The Online Photographer

Themes—Preconceived, Ad Hoc, And Post Hoc

By Ctein

Mike's column last week, "Shooting to a Theme," was one of the most thought-provoking columns he's written in a long time. The comments from the readership were equally insightful and inspiring. I sat down to write a comment of my own, and it rapidly spun out of control, turning back on itself introspectively, recursively, and artistically. At which point I realized it was an entire column in itself. And so, here we are.

Mike's notion is a most interesting notion, indeed, and deserving of much serious thought. Of course, it's very photographer-dependent. For example, my friend Laurie Toby Edison is nearly 100% project driven; you could say she's just about entirely theme-oriented. She's done a little on-the-fly photography, but I would say that it's far more often for the purpose of getting her artistic bearings, a preamble to the theme that will develop or as a kind of conceptual sketch pad. I don't even have to ask her about this; I'm positive she is happiest working to a theme.

I'm at the opposite extreme. The very first theme I ever worked is the "Christmas in California" project, and it took me nearly 30 years of serious photography to get to that point. I think my muse wants to be the exact antithesis of Laurie's and what Paul described in the comments to Mike's column—almost every photograph in my portfolio is precisely the result of heading out blindly and hoping to stumble over a "masterpiece" (well, that's over-egotistical, even for me—I'm willing to stop at calling them "portfolio-quality photos"). In my case, those hopes are reliably fulfilled.

Since doing Christmas in California, I have worked on only one more theme—the "Jewels of Kilauea" project. I have thought of two more theme projects I might do someday. I don't know that I ever will.

Ctein, Yellowed Pahoehoe Surface, Kilauea, Hawaii, 2000
from the "Jewels of Kilauea" project

Just to be clear, I am distinguishing between preconceived themes and ad- or post-hoc constructions. I may have created five monographs, but only Christmas in California is creationally thematic. The other four were all constructed after the fact by portfolio-mining (like data-mining) and mostly were purely circumstantial. E.g., the Scotland monograph/portfolio exists merely because I discovered that after ten days of photographing in the Highlands, I had enough good photos to make up a coherent portfolio/monograph. But I didn't set out to do that, either consciously or unconsciously (yeah, I'd know—don't ask me to try to explain how that works). They're just a motley of randomly stumbled-over photos tied together by geographic circumstance. It's the data mining and organization that turns them into a coherent work, but that coherence did not exist until after the fact. It played absolutely no part in the creation of the photographs.

Similarly, like Jeffrey Goggin, high-quality urban night photography has been a recurrent theme in my work since my college days, but it's a theme only in the ad-hoc sense; it's never been a creative theme per se. It's just me stumbling over fine photos again, except now I'm stumbling around in the dark instead of in the light. Night just happens to be a place where I know I'll find cool photos to make.

That's okay. My friends the Flying Karamazov Brothers coined the brilliant line, "It doesn't matter how you get there if you don't know where you're going." Improvisation is the spice of my life, and I don't mind stumbling around, because I stumble over the damnedest, most wonderful things. I know that I would absolutely, positively not get more joy if my work followed themes, preconceived or not.

Apparently my muse, unlike Paul's, is quite happy just stumbling along. Is this of huge import? No. But I find it very interesting. For some reason, my muse is truly tickled by Paul's conceptualization of stumbling over photos. I'm going to have to figure out why that so delights her, but it surely does. I'm sure it means something. I may eventually understand what that something is. But not today or tomorrow, I think.

In counterpoint to that, one of the two new themes I am toying with is a project of doing really high quality aerial photography at night, which is just becoming technically possible. If I did that, it would be a creative themed project, in contrast to my ongoing, highly-productive nocturnal stumbling.

Different strokes, for different folks, under different circumstances, at different times. Consistency? That's a bore.

Ctein

Ctein's regular weekly column appears every Thursday, almost always in the morning.

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Random Excellence: Bruce Davidson

Bruce Davidson, Fight, from "Brooklyn Gang," 1959

 

Mike

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K-x Comments?

Just wonder if I could hear from people who have a K-x. How are you liking it?

(For a feature I'm working on for later this fall.)

Mike

P.S. There! Finally, a short post. Now, don't mess it up with a long P.S....

The "Storm Trooper" K-x. Nothing special about this, I just laughed at the name. Thanks to Rob White.

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Message to a Younger Photographer

From the comments to the "Five Leica Rangefinders" post. Someone suggested this should be a post on its own, so now it is.

Jona,
Sounds like you would benefit from a class.

I'll tell you a little secret, though, if you promise not to say it was me who told. Photography isn't about cameras and lenses. Technique is a lot more important than what camera and lenses you use, and your taste is a lot more important than technique, and having something to say is a lot more important than having good taste, and working hard and following through is more important than having something to say. Believe me, great work has been done with worse cameras and lenses than you're using now, and absolutely sh***y work has been done with the most highfalutin' expensive collector cameras on the planet. It ain't the cameras.

I wouldn't worry about Zeiss and Leica at all. If you really want one you'll get one someday--it's inevitable. In the meantime it's not important.

(...And I believe that, really I do. But I'm still a geek, standing tall. And practical. So I emailed Jona privately and gave him a secret for good stuff to buy for almost no money.)

Mike

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Featured Comment by Jeff: "Sadly, this is a message all the more appropriate for many 'experienced' photographers."

Featured Comment by Paul: "Perhaps this should be the photographer´s Hippocratic Oath."

Most Beautiful Camera Ever

I already know what people are going to say.

• Cameras are just tools. Who cares what they look like?
• It's hideous. I hate beat-up cameras.
• Would you really want a camera that has no built-in light meter? (Answer)
• That's cheating; it's not "earned" wear—buying that would be like buying blue jeans that already have holes in them, or furniture that's been "distressed" at the factory.
• Any fool who pays double for a brassed camera deserves to be parted from their money.
• The most beautiful camera is the one you have in your hand.

Etc., etc.

I know, I know. It's just that...well, I'm a total sucker for the "brassed Leica" look. Love it. And this is the prettiest camera ever. As my e-friend Stan said, "That is the most beautiful object I've ever seen that one could load film in." I hope somebody buys this soon, so I can untie myself from the mast.

It's a cruel irony that black paint—originally a cheap option that embarrassed Leitz so much it switched to black chrome as being more suitable—should be so prized now that it commands premium prices (and doubly ironic that special new "black paint" cameras get put in glass cases and handled with cotton gloves and never come close to showing wear).

I'm not buying the camera at the link—shouldn't, can't, won't. Shouldn't even have thought about it, which I confess I did before realizing I was insane.

But...I want. What can I say? We all have our weaknesses.

Sigh.

