The Online Photographer

Random Excellence: Emilio Morenatti's Blog

Emilio Morenatti, Afghan Niurkhan, 11, stands next to his tent in Afshar refugee camp in Kabul, Afghanistan. Niurkhan who lost his parents two months ago during fighting between coalition forces and Taliban militants fled his village in Helmand province to seek shelter in the refugee camp in southern Kabul. (AP Photo)

Emilio Morenatti is based in Pakistan and covers Central Asia for the AP. You can see a blog of his recent work at the Denver Post. Emilio was named 2008 Newspaper Photographer of the Year by PoYI.

Notice how effectively he removes himself from his pictures.

Mike
(Thanks to Jim Hart)

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Is What The World Needs a Really Good 3-MP Digital Camera?

According to dpreview.com's "Timeline" (a valuable historical record, by the way), the very last 3-megapixel camera introduced to public sale was the 3.3-MP Kodak EasyShare C300, in February of 2005. And that was a downmarket point-and-shoot aimed at the mass market.

That was more than four years ago now. In the meantime, chip architecture, processing, and camera features have all improved. Imagine, if you will, what it would be like if a camera manufacturer were to make a really good 3-MP pocket camera now—one that had every feature professional photographers need: a fast frame-rate, raw capability, robust throughput, excellent low-light sensitivity, razor-sharp responsiveness, and an excellent viewfinder and lens(es).

Whoa, back up, back up, I hear you saying. Isn't 3 megapixels on the dust-heap of history for a reason? What in the world would I need a 3-MP camera for, anyway?

For the web, of course.

One things about digital photography hobbyists that consistently amazes me (there are several, but let's leave the others for another time) is the importance of the megapixel race to marketing on the one hand, and the number of people who say they never make prints on the other. Briefly put, if a digital photographer never make prints, what in the world does he need a lot of megapixels for?

In Kirk Tuck's April 5 essay "A Tourist In Your Own Town," he makes the case that sooner or later, and probably sooner, print advertising is going to go the way of film. Ads will be visual on video and electronic on the web and handheld devices. "According to Ad Age, Adweek and the Wall Street Journal, the relentless march of advertising to the web has accelerated at a rapid clip during the last year," Kirk writes. "We are on the cusp of print advertising capitulating to digital. In a year or two the remaining traditional magazines will sit on lonely shelves and many of their trusty brethren will have been consigned to webmag* status. As photographers we have to understand that mastery of image files and the ability to summon tons of megapixels into the fray will no longer be effective barriers to entry to our field."

Is he right? I don't know. My crystal ball just refracts the light around it, instead of predicting the future.

But what will professional photographers most need if that particular tipping point tips? One day, it could well be a camera that appears to be an absurdity right now: a really good camera with enough megapixels for the web, and no more.

Mike
(Thanks to Jose Luis Gonzalez)

*A.k.a. webzine.

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Featured Comment by Stephen Gillette: "I was shocked to see this post, as I had muttered to myself this morning that what would intrigue me would be a good 3MP camera! No lie! This very morning!

"You see, I've been trying to remember on those occasions where I don't have a camera that I DO have one: my Sony Ericsson cell phone sports a 2MP digicam that takes much better pictures than it has any right to. And the depth of field is, due to the tiny lens, amazing. (Fixed-focus, of course.)

"So I'm thinking, this very morning, since the Sony 2MP files are good for about 5 x 7" at 240ppi, hey: 3MP would get close enough to 8 x 10" for me. And most others, I suspect.

"How about some big fat photo sites on the sensor? So that ISO 800 (or better) is a real deal? And a cool, retro look? All to fit in a pocket—any pocket, including shirt pocket, with no bulge? And how about under $100?"

Featured Comment by Colin Work: "The case for a 3mp camera only makes sense if it a) reduces costs or b) produces better quality images.

"With regard to a) as I understand it the number of pixels on a sensor is not a significant factor—putting 3 MP on a sensor currently used for 12 MP is not going to make it much, if at all cheaper. Indeed, if this results in lower production runs, both sensors could end up being more expensive.

