The Online Photographer

Splendid News from Sigma

Two days ago, I wrote in the post titled "My Two Answers" about the ongoing lack of large-sensor compacts. Today, as if in answer, no less than than the COO of Sigma Corporation, Kazuto Yamaki, has posted an announcement about the DP1 to update what we know.

As you can read for yourself, the news is good. Sigma has not abandoned the DP-1. Mr. Yamaki's information gives a glimpse into the process of bringing a new camera to market: he references "long and sometimes intense discussions" about the proper direction for the product, and several times mentions the hard work that goes into its gestation. I'm delighted to learn that the groundbreaking DP1 project is still on track.

How would a large-sensor compact differ from a good small-sensor point-and-shoot  or a larger DSLR? I would suggest thinking about it as a complement to a DSLR. (Not compliment, polite praise, but complement, "a thing that completes," for our readers for whom English is not a primary language. I always worry about that word.) It would be a camera that you can wear all day long that nevertheless gives you the same image quality as your DSLR in the prints on the gallery wall—or in two-pages spreads in a magazine, in the case of photojournalists.

Let's say your main camera is a Sigma SD14 with, perhaps, the 18–50mm ƒ/2.8 EX lens.  When you have time for concentrated photographing—when that's all you're doing, on an assignment or a photo-walk or a vacation—you take your big camera, and you don't need anything else. But what about when you're in the airport traveling on business, or picking your kids up at school, or caught in traffic on the freeway, or find yourself in a corporate meeting room with a distinctive view? You'd like to have a camera with you, but you're unlikely to have the SD14 and 18–50mm around your neck. Are you with me when I say that a DSLR need not be bulky and awkward generally for it to be bulky and awkward in some situations? Can you image your big DSLR around your neck during a day at the office?

But what if you take a picture in those offhand circumstances that turns out to be particularly fine? (I happen to have pictures in my portfolio taken in each of those particular situations I named.) The criterion for an exhibiting artist or photojournalist is that such pictures need to be able to be used alongside the pictures made with your main camera without apologies—indeed, without being distinguishable to viewers at all.

If your main camera is a pocketable miniature point-and-shoot, obviously you've got no problem—you carry it with you all the time and that's that. If your main camera is a DSLR, then the criterion for a compact camera is that its image quality be the same as that from your DSLR. In this regard, it sounds like Sigma has made the right choice with regard to the further development of the DP1.    

Straight talk
Receiving information directly from corporate officials is the exception rather than the norm in this industry. Isn't it nice to get the straight skinny right from the horse's mouth? (Two more expressions that could be a problem for non-native speakers! I suppose "the straight skinny from the horse's mouth" could translate to standard English as "the pertinent information from an individual who is directly involved.")

Mr. Yamaki owes us no apologies, of course. But it's pleasant and refreshing to read such a frank and forthright communiqué.

_______________________

Mike

ADDENDUM: I don't want to turn this into the Sigma Dp1 forum, but before we leave the subject I have one more comment to make about the camera: namely, that I believe the ƒ/4 lens may kill it. Sorry to say so, but that's what I'm afraid of.

Over the years I've tracked numerous products and tried hard to analyze consumer acceptance and rejection vectors. I believe the crucial metric in a compact large-sensor camera with a fixed lens like this one is that the fixed lens must be faster than an ordinary zoom. That means ƒ/2.4 at the borderline; ƒ/2 would be best. I would much rather see the Dp1 debut in a version with a lens of more moderate focal length and a faster maximum aperture at first, with a wide-angle version (even an ƒ/4) to follow later. As Chuck A. says in the comments, "If a company came out with a 28mm f/4 lens for your DSLR, nobody would buy it." Just so.

Why care? Because any niche product bears a special burden: the first iterations need to prove their viability before other, similar products will follow along. I want to see Sigma succeed with this product. The ideal situation would be for it to be so successful that Sigma could quickly follow up with a whole handful of variants that would also sell; its innovation deserves to be rewarded. But other manufacturers will be observing, too. If the Dp1 takes off, you can bet similar projects in various stages of development will be fast-tracked; if it tanks, though, the opposite will happen.

Sigma knows lenses, and doubtless the specs were chosen for good reasons. What I worry about is that the wide focal length was chosen first, for its appeal in the Japanese home market (Japan has a special love affair with this angle of view), and then the max aperture spec followed along as a consequence of the focal length and the target lens size.

I don't know anything about this. I'm just speculating. I do hope that Sigma has the right handle here, and that I'm the one who's wrong. Whatever sells is the right decision. —MJ

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Featured Comment by Dave Sailer: I've looked at this camera before and found the front of my shirt getting wet (whatever is causing this seems to be coming from my lips). And then fretting over details like everyone else seems to be doing.

Personally speaking I'd like a few interchangeable prime lenses, or something like a difocal (maybe 24mm and 40mm equivalents), or a shortish zoom (maybe 24mm to 48mm equivalent), or as a last resort a slightly longer fixed focal length lens (say 35mm equivalent). I think about this and then gnaw on the carpet some more, and then go back to looking at the photos of the camera and wondering if I could live with it as-is. And so on.

Sound familiar, anyone?

It seems that the most important points here are that the IDEA (cuz there ain't no camera yet) of a camera like this is getting some smart people excited, and that a camera company is actually thinking about a camera like this, perfect or not.

Eventually we'll get some really simple, really small, high-image-quality cameras designed for usability, and built from first principles as digital devices. If this Sigma camera reaches production then it will be the advance scout of this new breed. There will be others, whether this camera is a success or not, but if we can start now, with this camera, it will bring the future along a bit faster.

Humans aren't changing. Cell phones will not replace real cameras. Eventually (some) cameras will re-evolve to suit the needs of agile and perceptive still photographers, and we will be able to get away from imaging devices designed as mindless add-ons for those goofy twitchy people who just like gagets and have short attention spans.

I recommend the "Inside Straight" column by Herbert Keppler in the November Popular Photography magazine.  Go look at it. The column is titled "What today's camera makers can learn from the very first Leica: Keep it simple." It has a photo of the original Leica next to a modern DSLR. You will get the point immediately.

Now for some more carpet gnawing, then lunch.

So You Say You Want To Turn Pro, Part X

The Brouton Stroube "Paintball Office" Photo Shoot

_____________________________

David Emerick

Further Explication from David A. Goldfarb: "The fact-checking team at TOP might want to vet this [note: I haven't —MJ], but I was wondering what this photograph was supposed to be advertising and found the following here, which purports to be a response from Bruton Stroube to a similar query—

"Whatever one thinks of the impressiveness of the results, this was not an unusually expensive production. The image was produced, not for profit, but to use as an invitation to a paintball party we were throwing for some friends and clients. The components of the set already existed from a previous shoot (that, by the way, was profitable) and we simply used our staff to produce the image for the invite. It was quickly done and really was no big deal. We just thought it would be fun to post a movie on it. It was our first effort at posting a production movie and, frankly, I'm surprised at the large reponse we're getting. I guess it's a big world out there. Thanks for your inquiry. Tom" [Tom would be Tom Stringer, the studio manager —MJ]

Featured Comment by David [note: not David Emerick]: "I ran a commercial photography biz for almost twenty years. Dropped out of college to assist and started shooting on my own when I was 23. Shooting multiple elements for assembly was, thank god, a smaller part of my work. However, I did enjoy the challenges that were presented. On film, it was majorly critical to get the lighting, angles, etc. spot on before handing off to the assembler/retoucher. The point of that video...it looked like it was a fun job.

