The Online Photographer

Temptations (Digital B&W Part II)

In some ways, Saturday's essay "Why Would a Digital Camera Have a B&W-only Sensor?" is one of the worst things I ever wrote. I struggle to try to express ideas clearly, but even as I was writing that one I already knew, in advance—before I had read one word of response—that too many people were going to miss the point. As I said to one commenter, the writer has to take some of the responsibility when readers don't understand. I work hard at trying to make myself understandable, I really do. But sometimes I fall down.

So I thought I'd pick myself up and try once more, from the top.

Try thinking about it in terms of temptations. What I'm saying is that if you're an upcoming digital photographer used to color who wants to really learn to see in black-and-white, color is like...heroin. No, that's too much; like candy—maybe sugar is a better analogy. Rats will prefer sugar-water to food literally until they starve.

Temptation makes you do things you shouldn't. I was in detox with a guy who escaped out a second-floor window in the middle of the night to go get himself some crack. Seriously, he hung out of the window and dropped to the ground and landed in some bushes. Color is not just a distraction, in this sense. It's a vice. A drug. Crack.

Oops, okay, er, sorry (hyperbole is such a temptation)—back to a milder metaphor: not like crack; like...catnip to cats. If color is there, you will gravitate to it. If you know the color file is in the camera, however deep it's buried, you'll see colors. Because we're weak, and color is seductive. (Or, as I once put it too sardonically, "when color became the way all cameras natively see, photographers went from photographing content and meaning to photographing reds and greens.")

And then you won't really learn how to see in B&W.

Or rather, some people won't. This clause is a problem in any web discussion. The Third Law of Writing on the Internet is, "No writer can ever qualify any point adequately."

Writer: X is only true for some people. It might not be true for you.
Person on the Internet: No, your argument is wrong, because X is not true for me.

As a commenter named Chris wrote late last night: "Having transitioned from being a mostly B&W film shooter to shooting digitally in almost all color, I am an example of your point; even setting the camera to process in B&W, I found I just couldn't give up the color subjects around me the way I can with B&W film; I know they'll be there, lurking in the raw file, and so I shoot those anyway, and lose the focus on B&W  picture hunting."

As I keep saying, I'm only talking about a small group here, a minority. Some people are happy shooting color and don't want to master B&W. Some people never use crack and some people don't have a sweet tooth. You can include or exclude yourself as you wish. I'll concede that if people don't think they have any trouble with it, then I'm unlikely to convince them that they do. And some photographers, it must be acknowledged (though fewer than you might think, in my opinion), are true colorists. They respond to color; they work with color. Their work would be meaningless without color. Granted. We each define ourselves.

Rules to live by, except when you'd rather not
In many ways, most of my various recommendations about how to learn to be a better photographer could be seen to involve getting rid of "temptations." In quotes, yes—because of course it's not really a moral issue. Here are a few of the things I've advocated over the years for ambitious photographers:

• Settle on one axe. Why? Because then its interface will become second nature to you, and you'll learn intimately what it can and cannot do. You'll get comfortable with it. You'll get good with it. It'll become a friend. You'll know it inside and out. Buying cameras like toys and switching from one to the other all the time is a temptation. Succumbing to it prevents us from getting to know one camera well. (I should know.)

• Have a clear project with defined goals and ideas about the end result. Again, it reduces the temptation to become distracted. If you set out to document how people live in the suburbs, you then know enough not to waste your time with your macro lens in a flower patch you stumble across. If you're documenting the plant life of the Appalachian Trail, then maybe you know you need to document the prevalent flowers and you shouldn't waste your time with meaningless snaps of suburbs on the way to the trailhead. Focusing your intentions helps as much as focusing your camera. Otherwise it's just tourism.

• Settle on as few lenses as possible. Why? Because then you really learn each one. You learn the secrets of how the lens really sees. You learn, gradually, how to organize pictures most effectively with that lens. You'll learn to move, to place yourself, how to control perspective and geometry and backgrounds. And you learn to see how the lens will see even when you're not looking through the lens. To see what the camera will see without looking through the camera helps you see pictures.

• Never crop. Why in the world not? What harm could cropping do? Because imagining that they're going to crop everything later confuses people. Cropping is a crutch—you might have heard that said. If you point your camera at something in the heat of battle and think, "This composition doesn't look quite right, but I'll crop it later," you're fooling yourself. You simply can't see, instantaneously, in advance, whether it works as this or that crop or not; you can't try out all the possible crops in your mind. But if you're used to using the whole frame, then you know you have to get it in or out. You can recognize—visually, instantaneously—when you've gotten it right in the viewfinder. But if you crop all the time, you'll never learn.

Besides—I'm digressing now, a constant temptation to me as a writer—you can only crop one way: in to a smaller area of the frame. You can't crop outward, to things outside of the frame. Remember this snapshot from last weekend?

I didn't think consciously about getting the program and the "Premium Seating" sign and the tag around his neck into the frame. I just do it because I always do. What if I'd shot it this way...

Thinking, "Oh, well, it doesn't look quite right, but I'll crop it later"? Later, I'd think, hmm, mebbe I should have gotten his tag, and the sign, and the program, and his whole left forefinger into the shot. But you can't include more than you shot. Too late now.

Cropping is a temptation that makes you into a worse photographer if you depend on it regularly. Giving in to temptation is a weakness. Cropping is a weakness. Get it right in the viewfinder, each time; you'll find you start to miss fewer and fewer shots.

Of course, what I really subscribe to in practice is the way one of my teachers, Frank DiPerna, once (amusingly) put it: "I absolutely never crop under any circumstances, except when I want to." The same sentiment is probably true of all my other recommendations as well.

But can you see that what I'm talking about is all about training your eye and your mind more than anything?

Some can't help but see what the camera sees
So all I'm saying about a B&W sensor is not that I don't know all the workarounds; I do. I'm not saying that some people don't make successful B&W pictures with normal color digital cameras; some do. If you're convinced you "see" B&W whenever you want to, maybe you do. I'm not even saying that there are no advantages to shooting B&W with a color sensor; there are some.

Well-intended as all of those comments were.

I'm just saying it would be nice if the camera industry with its current choice of 497* different models could spare two or three that shoot monochrome-only, for those who want that. I mean, would it kill Canon or Nikon or Sony to come out with a monochrome variant of one of their popular entry- or mid-level DSLRs? That were really optimized for pictorial B&W output? Would it really cost that much? Is it really technically so difficult? Naturally it wouldn't sell as well as the color version, what with all those catnip-loving cats out there in the GP. My point is not that it would sell well, but that it might be latched on to by significant photographers to create significant photographic work. Surely that's worth something, even to a corporation.

We need some company that's really devoted to the art of photography. Heck, that could be its name—call it the "EOS Fine Art," say. Surely it would have some PR value? Give fifty of 'em away to the world's best B&W photographers.

Create a cult. (There I go again.)

Corporate dedication to the art of photography. If there were a given population of EOS Fine Art fanatics, would it be smaller or larger than the population of, say, large format aficionados? Of Lomographers? Of alt-processors? I'd bet more. Heck, I haven't bought a Canon new since G.H.W. Bush was President and the Orwellian war of the moment was the First Gulf War. If Canon came out with the EOS Fine Art, based on, say, the latest Rebel, I'd buy one tomorrow. (I'd have to, now that I've gone out on a limb like this.) So they'd have one new customer.

We might be a minority, but I'm not the only one who wants this. As reader Peter Klein wrote yesterday, "At a LHSA [Leica Historical Society of America] meeting a few years ago, Stefan Daniel [Division Manager, Product Management at Leica Camera AG] asked how many of us would buy a B&W-only digital M if Leica produced it. A significant number of us raised our hands."

But note also that I'm not writing about this because it's just something I want, necessarily. I'm saying it's something I think the photography community as a whole should have available to it, but doesn't. The photography culture. A small but possibly significant group of photographers would be better served if they could choose a camera or two** that are optimized for native B&W and that don't record catnip—er, color, I mean—at all. No distractions. No temptation. Just as an option for those who can't help seeing what the camera sees and those who prefer to have their tools fit their task. That's all.

Clearer this time? I hope so. I'm tryin' here.

