Once every three months I slip away from all the limelight, tinsel and glamor of the blogging world, and I take a good long look at ULTRAsomething. I ask myself a great number of questions about what this site is and what it should be. It's a quarterly rite of passage that rarely yields any useful answers. The reason, of course, is that I'm asking the wrong person. Instead of asking myself these questions, I should be asking you, my readers...
With the release of the GXR Mount A12 module for M-series rangefinder lenses, the Ricoh GXR camera system has not only come of age, but found its way into my camera bag. This article discusses why the GXR has replaced Micro Four Thirds as the digital backup to my Leica M9, and what Ricoh can do to make it even better.
The requirements for photographing at night versus day are as different as... well... as night and day. This article proposes that night photography is best approached not as a challenge of light, but as a challenge of subject.
Earlier this year, in an attempt to maximize context in my photos, I purchased a swing lens Widelux F7. Its 120 degree horizontal field of view provides me with far more context than I've yet been able to use effectively. Sane people would be perfectly satisfied to stop here. So what would insane people do? Purchase a Lomography Spinner 360, of course.
Most anachronistic people were fashionable once. One day, they're the epitome of style. The next day, they're passé — victims of passive indifference to the fickle tastes of humanity. Me? I’ve been a photographic anachronism in every time. Twenty years ago, I jumped through flaming hoops to photograph digitally. Today, I'm jumping through a whole new set of hoops to photograph on film. To be unfashionable throughout one's entire life takes dedication, thick skin, dogged determination and more than a touch of masochism.