"The commercial business is, for sure, 95% prep. Hard work. The most interesting part of the job is problem solving, and every day is totally different, even if you're shooting on white for outline. The dreariest part of the commercial biz is not shown in that video. The hours sitting at a desk creating proposals, haggling with copyright issues, peripheral crap...especially in today's photo environment. Even with a rep you have to be involved to properly protect your interests. It's the reason I shut down my business—that, and a growing dissatisfaction with spending a lot of hours creating work that usually has a shelf life of a couple of months to a year, stuff that is destined for the circular file.

"Pre-pro details such as: The prop stylist can't find a 50X bigger than life stethoscope for Andre The Giant posing as a Pediatrician for an ad in Physician’s Holiday magazine, So, we have to build one ourselves. I enjoyed this end of the business, pursuing bizarre solutions to quirky problems, doing oddball things to fill my day. Much better than waiting for the boss to lean over my cubicle parapet to say, 'We need to talk about your TPS reports….'

"The one thing that people don't realize when looking into the commercial world is how dirty you get and the incredibly long hours that you have to work. If you leave that set to go home, it can get stale in many ways...you come back the next day and in the most strange ways, things aren't perfect anymore. Most times you have to keep going and it means frequent 12 to 15 hour days and more. I've done many 23 hour day shoots. Crash on the couch, and back at it as soon as the lab is open, looking at snips and test film while scraping crud out of my eyes and gagging on a piece of dried up cheese from the production meeting two days ago.

"I used to marvel at what the retouchers could do with several pieces of film, it was a hands-on art/craft and those guys earned their keep. A lot of the old school guys went out of biz when computers swept in, kind of sad to watch that happen. The younger ones got with the new tech and kept going.

"Not much has changed when shooting those elements destined for assembly. You can fudge a bit with Photoshop but when you take great care and shoot the elements properly, it's fairly easy to make things happen in Photoshop. And that care pays off in creating those seamless illusions. A lot of times the easiest way to make the job successful was to actually shoot it live, in real time—fun to try to choreograph that type of thing.

"I liked the blonde’s hairstyle, very Victoria Beckham, only better!"

My Two Answers

Having asked the two questions in the post "A Seasonal Game," below, and gotten so very many replies (136 as I write this), I thought I'd take the time to give my own answers.

I've thought about the first question for a full day now without coming up with anything much. True, if my circumstances were different I'd do some broad upgrading; but I can't really complain about what I have. I've always had rather minimal equipment (if I were forced to list my equipment in my signature file I'd be hooted off many a forum) and by my usual standards I've got an embarrassment of riches now. I thought of asking for double the number of readers I have on this site, but that's just greedy: I have great readers now, and lots of them, and I'm appreciative as can be for every one of you. I buy a few nice books for my collection every year, so I'm not in arrears in that enterprise.

So I think the answer for me would be: a new bookcase. That's the best I can come up with. Strange to say it out loud, but my bookcases are stuffed, and enough photo books are so oversized that they need special care and feeding. Not very exciting, but that's my answer.

Before Christmas, Thanksgiving
As for what I wish were made, I should preface any wish-list with gratefulness. We need to look back every now and then and reflect on just how far we've come. The photography marketplace was a sleepy, mature, saturated backwater twenty years ago and has now shifted to a vibrant, volatile cauldron of enterprise and R&D with a cascade of new technologies and wondrous products—mainly in just the last decade or so. There have been huge casualties, but there has also been enormous and amazing progress. For digital cameras to have so deeply supplanted film even at the highest reaches of the craft in such a short time is phenomenal, and the progress in things like scanners and printers and memory cards has kept pace.

I'm especially grateful for the range of excellent pigment printers, papers, and inks with their extraordinary longevity—these are crucial products and we're so very lucky that the peculiar combination of conditions existed that led to their development.

We have also gotten what we've asked for in many cases. I've been observing this field closely since I became editor of Photo Techniques in 1994, and I've paid attention when photographers have set out their most urgent wants. I recall very well the transitory eras in which our most pressing needs were, say, an affordable 6 MP DSLR, or high ISO performance good enough to compete with fast films, or better responsiveness in digital cameras, or decent digital output that didn't cost a fortune, or software to cope with RAW workflows, and so forth. One after another, we've gotten all these things, and more.

At any rate, we're in the middle of a Renaissance, no question, and we should reflect on our great good fortune every now and then, amidst all the clamoring of "Please, Sir, may I have some more?"

Wishlists
That said, in no particular order, here's what I'm waiting for, or what I wish the photo industry would provide, in ascending order of importance to me:

4. Sensors with higher DR and more graceful highlight clipping. This is getting better all the time, but, so far, only gradually; in particular, Fuji has addressed the problem at the chip level, albeit with somewhat mixed success. I hear tell that $25,000 digital backs have 14 stops of dynamic range...sounds nice. Not that I'd know.

3. Luminance-only sensors. The day will come when cameras will be cheap enough and the niche will be large enough to support at least one fabricator making a sensor not filtered for colors. All sensors start out being pure luminance (i.e., black and white) only—and the potential advantages of leaving one that way are alluring: greater resolution for any given pixel count and, perhaps, less need for anti-aliasing filters. The methodological and aesthetic advantages for photographers who want to work in monochrome will be equally significant. This is going to happen someday, but the "when" part is still tantalizing some of us. (Rumor has it that Leica was making progress down this road until the new management put the kibosh on it.)

2. More prime (single-focal-length) lenses. I'm beginning to think that this is partly a generational phenomenon, like the baby boomers' passion for stereo hi-fi systems. When I was younger, zooms were not only second-class citizens, but many of the best and most serious cameras either couldn't be fitted with zooms or only had one or two token entries in the category: that included rangefinder cameras such as the Leica M, medium format systems like Hasselblad and Bronica (which did have a zoom or two, just not very practical ones), and view cameras. Gradually, the huge amateur and hobbyist market's preference for zooms in 35mm systems led to their continuing development and to the high level of accomplishment we enjoy in the product category today. But the public's love affair with zooms is apparently so overwhelming that manufacturers are not even interested in providing prime lenses for those who prefer, or desire, or need them [Note: Pentax excepted], and this is restricting consumer choice for a certain subset of serious photographers. It's a worrisome trend in my opinion, and can be thought of as perhaps the opposite of the situation where pigment printers were concerned. In that product category, the stars aligned just so, at just the right time, to cause the products we really needed to be brought to market. In the case of prime lenses, conditions are conspiring against them.

1. Of course, the single most pressing need I see in the entire field of digital photography is for something a great many of you mentioned as your own top wish: a couple of choices in a large-sensor digicam. A considerable while ago now, Sigma looked like it was going to take the lead by announcing the DP-1, a compact APS-C sensor camera with a fixed 28mm-e ƒ/4 lens. I was worried at the time that too much would be riding on the specific choices made by Sigma for that camera's specs, and that the fickle buying public might doom the emerging category for some trivial reason, like the idea that the lens was too slow or something. (I understand this; enticing as the DP-1 looks to be, a more moderate lens angle, a faster lens speed, and, especially, sensor IS would be high among my own desires for such a camera.) But the DP-1 has, since then, sailed past its various proposed ship dates, and appears in danger of not making it to market at all—a development which is more disconcerting still.

