Photography

In which I stump for a worthy Kickstarter project

This is something near and dear to my heart, documenting the elders and masters of New York street photography. Watch the video! Throw them a couple of bucks!

In print again!

Recent Street

By David Edelstein in Noise To Signal

42 pages, published 16 SEP 2011

A selection of street photography from the first eight months of 2011, covering Seattle, San Francisco, and Beijing.

Noise to Signal, issue three: Decay, Renew

I’ve always approached fall in the Pacific Northwest with a bit of dread. Last fall, though, something was different. Perhaps I’ve lived through enough winters here that I’ve acclimated. Perhaps it’s that I turned 40 last year and have somehow started to develop a more mature outlook.

Regardless, there was something new this year in my response to fall. The usual darkness was there – what Melville describes as “a damp, drizzly November in my soul” – but there was something else as well.

As I spent fall photographing leaves hanging off branches, vines brittle and breaking, and bare branches reaching into the sky, it became clear to me that the gloom of this season is not an intrusion, but an essential part of the year. Just as leaves fall off the trees and turn into food for next year’s growth, so too is my internal gloom a part of the cycle that I need to go through, to feed my own growth in my own spring.

Noise to Signal, issue three: Decay, Renew

Well, golly

Who was featured front and center on the MagCloud site today? Yours truly.

Which seems to have paid off handsomely in views – 193 today – but not so much in sales: a grand total of one today. (Thanks Mark!)

Noise to Signal, issue two: Prince Edward Island

Those of you who have been enjoying the rocks and sand from Prince Edward Island will undoubtedly be delighted to hear that the second issue of the print version of Noise to Signal is stuffed full of even more sandstone and beach photos than I've shown here.

Again a very affordable nine dollars, you can preview the magazine yourself here: Noise to Signal, Issue Two: Prince Edward Island.

Noise to Signal in print!

Now available: The first issue of the print version of Noise to Signal! Produced in beautiful Print On Demand through HP's MagCloud service.

Noise to Signal, Issue 1: Mannequin Obsession

I have some ideas for the next few issues, but if any of you have a theme you'd like to see, do let me know.

A little timelapse video from the new offices

Weather moving in over the Cascades and Bellevue from david adam edelstein on Vimeo.

This morning's timelapse.

Roy DeCarava

As Mike Johnston reports, Roy DeCarava has left us.

His passing is particulary significant to me, since from the first image of his I saw, he has been a huge influence on my photography.

His work taught me about the beauty of dark tonal palettes, simple urban vignettes, and the value of working close to home.

Thanks for everything, Mr. DeCarava.

First critique group night!

Tonight M and Amy and I got together and looked at each others' work and chatted. Christina couldn't make it because she was getting ready for a show, which I figure gives you a pass if anything does.

On the table: A preview of some considerable amount of my work that is coming your way, dear reader, in the near future.

This is a little bit like seeing footage of where an adopted baby came from

A small, heavy, precision baby with a lens.

L-Camera TV #1 - Does Leica still make MP and M7? from Andreas Jürgensen on Vimeo.

One of the finest insights I've read about photography

"The simplicity of photography lies in the fact that it is very easy to make a picture. The staggering complexity of it lies in the fact that a thousand other pictures of the same subject would have been equally easy."

—John Szarkowski, Looking At Photographs

Speaking of similarities I noticed after the fact ...

It wasn't until I saw this morning's photo and scrolled down to the next one that I realized that they're essentially the same composition; that is, the visual structure of the photo is the same in each one, except that I've reversed the positive and negative space.

Take a look at the blurred versions for easier comparison, and then scroll down to see the originals:

Where is the time, and how do you sell it?

John Camp (AKA John Sandford) has posted an interesting meditation about A Life in Art over at The Online Photographer:

If you’re married, with children, and have to support the kids with a job, where do you find the extra 20 hours a week to seriously work on your art form, if you decide to take the long, ten-year route to mastery? If you’re working in a non-demanding job (which is the kind that usually leaves you awake enough to do the extra 20 hours a week of art work) how do you pay for the paint at $50 a tube, for paintings that won’t sell, or the recording sessions, for records that won’t sell, or for the computer and printer you need for the books that won’t sell? How do you do that while trying to raise some decent kids?

The work is serious—this is the only way you can get to a career—but how do you afford it?

This is something I've given considerable thought to: at least, in my case, how to have a satisfying art career without ending up broke, divorced, or whining about lost time.

Most of the time I'm able to fit it into the spaces between family and job and I get a lot done.

Some times (like the last couple of months) both work and family are so demanding that I barely get any Work done. And that does cause me to whine a bit.

I'm not the starving artist type, though. I like having a steady paycheck and health insurance. I don't find La Boheme romantic, I find it sad and pathetic. So I'm a fan of the day job choice, at least until I hit an enormous lottery jackpot, or until Miz Becky sells out.

Freestyle nerdery

I was syncing my ipod this morning to pick up new podcasts to listen to on the bus, and in my bleary state I confused one of my photography podcasts with the freestyle 101 podcast.

Which made me giggle. Because how awesome would it be to have people freestyling about their mad photo skillz?

Yo, I can shoot a landscape like Ansel
Take you into the woods like Hansel
When he went on a photowalk with Gretel
But there's no way I'm going to settle
For burning no candy witch, clown
Ima burn this whole side of the mountain down
To make the center of the print more luminous
Checkit, my darkroom skillz are voluminous

Word.

The Colbert Report on the War on Photographers

Nice take on the latest chapter in this idiocy. Favorite quote, from Mr. Maisel: "Terrorists don't need a photo to know that Penn Station is crowded at 5:00."

You'll recall that I've had my own annoying experiences with security, as have many other photographers.

“Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees”

Like Miguel of Exposure Compensation, I am completely enthralled with that statement, which is apparently the title of a biography of Robert Irwin.

Anne Enright on inspiration and the lack thereof

People often ask writers where they get their ideas from. What writers wonder is where their ideas go, when they disappear. We talk of blocks and blockages, as though the creative mind were a colon, or some kind of drain. Would that it were so simple. The place my own ideas come from and the place they go for their holidays, are completely different. So don't ask me where I got them; ask me where they are hiding, because I know it's around here somewhere.

So I don't do "inspiration" or "blocks". I just do "work" and hope for the best.

From Author, author: Creative blockage, via 43 folders.

The photo/video convergence

Those of you outside of the photography world have probably completely missed the massive earthquake that's been shaking the photo blog world: Two SLRs have been released near the end of this year — the Nikon d90 and the Canon 5dII — that not only shoot very high quality photos, but also are able to shoot very high quality video.

There's been endless and boring debate on the photo blogs: Should SLRs have this feature, are the video features hopelessly crippled because they don't follow specification x or have feature y, that sort of boring crap. Honestly I've just ignored most of it, because from my point of view purity isn't an interesting point to argue about, and I've always been more interested in what something can do than how it may or may not fall short. As I've said more than once in the last couple of months, I'm interested in what doors have been opened, not whether the doorknob is a few inches too low.

Because of that, I really only become interested when someone actually does something with a new tool. Vincent Laforet caused huge waves when he produced a video with the new Canon camera a month or two ago, called Reverie. Although Reverie demonstrated the technical possibilities of the new Canon in a convincing way — primarily low light performance and the use of incredibly shallow depth of field — artistically, it's at the same level as a cologne commercial. Which Vincent readily admits. He's currently working on a project on the sport of Parkour that should be much more interesting.

As the cameras have trickled out into the world there have been more and more movies produced with them. Most have either been plotless samples — look, there's a bird, wow it's so sharply rendered — or shameless thefts of the visual style Laforet used in Reverie. That is to say, most of them have been staggeringly boring.

Finally, though, someone's produced a video that really feels like it's exploring the artistic possibilities of having a high quality video camera built into an SLR. Mike Kobal has produced a short piece using stills and video that, although not an Oscar contender, definitely points in an interesting direction.

Nikon D90 on the L train from Mike Kobal on Vimeo.

And what will I do? I don't know yet... my Canon is on backorder.

This seems to apply equally well to photography

Man Carrying Thing
by Wallace Stevens

The poem must resist the intelligence
Almost successfully. Illustration:

A brune figure in winter evening resists
Identity. The thing he carries resists

The most necessitous sense. Accept them, then,
As secondary (parts not quite perceived

Of the obvious whole, uncertain particles
Of the certain solid, the primary free from doubt,

Things floating like the first hundred flakes of snow
Out of a storm we must endure all night,

Out of a storm of secondary things),
A horror of thoughts that suddenly are real.

We must endure our thoughts all night, until
The bright obvious stands motionless in cold.

(thanks to the excellent poets.org)

All of my photo shoots are exactly like this

In case you were wondering. (Via On Shadow)

A metatextual meditation on this blog

I originally started posting a photo a day to this blog as a way of forcing myself to shoot regularly, to apply the discipline of daily work in order to improve my craft. To paraphrase Ted and David, I've always believed that the regular practice of craft creates the space where art can happen.

When I started this project, It was hard for me to keep up. I often uploaded a picture the evening before the day it would go live. But over time, the process worked, as it usually does. At this point, instead of struggling to fill the week, I now have daily posts scheduled out nearly two months ahead.

This means that although you, dear readers, are still experiencing this as a photo-a-day blog, I experience it as a reminder of work I did months ago.

When I started this blog, the social web was in its infancy. The only way my photos would ever connect to your photos was through links and blogrolls. The only way you'd ever find my photos was through search or links or by knowing me personally.

The social web has grown up considerably since then, so that today on Flickr I can post a photo, add it to one or more group photostreams depending on content, and add multiple tags that allow people to find my photos more easily.

There's also a built-in infrastructure to allow me to share larger versions of the photos with select people -- my contacts, for example, or just people I've marked as Friends -- which would improve your experience of some of the photos.

Obviously all of this isn't just idle thinking. As we come to the end of the fifth year of the photo-a-day project, I'm wondering whether it's time to move to a different system for sharing my photos. Rest assured that I intend to continue posting photos. Photography, for me, is a conversation between myself and the viewer, and I'd like to continue that conversation. The only question in my mind is whether I want to broaden that conversation.

Because of my relentlessly positive attitude, I'm going to list the pros of each direction, instead of pros and cons of one or the other.

Benefits of keeping on as I have been

• Presentation: I have control over how my site looks, guaranteeing an experience that I'm pleased with.
• Pacing: I'm fond of the photo-a-day pacing, partly because I can show photos in an arc over several days, and partly because it means that people who check the site every day can focus on just one photo.
• Control: Who knows how long Flickr will last? What happens to my photo blog archives if they go away? If I have all of my photos on my own site, then I'll still have them all (hey bloggers, you are backing up your blogs, right?)

Benefits of switching to posting all my photos on flickr

• Ease of posting: Using the Flickr Uploadr, I can caption, tag, and post a pile of photos in a few minutes. On my current site, I have to create each post by hand, and it can take an hour to post 20 photos.
• The social web: As I said above, there's a whole world of interaction and a whole pool of potential viewers who aren't seeing my photos. I'd like to broaden the conversation.
• Experience: Ultimately I think that allowing people to use the tools Flickr includes will end up being a better experience for you, the viewer.

