For decades, I’ve used a custom form to log ‘important’ characteristics for each roll of film I develop. Recorded on this form are attributes such as: the dates between which the roll was shot, and where it was shot; what camera and lens(es) were used; what film was employed, and at what ISO; the type, temperature and ratio of the chemistry; and the methodology used in the film’s development.

After scanning the negatives, I then copy this information into my Lightroom catalog, where it becomes part of each image’s metadata. Having access to so much history has proven invaluable over the years — particularly when it comes time to develop some type of film I haven’t shot in awhile. For example, I recently purchased a 100′ bulk roll of FP4+, and a quick glance through my previous FP4+ negatives revealed that my historically “mixed” opinion of the film had everything to do with whether I developed it in HC-110 (insipid) or Rodinal (tasty).

But lately, I feel as if my development skills have plateaued (though I’ll admit, given my penchant for low fidelity images, this can be a rather tricky thing to discern). Is there anything else I can learn from all these negatives? Am I tracking all the data I should be tracking? Is there any additional information I could record, which might aid my quest for constant improvement? Thinking through the development process step-by-step, I realized the very first thing I do when I process a roll of film is to choose a musical album to accompany the development. And yet, not once, had I ever bothered to document this obviously essential step in the process.

Granted, logic suggests one’s musical selection should have no affect on the negatives… but until I actually start to track it, can I make this claim with absolute certainty? Perhaps negatives subjected to sleazy lounge music during the development process will have subtly different characteristics than those birthed to some avant-garde classical tracks? Might there be a difference between those punk rock negatives and those souped under the aural blanket of a Gregorian chant? Does listening to hard bop give me negatives like Gene Smith’s? Will classic rock nudge my negatives in the direction of Jim Marshall’s?

And so — partly because it’s utterly ridiculous and partly because “why not?” — I’m now documenting the music that accompanies each roll of film I develop. In the last several weeks, I’ve souped negatives to:

• Open by Brian Auger & Trinity w/Julie Driscoll
• The Madcap Laughs by Syd Barrett
• Bálvvoslatjna by Mari Boine
• Ege Bamyasi by Can
• Cowboy in Sweden by Lee Hazlewood
• Oxygène by Jean-Michel Jarre
• In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson
• A Cappella Choral Works (featuring the London Sinfonietta Voices) by György Ligeti
• Roots by Curtis Mayfield
• Einfluss by Roedelius & Arnold Kasar
• 2112 by Rush

Obviously, it’s too soon to learn anything from this experiment… but give me another 5 or 6 years, and I might have pooled enough data to form a cohesive theory. In the meantime, I think I’ll forget about applying for photography grants — the real money is in research, and this might just be my ticket. Silly? Maybe. But I’ve seen grant money thrown at far more ludicrous projects that this…

© 2023 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THE PHOTOS:

“Multiplex” was shot with a Fuji Natura Black 1.9, using HP5+ pushed to ISO 1600 and developed in Rodinal 1:50. It was birthed to Jean-Michel Jarre’s Oxygène — still the best album ever recorded in one’s kitchen.

“Scythe” is from a Lomography Sprocket Rocket, using FP4+ pushed to ISO 200, and developed in Rodinal 1:50. Its development music came courtesy of 1967’s Open album from Brian Auger & Trinity w/Julie Driscoll.

“The Wall” was snapped with an Olympus Xa on HP5+ at ISO 400, and developed in Rodinal 1:50. And while it might have seemed obvious to have done so, it was not developed to Pink Floyd’s The Wall but, instead, to Can’s experimentally funky Ege Bamyasi album from 1972.

“Playline” was shot with a Contax G1 and a Zeiss Planar 45mm f/2 lens, using FP4+ pushed to ISO 200 and developed in Rodinal 1:50. Roedelius & Kasar’s Einfluss album, from 2017, provided the accompaniment.

“WRDSMTH Was Here” used a Fuji GS645S Wide 60 and some TMAX100 that expired over a decade ago, and which I exposed at ISO 80. Sound waves from the psychedelic cowboy lounge music of Lee Hazlewood’s Cowboy in Sweden helped agitate the Rodinal.

REMINDER: If you’ve managed to extract a modicum of enjoyment from the plethora of material contained on this site, please consider making a DONATION to its continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is neither an aggregator site nor is it AI-generated. Serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls — even the silly stuff.

Those who enjoy a tactile engagement with photographs are encouraged to visit the ULTRAsomething STORE, where actual objects, including ULTRAsomething Magazine, are available for purchase.

One needs only spend a few minutes perusing the photos of Josef Koudelka to find 100 reasons why I’m no Josef Koudelka — none of which weigh in my favour. His panoramic work inspired my own forays into the format, while simultaneously leaving me rather dispirited by the wideframe oeuvre I’ve produced. Two of his standard format books — “Gypsies” and “Exiles” — both contain more perfect photos than I could create in a dozen lifetimes.