The still-missing Sigma DP-1's sensor size compared to a typical digicam sensor

The  manufacturers have unilaterally decided not to support this category, and this is a serious problem for a minority of people in the marketplace who are real photographers—although, again, only for a certain subset of us. The fact is that not all pros and artists use, need, or want "blatant" cameras—big, obvious, high-powered pro cameras. Street photographers and photojournalist-style artists need something stealthier and more discreet, but that doesn't sacrifice image quality. For the time being we're relegated to entry-level DSLRs or the better small-sensor digicams, neither of which are more than inadequate stopgap substitutes for what we really need.

Most photographic products have essentially always been made for consumers. Even in the case of overtly "pro" cameras, the payoff for the makers is sales to aspirational (and wealthy) amateurs (traditionally thought to account for about half of pro camera sales, although the percentage might well be higher for the "pro" digital SLRs) and PR visibility (Nikon in particular traded on its reputation as the "professional's choice" for many years, with a beneficial trickle-down effect). Actual picture-producing photographers have simply had to go along for the ride, carried along on the coattails of what the larger market deigns to provide. But what happens when a real need is left unaddressed? Then, photography as a whole is the poorer. That's the situation we're currently facing with the lack of large-sensor compacts.

This has turned from an idle hope, to a pressing need, to a crying shame. The situation is deplorable, and increasingly urgent. I truly hope it will be addressed soon. And successfully, too, so that a new category is created and established—a category that is not represented by just one particular product, and that's robust enough that it won't be in danger of going away again on a whim or a bad-luck streak.

Nikons to come
But having written this little laundry list I can see I've failed to address the question—by saying too much about too many things but leaving out my actual specific and direct answer, like a political candidate.

So I'll close by saying that the product I'm currently most eager to have appear is a Nikon competitor to the Canon 5D. Nikon's new D3 will compete with Canon's star-crossed 1D Mk. III, going it one better in several regards. But I'm eager to see an FX-sensor Nikon that is spec'd lower than the D3 in every regard except image quality, in a more reasonably-sized and -priced body. Canon did this with the 5D, and has proven with the 5D that the market for such a camera is a good, solid niche. The Canon 5D is a far more important product for real photographers than its market share indicates.

From all appearances, it looks like the D3 sensor is going to prove too good to be restricted just to the D3. I expect the D3 will have to be on the market all by itself for at least eight months before such a 5D-fighter could appear, to prevent the latter from poaching D3 sales. But assuming it's en route, which seems a fair guess, it's going to be a honey when it gets here, next fall or in early in 2009. (I sure hope it includes sensor IS—come on, Nikon.) In any event, I can't wait.

_________________________

Mike

Featured Comment by Eamon Hickey: "Just seconding your comments on the lack of a large-sensor digicam/small decisive moment camera, whatever you want to call it. At this stage of the game, it's appalling. It makes me angry at the camera companies.

"I remember pressing the idea of such a camera on a friend who was then head of DSLR marketing for one of the big 2 way back in 2001. I knew his company wouldn't make one, and I didn't think anyone else would either for at least a couple of years, but I would have been amazed to know that, with 2008 nigh upon us, we still—really guys, still?—don't have one.

"I had thought myself inured to photo industry lameness, but this one really rankles."

Cracks in Canon's Armor

The gearhead gossip o' the day.

____________________

Mike  (Thanks to Nikos Razis)

A Seasonal Game

If anyone wants to play a little speculation game, I've got two questions for anyone who wants to play along:

1. If you could buy yourself one photography-related present this holiday season, what would it be?

and,

2. If you could ask Santa (anyone in the photo industry) to make one special present (product) just for you, what would that be?

Don't feel obligated to answer both.

_____________________

Mike

Un-Supersize Me

A few days ago, forbes.com published a list of the "Most Obese Cities in America," and the city I live near—Milwaukee—placed 17th. (I was glad, but surprised, that we weren't in the top ten.) One of the interesting theories about the cause of the obesity epidemic in America was advanced by Morgan Spurlock (of the movie Supersize Me) in his book version of the film, which is called Don't Eat This Book. Spurlock's contention is that one of the many reasons we eat too much of the calorie-dense, nutrient-deficient foods that are killing us is because we can't resist a deal. When a fast-food joint offers to "supersize" something—essentially, double the amount for a small added cost—it's a powerful incentive to buy for people whose money is scarce and needs to be stretched. Milwaukee also suffers from a high number of occupants living below the poverty line—26%, double the U.S. national average of 13%.

I catch myself falling for the same ruse sometimes when it comes to buying both music and books. The value of music is not measurable in terms of the minutes per dollar it costs, and I fully understand that...in my head. But I still balk at paying, say, full price for a 26-minute CD, no matter how fine the music, and I am susceptible to the bargain implicit in a particularly high minute-per-dollar ratio—this fine jazz CD, for instance, that I reviewed here, which offers the most great music for the lowest price of any CD I've purchased in at least a year. It's a splendid program and has a superlative minutes-per-dollar ratio.

I'm also susceptible to a bargain when it comes to photo books, too—even by the crude measure of weight per dollar. Consider this recent near-novelty title—actually a presentation of a serious photography collector's dog snapshots from last century. Granted, this is aimed at pet lovers, not people who are into photography (and has the cutesy little quotes in faux cursive script to prove it), but I love this little book flagrantly and unconditionally, if somewhat thoughtlessly—rather like my dog's love for me and my son, actually—despite its fundamentally unserious nature. I love dogs and I love old snapshot photographs—and I appreciate a bargain: hey, a sturdy hardback, an inch thick, decently printed, with a distinctive, decorative cover, for $10.17? Can't beat that with a rolled-up newspaper.

Patrick O'Hare, Sam's Club, Waterbury, Connecticut

Into the Slipstream
So here's my dilemma. I very much like the work of Patrick O'Hare, especially the pictures from the "Slipstream" project, and I recently realized, compliments of the 5B4 Photography and Books website, that there is a book of the Slipstream pictures (here is the 5B4 review). But...ouch, $65 for 20 pictures. Well, yes, I love the work. Yes, I would love to own the book. But here's a situation where my "Scots gene" activates to nag at me...it seems a lot, for a guy who lives in a city where one in four people lives in poverty.

But here's the thing. With photography, you can't always buy by the pound. It's best to buy what you want, isn't it? To be on the lookout for bargains, sure, but not be "supersize foolish." Better to have twenty pictures you really like and know you'll appreciate (as I know I'd appreciate having Slipstream) than forego it to turn to the false bargain of something merely more voluminous, but less interesting.

...Right?

I don't know. What would you do?

_________________________

Mike

UPDATE: I did end up buying Patrick's book, with some help from a kind reader who left a nice tip in the contribution jar. I'll give you my impressions once I receive it.

Prejudices #4: The All-Time Best Color Medium in Photography

There's no way to quantify such a thing, of course, but I believe I have seen more fine-art photographic prints than 99% of photographers or imaging professionals or 99.9% of the public at large. Although I don't see many now, for many years I made concerted efforts to see a broad range of original contemporary and historical prints. I have held in my hands thousands of original prints, including examples by a majority of history's greatest photographers, and seen tens of thousands more framed on walls.

And, strangely enough, there is a prejudice I first expressed in the pages of Photo Techniques in 1997 which I have not yet felt any reason to modify. It has two parts. The first part is that traditional photography beats digital hands-down when it comes to black-and-white. (By "traditional," I mean fine-art prints made from silver halide B&W film on high-quality fiber-based paper, with an optical enlarger, by an excellent craftsman who has expert judgment. What I said back then was that traditional black-and-white "doesn't need improving").

