The Online Photographer

Autochromes, Among the Oldest and Rarest Color Pictures

Edward Steichen, c. 1908, provided by George Eastman House Collections

Eastman Kodak Company has two blogs: A Thousand Words is written "by, and about, everyday employees who share a passion for photographic storytelling," in the words of Kodak's David Kassnoff. Its companion blog, A Thousand Nerds, "shares insights into the technical aspects of making photography an enjoyable experience."

A recent post by Thomas Hoehn, about autochromes, on 1000words.com reminded me of one of my major missed opportunities on a path not followed, that of photo collecting. A neighbor of mine in an apartment building in Washington, D.C., found out that I taught photography and asked me to take a look a few old color photographs she had inherited. When I arrived at her apartment she took an old box out of a drawer, and darned if numerous layers of brittle tissue didn't part to reveal three genuine Lumière Frères autochromes, on glass, from about 1910. All three were just marvelous pictures, if memory serves. Especially the smallest one, which was about 3" x 4", of a lovely girl in period dress in a shaft of sunlight.

Just by being enthusiastic and appreciative, I came very close to talking her out of it. She had virtually offered to let me have it when it seemed to occur to us both, simultaneously, that I was really nothing but a stranger to her and she had no reason whatsoever to part with her heirloom on my account. I'm quite sure I could have walked out of there with that treasure in my possession if I'd been more aggressive about it, but I couldn't see the fairness in it, and we mutually backed away from the undone deal.

The ultimate purpose of collecting, of course, is delectation, and if I'd "scored" that rare autochrome on that occasion, at least I could have looked at it many more times over the years. I'd love to see it again today. I have a great memory for visuals, but enough time makes even the most vivid impression grow dim (one good reason why we make photographs). Still, it was a pleasure to see it once. Autochromes are uniquely lovely, delicate little things.

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Mike

Will You Look At Me? Yeah

I've got to admit that my "lynx" link on this page doesn't have very many links yet. Hey, I was sick for a while, remember? That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

In the meantime, here are a few links to one thing and another, some sent to me by helpful readers—maybe you'll like one or two.

Eolake Stobblehouse and Stephen Gillette
Our friend Eolake (he of the "tasteful nudes" ad), has just published on his blog site an interesting mini-interview with Stephen Gillette, who wrote the piece about the Fuji F50fd we published on Saturday. I found it interesting, so maybe you will too.

Those Draconian Anti-Photographer Measures in NYC
Gerry O'Brien writes to remind us that that nutty idea for required photography permits in New York City is still alive, and that public comments are being accepted on the City's Film, Theatre and Broadcasting website until August 3rd.

kammagamma.com
If you liked Mike Davis's masterfully mathematical-minded little mini-essay on sensor size and diffraction in the comments to the Fuji F50fd post, you'll probably also appreciate Max Penson's Kammagamma website for the technically inclined digiphile. For instance, check out the lab plot of Canon's standard color palette vs. that of the Leica M8 in the Color Transformation Database.

Totally Creepy
How about this totally creepy news item about live animé models for photographers. Only one comment: ew!

Rebel Against Conformity: Miroslav Tichy
Paul Norheim found (on the 5b4 photo-book website, also worth knowing about) this excellent little article  about Miroslav Tichy, now in his eighties, unknown until recently, who made his own very primitive cameras and took pictures, year after year, despite some very harsh conditions.

The Country Gardener
It hasn't much to do with photography, but if you're interested in gardening, you'll probably be glad to know of our Canadian friend Yvonne Cunnington's Country Gardener website. (I can't grow grass in a pot, myself, but I love the delightful bastardized word "yardener" that Yvonne recently introduced to me—it means people who work on growing their yards, of course.) Saturday's post is about a bride and groom who requested to use the garden for their wedding photos. Yvonne documented it.

Type the Sky
Student Lisa Rienermann's free-term work on the subject of typology at the University of Duisberg-Essen is truly creative use of a camera (see illustration, above right). Thanks to Dave Sailer for this one.

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Finally, hearty congratulations to two friends who have recently quit their jobs. First, my friend and longtime editor Ailsa McWhinnie is leaving her post as Editor-in-Chief of the English Black & White Photography magazine for the life of a freelancer. She's enabled by her husband Roland, who is apparently mucking things up by making a success of himself, darn it. I will truly miss Ailsa's hand on the tiller of the magazine nearly as much as her witty e-repartee, and am determined to keep in touch despite the lack of an excuse—I only hope the new editor will be as indulgent of my ideas and (ahem) occasional lateness. Her last day is this coming Friday. Best wishes to Ailsa and Ro in their newly restructured life.

And my counterpart at Strobist, David Hobby (seen above doing the Dew), has recently made a leap that is the opposite of what every amateur dreams of doing—he's gone un-pro. David decided to leave his position as a full-time staff photographer at the Baltimore Sun to be a blogger full-time (and spend more time with his family). He's has forgotten more than I've ever known about lighting with flash, the on-camera variety especially (which he often uses off), and Strobist is one of the best shooter's classrooms on the entire Web—if you want to learn about lighting I recommend you make it a regular stop. We wish him every success.

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Mike

The Photographer's Mecca

In a comment to the previous post, "Unbound" wrote:

Is your essay a simile for what is happening to mom-and-pop camera stores? Or should I use past tense, since they virtually don't exist any more? Let's see, I can buy a DSLR for $2500 online, or I can buy the same camera for $2750 locally, plus 8% tax, for a total of about $500 more just for buying locally. Call me what you may, but $500 is a lot of money for no real gain. And small stores can not really survive on small ticket items unless they have lots of volume to go with it. Businesses such as small camera stores, small bookstores, etc. cannot compete in a modern business environment that is driven by price and convenience. They have to adapt or perish...in the age of eBay and Amazon and Adorama, the viability of these small business models is questionable at best, and they are almost guaranteed to disappear as their owners give up, or more likely retire (owners of this kind of business tend to be old).

Ah, the poor neighborhood camera store. Unbound is right—they're mostly gone now, pleasant memories for those of us old enough to remember the cluttered interiors, the fantastic jumble of dusty "new-old" stock, the crusty owners with their encyclopedic brains from whom you could draw a wealth of wonderful stories if you took the time. I miss the camera stores of my youth, although I probably also romanticize them.