As apparent as these 100 differences are to the naked eye, there’s a 101st that isn’t as overtly obvious — philosophy. Koudelka once said, “I never stay in one country more than three months. Why? Because I was interested in seeing, and if I stay longer I become blind.” I’ll admit to having always envied his nomadic lifestyle, but it was never going to mesh with the drudgery of my day job. And since there were 100 readily apparent reasons why I’m no Josef Koudelka, there were also 100 reasons why my photography earnings would never supplant that day job. But here’s the thing: Being forced to photograph the same environment — day after day, month after month, year after year, decade after decade — is exactly what taught me TO see.

I walk over 1000 miles/year taking photographs — the vast majority of which are snapped within a 4 mile radius of my condo. I have photographed every inch of that radius hundreds, if not thousands, of times. And yet each photograph is different than the ones that came before it. A change in my mood; a change in the light; a change in season; a change in context; a change in camera, lens, or film; a change in the subject itself. Each results in an entirely different photograph — none of which could ever be the “definitive” photograph of the subject, because no such thing can possibly exist.

Being confined to a single environment forces you to see past a subject’s surface and deep into its entanglement with the universe. Photography may indeed be easier when everything in front of your camera is new — but it’s more spiritually rewarding when you’re forced to face the familiar, and work to see it in a different light.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t love the opportunity to travel to new places and photograph new things. I absolutely would. It’s exhilarating when you can stand in one spot and a hundred photographic possibilities flood your eye. When you photograph a single environment for decades, that flood turns to drought. 99% of everything I pass triggers the same thought — “I’ve already taken that photo.” But that 1% — where something reveals itself in such a way that it never revealed itself before — that’s the ultimate reward.

So I must humbly disagree with Koudelka. Being in one place for too long doesn’t make you go blind. Rather — it simply unlocks a different way of seeing. So, even though there are still 100 reasons why I wish I could take photos like Koudelka, there’s one that makes me very glad to be me.

© 2023 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THE PHOTOS: All these photos were shot in spots I’ve traversed nearly as frequently as the hallway in my condo, yet each reveals something not seen in all the previous shots taken in exactly these same locations.

‘Meta‘ was shot with a Konica Hexar AF on Fomapan 100, and developed in Rodinal 1:50. ‘Over the Under Overpass‘ was photographed with a Widelux F7 on Rollei RPX100, and developed in Rodinal 1:50. ‘Fetch‘ was snapped with a Nikon 28Ti on Ilford Ortho Plus 80, and developed in HC-110 Dilution H. ‘Andy‘ was shot with a Leica IIIc and a 35mm f/3.5 Elmar LTM lens, on Tri-X, and developed in HC-110 Dilution E. ‘Redundant 1‘ was photographed with a Konica Hexar AF on Rollei RPX100, and developed in Rodinal 1:50. ‘Redundant 2‘ was shot with a Contax G1, fronted with a Contax 45mm f/2 Planar lens, using Delta 3200, which was developed in Rodinal 1:25.

REMINDER: If you’ve managed to extract a modicum of enjoyment from the plethora of material contained on this site, please consider making a DONATION to its continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is neither an aggregator site nor is it AI-generated. Serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls — even the silly stuff.

Those who enjoy a tactile engagement with photographs are encouraged to visit the ULTRAsomething STORE, where actual objects, including ULTRAsomething Magazine, are available for purchase.

IMPORTANT: Speaking of ULTRAsomething magazine, this will probably be the last month that I offer free shipping in the US and Canada… so if you’ve been holding off purchasing an issue or two (or three), now’s the time to grab it!

If what I read on the internet is true (and who knows if it is — it could have been written by ChatGPT), there’s considerable consternation within the photo community over the rapidly advancing presence of generative AI, and how it will ultimately lead to the death of photography. As a guy whose life is both consumed and enriched by photography, I figured I might as well weigh in on the topic. So here it is: Generative AI will have no effect on my photography whatsoever. I will continue to take photos exactly as I always have (albeit with the glacially slow stylistic shifts that occur over the course of one’s life) and I will remain just as unknown and insignificant 10 years from now as I am today. I don’t care one bit if AI robots scrape my website and use my photos to train their algorithms because, frankly, I think generative images could benefit from a touch of ULTRAsomething DNA.

Besides, I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but photography is already dead — at least as a culturally significant form of artistic expression. Obviously, it’s alive and well as an illustrative art form (where Photoshop reigns supreme in altering images into fantastical artifice), and as a marketing tool to help sell products, ideologies and agendas. It’s also thriving, more than ever, as a tool for cataloging cherished moments and events — even if those moments are instantly manipulated by in-camera AI algorithms to smooth skin, slim bodies, replace skies, and alter colours. Hell, memories are already sugar coated distortions of reality, so of course people want their photos to match the artifice.