Mike

P.S. Is it just me, or have there been a suspiciously large number of "black paint" Leicas showing up on Ebay for inflated asking prices ever since Shintaro first showed the world how to strip a chrome camera and repaint it? Shintaro himself is evidently busy being a photographer now and keeps his camera repainting customers waiting for up to two years, but there are now other services that do it. There just seem to be a lot more black-paint Leicas on Ebay than there ever were in the past—many of them looking suspiciously pristine. I'm not saying the repainters themselves are doing anything shady, but there's nothing to stop their customers from trying to pull a fast one, and nothing to stop someone from learning how to repaint cameras themsleves for unscupulous purposes. Caveat emptor.

P.P.S. And to show you just how quirky human nature can be sometimes, Pentax collectors value black Spotmatics and chrome ESII's more highly—because most Spotmatics were chrome and most ESII's were black!

P.P.S. I seem to be becoming incapable of writing short posts. This one should have been about three sentences long. Hope you don't mind.

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Featured Comment by Dogman: "Prettiest camera ever? The standard chrome Pentax Spotmatic. Or maybe that's because it was the first 'serious' camera I ever used, although I've never owned one."

Featured Comment by James: "There's something about a Hasselblad SWC that gets to me, especially the version with the chrome lens. Prices for good ones are still above £1000 in the U.K., which rules it out. I do still have however about 30 rolls of Velvia 120 in the freezer, just waiting for the day....

"I've got my grandfather's draughting pen in front of me as a desk ornament: a 1920s German pen. It too has a brass body, from which the paint has mostly worn off by 60 years of use. He was a designer working in the aviation industry in its early days (he got the first patent for the electric de-icing system in aircraft wings just prior to the Second War). I wouldn't use it myself, but it does work well and I'm sure would have another 60 years of service left. Just as with those cameras, it's a wonderful and well-constructed working tool."

Featured Comment by David Vaovec: "You may call me insane but for me the prettiest camera is my Ixus 70—a minimal brick!"

Featured Comment by J. R. Lennon: "A vote for the Pen FT: here's mine. Brassed anything is extraordinarily lovely."

Featured Comment by Edward Taylor: "To me, the most beautiful camera is the black Canon F-1. (It only came in black). When I was working as a press-photographer and writer, I had one that was worn down to the brass. I bought extra bodies way back then, but the two I hung around my neck all day never wore out; so I still have two brand new (literally never used) F-1 bodies. One is still in the original wrapper. I look at the other every so often because it is beautiful, but I can't imagine ever using film again."

Featured Comment by Dave Kosiur: "Sorry, but what is it with you Leica fans? I think that old hunk looks pretty ugly...."

Featured Comment by Patrick Weyer: The Linhof Technikardan. View cameras are beautiful in general, as their form perfectly matches their function. Runners-up: all Sinars, all Deardorffs."

Featured Comment by Matt Needham: "My 'prettiest camera ever' is the Rolleiflex. When it comes to beat up Leicas I've always been reminded of buying pre-damaged blue jeans. If I'm not the one doing the wear and tear it somehow seems like a poseur."

Featured Comment by Bill Mitchell: "Prettiest camera. Contax II."

Darkroom Construction Update: Power and Lighting

As some of you know, I've been installing a darkroom in my basement this summer, working at an appropriately leisurely pace. The goal is a fine print portfolio from all the 35mm shooting I did between 1980 and 2000. For earlier installments in this series, please click on "Mike's Darkroom" under the "Categories" header in the right-hand sidebar.

In this update: power and lighting. As usual you can click on any of the images to open larger versions.

This first picture shows two things. First, the wet-side power strip. It's overkill: I don't need 16 outlets, and I don't need them spaced so close together. This will be to power GraLab timers and whatever else I might need on the wet side. It's just plugged into an outlet behind the wet-side wall. The electrical load on this will be very light, despite the plethora of outlets.

This picture also shows the switches for the lighting. The switch plate is placed high, above the shelf, to keep it well away from the wet. The switch on the left is for the viewing lights and the one on the right for the safelights.

The power strip for the dry side. Again, to have all these outlets is overkill, but I happened to be able to get these two power strips cheaply. The electrical load on this side will be very light, too, basically just an enlarger and a timer. At least I don't have to worry about having an outlet just where I want it.

One of the most important features of a darkroom, in my opinion: the print viewing lights. Two large cans on a 4-foot track. This is for looking at and evaluating wet prints just out of the fixer. The final tray in the lineup will hold plain water, with a heavy sheet of 1/4" glass angled against the wall. Newly made prints are slapped on the glass and squeegeed to get the excess water off, then studied to see what the next step will be. (Another important feature of this area is a comfortable bar stool.) The two viewing lights are set up just like a copystand, equidistant from where the prints will be and at 45-degree angles to it.

The only wild card here is the distance. I guessed. This is designed for two 60-watt incandescent bulbs, and that might turn out to be a tad too bright. If that's the case, I'll install a dimmer switch for the viewing lights. Having the proper illumination level in the darkroom for evaluating prints is crucial; absolutely crucial. Too bright and your prints will be consistently too dark, with blocked shadows (they'll look good under airplane landing lights, at least, or 500-watt spots), and too dim and your prints will be consistently too light, with a maximum black that is really only a dark gray (although maybe this will be necessary in the future, given the crappy low-level illumination currently fashionable in museums).

Note that in the above picture you can see one of the safelight cans at the far left.

Here are the safelights, shown turned on. The fixture is just a short 2-foot track with two cans. I've rigged the right-hand can with an extender inside it so that bulb protrudes somewhat. The idea is to give a mix of direct and reflected safelight. The safelights are red Festival LEDs.

Is Lightroom 3 and a copy of The Lightroom 3 Book starting to seem like a simple, cheap solution yet? :-)

Another view of the safelights. (You remember the incompletely masked window, which I did while puttering around late one night as I waited for the paint on the floor to dry; I haven't masked the windows or done the "light-tighting" yet.)

The purpose of the can on the left is to reflect off the far wall—more for ambience than useful illumination. I learned this trick from a darkroom I saw once that was a long, skinny room. The darkroom was at one end and the other end was a carpeted exhibition area, with framed prints on the wall. That end of the room was of course lit with white lights for viewing the pictures, but it also was flooded with very bright safelighting for when the darkroom end was in operation. The light level at the darkroom end was actually very low, but the presence of the "bright" half of the room was soothing and pleasant, and made it seem less like you were stuck in the dark. The safelight bounced against the far wall is my attempt to recreate that effect.

A final view of the safelight fixture, with the lights turned off. The other thing I had the electrician do was to relocate the main white light socket (bottom left in this view) to put it farther out into the room, so that it wouldn't interfere with the viewing lights. All these fixtures are quite close together. Incidentally, the only reason there's a chain coming from the left hand safelight can is that that's the kind of extender I happened to have on hand when I was mucking about trying to get the safelights right.