The camera stores were hit from virtually every angle. I suppose there was once a time in the far-off past when they could prosper by selling cameras, but the big monthly magazines with their endless pages of discount mail-order ads in the back took care of that. At least, if a store couldn't make a profit on an SLR body or a manufacturer-branded lens, SLRs required many accessories, and those were profitable. Then came the point-and-shoot revolution in the 1980s—cameras that not only did not require accessories, they didn't accept them (remember trying to use filters on your point-and-shoot?) So, with the falling price of processing stations, camera stores turned to on-site film processing, a nice business that was quickly poached by every corner drugstore chain and grocery store, not to mention the also-ill-fated parking lot film drop-off kiosks. Many stores depended for years on sales to local students in darkroom classes, although I can't imagine there's much future in that if indeed it's still going on at all (I don't have a handle on whether schools are still teaching darkroom-based photography or not). In desperation, the camera stores took to leaning on used equipment as a profit center, albeit one of greatly diminished expectation. And then...along came eBay, which is essentially a thousand used camera stores in one. It cut the legs out from under that business. What's left for the specialty camera store to make a profit on? Basically, readymade frames and blank albums, and perhaps camera bags.

The last neighborhood "camera store" I visited in a neighborhood not my own had a nice selection of digicams along one wall, and of course the cards and bags you'd need if you bought one, and there was a small forest of tripods sprouting in one corner, but the main part of the store was entirely comprised of what could be described as scrapbooking supplies.

So where, then, do you go to get your hands on the actual cameras you think you might want to buy? The most common ones are not too difficult to find, but esoterica is almost impossible.

One of my persistent fantasies is a photography museum that would also function as a "tryout" center for cameras of every description. Picture a largish building with attractive displays of historical cameras of all sorts, as well as generous permanent and rotating displays of historical and contemporary photographs. But as an adjunct to that, the "museum" would also stock every current camera on the market (many of them, hopefully, provided by the manufacturers). I picture a building with a rooftop garden that has several permanent "sets" of various kinds, and perhaps models on duty, with protected overhangs as well as well-lit interior studios for rainy days. Admission for half a day might be $20, but for that price, attendees could sign out whatever camera they wanted to try, for as long as they wanted to try it. So for your $20 admission fee, you could look at all of the exhibits, but you could also sign out the model of camera you might be interested in, put your own card or film in it, and take it to the rooftop garden for a shooting session. After half an hour or an hour you'd probably have a decent idea what you thought of it, and you'd be able to take your own sample pictures home with you.

The problem with such an idea would be giving sufficient numbers of patrons access to it (and, looked at from the opposite direction, attracting sufficient numbers of patrons for it to be viable). For this reason, I've imagined it being a shuttle-bus ride away from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. Interested hobbyists who weren't local could presumably plan layovers that would allow them to take in the museum once every year or two.

I think this is slightly more than just a fantasy, but definitely something less than a business plan. It's probably only viable in the fertile region of my imagination. But if I ever win the lotto, please count on spending a pleasant day at a photographer's Mecca like the one I'm describing, won't you?

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Mike

The Sunday Sermon

OTA*

(Note: Some readers object to off-topic posts, so I've decided to start writing them on a regular basis. From now on, on any Sunday when I feel like it, I'm going to post a completely off-topic mini-article that has nothing to do with photography. I will label them all "The Sunday Sermon," for the convenience of those who only want to hear from me about photography. If you're one of those folks, all you have to do is avoid any post with this title. All I can promise everyone else is that the content of the 'sermons' will vary wildly. Probably the quality too, although I'll try my best. Cheers! —MJ. P.S. If there is a great chorus of objections to this feature, I'll stop.)

'Harry Potter': A Disaster for Bookstores

You'd think that if you owned a store that sold only one kind of product, and an example of that product came along that everyone and her brother wanted to buy, you'd be happy, right?

If you own a bookstore, however, and the product is the final Harry Potter book, wrong.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which if god has any mercy will be the last in the series, came out on July 17th. Because of its crushing popularity (caused by spells, we think), many huge retailers will skim the product. Wal-Mart and Amazon, using their huge buying power to negotiate a better deal than is even available to small independent bookstores, are selling the book at 49% off—for no profit, simply using the book's popularity as a draw. Megachains Barnes & Noble and Borders have priced it at 40% off, slicing off all but the narrowest of profit margins. Here you have a product so popular that people would buy it no matter how much it costs; so, in order to insure themselves a decent portion of the trade to be done, retailers willingly give away all their potential profit. This is, frankly, insane. But that won't stop anybody. You will be able to buy Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in some surprising places, we think—Costco, grocery stores, big box stores—including some places you hardly ever see books sold...

READ ON

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Mike

New in the Archives: The Case Against Zooms

I've just published in the archives my column called "The Case Against Zooms," since it seems apropos to Carl's article from yesterday. To get there, you can either use this direct link or go to Columns & Essays > Columns > The Case Against Zooms.

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Mike

Featured Comment by Larry Armstrong: "Hello Mike—During the majority of my newspaper career, I really disliked zooms and usually never shot with them. For me, trying to zoom and focus at the same time, resulted in a lot of "soft" shots. The first zoom I owned was an 80–200 ƒ/4, which for a photojournalist was very practical. Normally, I carried two cameras (Nikons) with my two favorites the 105 and the 24 on at all times. If it was a news story then a third camera had a 200 or a 300. For a walk about with a single camera, the 105 was always the choice. How I composed and shot pictures was really shaped early on by my work with the wire service and newspapers. We, of course, had to strive for the "moment," peak action and emotion, etc., but a big consideration was graphic and dynamic composition. You had to stop the reader from flipping those pages. With the wires, success was measured by how many papers and magazines used your pictures and that was determined by which pictures, of the hundreds that moved that day, caught the photo editors attention. The 24 and 105 allowed me to "design" my shots; made me move around to test the composition. My reponse was quicker because I had two choices. The 24 allowed me to enhance my shots with dynamic perspective. The 105 made faces look great and wide open allowed for great bokeh. It had enough flattening properties to build a strong graphic composition, without overly compressing the shot. It was easy to work a strong shot of the same subject with both lenses. Fast forward through 15 years as a photo editor and I'm now shooting again. Ironically I own two "primes," a 300/2.8 and a 50mm macro. I do miss those two favorites, but again my work is shaping what I use. I do a lot of "celebrity" portraiture, on assignment for publications and the work then goes to syndication. For successful syndication, I need variety, the more the better. The big difference between then and now is time. Then, I might have a half hour to an hour with a celebrity. Now I have to work faster and wiser. the scheduled 15 minutes may be cut to 5, as happened recently with a Matt Damon shoot. I'm usually asked to do two different set ups in that 15 minutes. The zooms I use allow me to quickly shoot a variety of compositions. Recently, I've moved to the Canon 24-105 IS to try to get that feeling back, but also, so I don't have to worry about using a tripod. I have to eliminate any break in the shoot that might allow the publicist to say you have enough. Changing a card, or film or moving a tripod around provides the publicist that opportunity for a break. The 24–105 is not quite the same and has some problems I don't like, but it is close. The point of this rambling trip back in time is that I would have to agree with you. Before reading your piece, I had been thinking after a shoot the other day, how Ironic that I had never liked using zooms and that now, that is almost all I use. To get the best shot, I still move around and work a 17–35 as I would have with that 24. But, I really believe using those two primes, for the majority of my work over the years, provided me with a strong foundation in how I compose with any lens and particularly with those zooms I never liked. This is long and you don't have to post it, I just wanted to let you know you brought up an interesting point that I agree with. Cheers, Larry."