"In all other respects this camera will be no different in costs to the same level of camera with more pixels. So the manufacturer ends up offering a camera with a lower spec for the same(ish) price as a model with a higher spec. I think the marketing folk will struggle with that one.

"As to quality—it is quite possible that a 3-MP camera with huge pixel sites could offer significant improvements in dynamic range and high ISO performance...but frankly, if the output of this camera is intended for the web, what does it matter—will anyone even notice a difference on their LCD/iPod/8bit rgb imaging device?

"No, while I agree that the pixel race has gone far to far, I think 3 MP is too small. Like others, I think 6 MP is the optimum for such a camera—enough for the majority of print applications (personal and commercial), but few enough to allow for significantly faster processing and potential gains in quality."

Featured Comment by Ctein: "Putting the emphasis on the words 'really good,' I've seen proof of principle. Years ago, Kodak called me on the phone and said, 'We want you to come to a private preview; we finally have a digital camera that we think you'll like. And it's only two megapixels.' They showed me the DCS 520, and I was stunned. They said it used a non-standard filter array and very clever image processing. I was never given any of the details nor information to confirm that. But the photographs I saw amazed me.

"Entirely decent quality in 8x10s, with a resolution that indicated they were approaching 100% effectiveness (and don't ask me how they pulled that off). Put another way, they were getting resolution out of a two megapixel camera that your typical camera would require five megapixels to achieve.

"Tonality, color, gradation, all were fine. The photos were free from jaggies or artifacts, moire, and contouring. The photographs were also technically difficult ones from an image processing point of view. They weren't trying to make the camera look good; they were showing off how good it was.

"I have no doubt that a camera with that degree of sophistication in how it did imaging, combined with ten years more technology and 50% more pixels, would make most photographers very, very happy.

"I'm not holding my breath for it."

Digital Printing Poll

[UPDATE 11/19/12: Vizu Polls closed down, so I've taken a screen shot of the poll results and substituted it for the live poll. Best I could do to preserve the post. —Ed.]

Site Notes

• Re the "1000 True Fans" experiment, Ctein got enough expressions of interest from people that he has decided to go ahead with the experiment. He's put up a detailed page about it at his site. (He's decided to call it "Collecting Ctein.") I think he did a pretty good job with the page; see what you think.

• Along those lines, very big thanks to those of you who have subscribed to The Online Photographer using the Subscribe button in the right-hand sidebar. You are menschen und, um, womenschen, every ever-lovin' last one a' ya. Danke shoen.

• If anyone has noticed that the site is slow to load recently, I'm afraid I don't know yet what's going on. I'm working on it.

• I do think I blew it the other day. After months of hovering in the 9,000+ range, the number of "readers through feeds" suddently plummeted to less than 4,000 after I revised and republished the "About Us" page (formerly the welcome page). I assume I inadvertently broke a lot of peoples' feeds, for which I apologize. I really don't know from feeds....

Incidentally, for a variety of reasons, the "About Us" page has to keep the same URL and can't be redirected. It now has a Quick Link to the blog at the top of it, however.

• Oh, and speaking of Ctein: the "Ctein" category is now fully populated, in the Categories links.

—Mike, TOP Maitre d' and APES (all-purpose editorial slave)

Errata Editions' First Two Titles

Reviewed by Geoff Wittig

Books on Books #1
Atget: Photographe de Paris
Essays by Pierre Mac Orlan, David Campany, and Jeffrey Ladd
Hardcover w/ Dustjacket
116 pp, 9.5 x 7 in.
110 4-color illustrations
ISBN: 978-1-935004-00-4
$39.95 ($26.37 at Amazon)

Books on Books #2
Walker Evans: American Photographs
Essays by Lincoln Kirstein, John T. Hill, and Jeffrey Ladd
Hardcover w/ Dustjacket
112 pp, 9.5 x 7 in.
98 Duotone and 4-color illustrations
ISBN: 978-1-935004-02-8
$39.95 ($26.37 at Amazon)

One of the common themes of photo book reviews has been how quickly even the best titles go out of print, making it a challenge to acquire books in your area of interest before they disappear. Even more difficult is trying to build a library of genuinely important photo books, those that have made a mark on photography as a whole. Some show up as reprints (John Szarkowski's Looking at Photographs comes to mind), only to disappear again before you hear about them. Wouldn't it be grand if someone started releasing reprints or facsimiles of the classics?