Final bill for all this, about $260 for the electrician and a total of about $190 for all the fixtures, including the two LED safelights, which were quite expensive but can be expected to last effectively forever.

This is the last refinement that's been added since the last update. You recall I used half of a $69 wire shelving unit to hold up the enlarger table (as seen in the second picture of this post). That left me with the other half, which fortunately just barely fit under the wet side counter (didn't plan that, because I didn't think of it before the wet side construction was done). So I got some dividers ($9 each) for tray storage.

Coming next: plumbing. (Got to remember to call the plumber today....)

Mike

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Featured Comment by Roger Bradbury: "Well, once an electrician always an electrician, so I've been waiting for this bit. Looks good.

"I have to agree that you can't have too many sockets. I do like the idea of a viewing station. Doesn't the ideal light level there partly depend on the overall level under safelights, so that you don't squint too much? I suspect that the dimmer switch is the way to go.

"I presume that the lights and power are all dobbed into the local circuits in the basement. My first darkroom was in a shed with power and lighting fed from the household lighting circuit. (This was before I became an electrician) It wasn't too bad until I turned on the second 1000 Watt bar of the electric fire, trying to get the shed up to 20 Celcius. There was a bang as the lights and safelight went off, and suddenly everyone in the house was shouting my name...."

Nikon at Photokina

I always just assume that everybody knows about Photokina (as I understand it, the official name is spelled with a lowercase "p"—the official title is "photokina, world of imaging [sic]"—but I'm too middlebrow to write it that way).

But maybe some people reading this don't know. And, to be honest, it took me by surprise this year—I'm either having a big success with TOP or else wasting my precious life, because it's hardly conceivable to me that a whole two years could possibly have passed since the last Photokina. Time flies when you're sitting like a lump staring at your computer every waking minute.

Anyway, Photokina is the world's largest international photography- and imaging-related trade fair, held every two years in Cologne, Germany. This year's Photokina, coming up fast now, will be held at the Cologne International Expocenter (a.k.a. Kölnmesse) from Tuesday, September 21st, to Sunday, September 26th, 2010.The public is welcome.

Traditionally, companies working in our sphere reserve at least some of their big product announcements for Photokina—even though the torrid and fiercely competitive pace of digital innovation has de-emphasized that schedule over the past decade or decade and a half. Every year, it's news within the industry as to who's got what sized booth, who's conspicuous by their absence, and so forth.

And most of the major announcements don't actually wait to appear until the trade fair starts; they're announced in the run-up to the show. Canon has already dropped its major news this year—the EOS 60D, PowerShot S95, two new teleconverters, and four new lenses: the EF 300mm ƒ/2.8L IS II USM, EF 400mm ƒ/2.8 IS II USM, EF 70–300mm ƒ/4–5.6L IS USM (an L lens for the consumer market), and the EF 8–15mm ƒ/4L Fisheye USM (because they're Canon, and they can).

Now that the Canon announcements have dropped, we're waiting to hear what Nikon is going to put on offer for this fall and Christmas season. The lenses have already been announced—there's the AF-S Nikkor 85mm ƒ/1.4G that we already wrote about ("Nikkor," by the way, is the trade name for all Nikon lenses), the AF-S Nikkor 28–300mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 ED VR (another exemplar in a class of lenses that has always made me shudder with dread and horror—truly anti-Mike lenses), the AF-S Nikkor 24–120mm ƒ/4G ED VR (sure to be popular), and the AF-S Nikkor 200–400mm ƒ/4G ED VR II (shown). That last should be called "The Wildlife Lens," a descendant of the lens Art Wolfe made famous, perfect for the D300s. Also already announced is the entry-level D3100, a refresh of the nifty D3000, heir of the D40.

Also expected are one more major and one not so major camera, with a third one casting its long shadow über allen. I'll put the names in quotation marks, not to mock them but because they're not officially official yet. Expected are the "P7000," a premium small-sensor digicam that will compete with the Canon G11, and the "D7000," said to be the replacement for the D90.

The D90 is a tough act to follow. For a long time, its sensor ranked highest at DxOmark.com of all ~APS-C DSLRs, and it is a supremely well-sorted camera in terms of size, ergonomics, and performance, at least by the standards of these times. It's a bit boring—Nikon is extremely concerned both to regularize its lineup, in accordance with the current Japanese fashion, and to match Canon pretty closely step-for-step—but it's a very capable mainstream camera that sold by the gobs. The replacement is doubtless slated to improve the video performance, but it had better not mess up in any other area, either: the stakes in this segment of the market are high.

The camera that everyone is wondering about is the D700 replacement / complement. Whether what comes will be a "replacement" or a "complement" is something nobody seems to be quite sure of any more. For a while it was assumed that Nikon would continue its lower-pixel-count/faster, higher-pixel-count/not quite as fast bifurcation of models, seen for example in the D3s and D3x, and introduce a sort of "D700x," whatever it would actually be called. In his 2010 predictions, Thom Hogan, who knows more about Nikon than Nikon does, called for this camera to be announced by March. Well, March has marched past. Now the CW seems to be thinking that the "D800" that's coming (whatever it will actually be called) will be a D700 replacement.

Again, high stakes...very high. The D700, a full-frame, 12-MP camera with extremely good high-ISO performance, has been a stellar seller, very, very popular amongst the core cadre of loyal Nikonians. The "D700x/D800" is widely expected not to make its appearance at Photokina. So, then, when? For Nikon's sake, let's predict: before Christmas. Time, as ever, will tell.

Mike

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Five Leica Rangefinders

You might be amused to hear that I've been considering doing a "Leica Year" exercise myself (this references not only the Leica Year anniversary post, but this post, too).

And I've been mulling over the idea of doing it with—get this—an M5.

Leica M5, c. 1971. Photo by "Photography by Mike"

Why?

It sounds quirky and contrarian. But there's a method to my madness. It comes from something our friend Stephen Gandy says on his mighty CameraQuest Classics website. He mentioned that Leica, in its entire long history, created "only five substantially new production Leica rangefinder designs. Those five are the Leica A, the M3, the M5, the CL, and most recently the M8. Most Leica rangefinders are modifications of the A and M3."

Stephen has "camera intelligence." A feel for what's real. Here, he's bang on. I'd never thought of it that way before.

So why would I do a year with an M5? One good reason: because I've never used one before. I've owned and used an M3; owned and used two M6's; used an M4 on long-term loan (I mean a year+); owned and used a CL-derivative, the Minolta CLE; owned and used an A-derivative, the IIIf; used an M7 on long-term loan; and tested and reviewed an M8. So of the five major Leica designs, the M5 constitutes the only major gap in my personal hands-on experience.

I'm all about learning experiences.

