The Online Photographer

(OT)(Con't.)

Re the Beatles discussion: I suppose you might think this is self-serving of me, and I suppose it is, but, FYI, Amazon is fighting back against the iTunes Store by offering silver discs of most of the 2009 remasters of the Beatles' catalog at $7.99 per CD.

And say what you will about the Beatles...never cared that much for his songwriting, but they had the best bassist ever. Mmm.

(And his wife was a photographer....)

Mike

ADDENDUM: Speaking of the bass, if you haven't heard of Australia's Tal Wilkenfeld, you should see this to get a taste of the woman's skilz...and if you have ten minutes when you can crank the (unfortunately not so good) sound up, have a listen to Jeff Beck with Tal Wilkenfeld at Crossroads 2007 Live.

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Featured Comment by Edward Taylor: "Never cared that much for his songwriting? Paul did the majority of the song writing for the Beatles. He wrote 'Yesterday' by himself, not to mention, 'Maybe I'm Amazed' 'Let It Be,' 'Hey Jude.' 'Eleanor Rigby,' 'For No One,' etc. If the Beatles hadn't done so much, and you edited their whole catalog down to the number of hits that most great songwriters have in a lifetime, I think you would see that in addition to being a great musician and bassist, he is also one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Of course, we are all entitled to our opinions."

Mike replies: Ed, no argument—he just doesn't resonate with me much. I always find myself gravitating to George and John's contributions, even though Paul was the mainstay and probably provided most of the accessibility of the band for most listeners. For me the greatest masterpieces were mostly John's quirky anthems, "Revolution" and "A Day in the Life" and "I am the Walrus" and so on. I liked John's alleged "throwaways" (not)—"I'm So Tired," "Hey Bulldog" etc.—better than all but the best of Paul's stuff. (Oh, and 'Maybe I'm Amazed' wasn't a Beatles song—it was on one of Paul's solo albums.)

If people from—ahem—a different generation are are wonderingabout the differences , here's a good way of showing it. Go download two songs: "A Day in the Life" and "Getting Better," both from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. "Getting Better" was a song written by Paul, for which John wrote the middle eight bars (starting from "I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her..."), and "A Day in the Life" was a song written by John for which Paul wrote the middle eight (starting from "Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head...")*. To me there's no more vivid illustration of them as essentially very different songwriters, yet who complemented each other.

But my preferences for John's and George's songs is just another example of the fact that the band offered something for everyone. It was an interesting group—in an era of singer-songwriters, it was essentially three top singer-songwriters who complemented each other well (just enough similiarity, just enough difference), who for the most part worked well together, who had a long, hard apprenticeship as a working band (cf. Malcolm Gladwell's comments in Outliers) and a superstar producer who was allowed a lot of influence. And their timing in music history was perfect—Elvis et al. had laid the groundwork in America, and jazz was over-matured by that point and had gotten too esoteric for the public. Plus there was the cultural aspect to the timing on this side of the pond, which was that the public was reeling from shock at the assassination of Kennedy and looking desperately for a diversion. Talk about everything coming together.

By the bye, to whomever recommended How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music the other day [it was Chris Bertram], thanks very much. I downloaded it to my Kindle and am finding it excellent so far—I'm learning interesting things from Elijah Wald's methodologies, for starters.

*I believe this is well known, although I can't cite my sources. Read it somewhere. Not my own insight, at any rate.

Who Do You Love?*

Sorry, I've got song titles on the brain today. What, not who.

But a serious question to throw out to the brain trust**: I'm writing an article called "Small Cameras We Love." I've got a number of the slots nailed down, but the list is looking suspiciously Mike-ish, or maybe I should say Mike-centric. Hence my query: What small camera do you love?

I'd be interested to hear, if you'd care to share.

Mike

P.S. To forestall people asking what category of cameras I'm talking about, I'm not. I'm talking about cameras that are a) small and b) loved—that's it.

*Original version: Bo Diddley, 1956. Best cover: George Thorogood and the Destroyers, 1978. Worst cover: UFO, the Morlocks (tie); Duke Robillard, Tom Rush (runners-up).

**I.e., our audience. Readers. You!

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Featured [partial] Comment by Simon A: "...And of course the Fuji X100—I remember it being fantastic every morning when I wake up. :) "

Featured [partial] Comment by Hugh Crawford: "...The iPhone 4 is pretty loveable—I know someone who bought it specifically to use as a camera."

Featured Comment by Bruce: "Olympus Trip. Fifteen million users can't be wrong. I repaired Olympus cameras for twenty years. Trips are sharp, and reliable, no batteries. Only thing that goes wrong is aperture blades sticky—fixable yaself. Also, screws come loose, but are tightenable yaself. Almost. Shutter blades never sticky...wonder why?? 35RD's are beautiful, but sticky shutters are slightly frustrating. Lens: 40mm ƒ/1.7...coupled rangefinder...simply sensational. 35SPn brilliant, but not small. Never saw sticky shutter blades in an SPn, but lots in 35RD—why?? XA2 brilliant. Had OM1s and all the lenses...stupidly sold when digital came in...would give my eye teeth for my 21mm ƒ/2 back to fit on my 5D Canon. Wonder what it would be like on a 5D Mark II? Whoowoo. Lovely to see such love for Oly. Am at present having fun with an EPL1 and short zoom. Lovely JPEGs straight out of camera. Great topic...wonder how many people will read this far??" [Bruce's was approximately the 150th comment. —Ed.]

Featured Comment by Martin: "I'm surprised not to see the iPhone appear more. I have an Olympus XA2—mentioned many times in the Comments—and a Canonet QL19, both wonderful small cameras. However, neither changed the way I work. With those cameras, I just transfered my usual SLR process to them, i.e. bring the camera to an event and consciously set about to photograph.

"The iPhone, on the other hand, did change the way I work. The photos I take with it are during times when 'I amn't photographing.' Since those times are play rather than work, they are precious to me and so I love having photos from them. Also, the photos I take with the iPhone look completely different (I'm not talking about image quality here) from my SLR pictures because of the different process.

"If you aren't working in a different way with your small camera compared to your big camera, I don't really see the point of using a small camera. But if you yourself change as a photographer in response to a small camera, then that's love."