Since it's Rosh Hashona right now, the Jewish new year, I think I'll probably take that as an excuse to switch systems if I decide that's the right direction.

A strangely familiar photo

Those of you who follow both this site and the daily photos on the Live Search home page may find today's photo strangely familiar.

What I'm doing here

Elisabeth Biondi from the New Yorker magazine explains it better than I can, while describing Pieter Hugo’s The Hyena Men of Nigeria (emphasis mine):

‘Some people have said to me that Pieter’s subject is so dramatic that it would be hard to take a bad picture,’ says Biondi, ‘but, you know, a photographer chooses his subjects, and that, too, is an important part of having a great eye. Photographers go where their instinct leads them and then try and work out their fascination for the subject through the photographs they take. That’s what Pieter’s doing but in a kind of extreme way.’ She pauses for a moment. ‘He has a vision and he pursues it relentlessly. He has what it takes.’

That's exactly what this site is here for. Every weirdo series represents me worrying at an idea, scratching at it, trying to figure out what's visually interesting to me about it, what I'm responding to emotionally, what it is I'm trying to say.

(Quote courtesy of A Photo Editor, with thanks.)

Bruce Gilden is a somewhat more confrontational street photographer than I am

But then, he's from Brooklyn. I'm from Honolulu.

Does his work justify his technique? Discuss.

In which I return to an old love

I finished a roll of film this morning.

It's funny how unremarkable that statement would have been even three years ago. Or — to be more precise — before mid-October, 2005. In early October I was shooting on three cameras: A Canon 10d dSLR, a Canon G3 digicam (point and shoot), and my beloved Leica M7 (film, nearly always Kodak Tri-X).

In mid-October of 2005, I bought the then-new Canon 5d, and everything changed. Suddenly I had a digital SLR that delivered higher quality image files than I could get out of 35mm film.

To quote myself from that month:

I have *never* gotten prints like this from another 35mm form factor camera ... I'm not sure what all of this means. I doubt I'll use the 5d to shoot on the street (it's still too big for me to feel comfortable using it that way, and I still love the texture of tri-x for that work). But for anything else... I think I've crossed over completely, now.

As it turns out, I answered my own question. After getting the 5d, I've shot exactly two rolls of film, and developed... none. Every time I thought about shooting with my Leica I thought "oh, geez, $20 a roll for film and processing, plus the trip to the lab to drop it off, and the trip back to pick it up which has to be while they're open, and then the scanning, and the dust spotting..." and I'd pick up my 5d or the G9 instead.

A couple of weeks ago, though, I was at a work retreat and got to play with a corporate VP's Leica M8. A couple of minutes with that camera reminded me exactly why I've never loved another camera the way I love my Leica. Instead of trying to explain here, I'll point you to a good essay from the New Yorker on the Cult of Leica.

This sent me into an annoying swarm of circling thoughts — how shooting on the street just doesn't work that well with the 5d or the G9 — maybe I should bite the bullet and buy an M8 — holy crap that's six thousand dollars, I could buy a second 5D and still have money left over for all three of us to have a great trip to Italy — but dammit I haven't been happy shooting on the street — that's because the 5D and G9 don't work that well on the street — what about an M8 — $6K — that's 300 rolls of film and processing — but all the money and processing — 5D and G9 not so good on the street — etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.

That lasted a few days and I was getting pretty tired of the circling. Finally, in the shower one morning, I had two insights that made everything more clear.

First, and most important, I realized that I had been penalizing the moment of capture in favor of ease of processing. That is to say, instead of using the tool that made shooting on the street the easiest, when split-second timing and getting into a good flow is key, I had been using tools that made it easier to process the images, when I was sitting at my computer and had plenty of time to deal with the images.

Second, I realized that I don't really shoot that many frames when I'm shooting on the street. Even at a roll a week, that works out to almost six years of shooting before I hit the cost of an M8.

So I loaded up my Leica with Tri-X, put the 50mm lens on it, and started carrying it with me. I've returned to my old habit of taking the bus downtown, skipping the next bus to work, and photographing in the 15 minutes or so that gives me between busses.

Will I keep doing this? I don't know. I haven't developed the film, after all, and I haven't scanned any of it. Maybe the hassle will prove to be too much.

But for now... oh, it's such bliss to be shooting with my Leica again.

Some thoughts on the G9 and classes of cameras

I was going to write a longish essay about how great the Canon Powershot G9 is, and how it does have some drawbacks, but none of them significant, and that overall it's pretty fricken awesome, but then Ken Tanaka wrote it for me: It might be... It could be...

The only thing I'd add is the point I've made to several people over the last couple of weeks, that this isn't trying to be, nor should it be, the same level of quality as a digital SLR. There's a long history of photographers trying to find the magic combination of film, developer, and lens that would give them medium format quality out of a 35mm camera, and the reality was that 35mm film can only hold so much data.

In the digital world, the same holds true, although at this point in history everything's moved down one in size. I'd put photos that come out of my Canon 5d against any 6x4.5 medium format image without a second thought. Photos I shot at ISO 3200 in near darkness are no more grainy than ISO 100 images I've shot on film, and the amount of fine detail captured is much greater.

The G9 isn't going to perform at that level. And that's totally fine. It's not meant to. In my mind, the 5D is now my medium format camera, and the G9 is my pocketable 35mm camera, with all the inherent limitations of the smaller form factor — but all of the benefits, too. It's small. I can put it in my pocket. I can carry it everywhere and not notice. The shutter is, it pains me to say, quieter than my Leica.

Of course, there are things I don't like, but most of those are pretty idiosyncratic, or at least more dependent on the way I shoot. I'd honestly prefer if it had fewer features. The number of options and shooting modes and customizations one can do is overwhelming. I'm glad the optical viewfinder is there, but I wish it was more usable.

Those are nits, though. I've shot with nothing but the G9 since I got it, partly because I wanted to force myself to learn to use it, and partly because, you know... it's a fun little camera.

This morning on the street

I'm photographing on the street. Out of the corner of my eye I see a rentacop. You know the exact type, with the pseudo-official uniform, utility belt dripping with gear that acts as the equator to his globe-like shape, surly look, bad close cropped haircut. I ignore him until he inevitably approaches me.

"Hey, you can't take pictures of people like that."

I'm not at all in the mood. "Actually, I can." I keep walking.

He follows me. "It's against the law."

I sigh. "Actually, state law, national law, and a recent New York supreme court ruling all affirm my right to be doing this. Now, it is illegal in Canada, where a person's right to their image is more protected. But perfectly fine here."

His face is turning purple while I say that. "Well! You can't take pictures of our building. I should confiscate your camera."

I smile. "Now we're getting somewhere. First, again, state and national law affirm my right to shoot whatever I want while I'm on a public thoroughfare. Second, it's illegal for you to exceed your authority or impersonate a police officer, and arguably by threatening to confiscate my camera you're doing just that."

He sputters. "Well! Well! Stay out of our building, I'm warning you."

I smile pleasantly. "Thanks, I will."

It always pays to do your homework.

• Bert Krages' excellent Photographer's Rights flyer


• Popular Photography on The War On Photographers


• The New York Supreme Court ruling in favor of Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Photographer shout-out: John Lok

Despite my feelings about the Seattle Times' editorial quality, they're lucky enough to have several terrific photographers on their staff.

This morning, one of them knocked it out of the park with two very different photo essays. John Lok has a great series of photos about people living the Iraq war here in the US:

And in the "Gender: F" insert, he has a very different series of photos of women finding the perfect bridal gown:

It's always great to see photographers getting more interesting photos into a daily paper. In the first image, he's using a Holga "toy camera" with a crappy lens and light leaks to beautiful effect. In the second image, he's at the other end of technique, with a tricky-to-do-well combination of flash on the bride (to keep her sharp) plus a slow shutter speed and a bit of camera pan to add some motion to the background and a little glow to the bride.

Nice work, John.

For more on either technique: Michelle Bates has a new book out on toy camera photography which I've heard is very good. I'd be remiss if I didn't also include a link to the Strobist site here — if you want to learn more about the kind of technique John's using in the second photo, I can't think of a better place to start.

(Both photos copyright John Lok and the Seattle Times, of course)

This is how it's supposed to work

How do you get prints in shows? By submitting them to shows.

It's a pretty simple equation, but one that's eluded me for quite some time... never quite getting it together to get photos submitted, which means a steadily growing backlog of images that people only ever see, if they see them at all, at 600 pixels wide on a computer screen.

Once you actually submit photos, on the other hand... Remember my street portfolio I started posting back in August? I was pleased to hear on my voicemail tonight that one of the photos from that series was accepted into the Photographic Center Northwest's juried Member's Show, which will run from December 1 through January 15th -- coincidentally timed to end at the same time as my time home with The Kid.

Which is very nice indeed.

Photosynth

It's always exciting when I can finally talk about, and show people examples of, something that our research team has been working on for a while. In this case, the very cool Photosynth.

From the Photosynth site: "Photosynth takes a large collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-Dimensional space."

One of the interesting things here is that images of any resolution or angle are useful as part of the data. Crappy camera phone image of a detail? That might be more detail than is contained in any of the other photos, so it might be useful for zooming in. Accidental shot of the ceiling when you bumped your shutter relase? Also a valuable part of the data set.

Shooting action to convey motion

Doug Plummer has a terrific post today about shooting action to convey motion, which is a terrible five-word summary for a post that covers not only technique but also how to watch, how to see, and how to shoot in that kind of situation.

I am not looking at the LCD every time to decide if I’m done. That screen is too seductive. You want to examine every shot, but it’s crucial that you don’t or you’ll take offline the part of your brain that is engaged with the moment and seeing the photo.

A short note on technique

As a demonstration of my philosophy about "prime" lenses, I wanted to mention that all of the photos of Montreal I'm posting this week were shot with the same lens -- a 50mm f/1.4 prime -- which was the only lens I brought with me.

It did, of course, limit my choices, but it also meant that every time I saw a picture, there was one less decision to make about how to capture it. I never had to change lenses, and my camera kit was as light as it could be while still capturing the level of quality and amount of information I feel I need to have.

And, as you can see already, it wasn't that limiting.

Still at it

Here's one of Six Flags for Joe.

Update: Vince suggested that a less blurry version might be better, and he may be right.

Fake real model photography

Remember the super cool aerial photography I linked to a couple of weeks ago?

One of my co-workers found a great article talking about how to do the same thing in post: Fake Model Photography.

And since we're all enjoying the Bird's Eye imagery in Windows Live Local, it seemed a natural step to use that imagery to experiment on.

My first attempt, with this set of little boxes, worked pretty well:

But my second attempt, using this tasteful little place, worked a lot better:

Greg is doing some fun ones, too: Lady Liberty and a super awesome Doughnut.

Update: Here's a nice image I did of Columbia University.

How about some neat smokestacks? (NYC folks -- any idea what they are?)

Don't talk to me about megapixels... this is a real camera.