We'll see. No decisions yet. Things like this are fun to think about, though, ain't they?

Mike

ADDENDUM: Oren, who also has "camera intelligence" (and a lot more kinds besides), tells me that there might be more than one gap in my experiences with Leica rangefinders. "With apologies for messing up your nice taxonomy, the CLE ain't no CL," he writes. "It's an XG-M in drag. The CL is really different—it loads differently, the shutter release feels different (the shutter is mechanical, and the release action has to shove a meter semaphore out of the way to boot, à la the M5), the sound is different, the finder's different. So no, if you've used a CLE, you haven't used a CL."

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Featured Comment by Ann: "Mike...your recent post on the Canon s95 and the enthusiastic comments on the s90 by some of your readers made me rush out and buy an s90. It is my pocket camera and I am loving it. Just fix the focal length and shoot. But I can't buy another old film camera and i certainly can't buy a Porsche! Stop!"

Sunday Open Mike: Porsches In My Way

I had a fun day on my day off yesterday. Our local Mercedes dealer, which also sells Infiniti, Maserati, and Porsche, had a driving school day. You got to hop into a Boxster or Cayman with a driving instructor and flog it around a tight little course laid out in their stock lot with white lines and cones. After a couple of laps, you switched places with the instructor, who then demonstrated how it's really done.

The dealer is Mercedes-Benz of Elmbrook, which is now located in Waukesha, not Elmbrook. (I assume the name will be changing once the new location is established. Although the Lakers are still named for Minnesota lake country.) It's a division of International Autos.

I drove a Boxster a bit sloppily (never drove one before, never drove their cones before) but, if I do say so myself, quite quickly. At least quite a bit more quickly than most of the other participants were managing. Then Cass Whitehead took the wheel and showed me the difference between real race drivers and guys like me who normally drive like they have their free arm draped across the top of the passenger seat. As Cass said, "It's like go-karts, only with a car." He'd been doing it all day—in fact, in his role as Lead Instructor at the Porsche Sport Driving School at Barber Motorsport Park in Leeds, Alabama, he does it year-in, year-out—but he didn't seem bored. He knocked off a crisp, fast lap that pasted us up against the seat side-bolsters, and put li'l ol' me in my proper, ah, perspective.

Driving school is in a peculiar class of activities at my stage of life: it's in the category of "always wanted to...and still might." (Most "always wanted tos...." are now in the "...but never will" box.)

I'm going to have to revise my opinion of Porsches. When I was first driving on the north shore of Milwaukee in the 1970s, 911s—especially Targas—were the "chick cars" of choice for the hip young housewife, who drove them about the same way their younger doppelgangers now drive the gussied-up trucks called SUVs. To the amusement of my friends, I worked out alternate lyrics for a song called "Porsches in My Way," sung to the tune of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," which I was wont to croon whenever I got trapped behind a Porsche doing an imitation of a tortoise.

The other demo the dealer was offering was an extended test drive in the new Panamera (it's pronounced "pan-uh-MARE-uh."). I had no expectations whatsoever for that exercise. The Panamera struck me from the start as a conceptual monstrosity, like a BMW SUV or a Leica rangefinder with a 28–300mm zoom. But...well, it's not. It's actually a pure delight to drive—it reminded me of that Mozart quote about how the pianoforte should be played in his piano concertos—"It must flow like oil." The Panamera is as close to the experience of a flying in a glider as you can get on the ground. In my experience at least. Lovely.

Fun couple of hours. No Porsches in my way, either, all day.

Mike

P.S. Why no pictures? Because your idiot host carefully charged the camera battery but then came away from the house with camera in hand but without a card. Sheesh. Keep it together, Mikey, keep it together.

"Open Mike," which consists of off-topic posts on a variety of subjects written by Yr. Hmbl. Ed., appears intermittently, but only on Sundays.

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Featured Comment by Rex Kersley: "Reminds me of an old joke: Guy hires a odd job man to paint the porch. When he returns there is a note, 'Sorry Boss, couldn't find the Porsche, so I painted the Ferrari instead.'"

Featured Comment by Michael: "I've got the answer for forgetting to replace the card in the camera. Always carry a spare in your wallet. Works for me anyway."

Shooting to a Theme

What follows is purely empirical and an educated guess—meaning, it might be wrong. But: my sense, gleaned from years of working for and with photo hobbyists and enthusiasts and observing dedicated photographers and artists, is that photographers in general are happiest when they shoot to a theme.

The luckiest ones are those who find themes that they remain interested in long-term. Recently I had a few exchanges with a reader and supporter of the site who shoots urban scenes at night. That's his theme—he's good at it, he enjoys it, and his interest, focus, and direction amplifies, motivates, and enriches his work.

Recently I've been thinking of doing a project on items for sale by the roadside. I keep noticing examples in my area—everything from motorcycles, to rowboats, to a WWII-era Jeep that suddenly appeared perched on a hillock on a country corner. I haven't started this yet, and I might not. But I think I'd enjoy it.

It would get me out of the house.

That's a big component of the usefulness of having a theme, actually—it gets you going. I've used the "fishing" metaphor before—that getting good pictures is a combination of knowledge, preparedness, spending time, having a "feel for it," and luck—like fishing. But what's true of fishing is certainly just as true of photography: you're never going to catch a fish unless you're fishing. And you're never going to luck into a good picture when you're not taking pictures. Getting out of the house with a camera in your hand is a very underrated essential component of good photography. (I use "getting out of the house" in a figurative sense, there; what I mean is getting down to work, however you get down to work. Even if—as it was for a still-life photographer classmate of mine—it's done entirely in the house.)

Having a theme provides a starting point, a trigger. It helps you overcome inertia. Peter Turnley lived in Paris for a quarter century, and whenever he was home he loaded B&W film into a Leica and took pictures where he lived. Obviously, the theme: Paris. It took a while, but he's done one book of Paris pictures and he's thinking about doing another one.

By Sally Mann, from At Twelve

If you think of it, a large number of great phototgraphers worked to a theme. The theme could be grandiose (a representative portrait of the German people across every strata of society between the wars [August Sander]) or trivial (pictures taken from your seat by the window of your apartment [a project André Kertesz did in old age]). Some photographers kept multiple themes in their heads and add to them gradually as they come across more and more picture subjects that fit. Lee Friedlander photographed that way for many years—he had various ideas, and, whenever he'd get another picture that fit a particular one, he'd literally throw it in a box with the others. It's not like he only photographed self portraits or monuments exclusively for concentrated stretches of time; he'd shoot generally but was always looking for chances to add to his chosen themes.

Some themes are simple (Arnold Newman's life work could pretty much be covered under the rubric "portraits of important people"), or complex (Robert Adams's work concerns development, environmentalism, land use and misuse, the inherent beauty of land and how we experience it, and it touches on a host of related issues).