However, the corollary of my 1997 prejudice holds even more true today. Then, I said that digital was the "coming of age" of color photography. Now, I am willing to state the following: I think color prints made from digital files with pigment inkjet printers—again, assuming excellent equipment, fine materials, and an operator who is knowledgeable and skilled and has a fine eye—can be the very most beautiful color prints in the history of the medium. Other color media do have their felicities, their special beauties, and their places in my heart. But I think pigment inkjet prints come out #1.

While that's just my opinion, I will claim that it's an informed one.

_____________________

Mike

ADDENDUM: I should say first of all that back in '97 I was strongly influenced by Carl Weese's ideas, and I should credit him here as well.

Scanning the comments, I note that a number of arguments have come up that do typically come up when the topic of digital vs. traditional B&W is discussed. In the post above, I defined two of the three terms I used, but I didn't define "digital B&W." What I meant was "pure" (as opposed to "hybrid") digital B&W, meaning an inkjet print from a digital capture.

To summarize a few of the comments (in this and other, similar threads):

1. Hybrid methods work well, especially scanning from film negatives to be printed by inkjet; one person wishes we could have the opposite and make darkroom negatives from digital files.*

2. If you work really hard at every aspect of digital B&W (our friend Glimpse calls his odyssey "a hard slog") you can plausibly imitate silver prints.

3. The quality gap is narrowing and it's hard to tell the difference with prints under glass.

4. Digital B&W achieves greater Dmax than silver.

5. The situation is changing.

6. Digital is here to stay.

7. You can use many more fine papers with digital B&W and there are fewer baryta silver papers all the time.

8. Give it 2/5/25 more years and digital B&W will surpass traditional B&W.

9. Traditional B&W is more work (tell me about it).

10. A preference for traditional B&W is all, or partly, nostalgia.

I don't really disagree with any of that, but I also don't think any of it negates my current conclusions. "Pure" digital B&W is indeed a) workable (if you work at it), b) sometimes almost as good and maybe a little better in some ways, in some cases, sometimes (although one great print at a booth at a photo show doesn't validate a whole medium), and c) improving. But so what? I was talking about what's best. My judgment from an holistic viewpoint—looking at the whole gestalt of the one vs. the other—is that digital is limping along in second place. It's more compromised, requires too much effort and expense, and hasn't yet achieved its own distinctive aesthetic or integrity. The rare success doesn't mitigate the fact that success is rare.

For one thing, not until we get native luminance-only sensors is digital even competing on a so-called level playing field. What we do now is typically to take four photosites, filter two of them for green, one for red, and one for blue, take the luminance information from the two green photosites, extrapolate intermediary colors and values using computer algorithms, reconstruct four colored pixels, and then convert the colors back to shades of gray using one of a dozen or more apps, plugins, or Photoshop strategies. How Rube Goldberg can you get?

As to the nostalgia charge, guilty, if you consider "nostalgia" to be a profound appreciation for the accomplishments of the medium's greatest practitioners over a hundred-and-seventy year history. In fact, the absolute best B&W prints I have in my own collection are platinum prints made in about 1910 from glass plates. That, for the record, predates my own youth, and I have never exposed a glass plate or made a platinum print.

Finally, as to the "wait a few years" precaution: probably correct, but not a valid argument. I'm sure I read in 1973 that cars would be routinely getting 150 mpg by 2000, and that seemed a perfectly reasonable prediction back then. Some predictions are wrong, some predictions are right; but they're all just unfalsifiable speculation when you come right down to it. Maybe digital B&W will be great in a few years—or, maybe it won't be. We'll see.

Color me hopeful
I had hoped that rather than draw attention to my contentions regarding B&W that the topic of this post would be seen to be my contention about digital color. Martin Doonan says, "I would be interested in understanding the qualities that you...are looking at when making this assessment. Whilst not necessarily quantifiable, there must be specific features of prints that lead to such an assessment." Well, yes, but the plain answer is also the most profound: I look at the prints and the prints look better. The qualities? I think pigment prints are helped by the range of superlative papers they can be printed on and by their rather limited gamut (which prevents know-nothings from goosing the bejesus out of the colors, like they do with dyes and try to do with everything if they can). Pigment prints have a richness, depth, and subtlety that I find very pleasing. Picking up on what Carl Dahlke said (and on what Carl Weese said a decade ago), digital color printing is inherently more repeatable, more controllable, and more malleable than traditional color ever was, and that enables more people to make finer prints more easily. Carl D.'s point that it also encourages more focus on the picture as opposed to what he called the "janitorial" work is also an advantage.

Most of all, what I respond to is color purity. The late Bertram Miller did a great deal of experimental work with what he called "arrastres"—roughly, Spanish for "drags" or "that which gets dragged along"—by which he meant the tendency of dye layers in color materials to cross-contaminate. He demonstrated the problem in both reversal films and chromogenic papers. Previously, the undisputed champ for color purity in color media was dye transfer, and I will have to defer to Ctein, who is of course a master dye transfer printer, to tell us how dye and digital stack up against each other with regard to color purity. But there is a practical aspect to technology that can't be denied. It's all well and good to say you can get marvelous B&W digital as long as you shoot with a $25,000 digital back, but that's like saying you can get 150 mpg as long as you're willing to drive a car made of balsa wood on the salt flats while wearing a Spandex suit. I.e., it's nice to know it's possible, but it's still not practical. Dye transfer is a tremendously difficult process denied to all but a few adroit and dedicated practitioners—in fact, you can fit all the dye transfer printers in the world into a large living room (they've pretty much done that, too). Whereas color purity that is either slightly better, just as good, or almost as good (again, I'm just the Line Judge—I defer to the Umpire, Ctein, to make the actual call on that), is available to anyone with a decent DSLR and a good $650 pigment inkjet printer.

To say I am astonished by the progress of both color digital sensors and inkjet printer technology over the past decade and a half is an understatement. Then, the technology was barely tolerable and hugely expensive. Now, it is widely accessible even to fairly casual users, and it achieves results that virtually define a new pinnacle of color photographic technology. "What's next" is a tantalizing prospect, but what we've got now is what's really amazing.

_______________________

*Actually, this was already done, in the 1990s, by Rob Steinberg of Palladio. As I recall, he had a separate company that printed digital files to mylar on an Iris printer for traditional platinum/palladium printing. Although not unsuccessful, it sapped too much of his time and he had to kill it. I remember that Paul Schranz was also working along these lines in the '90s, although I don't recall his methodologies.

Featured Comment by MikeF: "I think one point that's been overlooked in most of the comments here is the affordability in both money and time that pigment inkjet printers now allow. I'm unlikely to ever be 'the best' printer nor can I realistically aim at producing the 'best ever prints.'

"Nonetheless, I have just purchased a lower-end pigment inkjet printer (the Canon Pro9500), some paper and ink, and taught myself how to use it. I have produced what look, to me, to be very nice prints indeed. I'm quite happy to frame them and put them on my wall and have done so.

"Until now, I've never really been happy with largish-sized prints from my photos as I've never been able to find a lab (traditional or digital) that's proved able to print to my satisfaction at a price I can regularly afford. I've had some very expensive good results and innumerable infinitely more expensive bad results: cheapish, but unusable, despite multiple iterations with assorted labs each one of which cost further (wasted) money.

"Resolving to address this, I took the money I'd budgeted for a DSLR upgrade, decided to buy the printer instead—and with a few week's study and experiment I've been able to regularly and consistently produce prints that I find pleasing and that others do as well (judging by the number of people asking me to make prints for them).