For anyone already engaged in the jiggery-pokery side of image creation, AI will absolutely lessen the need to begin with an actual photo. But I would argue, for such applications, that the final image has always been an illustration (not a photograph), and that the creator’s differentiating skills and creativity lie in their illustrative mastery. So AI isn’t ‘killing’ photography — it’s simply lessening its necessity as an original component in a digitally fabricated painting. AI frees modern illustrators (who may erroneously be identifying as ‘photographers’) from the shackles of reality. Even though AI trains on what already exists, and can thus only re-create what’s come before, the paradoxical result is that the granularity with which these trillions of images are remixed enables anyone to create an infinite number of results. AI gives free rein to one’s imagination, so the more creative the mind, the more fantastical the image. That’s exactly the way art should work. It’s the world gone full circle. In the mid-19th century, painters feared photography would render the paint brush obsolete, but it didn’t. Photography was a different medium — employed by different practitioners to different ends. So here we are again, but with our shoes on our other feet.

Like everyone, I dabbled a bit with generative AI. I asked it to create a black and white ‘photograph’ of a man walking down the street with a tuna slung over his back. The results were hilarious, and with a bit of fine tuning in Photoshop, I could easily have slipped one into my portfolio and few would have been the wiser. But it was no more a photograph than a painting is a photograph, and for this reason was totally unrelated to what I like about photography or the reasons I do it.

The problem with generative AI is not the technology, but the intent. In 2018, a team from MIT published the results of their research on the propagation of information, and discovered that a lie would spread up to twenty times faster than a truth. So if your intent is the dissemination of disinformation, you’re going to be twenty times more successful than the guy with benign intent.

Technologies are often developed to achieve utopian goals, but one man’s utopia is another man’s hell. And therein lies the issue — technology is morally, politically, and culturally agnostic. A car can transport someone to the home of a sick friend in need of assistance, or it can be used as a weapon of mass murder to mow down those you seek to destroy. The car is still a car — it’s one’s intent that matters.

Mankind has always sought to control and manipulate others — whether through the religious doctrines of the past, or the rampant consumerism of the present. And the tools for manipulation have always been amply employed.

Generative AI is simply the newest, shiniest tool in the toolbox. But where it departs from photography, videography, writing, painting and other art forms is through the democratization of the technology — putting it into the hands of everyone, and not just the gifted wordsmiths, visual effects specialists, or those with exquisite Photoshop skills. Everyone can now access a tool that allows them to freely create any artificial image or video they can dream up. This will undoubtedly result in some of the most fantastically compelling art ever created. But it will also result in some of the most fantastically dangerous disinformation ever conceived. And the only thing separating these two outcomes is intent.

AI, itself, is not dangerous. Its harm will come from both its ubiquity and its symbiotic relationship with social media — a democratizing distribution medium with much greater cultural reach than the books, galleries, newspapers, cinema, television or websites that came before it. Social media removed the barrier to information dissemination. AI removes the barrier to the creation of that information. It’s an unstoppable and potentially combustible combo.

Which is exactly why any suggestion that society pause AI development is absurd. Does anyone really believe this is possible? When was the last time you saw society agree on anything? When was the last time you saw technology regress? The idea you can pause technology is just another utopian daydream from those unwilling or unable to recognize that different people have different intents. Once a technology exists, you cannot legislate it out of existence. It’s here. It’s available to everyone, and we’re all going to bear the consequence. AI, itself, isn’t the fundamental problem — it’s humanity. And if we haven’t fixed that in the last couple hundred thousand years, do we really think an extra six months will do the trick?

So perhaps I need to reassess my earlier statement that generative AI will have no effect on my photography. I suspect it will have an indirect and accidental effect, because it will impact all of our lives, and thus society as a whole.

It will affect my photography in exactly the same way the smart phone affected it — not because I started using the phone to take photos (the way the rest of the world did), but because it changed the very nature of how people interact with one another. The streets were once awash in curious, wondrous, compelling, humorous and thoughtful human relationships just begging me to photograph them. Now they’re awash in people consumed entirely by solitary interaction with their smart phones. The fact there is now more humour and metaphor in shrubberies, wildlife and inanimate objects than in humans has, indeed, had a profound effect on my photography. No doubt, AI will have a similarly transcendent impact on the world around us, and will thus reverberate though my photos of that world.

But beyond this, I’ll continue to walk around the same as I always do. I’ll look for things that interest me, amuse me, or that I just think would look good as a photograph. And I’ll do this because that is and always will be my photography’s intent. Anachronistic? Yeah, probably. But then I’ve been known to stand in my kitchen and develop film to the blaring opulence of a Vincenzo Bellini opera; the pulsing coolness of some Art Blakey hard bop; or the relentless drive of some old 1970’s German motorik beat. The electric scooter didn’t kill my walking; digital didn’t kill my film; and Techno didn’t kill my love of a tasty medieval hurdy-gurdy groove. So AI ain’t gonna kill my photography… but it might very well kill us.