Incidentally, I've been meaning to link to a terrific interview Steve Huff published recently with Shelby Lee Adams. (No relation to Robert, that I know of, and neither are related to Ansel.) The interview will open your eyes to how involved some photographers get with their subjects over periods of time that stretch into decades. Shelby Lee Adams is definitely a photographer with a distinct, well-defined theme.

What was Sally Mann's At Twelve? Just a self-assigned theme. She photographed twelve-year-old girls. A simple idea with plentiful opportunities. Not my favorite work of hers, but it got her going, and led directly to her much more important later work.

Some themes are too simple. I saw an entire book once of (black-and-white!) pictures of sunflowers*. About three would have sufficed for me. Pass!

A theme doesn't have to be big and important, though. I'm absolutely convinced that I could do a decent set of picture of the little block-long alley behind my house. If I walked up and down it every morning and evening for a year, I could come up with a great set of probably 12 to 16 pictures. (Granted, maybe not 40 or 60.) Things happen out there from time to time, but just the changing light and seasons and the lifecycles of the plants would yield subjects for the camera.

I could be mistaken when I say that having a theme or themes tends to make photographers happier and more industrious. Something to think about, though.

Mike

*Not Paul Caponigro's.

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Featured Comment by Edward Bussa: "Not that you need it, but you might find some inspiration for your project in this presentation of some work my friend, David McGowan did over the course of a year or more called "I'm one of those Americans."

Mike replies: Beautiful. Thanks, Edward. An impressively done project, and a perfect example of what I'm talking about. And notice how different some of those pictures are from each other, despite being thematically linked.

It also brings up the point that although not all photo-reportage projects are theme-based, some are.

Featured Comment by Rob Atkins: "I worked for Pete Turner for a number of years. Probably the most valuable lesson I received was watching Pete develop and work on and a few personal themes. These projects were about keeping the love affair with photography alive. The risk of burn-out from commercial assignments was, at times, a threat. Demanding deadlines and clients certainly bring a lot of stress, but the pleasure of going out and doing something just for yourself, just for the pure joy of it, was always restorative. It's a lesson that has stuck with me.

"Here's a personal theme I've just begun. As Mike says, 'It gets me out of the house.'"

Featured Comment by Jeffrey Goggin: "As someone who came late to the 'shooting to a theme' party—thank you, SoFoBoMo 2009!—I would also add that themes sometimes have a way of finding the photographer instead of the other way around.

"This certainly was the case with me, as I never set out to specialize in urban night photography (what a coincidence, eh?), but opportunity knocked one night in May 2009 and although I didn't recognize it at first, it provided me with exactly the shove I needed to push my photography forward in a way I never imagined possible.

"9,200 miles and 57 outings later, I'm still as enthusiastic every time I load my car with gear and head out to photograph as I was 15 months ago, and the only thing that stops me from doing it even more often still are the 70+ hours a week my day job demands of me and a need to sleep occasionally."

Featured Comment by Richard Howe: "I was never interested in photography and never even owned a camera (!) but sixyears and some months ago a friend offered to lend me his old digital camera (he had just upgraded) to take with me on a trip abroad. I still wasn't interested but he was insistent, so I took it, just to end the discussion.

"Though I wasn't planning to use it, I thought I should take a few shots, just to avoid any further discussion like that when I got back.

"To my complete surprise, I was instantly, totally, irrevocably smitten with photography. But once I was back home in New York I was overwhelmed by all there was to photograph, and scarcely knew where to begin (abroad it had been easy, somehow).

"Not knowing what else to do, I decided to take the camera with me on one of my (frequent) long walks (8–10 miles) in Manhattan, and just to shoot a picture at every intersection I came to....

"Somehow over the next two years this idea evolved into a project—a 'theme'—to systematically photograph all the street corners (usually four per intersection) on the island (more or less 11,500) and to do so as much as possible in less than a year, in fact, to do in the good weather interval between early spring and late fall.

"I thought it would generate a lot of material for me to work on and improve my skills, and that it certainly did. I also thought that I might get a few really good pictures out of it, and I like to think that happened also. And I wanted to do something that might have some value to people other than myself (as, eventually, straightforward historical documentary), even if many of the pictures had relatively little to offer from an aesthetic point of view.

"I did get 95%+ of it done in the first year, and almost all the rest of it subsequently (I still have some intersections I want to do over again, for various reasons).

"What started out as as somewhere between an accident and a lark has become the experience of a lifetime—and some of my hopes for it have been realized too, a little.

"About the learning aspect: it was a 'learning experience' in every imaginable way, and some that I hadn't imagined, either.

"Now I'm looking for another theme—but something much less grand in scope—for the 'Leica Year' year that TOP has convinced me is the next step.

"The New York / Manhattan street corner photos can be viewed at New York in Plain Sight."

Print Sale Start Date

Just wanted to let you know that TOP's next Print Sale, "Peter Turnley's Paris," will begin on September 12th.

We'll announce the sale (with all the relevant details) at noon on Sunday the 12th, and take orders for five days, until roughly sundown on Friday, September 17th.

In case you don't know how our print sales work, we keep prices as low as possible by taking orders in advance and then fulfilling the orders we've received.

I'll post one more reminder of the start date between now and then so nobody who's waiting for it misses it.

Mike

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A Micro 4/3 Rangefinder

As a personal comment derived from the previous post, I would like to express the hope that Mr. Kobayashi of Cosina (a great photography enthusiast himself, based on the available evidence) will one day bring to market a manual-focus optical-rangefinder camera based on the Micro 4/3 standard and on the lenses Voigtländer will be making for that system. I believe such a product would complement rather than compete with Leica's astutely-judged digital product lineup, and that such a camera would likely bring happiness and satisfaction to a wide spectrum of photographers and photography enthusiasts.

Mike

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Cosina (Voigtländer) to Make Lenses for Micro 4/3

In a joint press release, Cosina and Olympus have announced that Cosina Co. Ltd., makers of the extensive Voigtländer line of products, many compatible with Leica M mount, will make lenses specifically for the Micro 4/3 standard currently shared by Olympus and Panasonic.

Beginning with a bang, Cosina's first Micro 4/3 lens will be a dedicated, Japan-made, 11-element 25mm (50mm-e) ƒ/0.95 Nokton (this link and the next one to Google Translate) with a price rumored to be in the $900 range.

This follows just days after the announcement of the new Voigtländer 75mm ƒ/1.8 in Leica M mount, a Heliar-type with six elements yet just six air-to-glass surfaces.