Featured Comment by Hans Muus: "Back in 1994 I went on a short organized dog-sled trekking trip in the south of Lapland (mid-Sweden). To cut the costs a little I had arranged an assignment for a story plus photos for a backpacking monthly. Because of the unique occasion I took matters very seriously and carried (or rather, the sleigh carried and the dogs tugged) a Nikon F3, an FM2 with motordrive and a Minox 35. All with Kodacolor (negative) film. Five pictures were published alongside the story, two almost full page—and these were both taken with the Minox. Lovely little basterd."

Featured [partial] Comment by James: "...I also want to nominate the Hubble Space Telescope (hey, size is relative, right? 57 metres in length is small in relation to most space objects...). Some of the imagery coming off that thing is literally changing science and thus human understanding."

Featured Comment by Bob Dales: "Canon S90 'cause my sweetie's always with me."

2 Cool

Half-frame view camera: I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but Chamonix, the bespoke Chinese view-camera maker, makes a five-by-eight inch camera. Why? Well, because 5x7 film is getting scarce around the world. To get a sheet of 5x8 film, you merely cut a sheet of the more readily available 8x10 film in half. The Chamonix 5x8 starts at $1,850 and is available direct from the manufacturer.

More than one way to skin a cat*.

Because the format is even more oblong than the 3:2 ratio of 35mm or "full-frame," there is no vertical option on the camera—it's horizontal only.

 

 

Eye-Fi Pro: I've never used one of these, so don't take this as a personal endorsement (that goes for Chamonix cameras as well, actually), but it looks cool: it's an 8GB SD card with wi-fi that uploads geotagged images to your computer (or a sharing site) without having to be removed from the camera. A toy for the truly lazy, or a baby-step closer to cameras without cards? Don't ask me.

Mike
(thanks to Mike O'Donoghue)

*Which, if you stop to think for a second, is actually a really gross expression.

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Featured Comment by Ken Tanaka: "Talk about two 'news' items separated by a century! Before reading, I got the impression that someone had figured out how to rig that Chamonix to a WiFi card. Now that would be '2 Cool'!"

Featured Comment by Jiri Vasina: "I own and use Chamonix 5×8" camera for almost 2 years, although not the horizontal-only model as is pictured here, but a reversible-back one. It was slightly more expensive too.

"It's a wonderful camera, let's me use 5×8" film cut from 8×10". But with a very slight (and temporary) modification I may also use standard 5×7" / 13×18cm holders (and even half plate ones if I choose so)—with the film in that precise size I want.

"If someone wants to read more about this camera, you're welcome to read my impressions or see some of my photos captured with the camera (albeit with different formats, 5×8", 13×18cm and half plate)."

OT: Beatles on iTunes Deal Expected This Morning

I read the news today, oh boy.

It's being widely reported that Apple—the computer maker, that is—will score a coup of sorts this morning (although the iTunes Store teaser still says "tomorrow," so maybe it'll be Wednesday) when the Beatles catalog will finally go on sale as digital downloads from the iTunes store, possibly with special pricing.

Apple (the computer maker and now also the leading distributor of recorded music) and Apple (the Beatles' music publishing company) have a history of intermittent rancor and dispute centering on their shared name.

A "baby boomer" band from an era when music was much more important culturally than it was previously or is now, the British band called the Beatles are the most popular band of modern times. They were the second best-selling act of the Nameless Decade (the 2000s) in the United States (after Eminem, a currently active white rapper named after a type of candy). The band broke up in 1970, and two of its four members (not including producer George Martin, an important collaborator) are now deceased. The annoucement is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Eastern U.S. time.

Still can't buy Time Fades Away, though.

Mike

UPDATE: From the evidence of the five or six songs I downloaded, the iTunes transfers are pretty bad. I had to check my download preferences to make sure I didn't have it set to MP3. "Rain" sounds like a transistor radio at the bottom of a 55-gallon drum. Be sure to sample for yourself before buying.

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Calcutta

 

Text and Photographs by Peter Turnley

The first foreign trip I ever made as a traveling photojournalist was to India to cover the funeral of Indira Gandhi and the sectarian violence that followed her assassination by two of her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. I had moved to Paris in 1978 and this first assignment in India would mark the beginning of a new way of life for me, one of almost constant travel to more than 90 countries these past 26 years. I will never forget the powerful and confusing culture shock of arriving at the old airport in New Delhi at a time when India was in a state of wrenching national upheaval. During the four days following Mrs. Gandhi’s death, more than a thousand Sikhs were killed in retaliatory violence. It is hard to find the words to describe all that this first visit to India represented for me. This was my first exposure to violence of such magnitude; to scenes of humanity so vast; to a sense of witnessing history and an opportunity to communicate something so important to others. It was one of my first exposures to the power and beauty of discovering a human connection to a people in a foreign land with great ostensible differences in culture and history to my own—but whose humanity my heart could identify with easily.

It was again death that brought me back to discover the amazing life of Calcutta many years later. On the evening of August 31st, 1997, I was lying in a hotel bed in Glasgow, Scotland, there on assignment for Newsweek, half awake and half asleep, when I heard a BBC television announcer report that Lady Diana, the Princess of Wales, had been involved in a serious car crash in Paris. Within an hour, her death was announced. During the next two weeks, I was exposed to two of the most highly charged international outpouring of human emotion one could imagine in such a short period of time. The morning after Lady Diana’s death, I returned home to Paris. That day, again on assignment for Newsweek, I photographed Prince Charles leaving a Paris hospital with her body to return for her funeral in London. I left immediately for London as well. On September 6th, 1997, more than three million onlookers and mourners in London, as well as a huge international public, observed her funeral. That day, while standing on a press stand in front of Westminster Abby, I made a photograph of Prince Charles, Princes William and Harry, and Lady Diana’s brother Earl Spencer observing her casket as it was prepared to be taken for burial. This photograph ran on the cover of Newsweek magazine the next week.

That evening, as I lay again in bed in a hotel room in London a bit dazed by all that I had experienced that day and the previous week, the phone rang. It was the foreign photo editor of Newsweek, who informed me that the previous day, Mother Theresa had passed away in Calcutta. I was asked if I could go to Calcutta to cover her funeral. Within a few days I left for the many hour flight to India, hours and distance, while great, that could not represent the magnitude of contrast of scenes of death and grieving of these two important international figures.