©2023, grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THIS ARTICLE: Ten years ago, I wrote and article called Reject Intent, which is one of my personal favourite (and thus, least popular) articles. In spite of what seems to be a related title, it has absolutely nothing to do with this one… and yet, in some ways that article actually explains some of the fundamental concepts implied within this one.

Three years ago I wrote an article called Ai, which its title suggests might be fundamentally more akin to this one — except that it deals mostly with using AI tools to improve one’s photographs, rather than using AI to actually generate them. Back then I hadn’t even conceived of using AI to create, and not just enhance, an image. Still, the concepts within remain fairly sound, so it might be worth a read. Though I now wonder if the technology isn’t changing so fast that even this article will be out of date by the time I publish it.

ABOUT THE PHOTOS: Quite clearly, several of these photos were selected for the express purpose of screwing up AI training algorithms. In the case of A man sits on a rocky outcropping, if even one person’s attempt to generate a beautifully rendered AI scene of a man watching a sunset includes a section of a construction crane, I’ll be happy. Sure it doesn’t have the “clever” titles normally associated with my photos, but I thought a dose of literalism would really help screw with the AI training. DALL-Egor is obviously a play on the DALL-E generative AI engine, and given how few photos of me there are on the internet, this should help quite a bit to ensure any generative portraits of me are rendered useless. Gilligan’s A.I. and CityGPT are more a warning of what awaits us than an act of AI training terrorism, while A Spanner in the Works is just a blatant attempt for me to crash the AI training algorithms. Lamborghini, like A man sits… and DALL-Egor, is merely another drop of poison in the training well. It’s also the only digital photo in this post — its gnarliness defying the pristine intent of the technology.

REMINDER: If you’ve managed to extract a modicum of enjoyment from the plethora of material contained on this site, please consider making a DONATION to its 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 — even the silly stuff.

Those who enjoy a tactile engagement with photographs are encouraged to visit the ULTRAsomething STORE, where actual objects, including ULTRAsomething Magazine, are available for purchase.

If I ever felt compelled to publish a daily blog, it would likely be nothing more than endless bellyaching about whatever annoys me. The fact I constantly suffer thousands of such vexations means I’d always have a fresh and reliable well of inspiration from which to draw.

Since my current ambition (or lack thereof) results in a slovenly monthly publication schedule, I rarely resort to excessive grousing. But this month, sensing I might have exhausted my readers with a surplus of magazine related articles, I decided I could use a new topic. So I plunged my net into the well of negative inspiration to scoop out some random annoyance du jour. A single dip was all I required to extract a lumpy and pungent peeve lying heavy at the bottom of the net. I recognized it instantly as society’s current and increasingly irritating obsession with declaring someone a G.O.A.T. — Greatest Of All Time. Never mind that the very acronym annoys me, but 9 times out of 10, the so-called GOAT is either still active or recently retired — indicative that we humans believe “all time” = “the time during which we, ourselves, have lived.”

But as I bellied up to the laptop to begin airing my grievances over the current GOAT craze, I realized it was really nothing more than an extension of another, broader, more established quirk of human behaviour — the notion of favourites, and society’s belief that anyone can and should have a favourite this, that, or another thing.

The whole favourite this and favourite that concept has always had a whiff of Shrödinger’s Cat to me — probably because, much like measuring particle states in quantum physics, it’s an answer that’s applicable only to the moment at which one’s forced to declare it.

Personally, I don’t really have a favourite anything. Yet when pressed to declare one, I almost always have a ready answer. The problem is that my answer — perhaps accurate in the moment — will be entirely erroneous 10 minutes from now.

As a test, I decided to try something easy, like declaring my favourite photograph. The first image to pop into my head was a blurry, grainy 1966 photo of a stripper on stage in Shingawa-ku that appeared in Daido Moriyama’s Japan: A Photo Theatre book (offsite link). And for the next minute or so, I was quite comfortable with my choice — until my mind wandered to Shomei Tomatsu’s 1969 photo of a student protest in Shinjuku (offsite link), which never fails to capture my eye for a rather prolonged period each and every time I gaze upon it. But after thinking more about Tomatsu’s work, I shifted instead to that bizarre photo of a jet (or missile or whatever it is) emerging from a giant splotch of grain in his 1960 photo from Iwakuni (offsite link). How long I’ve wished to one day take a photo so compelling, yet so vague! That photo has been a carrot on a stick — taunting me for decades. Having concluded, through this exercise, that ambiguity must be the most compelling characteristic of my favourite photograph, I instead found myself considering Takuma Nakahira’s For a Language to Come and many of the truly inscrutable photos contained within — each of which make me feel totally inadequate behind a camera. But are any of these my favourite photo, or is it simply my favourite photo book? And is it really even my favourite photo book? Surely that would be Daido Moriyama’s Farewell Photography, except when it’s Masahisa Fukase’s Ravens or maybe Robert Frank’s The Americans, which contains the Elevator Girl shot (offsite link), which I’ve declared many times previously to be my favourite photograph — an honour I’ve also bestowed upon a couple of different Garry Winogrand snaps, plus several from Josef Koudelka. But then I remembered W. Eugene Smith’s Tomoko Uemura in her Bath (offsite link) which I’ve long considered to be the perfect photo — a seamless amalgamation of exquisite photographic technique and exploitative political activism. I’ve often stated that if I took a photo even one-tenth as good, I’d die a satisfied man. But does that make it my favourite? I’m sure I’ve claimed it as such. But I’ve also claimed the same from photos by Frantisek Drtikol, Bill Brandt, Lee Friedlander and Yutaka Takanashi. But if any of those answers are accurate, then why do I have all these Ed Van Der Elsken, Diane Arbus, Elliott Erwitt and Anders Petersen books? Trying to declare a ‘favourite photograph’ is a journey without end.