Mike replies: Thanks Larry. I know just what you mean—I was happiest in the old days with my 35/2 and 85/1.8, same idea, just not quite as wide or long as you liked. I even had a boss once who wanted me to use zooms, a 28–70 and 80–200 (same as he used). There were occasions when he'd leave the area and I'd switch back to my primes! I can admit there were times I needed the longer reach of the 80–200, but I never cottoned to that darn 28–70. I do use a zoom now too, but I miss the freedom of the primes. It was always easier for me to find a framing that worked with a lens I really knew.

Fuji FinePix F50fd Just Announced

New Pocket Champ, or Pocket Chump on Megapixel Steroids?

By Stephen Gillette

Those of us who are rather serious about our photography (and that would be nearly all TOP readers) divide into two camps. Camp One has a difficult time with the notion of small-sensor cameras being being good for much except casual social photography and possible use as door jams. The second camp is open to the idea that these digicams are capable of producing serious work.

Readers of this site have responded to Mike's idea of the Decisive Moment Digital, and have also been directed to Thom Hogan's Compact Camera Challenge. Both essays suggest the core attribute of a breakthrough compact camera should be an APS-C sensor. But what if a camera designed around a small sensor could deliver image quality close to that of a DSLR, in both ideal lighting conditions and very low light? With full manual controls? And what if the camera was available at a very reasonable price—in September? What if? 

Fuji announced a camera several days ago that gives us all—compact-camera scoffers and proselytizers—something to chew on. The FinePix F50fd, part of a five-camera roll-out by Fuji, caught my eye. This camera builds upon the strengths of the F20-30-40 series, but adds a bit of revolution to the evolution: honest-to-goodness CCD-shift image stabilization.

Now, some folks might rightly recall that their earlier F-series Fujis already have a dedicated "stabilization" button on the camera back. Unfortunately, this button was concocted more in the marketing department than over in the engineering department at Fuji. It allowed Fuji marketing to jump on the VR (vibration reduction) and IS (image stabilization) bandwagon, at least in terms of product promotion. Otherwise, all it did was jack up the ISO to allow faster shutter speeds, as well as activate the flash in certain situations.

At long last, Fuji has implemented a true VR system by way of sensor shifting. Gyros in the camera report camera movement to the sensor during capture, which physically shifts position to counter that movement. Canon digicams (including the mildly controversial but certainly able G7) employ the other leading form of mechanical VR, shifting elements within the lens instead of moving the sensor. Which is better? Some claim that optical VR has the edge, but not all. Sony carried on the Minolta-developed sensor shift in their Alpha A-100 DSLR. And of the two new and positively-reviewed DSLR cousins from Olympus, the E-410 and E-510, the latter also has sensor shift VR.

So the die-hard skeptics in Camp One may have to accept the fact of a pocket camera that can not only approach big-sensor (DSLR) image quality under ideal circumstances, but comes very close in low-light capture, as well.

But wait...there's more!

The F50fd offers full manual control of ISO, shutter speeds, and aperture that's lacking in its predecessors. The camera also adds an "Auto/800" mode, which compliments the previous Auto/400 and Auto/1600 modes. This allows the camera to range automatically up to a set limit, great for quick shooting in changing light. While image quality at ISO 400 has been good for both color and black-and-white capture, ISO 1600 has played havoc with fine detail and resulted in images best printed at modest sizes. The Auto/800 is a modest but welcome addition to the kit.

And remember: the VR can deliver 2 extra stops into tripod territory. Black cats in coal bins, take notice!

Of course, big-sensor snobs (not that there's anything wrong with that) will quickly jump on the fact that the newly-enlarged 2.7" LCD (with a luscious 230,000 pixels) is the only viewfinder on the camera—there is no room on this small rig for the token crappy peephole. They have a point. And there is another question mark looming until reviews are published:

Fuji has taken a winner of an imager, the 1/1.6-inch Super CCD, and upped the ante by fitting 12 million pixels on it. (I hope these pixels are all good friends.) Will this rather unnecessary strategy significantly degrade the image quality that has become a Fuji hallmark? Only three clues have been dropped, so far.

On Fuji's F50fd web page (as of July 27th, 2007) is a link to three samples. One is a pleasant landscape that can be downloaded at full resolution. At first glance, pixel peeping onscreen at 100%, the image seemed quite soft. Of course, small sensors are not the first pick for landscape photography. And distant clouds in the picture suggest a somewhat humid atmosphere, which might further soften the details in the distance. When I applied some additional mid-tone contrast in Photoshop, things improved noticeably. Next, some high-pass sharpening...voila! Not bad at all.

The two sample portraits give perhaps a better assessment of the camera's image quality. On the plus side, Sample Two of a girl blowing bubbles has some high-contrast areas that would typically show strong purple fringing on previous F-series cameras. No fringing here. But the image, while showing ample detail, also shows a hint of noise and noise reduction artifacts. This, at ISO 100.

The third sample (left, detail above right), also a portrait, shows enough detail to determine the model is wearing contact lenses, and that she has some interesting skin features on her neck that have been only partly covered by makeup. But there is that same mild "processed" look that I'm not used to seeing from my F20 at ISO 100. (Of course, my F20 sports a 6 MP sensor, not a 12.) More samples are needed, at higher ISOs, in more challenging lighting conditions.

So, for those of us who work backwards from the results we want to the gear that can deliver those results, Fuji may have advanced the cause of the high-resolution, unusually versatile pocket camera. Full manual options, choice of memory cards (yes, SD and SDHC along with xD), big files and low-light shooting to rival some DSLRs. Or, the fattening of the pixel count may deflate the promise implied by the new VR system, giving Camp One the last laugh. For now, this is certainly a horse to watch.

The price: under $300. (Probably $250 or less by December.)

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Steve

Stephen Gillette is an artist/photographer based in Southern California. His quest for the Ideal Pocket Camera has spanned more than three decades and filled several camera bags. His work (using small-sensor cameras exclusively) is available to view at his website.

Normal Lens = Universal Lens?