Mike

*Made that number up. Does anyone know how many separate camera models there actually are on the world market?

**And thanks to those of you who recommended the Phase One Achromatic+, a scientific camera that records monochromatic luminances both inside and outside the visible spectrum, but you're going to have to buy a hell of a lot more stuff through my little Amazon links before I'd ever be able to afford that. I'm still aghast at myself for wantonly spending $2700 on the Sony A900, the most expensive camera I've ever bought in my life. I probably won't get over that for three years as it is (and it took me three years to work up the nerve to do it). It's in the living room right now hanging from a peg, glowing with heat generated by rapid depreciation; just looking at it I feel poorer with every minute that goes by.

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Featured Comment by Mark Hespenheide: "I'm not even a black-and-white photographer, never really have been, and I'd probably buy one if it were under $2000. Just to learn for a year, and push myself.

"And Mike—the best way not to feel guilty about that A900 is to get out there and use it. I honestly don't mean that sarcastically; I felt similarly when I bought my A850. It felt like a ludicrous amount of money. But I find that the best way not to obsess about gear or the cost of gear is to go out and photograph. When I'm out photographing, I'm not sucked in to reading forum posts and wondering if I should buy a 4x5" or a 645D...."

Featured Comment by beuler: "You can buy a pink Nikon, but not a B&W one. Who woulda thunk!"

Featured Comment by Richard: "I get what you're saying Mike. For what it's worth my Ricoh GRD 3 has one of those goofy grainy B&W art filters that renders remarkably like Neopan. It also has a setting to give you both the B&W plus color files. When I tried shooting that way it confused my senses badly enough I couldn't see in color or monochrome!"

Featured Comment by Jeffrey Goggin: "With regard to cropping, I find it interesting that I have no difficulty' seeing' in B&W despite the fact that I'm looking at a color image, yet when it comes to formats, I can't visualize anything but exactly what is presented to me by the camera. If Leica offered its digital M's with 4:3 format rangefinders, I would own one, but as it is, I can't bring myself to buy one with the 3:2 format even knowing that I can crop to my preferred 4:3 format during post-processing. It's funny how the mind works, eh?"

Featured Comment by Greg G: "There are no perfect analogies, but the brain knows what the brain knows. Put a 10-inch-wide beam on the ground and you walk it no problem, no matter how much you pretend (or discipline yourself) to believe it's actually 100 feet in the air. Put it 100 feet up and you walk differently. Put it 100 feet up but carry a balance pole, and you walk differently yet again. Put it 100 feet up with a net below and you walk differently still. Practice the 100 foot high walk enough (hopefully with both pole and net) and your brain will learn things about how your body works and about wind shifts that you'll never know staying on the ground.

"Now photography isn't life and death, but the brain still knows what it knows.  If your camera only does B&W...."

Another Worthy Kickstarter Campaign

Harold Feinstein now

Here's pretty much what you need to know: "At 80 years old, with 60+ years in photography, he has yet to have a monograph printed of his classic black-and-white photographs."

Not to take vocab for granted, a monograph, in our field at least, means a published book of photographs, usually by one photographer.

Having been on the other end of marketing and fundraising campaigns, I might suggest a contribution of $100 rather than $60, if you can swing it—that way you get your copy of the book but they have a little extra to help with the less visible expenses.

Wish I could afford to get the print too.

Harold Feinstein then

Even if don't want to contribute, the short video at the Kickstarter page is worth watching. I chuckled at his quote about the trees. Funny.

You can see more of Harold's work here. Some great shots at this link (although they're too small). I think maybe he was too cheerful to be really popular with the art establishment—too much affection for people; not enough surly alienation, listless ennui, and truculent anomie.

Mike
(Thanks to Bron Janulis)

UPDATE: We heard from Jason Landry, of Panopticon Gallery in Boston, Massachussetts, Harold's dealer and the guy who's organized the Kickstarter campaign. He writes, "Mike, Thank you so much for posting this. Team Feinstein is determined to make his happen for Harold. Our goal is to publish the book by the summer of 2012 along with a major exhibition. Kickstarter is a great way to support art-related initiatives. The only catch is, if we don't reach our goal By Oct. 23rd, we do not receive the funds. Thank you in advance for your support."

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Featured Comment by Claire Vezina: "I am more than happy to see that blog entry today. I've been an early contributor and I really hope that the project will be funded in time. I do cross my fingers. Nice to see a 'big name' in the photography world to promote this project. Yes Mike, I'm talking about you. :-) Thanks!"

Eschew Cliché

By Mike Johnston

Another one from the archives. Originally published on The Luminous Landscape, Photo.net, and Steves Digicams, June 2003.

If you're involved in sports, you probably have a hard time believing things. The year you just had ("we had an unbelievable year"), the way you just played ("I played unbelievable out there"), the opportunity you were given to play for the team, the "whole organization" you're playing for, the fact that the ball went into the basket or out of the ballpark or whatever it was supposed to do. It might even be necessary to point out to non-English-speakers that when one of our athletes says someone is "an unbelievable guy," he is not necessarily calling him a liar.

It's well known that, in our culture, we strongly encourage our athletes to finish college, where what they mainly learn is how to refer to themselves in the third person and speak entirely in clichés. This is to train them to give the appearance of saying something when they speak, while at the same time allowing them to say nothing. (As is also well known, when an athlete slips and actually does say something, it's often news. For instance, when an athlete is accused of domestic violence, the whole organization would definitely not find it unbelievable if the athlete were to slip up and blurt out, "bitch disrespected [insert athlete's own name]!" Likewise, at the post-game press conference, the organization does not want the athlete pointing out that the coach is a flustered cretin who took leave of his senses at the worst possible time during the game, even if that's exactly what happened.)

For photographers, too, clichés present inviting opportunities for appearing to make pictures while not actually saying, or meaning, anything.

The urge to make clichés stems from a desire to make pictures that look like everybody else's pictures. Why would anybody want to do this? Personally I think it's because it relieves us from having to rely only on our own judgment when evaluating what we've done. Photographers, far more than other kinds of artists, are perpetually insecure about whether what they've done is going to be accepted as good. I also think photographers like clichés because, at an early stage of our development, it's a way of demonstrating competence and accomplishment. You can tell you're in this stage because the phrases "that looks like a professional took it!" and "it looks like a postcard!" are construed as compliments, and make us swell up with pride. (Later, of course, those kinds of comments become insults.)

So what's a photographic cliché? As with pornography, you're supposed to know it when you see it. I suppose we might define it as "conventional subjects shown in a conventional way." That this leaves each of us to define "conventional" for ourselves is probably a good thing.

Conventions, of course, change. In the style known as "pictorialism"—largely defined through the journal Camera Work by Alfred Steiglitz, who later grew bored by it—it was conventional, for some reason I never understood, to include a large glass globe in many pictures (guild secret? Masonic talisman? Esoteric symbology? Beats me). During the Eisenhower years, it was conventional that pictures be robust, cheerful, forward-looking, even heroic (which fortunately didn't hamper the ebullient Eisie, one of the great photographers of those days). Lately, convention can be found on tony art-gallery walls, where "photographers" no other photographers have heard of display fey, fatuous, flat, fuzzy, foreboding photos of nothing, interchangeably.

If you're smiling at that, don't get cocky. Amateurs are even worse. After last week's column, Ken Croft observed:

I can now fully understand the fascination of the Nun in Venice. When I said I didn't like it, I thought that was the truth. If I analyze my thoughts, I probably dismissed it because I subconsciously realized that I would not expect my immediate friends to like it, if I had taken it myself. I guess I have drifted into taking pictures that friends and family will like, or that might win competitions, in order to win admiration and approval, rather than taking pictures just for myself.

That's an acute, perceptive insight. After twenty years (I'm not gonna start saying "twenty-five" until I absolutely have to*) of teaching and writing about and learning about photography, I firmly believe that Ken's insight describes what many of us do (or try to do), at least at first, and sometimes for many years. What informs the taste of people who pursue clichés, then, is their idea of the taste of others. Not the actual taste of others, mind you, but just the photographer's best attempts at second-guessing.