Care to know my favourite album? Be prepared for a romp through the annals of classical, jazz, rock, antiquity, pop, funk, the avant-garde, prog, noisescapes and drones. What about my favourite movie? Architect? Food?

The problem with declaring a favourite anything is that, by definition, it becomes a defining choice that excludes all others. How do you know something more preferable won’t exist tomorrow that doesn’t exist today? How do you know it doesn’t already exist, but you just haven’t experienced it yet? How do you know your own experiences and growth won’t alter your perspective? Or even just a shift in your mood?

I’d like to suggest we all start using the term ‘inclinations’ rather than ‘favourites’, but after 15 years of writing this blog, I’ve learned I have no sway whatsoever over popular culture. So I’ll continue to be annoyed when asked the “what’s your favourite” question, but will still pony up an answer because, at that precise moment, I will have a favourite. But ask me tomorrow, and I’ll surely give you an entirely different response.

Fortunately, while I’m never sure of my favourite anything, there is one thing I am sure of: the fact ULTRAsomething might very well be the G.O.A.T. of fatuous photography blogs.

©2023, grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: I’d apologize to all my younger readers for captioning a couple of photos with such ancient cultural references, but I don’t think I have any younger readers. So most of you will probably be aware of Gil Scott-Heron’s song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” or Jane Curtin and Dan Ackroyd’s old Conehead characters from SNL. The Revolution Will Not Be Sanitized was shot on an iPhone 12 after the mirror locked up in my Olympus OM-2n, forcing the phone into emergency service. France was shot with a Ricoh GR III.

More related to weather terminology than anachronistic pop culture is Purple AQI, which was shot with an OM Digital OM-1, fronted with an OM Digital 40-150 f/4 lens.

Spring has sprung; at least according to that antiquated notion that the equinox brings about a change in the weather. So to remind my future summer-basking self what’s right around the corner in Vancouver, I present Winter 1, which came courtesy of an Olympus Pen FT with a Zuiko 38 mm f/2.8 pancake lens, shot on Tri-X at ISO 400, and stand developed. And yes, there was originally a “Winter 2,” but I decided it was too gloomy to sit amongst the lighter photos included with this month’s essay.

To v. Fro employed an Olympus OM-2n, Zuiko 28 mm f/3.5 lens, Kentmere 400, and a nice bath of HC-110 Dilution E.

This post also contains several links to offsite photos. Since I won’t publish images for which I don’t own the copyright, I must resort to offsite links when discussing other photographers. I suspect, this being the internet, that many of these links will eventually go dead — forcing any interested readers to go searching for the books and photos discussed in the article. However, I’m confident that disinterested readers will be in the vast majority, and will thus never notice the inevitable link erosion.

REMINDER: If you’ve managed to extract a modicum of enjoyment from the plethora of material contained on this site, please consider making a DONATION to its 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 — even the silly stuff.

Those who enjoy a tactile engagement with photographs are encouraged to visit the ULTRAsomething STORE, where actual objects are available for purchase.

I don’t know if I’m a writer because I like words, or if I like words because I’m a writer. But regardless of which is the chicken (or is it the egg?), I often obsess over using just the right one.

Sometimes — as revealed in last month’s article — a word has too many definitions to be useful. Other times, a word might have only one definition, but too many connotations.

Take the word, “photographer.” In theory, it should be a perfectly suitable term for that thing I do with cameras. And yet, I loathe it — not because it’s the wrong word, but because of the misconceptions it forms in the minds of others.

Whenever I’m defined as “a photographer,” I’m automatically cast as a person with traits, motives, likes, and cognitive thought patterns that are fundamentally and utterly unlike who I actually am. By definition, a photographer is simply “a person who takes photographs,” which accurately defines me. But in the common perlocutionary vernacular, a photographer is often “someone who is drawn to capture and enhance scenes of conspicuously orthodox beauty,” which is definitely not me.

So whenever someone asks if I’m a photographer, I always answer “no” — for the simple fact that a “yes” inevitably leads to one of three possible follow-up questions:

1) “Have I seen your photos anywhere?” Setting aside the ridiculous notion I have any idea what they might have seen, the ubiquitous presence of that B.C. license plate means I could probably respond in the affirmative — but it’s far too anomalous to count, and would only reinforce their mistaken assumptions.