"That, to  me, is just wonderful! Really good prints, at decent sizes, on a variety of excellent papers and that is affordable to anyone with a budget (in time and space and cost) affordable by most enthusiastic amateur photographers.

"For mine, that's a technology well worth having.

"As to color versus black and white: I've had great results with both, but have found that my black and white from film scans works a lot better than B&W from original digital capture. But that's just me, in my current state of learning. I'm sure if I worked at it I could do a lot better from digital capture. However, most of my black and white would be captured on film anyway, for other reasons. (I like rangefinder cameras but my old M3 fits my budget, while a new M8 just doesn't.)"

'In Drawing'

Exercise rider, Keeneland Racetrack. Leica M6, 50mm Summicron, Ilford XP-2.

I received a couple of questions about a term I used the other day when I said a picture was "in drawing." As far as I know this is not an optical term, or at least I never use it that way. It's a term from Renaissance art. The idea of being 'in drawing' or 'out of drawing' was common in representational art at least through the 19th century, although for obvious reasons it seldom comes up today. 'Drawing' in this sense meant rendering something sensically— with its surfaces arranged and presented two-dimensionally so that the known structure and the volume of the object presented could be deduced from its surface. This was considered so important that some painters are seen doing violence to proportion so they could render things in drawing, as in the detail from Ingres here in which the poor woman's right upper arm seems to be about six inches longer than her left upper arm.

When photography came along, one aspect of it that was most shocking to prevailing sensibilities was that it was utterly serene about rendering well-known objects radically out of drawing. Willy-nilly, it could show human heads at such an angle that the features seemed bizarre; it foreshortened and exaggerated; a hand might look like a claw. It could catch a view of a man walking that made him look like he had only one leg. The simple visual idea of cropping off an arm or a head because it fell outside of the frame, which the camera did casually, seems never to have occurred to Poussin or Raphael. As Peter Galassi and others have pointed out, some of these radical sunderings of convention began showing up in paintings very soon after photography’s invention. Degas, one of history's master draughtsmen, quickly adopted photographic visual quirks in his paintings and drawings, including one-legged walkers and radical crops.

-

Nowadays, of course, showing something out of drawing is a way to make ordinary photographs interesting. It adds mystery and amplifies photography’s undertone of surreality. Or, it might just be mystifying. In my photograph at the top of this post (solidly in the category of "significant failures"), a horse fighting its reins is tossing its head up and away from the camera. The horse's head in this picture doesn’t look much like a horse's head; in fact it doesn't look much like anything we think we’ve seen. Moments like this, frozen on film, make us aware of how much of actual visual experience we choose to disregard.

______________________

Mike

Happy Thanksgiving

Here in the U.S., on this day, we have the famous Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which often features balloons of popular cartoon characters. Which, this year, will not include a certain duck.

I wish I could also share Mitch Hedberg's riff on turkey, but I can't find a clip of it. All right.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving!

___________________________

Mike

(P.S. I don't know why the last 8 seconds of this clip refuse to play, but, for the record, it's supposed to say, "The balloon was last seen traveling east at 15 mph. Please contact Aaron Johnson at whattheduck.net if found. Happy Thanksgiving.")

ADDENDUM: Here's the Hedberg clip. Thanks to Steve R.!

Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 18–55mm ƒ/3.5–5.6G VR

In case you hadn't noticed (although people who've been waiting won't see how that's possible), the Nikon D300 is now in stock at major vendors and is shipping to customers, at prices ranging from $1800 to $2000 in the U.S.

Nikon has also announced this new VR lens for delivery beginning next month, for a price of just $200. It's a VR version of the kit lens first introduced with the D50.

This seems like a significant product, if an unglamorous one. Canon has had a similar inexpensive all-purpose "kit" zoom with IS for a couple of months now, and Nikon's lineup was considerably more bereft of standard lenses with VR than Canon's was. The new lens weighs 9.3 oz. (265g) and takes Nikon-standard 52mm filters. It's a bit fatter and longer than Canon's version, but not by much. It goes a long way toward addressing the continuing, and regrettable, lack of sensor IS/VR in Nikon bodies.

In general, the newest "kit" lenses—meaning, the economy standard zooms—in a number of makers' lineups are surprisingly good lenses, with top honors probably being tipped in Olympus's direction (but, again, not by much). This VR all-rounder will be the must-have lens on a D40 or D40x and for those looking for a lens of moderate weight for a D80, and it will certainly serve nicely for walk-around duty on many a larger Nikon DSLR.

________________________

Mike

Ernie

Tony Mendoza and Ernie

Incidentally, while we're on the subject of cats, I'm repeating myself, but there does exist one indisputably great body of work with a cat as the main subject. I'm speaking (of course) of Tony Mendoza's Ernie: A Photographer's Memoir.

If first "met" Ernie when I was an impoverished student. Kathleen Ewing, who is now the President of AIPAD (the Association of Photography Art Dealers), used to let me come into her gallery (then in Georgetown, D.C.) and look through the portfolios from previous shows she kept stored away, as long as I kept out of the way. One of them contained loose 16x20 prints of Tony Mendoza's cat pictures. The memory of that set has never left me. They remain the only really distinctive cat pictures I've ever seen.

Chronicle Books had the good sense to make a book out of the work in 2001. I could post a link to the Amazon page, but Tony has a link himself on his Ernie website, and why should I get the finder's fee when it could go directly to the artist? So if you feel like ordering the book, order it from Tony's site instead. Worth having, though, even if you don't love cats.

____________________

Mike

Featured Comment by Bob Dales: "Not being a cat person I don't seek them out. But I'm okay if they're in the scene. My one and only cat pix:

"Now about my dog photos...."

Other Peoples' Chickens

On television there's a political talk show—let's call it "The McDorklin Group"—that usually features something like one conservative, four Nazis, and one nice, mild-mannered lady from Newsweek. They sit around a table every week shouting at each other all at once and competing to see who can interrupt the token female in the most obnoxious way. The total effect always makes me itch to turn the sound off, until I realize that without the sound there's no point to the show at all.

At the end of every show, McDorklin, the moderator, who has a gruff voice and a speech impediment, invites all of the participants to offer a short summary of their views on a particular topic of his choice offered in the form of a question. After they've all answered, everyone looks at McDorklin, who screams, "WRONG!!!" and proceeds to give the Word from on high.

This autocratic form of anti-debate was lampooned on "Saturday Night Live" once.

I think of this sometimes as I compile this site. Being the moderator, I can in effect "shout down" any opposing views, and it's tempting, sometimes. But seeing as I open the website to many contributors and commenters, I have to respect that they have their own points of view and there's nothing that makes mine any better than theirs. By keeping McDorklin in mind I can resist the temptation to—in effect—bellow "WRONG!!!" and steamroll opposing viewpoints.

In this case, however, I'd like to offer one humble, simple thought about "kinks and fetishes" that Ctein brought up yesterday. And that is, that there's a real difference between our own work any everybody else's work.

Ctein makes this distinction, when he writes about "...the ones who think all of the rest of us should be enamored of their chicken." The problem resides not in having strong views, but in imposing them on everybody else. And if you can't discriminate between the two, you're probably in trouble.

I don't know about you, but I have very strong feelings about what I want my work to look like. Fetishes, kinks—you can also call such things values, if you want to. Or allegiances and guiding principles. You might label it "taste." (I've been calling them prejudices, in a recent series of postings, with a nod to Mencken.) And what good is any artist without strong views and distinctive taste? Not much, it seems to me. Aren't kinks and fetishes what allow artists to work?