Be confident, baby
That's no way to live. As with many things, photography is often about self-confidence. The point is not so much to learn what other people like—that's ultimately a fool's errand—but to learn what you like. Only by identifying your own concerns and becoming comfortable with your own taste will you stand a chance of developing an organic style, or signature, or way of seeing, that is neither imitative ("designed to be like something else, but usually inferior to the original") or derivative.

Photo by Lee Friedlander

I think this is why rebellious and nonconformist teenagers often make the best photography students. They don't want to conform. They don't work to please.

We each are stuck with using our own taste as the foundation for what's good or bad, because the taste of others is so varied and unpredictable. If I found one person who loved one particular picture of yours and and gushed about it on and on, praising it to the skies, and another person who hated it and pronounced it worthless, what would that teach you? If you learn your own taste and cultivate self-confidence, you can be secure in the face of either reaction.

When you know with a quiet but solid confidence that you truly like one of your pictures and you're not shaken in the least when someone says, "What the hell is the point of that?" or "I hate that!," you're there.

Go for it. Dare to be different; be yourself. Eschew cliché.

Mike

*I now have to.

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Steve Jobs' Inspiration

Edwin H. Land of Polaroid

"In the memorials to Steven P. Jobs this week, Apple’s co-founder was compared with the world’s great inventor-entrepreneurs: Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell. Yet virtually none of the obituaries mentioned the man Jobs himself considered his hero, the person on whose career he explicitly modeled his own: Edwin H. Land, the genius domus of Polaroid Corporation and inventor of instant photography."

The article is "The Man Who Inspired Jobs," written by Christopher Bonanos, from the World's Best Photography Magazine.

How to impress women
Meanwhile, I got the following Jobs tale from my pal Pete:

Long ago I spent a workday with Mr. Jobs during the "Lisa" release, doing photo work. Sometime during the day this story came out and it was memorable.

Steve was in New York during the previous week. He notoriously didn’t carry a wallet or keys and so forth. (For most of our day he was in his socks—no shoes, although he put a tie on for a couple of shots.) He found himself in his hotel’s bar and was in conversation with two nice women. They treated Steve to drinks. But when it came his turn to buy, he didn’t have any money. The two women didn’t know who he was, just a nice guy who had no money. He told the ladies the he was good for the cost of a round of drinks as he would get some money from his traveling companions.

The women were unsure of his promise but paid for the drinks. At his next turn, he again promised money from his friends; they were late, but would arrive soon. He told the women that he and a friend (Woz) started a computer company in California and that he was paid well and was good for the drink money. The women were more leery at this point about fronting money to this guy with promises and no wallet. Then Steve remembered that his photo was to be on the cover of the current TIME Magazine. He told the women that if they would follow him out to the corner newsstand (in the rain) he would prove to them that he was good for the drink money and was not BS-ing about his work in California. Well, they went out into the rain and saw his photo on the cover of TIME—and the three of them went back to the hotel bar, where the two women bought the next round.

Mike
(Thanks to Steve Rosenblum and Pete)

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Featured Comment by Avram Levi: "Playboy re-published an interview with Steve Jobs from the 1980s. At one point he talks about Dr. Edwin Land: 'You know, Dr. Edwin Land was a troublemaker. He dropped out of Harvard and founded Polaroid. Not only was he one of the great inventors of our time but, more important, he saw the intersection of art and science and business and built an organization to reflect that. Polaroid did that for some years, but eventually Dr. Land, one of those brilliant troublemakers, was asked to leave his own company—which is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of. So Land, at 75, went off to spend the remainder of his life doing pure science, trying to crack the code of color vision. The man is a national treasure. I don’t understand why people like that can't be held up as models: This is the most incredible thing to be—not an astronaut, not a football player—but this.'"

Featured Comment by Michael O'Donoghue: "Well—we all know what happened to Polaroid...."

A Rant Against Photo Clichés

...From 1937, at the ICP Blog.

Of course, "a nude holding a transparent bubble" hasn't been a cliché for a long time now, although you know what he means if you've seen a lot of post-pictorialist work from the Camera Annuals of the 1930s.

Still, kinda fun.

Mike
(Thanks to Vlatko a.k.a. "erlik")

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Featured Comment by John Willard: "Rants about photographic clichés is such a cliché. :-)"

Featured Comment by Will Frostmill: "And I was just looking at the green peppers in the fridge, thinking 'I could do something with that....'"

Why Would a Digital Camera Have a B&W-Only Sensor?

This is a question that comes up periodically, so I thought I'd answer it, so that I can point future questioners to this page.

First of all, it's not a technical issue. People who are technical and practical have a hard time grasping that. It's a procedural, visual, psychological, mental issue. It relates not to what happens in your camera, but to what happens in your head.

What happens for many good photographers (I believe all, but I'm not going to argue the point) is that they learn to see the way the camera sees. Whatever kind of camera you have, you learn from experience what the camera does, with more or less subtlety depending on your ability and your perceptiveness—and then you begin to see the world in terms of recognizing opportunities to deploy that camera's capabilities. Good photographers will not only make different pictures with different cameras, they will see the world differently when they're photographing with different cameras. This is why many great photographers settle on one camera or one type of camera for their work. It's because the way their camera sees suits the way they see with a camera.

Imagine if all you had available to you was a soft-focus lens, to name just one random example. Gradually, you'd learn to recognize (in the world, with your eyes) subjects that make the kind of soft-focus pictures you like. Gradually, you'd learn to ignore picture-subjects that depend on fine detail and clarity. Those pictures wouldn't be for you, so to speak. You wouldn't "see" them when you were out looking at the world with your camera.

A positive example this time, one I've used before: when Alex Webb began photographing in the tropics, he realized that the harsh sunlight and hard contrast was impossible to capture with slide film. So he decided that, since he was going to get black empty shadows anyway, he might as well embrace that and use them as a graphical element in his work. So he began to see pictures where the shadows would be strong graphical elements. That's not the way his eye saw them; it was the way his brain knew the camera would see them.

Photo by Alex Webb

It's not just that the pictures would be different if his camera and film could record infinite dynamic range and shadow detail; it's that the pictures he saw wouldn't be there. He's not seeing the world alone. He's seeing the world how his camera and film will see it; he's finding with his mind the pictures that he knows his equipment and materials will see. Most good photographers do some version of this, even if semi- or sub-consciously.

It's the same with B&W. Taking a color picture and converting it to B&W is trivial. What's not trivial is learning how to see in B&W.

To name one trivial effect, you stop being attracted to, and taking pictures of, pretty colors. Why? Because your camera can't capture them. It ignores them. So you have to do so as well. Working with a camera that can convert color to B&W is not the same as working with a camera that cannot record color. The latter affects the way you see things when you're out photographing. When you know that B&W is all the camera will do, then you start to ignore colors and see luminances, tonal relationships, surface, and structure. It's a different way of seeing.

An analogous example is what happens to blind peoples' hearing. It becomes more acute. When you "can't see" color, your understanding of values becomes more acute.

Not everybody needs such a thing for their work. Only a small minority of people do. A small minority of those people are artists whose work might enrich the world. (And please, do me a favor here—if you're not amongst that small minority, have the flexibility of mind to acknowledge that that small minority exists, which is to say that other people might actually want choices you don't happen to want. I've acknowledged you; it's not too much to ask you to acknowledge me.)

From a technical standpoint it's not necessary to have dedicated B&W cameras. From a business standpoint it's no company's obligation to provide artists with the tools they might need. From a methodological, aesthetic, and educational standpoint, however—and speaking from a critical and cultural viewpoint—it's essential that this option remain available to photographers who need it for their work, as well as, perhaps, to students who could use it for their training and education. (A year shooting B&W-only will make any color photographer a better color photographer.)

That's why at least a couple of B&W-only cameras are needed, as a choice, and that's why the camera industry's failure to provide them is an increasing detriment to the art of photography, and collectively a shame.

For now we have film, and conversions from Bayer arrays. Be happy—because that's all we're ever likely to get.

Meta level
There are sure to be a few arrogant comments to the effect that "maybe you need that, but I don't." Those will be from people who don't understand what I just wrote, or who aren't really B&W photographers, or who lack the aptitude to accurately appraise their own B&W skills or accomplishment, or who haven't actually carried out the exercise of learning to see in B&W—consider the fate of most tutorials, which is that we imagine ourselves doing them and imagine what we might learn if we did, which takes the place of actually doing the exercise and actually experiencing what there is to learn. It's why I don't write how-to books.