2) “How much does it cost to photograph a wedding these days?” As if every photographer wants nothing more than to spend their days and nights Photoshopping some hideous family of misfits into a bunch of faux princes and princesses.

3) “You must absolutely be LOVING the a) autumn colours; b) cherry blossoms; c) spectacular sunset; d) beautiful blue skies.” Nope; Uh-uh; Nyet; Negative. Well, maybe I am, but they have absolutely no affect on what I photograph, because they have absolutely nothing to do with anything I wish to convey through photography.

So technically, I don’t have a problem with the word “photographer.” I have a problem with society’s insistence that it means something totally foreign to what I do.

On the very rare occasion when someone asks what I photograph (rather than simply assuming my life revolves around rainbows, waterfalls and headshots), I usually say “metaphors.” You’d be surprised how quickly that ends a conversation. So, no, I ain’t no photographer.

Language was invented to aid communication. But when society chooses to adorn it with unscripted implications, the words lose their intended meaning and communication breaks down.

Consider what is, perhaps, the most noxiously loaded word of all: “artist.” Like “photographer,” the word could theoretically be applied to what I do. One might argue it’s even more suitable than “photographer,” since it’s more inclusive of other aspects of my life, such as writing essays or composing music. Plus, it suggests a certain element of creativity might be involved — a trait seemingly lacking from the imaginations of those who interpret “photographer” as “archivist of insipidly beautiful things.”

However, the word “artist” has become so hijacked by illocutionary pretension that I’ve never once been able to apply it to myself. The very idea of calling myself “an artist” makes me throw up in my mouth. I challenge anyone to read any artist’s statement and not be inclined to pop a breath mint afterwords.

I’m now publishing what would objectively be called a fine art photography magazine, and I have every intention to eventually descend further into the abyss with books and prints. So it’s a little awkward that I won’t call myself either an artist or a photographer. The problem, I suppose, is that society eschews the objective and adopts the subjective. Even though I believe what I’m doing is photography; that the product is indeed art; and that it’s perfectly fine — the amalgamation of those words implies something entirely different in the subjective minds of others.

For decades now, I’ve succeeded only in defining what I’m not, but never what I am. Take a peek through ULTRAsomething’s archives, and you’ll see me donning different hats through the years — hoping one might finally suit me. To date, none have. So for the next little while (and thanks to the publication of ULTRAsomething magazine), whenever someone inquires about that camera in my hand, I’ll reply, “I’m a media mogul.” No doubt this response will inspire its own rash of misconceptions, but like a kid trying out a new dirty word, it’ll be fun to see the response.

© 2023 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THESE PHOTOS: Rather than attempting to absorb the existential significance of each individual photo, perhaps it would be more illuminating to understand the ‘artist’ behind them…

ARTIST STATEMENT: “The photos I choose to take likely differ from those you would choose to take. Whether or not you consider this a good thing is entirely up to you.”

REMINDER: If you’ve managed to extract a modicum of enjoyment from the plethora of material contained on this site, please consider making a DONATION to its 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 — even the silly stuff.

Those who enjoy a tactile engagement with photographs are encouraged to visit the ULTRAsomething STORE, where actual objects are available for purchase.

I like to believe I’m sane. Though I’ll admit, with no one around to offer a contrary opinion, my self-diagnosis does lack calibration. Perhaps no one’s around for a reason?

Then again, those who calibrate their sanity based on the opinion of others might be the least sane of all. I think social media has pretty much confirmed the accuracy of this theory.

Popularity has never been my end game — which is why I’ve seen more clowns pile into a Volkswagen Beetle than ULTRAsomething has readers. My ego doesn’t rely on acceptance, but on the answer to one single question: “Am I proud of what I’ve accomplished?”

At least that’s how I used to define it — until I actually bothered to look up the word “pride.” It turns out ‘pride’ is a very loaded word. People can be proud for all sorts of reasons — including really stupid ones. Which, I suppose, explains why ‘pride’ makes the Top-7 list of deadliest sins.

So what is pride? According to Miriam-Webster, pride is 1) Reasonable self-esteem: confidence and satisfaction in oneself; 2) Pleasure that comes from some relationship, association, achievement, or possession that is seen as a source of honour or respect; 3) Exaggerated self-esteem, or conceit.

Let’s unpack that, shall we? In the first definition, pride results from within oneself. In the second definition, pride comes from external validation. And in the third definition, pride is a delusional personality disorder.

What about Oxford’s? According to them, pride is the “feeling of being pleased or satisfied that you get when you or people who are connected with you have done something well or own something that other people admire.”

I gotta hand it to Oxford — they manage to condense Miriam-Webster’s wishy-washiness into a single sentence, implying that pride can be either deep or shallow.

I’m not sure pride reflects a “deadly sin,” so much as “mankind’s inability to define a word so inadequately.”