In many ways, the funeral of Mother Theresa was so representative of the profound nature of what I have felt when in Calcutta. The best way I can find to describe it would touch on the power of circumstance that involves a sense of humility, humbleness, faith, and an overwhelming celebration of the beauty of life. I have always loved the combination of organized chaos, sensuality, and childlike playfulness of Fellini films. I recall strongly, as I walked around the streets of Calcutta in the days after Mother Theresa’s funeral, having a sense that street life in Calcutta had much in common with an Indian version of a Fellini film—as in the works of the Italian filmmaker, at the heart of the matter is a vibrant celebration of living. I had always wanted to return to Calcutta to discover this reality further.

A few weeks ago I returned to Calcutta for the first time in more than 13 years, during the time of the annual Hindu religious festival, the Durja Pooja. I walked the streets of this amazing city for most of two weeks. While it was death that had brought me to India in the past, I had always wanted to come back, because what had stayed with me most on my previous visits was an ongoing, complex, and evolving celebration of life.

Peter Turnley
(All images © Peter Turnley/Corbis, 2010. All rights reserved)

 

Calcutta

56 Photographs by Peter Turnley

 

(Click the link below to see the rest of the portfolio images)

Too Much?

Okay, I'm aware of complaints that we've been mentioning Pentax too often lately—this is not a Pentax blog—but just a couple more things: we've just completed an interview with Ned Bunnell, President of Pentax USA, which will run this coming week, in which he offers a fascinating inside look at the camera business and clarifies several different rumors; and there's now an excellent "first look" type of review of the Pentax 645D at the Luminous Landscape, written by Nick Devlin. As Sgt. Schultz used to say, verrry interesting....

After that, we can go back to talking obsessively about Shen Haos as per usual.

Mike
(Thanks to Edd Fuller and Stephen S.)

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Featured Comment by Robert Howell: "You've really done it this time Colonel Hogan. Here's Arte Johnson (mit Peter Sellers)."

Mike replies: Oops, confused my pop cultural markers again. "Uuuuugghhh..." —Lurch

Featured [partial] Comment by rbrazile: "Thanks Alex, I'll take catch-phrases of the '60s for $500...."

Featured Comment by richardplondon: "Odd photographic connection: Carel Struycken (actor playing Lurch in the TV series) has also been helping sell photo panorama brackets for Nodal Ninja. Who'd have guessed?"

Mike adds: By coincindence, I also have an odd photographic connection for Arte Johnson, too. When I was growing up, my father had a professional photographer friend named Arnie Gore, who looked like Arte Johnson—people were constantly asking him if he knew he looked like him, etc. Well, one day my brother Scott and I saw the real Arte Johnson at a mall, and my brother went up to him and said, "Excuse me, but aren't you Arnie Gore?" Arte looked confused and said, "No, I'm not," and Scott paused and said, thoughtfully, "Hmm, that's funny. Because you look just like Arte Johnson, and so does Arnie Gore.

Arnie, who died a few years ago, was the guy who taught me (by example) to make enlarged proof sheets. He'd make 16x20" and 20x24" proof sheets in lieu of proof prints for his portrait clients.

UPDATE: Whoops! Looks like this is the post for mistaken identity...

Featured Comment by GKFroelich: "Regarding the Featured Comment by richardplondon: Lurch was played by Ted Cassidy. Carel Struycken (see "Men In Black") does indeed promote panoramic gear. See his website.

UPDATE #2: Okay, here's the scoop. It turns out that 6'9" Ted Cassidy, who died in 1979, played Lurch in the 1960s television series "The Addams Family" (that's him in the video clip above). 7' Carel Struycken, who is still very much with us and who, as Richard P. from London pointed out, is also one of us (i.e., a photographer), played Lurch in the movies "The Addams Family" (1991) and "Addams Family Values" (1993), which of course I never saw. I now know more Lurch trivia than I wanted to—too bad it's already too late to quit while I'm ahead. —Ed (additional thanks to Joe Adnan).

P.S. And I didn't actually mean Shen Hao, I meant Chamonix!

Random Excellence: Eric Ogden

Eric Ogden, Cormac McCarthy

Found this by way of Andy Adams' 100 Portraits project, which is definitely worth seeing. Eric's picture in 100 Portraits, called Andre Williams, 2008 (image 52 of 100), was one of my favorites. (At the link, don't fail to scroll down to read about the extent of the exhibit.)

Here's Eric's website (also worth seeing).

Mike
(Thanks to Andy)

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Lightroom Coolness

Since we've kinda raked Adobe over the coals the last few days, it seems like equal time might be indicated for one of the coolest features in Lightroom 3. Back when we shot our food and drove to town in buckboards, this would have served for science fiction. I'm just sayin'.

Mike

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Chick Cameras

Nobody ever mentions this, but c'mon, everybody knows Canons are for women, Nikons are for men, right? Canon always advertised its cameras using hunky sports stars. To appeal to the ladies, of course.

This Andre Agassi ad featured beefcake poses (click!) and a shirt-toss, even. Think of it for a sec...who's doing the shooting there? Clearly designed to appeal to teenybopper girls (or maybe gay guys).

And remember what the Rebel is called in Japan.

Ume Kayo's EOS 5. From John Sypal's Tokyo Camera Style (thanks to
Dean Johnston [no relation]).

In Japan, gender marketing has always been a bit more...forthright. If you're a guy, and you see a white Japanese camera, here's a hint...that's not for you. The old Contax Aria was marketed in Japan for women. Not in the U.S., where "discrimination" is bad. But, guys? If something is called an "Aria," here's a hint—that's right. Not for you.

I actually loved the Aria. (Not going there.) The camera I just bought, however (redeeming myself?) is probably the ultimate guy camera. Unfashionable name. Utilitarian. Weatherproof. Styling? Solid "generic camera," nuthin' special. When you need to shop for new footwear, do you think of Farm & Fleet? The K-5 is the camera equivalent of the faithful 17-year-old Toyota pickup that you refuse to give up but that your wife refuses ride in, or the comfortable pair of running shoes your girlfriend has tried to give to Goodwill not once but four times, requiring rescues from the donate pile and future vigilance on your part. The K-5 is for people who like...hammers. And for whom a "good name brand" means Miller or Walther or DeWalt.

In fact, DeWalt should make the K-5. That would suit. I love my DeWalt drill (really. I do).

It's not actually a brand thing across the board. Only eight females so far have ever bought a 1D Mark IV. That camera might as well come with a fat stogie and a sideline pass to a football game. And the K-x in rainbow colors? I don't have to spell that out, do I? They make a pink K-x in Japan. (I'm secure, but not that secure.)

