I really like the way the Pentax K-01 makes images of Sony RX10 cameras....

RX10

I was working in the studio today but every time I started to make progress on something my calendar program would chime in and remind me of something I needed to be doing somewhere else. I'd promised a friend that I would speak to his kid about what to expect of a career in the arts. The kid is in college and is focusing on what she wants to do in the real world. After our Starbucks consultation I headed over to meet my friend, Will, for lunch. Instead of heading off to yet another restaurant he invited me to his house and served an incredible clam chowder, some wonderful stinky cheese on freshly toasted sourdough bread, and a nice glass of chardonnay.

Over lunch I was reminded of how nice it is to have friends who are both great cooks and also much smarter than me. Will shared some of his newest assignment photographs with me and gently chided me for making the statement that 'photography has gotten too easy.' He is already a master of the art and he was quick to point out that there is always so much more to learn.

Rationalizing the systems for the coming year. What stays? What's going? And why....

Every website we visit these days (for photography) is talking about giant transitions. For some it's the transition from big DLSRs with seismic blast mirrors to much smaller, mirror less cameras. In many cases it's a transition from cameras that do video well and the rationale is that many smaller cameras do a better job focusing in video but have very similar image quality to all the bigger cameras because everything ends  up getting sampled down to 2000 by 1000 pixels or less. A lot of people are talking about downsizing from big, traditional cameras to smaller cameras (and much smaller lenses) in order to take a strain off their shoulders, backs and carry-on luggage.

I used to buy the smaller, lighter argument until I realized that when we go on location for corporate and commercial clients the cameras (any kind of camera) are the least of our burdens. We are usually carrying four to six light stands, some flags to modify light, some sort of lighting instruments and their attendant modifiers as well as a big, heavy tripod and cases to put all the stuff in and keep it relatively safe. And speaking of safety those four twenty-five pound sandbags don't lighten the load much either.  Now when I look at cameras I start weighing cost, efficiency, quality and usability more than anything else.

We like to think that there are objective measures to quality and, surprise! there are. But there's a sliding scale of where the crossover points occur between reckless costs and necessary quality. Most people aiming at the pro market have some sort of calculus that they use to divine that point for themselves. But I've always been into new math so my break points differ from traditionalists.

The Transparent Commercial Photography Blog.

By the lore of the web I have done everything wrong with this blog. The articles are too long. The articles are too personal and the articles don't have, as their raison d'être, the motive of constantly pushing product and making money. Sure, I put in ads for things at Amazon from time to time but I've long since given up really trying to push sales of my five books. And my attempts at "selling" are abysmal.  Besides, the blueprint for financial success from affiliate advertising calls for three "gushy" articles about brand new gear for every one article about the actual art, or existence within the art of photography. It's sad to think that my core readers might not come here if I did follow the formula but they'd be replaced with legions of boring, linear thinkers like those that argue, ad nauseum, about aperture equivalence or shutter shock. 

I think photography blogs have more or less run their course. For every blogger who really understands the gear, like Ming Thein or Michael Reichmann,  there are legions of hobbyists who take duffle bags full of crappy images, review every camera that comes down the pike and fall madly in love with each of them. Every single one. Ming and Michael are leveraging their experience while almost everyone else is flexing their marketing muscles.

I am also commercially inept (as a blogger) because I have a soft spot for mutts and eccentrics. I love weird cameras like the Pentax K-01 precisely because it is a very functional camera wrapped in weirdness. My friends throng to the Olympus OMD but I am increasingly intrigued by the Panasonic GH3, a truly eccentric entry in the camera race.

What's all this leading to? Just a New Year's resolution.  To wit: I'll continue to write about whatever interests me, on my own schedule and people are welcome along for the ride. If I want to show images of dusty road barriers and construction fences I probably have some reason for doing so that my therapists and I haven't quite figured out yet. Maybe we never will. 

Portrait. In black and white. 2014.

Jenny. Austin, Texas 2014

Another image from my first portrait session of the year. Created with the Panasonic GH3 and an ancient Olympus 70mm f2.0 Pen FT lens (circa 1970). Photographed in RAW format, processed to Jpeg in Aperture and converted to black and white in DXO Filmpack 3.

Tourist in My Own Town. Gallery Hopping Outdoors. Graffiti Grande. Color Riots.

I was on a self assignment today. I was a tourist in my own town. I’d driven by a little stretch of North Lamar Blvd. on my way to meet someone in Clarksville for coffee when I saw a splash of color against a gray sky to my right. I turned around to see what it was, made it down a crowded side street and steered into an almost psychedelic collection of public art. I’d never seen any spontaneous art exhibit on any scale like this before. That was half a week ago but when I got up this morning and the sky was beautiful and clear I knew I should grab a camera, hop in the car and go over to document this manmade rainbow. I was not disappointed. 

I like well done graffiti. I love the transient nature of that art and I love the fact that it’s out in public being shared and devoured by a wide ranging audience. Apparently I am not alone. This is not “outlaw” art. Someone has created a temporary park called “The Hope Outdoor Gallery” and they have the full permission of the land owners. There is a “no trespass” sign that’s someone told me was up and down on a regular basis but I was also told that it was a lame defense against personal injury lawsuits. An attempt to limit liability in case someone was to slip off one of the dusty paths and plunge down forty feet onto hard concrete and rebar. 

I remember the site well. It’s right next to a part of Clarksville known as “Castle Hill” because a particularly evil real estate developer had built some sort of castle above this site before being eventually turned out by the Fed and the IRS.

An old blog entry for a new year. This one seems appropriate today...

http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2010/07/you-have-to-get-wet-if-you-want-to.html

 You win by showing up and starting. Every day.

I am often guilty of posting images from the "good old days." Here's an images I took today. My first portrait of 2014.

Jenny. January 2, 2014

I get scared from time to time that my best days as a portrait photographer are behind me, lost in the golden fog of the days of film. And occasionally I think that I've made grave errors in moving from medium format to full frame and then back to micro four thirds sized cameras. I buy into the idea that the camera is such a crucial tool even though I have samples from every format that disprove the magic camera type syndrome.

So, today to celebrate the start of a new year I asked the daughter of one of my masters swimming friends to come over to the studio for a quick portrait session. Nothing fancy, just a straightforward portrait that she could use for her LinkedIn avatar and as a FaceBook photo. 

I used a couple of fluorescent fixtures pushed through two offset 48 by 48 inch Chimera Panels, each covered with a one stop silk diffuser. I use a couple of black flags to keep light off the background. I decided to ignore the entire idea of fill light and get more use out of the main light. 

I very purposefully selected my camera and lens combination to try and prove to myself that the camera and lens are inconsequential compared to good light and good posing. I used one of the GH3 cameras that I'd originally picked up for video projects and I coupled it with the 60mm f1.5 Olympus Pen FT high speed lens. I was very happy to be using the lens on a camera that allowed me to punch a  button and get a quick 8X magnification for exquisitely perfect focus. 

I shot at f2.5 and f2.8 with a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second at ISO 200. I also took time to meter the general exposure on my subject's face with an incident light meter to make sure I was really calibrated when it came to camera metering measurements and the rendering of the image on the EVF screen and the LCD. 

I hope the image is proof that good portrait work can be done with this combination of lights, modifiers, lense and camera. Jenny was a great subject and required negligible retouching. I took out a few strands of fly-away hair...

This is one of my favorite lighting styles. I was thrilled to have a project to work on for my first day back in the studio. I'm looking forward to a year with plenty of opportunities to make portraits. This is the fun part of photography.

Welcome back!

I like intersecting diagonals.