Mike

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New Canon 60D Defines a New Niche

For a decade, Canon's bread-and-butter mid-line DSLRs (originally an historic breakthrough, in May of 2000) have progressed in a smooth and steady fashion: D30—>D60—>10D—>20D—>30D—>40D—>50D. Then a slight shift was observed with the 7D, a higher-spec camera below the pro models but above the 50D, which it did not replace.

Now Canon has let the other shoe drop, so to speak, completing the bifurcation of the middle of its lineup. The new 18-MP 60D, while still representing an advance in the way of competence and features, is distinctly smaller than the 50D and its forebears, and gains an articulated screen (somewhat curiously, often seen as an "amateur" feature)—positioning a "lower middle" and "upper middle" in Canon's lineup. (This is possibly in response to upstart Sony, which has flooded the entry- and mid-levels with semi-redundant models—many with articulated screens. It might also be a response to Pentax's K-7 ($870), a full-featured, weatherproof semi-pro body of nicely compact dimensions.)

So who is this new model for? Shouldn't take a genius to figure that out. It's for those who want a better-made and more prestigious camera than the (also very capable) entry-level T2i, but who don't want to commit to the semi-pro Canon 7D.

It also strikes us, given our prejudices, as a pretty juicy new option for dedicated amateurs devoted to the "have it with you" school of thought. Smaller size and an articulated viewing screen being just what the doctor would have ordered.

Price, $1100; availability, a month from now. For a rundown of features and upgrades, here's the press release.

Mike

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Featured Comment by George Feucht: "As a cinematographer, I have witnessed the massive takeover of HD acquisition by 7D's and 5Dm2's. My wife is currently working on an 'America's Most Wanted' episode being shot on the 7D. You would not believe the budget levels of productions now shooting on DSLRs. (The 'House' episode shot on the 5D was a bit of a gimmick, because they wanted razor-thin depth of field for that specific episode.)

"Anyway, having shot motion picture on a 7D and 5D, one of the biggest complaints is viewing the image while camera operating. An articulated screen has been the wish of anyone shooting HD on one of these things. (Ditching the highly-compressed h264 video codec is my next wish).

"Since the 60D does everything video-wise that the 7D does but now has an articulated screen, these things will sell like hotcakes to independent (and increasingly not-so-independent) filmmakers.

"Now about that crappy codec, Canon..."

Featured Comment by Edwin: "Canon is just rationalizing its line-up. Compare its line-up with Nikon's:

• D3100: T2i.
• D90: 60D.
• D300s: 7D.
• D700: 5DII.
• D3s: 1DIV.
• D3x: 1DsIII.

Perfect match. Before the 7D, the 50D was slotted in between. No wonder the 60D is more D90-like than D300-like."

'Little Book' Update

Just in case you're interested in a follow-up: in the six days since I posted the "unboxing" photos of the large, 3-volume, hardcover, slipcased, $140 Bruce Davidson set—which means it's been five days since I also recommended the little $10.85 Photofile paperback of Josef Koudelka's work—TOP readers in the U.S. and the U.K. have ordered 20 copies of the Koudelka and 54 copies of the Davidson. Like I said, people just don't seem to care for little photo books quite as much....

Mike

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Featured Comment by Bernd Reinhardt: "I just received the Bruce Davidson books and I have to say I had no idea how beautiful they were. I had seen a lot of Davidson's work and a lot of his early books were sold out and going for high prices in the antique book market. This new volume is absolutely stunning, beautifully printed and bound. The only negative is my wife nagging about all my photography books taking up too much space in our house. You can imagine how grumpy she was when she saw this giant package."

Mike replies: In the hi-fi hobby they call that "WAF"—wife acceptance factor. (To be less sexist one might call it SAF, spousal acceptance factor—although let's be honest, most of the time it's the males who are into the big goofy-looking hi-fi gear and the females who are dismayed to have half their living rooms taken over.)

Very large speakers of unconventional appearance that need lots of free space around them are known to often have low "WAF." This is Nelson Pass's stereo—the speakers are single drivers; the large plywood construction is a "kleinhorn" (German for "small" (!) horn), probably three meters tall, that loops around the back and comes back out the front, meant to capture and amplify the driver's backwave. This is in a dedicated building, not his living room, but still, you might want to share this with your wife just to let her know how much worse things could be. [g].

Planned Obsolescence

By Ctein

There I was minding my own business, a few weeks back, printing out chapbooks for my True Fans. (Both the chapbooks and the True Fan experiment will be the subjects of upcoming columns, so please hold any questions). I was giving my Epson R2400 printer a thorough workout, with eight pages of printing in each chapbook and many dozens of books to print. Consequently, I was monitoring ink usage closely, working to figure out how many cartridges of each color I'd need to be buying.

I was used to seeing the Epson print monitor utility's normal warning about some ink cartridge getting low. They're always getting low. Then it threw me a new one: "Parts are nearing the end of their normal service life."

That's really not something you want to see, now is it?

Off to my friendly, neighborhood Google. A key phrase search quickly turned up many messages in Epson printer user groups that informed me the odds were very high that message was telling me that the waste ink reservoir was nearly full and needed replacement.

What? You've never heard of a waste ink reservoir, let alone imagined your printer might have one? Well, where did you think all the expensive ink your printer dumped whenever you did a head cleaning or a cartridge change went? That's a lot of lost dollars, um, milliliters of ink that's going somewhere, and it isn't sitting in the sugar-cubed size sponge the printhead parks over. Not unless it's some kind of Doctor Whovian sponge that's a lot bigger on the inside than the outside. Those are just the wicks that lead to feed lines that send the waste ink elsewhere.

That elsewhere is a waste ink reservoir, and eventually it gets full. Well, that should be no big deal; it's a replaceable component. On one of the Epson pro-level printers, 38XX and higher series, it's just a $40 user-changeable cartridge, requiring no more work than swapping an ink cartridge.

The lesser printers, 2XXX series and down, are another matter. The reservoir's inside the printer. Deep inside. In the 2400 and the 2880 it's in the base, and you have to do a full stripdown of the machine to get to it. Even I won't attempt that. An Epson repair shop can do it. It costs so much that a lot of folks wind up using that as the excuse to buy a new printer, and they discard their old one. I'm not kidding. To me it looks like built-in planned obsolescence by Epson, and y'know, that's kinda obscene. In my always-so-humble opinion, of course.

You could ignore that warning, but if you do, one of two things will happen. If you're lucky, when the printer's internal counter hits zero, the printer will simply stop dead and flash a set of red warning lights at you. If you're unlucky, it'll keep printing until the reservoir overflows and leaks black gunk into your printer and out any gaps in the case onto your desk and floor.

Maybe it was time to succumb to Epson's economic manipulations and buy the 3880 I've been considering (there's currently a $300 mail-in rebate deal). Instead I did a little more reading in those user groups. Know what? There are a bunch of folks out there who'll happily sell you an external waste ink bottle for about $10. The reservoirs may be hard to get to, but the feed lines to it are often routed just inside the case and accessible by popping a few side panels. That's not hard.