THE MAMMOTH CAMERA OF GEORGE R. LAWRENCE

Early on a bright spring morning in 1900 a large horse-drawn van arrived at the workshop of Chicago camera builder J. A. Anderson. His most recent construction, the world's largest camera, was ready for delivery and it required 15 men to load it into the van. They took it to the Chicago & Alton Railway Station where it was laboriously transferred to a flat car and moved to Brighton Park, some 6 miles from the city. There, they carried the 900 lbs camera a quarter of a mile to a suitable location in an open field. Under the direction of the camera's designer, George R Lawrence, it was set up and pointed at the brand-new train standing in the distance. The Alton Limited was the pride of the Chicago & Alton Railway and the company had commissioned Lawrence to make the largest photograph possible of it, sparing no expense. Lawrence obliged by designing and overseeing the construction of a camera that could utilize glass plates 8 x 4½ ft in size. On that day he made a successful photograph of the train and with it he also made photographic history.

(via The Online Photographer)

Found photos

The anonymous owner of this site collects old cameras, which sometimes have film still in them, from years and years ago. If he's lucky he's able to develop the film. And then we're lucky enough because he posts his Lost Films for us to see.

Fantastic stuff. Go check it out.

Super cool aerial photography

I need to go to sleep, so I won't give any more description than to point you to this selection of Olivo Barbieri's aerial photographs.

Remember: These are real. They aren't models.

The WhiBal

One of the great things about digital photography is how many choices it's given us that we didn't have before. A good example is film speed: With film, unless you're shooting with certain specific kinds of cameras (or you're willing to suffer tiresome workarounds), once you put a roll of 100 speed film in, you're basically stuck at that speed until you've finished the roll. With digital, if you go from a bright situation to a dark one and back again, you can switch film speeds to your heart's content.

You can do the same thing with color balance, too. Briefly, for those of you who don't know about color balancing: light comes in different colors. Straight sunlight is white; sunsets obviously are more orange. Cloudy days are much more blue, indoor (tungsten) lights are very orange (which you've noticed if you've taken pictures on film indoors without flash), and flash is slightly more blue than daylight. Professional photographers doing "color critical" work on film will use an elaborate system of color meters and filters to balance the light before it gets to the film, and work hard in the darkroom to make sure the color is exactly right (or, in my case, as right as I was willing to spend the time for).

In digital, you can do the same thing with color balance you can do with film speed. Outside? Set it to daylight. Inside? Set it to... uh... whatever inside is. A little lightbulb, usually. I can't remember. I don't really pay attention much because I always shoot in RAW mode, rather than JPEG, which means that I can easily change the white balance after the fact. I open the RAW file in Photoshop, choose the color balance I want, and... it's still not quite right.

This is a fundamental problem with color balance: the presets are never quite right. Tungsten lights change color over their lifetime. Fluorescent lights are all over the map. Sunlight with a bit of cloudyness is going to be slightly blue. And so forth. Now, in Photoshop, you can tweak the color balance to your heart's content, but that takes a long time.

The solution, and the point of all of that long, overwordy introduction, is to have a neutral reference point to balance off of. And the excellent tool I've been using for that for a few months is called a WhiBal.

You can follow that link to learn everything the manufacturer wants you to know about it, watch the video demos, and find ordering information -- it's about US$40. I'm just going to show you some examples of how much of a help it is. And no, I'm not getting a kickback from them, although I've sold enough of these for them I should (hint, hint, Michael :-)

Here we have a scene lit by sodium vapor lamps, which may look vaguely familiar. On the left is the original scene; on the right is my reference photo of the WhiBal card.

And here are the corrected versions, sampling off of the WhiBal card.

Now, I could have corrected it by hand to get that color -- but this is so much faster and easier that there's really no point.

Here's another example. These daffodils were on our kitchen counter, under our tungsten lights that have yellow glass shades. On the left, obviously, the uncorrected one. And remember, the entire process was "open both files in Adobe Camera RAW, sample off of the WhiBal card, click done." It just about took more time to type that than to do it.

One point I want to make clear is that this isn't just for extreme situations like the tungsten and sodium vapor lights in the previous examples. Here's a picture of Rusty I took outside our house. On the left, the uncorrected one looks OK, really -- a little blue, maybe, but still basically fine. The corrected image on the right, though, is a much richer and more accurate image.

So, go check the WhiBal out. It's a huge timesaver and a great tool.

A peek behind the curtain

The title could describe the photo I'm posting today, which I realized only after I wrote it, but what I really meant is that I thought this would be a good picture to use as a another demonstration of what a photo goes through here at Noise to Signal before it gets posted.

I have what could be described as a manipulative printing style — what we might have once called "heavy on darkroom technique". (And yes, that sentence was designed to make my friends still working in the darkroom cringe, because I'm a bad person.)

Nearly all black and white printers manipulate contrast and burn and dodge to some extent, but more manipulative printers treat the original image as no more than a basis to start from. This doesn't mean that we use it to cover for poor technique at exposure time — in fact it's much easier to be a manipulative printer if you're starting with a pefectly exposed image. As Ansel Adams (himself an extremely manipulative printer) used to say, "the negative is the score, the print is the performance".

My own printing style is heavily influenced by a photographer named Roy DeCarava, who is a master of getting beautiful, rich, expressive detail in the shadow areas of his prints, with very few light values in the photo.

So, on to the demo. Let's start with the raw image, straight out of the camera with a default conversion applied. You can see that it's pretty bland, with none of the richness I'm looking for in a final image. Plus, hey, it's in color, which isn't what I want for this photo. (There's a whole discussion here about how I still see mostly in black and white that will have to wait for a future post) There are, however, the bones of an interesting photo here.

A default conversion to black and white looks a little better — it's starting to get more graphical, which is what I'm looking for — but it's still pretty gray overall.

Increasing the contrast while converting it to black and white with The Imaging Factory's Convert To BW Pro brings it closer to what I envisioned when I saw the photo originally, but it's still not quite right.

And here's the final version. I've increased the contrast on the flag in the window, increased the contrast on the bricks on the left side of the image, and added some edge burning to the left, right, and bottom edges. In the web image the detail in the shadows to the right of the flag seems to have disappeared, but there's plenty hinted at there in the print version.

And, because I can't resist, here's another "that 5d captures so damn much data I can't stand it" crop. What's that in the window below the one with the flag in it? Why, it's a dancing Shiva (?) and an elephant tucked in the corner. I could probably extract a bit more sharpness out of these, but I don't really want them to call too much attention to themselves in the final print.

A peek behind the curtain

The title could describe the photo I'm posting today, which I realized only after I wrote it, but what I really meant is that I thought this would be a good picture to use as a another demonstration of what a photo goes through here at Noise to Signal before it gets posted.

I have what could be described as a manipulative printing style — what we might have once called "heavy on darkroom technique". (And yes, that sentence was designed to make my friends still working in the darkroom cringe, because I'm a bad person.)

Nearly all black and white printers manipulate contrast and burn and dodge to some extent, but more manipulative printers treat the original image as no more than a basis to start from. This doesn't mean that we use it to cover for poor technique at exposure time — in fact it's much easier to be a manipulative printer if you're starting with a pefectly exposed image. As Ansel Adams (himself an extremely manipulative printer) used to say, "the negative is the score, the print is the performance".

My own printing style is heavily influenced by a photographer named Roy DeCarava, who is a master of getting beautiful, rich, expressive detail in the shadow areas of his prints, with very few light values in the photo.

So, on to the demo. Let's start with the raw image, straight out of the camera with a default conversion applied. You can see that it's pretty bland, with none of the richness I'm looking for in a final image. Plus, hey, it's in color, which isn't what I want for this photo. (There's a whole discussion here about how I still see mostly in black and white that will have to wait for a future post) There are, however, the bones of an interesting photo here.

A default conversion to black and white looks a little better — it's starting to get more graphical, which is what I'm looking for — but it's still pretty gray overall.

Increasing the contrast while converting it to black and white with The Imaging Factory's Convert To BW Pro brings it closer to what I envisioned when I saw the photo originally, but it's still not quite right.

And here's the final version. I've increased the contrast on the flag in the window, increased the contrast on the bricks on the left side of the image, and added some edge burning to the left, right, and bottom edges. In the web image the detail in the shadows to the right of the flag seems to have disappeared, but there's plenty hinted at there in the print version.

And, because I can't resist, here's another "that 5d captures so damn much data I can't stand it" crop. What's that in the window below the one with the flag in it? Why, it's a dancing Shiva (?) and an elephant tucked in the corner. I could probably extract a bit more sharpness out of these, but I don't really want them to call too much attention to themselves in the final print.

George Lange

Nancy pointed me to George Lange's portfolio site. Great portraits.

Don't fall over or nothin'...

... but I've finally updated my portfolio site.

I was malingering, and avoiding, and not getting around to it, and then I discovered Bill Wadman's very cool Flash app, PhotoFolio, which makes the job of creating and updating a portfolio site -- or indeed any kind of photo gallery -- trivial.

It's probably not what I want as a permanent solution, but:

• in the short term, I've finally updated my site
• in the medium term, it'll be super easy to throw new images up there
• in the long term, if I don't like this site, it'll give me more motivation to build a real one

Take a look, let me know what you think: David Adam Edelstein Photography

The Noise to Signal holiday print sale!

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, out of the goodness of my heart I'm here to help you with your holiday shopping.

Here's the deal: For US$40, I will send you a beautiful 8x10 (that's 20cm x 25cm) print of any of my photos on this site, postage paid. This obviously works out to be a better deal for those of you in other countries. Remember who loves you, baby.

Sale prices are good for the month of November, and will be sent out in plenty of time for you to get them to your loved ones for Chanukwanzmas, even if those loved ones are, say, someone other than you. Although these would look equally lovely on your own wall, don't you think? You're right. You'd better get an extra for yourself.

Do you love the ladies of the circus? Maybe you're more interested in the colors of the fall? Or maybe you'd just like to get dirty.

Today's project

Scan. Print.

Next steps: Edit. Send out portfolio.

Possibly too much data

Canon's begun shipping a new camera, the 5d, which I'm seriously thinking of upgrading to. I've been reading reviews and looking at samples, and recently I found some samples from the 5d on Canon's site.

They're the usual weirdo sample pictures that camera manufacturers post. Generally they're designed to show off some quality of the camera -- for example, the nice rendition of the subtleties of the whites in the dress, below.

I noticed something when I opened them up in Photoshop, though. Once you're talking about 13 megapixels, with a great lens at it's sharpest aperture, you may see detail that the grain structure in film, or a lesser lens, might have obscured before.

For example, this model in a bridal gown looks lovely, and the whites are rendered nicely indeed...

... but she also needs a little more cover on her chin.

Another model shows off how nice the out-of-focus areas look ...

... but the in-focus areas show that the tip of her nose is dry, and her pores could be a bit cleaner.

The Imaging Factory's Convert to BW Pro 3.0

I'm not much in the habit of recommending photo tools, but for those of you doing black and white work in digital more than occasionally, I have to recommend The Imaging Factory's Convert to BW Pro 3.0.

Now, normally I don't go in for most of the filters and whatnot that are available to do stuff to digital images -- either I find them effects tacky, or I'm good enough of a Photoshop jockey to find the redundant, but this is an exception. I had been happy with the techniques I was using to convert color images to black and white -- pure channel mixing by hand, or Rob Carr's excellent method he developed for Greg Gorman. And I'm not sure that I couldn't get the results I'm seeing in Convert to BW Pro using those techniques -- but this is a lot easier, and works a lot more like the way I think than those other techniques do.