It's likely, as I say, that those of us who want some reasonable choice of B&W-only sensors will never get them; that's that "tyranny of the market" that I've written about before. Not enough money in it. (You might know that Leica almost made a B&W-only version of the M8, until the accountants closed the door on the idea. That was the rumor, anyway.) [UPDATE: Leica did introduce a BW-only camera, the M-Monochrom, in May 2012. At $7,950 for the body only it's too expensive for many people, myself included, but I know several people who own and like them. —MJ] On a more global level, our (and by "our" here I mean those who want B&W-only options) current fate is the eventual fate of us all. I have to admit that a cold wind blew through my heart when the Nikon 1 came out. We're looking at our future there, I fear.

One of the great advantages of film is that, as a consumer staple, it was relatively cheap and relatively democratic. Sure, you couldn't use a film that didn't exist, but in general anyone could afford a roll of film, and poor artists could to some degree make up in work what they lacked in money: they could do their own processing and printing, and earn with their time and effort what they couldn't pay someone else to do.

But nobody can pay for their own sensor, even with money. We're eventually going to get what the market wants to provide for us, and no more. Those of us who want B&W-only sensors are already face to face with that brick wall; those of you happily using color Bayer sensors haven't felt it yet. That doesn't mean you won't. A sensor is an industrial product requiring the application of great expertise and investment by a specialized company. It requires a large potential market to support its creation and commercial dissemination. Right now, manufacturers are still exploring what's technologically possible—we find ourselves in that fecund period of innovation and competition in which manufacturers are trying whatever products they can dream up in order to find out what will be profitable, and happily competing in terms of quality for reasons of prestige. We photographers are following along, thinking we deserve this and that it will always continue. But the fate of industrial consumer products is that industry dictates what consumers get—and, eventually, industry will figure out the practical minimum that the largest part of the market will accept. Those who want or need something radically divergent from that will just be out of luck. Just like those of us now who want B&W-only options, or who wish Fuji's dual-photosite HDR sensor hadn't bombed in the market, or who wish Foveon were the main technological stream, etc.

Music is an instructive example. (The peril of choosing analogies for this argument is that people will then argue about the analogous cases, failing to see that providing the example in the first place is just a rhetorical gambit to help get the main point across. Oh well.) We as consumers don't get anywhere near the quality of music carrier of which technology is currently capable. Since the long-playing record, we have suffered not just one but two successive waves of demoticization and diminution of quality in the public standard—first to Redbook CD, which was superior in convenience and durability to LP but inferior in sound quality potential, and then to MP3, which is a debasement and simplification of the Redbook standard. Meanwhile, technology is capable of far, far better methods of encoding and playback—but consumers aren't getting their music in that form. Not enough people know the difference, and even fewer people see the need to pay for it. There comes a point where increasing quality becomes no longer mass-marketable, and that's the point where available products and the desires of the connoisseur minority begin to diverge. It's why I can't buy a good toaster.

We haven't reached that point with sensors yet, but we will eventually. The market has already begun to express glimmers of its indifference to infinitely larger and better sensors. That hasn't affected mainstream technological development or product offerings yet, but it will eventually. Sooner or later the sensor in the average phone will be the equivalent of the MP3 file—good enough for most people—and alternatives will get thin on the ground. "Good" cameras will be some spiritual descendant of the Nikon 1 (which is why it's the wave of the future): products designed deliberately to be good enough and no better. There will be a small prestige market for specialty professional products—we hope, anyway. But it will be expensive and to some degree elusive, like it would be if, say, you were forced to choose between a cameraphone, a Nikon 1, or a Nikon D3x or Leica S2 today.

I can anticipate that some people will respond that that's nonsense—that the market will take care of everyone and provide any product that anyone wants and will buy. But please remember the main subject of this post. That's refutation enough of that.

Someday, we (this time I mean enthusiasts who want the best possible image quality) could all at least theoretically find ourselves in a position uncomfortably close to that of those who want B&W-only sensors now, or those who wish everyone who buys music wanted and demanded 96 kHz/24-bit HD carriers—either forced into a little backwater of connoisseurship with limited and expensive offerings, or just plain S.O.L.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Joe: "I started with black and white film, Tri-X in 1967 or 1968, and I shot nothing but Tri-X for probably 20 years. I tried shooting color, but the added dimension was overwhelming. I couldn't 'see' my images in color. I had my hands full just framing and shooting the limited number of variables I was dealing with in B&W. But now that I've been digital-only for about seven years, I have lost my ability to see in black and white. The few times I've converted digital images to B&W, it's obvious that my eye just doesn't work that way any more. It's funny how our brains are shaped by our tools."

Featured Comment by Dan: "In other words, the medium is the message....

"I switched back to film precisely because the 'look' of a scene can change so much depending on what the recording medium is.

"It seems to me that digital cameras have been evolving toward a platonic ideal of a camera that can do everything—no matter how challenging the scene, or what the needs of the photographer, the camera will be able to record it. But to me, that suggests a paralysis of choice, where a photographer is easily overwhelmed by the infinite interpretations she can apply to the scene.

"I actually like the specificity of film—artists work best when constrained. I walk through an autumnal orchard and do feel regret that I've nothing but HP5+ in the bag—but I was never a photographer of pretty colors, anyway."

Featured Comment by William Porter: "I don't get this, Mike. Serious black-and-white shooters (and I think I'm one of 'em) have everything we could ask for RIGHT NOW. I shoot all the time using raw + jpeg capture, and with the jpeg set to B&W. This allows me to see B&W on the camera's display and keeps my brain in B&W mode. When I go to post processing in Lightroom, I convert to black and white when I import—but I still have all the color info. This is hugely important to me. In my view shooting B&W in this way is way better than what I did decades ago shooting B&W on film."

Featured Comment by Paul Glover: "Like everything else these days, we're in a downward race toward generic boring mediocrity. Everything average, unless you want to pay insane premiums and even then only if someone is willing to risk making it or you really are a money-no-object person and can have it custom-made.

"Sometimes, average is OK. My rock music collection is migrating to MP3 because I don't listen to it as much as I used to and MP3 is perfectly adequate for my needs. My classical section, which I listen to much more often, will remain in CD form. 'Average' just doesn't cut bait for that.

"Anyway back to cameras: modifying the firmware and raw converter of a Bayer-filtered color camera to only display black-and-white misses the point. If you only ever shoot black-and-white and you're comfortable with using filters for contrast control, the Bayer filter is a waste of light and resolution. You're dividing your sensor resolution by four to get color, interpolating it back up to the sensor resolution, then throwing away the color information you just lost 3/4 of your sensor's actual pixels to get. Seems kind of silly to me.

"Lose the Bayer filter and you could either get the full resolution from the sensor with no interpolation, or you could do some sort of averaging to reduce noise.

"What I wonder is if you could maybe even do something with the extra pixels (a Bayer-type ND filter array?) to expand dynamic range and allow a digital camera to finally have a proper toe and shoulder in the response curve instead of just abruptly clipping to black or white.

"Of course, chances are only Mike will buy the blasted thing, while I'd love to but can't afford it. Bah. Just have to stick to cheap medium format gear and help keep Ilford in business!"

Featured Comment by Jeffrey Goggin: "FYI, those of us who actually enjoy manually shifting gears in our cars are encountering a similar problem. And despite many claims to the contrary, using 'flappy paddles' to shift gears manually isn't the same thing, even if it is a technically superior method in every other respect...."

Mike replies: Don't get me started!

Featured Comment by John Camp: "I saw a startling example of your argument somewhere on the web the other day, but can't find it now. They were photos taken by Farm Security Administration photographers in color, during the Great Depression. A number of shots by FSA photographers are among the most famous American photographs—and these famous shots are all in B&W.

"Because of those photos, and the harshness of that era, I think of the Depression in black and white. But it wasn't that at all, and these color FSA photos bring that home in a way that I found almost shocking. The subtle grays of weathered wood (which seemed like metaphors for the lined, weathered faces of the migrant workers, or the bleak grayness of the entire era) suddenly become brilliant chrome yellow, or some other bright color.