Women love the Panasonic LX5. It's cute, sleek, smart, and sharp. It practically goes with Manolo Blahnik shoes and Louis Vuitton bags. And you can even get it with just the right brand name—for more money, which is perfect.

Speaking of Leica, the M9.... Not saying men don't buy and use them...secure men. But women love the M9. It's the ultimate chick camera, no question. Simple to use, ever so expensive, and the ultimate in fashionableness.

Audrey Tautou famously sported an M8 in a Chanel No. 5 ad shot by
Bruno Delbonnel. Not only that—the French actress is an avid
Leica M digital shooter in real life.

Seriously, is there a more fashionable camera made anywhere? It's not just the breathtakingly expensive designer dress at the Oscars—it's the breathtakingly expensive designer dress at the Oscars that the celebrity press swoons over and no one dares make fun of. (Real men, on the other hand, shoot the S2.)

If you want to score serious points with your photographer wife or girlfriend this holiday season, guys, you know what to do.

Mike
(Thanks to O.G.)

(P.S. Just having a little fun this morning. It does go without saying no one should take this post too seriously, right? Um...right?)

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Featured Comment by Andre: "Point of fact: Audrey Tautou holding a Leica M is absolutely the sexiest thing that has ever happened anywhere. I just can't imagine that particular marketing ploy being aimed at women. Talk about camera lust!"

Featured Reader Picture:

What secure men drive: TOP reader Hugh Crawford and the "Huemobile" (geddit?) around 1980. Photo by Valerie Shaff.

Featured Comment by Rana: "It's not the marketing that makes me dislike the Nikons—it's the size. While I'm a Pentax gal (and have been one since my first film SLR), I did look briefly at Nikons and Canons to see what the competition had to offer.

"Nearly every Nikon DSLR about broke my wrist; Canons did not. (Nor did Pentax.)

"As for pink cameras, I like the dark ones because they're less likely to show up if shooting a reflective surface, and I dislike anything branded pink because I have issues with several pink-based marketing campaigns for other products. (The only compelling reason I ever heard about getting something pink came from a female construction worker; she liked her pink hammer because it was the only one what was never "borrowed" by her co-workers.)

"I agree with Marion's take [see the Comments section —Ed.]—and want to add that one of the things that keeps your site in my bloglist is the absence of the usual hoo-rah machismo too often in evidence at other photo sites."

Mike replies: Yes, I'm not long on hoo-rah machismo. Heck, I'm a "Mr. Mom," remember—I raised a kid from infancy. Few men have changed as many diapers as I have. Not saying I'd want to do a lot more of that, though.

Funny story about the pink hammer. I worked with a guy who used to be a shop teacher. He told me that a lot of boys in his classes were taking advantage of the bathroom break, so he took an 8x20-inch piece of steel plate, chained the bathroom key to it, and painted it day-glo pink. Suddenly, no more boys had to go to the bathroom during his classes.

Featured Comment by Will: "I hate myself for even opening this can of worms, but I cannot help myself...

"As an enthusiast-photographer-reader-of-this-blog that makes his living as a cinematographer, you've used the wrong terminology when you claim in your caption that the Chanel spot was 'shot' by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Jeunet directed the spot, and rather aptly. But as was the case with Amelie; A Very Long Engagement; the Coen Brothers' segment in Paris, je t'aime; Across the Universe; and the 6th Harry Potter film, the Chanel spot was 'shot' by the immensely talented Bruno Delbonnel. I'd forgive most outlets this transgression, but for a blog about photography, credit should be due to the man most responsible for photographing that Chanel spot so beautifully. When you see a gorgeous photograph from a fashion shoot, do you credit the art director or the photographer? Not a perfect analogue, but useful enough. Give Bruno his (hard-earned) due."

Mike replies: Done. Thanks, Will.

Surreal Snaps

Garage Sale Masterpieces: Newsweek offers a tiny but tantalizing sampling of 17 images from the 1,500-piece found-photo collection of St. Louis, Missouri, connoisseur John Foster. "When I look for images," says Foster, "I look for something that makes you almost uncomfortable in your own skin—something that makes you observe more intently. That's when I know I have something that's more than just a snapshot."

Of the ones not shown here, I especially like no. 5, and doesn't no. 10 look like a Cindy Sherman?

The online sample is just a taste, but fun nonetheless.

Mike
(Thanks to Daan Leijen)

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Coming on Monday

I'm happy to report that we'll be publishing another extensive portfolio of original photojournalism by Peter Turnley on Monday. Be sure to visit TOP then to check it out.

In other friends-of-the-site news, this is cool: remember Gordon Lewis's umbrella lady? The picture was one Gordon took while testing a Pentax K-7 for a TOP review. So many readers responded positively to it that we organized a print sale for it, which went very well—I believe Gordon sold 77 copies of it. I've got the smaller size print (he offered two sizes) framed on my office wall.

Well, it seems that the umbrella lady's career continues. It's been included in George Barr's soon-to-be-released Rocky Nook book Why Photographs Work: 52 Great Images Who Made Them, What Makes Them Special, and Why. Apparently—according to Gordon—George just got his proof copy, hot off the press, and Gordon hasn't seen the book yet. So of course neither have I.

Gordon points out that early promo JPEGs of the cover art said there were 50 photographs, not 52—"Apparently I and one other lucky bastard squeezed in just under the wire," he says.

The book should be shipping very soon. As in, a matter of days. I'll be looking forward to seeing it.

I haven't seen Peter's portfolio yet, either—it's due in here tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing that, too.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Carsten S: "German Amazon lists it as Why Photographs Work: 51 Great Images: What Made Them, What Makes them Special, and Why. :)"

Mike replies: Interesting. We'll have to get a report from a German buyer of the book as to whether the umbrella lady makes it into the German edition or not!

Featured Comment by George Barr: "I too purchased a print of Gordon's image and Gordon was one of first group of photographers I contacted for the book. Rather than promote the book, let me just say that all 52 photographers donated their work, both their images and their writing, not to say time, to the project—they didn't get a penny for their efforts and I'll never be able to thank them enough. I had hoped for 40 photographers but the response from the vast majority of those I contacted was so enthusiastic that it grew. That we ended up with 52 is due in part to uncertainties as people joined and the rare person dropped out for one good reason or another, and in no small part to the fact that apparently I can't count. I don't suppose though that anyone is going to object to two extra great photographs in the book. Even the careful use of a spreadsheet to keep track of everything failed to help me keep on top of what amounted to a gigantic undertaking."