By way of an example, here's an image you've seen before, in the original and converted using their tool. I did no burning or dodging; the only thing I did outside their tool is to apply a bit of a split-tone effect. Like I said, it's not impossible that I could have done this without their tool... but it was much faster and easier. It's definitely worth the $99 to me, and definitely worth the 30 day trial to you to try out.

Check them out: The Imaging Factory.

(And thanks to Michael Reichmann for pointing me to it in the first place)

Split-toning in Photoshop

This is another one of those techniques that I was sure everyone knew about, but given that I've gotten a couple of questions about this picture of Rusty, I figured I should talk about how I did it.

The term split-toning comes from the wet darkroom. I'll quote the excellent description in this article on split-toning from Handcolor.com:

Split toning is when the toner acts only on certain areas of the print, the middle or low values, while leaving the rest of the print with no color change. The old Agfa Portriga (particularly in the matte finish) would often turn a beautiful purple-brown in the low values, while the rest of the image would remain unchanged. This resulted in prints with much greater apparent "depth."

I'm starting to really like the digital equivalent when I post black and white photos, for much the same reason. Pure black and white images are often a little washed out onscreen, especially when they're shown in context with color images. I suspect this has something to do with the way images are displayed on computer screens, but I don't really care enough to investigate. Also, prints (whether silver gelatin or inkjet) are never truly black and white -- they all have a little tint based on the emulsion, paper, and/or inks.

This technique would also work well for those of you printing black and white images on color printers.

OK, let's get to it. First, here's our regular black and white image. I've deliberately chosen one with strong contrast, to make the samples more obvious, but you can get beautiful results with much more subtle images.

The way I like to add color to a black and white image is to create a new color layer, fill it with the color of my choice, set the blending mode to multiply, and drop the opacity of that layer down. Here I've used #FF9000 and an opacity of 16%. I like the way it looks in the shadows, but the highlights look a little tacky to my eyes -- like they're behind a sheet of yellow glass or something.

Dropping the opacity of the layer to 6% makes the highlights look better, but now I'm not getting the richness in the shadows I liked before.

This calls for a special technique. First, let's bump the opacity of this layer back up to 16%. Now, on the layers palette menu, choose "blending options". In Windows, you can also find this on the right-click menu if you right-click on the name of the layer you want to affect.

Down in the bottom-right corner of the dialog box that comes up, you'll see a pair of sliders like these:

We're interested in the bottom one, here. What this slider does is change the transparency of the current layer based on the layer below it. Any gray tone that appears between the sliders is opaque; any gray tone that appears outside of the sliders is transparent. It's easier to understand if you fuss with it yourself, but here's an example: I've dragged the highlight slider to the left, so anywhere the layer below the current one has a gray value brighter than 140, the current layer is transparent.

As you can see, this gives kind of a patchy effect, but I'm getting closer to what I was looking for: the shadows are getting the tones, but the highlights are being left alone.

Now let's get tricky. Take a close look at the slider we just moved. Notice how it's got a line down the middle? Almost like you could, oh, I don't know, maybe... split it in two? Bingo.

Hold down the alt or option key, click on the right side of the white slider, and drag it to the right. Zout alours! The slider has split in two.

What happens when you split the slider is that it smooths out the transition between opaque and transparent in the current layer. Where before the pixels were either on or off, we now have a nice gradient: pixels below 106 are opaque; pixels above 170 are completely transparent; and between those two values the pixels are some intermediate step. This gives us a much nicer looking image:

Instead of the abrupt jumps between toned and not toned, we now have nice smooth transitions. My highlights are largely untouched, and my shadows have the richness I was looking for. Success!

You can, of course, use this same technique to end up with an image that's much colder in the shadows, too:

Here's the original again so you don't have to keep scrolling back and forth to compare:

I hope that turns out to be useful for some of you.

If you want to get really tricky, you can tone the shadows one color, and tone the highlights an entirely different color... but I'm going to leave that one as an exercise for the student.

Before and After, or, Destroying the Magic

A few of you have asked why it takes so much longer for me to get through the black and white shots than the color shots. Since I've also wanted to have an example online to show what I do to a negative in the darkroom (wet or digital), I figured I'd post a before-and-after of a typical image.

The original scan (top) is a little washed out -- none of the blacks are maximum black -- and it's a little gray overall.

In the finished (or nearly finished) one, I've increased the contrast in certain areas, darkened others, and I've brought the boy's face up a bit to focus the viewer's attention on him a little more. Overall the edited one has more of the luminous quality that I'm looking for in a good photo.

Rambling commentary:

There's constant (and largely boring) debate in the photographic community now that comes down to "how much manipulation is too much?" The thesis some traditional photographers is that you can "just take a photo into photoshop" and (here's where it gets sloppy) either it's way too easy to make a great photo, or it's way too easy to make a vivisected horror.

On the first point (and despite the fact that this has been hashed out again and again) I'd say that it takes just as much craft to make a great image digitally as it does traditionally -- but it's different skills. It's certainly much easier for me to adjust very detailed areas. For example, if I wanted to brighten up the whites of someone's eyes in the digital darkroom, I can just zoom in until their eyes fill my screen and I have plenty of control over fine details. In the wet darkroom, I could use a dilute potassium ferricyanide solution and a 0000 brush, but I'd be working 1:1 with no "undo"... so I'd probably just skip it.

On the other hand, there are a pile of things I don't have to think about in the traditional darkroom, like image resolution, bit depth, and contrast curves, which may alienate traditional photographers but is inarguably another set of skills that require a high level of craft to apply usefully.

This is why I've long argued that neither digital nor traditional photography are better than the other -- they're just different brushes, or different tools. No, a print from my Piezography inkjet system doesn't look like one of my selenium-toned silver gelatin prints on Ilford Multigrade or Agfa Classic -- but it doesn't look worse than them, either, just different.

Where traditional and digital come together is in the artist's eye, making decisions about what kind of look they want to end up with, what kind of manipulation to do, and how much is enough -- and this is where we get back to that issue with the vivisected images. Instead of getting pointlessly specific, I'll just say that photography now is where the Design profession was 20 years ago when new digital tools made it possible for anyone to format their headline type with bold+italic+underline+shadow. A small minority used the new tools with taste, delicacy, and grace, and another small minority is doing the same thing now with digital photography.

My personal aesthetic is to only do what I would have done anyway in a traditional darkroom. I never had much interest in changing the reality of my photos, either by blending two photos together or by using elaborate gradient filters, or fog filters, etc. etc... but not because any of those are Wrong: they're just not my aesthetic.

And even then, there are exceptions where I'll use a combination of highly manipulative techniques on a photo because... I want to.

It's an artistic decision.

My advance publicity team is working hard

Over a month before our planned sojourn di Bella Italia, my advance publicity team is putting out the word on the street, yo.

No, really what happened was that I got a beautiful e-mail asking me if I would be interested in participating in this beautiful, noisy, free one-sheet magazine that's distributed in Italy -- they were going to do an issue on circuses, and of course my weirdo friends at Circus Contraption popped up, and then I popped up, and they wanted to use some photos and include a little interview with me.

I was naturally tremendously flattered and said yes. They wrote back with some interview questions, I wrote back with some goofy answers, and here they are a few weeks later: Stirato Circus.

The menus are a little confusing, and the English version isn't up yet, but here's a direct link to the 830kb PDF of the Italian version. Don't miss the PDF of the poster that backs up the magazine, though -- it's a lovely circus image.

A meditation: shooting on the street

Shooting on the street is an odd way to experience the city -- the side effect of trying to be perfectly aware and open to everything that's going on around me is that I end up not actually taking in that much. On the best days, I'm responding on such a pure visual level that I don't really parse what I'm seeing until I'm past it.

Blocks later, I'm suddenly asking myself, "Hey, was that woman trying to get a dog to ride on her back?" Sometimes that doesn't happen until I'm looking at the proof sheets, days later.

Those are the best days -- totally focused, responding before I see, subconscious in control of the camera, with the conscious mind desperately trying to hang on with one hand while the other hand clutches its hat. It's pure perception, total responsiveness, better than any drug.

The other days, when the conscious mind takes over, are... less great. It's much more of a struggle. I'm responding on an intellectual level, not an emotional one, and it shows. The images tend to be better composed, but often cold -- I'm not feeling it emotionally when I shoot, so the picture ends up with little or no emotional content and don't "work" as well.

This continues to be one of my biggest struggles in photography. Partly I think it has to do with my design training and experience. Composing a photo comes naturally to me, and as a result it's easy to fall into the trap of composition without really considering the content. Sure, the relationship between the guy and the wall sets up a nice dynamic, but nothing's going on in that space -- he's boring, the wall's boring, nothing interesting is happening.

The final decisive moment

Photo legend (and personal hero of yours truly) Henri Cartier-Bresson has passed away.

French photo legend Cartier-Bresson dead

PARIS (Reuters) - Frenchman Henri Cartier-Bresson, widely regarded as one of the great photographers of the 20th century, has died aged 95, LCI television reports.

The publicity-shy Cartier-Bresson, a founding member of the Magnum picture agency in 1947, died in the south of France, the private channel said on Wednesday.

The cause of his death was not immediately announced.

Cartier-Bresson made his name partly by being in the right place at the right time, a knack that enabled him to develop his talent for capturing on celluloid what he called the "decisive moment".

During a career in which he travelled to 23 countries, Cartier-Bresson documented the Spanish Civil war, the liberation of Paris during World War Two, the death of India's Mahatma Ghandi and the fall of Beijing to Mao Zedong's forces in 1949.

In 1954, the Frenchman also became the first Western photographer allowed into the Soviet Union after the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin the previous year.

Thirty years later, Cartier-Bresson packed away his Leica camera and switched to the other passion in his life -- drawing.

Last year, the national library hosted a retrospective of Cartier-Bresson's work, grouping 350 classic shots and drawings almost 30 years after he gave up photography.

More than anything else, Cartier-Bresson taught me that there was a connection between my interest in Daoism and Zen, and my interest in photography, and that there were deep mysteries to explore in both.

He also taught me not to take that crap too seriously.

In a rare interview a few years ago, he famously exclaimed that "There is no mystery, no magic, nothing to photography except this! [wiggles his index finger]"

One of the funniest photo essays ever

I just read Mike Johnston's latest "Sunday Morning Photographer" column, Uses and Applications of 35mm Lenses, and laughed my way through the whole thing. An excerpt:

Fisheye: No known uses, except to illustrate fisheye effects in photo how-to books.

[ . . . ]

Fast 300mm: Fashion, catalog, runway, sports, nature, air shows. Important lens for pros, also for nature photographers. Tough for amateurs unless shooting surreptitious faces in crowds or critters. Status symbol. As fashion, looks grand when accessorizing a photo vest.

I've left the best stuff out of my excerpt, as extra enticement to follow the link for those of you who laughed at the above excerpts. For those of you who didn't, be happy, it means you're not a fricken' photo geek.

At least they credited me in the print edition

But they didn't, darn them, online.

