul onto the subject.

It matters not whether a photographer is paid to shoot animal, vegetable, or mineral. These are just ‘things’ that a photographer shoots. It matters not whether a photo is for a news magazine, a corporate website, or the art gallery. These are just ‘clients’ for whom a photographer shoots. To define your photography by aligning it with a specific ‘thing’ or a ‘client’ seems, to me, rather soulless.

“What do you photograph?”

It’s a question for which I can write an entire essay for an answer, yet will never be capable of answering to the satisfaction of those who ask it.

©2009 grEGORy simpson

If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

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Posted by Egor 
· June 22, 2009 

Communicating Discourse

Thursday morning began as every morning begins — I awoke in a strange room, unaware of who I am or how I arrived there. Through perseverance of will, I began to piece together certain clues — eventually determining that this was my own bedroom in my own condo, and that I was exactly the same guy I was yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. By rote of muscle memory, I stumbled into the kitchen, ground the coffee beans, filled the Technivorm with fresh water, and switched it on — fixated on each drip that filled the “Carafe Of Life” with the rich brown molecules demanded by the voices in my head. After consuming the first bucket of beverage, I turned to the Macintosh to see what the morning email brought. And that’s where Thursday morning diverged from other mornings.

My inbox contained a request to photograph an event that would begin in an hour and a half. The freshly caffeinated synapses in my mind were now easily capable of performing the math. “Let’s see,” I thought. “Thirty minutes to shave, shower and dress. Plus thirty minutes to walk to the event. Factor in an arrival time fifteen minutes before the event to discuss, exactly, what the client requires. Carry the three and multiply by the square root of seven and… I have exactly 15 minutes to gather and pack my camera gear!”

Now fueled by a potent mixture of both caffeine and adrenaline, I hurriedly grabbed a backpack. I knew nothing about what I would be photographing nor the conditions under which the shoot would occur. So I tossed in a heap of seemingly disparate gear — a wide lens, a portrait lens, a long lens, a couple camera bodies, a flash, a stand, a shoot-through umbrella, and a bevy of storage cards, batteries, gels, filters, and assorted other bits.

Upon arriving at the event, I quickly discovered I could have left the flash equipment at home. The meeting room’s ceiling floated 10 meters above my head, effectively eliminating it as a source of bounce. The room’s walls were swathed in an ostentatious yellowy paper that cast a sickly beige hue upon every object in the room. To eliminate the tawny tint, I would need to blast my victims… err, I mean “subjects,” with quasi-nuclear flash — effectively killing any and all ambient light. Not only would that be intrusive to the conference, but it would violate my own aesthetic values. So the flash stayed in the bag.

There were numerous round tables, set for dining, and spread throughout the room. That fact — plus the long white table adorned with sandwiches, salads, soup, and fruits — were my first hints that this was a luncheon. The final piece of evidence came from the event planner himself who, having spotted me crouched in a corner, said “we’ll be serving lunch.” Thus ferreted out of my hiding place, I could no longer entertain thoughts of escape. So I asked him what type of event this would be, and what type of shots he’d like. He said it was an exchange of ideas — people talking about the problems in their particular industry and how they go about solving them.

Hmm. So my assignment is to photograph “people exchanging ideas?” No problem. I can wing this.

My first thought was to try shooting wide — including as many participants as possible in the frame. It wasn’t a bad concept conceptually, but there was a problem with its execution. Since this was a lunch event, someone in the discussion group would inevitably be eating. Group photographs in which at least one person is chewing do not, ultimately, say “discourse.”

So I tried another tactic: I would frame tightly either on someone speaking or on someone listening. Filling the frame with a single person would prevent me from accidentally photographing somebody in mid-chew. This worked, but it also didn’t really say “discourse.” After all, a photo of someone talking (or listening) doesn’t tell the whole story — only half. You can see this in the two photos shown here — they might work as candid ‘portraits,’ but they don’t suggest an exchange of information.

So I started shooting people in profile, pulling back to the point where I could see two conversationalists in the frame. I now had a photo that said “discourse,” but it was lacking something. Specifically, shooting conversations in profile obscured the passion and intensity of the participants. It also disconnected the viewer from the conversation, as if one were eavesdropping on a discussion rather than participating in it.

And that’s when it hit me: Use a narrow depth-of-field, and shoot one of the participants directly — but make sure to include at least a piece of the other participant(s). In this way, I could show the earnestness of either the speaker or listener, but still convey they’re involved in a discourse with one or more people. There is no need to actually focus on the features of any secondary participants, nor is there any actual need to show their faces — they serve merely to indicate that a conversation is occurring. Below are just a couple of examples:

The idea worked perfectly. I captured a series of photos that expressed “people exchanging ideas,” which is exactly what the event organizer had hoped to see. I returned home that afternoon, processed several of the images, and went to bed satisfied with my abilities as a photographer — happy that my reactive method of photography had succeeded once more.

On Friday morning, I again awoke in a strange room, unaware of who I am or how I arrived there…

©2009 grEGORy simpson

If you find these photos enjoyable or the articles beneficial, please consider making a DONATION to this site’s continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site — serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls.

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