Photoshop CS5: A Simple Desultory Philippic

By Ctein

I need to vent. Indulge me.

Photoshop CS5 for Mac is the worst case of half-baked software development that I have seen in a long time. Honestly, I can only assume its release was driven by marketing rather than engineers and architects. Much as I was looking forward to it, I wish they'd held back another year and done the job right.

Lloyd Chambers has written at great length, eloquently and accurately, on the myriad shortcomings of CS5; I refer you to his website. This is as good a place to start as any, but it's worth perusing the most recent six months of his blog entries for the assortment of important and informative articles he has written on the mess that Adobe has handed us.

Allow me to touch on the highlights that particularly vex me. First, almost everything that was outdated, wrong, or broken in CS4 is still in the same state in CS5. Saving multi-layer PSD files is horribly, painfully slow. For some reason it got a lot worse between CS3 and CS4, and it's stayed lousy. The many filters and other components that didn't work on 16-bit files in CS4 still don't work. Photoshop remains a mish-mash of 8-bit and 16-bit functions (by comparison, the efficient and affordable Picture Windows has been fully 16-bit since, well, forever.)

Photomerge still occasionally gets panoramic images assembled wrong, which means the user interface plug-in (PhotomergeUI) is a necessity for me. It was downgraded to an optional plug-in in CS4; now it doesn't work at all in 64-bit CS5. In fact, an appallingly large fraction of my third-party plug-ins will not run in 64-bit Photoshop, including the three I use on probably 80% of the photographs I work with.

It has been half a year since the release of CS5. I don't know what kind of coordination Adobe does with the third-party developers. I don't know why they didn't write a "compatibility box" within 64-bit Photoshop to allow use of the existing plug-ins, including the myriad important legacy ones that experienced printers use that are no longer under development and so will never be upgraded to 64-bit. Difficult? Yes. I sincerely doubt it was impossible.

Adobe didn't just drop the ball; they tripped over it and then kicked it into the sewer.

Is there a workaround? Sort of. Launch CS5 in 32-bit mode and you'll be able to use PhotomergeUI and all your other critical 32-bit plug-ins. Doing so, you lose a huge chunk of performance, almost a factor of two on computation-limited tasks. Worse, it doesn't let you access the large memory space that becomes available once the 32-bit barrier is broken. Worst, it won't even access memory as well as CS3 and CS4 did; CS5 (32) is back to being limited to 2 GB of RAM.

Where have all the filters gone? Long time passing...On the left is the filter menu from Photoshop CS4 and CS5 run in 32-bit mode. Launch CS5 in 64-bit mode (middle shot) and a whole mess of your third-party filters will be gone. Open up a 16-bit file (right) and even more filters are gone; Adobe still hasn't completed recoding them from their 8-bit form. It's been, what, three generations now?

Where has all the memory gone? Long time ago...Photoshop CS3 and CS4 could directly access 3GB of RAM and make effective use of RAM above that. CS5 in 32-bit mode returns to the primitive memory model of yore.

Remarkably, 32-bit CS5 performs just about as well as CS4; apparently Adobe tightened up a lot of the code. But it's still running probably two thirds as fast as it would if it could indirectly access higher RAM like CS3/4. Even on my MacBook Pro, with its meager 6 GB of RAM, there's a serious performance hit running in CS5's 32-bit mode. On my 12 GB iMac the difference is huge; the "diglloydMedium" benchmark runs 3–4 times more slowly in CS5's 32-bit mode than 64-bit mode.

And meanwhile, my workflow is totally screwed up. At the moment, I'm mostly avoiding using CS5 while I figure this out; that's how many problems it's creating for me.

Okay, done venting. I admit that part of this is the disappointment of a kid who was promised a pony for Christmas and there's only a bicycle under the tree. Once I become adjusted to the situation, I'll may decide it's a really nice bicycle and have some very good things to say about it in future columns. But, right now, not so happy.

Ctein

Ctein's regular weekly column appears on TOP on Thursday mornings.

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Featured Comment by ILTim: "I'm a tool engineer working in high-end 3D CAD programs all day, and this feels a bit similar. Our cad programs range from $7,000 to $30,000 per user, plus a few grand a year in maintenance fees. Some of these vendors are focused only on marketable improvements that the sales team can use, neglecting bugs and poorly performing features that the professionals use day in and day out. It gets old being a user of a system like that, and after migrating to a new system due to a change in employers, I'd never take another job that required me to go back to that old cad system. The one I'm on now innovates regularly, but maintains incredible legacy support for deprecated features and does a truly admirable job with bug fixes. As I advance in my career, these experiences are going to drive the purchasing decisions of my employers, and the company that chased sales via added fluff will never get a dime. Never mind the bashing I give them to colleagues.

"Adobe is not creating Photoshop CS software to sell, they are creating productive, satisfied, and enthusiastic customers by providing them with tools, who in turn create a vibrant marketplace for Adobe. They can ride the brand name for a while, but ultimately by not serving the customers they will find themselves on a crash course.

"I've considered CS for years, but its been too darned expensive. Additionally, there is a lot I don't need there, and I've gotten the impression of stagnation. Then to top it off, the upgrade fees are not trivial.

"I've recently traded in PS Elements for GIMP, Picasa, and other free tools. I'm going to try hard to make them work because the developers are showing more promise than Adobe. Then, of course, there is that whole bloatware issue, the DLM (download manager), the trojan toolbars that come with acrobat reader and flash...I'm very unsatisfied with Adobe lately."

New Camera

I've mentioned recently that I haven't really owned a DSLR for a while. That's a bit overdramatic—I've had several cameras on manufacturer loan, and my trusty old Konica-Minolta 7D, although broken, is not entirely out of commission—most recently I used it to take the portraits I showed in the post "Last Minute Senior Portrait." And I've not been deprived of digital camera ownership, either—I bought myself a Panasonic GF1 and its accompanying 20mm lens last year.

But it's true that I haven't had a fully functioning DSLR that I actually own myself for some time now.

I'm afraid the bad economy may have hit TOP at last, two years after the crisis—sales through our links, which keep the site afloat, have been worryingly depressed so far this season, down considerably from last year. I hadn't realized how much until the past couple of days. I certainly hope this doesn't signal the beginning of the end, although I suppose this gig can't last forever. Anyway, despite the poor economy for the site, today I went ahead and did the deed—ordered a Pentax K-5. (Mike needs a DSLR, right, guys? Help enable me here....)