Anyway: The Stranger reviews Circus Contraption's new show (last two paragraphs) and uses a very bad black-and-white conversion of this very nice photo (if I do say so myself).

Slides from digital files

Despite the seeming ubiquity of digital imaging these days, there's one annoying necessity that crops up every now and then: Slides. Juried shows often want them, you need them for Polaroid transfers, many galleries still prefer them, and so on.

The thing is, no matter how good your Epson or Canon printer is, you're not going to get slides out of it. There is of course the obvious workaround: Print pictures, shoot slides of prints. That annoys me, though: Digital, to me, is all about removing steps from the process of photography. Adding in a couple of generations of quality loss just doesn't make sense.

Fortunately there are machines that print digital files to slides, and service bureaus that run them. Unfortunately, they're (nearly) all exorbitantly expensive. Locally, I haven't been able to find any place that would do it for less than $10 or so, and up until two weeks or so ago the best I could find online was around $9.

Nota bene that's $9 per slide. $180 for a sheet of 20 slides? $360 to have two sets? I don't think so. Hell, I can get a good used film recorder for $1000. Five sheets of slides and I'd be money ahead.

This question gained urgency for me this last month, when I was working on a project for the new Circus Contraption show. They're a refreshingly low-tech production, but part of what that means is that these images are going to be projected with a slide projector. Which means I needed to deliver slides. Forty of them. Which I sure as shit wasn't going to do for $9 a slide.

Faced with the awful prospect of having to print the images, borrow a film SLR body (remember when I sold my Nikon gear? I don't own a camera that works well for shooting copy slides any more), set up lights, and go through the slow, laborious prospect of shooting copy slides... I hit Google again.

This time I hit pay dirt! I found Replicolor, a service bureau in Salt Lake City. Their price for 48 hour turnaround is (as of this writing) $3.75 per slide, which is much more reasonable. Heck, their price for four hour turnaround (which means, basically, next day service via FedEx) is $7.50 a slide -- less than the 48 hour turnaround price anywhere else. And to make it even sweeter, they offer a 20% discount for first-time customers, for a grand total of $3 each for my 40 slides. Yeah, I was all over that.

My only concern, of course, was the quality, but when the slides arrived today all worries vanished. The slides were crisp, color-accurate, and nicely mounted.

So here's how it works. Upload your files to Replicolor via your browser, e-mail, or their FTP server. Enter your order in their system. Sit back and wait.

Their main digital slides page lists the file formats they can accept, and mentions that you can also FedEx them a CD with files on it if you don't want to wait for your enormous files to upload to their server. The one piece of information missing is the pixel dimensions they can use, but an email asking for more information was answered very quickly (Thanks Scott!) with the details:

The largest size is:

4K - 4096x2732 Pixels - 33.5 Megabytes

8K - 8192x5460 Pixels - 135 Megabytes

The film recorder uses bicubic sampleing to size the file up or down. If files are larger than 30 Megs we run them at 8K.

So there you go. Skip the $9 a slide and up crowd, and go with a much more appropriately-priced choice. Replicolor is going to be my source of choice from now on.

Lensbaby baby!

For many photographers, switching to digital has no downsides: it's faster, there's no ongoing expense of film, etc. etc.

However, for those of us who like, perhaps, a slightly more "interpreted" image, there are many things we miss about film. Film grain is one -- with the option of either still shooting on film (which I do) or adding it after the fact in Photoshop (which will send you to hell, not that I have any opinions on it).

Another is the option of shooting with a Holga, which is a Chinese-made plastic camera with a beautifully crappy lens. Michelle Bates has some particularly good examples of what that camera allows one to do -- soft, surreal images that are photographic and painterly at the same time.

One option would be to try to mount the lens from a holga camera onto a body cap from a digital SLR, which I've spent some time contemplating, but never got up the gumption to do.

Even better, though, is a new option that Barbara Stewart-Thomas pointed me to a couple of days ago, called a Lensbaby. I'll let you go to the site for the full explanation, but briefly, it's a crappy lens mounted on the end of a piece of flexible plastic tubing, which is in turn mounted on a digital SLR body cap (see, I wasn't so crazy). It has the same kind of weirdo focus characteristics of a Holga lens, but goes the Holga one better by allowing the photographer to move the sweet spot around while shooting.

So of course I had to order one ($96 + shipping, from Portland so it got to me in two days), and of course I had to try it out this morning. Here then are five examples. The first one just shows off the weird depth of field. The next two show the "sweet spot" moving around. And the last two show the same image in color and black and white. I'm probably going to be using this mostly in black and white -- I think the look is more effective that way -- but it's interesting to see the almost impressionistic color effects.

The lens comes with several different "aperture rings", from f/2.8 to f/8, with f/5.6 the recommended "most versatile" aperture; I'm using the f/2.8 one here, because I wanted to see what the most extreme effect was.

Shooting with it is a very weird and cool and organic experience, especially at this wide aperture -- it's like hunting around in 3-d space for your subject.

Mark Tobey on artistic craft

I've been reading this great book Janel lent me, called The Eighth Lively Art: Conversations with Painters, Poets, Musicians, & the Wicked Witch of the West. From the back of the book:

As a young artist and musician Wesley Wehr became a friend and often a confidant of many of the painters, poets, and musicians who lived or worked in the Northwest in the 1950s and 1960s. Drawing on his journals, Wehr provides an engaging, intriguing, and informative series of vignettes [of many of these people].

Yesterday, I ran into two comments from painter Mark Tobey that I particularly enjoyed:

"My friend Takesaki used to tell me, 'Let nature take over in your work. Get yourself out of the way when you paint.' But, as it is wisely said in Zen: 'You must be prepared before the fire can take over.' This is what I mean when I say that an artist should concentrate on his technique, so that he has a mastery of his craft. Then, when inspiration arrives, its expression will not be hampered by some lack of mastery of craft. Unless you know how to move your fingers on the piano, how to play the notes, how can you make music? But, mind you, you should develop your technique expressively."

"You must have roots. You have to care about things and be excited by them. Young artists want to be 'original' too soon, so they're afraid of being influenced. What they end up with is a few gimmicks, which they call their style. I was interested in everything when I was young. You can waste yourself trying to be original -- that comes later. And don't squander your life trying to be your hometown's most fashionable painter! You just have to work and work and work until a real personality emerges."

Final camera gloat

... I promise.

I was just going to post the following photo as a photo, celebrating the return of the azalea buds at work, but when I zoomed in I noticed things I had never seen before.

On the right is the whole picture, with the area of interest indicated.

Note also that this was shot hand-held, with the shutter speed a bit too low for a confidently sharp image.

Now, the crop.

Who knew azaleas had little hairs on the ends of their leaves? Not me, that's for sure.

So, how sharp is that lens, anyway?

A couple of people have asked me for an example of why I'm so gaga over the new camera/lens combination (Canon 10D and Canon 24-70 f/2.8, for those of you visiting from Google).

So, anxious as I am to please my public, here's a sample. Remember this image from a couple of days ago, when I was at the UW trying out the new gear?

Here's a 100%, pixel-for-pixel crop from the "lower middle" of the image, if that makes any damn sense to anyone not currently occupying my skull, moderately sharpened to bring out the detail inherent in the image. Note the bit o' spider web in the corner; compare it to the full image, above.

This, my friends, is a sharp fricken' lens.

Update: Miz Becky just pronounced this an "above medium boring" photography-related post. Well, imagine my thrill. :-)

No more whingeing

... about digital cameras, at least.

For a while.

Probably.

Anyway... this is bound to be painfully boring for most regular readers of this site, but if you're not endlessly fascinated by the minutia of equipment decisions, just skip to the photos at the end.

To recap, here's where we've been.

• The Leica Digilux 2 was announced. I was tempted.


• Leica announced they were actually going to build a 10 megapixel digital "M", which is the digital camera I've wanted since, well, I started shooting digitally at all.


• But it's going to take two years.


• Suddenly the Digilux 2 is less exciting. It's inherently noisier and less flexible than the digital M will be, or a digital SLR.


• So maybe I should just get a new Nikon D70 when it comes out, since I got all them Nikon lenses.

To cut to the chase -- since even I'm bored with this story -- I made a radical choice and bought a Canon EOS 10d. Why? Here's a few random notes:

• I don't really like Nikon's digital SLRs. They work fine, sure, but they're just not up to the image quality of the Canons. They're noisier at the low and high ISO ends, for one thing.


• Canon publishes their Canon Digital SDK, which makes it much easier for third-party developers (from Chris Breeze to Adobe) to write useful conversion tools. Nikon keeps theirs a secret, because, uh, they don't want people to write tools that can use their cameras?


• I've felt for a few years like Nikon was about 1.5 steps behind Canon in getting seriously into digital. They're getting there, sure, but they're definitely following, not leading.


• I've used both a Canon Powershot G2 and G3 and I've been very impressed at the image quality I got out of them, as well as the ergonomics and UI. I haven't had the same response to the Nikon prosumer cameras.

So I traded every scrap of Nikon gear I own in on a 10d and a beautiful (and heavy) 24-70 f/2.8 lens. And imagine my surprise when I had this conversation with the saleswoman:

"So, uh, why are you getting out of Nikon instead of waiting for the D70?"

I summarize my reasons. She nods. "Yeah, a lot of people are actually doing that. I did. I had an F100 I loved, but I got rid of it for a 10D."

So there you have it. I did the deal yesterday morning, had a little lunch, got my bearings on the new camera (nothing's where my fingers expect it to be), and headed to the UW to take advantage of the sunny day and practice.

First I shot some plants...

Then I shot some concrete...

And some random UW scenes...

And then I ran into three thousand people viewing the cherry trees.

Well, that doesn't help

So I've been trying to decide between getting one of Leica's new Digilux 2 cameras when it comes out later this month, or a Nikon D70.

The D70 is tempting, because it's under $1000, 6 quality megapixels, and uses my existing investment in Nikon lenses. But it's bigger than I want to carry around all the time, it has the 1.5x lens factor problem (my 24mm lens becomes an effective 36mm lens, not too wide at all), and nobody's solved the dust-on-the-sensor problem.

On the other hand, there's the Digilux 2, which is smaller and has a beautiful Leica zoom lens (28-90mm equivalent, which is basically the range I use). On the other hand, though, it's a "mini sensor" compared to the N70, so it's high-ISO performance isn't going to be as good. And it's going to be around $1850, which is a Chunk Of Change.

So I've been going around and around, trying to figure this problem out.

What I really want, of course, is a digital Leica M, that uses my existing investment in Leica lenses, with a nice momona sensor, but Leica and other optics people say it's a really hard problem to solve (mostly due to angle-of-light issues) so I had given up hope.

But like a stray baseball against a wasp's nest, today's Leica press release confirms they actually are working on a digital M (emphasis mine):

"... we are now in a favorable position for developing a solution that will enable our customers to enjoy the superb quality of our lenses to their full extent in digital applications as well’, continued Mr. Coenen. According to the strict Leica standards, an image resolution of at least 10 million pixels is required for this purpose. “In the digital world, the true Leica M feeling also requires high precision mechanisms and the renowned Leica range-viewfinder. According to Mr. Coenen, “The corresponding solution is now in preparation.” The LEICA DIGITAL-MODUL-R has priority, because it will be introduced at photokina in September 2004, but the two projects are partially intertwined, thus gaining precious time for the digital Leica M camera.