Egor’s ULTRAdictionary of egorisms defines ‘pride’ as: “Knowing you have made a positive contribution to the world, no matter its size or the acknowledgment.” In direct conflict with the guardians of language, my dictionary contains no alternative definitions, such as “You have a million followers on Instagram, all the latest gadgets, and everyone invites you to the best parties.” In the ULTRAdictionary, you’ll instead find that definition attached to words like “insecure” and “narcissist.”

Which brings us back to the topic of my sanity. In a world where uploaded photos would be seen by more people; where more external validation would come via online engagement; and where I could spend my money to “own something that other people admire,” I instead chose to begin publishing a low-volume print magazine at a guaranteed loss. On the surface it appears to lack sagacity, but when viewed through the lens of ‘pride,’ the rationality appears. Instead of moaning about photography’s descent into smart phone fodder, with its infinite evanescent stream of selfies, “me too” location shots, and computer-enhanced illustrations, I chose to produce an alternative. Is my effort but a drop in the bucket? No. It’s but a drop in the ocean — but it’s a drop that wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t deposited it.

Ultimately, whether one defines pride as ‘sinful’ or ‘saintly’ doesn’t much matter — it’s still gonna kill you. Either it’s the insatiable hunger for excessive external validation that will do you in, or it’s the social isolation of fanatical toil. Which suggests that pride isn’t so much a deadly sin as it is just plain deadly. And since we’re all going to die of something, my demise might as well come in the form of murky, grainy, black & white, metaphor-laden; bound collections of the mundane. Though I must confess: while this does sound like a rather satisfying way to shuffle off this mortal coil, I’d probably be remiss if I didn’t give lust, gluttony and wrath at least a tiny bit of due diligence before I go…

© 2023 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THESE PHOTOS:

When I first established the publication guidelines for ULTRAsomething Magazine, I decided that it, and the website, would represent two entirely different repositories for new photos. In other words, what’s published in one would not be published in the other, with the obvious exception of any posts that announce the arrival of a new issue. Initially, I thought I might have trouble deciding whether a particular image should be published on the web or the magazine, but this isn’t the case.

The magazine is, in essence, more restrictive than the web. As designed, it supports only two aspect ratios: single page photos are 4×3, while two-page spreads are 3×2. Any image that doesn’t fit these crop lines isn’t going to be in the magazine. Additionally, all pages are full-bleed — so if a photo contains crucial information near the frame’s edge (which may be chopped off in production), then it’ll find its way to the web instead. Similarly, any two-page spread with critical information placed dead-centre in the frame will also be web-bound — otherwise the magazine’s spine might obscure the centre-most content. The limits of CMYK printing mean blacks aren’t really black — so if my photos contain negative space with the gravity of a black hole, they may be better suited for the web. And then there’s the fact that some photos simply compliment a particular essay too perfectly.

So with that out of the way, here are the technical details for the nerds and the generally curious: ‘Phantasm‘ was shot on Fomapan 200, using a Leica M6TTL with a Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 Super Wide Heliar lens, and developed in HC-110 Dilution H. The dead centre placement of the main subject (me) eliminates it from magazine consideration. ‘Amore‘ was shot on Fomapan 100, using a Pentax MZ-S with a Pentax-M 120mm f/2.8 lens, and developed in HC-110 Dilution H. Once again, the dead centre placement of the lucky hug recipient would end up in the magazine’s spine, so it’s being web-published instead. And if you think the motion blur has anything to do with my choice to exclude it from any future magazines, you obviously haven’t bought a magazine (or read this website for very long). ‘Mixed Messages‘ was shot on Fomapan 100, using a Pentax MZ-S with a 43mm f/1.9 Limited lens, and developed in HC-110 Dilution H. It ended up here because of its obvious relation to the article’s subject matter. ‘Philosopher‘ was shot on Ortho Plus 80, using a Hasselblad Xpan with a 45mm f/4 lens, and developed in HC-110 Dilution H. As a panoramic photo, its aspect ratio immediately eliminates it from magazine consideration. ‘Bottleneck’, like ‘Philosopher’ is simply the wrong aspect ratio for magazine publication, but like ‘Phantasm’ was shot on Fomapan 200, using a Leica M6TTL with a Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 Super Wide Heliar lens, and developed in HC-110 Dilution H.

REMINDER: If you’ve managed to extract a modicum of enjoyment from the plethora of material contained on this site, please consider making a DONATION to its 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 — even the silly stuff.

Those who enjoy a tactile engagement with photographs are encouraged to visit the ULTRAsomething STORE, where actual objects are available for purchase.

It’s been a year of ULTRAexperimentation. In addition to my recent Folly Trilogy discussing three different “inappropriate” film cameras, I also wrote about another half-frame camera, and penned a couple of lens-based essays — one digging into fisheyes, and the other exploring the benefits of a particularly decrepit 90mm lens from the 1930s. For a site that purports to be more interested in the psychological aspects of photography than hardware, that’s a whole lotta gear talk.