We now have an interesting source for such books. Errata Editions is a small publishing house formed in 2008 by Valerie Sonnenthal, Jeffrey Ladd and Ed Grazda. Sonnenthal is a photo editor/curator; Ladd and Grazda are photographer/educators. Jeffrey Ladd you may recognize as the eclectic mind behind 5B4, a photo book review website that seems to emphasize unique, offbeat and avant-garde titles. The initial announcement back in September 2008 was tantalizing, but I couldn't really visualize what they had in mind until I saw the resulting books. The first four titles are now available.

These are compact cloth-bound volumes with partial dust jacket, printed to a standard size. On the dust jacket, and repeated inside, is a color reproduction of the original cover. Following this is a complete page-for-page photo reproduction of the original, showing both text and photographs. Some spreads are reproduced two to a page, others full size. To be clear these are not reproductions of just the images, but photo reproductions of the actual book pages, as if you had it open on your desk. The result is a facsimile that demonstrates precisely what the original book looks like, conveying the photographers' and designers' intent. The downside is that both text and images are frequently reproduced too small to appreciate nuance and detail. Large multiple page stretches of text are abridged, showing the opening and concluding spreads.

Following the facsimile pages in each book are complete reprints of the original text, set in Adobe Garamond type at a readable size, followed by an essay placing the original in historical and artistic context. Next is a formal review of the original book's printing and typographical design. Finally each volume is closed with a thumbnail biography of the artist and a bibliography of their works.

Eugène Atget: Photographe de Paris is the first volume in the series. The four-color photo reproduction accurately shows the warm burgundy tones of the collotype original plates, though shadows go very murky. Following the facsimile pages is a translation of the original preface by Pierre Mac Orlan. Next is an insightful discussion of Atget's work, its rescue from oblivion by a young Berenice Abbott, and its place in the context of the art world circa 1930, by David Campany. Jeffrey Ladd then details the actual printing of the original book, including the collotype plates. (The curious reader may want to check out The Printed Picture, by Richard Benson, for more detail on the process).

Walker Evans: American Photographs is the second volume, reprising this hugely influential work. The facsimile pages accurately show the simple, unadorned design of the book. The quality of the duotone reproductions is quite good, particularly those shown full size. They are followed by the complete text of the essay by Lincoln Kirstein that accompanied the photographs. Next is a detailed account by John T. Hill of the creation of the original book. This was a collaboration between Evans, the very young Museum of Modern Art, and the famed printer and book designer Joseph Blumenthal, with patron Kirstein also serving an important rôle. Jeffrey Ladd then discusses the various editions and printings American Photographs has gone through over the years.

I find myself a bit conflicted regarding Errata Editions' worthy effort. This is clearly a labor of love, and the amount of work involved prodigious. The resulting volumes give readers the chance to own facsimiles of photography's seminal books. They accurately display the sequence of images as well as the intent of the original design. If you want to see what the fuss was about over American Photographs, this reproduction will show you. For a modest outlay you can start building a library of the most influential photo books ever printed, in facsimile form. If you understand that these are "meta-books"—that their subject is the photo book rather than the photographs per se—you may be delighted with them.

On the other hand, the relatively small size of these books, and the third generation facsimile photo reproduction, can't do justice to the original images. Readers who want a good idea of what Atget's photographs really look like should try to find a used copy of John Szarkowski's Atget monograph for its much larger, clearer reproductions. Walker Evans' photographs fare much better, but they're still a bit cramped by the format.