So now what the heck do I do? Surely a digital M is 18 months or more out. Do I stick with my G3 until then? Frankly, there are a lot of reasons for me to move away from film now -- no scanning is a big one, and no film costs. Am I likely to shoot ~154 rolls of film between now and when the digital M comes out? Maybe I should stick to renting digital SLRs when I really need something like that? Am I being disloyal to my beloved Tri-X by even thinking about this?

Hey, look top right on the home page of this blog. See that part where it says "whiny and rambling"? Yeah, this entry pays that bill.

I think I may have talked myself out of buying anything new until the digital M comes out. We'll see how I feel about a two year wait once I've actually touched a Digilux 2, but here's my current thinking.

In a world where there isn't going to be a digital M, an N70 or a Digilux 2 is a big jump over what I have now:

On the other hand, in a world where there's going to be a digital M, an N70 or Digilux 2 isn't that big of a difference:

On the third hand (talking myself back into it) two years is a long damn time. While it's virtually assured that I'll buy a digital M when it comes out, maybe a Digilux 2 is a good intermediate step.

Sigh. Isn't this thinking aloud fascinating?

Some thoughts on Pixels, Lenses, and the Digilux 2/DMC-LC1

(Note: For most of this discussion, I'm assuming that the Leica Digilux 2 and the Panasonic DMC-LC1 are basically the same camera, with the same lens and guts, mostly to simplify the discussion.)

In the time that preceeds the release of any new camera or electronic device, there's a storm of rumors, statements, theories, superstition, and vitriol that's all based on what we in the computer industry like to call FUD: Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Nobody knows anything, so people start to fill in the gaps based on the tiny bits of information they can get. This goes double for a digital camera, and triple when that camera has the Leica mystique attached to it.

I'm no different -- witness my essay about design sleuthing and the DMC-LC1. I like to flatter myself that I base my guesses on things I can actually see, rather than on assumptions I'm making, but the fact is that I'm just trying to fill the information void like everyone else.

And if you head over to the Leica digital forums, you'll see enough FUD to bore you several times over.

Number of pixels: Is it all that?

One of the areas where there's a lot of discussion is the question of the number of pixels. The consumer digicam industry has managed to make number of pixels -- 3.1 megapixels, 4 megapixels, 5, 6, 8, etc. -- the benchmark by which they convince consumers that they Need To Upgrade. So why, the fud-sufferers ask, did Leica go with only 5 megapixels? That's going to be crappy, right?

The problem is that raw numbers don't tell the whole story. Two other factors are actually more important: size of the sensors, and the quality of the lens sitting in front of the sensors.

What is a sensor? Briefly, each pixel in the final image is represented by a single sensor sitting in an array on a chip called a CCD.

There's a lot of technical discussion about sensor size, but I'll limit myself to a very broad summary of the issues. In fact, everything I want to say is contained within this sentence: Bigger sensors are better sensors. And why is that? Because smaller sensors can't currently be as light-sensitive as larger sensors, so they inherently are noisier than larger sensors.

For example: Based on raw pixel numbers, my 4 megapixel Canon G3 should be "better" than the 2.7 megapixel Nikon D1h -- it's got an extra 1.3 million pixels, right? So that's more data, right?

Wrong, and here's why. My G3 fits four million sensors onto a CCD that's barely .5" wide. The D1x, on the other hand, fits 2.7 million pixels onto a CCD that's .93" wide. Rough math, then, shows that each D1x pixel is about .012mm wide, whereas each G3 pixels is about .006mm wide. If you remember your geometry, 1/2 as wide means 1/4 the surface area, so each G3 sensor has 1/4 the light gathering ability of a D1x sensor. And the results speak for themselves: A huge percentage of the news photos you see these days -- especially sports photos -- are shot on a D1x or a similar Canon camera. Roughly none are shot on a G3. (There are a few other factors, like shutter lag and interchangable lenses, but it's still a valid point.)

All of that said, if you could get more pixels of the same size, you would capture a higher quality image. Which brings us to the Digilux 2: One thing they've done is put five megapixels on a slightly larger sensor, roughly 2/3" wide.

Again, comparing to Canon, their G5 -- a 5 megapixel camera -- uses the same size of CCD as the G3. Which means they've actually made their sensors smaller: roughly .005mm wide. The result? In looking at samples, I wasn't impressed with the image quality of the G5 as compared to my G3. The images were noisier, and overall just a bit "crappier" in the fine details than the G3 is.

On the other hand, the Digilux 2, with their slightly larger sensor, actually has larger pixels than the G3: .007mm wide. Still not the .012mm of the D1x, but better than a sharp stick in the eye.

The other factor: Lens quality

This will be a much quicker discussion. In brief, Leica makes some of the best lenses in the world. It's not clear whether the lens on the Digilux 2 is made by Leica -- the press releases from Panasonic seem to say that the lens on the DMC-LC1 is made by Panasonic under Leica supervision -- but the point remains that anything with the Leica name on it is going to have some relation to their tremendous standards of quality. Which means the Digilux 2 is going to have a great lens, which means that the image that reaches those slightly bigger pixels is going to be starting out at a higher level of quality. 'Nuff said.

The proof is in the pudding, uh, sample photos

Finally, this week, I got what I was waiting for: Actual sample photos from the Digilux 2. There are a few samples on the Leica site, but they're not very good examples for my purposes. They're mostly shot at night (at a higher "film speed" than the highest quality the camera can do) and they aren't the direct images from the camera -- they've all been re-saved as JPGs, which reduces the quality of the image.

Much more useful was this pair of photos some kind soul posted -- a couple of snapshots taken at high quality on the street. And how do they look? In a word, great. Here's a full-size crop of some hair:

Note how sharp the individual hairs are, and how distinct they look. Compare to a similar shot taken with my G3:

The individual hairs are much lest distinct -- the whole thing is a little "smeary".

Actually, the proof is in the printing

Sample photos means sample prints, and though I unfortunately can't show those to you in any kind of useful way, let me tell you that the prints look great. Printed at 12" x 16", roughly the largest I can go on my printers at home, the images look great -- sharp and distinct, with no visible pixel artifacts unless I at them through a magnifying glass. No, they're not as sharp as pictures the full-frame, 11 megapixel Canon EOS 1Ds -- but are they high enough quality that I'd exhibit them with no qualms? Yes, indeed.

It might be helpful, for those of you familiar with traditional photography, to think of it in terms of medium format vs. 35mm. A number of reviewers have said that the quality of images from their EOS 1Ds rivals or beats that of their medium format cameras -- certainly 6x4.5, if not 6x6 or 6x7. Think of the Digilux 2, then, as a 35mm camera in relation to the "medium format" EOS 1Ds. True 35mm film cameras never going reach the image quality of medium format film cameras. Do they still produce acceptable images? Heck, yes. And so it is with this camera.

A related opinion

Frank van Riper has an excellent essay on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1PP, which can be considered an earlier generation of this upcoming Leica/Panasonic camera: Quality pixels, beautiful Leica lens. It even repeats the pixel question: "I was a little put off by the fact that the [FZ-1] weighed in at a mere 2.0 megapixels."

I recommend reading the essay; he touches on a lot of the issues I mention here, but much more coherently. The key points, though, are contained here:

Inevitably, the question of pixels will come up. At a flimsy 2.0 megapixels, the FZ-1 certainly sounds anemic. And, one might argue, this shortcoming is one reason Panasonic can charge so comparatively little for it (list around $450; street $375-99).

But I keep coming back to Bruce Dale's spectacular 8x10 images, as well to what other of my friends and colleagues, far better versed in digital than I, have been telling me: Size (in this case the number of megapixels captured by a camera) has turned into a kind of meaningless arms race. So much depends on other factors: post-production (i.e.: Photoshop tweaking), printing – not to mention lens quality (remember that Leica glass), that simply touting megapixels is like bragging about having a Nikon body and using it with an off brand cheapo lens.

Something like a conclusion

In summary, I'm happy with how the images look. The only things I still have questions about are responsiveness and hand feel. The reports say that the camera is super-responsive, with no appreciable shutter lag. However, that's not something I can see for myself without actually trying one out. Similarly with hand feel: I suspect, based on the size and shape, that the camera will feel like a lighter-weight Leica M, which would be great for me. I just gotta hold one in my hands to be sure.

A real photo can still lie

There's a lot of discussion right now, as digital photography takes over from film, about whether digital photos can be "trusted".

The logic goes that because with a film image there's always the original negative to go back to, it's inherently more trustworthy than a digital image, where there's no unalterable original form.

Ignoring the fallacies in that argument for now... what I really want to talk about is how a photo, whether digital or film, can still tell a lie even if the photo hasn't been manipulated.

At issue is the photo at right, of Mr. Bush, during his "daring visit to Baghdad", apparently carrying a roast turkey on a platter, bringing it to the troops. You may have seen it on the front page of your local paper.

But, as Misleader.org reports:

According to the Washington Post, Bush was actually holding "a decoration, not a serving plate." In other words, he was holding a prop, not real food, and thus only pretending for the cameras to be serving up the holiday meal.

The White House will undoubtedly say in their defense that they never said it was a real turkey. Which may be true.

The point, though, is that they didn't have to. Thanksgiving is such an emotionally potent holiday in this country -- family, togetherness, cooperation -- that just one image of Mr. Bush carrying something that resembles a turkey to our young men and women in Iraq is a more powerful message than anything the White House could put in a press release. Let's get along. Let's work together. The patriarch has everything under control. Don't question him, just pass the sweet potatoes. Look, he's there for our troops.

(That last one, at least, being patently false: He may have been carrying a fake turkey, but the massive cuts in the White House's 2004 budget to programs that support military families are real. Housing, schools, or medical care for veterans, anyone?)

More about this on the Misleader site: Photograph of Fake Turkey Captures Bush Misleading.

Design sleuthing: more on the DMC-LC1

While snooping around the 'net a couple of days ago, I found a cache of larger photos someone had snapped of the prototype DMC-LC1 that was on display last month. One of the shots was of the lens barrel, and what I saw there made me even more excited about this camera.

If we start from the rear of the image, nearest the camera body, there are three rings on the lens barrel: aperture, focusing, and zoom.

The aperture ring and the shutter speed dial (not shown here) have the same kind of arrangement and relationship that one sees on some automatic cameras (including my old and much missed Canon AE-1): Both have their usual range of speeds or apertures (2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, and 11 in this case) as well as an "A" setting.

How they work is very cool: When they're both on "A", the camera is in "full auto" mode -- it makes all of the decisions about shutter speed and aperture. If the photographer was to turn the aperture ring from "A" to, say, 5.6, then the camera is now in "aperture priority" auto-exposure mode: It adjusts the shutter speed based on the manually-set aperture to arrive at a normal exposure.

Similarly, if the aperture ring is on "A", and the photographer turns the shutter speed dial to a specific speed, say "250", then the camera is now in "shutter priority" auto-exposure mode, and adjusts the aperture to arrive at a normal exposure.