"This reinforces the whole idea that B&W is its own aesthetic, particularly now, when we can so easily switch from B&W to color and back."

Featured Comment by Glenn Gordon: "I think 'Taking a color picture and converting it to B&W is trivial' puts it too dismissively. I've been using a G12 which 'presents' in color, but that hardly means I'm 'seeing in color,' or enslaved to jujubes, or that conversion of the image to B&W is trivial—not if B&W was my intent all along. You see past or through or beyond the color on the screen or in the viewfinder of any camera, film or digital, no?

"I shot this in NYC a couple of weeks ago—'in color' but not really...it recorded as color but color had nothing to do with it."

Mike replies: Enough people aren't getting my point that I think maybe I might have to try again.

Featured Comment by michael walker: "I'm sorry, I only got to the picture and started browsing through Alex Webb's pictures. How comes I didn't know that guy? Thank you Mike! And I'm sure you're right!"

Featured Comment by richard: "Is the question about learning to see in B&W? I don't actually believe that we 'see' in colour, or at least it's not our primary visual perception. Shape, proximity, light and shade, movement—all come before colour. As an adjunct I think it's well known that most people do not have good colour memory—witnesses of accidents for example often cannot recall the colour of a car."

Featured Comment by George LeChat: "My freezer is filled with black-and-white sensors. I don't see the problem."

Punk Rock!

Photo by Lucien Perkins

My friend Lely Constantinople has been telling me for years about a trove of work she discovered in the basement archives of her then-boss, D.C. photographer Lucian Perkins, who documented the emerging D.C. punk scene at the beginning of his career. She was very excited about it then and now, and has long had the idea of trying to help set the work loose in the world.

Lucian is a two-time Pulitzer-Prizewinning Post photographer who was Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1994 and won the World Press Photo of the Year in '96. But all his photographs of bands like Bad Brains, Trenchmouth, Teen Idles, the Untouchables, and the Slickee Boys were taken before he was known for anything. Lely's husband Alec MacKaye was there for a lot of it. (He's also the brother of Ian MacKaye, frontman of the Dischord band Fugazi.) When she found the negatives, Lely recongized Alec, then her boyfriend, in the contacts.

Lucian, with Jayme McLellan, who is director of Civilian Art Projects in D.C., Lely, and Alec are taking the next step to try to get the work seen and published by launching a Kickstarter campaign. They have an exhibition planned for D.C. in November which will travel to New Orleans and Austin, and hope to publish a book.

If this appeals to you, head over to the Kickstarter page for Hard Art DC 1979 and have a look at their video.

And pass it around.

Mike

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The Most Desirable Cameras on the Planet: Number 9

The ninth spot on our list goes to the new Sony A77.

Canon and Nikon make superlative SLR products, but currently on very conservative paths. Modern DSLRs are pure oldthink: they're based actually and conceptually on similar-looking film cameras (makes sense, since they're made to use the same lenses). Canon and Nikon are both stuck in ruts: useful, productive, and successful ruts, it's true, but still. Each sticks religiously to the "better is bigger, smaller is for amateurs" lockstep, and each line shares a corporate design language from top to bottom—designs that have not had significant rethinks for years. Decades, if you're counting. And which make their lineups all very samey and prevent different models from achieving significantly different "personalities" or styles. The standard of progress is constant and undeniable improvement, yes, but along the familiar, well-worn refresh/upgrade paradigm that has become de rigeur for both. It makes for "families" of camera models, each with its own "lineage" of similar cameras across cycles. The D30 begets the D60 begets the 10D begets the 20D begets the 30D begets the 40D begets the 50D begets the 60D. All indisputably excellent, just predictable. It's an essentially conservative, hidebound, take-no-chances approach that has worked well so far (although history tells us what can happen to companies that get too comfortable with that kind of status quo). And next we'll have the or the 70D and the D400, and they'll be better than the current models and have a few new features and look about the same and cost about the same and be indisputably excellent too, along the same old lines, another tick or tock in the usual refresh/upgrade cycle, and I'm bored already.

Sony, the new kid on the big block, bought Minolta's SLR unit when Konica-Minolta thought better of trying to compete without being the maker of its own sensors and stepped out of the fray. Sony's first two SLR offerings, the A100 and A700, were dutiful warmovers following the tried-and-true Canikon formula. 2007's A700, targeted at the upper end of the amateur market, was an immediate descendant of the 2004 Konica-Minolta 7D. (Unfortunately, Sony's acquisition of Minolta's SLR unit also killed its own F-505 / F-707 / F-717 / F-828 / R1 lineage, and that one I still mourn. Sony should revive a modernized R1 with a square sensor; it'd sell. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)

Then the A700 was discontinued and...nothing. And then more nothing. And more*. Radio silence. Various speculations bubbled up: Sony isn't serious about the high end of the amateur market? There's going to remain a big gap between the traditional pro A900/A850 and the rest of the product lineup?

Turned out Sony was rethinking. Not just refreshing.

Whether the A77 with its wacko features turns out to be a good camera remains to be seen as of this writing. Whether it will be a popular camera is a separate, semi-related subject. I've written about the risks Sony might be taking elsewhere.

But different is cool and new...at least to talk about, at least while it's new. Different creates desire. True, the A77 might be more desirable than the Canon 7D and the Nikon D300s just because it's different and the latest to arrive, and for no other reasons. But that's good enough for a place on this list, whereas the excellent comparable Canikon products seem sorta sleepy by comparison. Desirable, yes, but not as.

Mike

*Why? Because I was waiting for the A700 successor, that's why. I can make it rain by leaving my umbrella at home. Because I had a K-M 7D, I opted to wait out the A700 and buy the next generation after it. It's my personal version of the umbrella rule: if I'm waiting for it, it doesn't come out.

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These Are the Voyages... (Very OT)

Stewart Brand and Dr. Mae Jemison chaired two of the paper tracks

By Ctein

Last weekend I attended the 100 Year Starship Study (100 YSS) public conference. Its three-day mission? To figure out what it will take for humanity to launch a starship 100 years from now.

Initiated* by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), 100 YSS was created by David Neyland, director of the Tactical Technology Office of DARPA, along with Pete Worden, director of NASA Ames Research Center. Having created said baby, it's now being put out for adoption. That's the DARPA way.

Now NASA's interest we can understand, but why DARPA?

Space has always been important to DARPA. In fact Eisenhower started DARPA (back then just ARPA) in direct response to Sputnik.

Is a starship germane to present-day DARPA? Not likely, but the approaches and solutions to the problems of biosystems, energy, food, long-duration missions, building durable organizations that can stay focused for more than an election, and so on...those are all problems that interest DARPA.

DARPA's also interested in the fringe benefits. The year 1969 hosted the first human mission to the moon and the first message sent over a blue-sky, military-driven kludge of a computer called ARPAnet.

Yup, these are the folks who invented the Internet. (And, no, Al Gore never claimed he invented it—that is a politico-urban myth. But it has made for a lot of good jokes.)

OK, that's the background. 100 YSS had 1300 registrants, over half of whom showed up (there were two other major space science conferences happening in the same time frame. There need to be more weekends in a year.)

A small circle of SF friends included Gerry Nordley and Joe Haldeman

Interestingly, I knew almost none of them. OK, I knew a fair number of the speakers, especially the nuts and bolts guys (and they were almost all guys). And, of course, pretty much all the SF authors. But, among the attendees, I saw hardly any faces I recognized. Not that I know everyone in the SF community, but I know a fair cross-section, especially among the core groups.

That is to say, this was not your usual sci-fi crowd.

In Memoriam

Steven Paul Jobs, 1955–2011

-

Recommendations:

The "CNBC Titans" profile on Hulu.

The 2005 Stanford Commencement Address on TED. Here's the text version (thanks to MM for the latter).

Nine things you didn't know about Steve Jobs including that he's genetically an Arab-American (his birth father is Syrian).

The authorized biography by Walter Isaacson (Walter Isaacson was the longtime editor of TIME magazine and also wrote a wonderful biography of Benjamin Franklin).