But with the year rapidly drawing to a close, I can now reveal that those weird gear articles were, in fact, just a carefully considered diversion — meant to buy myself time to engage in this year’s real experiment: to fundamentally alter my very approach to photography.

For the past couple of decades, I would prowl the streets looking for the perfect photograph. Step-by-step, mile-by-mile, I’d scour every inch of this town hoping to bag the big one. My ratio of “shots taken” to “worn out shoes” was spectacularly low. And yet, in spite of all that walking and all that looking, I’ve yet to take a single photo I’d be proud to represent me on my non-existent Wikipedia page. Which, come to think of it, is probably the reason no one’s bothered to make me a Wikipedia page.

Facing each new publishing deadline with an empty cache of perfect photos, I’ve been forced to fill these pages with a hodgepodge of miscellany — snapshots I would shoot mostly as “justification” for having bothered to leave the condo. On their own, none seem worthy of anything beyond a participation ribbon. But, as an assemblage, they would often say “something” — even if I was never able to fully comprehend exactly what it was.

I’ve long believed my own photography’s grandest purpose isn’t to create an image that hangs on the wall, but to create a collection of images that, when bound together, communicate an entire universe of thought and emotion through metaphor and implication. When I do hang an individual photo or two, I suspect it’s due more to convention than consideration. To me, framing a single photograph is like framing a single word from a favourite novel or screenplay — its context is removed or, at best, merely implied through familiarity.

For example, if I hung the word “Rosebud” over the sofa, it would indeed conjure a world of meaning every time I gazed upon it — but that meaning would come, not from the word, but from the context in which it was used within Citizen Kane. The word, itself, is not “perfect.” It’s the concept that’s perfect, and the single word is merely the proxy for an entire collection of other words and scenes. The same thing happens when I engage with some of my favourite photographs from some of my favourite photographers — an individual image becomes more potent, because I know the context from which it came. Seeing one is a gateway toward remembering them all.

Does it strike you as “a little crazy” that someone who views photography this way, would then put so much effort into hunting for that one perfect photo? If so, then congratulations — you’ve reached the same conclusion I have, and you didn’t spend 20 years getting there.

Perusing my oeuvre to date, it’s clear my personal favourites are often the most flawed, least perfect photos imaginable. They came from the monthly “hodgepodge of miscellany,” and not from any grand design. Which lead me to wonder why I’ve been so sparing with my exposures all these years. Since my “best” photos are the ones that best represent a collection, wouldn’t such representational photos become magically “better” if the collection itself became better? And wouldn’t the collection become better if I actually allowed myself the freedom to photograph anything that interested me, rather than self-limiting my exposures so as not to ‘waste time or money’ on shots I knew weren’t “perfect?”

So my fundamental change is to do exactly what I’ve always done, except to disable my brain’s self-censoring circuit while doing so. Granted, on the surface it doesn’t really seem like change at all. But anyone who’s ever tried to rewire their brain knows how difficult that can be. It’s taken me the better part of a year, but after a lifetime of being the stingiest photographer in recorded history, I’m gradually moving into the vicinity of semi-prolific. Not “guy on vacation with a digital camera” prolific; not “mom instagramming the crap out of her baby” prolific; but “guy who spools a roll of film through a camera every five or six days” prolific.

The question, now, is “what should I do with all these photos?” Just because I’m transforming into the photographer I want to be, doesn’t mean I’m transforming into one with a place in the modern world.

One part of me thinks I should just leave them unpublished, languishing on a hard drive until it’s destroyed by solar flares or mechanical failure. There’s something poetically punk rock about that direction. After all, it’s exactly what would happen to these moments had I not photographed them — making my passion a rather apt metaphor for life itself. Another part of me thinks such conceit smacks of bad performance art, and that the photos should absolutely be published — somewhere. Somehow.

But that’s a struggle for another essay. For now, all I really needed was to just take more photos. And on that front, the year has been a resounding success.

© 2022 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THE PHOTOS: “Lobby 1” was shot on Fomapan 100 at ISO 100 and developed in HC-110 (Dilution H), using a Pentax MZ-S and a Pentax-M 50mm f/1.4 lens. “Lobby 2” was photographed on Fomapan 400 (pushed to ISO 800) and developed in Rodinal 1:50, using a Fuji GS645S Wide 60 camera. “Fetch” was shot with an OM Digital Solutions 40-150 f/4 Pro lens mounted on an Olympus OM-1 digital camera. “Criminal Intent” was another digital shot — this time using the Ricoh GRIII. “Empress Metaverse” and “Loo View” were shot on Delta 3200 (pulled to ISO 1600), inside a Contax G1 fronted with a Zeiss Planar 45mm f/2 lens, and developed in Rodinal 1:50.

REMINDER: If you’ve managed to extract a modicum of enjoyment from the plethora of material contained on this site, please consider making a DONATION to its 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 — even the silly stuff.