If, however, the photographer adjusts both the aperture and the shutter speed manually, then the camera just follows what the photgrapher has set and leaves the decisions up to them.

The beauty of all of this is that it's a very natural interaction to go into one of the priority modes, or into full manual mode: If I specifically want f/2, then I simply turn the aperture ring to f/2. The same operation on my Canon G3 digicam takes switching exposure modes and multiple button presses.

Similarly, we can see that the focus ring is set up the same way. On the right end of the dial are two AF modes (regular and macro). If the photographer wants to set the focus manually, they can just turn the dial away from AF. Again, the same thing on my G3 takes several button presses and a non-intuitive rotation of the "function dial" to focus the camera.

(Still to be seen is how focus actually works -- is the eyepiece a rangefinder? Does the LCD display somehow zoom in when the camera is in manual focus mode? I'm very curious to see.)

Part of what's so exciting for me about seeing these controls on the camera is that it means that the designers are following one of the fundamental principles I try to apply in all of my UI design: Allow the customer to operate directly on whatever they're trying to affect. It's similar to finally being able to edit directly in spreadsheet cells in the recent versions of Excel: instead of having to lose my focus and edit numbers that may be near the bottom of the screen through a text box at the top of the screen, Excel users can now just edit directly in the cell they're looking at.

The third piece of information we can deduce from this photo of the lens barrel is that on the zoom ring, the numbers marked are the 35mm equivalents, not the actual lengths of the designed-for-a-small-ccd lens Leica is putting on this camera. Which makes total sense: My Canon G3 thinks in a range from 7-22mm or something like that; but if I wanted to set the camera to a "normal" lens length (roughly 50mm on a 35mm camera) I'd have little or no idea what the equivalent length would be on the G3. Because this camera has the 35mm equivalents on the lens barrel, it will be very easy for someone experienced in shooting 35mm (like me) to understand the framing and extent of view that I'll get with the lens set to, say, 35mm.

This is again a good sign about the skill of the designers who put this camera together. They've obviously put a great deal of thought into how people who like manual cameras would like to use a digital camera.

The next hurdles, of course, are finding out how good the images are it captures -- does the CCD live up to the camera design? -- how focusing works, and shutter lag. I'm looking forward to finding out any new information about this camera as it comes out.

Photoshop cross-processing

It constantly amazes me that while much of the content on the web that providers want people to pay for is mediocre at best, some wonderful things are completely free.

Case in point: Shan Canfield's wonderful cross-processing actions for Photoshop, which I just discovered yesterday.

Cross-processing, briefly, is a photographic technique where (usually) slide film (E6) is processed in the set of chemicals usually used to process print film (C41). (Less common is cross-processing in the other direction -- print film processed in slide film chemicals) The result is images with oddly skewed colors and increased contrast and saturation.

This technique was a bit overused in the late 1990's, but it can be quite effective when used in the right situation. I like using it (gently) for my photos of Circus Contraption -- the slightly odd look to the colors works well with their style. It can also be used for motion picture film; for example, in the movie Three Kings, most of the desert scenes are cross-processed.

The problem we're running into now, however, is that this process depends on shooting with film. What happens if you're one of the photographers who have made the jump to digital?

That's where Ms. Canfield (also known as Photoshop Mama, according to her site) comes in. She's produced a set of very nice Photoshop "actions", or macros, that do a very credible job of mimicking real cross-processing in a digital tool.

Unfortunately Ms. Canfield's site uses frames, so I can't point you directly to the cross-processing section, but if you go to her site (opens in a new window), click on "shanzcan tutorials", and scroll down to number 23, you'll find them.

"That's all very well and good, Dave, but can you show me some samples?" I'm glad you asked. Here are some samples using the old Photodisc color calibration test image. First, the unmanipulated image:

There are three versions of the action. The first one focuses more on the hue and saturation changes cross-processing creates. The second focuses more on the contrast changes. Here they are:

The third action combines the two:

The really elegant thing about how Ms. Canfield has set up these actions is that the the actions generate cross-process layers that sit above the original, unmanipulated image, and affect it. In the case of the combined action, it creates two layers, one for each of the other actions it includes.

This suggests a few ideas. First, I've found that it's most efficient to just run the third action. Like real cross-processing, the effect on an image is sometimes hard to predict. Having both versions there allows you to turn one or the other off and choose which one you like better -- or change the opacity of one or the other, if you want some of the contrast effect, but not quite as much as her action gives you, for example.

The second idea this suggests is that it's possible to duplicate one or another of the layers if you want more of that layer's effect.

The third idea, which follows on the second, is that it's possible to add other layers to manipulate the effect.

On the left, below, I have a version of the image where I have two layers of effect #1, and none of effect #2, for a stronger hue shift.

On the right I have a version with only one layer of effect #1, plus a color balance adjustment layer (0/50/0 in the shadows and 0/0/25 in the highlights) that mimics the way cross-processing can sometimes make the image go green in the shadows, and warm in the highlights.

One caveat is that because these require layers, they won't work on 16-bit images just yet. But Photoshop CS is right around the corner, which finally allows most features to work in 16 bits. Huzzah!

The possibilities are vast. I'm sure this is giving all of you Photoshop types some great ideas. Enjoy! And mad props to Ms. Canfield, as well.

Possibly my next camera

I was delighted to see the announcement last week of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC1 -- it may turn out to be my next camera.

I have to admit that I find digital SLRs, like the Canon EOS 10d (or even the much heftier 11 megapixel 1ds) tempting.

But when I look at my shooting style, what do I shoot with? My Leica rangefinder. I don't shoot that often with my Nikon SLR -- mostly the odd commercial job, or cases where I need a 24mm lens, which I don't have for my Leica. (Which suggests that maybe I should trade my entire SLR system in on a Leica 24mm lens... but I digress).

I don't really need the extended lens choices of an SLR. I don't shoot super-wide angle, nor do I shoot long telephoto, both of which require an SLR so you can actually see what's going on. 90% of my shooting is at 50mm. If I need to get a little wider, or a little closer, I switch to a 35mm or a 90mm. That's basically it.

And why do I shoot with the Leica? First of all, of course, is that it's a beautifully made camera that makes me happy to use. As a designer, I like using well designed objects.

But taking that away, it's really a question of three features. First, the Leica is small, light, and inobtrusive. Nobody looks at it twice, because it looks like an amateur camera.

Second, the lens quality is amazing. The arguments over whether Leica lenses are as good as they're supposed to be will continue to go back and forth, but in my experience, using my cameras, the Nikon lenses don't come close to them.

Third, it has total manual control. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I'll quote Mike Johnston's recent comments on the subject:

The issue you're talking about more generally is called "responsiveness," and it's something that a fairly large number of photography enthusiasts (both digital and film) are relatively ignorant about these days, because we have a whole generation that's grown up with autofocus and even a fledgling group that knows digital alone. You refer to it as "oneness with the image." That's maybe a little metaphysical for some people, though I know what you mean. Looked at in a more quotidian way, it simply means that the camera will do exactly what you tell it to, very, very quickly, and you won't have to think about it (i.e., get distracted by it) much.

Automated systems and controls interposed between the impulse to photograph and the recording of the photograph work against responsiveness. For instance, manufacturers have worked very hard to make autofocus more and more responsive since the mid-1980s when it began to become common, but it's still a step between you and the picture. And by "controls interposed," what I mean is anything additional that you have to "set" before you're ready to shoot. This is why, during my entire "career" (I use the term very loosely!) of teaching and writing for photographers, I've consistently been critical of cameras with too many bells and whistles, and of zoom lenses. Neither are sins, but both interfere with responsiveness.

[ . . . ]

It's very important to realize that THIS IS WHAT HIGH-TECH CAMERAS ARE TRYING TO EMULATE. When Garry Winogrand stepped out of his apartment and went down to the street, he looked at the light and set his shutter speed and his aperture. He knew the light and he knew his film and he knew what he needed. No matter how complex the light meter in a modern camera — whether it has 32 metering segments and a complicated algorithm embedded in a chip, or a thousand tiny color sensors — this is all it's trying to do: set the aperture and the shutter speed properly. When Robert Frank learned to set the focus of his Leica by judging the distance to his subject by eye and then the position of the focusing tab by feel, it was so he could focus as he brought the camera up to his eye. No matter how complex and fast the AF system in a Wunderkamera — whether it has a whole fleet of little red spaceship focusing points in the finder, or the latest whiz-bang AF sensor chip — this is all it's trying to do: set the focus properly.

Which brings us back to the DMC-LC1. Bearing in mind that the only things I know about this camera are from a couple of articles (here and here), it seems like this camera might fulfil my requirements: Total manual control (easily accessed, not buried like in my Canon G3), a gorgeous Leica lens (28-90mm equivalent, which is exactly the range I like to shoot with), small (I'm guessing based on the photos), and -- reportedly -- low shutter lag.

That last one is the only real concern I have. Shutter lag on most non-SLR digicams is terrible. It makes them largely unusable for fast-moving subjects (yes, I know about prefocusing, but that's not the same as being truly responsive). If it really does have a minimal shutter lag, then I may be buying a new camera in the spring.

Shows to look forward to

Miz Becky and I have finally figured out our travel plans for visiting my parents (and, apparently, the brother-thing) this year.

My only real constraint on the timing was that we'd be there in time to see this show at the Honolulu Academy of Arts:

BRETT WESTON IN HAWAII
September 30, 2003 through January 4, 2004
Holt Gallery

Born in Los Angeles and son of the celebrated American photographer Edward Weston, Brett Weston (1911-1993) grew up in and later became a part of his father’s circle of California-based photographers devoted to the promotion of "straight" photography, the revelation of the poetry of external reality through the optical objectivity of the camera and meticulous printing rather than individual "artistic" statements. This exhibition showcases Weston’s Hawaii-based work, with its presentation of the fifteen prints that comprise his portfolio, Hawaii, Leaves and Lava. Striking details of Hawaiian leaves and powerful images of the Big Island’s awesome volcanic landscape are compelling for their reflections of Hawaii.

Imagine my delight to find out that there are going to be two other photo shows going on at the same time:

IN FOCUS: A HAWAII PHOTOGRAPHY INVITATIONAL
November 20, 2003 through January 11, 2004
Graphic Arts Gallery

Invited artists present an exhibition of new photographic works.

IN CELEBRATION OF LIGHT: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE COLLECTON OF CHERYE R. AND JAMES F. PIERCE

December 4, 2003 through January 11, 2004

Henry R. Luce Gallery

Featuring the Cherye R. and James F. Pierce Collection, the finest private collection of photography in Hawaii. Among the photographers included in the collection are Alfred Stieglitz, W. Eugene Smith, Diane Arbus, Imogen Cunningham, Minor White, Ansel Adams, and Brassai, among many others. For nearly 30 years, the Pierces have collected prints by photographers active throughout the 20th century and up to the present day. From over 500, the Pierces have selected about 125 prints for display presenting fine examples of masterworks and various printing processes. The works will be presented thematically with separate categories for the urban and natural environment, still lifes, animals, nudes, the modernist impulse, and the human condition. The collection also features works by some of Hawaii’s leading photographers including several works by Franco Salmoiraghi.