A brief appreciation by Hank Stuever at the Washington Post site (Paul De Zan suggested this).

Finally, a reader named Peter suggested this simple but poignant epitaph: Jobs restored to his rightful place in the famous Apple "Crazy Ones" ad (from AdWeek):

The portrait at the top, the best-ever of Jobs that I've seen, is by the great Albert Watson. I built this post before I knew that this was the portrait Apple chose for its home page; I think the tones as seen here are closer to Watson's usual palette, but I've never seen an original so I don't really know.

Mike

Featured Comment by Bahi: "I've been dreading this. I knew what to expect when Jobs resigned as CEO but the news is still difficult to accept. Steve's death in October sheds light on his last public appearance in June and also makes this picture, taken immediately after that appearance, all the more poignant."

Featured Comment by Steve E Miller: "What was most amazing about this man is not the plethora of products that his companies made but rather his amazing ability to inspire, engage and encourage the people who worked at all of his companies to make the best of their skills which in turn created the iconic products put out by Apple, Pixar and NeXT. This is the thing that it seems most CEOs don't recognize—it's the people not the product. I wish I could be more precise in my language in trying to describe what I understand so fully in my mind.

"This Stanford speech of his will go down in history as possibly one of the most important speeches by any businessman ever. I know it inspired me...."

Featured Comment by Ken Tanaka: "I am profoundly grateful for living concurrently with Steve Jobs. He greatly affected my life which is why I am deeply saddened by his early death, as if I just lost a close family member. What a wonderful life this man lived."

Mike replies: I concur Ken. At times I've reflected that I am that guy who he intended to enable with his innovations. I was the creative type who was uninterested in computers and had little aptitude for them. I probably would not have been a writer today if it weren't for the Mac—much less be writing TOP every day. Steve Jobs didn't create the computer age, but he enabled people like me to share in it.

If there was ever a guy who ought to have lived long and prospered, he was it.

Featured Comment by Andreas: "Sorry for being negative again, but some of the comments (including Ken's and Mike's featured dialogue) are pressing a little too hard, on the edge of becoming pathetic, like declaring him as a family member posthumously. C'mon....

"The quote from Barack Obama is much more sensible in my eye, acknowledging Mr. Jobs's success in a witty manner, without transfiguring him."

Featured Comment by Allan Graham: "Mike, I wholly concur with your assessment of Steve Jobs as a man who enabled others. A long time ago now, when CAD was just starting to become common, I was a newly qualified architect struggling hopelessly with a widely used but horribly clanking CAD program (really designed for engineers) on a certain type of personal computer with a rather inadequately developed graphical user interface. Frustration and misery. I shortly moved to another practice where they were using MicroStation on Macs. Liberation and delight! The system just didn't have the same irritating capacity to get in the way of my lame mental processes, and in 25 years I have only ever worked with Macs.

"Without Mr. Jobs and all those bright people he led and inspired, I doubt if I could have kept up with it at all. It's just my generation of course, but I still find it easier to think with a pencil...!"

Mike replies: 'Zactly. My own experience was more pedestrian, but just as acutely felt. In the summer of 1976 I was awarded one of the few private study carrels in Baker Library at Dartmouth, to write in, as part of an one-on-one English 89 seminar. Seventy pages into an ambitious manuscript I realized I was having severe organizational problems (long my Achilles' heel), and I saw no other way to get a handle on it than to literally cut up the ms. with scissors, and tape the bits on the wall so I could reorganize it all. Before long my entire carrel was festooned with strips of paper of varying lengths. Then I would tape it all back together again for the next of several laboriously retyped drafts before starting the process anew.

It would be another eight years before I used a Mac for the first time (and I had already learned to solve my organization problems with brevity by then), but the usefulness of the "cut" and "paste" commands and, especially, the ability to revise and rewrite another draft without retyping everything...an amazing revelation. Your just-right phrase "liberation and delight" hits that nail very squarely.

Featured Comment by M: "The best tribute to Jobs' work I ever heard came from a temp sales clerk in the 1990s who was struggling to ring up a sale on a PC-based terminal in the store. He couldn't get the commands to work right and kept apologizing. Finally he said, 'I don't use computers—I'm a graphic artist. I use a Mac at home.'

"For him the Mac was not a computer you had to grapple with, it was a tool that was part of his art.

"I grew up in the computer industry, from the days of mainframes on. What Apple did under Jobs direction was complete the work. He didn't invent most of the Apple products—they existed before Apple. Personal computers and MP3 players and tablets and smart phones all existed before Apple developed them. Jobs saw to it that Apple made them work, took the extra steps to invent whatever was needed to make them extremely easy to use, and made them beautiful. He did change our lives."

Featured Comment by Caleb Courteau: "I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news, and probably always will. I'm 25, so I didn't experience JFK, but I imagine the admiration and respect I feel for Steve Jobs is similar to what was felt for our late president. Rest in peace Mr. Jobs."

Featured Comment by Steve Rosenblum: "'Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else's life,' Jobs said. 'Don't be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other peoples' thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.'"

Featured Comment by Emmanuel Huybrechts: "I understand nothing about this Apple/Jobs cult but it's always sad when talented people die too much early."

Featured Comment by Edie Howe: "I would not be a photographer today if it weren't for the work of Steve Jobs. Vale, Steve."

Featured Comment by Wayne: "It is our nature to be born, to live, and to die. Know your nature and live with it to the fullest. Steve Jobs did, and in doing so, helped others do the same...what better legacy?"

Fuji Goes on the Attack

Shigetaka Komori, Fuji CEO, has announced that Fuji will enter the mirrorless interchangeable-lens market by next Spring (2012) with a line of products that will share the "Fujifilm X" nomenclature with its recent fixed-lens cameras the X100 and X10.

Komori-san says that the sensor quality of Fujifilm X mirrorless will exceed that of current full-frame sensors, although its sensor size will likely be smaller than 24x36mm. The claim reminded me of something...I have a hazy memory of someone with knowledge of the industry telling me long ago that an official of Canon said that Fuji is the only company Canon is scared of—not Panasonic, not Sony, not Nikon—because of Fuji's expertise with sensors. (I might not have that right, so please don't quote me.)

Fuji also confirmed that demand for the X100 has far exceeded expectations. More than 70,000 have sold in six months, and the total is expected to top 100,000 by year's end.

Mike
(Thanks to Vlatko—and Google Translate)

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Featured Comment by John F. Opie: Fuji is a supporting member of 4/3. While this doesn't necessarily mean that they will produce, consider who else is in that list: only Kodak and Sanyo do not have active 4/3 products (Kodak did do sensors for some of the early models). In other words, they've all got skin in the game.

"Consider this: in sharp contrast (pun intended) to Canikon, there is no Fuji DSLR market to cannibalize if they were to bring out a Micro 4/3 system. Point-and-shoot and bridge cameras, yes, but no DSLRs in production. The Nikon 1 system is clearly designed to avoid cannibalization of Nikon DSLR sales, while Canon appears to be happy to ignore the whole subject.

"Consider this as well: Olympus has some truly kick-ass lenses for Micro 4/3, but hasn't upgraded the sensor much worth speaking of. Panasonic has a better sensor in the GH2, with some outstanding lenses (largely via Leica) as well, but lacks the IBIS.

"If Fuji were to bring IBIS, an outstanding, high quality sensor and some of the Fuji lens magic, game over. It's the penultimate digital camera.

"And finally, consider this: there have been fairly substantiated rumors of a Fuji Micro 4/3 offering for the last two years. Given the time lead involved for developing such a system, it sounds like there is a definite opportunity here for Fuji to be a game-changing company, which is, in many ways, where they need to be in order to survive.

"However: a new mount? Meh. We don't need YAECM (Yet another EVIL camera mount) which would limit sales and market potential. Micro 4/3 has the potential to break out big-time with Fuji on board, an Oly professional Micro 4/3 ruggedized body, and Panasonic turning out pro-quality movie-capable Micro 4/3 bodies. Goodness, what a joyful world that would be (besides, you can use all of the lovely Nikon and Canon glass, saving your investment...).