Geoff

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Imaging-Resource's SLR Gear Announces IS Testing

Dave Etchells at Imaging-Resources has posted a very interesting news item about the site's technical IS (image stabilization) testing, announcing both the I-R's first published IS test result (for the Canon 70–200mm ƒ/4 IS USM lens) and a white paper on its extensive testing methodologies (said to be for "ultra techies." I admit I haven't read all of it yet, being no sort of techie, much less an ultra one). Dave promises more IS tests results in weeks and months to come, calling his site's testing "the first...series of comparative, quantitative IS tests performed using an open methodology available anywhere on the 'net."

Here's a brief excerpt: "Having worked with roughly 25 different IS systems over the last two years of development, we've been a little surprised at just how wide a range of performance we've seen, and also at just how much difference the photographer makes in IS system effectiveness: Relatively steady and shaky shooters will often have rather different experiences with IS systems. For this reason, we measure performance with two very different shooters, and also indicate how they did relative to the standard '1 over the focal length' rule of thumb for a 'safe' shooting speed. This will let our readers determine where their experience with a given IS system might fall."

We'll be looking to I-R and SLRgear.com for more.

Mike
(Thanks to Eolake)

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Transition State

By Ctein

A curious datum. I've been cleaning up my office, getting proof sheets organized and filed and my negatives in order. In the process of doing so, I've discovered that I am three days shy of the second anniversary of the last time I exposed any film.

Understand that I still have a fully equipped color darkroom (and will so long as I'm doing dye transfer printing, which still brings in a substantial part of my income), a freezer holding dozens of rolls of film and a couple of thousand sheets of color print paper, plenty of chemistry, two Pentax 67 bodies, and an assortment of lenses. I have not decided that I am not doing film photography any longer.

Digital, not film. Is film dead in the Ctein household? Damfino.

Yet it does not seem to be beyond the realm of possibility. I never made a conscious decision to stop doing black-and-white photography, but over the years the percentage that was black-and-white dropped from 30% to well under 1% by the mid-90s. I may be that I am never going to make a decision about this, but the practice may amount to the same thing.

Organizing my proof sheets is also teaching me that I should be more disciplined in my photography. I've been profligate in my consumption of electrons because they seemed essentially free. Well, they are not. For the way I prefer to work, I still need proof sheets; they serve different needs from on-screen organizers. When I add up the costs of archival storage and backup for my camera files plus the proof sheets I find that each electronic frame I keep is costing me about 8 cents.

That's vastly lower than my comparable cost for medium format film photography (which runs more like $.60), but it adds up when I expose unnecessarily. In addition, there is a curious inversion of costs which increases my time dealing with digital photographs. With film photography, 80% of the cost was in the negative; it cost me little to proof the film, so everything got proofed. Contrariwise, 3/4 of the cost of my electronic photographs is in the proofing. This strongly encourages me to edit the images and eliminate the obvious losers before I proof anything. Unfortunately, that means the proofing process is a lot more time-consuming and is less likely to be done in a timely manner.

Time to start considering my digital exposures a little more carefully and seriously, I think. They do not come for free.

Ctein

Photographer Sugimoto Strikes a Stone Age Deal with U2

By Hiroshi Sugimoto

By Edan Corkill, The Japan Times

Just two minutes into an interview with artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, it became clear why the famously discreet 61-year-old had agreed to talk about rock band U2's use of one of his photographs on the cover of their latest album, "No Line on the Horizon."

"The first thing I want you to let people know," he said, seated in an office at Ginza's Gallery Koyanagi, "is there is no commercial aspect to my relation with U2. No cash is involved."

No cash? Sugimoto's 1993 image of the Boden Sea at Uttwil adorns not only the cover of the album that debuted this month at No. 1 in almost 30 countries, but is also plastered over buses, taxis and TV ads worldwide as part of a multimillion dollar advertising blitz. The commercial connection had seemed so obvious that many assumed Sugimoto had sold out...