Pentax was kind enough to sell me a camera "on accommodation"—a widespread practice in many different consumer products industries whereby reviewers are given a wholesale, discount, or employee price—but I did pay for it myself; it's not a loaner. It'll be my camera.

I've also mentioned many times that despite its stellar lineup of primes, Pentax doesn't make the lens I need—a 35mm equivalent. Again, just to be clear, there's absolutely nothing magical about my preference of a 35mm equivalent prime lens (or, for that matter, the 3:2 aspect ratio); it's just that I shot for so long with a 35mm lens on a 35mm camera that it's become the way I see pictures, and the way I want my camera to see pictures. It's just a personal thing, but it's the way it is with me.

Where a lens is concerned, it seems like the choice is down to either the Sigma 24mm ƒ/1.8 EX DG ASP Macro lens (which is a little too big and heavy) or the Pentax 31mm Limited (which is a little too long). I have to admit that I have not personally had good luck with Sigma products in the past; but many of those experiences are quite old now, so maybe they're also out of date. At any rate, you take pictures with lenses, not with reputations, so if I decide to go that way I'll deal with the lens I receive and judge it on its own merits.

Here are the reasons I decided to go with the K-5, roughly weighted according to how much I was influenced by each:

• Its size, weight, and ergonomics (familiar to me from using a prototype K-7 prior to the introduction of that camera). 15%.
• The quiet shutter. Having once been a Leica shooter, it's very hard to go back to a loud shutter if you're a "candid" photographer, or, let's call it, a photographer of "found" situations. 25%.
• Weatherproofing (anyone interested in this camera should see this great link). 10%.
• In-body image stabilization. As I've discussed at various times, a feature that underwhelms some people, but that I love. 30%.
• The fact that Pentax is an advertiser on TOP and I have a good relationship with the company. 5%.
• The recent sensor-performance reports and sample images I've seen online (like this shot by John Cavan taken at ISO 20,000). 15%.

The other finalists for me were the Sony A900 (I just don't feel rich enough for that one, more's the pity), the Olympus E-5, and the Canon 60D. I certainly fretted over it enough, I'll say that.

Pentax gives priority to its civilian customers, so I have to wait for mine until the next shipment hits these shores. That may be a few weeks. I'll write more when the K-5 actually comes.

Mike
(Thanks to John and Nic for the sample pic and weatherproofing links)

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Random Excellence: *Cinnamon (Cindy Loughridge)

Both photos by *Cinnamon (Cindy Loughridge),
taken with the Sigma 24mm ƒ/1.8.

I've been researching the Sigma 24mm ƒ/1.8 EX DG etc. etc. lens lately, and, as usual when I indulge in this sort of thing, have been discovering new photographers. Bokeh is one thing you can actually get a feel for in images online, sort of (sharpening distorts the picture sometimes). These shots, from *Cinnamon on flickr, who turns out to be a San Francisco wedding, portrait, and lifestyle pro (and self-professed "bokeh lover"—me too) named Cindy Loughridge, struck me as having particularly nice, and well-judged, bokeh.

Is it just me, or are photographers in general getting a little carried away with the bokeh these days? I know I helped start it, but it seems to me that too often, we see bokeh indiscrimatinely applied—many times I seem to see pictures taken at too wide an aperture, so that the parts that ought to be sharp aren't, even. And, just as often, shots where the bokeh just doesn't look good, which the photographer seems unaware of. Every effect needs to be applied judiciously, with sensibility and restraint. Enough with the widest-possible-aperture-all-the-time look already—except when the photographer knows what she's doing, as here. Maybe I'm just being curmudgeonly again.

Mike

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Strangeness

The world is strange.

Exhibit One:

Modern art was CIA 'weapon.'

Revealed: how the spy agency used unwitting artists such as Pollock and de Kooning in a cultural Cold War

By Frances Stonor Saunders, The Independent

For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art—including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko—as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince—except that it acted secretly—the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

The connection is improbable. This was a period, in the 1950s and 1960s, when the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art—President Truman summed up the popular view when he said: "If that's art, then I'm a Hottentot." As for the artists themselves, many were ex-communists barely acceptable in the America of the McCarthyite era, and certainly not the sort of people normally likely to receive U.S. government backing.

Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the U.S. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete....

READ ON at independent.co.uk

-

Exhibit Two: Strangest internet-flotsam photo seen lately:

(The caption on the site where I came across this was "WTF doesn't begin to describe this pic.")

-

Exhibit Three: The Soviets invented Photoshop.

-

Exhibit Four: Shoes are now being advertised as "airport friendly" (because they have no metal parts).

-

Exhibit Five: Retro-mining is a longstanding tradition in pop music, and every so often a hit comes along that's full of echoes—e.g. "When They Fight, They Fight" by the Generationals, straight out of the '50s. Or remember "Walkin' on the Sun" from 1997? Some artists build whole careers out of it—I remember an unintentionally funny quote by a guy named Lenny Kravitz, who said that guitar was dead—which is true if your thing is ripping off Hendrix licks!

I heard a pleasantly strange variation on the radio in the car last night. Try downloading the song "Witchcraft" by someone called Matt Costa (I know nothing about any of these people, by the bye). I'd heard of acid jazz before...but acid Merseybeat?!

Strange.

Mike
(Thanks to David Emerick and Stan Banos)

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Featured Comment by Charlie: "Concerning Exhibit 2, the horse peeking out of the hole in the ground was (no surprise) 'shopped in. It's an Internet meme, described in detail here. That article also mentions the woman in the picture, who is a minor Internet star and quasi-meme of her own. By the way—Rocketboom's 'Know Your Meme' site is a great place to check—along with Snopes, of course—when stumbling across Internet weirdness."

Mike replies: Thanks Charlie. Before this past weekend, I didn't even know there were whole sites on the internet devoted to nothing but weird pictures...what next, sites with just gossip about celebrities?!?  :-)

Reality and Then Some

From "Manufactured Totems," by Alain Delorme

By John Kennerdell

My mom, who in her eighties has become an avid onliner, just emailed me some photos from Alain Delorme's Manufactured Totems series. She also forwarded a note from my brother, referring to my family role as internet mythbuster: "John will undoubtedly call this a hoax."