"Of course this is speculation. It's on the Internet, isn't it? :-)"

Blog Note (Yet Again)

I must apologize again for the unintentional interruption in services this week—life has been getting in the way of TOP recently (though all is well. In fact, one of the "issues" I'm dealing with is that I've gotten not one but two consecutive uninterrupted full nights of sleep, a great rarity in my life. I've no idea what I'm doing right but I hope I can keep doing it.

Insomnia, on the other hand, is good for getting work done).

At some point—come to think—I should get the cloud-mind's input on ideas for how TOP might usefully grow from here. It seems we've almost reached the limit of my own (limited) ability to do everything...although all that's really begun to suffer is the time I have to a) take pictures and b) write articles, which (you perceive) is not a terribly desirable condition. A day at a sports event filling up a CF card and half a day writing about it are enough to plunk me solidly behind the eight ball. TOP, meanwhile, has reached that awkward stage of development where it's practically too big for everything to be done by one person but not big enough to support any staff. I've been wrestling with this a bit of late.

But I digress. Ctein's column will appear first thing tomorrow morning (early—I can program it [UPDATE: Not so early. I wrote this before I heard Steve Jobs had died, and I'd like to leave Steve at the top of the site during the morning tomorrow]), and then I'll get back to work! Apologies again to regular readers for the slim pickins' so far this week.

Mike, TOP's Director of Diffused Slackery

We've All Been There

I guess it's not too hard to figure out what's been happening to this photographer a lot lately. Funny.

-

Mike
(Thanks to Jeff)

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Featured Comment by Jan: "There was a very similar story that just made the rounds in Seattle, with an equally witty take."

SoFoBoMo is Closing (VSL Too)

(This post reproduces the announcement posted by Colin Jago on Sunday October 2, 2011, which can be found at this link. —MJ)

Solo Photo Book Month has been running for four years. And what a fantastic four years they have been.

All good things, however, come to an end. And this is the end for SoFoBoMo.

The small group of us who organise the annual event have looked long and hard at the future and have, reluctantly, decided that without proper (i.e. expensive) web development and without proper (i.e. expensive) promotion we cannot go on.

We believe that participants over the years have, well, grown a little. The experience of proving that you can (can try, can finish, can see your book, can hold your book) has been energising. People have written to us to tell us that. We've felt it ourselves.

We would like to give our grateful thanks to everybody who has volunteered, everybody who has donated, and everybody who has participated.

The website will stay online until the end of 2011 and we encourage everybody to explore the range of books available.

Goodbye.

The SoFoBoMo team.

 We're sorry to see this, and send our best wishes and congratulations to the team as well as all the participants. It was a great idea and it's been a great program for a lot of people. I know that a number of our readers have participated in SoFoBoMo at one time or another. In the summer of 2011, 391 people took part and 149 books were completed.

Kirk Tuck
On a related note, we're very sorry to see that our friend Kirk Tuck is bringing his popular blog, "The Visual Science Lab," to a close. Kirk started VSL when the economy was in the doldrums and he had time on his hands, and now he has other things to do again.

He achieved a remarkable degree of success with his site in a relatively short time; with the high energy level and intense focus typical of successful commercial pros, he piled up a lot of excellent and involved content, and in the process raised the traffic of his blog to an elite level. I'm here to tell ya it ain't easy.

By the way, Kirk mentions in his final post that he is "done spending time creating content for free," but at the risk of seeming disrespectful of that perfectly understandable desire, I've sent him an invitation him to write a monthly column for TOP if he wants to. He might not accept, but what the heck, it's worth a try. Some guys are just good.

Naturally we wish Kirk the best, and extend our congratulations to him for his successful run with VSL. I'll keep that door I mentioned open for him, just on the off chance.

Mike
(Thanks to Justin Ting and Patrick Dodds)

UPDATE (breaking news, 1 p.m. Tuesday): I just now opened a brief comment to this post that read, "Mike, You know I can't resist. I'm in. Love the writing but I'll leave the moderation of comments up to you. Thanks. Kirk."

I'm very pleased. No details yet (we haven't spoken), but I'll keep you apprised.

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Featured Comment by John Roberts: "I was also sorry to read that Kirk Tuck is ending his blog. In an internet world where there is so much uninformed opinion, or mere self promotion, The Visual Science Lab combined worthwhile information, entertaining writing, and photographs that evidenced that the author actually knows what he is writing about. Mr. Tuck has the too often rare ability to express knowledgeable opinions without coming across as an egotistical know-it-all. I really hope Kirk Tuck will take you up on the offer to write a regular column; he would be a welcome addition to TOP's team of contributing writers."

Featured Comment by MM: "In his final blogpost, Kirk wrote, '[Since January 2009] I've written over 720 entries: some popular (the gear reviews), some contentious (anything about the death of the commercial photo industry), and some largely ignored (the ones about inspiration, art for art's sake, personal growth, and inquiries into what propels and sustains us).'

"Of the 150 comments posted so far lamenting Kirk's shutting down VSL, a number are from 'long-time lurkers' who say that even though they never commented to express their appreciation, they will miss most the third category, the most 'thought'-full pieces. It's no surprise to anyone familiar with the online photography world that Kirk's gear- and commercial-oriented articles generated the most heat, while his reflections that had fewer proper nouns and brand names remained quietly (under-)appreciated.

"There is a tremendous amount of great content—written by an experienced professional photographer—in those 720 posts (which will remain accessible online). Perhaps Kirk can occasionally revisit and rework for TOP some of the timeless themes in the inspiration/art/growth essays that he worked hard on but were 'largely ignored' by gear-review surfers. He'll get a good reception here.

"Kirk is wise, very wise, and photographers benefit when he shares his wisdom."

Featured [partial] Comment by christian: "A sad day indeed! When I was a kid in the Boy Scouts, an adult handed me a round, wooden disk. It said 'TUIT' on it. He then told me that I could never again say I didn't get a round tuit. Even then I was a fan of puns, and this sat very nicely with me. I have been planning on participating in SOFOBOMO for the last two years, and I can't say I simply didn't get around to it, however I did let other priorities distract me. I guess there's no reason I cannot still do my own 'FOBO' in a MO. I just need to carve out the time."

Lightroom for Half Off

I don't keep up on deals and I can't guarantee that this is the best, but I just thought I'd pass along that B&H Photo has Lightroom 3 on sale for half off for the remainder of today (October 3rd). I'm not clear whether the deal ends at the beginning or the end of the day tomorrow; all I know is "ends October 4th."

Mike

UPDATE: The sale ends at one minute before noon EST on Tuesday, October 4th.

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The Perfect Packer Game (Not Entirely O.T.)

Jack clued me in about how to set up for the flyover. It happens too quickly to react to—you've got to be waiting for it.

As I mentioned briefly already, my friend Jack invited me to drive to Green Bay with him yesterday to take in a Packer game. Even though I've lived in Wisconsin for not too far short of half my life (from age 7 to 18 and 43 to 54), I'd never been to one before.

My first view of the fabled venue

It must be some version that "too local" phenomenon: I also went to photography school almost literally next door to the White House and never went on a tour. You'd think it would be easy, but there is always a line, and when you live there it also always seems like it would be just as easy to go some other time.

Coming into Lambeau for the first time is a memorable, wondrous experience.

The equivalent of the White House line is the difficulty of getting tickets to Lambeau, which will apparently be sold out as long as this region of the world remains populated.

The One-Eyed Frozen Man. Photo by Jack MacDonough.

To begin with the overwhelmingly obvious photographic lesson: some things just cannot be photographed. The immediacy of the experience, the totality of the sensations, and, especially, the qualities of the place itself just can't be reduced meaningfully to little rectangles of colors. Edvard Munch said that photography can never record heaven*.

Lambeau is surprisingly small and intimate.
And unphotographable—you gotta go!

And you can't photograph The Wave. (Jack said that.)

A 300% unsharpened detail from the picture above, to show how badly body-integral image stabilization degrades the image. I mean, I can't even read the logo on his sleeve, or read the time on his watch.

I took only a 4 GB card and didn't quite fill it up (and the gigabytes go by fast with the 24MP Sony on RAW+JPEG). But this morning, I'm impressed by the feeling that my pictures, taken to provide mementos more than anything, might even detract from my memory of the experience. The big things just aren't there in the pictures; the pictures of the little things are the only ones that work.