READ ON at japantimes.co.jp

David Emerick

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"Ansel Adams: America" Premieres

"Ansel Adams: America," a piece for symphony orchestra written by 88-year-old jazz pianist Dave Brubeck and orchestrated by his son Chris Brubek, received its world premiere last night in Stockton, California, played by the Stockton Symphony conducted by Peter Jaffe. The piece took the Brubecks more than a year to write and was originally conceived by Northern California arts patron Susan Carson to be played as Adams images were projected in the concert hall.

The new work was commissioned by a consortium of seven orchestras—the Stockton Symphony, the Sacramento Philharmonic, the Fresno Philharmonic, the Monterey Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Temple University Symphony Orchestra, and the Abilene Philharmonic—supported by Meet the Composer and the James Irvine Foundation.

"The merging of music and photography made perfect sense," says Chris Brubeck, "when Ms. Carson explained that Ansel Adams was well on his way to becoming a serious concert pianist until he was seduced by the beauty of Yosemite and succumbed to the lure of photography. This fact inspired me to read the wonderful book Ansel Adams, An Autobiography. In these pages I discovered that Ansel, as a young man, yearned to practice piano while in Yosemite which led him to the old Chickering upright piano at the home of the owner of Best’s Studio. While practicing there, he met, fell in love with, and eventually married the proprietor’s daughter, Virginia Best."

Ansel Adams. Photo: Jim Alinder

The composition is scored for three flutes (third flute doubling piccolo); two oboes (second oboe doubling English horn); two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, optional contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, tubular bells, chimes, bass drums, drum set, suspended cymbal, tambourine, vibraphone, marimba, xylophone, triangle, finger cymbals, crash cymbals, gong, maraca, conga, snare drum, harp, piano, and strings.

Hear more (including the theme based on "An-sel A-dams") at NPR's "All Things Considered."

There's a repeat performance in Stockton this Saturday at 6 p.m., at Atherton Auditorium at San Joaquin Delta College. Tickets might still available; call the Symphony box office at (209) 951-0196.

Dave Brubeck. Photo: Milken Archive

Mike
(Thanks to Keith Barkley)

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Book Report (Reader Faves)

These were the most popular titles that TOP readers ordered through our Amazon links (see "Amazon Portal" at right) in Q1 2009. Note that this isn't an opinion or a qualitative judgment in any way (although naturally the list reflects books we featured): I just toted up the numbers and ranked them according to how many copies you purchased.

1. Eye Mind Spirit: The Enduring Legacy of Minor White by Peter Bunnell (Howard Greenberg Gallery). Far and away our #1 bestseller in Q1, which surprised me (although good on y'all for choosing a monograph and not a technical book for the #1 spot). Readers bought almost twice as many copies of this book as the #2 titles! (U.K. link.)

2. (tie) Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver, and Paul Fuqua (Focal Press). Geoff recommended this as the best introductory text to the theory of lighting. (U.K. link.)

2. (tie) The Printed Picture by Richard Benson (Museum of Modern Art). Our "Book of the Year" of 2008. (U. K. link.)

4. Larry Burrows: Vietnam introduction by David Halberstam (Knopf). (U.K. link.) If you liked this, you'll want to know about the new and long-awaited Eddie Adams: Vietnam. (Not available yet in the U.K.)

 

Kirk Tuck

5. Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography by Kirk Tuck (Amherst Media). (U.K. link.) And if you liked this one, you'll be happy to learn that the companion volume, Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Studio Photography, has just been published. (The difference is in those two little words in the titles, "location" and "studio.") The two together make a matched set. (The new book is not yet available in the U.K.)

6. The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes by Joe McNally (New Riders). Based on the popularity of this one, I hope David Hobby is busy writing his own book.... (U.K. link)

7. (tie) (I know, two ties? But like I said, I just toted up the numbers.) Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing by Harry Beckwith (Business Plus). The only non-photography title on this list. Recommended in a guest posting about business books for photographers by Todd Sattersten.