Oh yeah, and it'll be nice to see my family, too. :-)

piezoelectric autofocus

This is kinda cool. From the article:

1 Limited of Cambridge, UK, has found a novel way to make a thin sheet of a piezoelectric ceramic material work like a motor. It can move whatever is placed on top of it, or it can be rolled into a cylinder to grasp and move a miniature camera lens.

Read more here.

One for the ladies

Sisters, ever look at photos models in magazines and despair at ever looking like them? Ever think that they have impossibly beautiful skin? It turns out you're right: it is impossible, in the real world. But not with Photoshop...

Greg Apodaca spills the beans, showing a couple of re-touching examples that ddemonstrate just how far from "reality" many of the magazine shots you see really are.

Take a look at example 1 and example 2.

One for the ladies

Sisters, ever look at photos models in magazines and despair at ever looking like them? Ever think that they have impossibly beautiful skin? It turns out you're right: it is impossible, in the real world. But not with Photoshop...

Greg Apodaca spills the beans, showing a couple of re-touching examples that ddemonstrate just how far from "reality" many of the magazine shots you see really are.

Take a look at example 1 and example 2.

Nice piece on lomography

Here's an interesting audio/photo presentation on lomography, from the good folks at 120seconds.com (and via RL).

I keep thinking about getting one of these cameras, but I can't imagine buying another camera -- I'm trying to divest myself of cameras as it is.

I do work that's something like this with the G2, but it's got two strikes against it. First, the fricken' digital shutter lag (or, as we like to say, the indecisive moment). Second, as one of the lomographers says in this piece, film has something much more organic and warm about it than digital does. It's just not the same.

What I should do is load the M7 up with some saturated color film and hit the streets. Maybe that's what I'll do at the Solstice Parade tomorrow.

(Another link for the same price: Christopher Evans, Lomographer)

Finding your voice

Monday, Miz Becky and I went to see the big Jacob Lawrence show at SAM. There was a great quote from Mr. Lawrence near the beginning of the exhibit:

"My belief is that it is most important for an artist to develop an approach and philosophy about life -- if he has developed this philosophy he does not paint on canvas, he puts himself on canvas."
-- Jacob Lawrence to Josef Albers, 1946

This particularly resonated with me because it fits a realization I had a few years ago, and which has since become my stock answer whenever someone writes to me and asks for advice on becoming a better photographer.

The succinct version is this: Figure out what else you're interested in besides photography. Go photograph that.

"That's well and good," some of you are thinking, "but what the &#$! does that mean, Dave, really?"

Maybe an example would help. Many beginning photographers, myself included, think that they need to shoot like Ansel Adams to be a Good Photographer. What they miss is that even Ansel wasn't trying to shoot like Saint Ansel. What he was doing was expressing his feelings about the natural landscape.

What I realized was that I'm fundamentally a city boy. I have some affection for the natural landscape -- I like wandering around on beautiful trails -- but I don't have a very deep relationship to it, and thus I don't have anything particularly profound to say about it. "Yep, there it is, the landscape. Nice, huh? Say, what are we going to do about dinner?"

On the other hand, I am endlessly fascinated by people: their relationships, their emotions, how they approach the world. I'm so interested in people I like to read cognitive psych books in my free time. People Are Cool.

Once I realized that, I was able to focus my efforts (ha ha, I make ze leetle photography joke) on people, including my street photography and my work with Circus Contraption. My work improved dramatically. Why? Because I was photographing something I was interested in, and I had something interesting to say about it.

Thus the advice to correspondents to go figure out what they're interested in besides photography. Interested in horses? Car racing? Naked people? God help you, babies dressed in cute costumes? Go take pictures of those things. The results will be much more interesting.

Mixed feelings about T400CN

Today I picked up four rolls of T400CN, one of Kodak's "chromogenic" black and white films. This is, to put it simply, a film processed in color chemistry, rather than traditional black and white chemistry, that nevertheless produces a black and white negative.

I feel like a bit of a traitor to my old favorite, Tri-X, which is a beautiful film with a long history. Over the weekend, however, I read a few essays and discussions that suggest that it might be the perfect black and white film for scanning. Put that way, it seemed reasonable to try it. Hopefully it won't hurt my camera's feelings.

My interpretation of the reasoning goes like this: Tri-X is a beautiful film designed in the context of a specific system. It's exposed, processed in chemicals, printed using an enlarger onto silver-coated paper, which is developed chemically in a wet process. The image on the film and the paper are both composed of silver halides converted to metallic silver in the development process.

Is it not possible, then, that since I'm scanning the negs, instead of putting them in an enlarger, and printing with an inkjet system, instead of onto traditional photo paper, that using a non-traditional film might be a better match?

(That's a rhetorical question, by the way, I'm about to answer it here)

The arguments for T400CN as a better choice for a digital process include the following:

It has fine "grain", high detail, and high speed. (Technically this film doesn't have any grain, because the image is formed with dye clouds instead of actual clumps of silver; nevertheless, it's a useful term for the apparent noise in the image.) This is the holy grail of film/developer combinations in traditional black and white film. Newsgroup archives are full of questions and arguments about which film/developer combination will allow people to shoot 35mm film at ASA400 and end up with prints that look like they came out of a large-format camera. The inherent problem, however, is that silver halide has certain limitations based not on hearsay but on that old sourpuss, physics. Faster film response time = larger grain; 35mm = limited amount of surface area = limited amount of total data that can be captured. T400CN reportedly can be exposed anywhere between 200 and 800 ASA with good results, and has the apparent "grain" of ASA100 film -- all possible because the final image is formed with dye clouds instead of silver.

Another argument for using a chromogenic black and white film is that it allows the scanner to take advantage of Applied Science Fiction's very cool Digital ICE technology. Digital ICE is a hardware technology that uses infrared information about the surface of the film to automatically remove dust and scratches from the scan. I was originally skeptical about this technology, but it really does work stunningly well. The only downside: it doesn't work with traditional black and white films. Freaks out.

Now, even though I'm a careful guy, and handle my negs delicately, and hit them with a blower before scanning, I always have to spend a few minutes spotting my black and white images in Photoshop. I don't have to do that with my color images, because I can use ICE on them. And this saves a lot of time over the course of a project.

On the con side, it sounds like chromogenic films don't have quite the same exposure latitude as traditional black and white -- that is, it isn't able to capture as much detail into the shadows and highlights. We'll see if I notice.

A more important issue is longevity. Traditional black and white film has an extremely long life span with no image fading, because the image is composed of metallic silver. Color film, on the other hand, has an inherently limited life span because the image is composed of dye, which is unstable and fades over time. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Largely I expect my negs to be exposed to light for a couple of hours of their total life -- several minutes at the lab, a few minutes while I make my initial scans, and then again if I ever need to scan additional images.

Another issue is aesthetic: I actually like the grain of Tri-X. Will I like street work done without that grain? Will I miss it? The answer here, of course, is that I can still shoot Tri-X on the street. That is, I can as long as they make it -- and if I'm switching away from Tri-X for most of my usage, then I'm helping to contribute to its inevitable removal from the Kodak product line.

I'll report back after I've tried a few rolls, in different lights and different situations.

Pushing pixels

There's an article in the latest issue of Lenswork by Frank Van Riper, where he talks about building a great portfolio print by print over one's lifetime. It's a good, inspiring article.

I like to read Mr. Van Riper's essays, in Lenswork and in the Washington Post online -- he wrote one about the Leica M series that perfectly captures my love for that camera -- but I have to address something he mentions in the current article in Lenswork.

He says:

"... here I could not help but think of being in the darkroom, producing archival black-and-white prints on actual paper from actual negatives -- immutable, permanent things, not computer-generated facsimiles of questionable provenance born of a digital camera's bits and bytes.

... it's the very "virtualness" of digital photography that bores me and gives me a headache. The ethereal, never-quite there quality of it all..."

Now, first of all, breaking from his otherwise great essay to engage in some unprovoked digital hatin'... that seems unnecessary. In other essays, he talks about using a Canon Powershot G1, and even describes it as "this terrific camera", so clearly he doesn't reject digital completely.

What's more interesting to me, though, is the content of his comment. I don't want to deny his experience -- if digital isn't real to him, it isn't, and I wouldn't want to try to convince him any more than I would want someone else to try to convince me that Steely Dan makes really good music.

My experience, however, is somewhat different. Digital, to me, has always been as real as anything else. It's not ethereal at all -- it's right there, as physical as I need it to be, coherent and understandable and very nearly concrete.

I suspect the difference is that I grew up using computers, and I have a level of comfort and trust with them that Mr. Van Riper doesn't. I don't mean to imply that I think he's old and out of touch, either -- that's not the message here. The point is that I have a lot of experience using computers as an artistic tool, and that affects my perception of them.

I've encountered this with other designers as well, although not so much lately. When I was first working out in the world, other designers who hadn't really used digital tools would complain that they couldn't place things on a page precisely -- that they felt like they were doing layout with a pointer on the end of a long pole. I, on the other hand, always felt like I had more control working digitally than I ever did with manual paste-up. Pens leak and jump around. Rulers need to be held straight. Wax is sticky stuff, and when it touches a board it tends to want to stay there. Digital gave me much more freedom to be as precise as I wanted to be.

I've seen the same phenomenon, to look at this another way, when I try to explain to non-photographer friends the process of printing traditionally. People whose experience of photgraphy is limited to taking the little metal cannister out of their camera, dropping it off at a store, and getting their photos plus some mysterious orange strips back, do not understand that first you develop the film, then you put it in an enlarger, and only then do you end up with a print on photo paper. It's all very abstract and mysterious. "Why do you need to make it bigger?" "What happens to the film?" etc.

The point of this rambling, I think, is that just because something seems mysterious and abstract doesn't mean that it isn't real: it just means that one doesn't have experience with it.

As Mr. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." And we distrust and fear magic until we learn to control it.

The last 100 feet

Some mornings, it's harder to walk those final 100 feet into the office than others. The big secret about Seattle, photographically at least, is that the blanket of clouds that cover the city most of the time are really the world's biggest softbox. Especially when it's actually raining and there's some reflection from the ground, everyone and everything looks so beautiful that it's hard to keep from grabbing random strangers and shooting portraits of them. Instead, I make it all the way into the office, sit down at my computer, and whine about it online.

I suppose that the day when I turn around and head back out to shoot is when I'll know it's time to quit the straight job.

A wee rant on learning to be a photographer

copied from a scribble in my notebook from 7/18/2001:

Nobody can teach you to be a photographer. They can teach technique, the mechanical skills involved in taking a printing a photo, but the only person who can teach you to be a photographer is yourself.

Even more difficult, you don't just need to teach yourself to be a photographer, you need to teach yourself to be your photographer, to develop your unique vision and voice in a world filled with imagemakers.

Now that I'm reading that again, it seems like too harsh of a statement. It's not that you necessarily have to find your own way in an empty and swirling wilderness; it's just that there isn't a prescription for becoming a photographer like there is for exposing Ektachrome correctly.

I've been fortunate to have several mentors in my life who have provided great -- and conflicting -- examples of what it means to be a photographer. But if I had asked them, they couldn't have taught me directly the things I learned from them indirectly.

Fish don't know how to swim, they just do it.