"Normal normal normal normal normal Chameleon..."*

By Carl Weese

Back in February, here at TOP, Mike Johnston wrote something about normal lenses that really got my attention. Here’s the quote:

"The slightly long 50mm has two salient visual properties in my opinion (to give credit where credit is due, I think I heard both ideas articulated first by John Kennerdell, a writer/photographer of travel guides for Asia). First, it has a certain 'chameleon' property. That is, it can be made to mimic a slightly telephoto 'look' and also a slightly wide-angle look, depending on how the photographer 'sees' in any certain situation. Assuming you've learned how to mentally organize pictures as wide-angle compositions and as short-tele compositions, this chameleon property can be endlessly intriguing. Second—and this is impossible to prove—it may be true that, with a 50mm, you get a lower percentage of 'acceptable' compositions but a higher percentage of true 'hits'—pictures that are really outstanding—than you do when you're using 'easier' focal lengths."

When I read this my main reaction was, "well, of course," at least to the first part. I'd never really thought it out, much less articulated it, but the whole notion sat well with my experience as a photographer. So when a Pentax 31mm Limited lens showed up at my studio for testing, I decided to try a little experiment. On the APS-C sensor that Pentax uses, the 31mm is a normal focal length. It's actually more normal than the 50mm on 35mm film because it is closer to the diagonal measurement of the format. The experiment would be to use nothing but the 31mm Limited for a while.

First, a few disclaimers. To anyone who has come to photography in the past decade or so, the idea of using a single lens that doesn't zoom may seem strange. But I grew up on "prime" (fixed focal length) lenses. Back in the '70s, for a time I did all my personal work with a Leica M4 and 35mm Summilux. In the mid-'80s, right after there was a quantum leap in the quality of color negative films, I worked on a large project shooting with nothing but a Hasselblad and 50mm Distagon, making 15-inch RA color prints. I've made countless field trips carrying nothing but an 8x10 Deardorff and 240mm Apo-Sironar. The main thing that would be unusual for me in this experiment would be the use of a normal lens instead of medium-wide lenses.

Next disclaimer—I cheated. When I made day trips, I really carried nothing but a camera with the 31mm. But on a couple of longer overnight trips where I expected lots of time for shooting, I did throw a bag full of additional lenses in the car. My reasoning was that experiments are all well and good, but if I ran into a wonderful subject in perfect light, hundreds of miles from home, and it just had to be done with a different lens, I'd feel pretty dumb to have followed my experiment out the window. The funny thing is, this never happened. Once I’d gotten my head into the thought process that, "this is the lens I’m using and I’ll see how things work," I never once had the urge to scramble back to the car and retrieve another focal length. Final disclaimer, I did a commercial shoot while this was going on, and didn’t even think about applying the experiment to a set of illustrations for a revised edition of a lawn care book. I did most of the shooting with an Olympus E1 and 14–54, using every bit of the zoom’s range (roughly equivalent to 28–108 for 35mm). For the cover set, I switched to a K10D for the larger, 10MP file size, and used a 70mm DA Limited because the shot needed some perspective compression and selective focus.

So much for disclaimers; what did I learn from the experiment? Look at these two pictures, made a few seconds apart:

Shop Window One, Honesdale, Pennsylvania

Shop Window Two, Honesdale, Pennsylvania

The whole notion of a chameleon lens wasn't consciously in my mind here, I was just studying a subject and made two pictures where my visual goals were very different. However it does seem to me than the first one looks more wide than normal, while the second looks more short-tele than normal.

I'm not so sure about the second part of Mike's notion, that a normal lens may deliver a low percentage of acceptable shots but a higher percentage of winners. Jury's out on that, but if you'd like a more in-depth look at  the results of my experiment, pop on over to my Working Pictures blog [link below], click the archive button for June, scroll down to the entry for the 9th, then work your way forward (up) through the blog. Everything posted from June 9 through July 11 was shot with the 31mm Limited on a K10D.

I enjoyed the experiment, and recommend it highly. One thing I learned is that, nice as it is, the 31mm is a bit too long for me. My ideal lens for this format would be a digital-specific 24mm f/2 (or faster) lens with the fit and finish--and the robust manual focus ring—of the 31mm Limited. Throw in bokeh similar to a 35mm M-Summicron and I might leave the bag of other lenses home permanently.

If this idea appeals but you don't have a normal lens, just get out some gaffer tape and disable the zoom ring on the lens you have. Restricting technical options to foster improved aesthetic results is nothing new. Think of a poet who writes a cycle of Shakespearian sonnets instead of a ramble of blank verse. Try it; you might like it.

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Carl

*...With apologies to Boy George....

Featured Comment by Ignacio Soler: "I did this same experiment back in the days of film and shot for an entire week with just my 50mm. I have never looked back. It's funny, but far from being constrained by having only one focal length, I felt free. Once my mind was freed from having to chose focal length for every shot, I got more creative and enjoyed shooting a lot more. Today I use a 28mm on my 20D."

Choosing a New DSLR

Decisions, decisions....

One of the leitmotifs of my days is that people frequently contact me asking for my advice as to what camera they should buy. I'm not saying I mind hearing from them; I don't, and it's probably helpful for them to write out their thoughts about their own needs when they write to me. My problem is that I just don't think I can really help. I know the camera market pretty well, and I've been shooting since I was 12 (38 years), but it's really tough to know what another person will like best.

It's actually really tough to know what I will like best, too. A commenter with the handle "RC" wrote the following comment in response to our news item about Nikon overtaking Canon in Japan:

I'm looking to replace my five-year old D60 Canon. With only one Canon lens to my name I'm not that committed yet. I'm looking closely at the Nikon options (between the D80 and the D200), but I do have hopes that by sometime this fall, Canon could put out an updated 30D or 5D that I would find more attractive than the Nikon offerings, so I'm tempted to wait for the next Canons before deciding. I read that the 1D Mk III has some impressive high ISO and dynamic range performance that I'd hope might somehow filter down to a 40D. Or how about a 6D that's more in the price range of the Nikon D200? Both the 5D and the 30D are long overdue for updating. But then, Canon doesn't have any really appealing lenses like the Nikon 18-200VR. But I do already have a Canon 24-85 that seems good enough for now. Decisions. I also really like the Zeiss 16-80 for the Sony, both for it's wide-angle reach and it's reported good quality, but find the Sony camera itself underwhelming compared to the D80, although the built-in steady-shot is a plus.

Whew—that's an awful lot of conflicting considerations, isn't it? Yet what struck me about this is how similar his situation is to mine. I bought my current-and-only DSLR, a Konica-Minolta 7D with a standard zoom, several years ago, used, for $1600 or thereabouts. I've been happy with it—especially in terms of results, which are, after all the point—but I've never particularly warmed to the camera itself. I don't find it particularly appealing to handle and I never take it out "just for fun" like I often used to find myself doing with my film cameras. The 7D has lost about $800 in value (remember that lens) below what I paid for it, but I sell prints from time to time and do a few portraits here and there, and just counting direct sales I've earned roughly $6,000 with it, so I can't complain there either. It has earned its keep.