How bad could it be to risk a ten-spot? I ordered an InkRepublic Waste Ink Kit (left; photo courtesy InkRepublic.com). Good thing, as a few days after it arrived my printer stopped dead, red lights a-flashin'.

Takes about half an hour to open the case (below), drill a hole for the feed lines, get the bottle's lines hooked up, and get it all back together. It proved to be a weak design. The lines were just barely long enough and the vent holes in the bottle cap were too close to the ink lines, so stray ink bubbled out of them. I covered them with tape and drilled a small vent hole near the top of the bottle away from the lines. No more stray ink. It worked. It didn't cost me a substantial fraction of the price of a replacement printer.

One still must deal with the evil red lights.

I'll give Epson a small credit; they've posted for download the Epson Reset Utility, which zeroes out the printer's ink counter. Clearly, someone there understands what a lot of folks are doing, even if it ain't by-the-book. The software runs under Windows only, but it worked fine for me with Windows running under Parallels on my Mac (a little web searching will find third-party reset utilities for just about any platform).

So, no more ink warnings, no more red lights, and when the waste bottle fills up, I can unscrew it and empty it.

I may still buy a 3880 come the fall (my reserve cash ain't there yet). I'm getting bored with having to swap ink cartridges whenever I change media, and having to pop in fresh ink cartridges every time I turn around (well, it feels like that). But, if I do trade up, it'll be my choice, not something imposed on me by a greedy design.

Ctein

P.S. Still in Montreal, folks; back Monday.

Ctein's regular weekly column appears every Thursday morning on TOP.

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Can You Really Not Go Home Again?

"You can't go home again" was the title of one of Thomas (not Tom) Wolfe's most popular novels. It was about the vagaries of his author-protagonist's attempts to portray his hometown, the fictional Libya Hill. The phrase has entered the language. What's meant by it, usually, is that you can't recover your innocence, your youth, and your provincial home of origin once you've moved away, grown older, and become sophisticated. A condensed version: the scene in Annie Hall where Alvy tries to re-create the date experience in the kitchen with the lobsters.

As we talk about cameras, one thing leads to another. Someone asked if I'd write about "My Year with a View Camera," to which my thought was, "I think I already have." I started looking for this article, and then came across this one.  

To quote my old friend Bill Hickman, "Oh, dear." One of the problems with writing about a particular subject for a long time is that your opinions change, you keep learning new things, and the world changes out from under you, and sooner or later what you said "back then" would not be what you'd say about the same subject now. 

Getting to the point: Re-reading my thoughts about the Wista reminded that three or four years ago I actually bought a used but like-new cherrywood Wista. And...it was just not enough like the first Wista I had. I bought the first one from an outfit called "Fields and Views" in about 1983, when I was in photo school. The wooden parts of that first Wista were constructed first and then finished, in the conventional sequence, using shellac or varnish or some other traditional type of wood finish—and the bellows were clearly made of real leather, because the camera had a distinctive, intoxicating aroma. The new Wista I bought had apparently had its wood parts finished first, using polyurethane or some other plastic-based varnish, and then CNC'd and put together. I knew this because there were very slight mismatches in the dovetailing and there was raw wood visible where the assembly hadn't been perfect, which would clearly be impossible had it been finished after being put together. And the bellows were plastic, not leather. The newer camera was perfectly nice, perfectly serviceable, but had little of the charm of my original Wista, the one I spent my view camera year with. (And that I sold in a period of penury in the late '80s or early '90s.)

Then it occurred to me...that always happens when I try to replace a favorite camera or lens from the past. I've done it at least six or eight times...tried to re-purchase a favorite camera that I let go at one time, but still miss. I sold my Leica M6 in 1993 and tried to buy another one in 1999—the lens design had changed, and the newer camera didn't have the same feel. Wish I had just kept the first one. One of the best lenses I ever used was a Schneider lens on a funky old Practisix update called an Exakta 66. I got rid of that camera because of some anomalies that were purely user error, I'm embarrassed to admit. This gets worse: when I tried to replace it with another one, the brand-new camera came straight from the box with its focusing screen installed upside-down. Who knew? All I knew was that it didn't focus right. I sold it. Only later did I find out about the upside-down screens. I even had a guy send me a beat-up old Spotmatic once so I could try the lens. I loved it. Did a lot of good work with it. Would you know, I never found another Spotmatic body that I liked as well as that first one. Go figure.

In fact, I think that every attempt I have ever made to re-purchase or re-acquire a fondly-remembered camera from my past has ended in failure or disappointment somehow.

Is that me, or is it just true you can't go home again?

Mike

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Personal Confession

I know this isn't a personal blog, and I don't fill it with private revelations about my life, but you might possibly have noticed a hopefully very subtle shift in my behavior and apparent equilibrium of late. I began a Draconian medically-administered liquid weight-loss diet about four weeks ago. The diet is supervised, and is for people who weigh between 50 and 100 pounds above a BMI of 25; it's intended to help one return to a normal weight as a preamble to a permanent change of habits. According to conventional medical calculations—which as far as I can tell amounts to scholarship plus research plus educated guessing plus Kentucky windage—a man my age and height should take in about 2225 calories a day to maintain an ideal weight; a man my age and height would have to have been indulging in a daily average intake of about 2860 calories to maintain the degree of overweight at which I found myself when I commenced this infernal torture; and I am currently consuming between 1210 and 1360 calories a day, most of it in the form of children's juice-boxes filled with what to all appearances is chocolate milk. Which is no way to live. I have lost an average of four pounds a week, a rate which had better damn well keep up.

So if I seem a tad crankier than usual, I am. No cheese, no French bread, perish sweets, and very, very scant sashimi. It does not put a man in a good mood. Neither does being a fat ass, but the latter is easier to ignore day-to-day.

Excuse the interruption, and now back to regularly scheduled programming—

Mike

Canon Announces the S95

Those who follow camera introductions already know that Canon has just announced a successor for its S90, which itself is only a year old. The S90 has been an extremely popular product this past year, and for good reason. The new S95, according to Canon, "...has been enhanced with 720p HD video capability and in-camera HDR scene mode. For macro-photography enthusiasts, Canon has built its Hybrid IS technology into the PowerShot S95 camera to compensate for angular and shift camera shake, making it the first PowerShot model to feature Hybrid IS technology." It has a wide and fast lens and retains its predecessor's distinctive (and pleasing) lens-ring control, to which various functions can be assigned.

The monumentalizing effect of a closeup photograph of the camera like the one above masks the fact that the camera is amazingly small and compact. It's a triumph of miniaturization, really, even in this age of miniaturization. Not that other cameras aren't just as tiny, but you really have to see it and hold it to appreciate just how tiny it is.