(As for Ctein's pink flower, methinks he doth protest too much. "Sue me"? Isn't that a tad defensive? I'm not gonna sue him, but perhaps he realizes deep down that the pink flower takes a shuffling half-step sideways into the cornfield.)

I'm not above imposing my own prejudices on other peoples' random-ass pictures. After all, there's a reason why my values are values to me. But there's another side of this coin, and we need to be very aware of it if we want to get enjoyment from other peoples' work—and that's that you have to be willing to suspend your own prejudices and take other artists at their word, if you think they deserve it. Once I think somebody has their own thing to say, I'll try to push my own fetishes to the side and be open-minded to the work. It's not always easy; I do it...imperfectly. It's always something to work on. But if you don't, how can you like anything but the same kind of thing you do yourself? And that's a pretty limited way to approach a whole medium.

___________________

Mike

Prejudices #3: Traces of Chaos

In one of his comments to his "Photo-Fetishist's League" post, Ctein mentioned compositional fetishists, specifically the rectilinear subgroup:

While I couldn't possibly list all the fetishes I know of in a short column, I'm amazed I neglected to mention the compositional and anti-noise fetishists. The latter were, in fact, what got DD-B and I discussing this. I have some real sympathy for the Rectilinear folk, as it's one of my favored chickens. Clearly it's a kink of mine, but I'd never impose it on others or use it as a primary to evaluate their work. I think there was a column of Mike's several months back where this came up.

Indeed there was. You might want to look over the original post, and note that the issue is addressed in Ctein's "Featured Comment" at the bottom, below the main text. The point is simply that my original picture has some skewed or non-rectilinear lines in it. A commenter had disapproved of the picture because of this, and Ctein helpfully supplied a corrected version, while at the same time supportively dismissing the need for it (thanks, Ctein).

There's been something that's been nagging at me ever since that issue came up, and it finally dawned on me what it is: personally, I do not like rectilinear photographs. I choose those words advisedly: I actively dislike rectilinear precision in pictures. I prefer the presence of a little tilt, a few skewed lines, a touch of perspective distortion—some trace of a lenticular origination. Why? Well, I really have never thought about it much...but I suppose it's just because rectitude seems fiddly, formal, fastidious, picky, punctilious.

I'm going to guess it's the same reason that I like little anomalies in pictures, detritus along the edges (see my little essay "This Bothers Me"), objects "out of drawing," photographic artifacts, and the like. All these things save pictures from being too...well, "anal" is the pop argot, but I dislike that term. Let's say compulsive instead.

So, am I being compulsively anti-compulsive? A fair question. But:

Perfectionism is un-photographic.

In the picture below, for instance, some viewers react negatively to the tilt of the horizon. But that's what makes the picture work for me—that and the sun-disk flare impinging on the blackline at the top. Without those two elements, I don't think I ever would have even printed this.

Note that these prejudices I'm reporting on are just mine. That is, I make no claim that they ought to be Universal. Ctein can go on goring his rectilinear chicken, and anybody else who differs with me on this just differs with me, is all. Prejudices are personal.

Be sure to consider this in light of the post above this one, too.

_____________________

Mike

Cat Photographer's Anonymous

Since Ctein actually posted a picture of a flower—a pink flower, no less—I'm going to use that as an excuse to sneak this on to the blog. This is Ginny, the latest addition to my brother and sister-in-law's household.

Not only is it a picture of a kitten, it conforms to just about every "rule" of composition you can think of. Clear visual center (the eyes)—rule of thirds (bang on)—limited, harmonious color palette, predominantly cool, with warm accents (the three gold dots)—selective focus (note those razor-sharp whiskers...why is it that so many people on digital forums say you can't achieve selective focus with "small" APS-C sensors? I must be ig'nant, because I do it all the time). Note how the "lines" created by the fingers and the kitten's legs follow the direction she's looking.

I'm so ashamed...given my genial loathing for flower pictures and my philosophical contempt for clichés, how can I even turn the camera on a kitty? Granted, she's a member of the family, but still, I think I'm going to have to come to terms with my proclivity to photograph cats from time to time...is there a "cat photographer's anonymous"?

6 MP, ISO 400, 1/30th at ƒ/2.8.

____________________

Mike

Featured Comment by David: "Yeah..nice, pretty cat. But what the commercials don't convey are the litter boxes, the fleas, the hairballs they choke up on your pillow...If you look carefully for the deeper meaning in that photo you will find that it is an ironic treament and the significance of the three lights in the background suggests that the army of good has lost to the army of evil. They are out of focus and this can only imply that God's time has come and gone...So, I'd title it: 'Facade of Certain House Chores and Furniture Replacement.' "

Featured Comment by mph: "You know what it really needs? A humorous, ungrammatical caption in a big, white Impact font."

Mike replies: Something like this?

I think I've now ruined my reputation forever....

Reply by mph: Actually, I was thinking of something like this...

...But, yeah, yours works too.

The Photo-Fetishist League*

By Ctein

Terry Pratchett made this distinction between erotic and kinky: "It's the difference between using a feather and using a chicken."

(All right, all you nasty little boys and girls, I'm going to sit here patiently till you stop thinking those dirty thoughts. Nasty, nasty, nasty!)

Then there are those I deem fetishists—they're the ones who think all of the rest of us should be enamored of their chicken.

Photography has always had its fetishists, who not only embrace one small aspect of photographic quality and pursue it to the exclusion of all others, but are fervent in their belief that we should all follow in their feverish footsteps. Don't get me wrong; I'm just fine with erotic or kinky. But I love my own chicken, thank you very much, and I don't need you repeatedly knocking on my door waving pamphlets and inquiring if I've embraced the Love of the Great Pullet and insinuating I will burn in Hell (or at least remain wholly unsatisfied) if I don't.

Photography has always had fetishists. The good old analog days gave us Orthodox Zonies. I've got nothing against the Zone System, but these folks evaluate every photograph by how completely it utilizes the range from Zone I to Zone IX and spend more time calibrating film/developer/paper combination than making interesting photographs. The Weston Gallery always has some examples of their labors on its walls. Think of perfectly-tuned pianos playing Three Blind Mice and you'll get the idea.  O.Z.'s think every medium is a nail for their hammer. They've even promoted Zone System for color negatives, and it would take a whole 'nother column to explain the ways that's wrong.

Then there are Full Framers, Filmcan Alchemists, and Manual Modeans, among others. Always it's a monomoniacal focus on one aspect of photography that's run amok in their brains.

The digital age has brought forth whole new flavors of fetishes. The DOF Diffraction Limiters. (Heaven forbid a lens should ever be stopped down below its optimum aperture...as if we didn't do that all the time with film.) The Big Sensorists. (Ohmigawd, you just can't make a decent photo with a small sensor, you just can't. As Scotty would have said, ya kenna break the laws o' physics.) The Mad Aberrationites. (Coma, chromatic aberrations, blue fringes, oh god, my eyes, how they burn, aeeeeeeiii.) The Full Histogrammerians. (Waiver in your vigilance and a gap will appear in your histogram, and demons will fly though it, and we will all be doomed. Note to apocalyptics: learn the difference between data and information.)

Why this flowering plague? DD-B suggests that in the analog days, your typical obsessive could only analyze a few aspects of a photograph. You had to have some serious experimental chops to collect much real data, and the folks with said skills tended to understand the import (or lack thereof) in what they were measuring.