7. (tie) In the Vernacular: Photography of the Everyday by Stacey McCarroll Cutshaw and Ross Barrett (University of Washington Press). The catalogue from a show of the Rodger Kingston Collection; Rodger wrote about the collection on TOP just a few days ago. (U.K. link.)

9. The 50 Greatest Photo Opportunities in New York City by Amadou Diallo (Course Technology PTR). (U.K. link.)

10. TruthBeauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845 -1945 by Alison Nordstrom (Douglas & McIntyre). (Not available new in the U.K.)

11. Stieglitz: Camera Work (25th Anniversay Special Edition) (Taschen). (U.K. link.)

 

Sam Abell

12. The Life of a Photograph by Sam Abell (Focal Point). (U.K. link.)

13. The Creative Digital Darkroom by Katrin Eismann and Sean Duggan (O'Reilly Media). (U.K. link.)

14. The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art by Don Thompson (Palgrave Macmillan). I just got this one. (U.K. link.)

15. The Moment It Clicks: Photography secrets from one of the world's top shooters by Joe McNally (New Riders Press). The companion volume to no. 6. (U.K. link.)

 

Scott Kelby

16. The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby (New Riders Press). (U.K. link.)

17. Annie Leibovitz at Work by Annie Leibovitz (Random House). (U.K. link.)

Mike

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The Good Life

Photo: David Hoptman

Our advertiser David Hoptman runs photo workshops from his home on the border of Tuscany, Lazio, and Umbria in Italy. Check out the six pictures of his home and studio on his website. Is that a beautiful place, or what? It always amazes me that real people actually manage to live in places like that.

I've had a thing for Italy recently, for reasons I know not why. I've been once before, when I was 14—to Rome, in July, during a heat wave—and suffered from a case of culture shock. I'd like to go again now that I'm a more seasoned...well, I'd like to go again.

Mike

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Another Category: RE

The "Random Excellence" category is now fully populated, with all the RE posts since June of 2007.

For the record, I'm not sure they're best seen all at once; although I love a number of the pictures individually, the category is really best as an occasional tonic, to get you going, make you think, shake you out of your tree.

Mike

Random Excellence: Tim Davis

Tim Davis, Fugitive Slaves, from the series "Permanent Collection."

Tim Davis is one of the more fascinating photographers I've found out about recently. I learned about him from Jeff Ladd's book recommendations for us, posted last August. Jeff recommended Tim's book My Life in Politics, which I still don't own. It's a curious set of pictures. It would be difficult to imagine more foursquare, nondescript photographs—they make the economical Zoe Strauss seem florid by comparison—but because the set as a whole has such a strong hand of authorship, the pictures become fascinating. But really only collectively, and presumably in sequence. I end up unsure just what, and how much, the "author" (i.e., the photographer) means, and how much of the ruminations I bring to the pictures come from me. At the very least, from a didactic standpoint, it's a fine object lesson about the authorial possibilities of pictures. You can see some at Davis's website. But be warned, the pictures don't grab; be prepared to spend some time, and to bring something to them.

"Permanent collection" is equally fascinating in that it seems like such a dull idea on its face (and of course Elliott Erwitt came and went from the same territory long ago), yet the pictures themselves evoke thoughtfulness, perhaps arising from the photographs' insistence on the paintings' corporeality.

There's a book, too, from Nazraeli, of a mere 72 pages, that seems to be slipping into unavailability.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Gavin: "Just noticed that on Tim Davis's website in the 'Permanent Collection' area is a photo called 'Betty.' This is a photo of one of Gerhard Richter's paintings of his daughter, made from a photograph. The painting, unlike many of his other 'photo paintings,' is not distorted, and when you view it from a short distance looks like a photo. We seem to be going in circles."