Now, it's beginning to show age and wear. A number of little glitches have made it even less appealing to use: sometimes it resets itself without provocation, sometimes it tries to autofocus when set on manual focus mode, and—most annoyingly—sometimes it decides it doesn't have a lens attached and refuses to work, even though it does have a lens attached (and, yes, I have cleaned the contacts). I consider this to be direct penance from the mocking gods, since I'm always gassing on about the importance of responsiveness in a camera. I'd have it fixed, but apparently that might not be possible: the only person I know who's tried to have a K-M camera fixed had his 5D replaced by Sony with an A100, apparently in line with Sony policy. Nice of them, but I don't want an A100. I just want my old 7D to be put right. I'm not sure whether Sony's taking on that sort of repair challenge with the old K-M legacy gear.

Before and After: Earlier this summer, Zander volunteered for a haircut for the first time in six months, an event I thought was worthy of documenting. He has very little patience for this sort of thing, so I clicked off  six quick exposures before and after the event. Despite the fact that neither the scene nor the settings changed, there were exposure variations between the frames—and, as luck would have it, in both cases the best shots were a little overexposed, which you can best see in the skin of his neck above the collar.

But I'm entirely unclear about what my next move is going to be. K-M is out of the camera business, of course, the most prominent casualty of the digital evolution. Sony's picked up the fallen battle-standard, but I've got to be honest with you—I'm just not convinced yet of Sony's commitment to the DSLR business. (Hearing Sony's chairman on the cool new TV show "CEO Exchange" was not encouraging either.) And, like "RC" above, I only have one lens, so it's not like I'm so committed to the lensmount that I can't wander off and attach myself to another marque.

I also have a lifelong tendency to favor the underdog. In terms of consumerism, this translates to a tendency to shun the leading brands. But would life be simpler if I just went with one of the "Big Two"? As you can see from the numbers in that Nikon-Overtakes-Canon post, Nikon and Canon dominate the DSLR market. Perhaps it's high time to stop complicating my life unnecessarily where cameras are concerned and buy a 30D or D200.

How far should I go toward finding a camera that I really enjoy using? Historically I've preferred small carry-around cameras that I can wear all the time—Contax 139Q, Leica M6, Olympus OM-4T. The gestalt doesn't really transfer to digital, since digital cameras are so dependent on frequent pit stops at the computer and the battery charger—you can't just hang the camera on a peg by the door and grab it every time you leave the house; you have to prepare to go shoot digital. Moreover, the two small cameras that appeal to me most on paper, the Nikon D40x and the Olympus E-510, are both severely crippled in terms of the lenses they'll accept. Either one with a small, moderate-wide prime lens would make a great complement to the bigger 7D and its zoom, but alas, there ain't no such lenses.

Pentax has the lenses, all right. Canikon has the best selection of the big, dedicated pro lenses—the kind I never use—but Pentax laps the field when it comes to flexibility with a whole assortment of various kinds and vintages of primes. (By the way, in case you're unfamiliar with the term, a "prime" lens is a single-focal-length lens, the opposite of a zoom.) So maybe a Pentax. But then again, Sony has Zeiss in its corner now, and there are some mouth-watering Zeiss lenses trickling out in the K-M, now Sony, bayonet mount.

I think you can definitely look at the digital camera dilemma the other way around, too. There just isn't really that much difference between digital SLR results, at least until you reach the rarefied strata of the giant professional überkameras and the ultraexpensive medium-format backs. No one's going to look at a nice 10x15" inkjet print and say, "Oh, obviously you used a Canon/Nikon/Pentax/Olympus/Sony," or "Oh, obviously your camera has six/eight/ten/twelve megapixels." It's even less of an issue online. The picture file is really only the rawest of raw material for the print—even if you don't shoot RAW! So in some respects, the choice of a DSLR doesn't even really have to be any sort of contest. Just pick one, and use it. They're all the same anyway.

What's to Choose? Zander as a tough character, Halloween 2006, a self-portait in the bathroom mirror using my 7D. A digital picture is a digital picture is a digital picture. 

Then there's the Siren Song of film that still rings in my ears. I love black-and-white, and the idea of finding some workable method of creating high-quality black-and-white prints with some of the ease-of-use of digital still dogs my thoughts. I did just get a scanner that supposedly handles film well (the Epson V700), and the HP B9180 produces nice B&W prints, so, often enough, my thoughts turn to antiquated film cameras with big negatives that I could scan...augh, shake it off, Johnston, shake it off.

Also a temptation, believe it or not, is to spring for one of the aforementioned überkameras. Nikon's D2xs replacement is imminent—I think we'll see it by the fall. It will probably have an 18- or 22 -MP, 1.1x sensor. That means a nice big viewfinder. If it has an add-on battery pack instead of one that's built-in (the latter has, admittedly, been Nikon's tendency since the F5), it might even be small enough without the battery pack that I wouldn't hate carrying it. I'd have to take out a bank loan, but maybe that would make me work harder to earn money with the thing.

I have to admit, I feel like a dork when I use big, fancy cameras. They don't suit the modest situations in which I most often shoot. They make me feel like an overdressed and overequipped skier on the bunny hill.

The big Sony, the one with the funky pyramidal prism—which I like—will probably use the same sensor as the new Nikon flagship, and from what I hear Sony will allow Nikon to have the sensor for itself for some agreed-upon period of time before bringing out its own version. So waiting for the biggest Sony is going to be a long slog. I've put that out of my mind. Tried to, that is.

Anyway, in the meantime, here I sit, generally not wanting to take the 7D out for exercise, telling myself that I'm waiting for the Sony 7D replacement. Am I really? Dunno. If I were really, truly committed to Sony and the old K-M lensmount, I'd probably be planning to buy that delicious Zeiss 16-80mm. But I don't think about that very much.

So what's it gonna be? Switch to Nikon or Canon? Go with Pentax and collect lenses? Buy a tiny Olympus and hope a small, moderate-wide 4/3rds prime comes out before I end up in a wheelchair? (It could be that long, too.) Stick with my current lensmount and wait for the suspiciously vaporous Sonys? Embark on the odyssey of having the 7D restored?

And people come to me for camera-buying advice!

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Mike

Zeiss Lenses To Be Available for Pentax Mount

Great news for Pentax shooters! Carl Zeiss  AG of Oberkochen, Germany, has announced that it will make its premium line of manual-focus  SLR lenses available for the Pentax K-mount beginning in August. The lens line will be called ZK.

The ZK bayonet will based on the KA standard and permit the utilization of shutter priority, aperture priority and programmed auto exposure on all camera models able to use "A" features (these lenses, the same ones that are currently available in M42 thread mount and Nikon F mount, will cover 35mm as well as APS-C digital formats).