Digital data and computer software let folks analyze photos six ways to Sunday without any sophisticated knowledge of what it is they're looking at. They can easily determine that Photo A has a higher Flummox Coefficient than Photo B, and there you have food for a fetish to feast upon should the hapless soul be so inclined. Photo-fetishists haven't gotten more fetishistic, they just have so many new and easier kinks they can develop fetishes about.

Do as you've always done. Argue with them politely until you're bored (I can promise you they'll never get to that point). Then slam the door in their faces and go back to making the kind of photos that you want to make. Take care of your chicken and the feathers will take care of themselves.

I made this with a 35mm point-and-shoot. Full auto mode. On-camera flash. Lens stopped down way beyond its sharpest point. By-the-book processing. Cropped the neg. I like it enough that it's part of my permanent portfolio. Go ahead; sue me.

_______________________

Ctein

*For those who might not know the reference, The Photo League was a quasi-Communist organization formed by Berenice Abbott and Paul Strand in New York City in 1936 to encourage the photographic documentation of worker activities and to provide pictures of strikes, protests, and boycotts to the radical press. The Photo League had a large membership that included many of the top photographers of the day, such as Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, Marion Post Wolcott, and Ansel Adams. The Photo League was investigated by the House Committee for Un-American Activities in the 1940s, which resulted in Paul Strand leaving the U.S. to live as an expatriate in France. —Ed.

Featured Comment by Michel: "Let's not forget the bokeh fetishists, shan't we? ;) Ctein, you must be commended for your ability to kick in the nuts all the nuts who swear only by X, Y, or Z. My favorite demonstration of yours is the side-by-side comparison of condenser v. diffusion in Post Exposure: best proof that photographers kill each other for cherry stems."

Featured Comment by David A. Goldfarb: "Is the print of the pink flower a dye transfer? I know you don't exclusively print by dye transfer, but I don't see how someone could have the patience for dye transfer if the process didn't have some fetish value. —David A. Goldfarb, albumen fetishist (I'll take the egg, you can keep the chicken)."

Vanishing Point by David Plowden

Reviewed by Geoffrey Wittig

W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. $63 (U.S.)

Amazon U.S. link

Amazon U.K. link

David Plowden may be the best photographer you never heard of. He began his career as an assistant to O.Winston Link in 1958, briefly studied with Minor White and Nathan Lyon, mentored with Walker Evans, and subsequently followed his own path from 1962–2005. His work is exclusively black & white, and might be described as lyrical documentary. The sheer depth and volume of his output is remarkable, including more than 20 books. Plowden has focused on locomotives, steamboats, bridges, factories, barns, small towns and rural remnants. This may strike some readers as dull fare; no lofty mountains, no celebrities, no mayhem or nudity. But for folks of (ahem) a certain age—say, over 50—this body of work is an intricately detailed portrait of the world we grew up in. For you youngsters, this was the world your parents and grandparents knew; back when America (rather than China) was manufacturer to the world. Plowden's work has a great deal in common with the best FSA photography; but he kept at it for nearly fifty years.

Vanishing Point is David Plowden’s recently published retrospective. This is an imposing book; at 352 pages, it's almost too big to read without setting it on a table. As an example of the printing arts, it is simply beautiful. The duotone photo reproductions are excellent, with deep blacks, subtle tonality and well-preserved shadow detail. Only the finest varnished tri-tone stochastic printing (barely) exceeds this level of quality. The accompanying text is clean and readable, elegantly set in a modern digital typeface. This is a pleasant surprise, and addresses one of my pet peeves. Digital typesetting has freed book designers from the constraints of hot metal and photo typesetting. Perversely, most modern books use these digital methods to (badly) imitate low-end offset printing circa 1972. Expensive art books are sadly not immune to this repellent practice. Vanishing Point’s typesetting by contrast is superb, right down to the ligatures and text (lining) numerals missing from ordinary books. A subtle point, but obvious to the discerning eye. The list price of $100 may seem steep, but discounts are the rule, and it surely provides more value than three of the overpriced softcovers crowding the shelves at Borders or B&N.

The book’s introduction is a detailed chronology of Plowden’s life, describing how a youthful obsession with steam locomotives and trains sparked his artistic career. His work gradually took the form of an extended lament as the last steam engines disappeared, followed inexorably by the Great Lakes steamboats, steel plants, and prairie farms he subsequently photographed. Plowden’s final project was A Handful of Dust, published in 2006. In it his austere prose and photographs documented the silent demise of once thriving farm towns he had visited decades earlier. In the summer of 2005 he quit photographing for good, despairing at the disappearance of his subject matter.

The photographs in Vanishing Point are grouped by subject matter and theme, beginning with steam locomotives in the late 1950’s, progressing through Lake steamers and tugboats, steel mills and bridges, to prairie farms and small towns. The 280 duotones include his iconic "greatest hits" such as "Phoebe Snow, Scranton, PA" (right) and "Statue of Liberty from New Jersey," with many less well-known gems. Plowden’s photos are meticulously crafted; he spent two years at an Indiana steel plant puzzling out how to preserve detail in both shadows and incandescent molten iron. His compositions are conventional, but carefully judged. Many of his early railroad photos include men; as his work matures you see fewer people, but a sense of honest blue-collar work and human craft is pervasive. In his late work, abandoned grain elevators and empty storefronts attest to a way of life that is dead and gone. Viewed sequentially, the images illustrate the apogee and long decline of America’s industrial and agricultural heartland. Plowden's real concern is the human touch; how honest workmanship and ambition transformed heartland America into something approaching art. And how that art has turned to dust after decades of neglect.

In a postscript Plowden describes his equipment, technique, film & paper choices in detail. He has always done his own darkroom printing. His expressed goal has been to portray his subject as directly as possible, without craft calling undue attention to itself. This self-effacing, modest approach is exactly appropriate to the subject. It's also the diametric opposite of the monumental, "look at me" style employed by artists like Edward Burtynsky or Andreas Gursky.

David Plowden by Hank Koshollek

I think the character of David Plowden’s work could be summarized as Walker Evans without the condescension. If you love Robert Frank, you’ll probably find Plowden too gentle and sympathetic. Not enough irony. If Gursky’s your thing, you may even find Plowden boring. But if you’ve ever looked in regret at a shuttered train station, or if you regard Wal-Mart as the Anti-Christ, you should have a look. This beautiful volume is the definitive summation of a worthy career. It may inspire you to check out Plowden’s earlier books—more than twenty in all, four of them still in print.

______________________

Geoff Wittig is a small town family physician with a passionate photography obsession. He spends most of his free days hiking and photographing—mostly rural landscapes—and sells enough prints to pay for ink and paper.

Featured Comment by Arthur Gross: "There's also a retrospective show going on now at Catherine Edelman gallery in Chicago to celebrate his 75th birthday and the release of the book.  Plowden is a wonderful printer, and quite a number of images from the book are in the show as well. Highly recommended for Plowden fans or fans of B&W photography in general."

Looking East: Portraits by Steve McCurry

Reviewed by Bojidar Dimitrov

Phaidon, 2006. $26.37 (U.S.)

Amazon U.S. link

Amazon U.K. link

Even if you've never heard the name Steve McCurry, you've surely seen at least one of his pictures. Remember the penetrating green eyes of the young Afghan girl on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic? That gaze full of fear and curiosity that wouldn't let you put down the magazine? National Geographic calls this image its most recognized photograph, and naturally it has found its way into the book Looking East, Portraits by Steve McCurry. But, astonishingly, the book contains several other images with similar impact, so you might end up asking yourself "Why hasn't this image made it? Or that one? Or that other one?"