Well no, not really. The "Manufactured" in the title offers a hint, and the description on Alain's website makes it more explicit: "...the author breaks the rules of the documentary genre, playing with the edit and the color to present us a type of 'augmented reality.' " (For "edit," from montage in the original French, I think "elements" might be a better translation in the context of still photography. In other words, he's compositing.)

Photographers can and will manipulate their images, and of course have done so pretty much since the birth of the medium. Few of us have a problem with that, provided that they don't try to present the result as something it isn't. As I see it, Delorme has given fair warning: these aren't documentary photos.

No, if I have a concern it's to do with the words rather than the pictures. The term "augmented reality," while it comes from the field of real-time computer-generated sensory input, on one level makes a nice description of what's going on here. You probably won't find anything quite like these images on the streets of Shanghai, but you'll certainly see the vehicles that inspired them. On the other hand, "reality" is a fairly loaded word, to be used with care. And "augmented" feels like just the kind of vague qualifier that holds real potential for abuse. (Look for instance at what happened to "enhanced" once it got attached to "interrogation techniques.") Even if you accept the term here, as I suppose I do, that sensation below your feet just might be a very slippery slope. As photographic "reality" increasingly goes off in its own infinite directions, how do we hold the line on the language we use to describe and delimit it?

Meanwhile, not to lose sight of the work itself: Manufactured Totems is a very cool project, well worth a look.

John

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Featured Comment by Stan B.: "Not that augmented...."

Featured Comment by Jeff Hohner: "Interesting art, but not as photography. The fact that the artist presents his work as photographs creates an unnerving dissonance in the viewer. This may be one of his artistic goals and it is an entirely valid one. But because of the historical nature of photography as a more of less documentary medium, one that fixes individual and whole slices of time, I think the artist owes his audience a more explicit description of his montage technique than he has offered. I'd go so far as to request each image be accompanied with the caption 'photo montage.'

"Without such an explicit disclaimer these images are frustrating to parse. For example, most people are aware of the large loads of light goods that can be transported on two wheels. This familiarity combined with our general trust in the veracity of photography leads the viewer to take the preposterous assemblages depicted in these images as real. Without a clue that the images have been manipulated, what else are we to believe? The artist dares us to break out of our faith in the truthfulness of the photographic image, you might say? To use our common sense about physics, balance and scale? Fair enough, but that is a fairly mundane artistic goal already serviced by any number of images already floating about our culture. In the age of Photoshop and the Internet, this point has become a game and a joke. This is clearly not his goal. He has more serious goals at hand presenting as he does themes of work, scale and place, the particulars of which suggest themes of history, change and class.

"Perhaps the dissonance of trying to parse the 'reality' of his pictorial elements is integral to his project, but for me I find it a huge distraction and I get closer to the work, and enjoy it immensely more, once it has been removed by acknowledging the artifice in his technique.

"Put more succinctly, without artspeak—when I first saw the image of the bikes with tires and ladder, I thought to myself, 'What a shot! Waiting for the background to frame the tires, and capturing another fast moving object, the guy with the ladder, also in perfect composition! Whoa!!' Only later, after some reading and clicking, did I realize this was not what I was looking at. The work took on new meaning, still rich but quite different.

"(To stir the pot further, these works should have been painted. What the artist seeks to convey here, figure, place, pregnant composition, is painting's forte. Choosing the medium of photography interferes with his message as I argue above.)"

Mike adds: A short quote from Roger Moore's contribution to the Comments section: "...a Chinese coworker got a set of these pictures in a chain email yesterday. She thought they were real...." Reinforces your point in your second paragraph.

Featured Comment by Pardik: "One thing that Alain Delorme does in this mocumentary is that he breaks the mirror in Hans Kemp's 5th picture. He takes a cliché from the documentary genre (overloaded light transport), and does what everybody unconsciously has been thinking of while looking at Hans Kemp's wonderful photos: throws them off balance, thus (at last) releasing all the tensions in them. Too much then has become too much. When everything is over the guy crucified to the mirror probably finds he doesn't hold his breathe anymore, and can maybe even laugh at the whole thing."

Hans Kemp's fifth picture [from Stan B.'s link]

Pretty Please

So, what's this...?

Every now and then (not very often recently) I try to remind people that TOP exists mainly because you support us by using our affiliate links to B&H Photo and Amazon.

You can always find the links here.

It's important to emphasize that when you do this you don't pay anything extra for the goods you buy. It's a profit-sharing arrangement—if we refer someone (you) to B&H Photo or Amazon, they share a little bit of their profit with us. You pay exactly the same for your goods either way.

Here's the way it works for the two sites:

For us to get credit for something you buy from AMAZON, you either a) go to Amazon from here or b) bookmark the appropriate URL (again, found on our links page) and use it as your own regular link from your own computer. BUT even if you use our links, we only get credit for things you both put into your cart and also purchase during that same discrete visit to Amazon. We don't get credit for anything purchased from your Wish List or anything that was already in your cart. Within those restrictions, TOP is credited for most things you buy from any department of Amazon*.

With B&H Photo it's different. You can't bookmark that link; with them you have to go directly from our site to theirs, using either a link in a post or by clicking on the B&H ad that's at the upper right-hand corner of every page on TOP. And, again, things that are already stored in your cart don't count.

Anyway, there's no obligation, of course, to help us this way. But it seems like a zero-pain, win-win-win situation to me: you win because you get to help TOP continue to exist and not spend any (extra) money to do it; the vendors win because our readers become their customers; and I win, well, because it's how I get paid for what I do all day.

We do make money in other ways, but the links are by far the most important.

So if you wouldn't mind, could you try to remember to use 'em, for stuff you're buying anyway? Pretty please?

So that's what this is. It's a pretty please...

...with a cherry on TOP. (Groan.)

(And: thanks very much!)

Mike

*Amazon pays us slightly more than B&H does. But there are variances for different kinds of products; we get very little for computers, but a lot for software; a lot for Kindles but not for Kindle books. The other consideration is that at Amazon, our overall percentage for everything goes up with the total number of items ordered by everyone; so, even very small items (lens caps, a $2 used book, etc.) that get credited to us end up helping more than you'd think, even if the direct income from them is very little.

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Featured Comment by Henry Posner, B&H Photo Video: "B&H is glad to have an affiliate relationship with this site and we're grateful for the many customers who come from here to our site to shop. Thank you all. I've asked our affiliate people if there's a way for a customer to come from here, put an item in a wishlist, buy it later and still have the affiliate get his due. I am not certain it's possible, but if it is I will encourage implementation."