Initially, the Distagon T* 25mm ƒ/2.8, Distagon T* 35mm ƒ/2, Planar T* 50mm ƒ/1.4, Planar T* 85mm ƒ/1.4, Makro-Planar T* 50mm ƒ/2, and Makro-Planar T* 100mm ƒ/2 will be offered for the K bayonet. More lenses will be made available in K-mount in the  future.

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Mike

Featured Comment by Andre: "It'll be interesting to see how the offerings from Zeiss fare against the Pentax limited series lenses, both in terms of price and performance. Either way, it seems that Pentax shooters now have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to high quality prime lenses."

Guide to Digital Infrared Photography

Lloyd Chambers, one of this site's advertisers, has just published what has to be the leading reference on digital infrared. From the e-book description:

"Hundreds of hours of  shooting, tests, and analysis went into preparing the Guide over the course of 2006 and 2007. You simply will not find a book (or stack of books) that contain anywhere near the wealth of detailed and accurate and practical information that you will find in this guide.

• Overview—what infrared is, what to expect when starting out;
• Camera selection—digital SLR, point and shoot, filters vs conversion;
• Camera image examples—numerous examples and what to expect from the Fuji F30-IR, Fuji S6000fd-IR, Canon EOS 5D-IR, Nikon D70-IR, Nikon D200-IR;
• Focusing and backfocus, including a special tip for Canon EOS users;
• Sharpness issues of multiple kinds;
• Filtration, both external and internal;
• Exposure and white balance;
• Hot spots and how to both avoid and work around them in post-processing;
• Lenses, including “hot spot” and backfocus assessments; 
• Workflow: swapping and inverting color channels, techniques for grayscale conversion, color expansion, selective color, RAW-file conversion, color space and gamut, 16-bit vs 8-bit;
• Photoshop actions and javascripts for generating variants of an image in both layered and contact sheet form, helping you to visualize the creative possibilities;
• Resources—where to find additional information on camera conversions, filters, books, web sites, etc.

It's on the expensive side for a photo book, but if you're seriously interested in the subject, you gotta have it. Click on the ad link under "Sponsors" in the left-hand column to check out more about it (I found Lloyd's article in the ASMP NorCal Quarterly, a link to which you can find on the site, particularly interesting—in fact, the whole issue (it's a .PDF) is good, and worth downloading).

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Mike

Henry Wessel Video

Henry Wessel: "In the still photograph you basically have two variables—where you stand and when you press the shutter. That's all you have."

There's a really nifty KQED Arts profile of my Favorite Photographer (caps intentional) online at this link. Highly recommended, not just for the chance to see more of Wessel's poetry of the visual world. His comments and the insight into his working methods make this little eight-minute video pure gold.

For those of you who might be curious, this is also the kind of photographer I am, and how Wessel works is very similar to how I work. He's just much (much) better at it. I've been captivated by his marvelous pictures from the moment I saw my first one, decades ago. (It was the picture that ends this video, and I remember where I was standing when I first saw it.)

Don't forget there's also a book. I haven't ordered mine yet (though I will) so I haven't seen it.

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Mike  (Thanks to Gary)

'All Your System Are Belong To Us'

by Ctein

Over July 4th weekend I was off at a convention at a hotel in the heart of Silicon Valley. Most of the weekend was spent engaged in activities such as panel discussions, dining with friends, partying, talking about movies and science fiction, partying, getting caught up on the latest gossip, playing with the "One-Laptop-per-Child" $100 computer (way cool!) partying, more partying....

So, around midnight after four days of this, a bunch of us hackers are standing around in the lobby and we start fooling with the big flat screen display in the lobby. It was running a "welcome" program—a big splash screen showing a picture of the Hotel and instructing people to touch it to learn more about the wonderful features of the establishment.

It didn't take long to see it was just running a Windows browser-based HTML program. This display was actually a live Windows desktop. Then one of our party discovers that the task bar had not been disabled, but merely hidden. Click on the correct corner and there's the familiar Start button.

So naturally he clicks on it. And the Start menu opens up for us!

At this point you're entitled to shake your head and ask yourself what kind of people would be foolish enough to put up a live Windows desktop where the public can access it in the middle of Silicon Valley. Well, it gets better.

Because right there, at the top of the Start pane, Windows informs us that we're logged in as "Administrator."

Ohmigawd. Insert astonished expletive of your choice here. We all surely did.

The fellow who pulled this up just looks at the rest of us, grins, and says, "So, where would you like to go today?"

This was just too good to pass up. After a bit of fussing around, we find an accessory that provides us with a touch screen virtual keyboard. Now we really could go anywhere. Faster than you can say "Hackers R Us" we're poking about with the command line interface. Internet connectivity does not seem impossible, but it looks like it would take somewhat more work than we feel like doing, and besides there are parties to get to. And besides we're really not cruel people. We're nice hackers. We want to do something more benign than installing new software.

Sure, it's silly and juvenile, but what would you expect from a bunch of hackers after four days of partying?! Photo of Ctein by Mette Hedin.

I get an idea. I pop into the display properties control panel and disable the hotel's screen saver. Then I look to see what other options are available. Marquee Display...that will do. Go into Setup, pick an appropriately attractive combination of background and font styles and colors, and type in a message to be scrolled across the screen. Back out, set the screen saver to kick in after one minute, save, and exit.

The results are as you see them in the photograph. Much hilarity ensued for the members of the convention.  The hotel staff was rather more puzzled and possibly less amused. And, surprisingly, it took them all the next morning to figure out what had been done to their system.

Once they solved the puzzle, I had a nice chat with their IT person and suggested that it would be much wiser if they did not give anybody who wandered into their lobby Administrator privileges on any of their computers. He agreed and said he would remedy it that afternoon. I sure hope he followed through, for his sake.

So, how secure is your computer system, and who has access to it? Think about it.

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Ctein

Olympus E-410 Review

PhotographyBLOG's tests show that the Olympus E-410's kit lens has commendably little purple fringing even in this worst-case situation.

Mark Goldstein's PhotographyBLOG has just published its review of the Olympus E-410. From Mark:

"The Olympus E-410 is a 10 megapixel DSLR camera based on the Four Thirds standard. Marketed as the ultimate ‘travel’ DSLR, the E-410 weighs just 375 g (body only) and a measures 129.5 x 91 x 53 mm. The Olympus E410 features Live Preview, which allows you to frame the shot through the camera’s 2.5 inch LCD screen, in addition to using the more traditional optical viewfinder. The Olympus E-410 also offers a new image processing engine, 32 shooting modes and Supersonic Wave Filter. Is this the best Olympus DSLR camera yet? Gavin Stoker finds out."

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Mike

UPDATE: Also just published: Jeff Keller's review of the Olympus E-510 at DC Resource. (Thanks to Stephen Gillette for the tip.)