Looking East is an over-sized and luxurious book that showcases a portfolio of almost 60 portraits by the widely known photographer. Every image is special, each pair of eyes grabs you and draws you into the page, tells you half of its life-story in a photographic instant. By looking through this book you'll travel to Afghanistan, Burma, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Tibet. You will meet school-girls and nomad boys, pilgrims and monks, coal miners and shepherds. You will visit villages and festivals and get your feet wet in the monsoon waters.

Having made 57 trips to India alone, Steve McCurry knows southeast Asia closely and personally, almost intimately. He's traveled to areas and met people far off the tourist paths, and it is the portraits of these fascinating people fill the pages of Looking East. To me these are not purely photojournalistic images, however. While the people are in no way models, they look posed and their clothing and the image backgrounds were probably deliberately chosen. While I feel that these "manipulations" are very discrete and surely worthwhile, some viewers of McCurry's work object to them. Apparently it is okay when a studio shot in the western world takes several hours to produce, but even the smallest interference with the reality of distant or more exotic locations is deemed unacceptable. I invite you to judge for yourselves if choosing a fitting background or throwing a scarf around a woman's shoulders in order to underline the features of her face constitute a breach with reality, or if they are the mark of a master photographer who by changing only a few minor details turns an ordinary scene into a memorable image.

Steve McCurry, Self-Portrait

In closing I should note that a small number of the images have been enlarged a bit too much in order to fill the large book pages, but the artistic value of these few far outweighs their technical qualities, and I wouldn't want to miss out on any one of them. In fact, the images in Looking East are so powerful, don't be surprised if after looking at the book you feel compelled to visit Southeast Asia yourself.

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Bojidar Dimitrov is a hobby photographer who used to obsess about optics and photographic equipment, but as can be seen from his blog, he is currently focusing on making better and more expressive pictures. Bojidar is probably best known for his Pentax K-Mount Web Page.

Featured Comment by Christopher Lane: "Steve McCurry’s wonderful and evocative photographs are also featured on the cover of each CD in the Bach Canata Pilgrimage series by the Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, Orchestre Révolutionaire et Romantique under Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Find out more about these recordings here. Even if you don’t like classical music, the covers are an amazing example of great portraiture."

If the samples are any indication, sounds like some pretty rousing renditions of the cantatas, too. Gardinar always struck me as being in the best tradition of the English amateur, like Beecham, or for that matter William Henry Fox Talbot. —MJ

Quote of the Day

I do almost all of my photographing in an area no farther than a 20-minute drive from my home in Newburyport. To the east lies the Atlantic Ocean and Plum Island with its miles of unspoiled sandy beaches. To the south lies the Great Marsh with its salt-water marshlands that stretch for miles parallel to the coastline. To the west lies Maudslay State Park with its acres of beautiful woodlands and fields that once formed a private estate. To the north flows the Merrimack River, a wide tidal river that once brought clipper ships to the harbor of Newburyport and today provides a habitat for bald eagles that once again breed along the river.

I visit these places over and over again. The better I know a place, the more subjects I see.

-                                                                                       —John Geesink

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Say It Ain't So, Soth

It seems he was serious.

Alec Soth (or Devendra Banhart) by Donna Kelly

It's now been a whole month and a half since the last post went up on Alec Soth's great blog. The final entry read in part:

I’m hitting the road and hanging up the blog. ...send me a letter—I’m sick of email.

It's not like he doesn't have other things to do—he's got an actual career as a photographer going on, after all, and I suppose that can be allowed to take precedence. I have to admit I've come close a time or three to taking a job selling cars and hanging up the whole blog schtick myself. It's not good making $4.76 at a time.

(Argh! Digression again! What is wrong with me?)

Soth's blog was a great melding of art and poetry, an oasis of calm and good temperament. It shall be missed. I hope it's not gone for good, but 'til such time as it might return, R.I.P.

Devendra Banhart (or Alec Soth) by Lauren Dukoff

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Mike

(Note: This is a pretty arcane connection—and an even more arcane joke—if you haven't been reading Alec's blog. Just so you won't be mystified, the last link will take you to an entry in which he names various people that people tell him he looks like, the last of whom is "psychadelic folkie" Banhart, who he calls his "bizarro doppelgänger." Given the outlandish picture above, which I found on Banhart's website, no argument here with the "bizarro" part! —Mike)

The Horror—The Horror!

Where is that shrieking coming from?

I've long been conflicted about showing negative examples harvested from the web in this space. I think I'd be within my moral rights to present really bad pictures as cautionary notes concerning what not to do, or what lens not to buy, etc.—the "fair use" doctrine does allow for the reproduction of other peoples' pictures without their permission for the purpose of comment and criticism. But it seems a rather nasty thing to do. What if the person who took the picture should happen upon their "work" held up for ridicule here? I wouldn't like it if someone did it to me. So why do it to others? Many times I've found myself halfway through writing a post using found examples of really bad photographs, and I've just thought, naaah, can't do that. It's not that it wouldn't be right; it's that it wouldn't be kind.

Here's one such example, however, that I believe I can countenance. This is a section comprising a third (or so) of a horizontal picture of a pretty and pleasant young woman on an autumn walk. You'll have to take my word for this, but there's nothing at all wrong with the in-focus part of the picture—the woman. She's sharp and detailed and her color is fine, and, really, she's a perfectly lovely subject for a picture. (I'm sure the doggie is nice, too. I like doggies.) But the background, which fills perhaps 2/3rds of the frame, is a perfect—or perfectly awful—illustration of why some of us care about bokeh, the way lenses render the objects in the picture that are out of the depth-of-field, or "out of focus."

Click on the image for a slightly larger and thus even more vivid look, if you have the stomach for it.

I do know that many people (their numbers seem to be dwindling now) are contemptuous of the whole idea of bokeh. They don't see the point in paying attention to it, or they think it's overly fastidious to care about it, or they think it's somehow a disreputable topic for conversation. This little detail is not the worst bokeh I've ever seen—well, not the absolute worst—but it illustrates why those of us who care about the issue do care. It's the visual equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard or John Tesh singing. I'd rather walk around with my eyes crossed for half an hour than look at this on my wall.

A concern for bokeh can certainly be taken too far—mea culpa—but when you get right down to it, it's really the avoidance of a negative we're talking about, as opposed to the cultivation of a positive. I don't know how anyone except perhaps the young woman's husband or parents could look at that picture and not be consumed by the horrible things going on in the background. You might as well have an axe murder going on back there.

If this happens to be your picture, my apologies. I'm not making fun of you—just your lens. And I won't tell if you won't.

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Mike (Thanks to O.G.)

Featured Commentby Bill Bresler: "Mike, I've got a confession to make. Quite a few years ago, some guy posted a wonderful photo on a Leica bulletin board, or whatever the heck it's called now. It was one of the finest photos of human interaction that I had ever seen. I would have been thrilled and overjoyed to make such a photo. Heck, Cartier-Bresson would have thrilled and overjoyed to have made it. At any rate, some Leica-weenie (I can say this, I've owned and used an M4 and an M4-P) criticized the bokeh, another L-W piled on, then the two L-Ws got into a screaming hissy fit about who was the better judge of bokeh.

"At that point I signed off and never went back again. I've never worried about bokeh since then. Sold the Leicas, too.

"I like T.O.P. anyway."

Mike replies: You're right, of course, Bill. When the game is actually on, none of the details matter much.