I mention the following probably just because I have Leicas on the brain after the past couple of days, but it strikes me that the S90 and S95 might be the up to the minute analog of the original Leica—the so-called "Barnack camera." It's capable but stealthy, as tiny as it can reasonably be, supremely portable and able to be carried virtually anywhere, suitable for visual note-taking and catching life on the fly...all of which could have been said of the Barnack camera in 1924. Just as the Barnack camera couldn't compete with a 4x5 press camera for image quality, you sacrifice some image quality with a pocket digicam compared to the best digital devices available—and yet (just like the Leica) its IQ is very good, eminently "good enough" in most situations, once you familiarize yourself with its strengths and weaknesses.

The S95 is due to begin shipping at the end of August—i.e., in a mere matter of days—and can be pre-ordered from Amazon now. I'm sure B&H will have it in a few days. Price, $400. It's a good thing I don't have a spare $400 in my pocket, because I'd be sorely tempted to convert it to one of these.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Hugh: "You've hit it exactly: I've a Leica CL sitting unused and a S90 in constant use. It's tiny, quiet, and the IS works. High ISO black and white looks quite film-like as well. The ability to use the front ring to set focal length equivalents is what makes the camera magic: mine is set on "35mm" nearly all the time, so I know what'll be in the frame. Set the shutter on 'program' and use the other rotary button for +/- exposure compensation, and you've only got one control to think about. Shutter lag is acceptable, everything else is near perfect."

Featured Comment by Don Parsons: "To me, the Panasonic LX5 will be more usable. 24–90mm-e ƒ/2 Leica lens, four selectable formats with all the rest the Canon offers. Only its MSRP scares me."

A Grand 85 Years It Was

Leica M4 (c. 1967) with 50mm collapsible Summicron (c.1957). Photo by Mike Johnston.

A coda to the "Leica Year" post—Leica's current owner revealed recently that the last two film Leicas, the MP and M7, were discontinued in 2009. (The cameras are still available new but are being sold out of what's called "new old stock," or NOS—meaning products that were already produced but have been stockpiled or warehoused. In this case, "NOS" may mean parts that are not yet completely assembled; I don't know.)

What this means is that the 35mm Leica camera had a run of 85 years and that a grand era has come to a close, not with a bang but a whimper.

The last 35mm Leica, the retro MP, was a direct descendant of the original Leica M camera, the M3, designed by Ernst Leitz II and Willi Stein, that debuted in 1953. The form factor lives on in the M9, but as a 35mm camera the design lasted 56 years. The changes made over those decades are, all things considered, surprisingly minor. It is surely the single most significant camera design in history—unless you consider the folding field view camera of the Deardorff type to be one design, which of course it really isn't.

I'd like to humbly reiterate one point I made at the very end of my three Leica Year posts: "...taking hold of the best of the recent past while it still retains a little currency and viability might be valuable too. Especially for the young, whose life journeys will take them farther away from it than us 'old guys' will ever get. Specifically, from the not-so-lofty perch of my modest 52 years, I'm convinced that any 20-year-old who spends a year shooting Tri-X with a Leica now will value that photographic experience more and more as the years of their own lives slip past, and as that method, and the possibility of that experience, slips ever more irretrievably into obscurity. I just can't imagine them regretting it, thirty years from now."

Mike
(Thanks to David Dyer-Bennet)

UPDATE (August 26th): The British Journal ofPhotography website, bjp-online.com, reported today that it has obtained a denial from Leica of the substance of the Asahi Camera article.

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Featured Comment by Marcelo Guarini: "I have an M4 like the one in the picture but with the normal non-collapsible Summicron 50mm ƒ/2. It was given to me by my father when I finished my university studies, it was his camera. I still have it and shoot with it. It works so well. Here is one of the first pictures I grabbed with it:

"It was in the summer of '76 at the Puerto Montt train station in southern Chile. The station is already gone."

Featured Comment by Dogman: "Seems like every time I post a comment on TOP, it ends up being misty-eyed nostalgia. So be it with the 'maybe/maybe not' passing of the Leica M 35mm. I've had the pleasure of owning three Leica Ms—an M4-P and two M6s.  The M4-P was a 'gotta have it' camera but one that came along at a time I was unable to appreciate its unique capabilities. I was into view cameras back then and also working as a news photographer, using motor driven Nikons daily. Although I lusted after a Leica, when I finally got one I discovered it did not fit into the photography I was doing. So the camera and the wonderful Leitz lenses I had bought new were all sold.

"Years later, no longer working as a photographer but enjoying photography more than ever, I again lusted after a Leica. My photography had changed. The view cameras and the large format color landscape photography were in the past as was the grind of daily newspaper photography. I had set up a darkroom and my photography was more personal, a little off-beat and always done with HP5 or Tri-X. This time, the Leica fit right in with my purposes. I ended up with two M6 bodies. One of them had a 50mm Summicron attached, the other a 35mm Summicron, and seldom did I use any other focal lengths. While I agree with the concept of using one camera and one prime lens, I simply could not live without both the 35mm and 50mm lenses. Having a camera for each lens is the best of all possible worlds. If I could afford it, I would have two M9s right now with those two Summicrons attached to them.

"Fast forward to today and I haven't used the Leicas in nearly two years. The darkroom is shut down. I have a freezer full of film that I will likely never use. Like so many former analog shooters, now I take my pictures digitally, process them in the computer and print them on an inkjet printer. I have several digital cameras to use for various purposes and I believe my pictures are as good today as ever; however, I have no camera that feels as comfortable to use as the Leica.

"And that is the strong point of the Leica—to those who take the time to learn it, it is a comfortable camera.  You kind of forget you're using a camera. You just see the real world within bright frame lines."

'Obama Hope' Poster Dispute is Half Settled

You probably remember our posts last year about the controversial Shepard Fairey poster for the Obama campaign. At first there was a great hunt for the photograph the artist had used as his reference; after several contenders were put forward, it transpired that the genuine photograph was one taken by Manny Garcia of the Associated Press. Only, Manny Garcia denied that the particular photograph was the property of the AP. Fairey, who considers himself a sort of guerrilla artist at one side from, if not above, the law, dissembled; Garcia and the AP squabbled.

Well, now, part of the dispute has been settled, as you can read about at the BJP online. How to interpret this news we're not exactly sure; if this were a Western, this would be the equivalent of the apprentice good guy—the Simon-pure rancher, say—getting mowed down by the baddie, in order to set up the movie's ultimate showdown. But it's not a western, and anyway, we're not exactly sure who's who in the drama. Stay tuned.

Mike
(Thanks to Nick Meertens)

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.