Random Excellence: The Northern Plains (Chuck Kimmerle)

Chuck Kimmerle photographs in and around the geographic center of the North American continent, in the northern plains of eastern North Dakota and northwest Minnesota. Chuck used to be a photojournalist and now concentrates on his fine art work, specializing in non-natural landscapes shaped, as he says, "both by nature and the farmer's plow."

His work has a quiet beauty to it and his website is well worth a visit when you're in a contemplative or reflective mood.

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Mike

Featured Comment by Mike Hess: "Having met Chuck before when I was a student at the University that he photographed for and having been exposed to his work, everything that has been written here by Mike is spot on. His style is unique and effective. It would seem that photographers that spend time in eastern 'Nodak' and western Minnesota develop an affection for rural 'scapes. Another great photog worth looking at is the late Jerry Olson. His work has been an influence on me—every time I look at it, I want to go out and find the magical places that he creates."

Nikon Overtakes Canon in Japan

Asahi Shimbun reported last Thursday that Nikon has overtaken Canon in DSLR sales in the Japanese home market for the first half of 2007. In May and June, Olympus has also overtaken Pentax and Sony for third place.

Here's Asahi's summary of Canon's and Nikon's Japanese market share over the past 18 months:

1st half 2006: Canon 46.4%, Nikon 31.9%.
2nd half 2006: Canon 42.9%, Nikon 35.5%.
[Nikon D40 introduced in December 2006]
1st half 2007: Nikon 47.5%, Canon 36.5%.

It's the first time Nikon has beat Canon over a six-month period, although it has done so for individual months before.

Obviously, the two companies together dominate the DSLR market. During the first half of 2007 overall, Pentax came in third with 6.7%, Sony ranked fourth at 4.5%, and Olympus trailed with 4.3%. However, during May and June Olympus leapfrogged to third place over Pentax and Sony on the strength of its new E-410.

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Mike

NFL Mandates Red Vests With Logos for Photographers

The NFL Leads the Way In Answering the Question: Just How Much of a Whore Can A Sports League Force Any Individual To Be?

SA* (sort of)

The National Football League, ever mindful of the value of sponsorships, has decided that players no longer get to keep their own names. A Mr. Larry Yoder of Yonkers, New York, has paid $15,000 to the NFL for the naming rights to New York Jets' cornerback Justin Miller, his favorite player.

Justin Miller is not smiling about being called "Larry Yoder" for Game 3

Miller was naturally incensed, but the NFL is adamant: during the third game of the upcoming season, which Mr. Yoder has tickets to attend with his formerly estranged wife and daughter, Miller will have to wear a jersey with "YODER" on the back, and all NFL-annointed television and radio announcers will refer to Miller as "Larry Yoder" whenever they mention him. As in, "That was meant to be an out pattern, but Larry Yoder had the wideout smothered." The NFL insists that Miller be referenced this way at least three times, to give Mr. Yoder his money's worth.

The issue of naming rights to players themselves comes in the wake of the announcement that all photographers covering NFL games must wear red vests prominently displaying Canon and Reebok logos**. This has angered many photographers, who feel that it is "distasteful and unethical." Especially star photographer Sims Blonk of the Springfield [VT] Times, who shoots with Nikons and wears Nikes. And hates photo vests.

Furthermore, the NFL has announced that for a cool $25 million, it will rename itself. Restaurant chain Hooters is said to be interested, although restaurant attorneys and NFL attorneys are still involved in intense negotiations as to whether the organization will be known as the "The Hooters National Football League" (the name preferred by the League) or "The Hooters Football League" (the name preferred by the restaurant chain) for the 2010 season.

*Satire Alert
**This part, incredibly, is real

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Mike  (Thanks to Michael Tapes)

On the Wrong Side of the Camera

A journalist who stops to help doesn't want to become part of the story himself

Kieran Beer of Fortent Inform (left) stopped to help a woman in distress after Wednesday evening's steam explosion in New York, but didn't think that he, as a journalist, ought to make himself part of the story. In today's Times he explains why he appears exasperated with Reuters photographer Brendan McDermid in the news shot that's now appearing around the world:

"I look pretty distressed in the photo. I was, but mostly about the photo being taken. I understood the photographer was doing his job, but I really didn’t want be part of the story. There was a mob of people with cell phone cameras, but I’m sure this one was taken by the guy with the tripod. He took two, moving the camera twice to keep it a respectful distance in front of us. I knew immediately that the photo would be dramatic and was likely to get picked up by newspapers. That’s why I’m looking away from the camera. I felt I should stay with that woman, but I didn’t want to be in the picture."

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Mike  (Thanks to David A. Goldfarb)

Reify and Redact

I wanted to put in my own two cents about Gordon's topic of the other day— photographic legacies—before we leave the idea behind.

A. D. Coleman uses two particular words with respect to photography that I think are illuminating. They're both scholarly-sounding words, and I think Allen uses them in ways that he has refined somewhat beyond their dictionary definitions. The words are "reify" and "redact."

"Reify" means to make real. This is of course an important word for artists, since artists are all the time getting ideas. An artistic project can actually have a rich life and and an elaborate structure in your head without being anything more than a notion; but until you "make it real," it's unlikely that anyone else is going to be able to get much out of it. Also, of course, the process of reifying any idea usually changes the idea, which is the fodder for so much of what goes on in art schools, not to mention what happens when you go out with a camera.

You might have the idea that you want to photograph the logging industry, or make a series of pictures that are all blue, or whatever else you might think of, but to be art the idea has to be made real by being put into some transmittable form.

"Redact" is a word the meaning of which, unless I misread him, Allen has extended somewhat. Strictly, it means to edit a text for publication. More generally, it can be thought of as putting any kind of creative project into final form.

Redaction is the reason why so many successful artists prefer to work toward some sort of culmination with any given body of work. For some it's to publish the work as a book, for others it's to have a show. There's no standard form for fully redacted work, of course; the concept simply implies that the work is wholly and completely reified to the limits of the artist's intentions, abilities, or resources.

Redaction, I think, is what really "separates the men from the boys," if the women reading this will forgive the expression. Most of us don't even edit our work, much less redact it into some coherent final form. Redaction, as those of you who have done it even once will be well aware, is very hard work. It requires that edits be hard, sequences be set in stone, final prints be made and matted, and the work be submitted to judgment with no excuses. For some it's even threatening work, requiring a certain kind of courage, since to finish something is to close it off to future improvements either actual or imagined.

The redaction project that is most common among photographers is the portfolio. (As you read this, ask yourself: do you have a portfolio that you could present without a single excuse or elaboration as being representative of what you've done as a photographer?) A custom book is also a great project, or even the humble "photo album." A fine print framed and hung can reify and redact a single picture.

Redaction is anyone's best shot at a legacy of any sort—whether it's to be worldwide fame in times to come or a considerate heirloom for the great-grandkids. The better the print, the less likely someone will be to throw it away. The more complete and finished the project, the easier other people find it to understand and appreciate, and the more likely they are to value and preserve it. It can be anything; but whatever it is, finish it. It will help it to endure.

