Archive for Black & White Photography

Lobotomy, Please!

June 21, 20112 Commentsf/Egor (Leica Blog)Musings

Self-doubt is a bottomless quagmire from which escape is difficult. We are who we are. If we’re lucky enough to have a vision and to feel passionately about it, then we owe it to ourselves to persevere. Slavishly adapting my style to match current trends would likely bring me more admirers, but then they wouldn’t be my admirers — they would be the style’s admirers. I’d rather have detractors. When we try to be something we’re not, we’re destined for mediocrity. When we’re true to ourselves, we give ourselves a chance to transcend it.

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A Long Look at a Widelux (Part 1)

May 5, 20116 CommentsPhoto Gear

The Widelux F7 takes WIDE photographs. It delivers DEEP focus. And, apparently, writing about it requires LONG articles. In this, Part 1 of my look at this classic camera, I discuss the various photographic needs that drove me to consider panoramic cameras, and my rationale for choosing this particular model.

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More Poe than Van Gogh

March 29, 20119 CommentsMusings

The classification of photography as an "art" has done it a great disservice. Art demands that the viewer appreciate the technique behind it. It calls attention to its technical merits. A good photograph should never do this. Rather, it should just be. In 1951, Robert Frank told Life Magazine "When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice." Frank knew then what I've only just figured out — photography is language. And the language of photography is the language of the poet.

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Don’t Feed the Ostrich

February 5, 20112 CommentsPhoto GearPhoto Techniques

Short of taking photographs, few things excite a photographer more than planning their next major camera purchase. Conversely, short of a trip to the dentist, few things excite a photographer less than contemplating a backup camera strategy. But all it takes is a single camera failure to nullify the years of hard work you spent building your reputation. Clients don't want to hear "Sorry, my camera broke." They're not paying for excuses — they're paying for images. But here's the thing — backup cameras don't have to be boring. In fact, choosing the right backup camera may actually unlock a world of previously untapped photographic possibilities, while simultaneously helping you avoid the potential pitfalls of the single camera gamble.

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The Accidental Blogger

January 5, 20111 commentf/Egor (Leica Blog)

Fresh from the whoduthunkit files comes another newflash — I am now a guest columnist for The Leica Blog, and will occasionally hack out... oops... I mean "craft" a column for them, which is called "f/Egor." Since Leica saw fit to give me my own aperture stop, I reciprocated by granting them 30-day exclusive publication rights to each f/Egor article. This article recounts how this strange twist of fate came to occur.

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instinct

November 20, 2010No commentULTRA news

Instinct is traditionally abstract and intangible. Some people have a natural inclination to trust theirs. Others must cultivate the relationship. Many, instead, opt to borrow it from friends, family or colleagues. But Instinct now comes in a convenient and palpable new physical form — a book. Instinct is my new photography monograph — a collection of 70 "street" photographs, culled from a two-year, pavement-pounding, photographic examination of humans simply being.

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Vacate Shun

October 29, 2010No commentMusings

I'm no etymologist, but personal experience would suggest that the word "vacation" derives from two sources — the words "vacate" and "shun." Vacate means to leave, or to give up a place or position. Shun means to avoid or ignore something. For me, "vacation" means "to ignore my usual photographic inclinations, and to give up taking the kind of pictures I like to take — resorting to generic landscapes and banal 'I was here' photos." Photographs from my recent trip to the scenic Oregon coast belie, once again, my efforts to avoid the trappings of vacate shun photography.

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And the Meaning of Life Is…

August 8, 20101 commentMusings

The internet is boiling over with pretty pictures. Galleries are stuffed full of pretty pictures. Pretty pictures fill the pages of a million different magazines. Photography is now about the medium, not the message. Today, it matters little what a photo contains, as long as it's pretty. My pictures aren't pretty. And the crazy thing is, I don't care. If you find this an intriguing stance then perhaps, like me, you're on a ridiculous quest to uncover the meaning of life.

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