If you get to take in only one game at Lambeau, this one was the perfect one. Great company, great seats, an ideal day—clear and cool, with that bright slanting northern sunlight—and a game with almost no penalties and at least four really cool plays. And the Packers plastered the opposition**.

Nobody enjoys a blowout except the home team, as the old saying goes.

The couple in front of us were mixed—she's a Broncos fan, he's a Packers fan. They live between Denver and Green Bay, in Iowa.

The final score was 49-23. If there is any doubt in any football fans' minds that Aaron Rodgers is quickly ascending to a place in the Packer firmament, put those doubts to rest. Up till now, a certain half played long ago by John Elway of yesterday's visiting team was the most transcendent performance by a quarterback I'd seen, but Rodgers came close to that standard for a whole game. He was a one-man Bronco-buster, throwing for 400 yards and four touchdowns and rushing for two more, the first time that particular trick has ever been pulled off in the whole history of the National Football League. Wonderful to witness. 

The real sports guys cover the actual sport. If you're in the stands, best to cover the stands.

A few observations: The players aren't big. They're tiny. And they don't make any noise like they do on TV—no grunts or audibles or the smacking of shoulder pads against shoulder pads. The crowd and the nearly incomprehensible announcers make all the noise.

And you've got to pay attention. I was astounded by how much harder it is to watch a game in person than it is on TV. TV does all the work for you, and it encourages really bad habits by comparison to reality: when I watch a football game on TV, I can even listen from another room and return to the set for the replay whenever I hear the crowd roar. I hope you won't think I'm completely barmy when I mention this, but at one point I caught myself staring very absent-mindedly but very intently at the field after a particularly intricate play, and I realized to my amusement that my brain in its infinite rut was waiting for reality to replay itself. Made me laugh.

Reminds me of something that happened a long time ago. A gallerist named David Adamson had donated six first-generation Macintosh computers to the Corcoran School of Art in 1984 to teach a computer graphics class, which I took. I spent the class using MacWrite rather than MacDraw. I'd gotten used to the then-new-to-me mouse and cursor, when one day, at home, writing a letter in longhand, I found myself staring (again very absent-mindedly) at the paper: I was sitting there holding the pencil touching the paper between two words I'd already written. Why? I was waiting for the cursor to appear so I could insert an adjective. D'oh!***

High five

By the way, the Green Bay fans are really knowledgable. I thought I knew how to follow a football game, but the crowd is really right on top of what's happening. The four people to our left had paid two grand for their seats—and they left before the game was over! The friendly couple I was sitting next to were Steve and his pretty wife Heather; he's a plastics manufacturer from Monroe who sold the company he started but still works there. He told me he's played golf three times with Aaron Rodgers. In his youth Steve tried three times to make it through Q School****. I have big respect for people who take a shot at their dreams like that; not always easy.

While we were talking, I completely missed a Broncos touchdown.

Jack. The guy in the plaid shirt is Fred, a retired paper machinery contractor who was born down the road in Oshkosh.

Jack, who was a TOP reader long before we met in person, is a personable, smart guy with a sense of humor. He's also the ideal guide for a trip to Lambeau—we deconstructed Leica on the drive, amongst many other topics photographic, and he's very savvy about how to negotiate the ballpark—knows just where to park to make a clean getaway, and all that. Thanks again, Jack.

Anyway, I'll try to resist going on forever about this. I had a great time. The overarching lesson: one experience of any class of desirable thing is infinitely better than none.

 

Me photographing the flyover, by Jack.

If you ever get a chance to see a game at the famous Frozen Tundra, don't pass it up.

Mike

*Actually he said photography can never depict heaven or hell, but I'd argue with the hell part.

**But then, the Detroit Lions are also 4-0, which I believe is a Sign of the Apocalypse.

***I'd never be a writer if it weren't for computers. Just thought I'd mention that.

****Qualifying School for the PGA Tour, memorably chronicled in John Feinstein's book Tales from Q School: Inside Golf's Fifth Major.

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Featured Comment by Jon Porter: "Thanks for a unique perspective on the game. I watched yesterday's blow-out in the Appleton Best Western. I think the Broncos stayed at the posher Paper Valley Hotel downtown, as earlier in the day there were fancy buses, flashing police cars and what looked like football fans crowded outside the entrance. Around halftime I went to dinner and the streets of Appleton were as close to deserted as I've ever seen them, as was the local Applebee's. Game day attire for women in town seemed to be #12 Packer jerseys. I guess it goes without saying that Aaron Rodgers is Wisconsin's Most Eligible Bachelor!"

Featured Comment by John: "I can relate to your instant replay and mouse experiences—in the last year or so I've taken to reading books almost exclusively on my iPad—I've probably consumed close to 40 novels. Twice recently I found myself reading a traditional paper book or magazine and, without thinking, and swiped my finger across the page (iPad users are familiar with the motion) expecting it to turn crisply and allow me to continue reading. To my credit, I don't think I gave it a second swipe on either occasion, but it did take me a just a moment to realize it wasn't going to respond and why....

Featured Comment by Ted: "Last year, at age 52, I finally made it to my first ever Red Sox game at Boston's Fenway Park. I discovered the exact same things you did—taking photos of the game was fun, but it detracted from the experience of watching the game much more than I thought it would. But what a great time I had! Too bad the Sox fell apart this year. By the way, your photos of the Packers game are much better than mine."

Mike replies: Thanks Ted! I was feeling mighty rusty. I have enjoyed the advantage of several periods of time in which I had nothing to do in my life but shoot, and that kind of concentration has its rewards. It does come back. I was sort of "half" in working mode, because I knew I'd need some shots to post here. However I thought Jack's shots of the day were better than my batch, all things considered, so I know the feeling.

Featured Comment by Ken Rahaim: "It's an interesting point you make about the act of photography detracting from the experience. I've experienced this feeling enough times now that I specifically and consciously make the decision not to shoot, but rather to just absorb the experience and let it wash over me. When my 'eye is on' (as my mentor used to say) the world gets reduced to choices of 3:2 aspect ratio compositions to the exclusion of pretty much everything else; most notably, it seems for me, sound.

"My wife and friend were very surprised when I didn't bring my SLR with me to Monza to watch Sebastien Vettel win his very first Formula 1 race driving for Red Bull junior team Toro Rossa. Instead, I can still recall the visceral scream of the F1 rockets approaching Parabolica; the damp, wet conditions which Vettel drove in so masterfully; and the history which permeates a place like Monza. Yeah, sure, I would've noticed those things even if I had been shooting. But I didn't want to just 'notice' them. I really wanted to absorb them and me, I just can't do that if I'm seriously trying to shoot."

Mike replies: The better you are, the harder it is to divide your concentration and not "work at peak" so to speak. To really "work" a football stadium, with your "eye on" as you put it, I imagine a photographer would probably have to go to three games (if not ten) and have the run of the place, and of course you wouldn't be very aware of any of the actual games. The opposite of working at peak with your eye on is what I've long called "being a tourist." I was just a tourist at this one. As I am in almost every instance when I do any appreciable amount of shooting. And a lot of shooters don't have the patience to work when they can only have half their cylinders firing. It makes sense to me that you'd make the choice to concentrate on experiencing the race at Monza rather than just be a tourist with your camera.

All Quiet on the TOP Front

Uncharacteristically, I've been sprung this weekend, which is why things have gotten so quiet here on TOP. I spent the day in Chicago yesterday as a guest of the Art Institute and the Schley family, for a fascinating event I hope to be able to tell you a little about later in the week. Today I'm off to the Packers-Broncos game at Lambeau Field in Green Bay—it'll be the first time I've ever been to Lambeau or seen the Packers live, so I'm looking forward to the experience.

More when the workweek resumes. Hope you are having a good weekend too—!

Mike

If You Have Talent, Find Your Own Way

Each week, a leading street photographer would issue an instruction and a large band of photographers would take to the streets and capture their interpretation of the theme.

The resulting pictures were then uploaded to the photo-sharing site Flickr where members could view and indeed comment on the work....

Phil Coomes, picture editor, writes about "Fifty-two weeks on the streets" at the BBC.

Mike
(Thanks to several readers)

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