Whatever form it takes, redaction is really the key to accomplishment, as well as to a "legacy."

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Mike

Featured Comment by Gordon Lewis: Thanks, Mike. Reify and redact: "Make it real and present a clear statement." The redaction part is precisely the issue I'm struggling with. As usual, you expressed it better than I ever could. [I might take issue with that.... —MJ] The only thing I would add is that if one has the right attitude and approach, this struggle can be energizing and illuminating, for the photographer as well as the viewer. Conversely, I'm convinced that an inability to redact indicts an inability to make sense of one's life. And it's not just deciding what to say—it's having the courage to say it. If you never complete it, you never risk criticism. On the other hand, you also eliminate the possibility of praise and acceptance. To this extent, no legacy is simply given to you: You have to claim it.

UPDATE: I heard from A.D. Coleman after this post appeared. Firstly, he wanted to share credit for his refinement of the word "redaction" with the late photographer, teacher, and theorist M. Richard Kirstel. Further, of his usage of the word, he says he would "probably object to anyone reducing it  down to a sentence or so of paraphrase," and refers interested readers to his essay "On Redaction: Heaps and Wholes, or, Who Empties the Circular File?" in his book Depth of Field (University of New Mexico Press, 1998 [OoP]).

Rubbery Legs and Hypothetical Limits

Thanks again to the literally hundreds of people who posted comments and sent emails wishing me well with my recent illness, and in some cases sharing their own tragic or hopeful stories of illness and healing.

I'm feeling much better. I went to see a specialist two days ago, and after much careful examination I got about the same analysis that I got from the clinic doctor—that cancer is not ruled out completely (mainly because of my history as a smoker—I smoked two packs of filterless Camels or Player's Navy Cut a day from about the age of 14 to about the age of 28), but that it's most likely a lung infection, i.e., pneumonia. The prognosis is good but the differential is curious...basically, if I continue to get better it means I will continue to get better, whereas if I get worse I will probably get worse. That sounds oxymoronic, but the upshot as that slow continual improvement strengthens the diagnosis of a "resolving pneumonia," whereas if I get suddenly worse it indicates that it might be cancer or some more serious infection. If the latter happens, I will need a "bronchoscopy," which means that they dope you up and send a little feeler down into your lung to dredge up a bit of the nasty muck to see what it is. If I continue to feel better, it may take four to ten weeks or even longer (!) to get completely healthy again, but it also means that that's the eventual probable outcome.

Meanwhile, I took the dog for a walk yesterday and found six blocks to be a little beyond my limit. (Lulu's limits are theoretical, having never been plumbed.) I'm surprisingly weak, especially in the legs—walking had that classic "rubbery legged" feeling. But I really feel quite good generally and I'm back to my old tricks as you can see.

Meanwhile, my friend Carl, who has written for T.O.P. on many occasions, had a very serious crisis last Friday. You can read about it at Working Pictures, along with some very sensible cautions for working out-of-doors. Sincere best wishes for a speedy recovery to Carl.

I was humbled to hear so many stories from people about near-death experiences, loved ones lost, cancer and cancer scares, and living with life-threatening illnesses. So many people are fighting really serious battles, much more challenging that this bout of mine, and to each and every one of them I return the same kind wishes that so many people have extended to me.

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Mike

The Moon and Venus

Like it or not, I would say that for most people who use cameras, most of our pictures have purely personal meaning. Take this shot for instance. You might find it mildly appealing as a domestic night scene, or you might not; but either way, chances are you'll have forgotten it completely by this time next week. It didn't start out, and it doesn't end up, as a picture that's much suited for public consumption.

It has meaning of a sort to me because it's my house. But believe it or not, the way I "see" this picture, it's mostly about my dog. You can see her disused tether lying by the back door—it's bolted to the other edge of the deck. Lying across the deck is the new $25 hose that she'd done battle with, and vanquished, earlier that day.

I had left the water on, meaning there was water pressure in the hose (new faucet, new hose, new nozzle, all splendidly non-leaking). As I was working that afternoon I heard a sudden hissing sound from out back along with much enthusiastic barking from Lulu. She had chewed a hole in the hose, which was now attacking her back. She'd backed off, barking, to keep away from the water, and was periodically attacking the living thing that was now dousing her, only to be driven back by the spray each time she got close enough to snap at it. I let this go on until she was thoroughly soaked, and not just because I was getting a good laugh out of it—it was a good substitute for a bath, I figured, and anyway I thought perhaps I should make a run at getting $25 worth of entertainment out of the now-ruined hose.

Lulu's ears are very distinctive—when she's "perked" or alert, the right ear stands straight up and the left one flops down. As a picture of the moon and Venus, a few of my later exposures from this string of shots are actually a bit better, technically speaking. Less garage, more moon, straighter composition, better exposure. But I like this one because it's a portrait of Lulu—that's her in the door, of course, with only the silhouette of her distinctive ears visible. She's peering out to see what I was up to out there. In the later, "better" pictures, she'd gotten bored and gone back to the living room...so of course I like those pictures that much less.

My son might appreciate this shot in something close to the way I do, one day, mostly because it's his house too and, more importantly, his dog. But it's probably unrealistic to expect anyone else to like it the way we would.

That's often the way it is with pictures...little slices of the view in a tiny sliver of time, they're also little vignettes of our lives.

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Mike

Featured Comment by Mverjeslev: I can fully relate to this shot. This was taken from my balcony:

Mike replies: A gorgeous photograph, Mathias. Personally, while I like astronomical photographs for their own sake, it really adds a whole new dimension and a unique feel to see it in the sky in the context of the lit apartment, the umbrella on the balcony, the silhouette. The masses and the spaces are wonderful. To me the color of the sky looks a bit off, although that may be due to my monitor and/or the vagaries of small JPEGs. I would be very disappointed in a shot like this if it were a fabrication, but as a real photograph of a lunar eclipse in a truthful human setting it's downright magical.

Featured Comment by Ctein: Mike, yeah, some people can't read, and some so totally miss the point of a photo it isn't funny. For the heck of it, I downloaded the photo, fixed the tilt and keystoning and cloned out the sides to fill it in rather than crop down. So, here's the result. Does anyone really, truly think this is a BETTER photo??? Different, yeah. But better? More effective? More evocative? Balderdash! Gimme a break.

For the record, I'm someone who is preternaturally, insanely sensitive to tilt and keystoning in my photos. More than once I've corrected some tilt that looked horribly askew to me, and Photoshop cheerfully reported I'd just made a 0.1 degree rotation. And, really, I could see the difference. I'm the total opposite of Mike. Doesn't mean I'm gonna make art a slave to technical obsession.