Featured Comment by Calvin Amari: "The 'Betty' image is even more circular than suggested. The Davis photo, as noted, indeed is of a Gerhard Richter painting, which itself is derived from a photo (presumably taken by Richter himself). What sometimes is not fully apprehended is the fact that the subject, Richter's daughter, is not turned staring into space. Rather, she is looking back at one of her father's grey monochromatic paintings rather than at Richter himself. Hence the matryoshka-like nesting problem that Davis extended begins with a painting. (So far as I know, Richter's Grey Painting series, generally dating from the late '60s and early '70s, was not derived from photographs, but one can speculate about exposure problems....)"

Nikon I, c. 1949

Nikon I (c.1949)

first model Nikon in close to mint original condition, version with 4 polished film guide rails, original shutter (perfect working), non-removable take-up spool, original back door with same number, base plate engraved with MADE IN OCCUPIED JAPAN, matching and very rare collapsible Tokyo Nikkor-Q.C 3.5/5cm no.7051404, very rare chrome cap, ever ready case, original instruction book, blue velvet maker's box. (Serial no. 609405, Condition: A/B)

Starting Price: 9,000 EUR
Estimate: 18,000-22,000 EUR

-

[From the WestLicht Photographica Auction highlights page.]

Mike
(Thanks to Mike O'Donoghue)

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Featured Comment by Eamon Hickey: "I just read a nice little book that is essentially about this camera called The Nikon Camera in America, 1946-1953, by Michael Wescott Loder. (Available through TOP's Amazon portal—you're welcome, Mike). [Thank you, Eamon  —Ed.]

"There's also a little piece on Nikon's Global web site, written in shall we say quirky English, about the rediscovery of the original prototype of this camera, serial #6091. It had long since been given up for lost, but in 1997 it was found in an old cardboard box in a corner of Nikon's original Ohi factory. 

"An historically and sociologically interesting argument is often made about the first practical version of this camera (the 'M') and more especially the lenses that Nikon made at the same time: They were arguably the first precision Japanese-made consumer products to gain worldwide recognition for quality equal to European and American manufacturers (in 1950, with articles in the New York Times and elsewhere.) That little camera (well, its direct descendant) and its lenses were, at least in some sense, the vanguard of the Japanese economic miracle. Or so the argument goes."

Miss Levitt

With apologies to those hardy few who have bought my book The Empirical Photographer, I have just posted the last essay in the book, entitled "Helen Levitt," here on TOP. The article was originally published in Camera & Dark- room magazine (the American one, which went away in 1995). The occasion was merely a show review; the illustrations originally consisted of several of her color photographs, which were new or relatively new to the public at the time.

Subsequent to that, she mailed me a postcard, which I've quoted in full at the end of the article. I think it is the best professional compliment I've ever gotten. I have the original framed.

I corresponded with Miss Levitt a number of times after that, but she really was not much interested in self-promotion. She didn't want to have to do more work with her photography than she was already doing, and she even declined to sign one of her own books for me, pronouncing it "horrible." She said she would sign my copy of Crosstown, but I never got around to sending it to her. (I think I was more concerned with not losing it than having it signed.)

I can't remember the occasion, now, but I once asked her if she would mind if I printed, in one of the magazines I was associated with, the 1959 portrait of her that Lee Friedlander took. She was having none of that, either. She said the portrait, too, was "horrible," although she said many nice things about Lee. (The picture appears in Friedlander's 1985 NYGS book Lee Friedlander Portraits, and I have visited it since her death. It is no species of horrible, although the large overexposed area will not appeal to the literal and the fastidious.) I think Miss Levitt was more genuinely camera-averse than was Henri Cartier-Bresson, who was more famous for being so; I have seen a lot more pictures of him than I have of her over the years. The one above, taken in 1963, is from her obituary in the Times.

From her art and from herself, I always had the sense of a true lovely soul.

There's a good book of her work available now. Here's a link to our review, written by Geoff Wittig.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Jeff Goggin: "Today's Wall Street Journal published a nice piece about Ms. Levitt." [By the always excellent Richard B. Woodward, whose writings on photography are not always easy to find but are always worth finding.  —Ed.]