DxOmark: Nikon D7000 Fails to Dethrone Pentax K-5

The results are in: the Nikon D7000 has failed to topple the Pentax K-5 as the APS-C king.

...But just marginally. The D7000 ends up at 80 vs. the K-5's 82. For all intents and purposes, the category results are equivalent—as Ctein is forever trying to point out, tiny differences in scores 'n' measurements aren't visible to anyone in practical use, even if they're detectable in scientific tests (and sometimes they aren't even then).

Still, that's the nature of the competition/rankings beast. Sometimes a whole season can come down to a kicker making or missing a field goal. (Sorry for bringing up those memories, you people in Buffalo.) Does anyone remember the fascinating little aural presentation the New York Times did of the differences between medal times in the Olympics called "Fractions of a Second: An Olympic Musical"? (If you've never seen—or rather, heard—it, you really should check it out.) The sonic equivalent of "photo finishes." Sometimes a very quick "beep-beep-beep" was the only difference between gold, silver, and bronze. One silver medalist missed gold by about the amount of time it takes for a hummingbird to flap its wings once.

Still, I think it's impressive that the Nikon doesn't smack the Pentax down. Nikon is Goliath and Pentax is David, for sure. (Nikon, 34% market share in DSLRs, 1st place; Pentax, 7.8% market share, 4th place.)

At the first link, note how much bigger the Nikon is than the Pentax, by looking at the relative sizes of the sensors.

So the gold/silver/bronze APS-C cameras now rank:

1. Pentax K-5 at #6
2. Nikon D7000 at #10, and
3. Sony A55 at #20.

There's a rather stunning demonstration of the K-5's DR prowess at Pentax Forums (thanks to Ivan in the Comments for this link). I couldn't get in touch with "JeffJS" to ask for permission to reproduce the illustrations here, but you can see them there. He inadvertently underexposed a frame by three stops, resulting in a frame that's almost all black, and yet was able to pull a pretty impressive result out of it with the exposure and fill light sliders. Cool beans.

Finally, I should mention again how quiet the K-5's shutter is. This is something that Kent (who missed his true calling as a jazz concert photographer, I think) mentioned in his "Featured Comment" yesterday, and I was careful to notice it when I used John's camera last night. Tough to really quantify it in a noisy restaurant, but it did seem like an unusually quiet SLR.

Mike
(Thanks to Bob Rapp and Joe Cameron)

P.S. I tried to do an illustration for this post of a K-5 with a crown on it. Let's just say you should be grateful that I'm a writer and not an illustrator.

ADDENDUM: Maybe I should add, to those who seem somewhat dismayed by the content of this post, that most of my best digital pictures were taken with a Konica-Minolta 7D...6 MP, current DxOmark ranking no. 86.

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The TOP Evening at Yokoso

Photo by Art

Our TOP evening at Yokoso Restaurant in Brookfield was a success. At least I can say it was a treat for me (as I mentioned at the restaurant, I don't get out much—chained to the news desk most of the time). Twelve TOP readers came (Jim, Grace, Paul, Jan, John, Woody, Mark, Mark, Ed, Andreas, Pierre, and Art—how'd I do guys?), which was perfect—we all fit well at one large table. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly especially considering that few of us had ever met before, and the conversation, as you might imagine, centered around photography. Several cameras were passed around the table, including John St. Onge's new K-5, which is amazingly quiet. My son Zander was our waiter, as luck would have it (the tables go to the wait staff by turns, so it's quite possible he might not have gotten us).

I want to thank everybody who came for coming! Several drove from Chicago or Madison. I didn't take any pictures, but several others did. John and Art have already sent me their pictures, and I suspect a few others might as well, so I'll post a few more pics later today.

We'll definitely do it again sometime. Maybe next time in Chicago or Minneapolis?

Mike

Jazz Notes: Ben and Sweets

Ben Webster and Harry "Sweets" Edison, Ben and "Sweets," originally Columbia 460613-2, 1962.

A little romantic jazz. Five old pros who in 1962 had zero left to prove but chops to burn and the music in their blood. The sound quality on the remastered Columbia recording is still excellent. I pretty much like anything Sweets Edison ever put on record—listen to the little cap he puts on "My Romance" (a particularly nice version of that one here—the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD calls this version "very close to definitive")—and regardless of whether you love or just like Ben Webster's breathy Lester Young-ish tone and neo-Coleman-Hawkinsesque phrasing (I don't know anybody who dislikes Ben), 1/3rd* of the then-long-awaited meeting of these two swing-band veterans makes for forty very pleasant minutes of music. With George Duvivier on bass.

The only one of the quintet who doesn't stretch much is Clarence Johnston (no relation) on drums, but the cause of that impression might be that I've been listening to a lot of records led by drummers recently (like Shelley Manne's 2-3-4 which is grrrreat) where the drums are in their glory. Hank Jones on piano is particularly on form.

Ben Webster was Duke Ellington's tenor man during WWII—and he was the subject of a great album cover, a painting by Scott Gillis on an obscure Verve compilation called "Ballads" (above left. I had to buy it just for the cover art). "Sweets" Edison, a hard-cutting trumpet player who was with Count Basie for 13 years, was competitive and tended to get the best out of people he played with, if they'd rise to his challenges. Check out his record with Buddy Rich for a rollicking virtuoso one-upsmanship fest. Best thing Rich ever did. There's more collegiality than competitiveness on Ben and Sweets, though.

This isn't the absolute first Ben Webster recommendation—if you had only one Webster recording in your collection, it would have to be Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson (yes, ahead of the more famous Soulville—by just one slot). But I'd put it in the top five. Okay ten.

I love "Kitty." Go download that one song from iTunes or eMusic as a sample, if you want. Listen carefully to the sax. Deceptive.

Ben and "Sweets." Cheap ($5.94) on iTunes, very cheap ($6.99) as hard copy, and available on eMusic.

And I have to say, gentlemen, nice hats.

Mike

*They made two other records together in the same era as this one.

"Open Mike" consists of off-topic posts posted only on Sundays, just not every week.

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Featured Comment by Ryan Paternite: "Thanks for posting this Mike. I'm always encouraged by how many photographers (and visual artists generally) are also jazz fans. I've always particularly liked Hank Jones playing on this record. Here's a photo of Hank from his last performance at Birdland, where I work, from August 2009: