The Online Photographer

Stats

I didn't compile the statistics on all the Comments (200 so far!) to Friday's hypothetical—where's Sarge when we need him?—but the purpose was to see how many people already have their dream cameras. Seems like quite a few do. Meaning that opportunity and direction loom larger as limiting factors to working.

I didn't ask what peoples' projects would be, but quite a few people volunteered the information that they'd go zooming off to various points of the compass. People do realize, right, that travel isn't the same as a project? Serious photographers often have tightly focused projects (see Deborah Luster below for a good example) and amateurs often don't. Touring the world is fun, but you can be just as unfocused elsewhere as you are at home!

In re the cameras, it did seem that Leica was disproportionately mentioned. Same as it ever was: slight in market share, robust in mindshare.

And did it just seem that way, or did an awful lot of people pick the OM-D E-M1 for their one camera? What's up with that? It's not even out yet.

Speaking of that, it does seem like there's a real disconnect where mirrorless is concerned between general popularity and popularity among enthusiasts. Every indication seems to be that mirrorless isn't "doing well" in North America and Europe, and yet—just as strongly—every indication I'm aware of is that serious hobbyists love the things.

Maybe mirrorless is like Leica: small in market share, large in the hearts of diehard photography fanatics.

Seems the E-M1's are shipping from B&H already but every indication is that they're going to be in short supply for a while. I'm really interested to hear real-world impressions, and to read some reviews.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Eolake Stobblehouse: "I'd like to differentiate between unfocused and defocused. Some believe (some, strongly so) that the most important question about photographing is What To Photograph. In my style and photography, I have that reversed. I think the subject is unimportant. I believe the picture is the thing, not the subject. One of my favorite paintings is van Gogh's Sunflowers. I am not very interested in flowers, but that painting, to me, is aesthetically powerful.

"I think one can work as a Defocused 'walk-around' photographer (street photography is a subset of this), and make significant aesthetic work, if inspiration is with you.

"Subject focus of some kind may coalesce out of this, as it did one day for me when photographing in Edinburgh. I noticed that red came up a lot, and followed it. But I think part of the defocused way of working is to let go of the ego control, and slide into a zone of 'cooperation with the Universe.' The pictures will find you. Many of the very best photographers came to make some of their best work outside any projects they were working on, they just suddenly Came Across inspiration somewhere. To actually pursue this can, perversely, require more discipline, because the logical mind objects to it. The logical mind likes limits, order, and predictability."

Gato: "I think the mirrorless lag in the U.S. is more a brand thing than camera type. The question I get from novice photographers usually goes something like: 'I want a camera where I can change lenses. Should I get Nikon or Canon?' They don't care if it's mirrorless or DSLR—they probably don't know the difference—but they do have the idea that Canon and Nikon are the only 'serious' cameras."

Colin Work (partial comment): "Maybe I'm growing up—I found the hypothetical assignment more interesting than the hypothetical toys."

Random Excellence: Deborah Luster

Scene of the murder of Cornelius Watson, age 25, by gunshot,
on June 4th, 1998. Photograph by Deborah Luster.

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"Tooth for an Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish (Twin Palms Publishing, 2011) is a photographic archive documenting contemporary and historical homicide sites in New Orleans, the homicide capital of the United States. The result is an exploration of the dizzyingly empty space at the core of violence. Luster approaches this invisible, excised population obliquely, with haunting, unpopulated photographs that seem to exist outside of time, simultaneously distant and chillingly close." (From Deborah Luster's website.)

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Deborah Luster has been interested photographically in criminals and crime scenes since her mother, Jeanne Tovrea, was murdered by a contract killer in 1988. Because she (Deborah) had seen the killer, for the next seven years, until he was apprehended, she believed he might be after her as well. She was, in her own words, "pretty much a mess."

More here.

And here is the full story of The Murder of Jeanne Tovrea.

Mike
(Thanks to Don Norris)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

S. Boonchai: "Thanks for this post. Deborah is a very generous soul and a great presence here in NOLA's art community. Just a FYI, she recently received a Guggenheim and will be the Keynote speaker at this year's PhotoNOLA on December 12th at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Info here."

Mike Chisholm: "A story straight out of Elmore Leonard. Or possibly George V. Higgins. Being a fan of photographer Raymond Meeks, a while ago I bought a copy of his collaboration with Deborah Luster (of whom I had never heard), Crime Victim Chronicle, the first in the "Orchard" series. I've just looked at it again, with fresh eyes. I'd say that whoever maintains that knowing a artist's back-story is irrelevant to an appreciation of their work (as many do) is, um, mistaken."

Good One (OT)

Doctor has a patient, a little old black lady, 88 years old.

The old lady has a medical complaint, and the doctor outlines the treatments for her—call them options A or B.

"Well, doctor," she says, I don't really have any basis for choosing. Which would you recommend?"

Doctor says, "If it were my mother, I'd choose option B."

The old lady thinks for a moment. "I see," she says. "And do you like your mother?"

•     •     •

(Sounds like a joke, but this really happened—to my brother Charlie, who's a doctor in Chicago. The woman has been a patient of his for more than 20 years, and her mother, who was once a major celebrity, was a patient of his as well. He knows the family well and he's extremely fond of her. You can see why, can't you? It's not the first story about her I've heard.)

Mike
(Thanks to Charlie)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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No featured comments yet—please check back soon!

Hypothetical Question: What Would You Do?

Congratulations! A foundation has just awarded you one year of working on your photography full time. You will be generously paid, and any travel expenses will be met (although you don't have to travel). Subject is entirely up to you, no limitations there. You get the services of an assistant to help with cataloguing, image processing, and other routine chores, if you so choose. Any outside lab fees will be paid in full. Furthermore, your boss has agreed to let you take the sabbatical and your regular job will be waiting for you one year from now. A vehicle can be provided should you need it. The only caveat is that you have to choose one camera and one lens which you agree to work with exclusively. Paid for by the foundation, of course. You don't get to keep the camera or lens at the end of the year. The photos (and rights) are all yours.

Would you accept such an arrangement? If so, which camera and lens would you choose? Please be specific! Finally, do you already own that camera and lens?

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

marek fogiel: "I suspect this provocative question will have many answers...I would definitely go with a medium format camera (I mean film camera obviously). The most beautiful and flexible lens I know of is the Hasselblad Zeiss Planar 110mm ƒ/2, which works just fine on the Hasselblad 201f. I own both."

John Prendergast: "Given that there are no caveats whatsoever to this arrangement anyone would be foolish not to bite.

"I like the idea of the Fuji X-E1 and their 35mm ƒ/1.4; this is not too different from what I use regularly today, the Nikon D5100 and the 35mm ƒ/1.8 (DX).

"What would I do, well, let's stretch the rules a tad. As Steve D commented that he would go to the ISS, I'll take it one step further. I would like to photograph the moons of Jupiter. Impractical, you say? On the contrary, I figure if 50% of the world's GDP is diverted to constructing a nuclear pulse drive or fusion rocket, one could get there and back within the year...totally practical.

Cost of camera ~$1,300
Travel expenses ~$30 Trillion

"If there is some fine print about how the photographer many not divert more than 1% of the world's GDP towards their own, um...narcissism, then I would just travel around the world."

robert e (partial comment): "Of course I'd accept. I'll be honest—if someone's footing the bill, travel itself would be as much motivation as photography. I'd want to go everywhere, though a year isn't that long if one wants to get to know places and people...."

Matt Miller: "I'd take an 8x10 Ebony and a nice 12-inch Dagor. Man, do I miss contact printing."

scott kirkpatrick: "A year in which to turn what I see into pictures in the simplest way possible? No problem. A new Leica M and the latest Summilux 35mm ƒ/1.4—they see pretty much what I see when I look around. And I already have them. Not giving them back at the end of the year, thank you very much. "

struan: "I like work which commits time and attention to one small place over an extended period of time. If someone were willing to underwrite the project I would want use one of my existing cameras—which I know well—and my habitual short tele. I would aim to build a visual impression of what is like to start out with fresh eyes and gradually come to know a single subject really well. There are quite a few such projects in the canon, but none, I feel, which do justice to a subject close to my heart, one which I am certain would result in a significant contribution to the history of the medium. So I would keep it simple. Just me, my 6x6, and a full year at the Ritz."

Mike replies: You forgot to add the rimshot at the end there. [g]

Jack (partial comment): "I did this in 2010 but without the assistant and I kept the camera at the end. It was a Leica S and a 35mm S. Three years later I use the same camera but still no assistant."

Terry Letton: "I'm afraid I would have to decline such an offer. The thought of being tied to only one lens for a whole year would be stifling. Ever since my first SLR freed me from captivity to the not-so-nifty 50, I enjoyed being able to change up once in a while which never fails to enliven my results. The rest of the offer is very enticing, but no, I'll pass."

S. Chris: "Can't imagine anyone reading this far down the comments, and if they do, sheesh, yet another Leica M with 35mm ƒ/1.4.... How boring....

"To spice it up and to take advantage of the circumstances (free lab!), I'd make it an M6 TTL, probably with the .58 finder. And loads of Portra 160 and 400, and Tri-X. Scanned by real experts on something like top o' the line Imacon gear.

"I'd spend at least half the year knocking around Java, Ternate, maybe Flores, a few more out-of-the-way bits.... Then either carry on, or head to the other end of the globe and crawl around Morocco for the remainder.

"The heartbreak would be parting with such a fine camera after a year of getting to know it well. But I do after all have my own M6 and M9 to go back to, though the M6 needs some work and is the standard .72 finder....

"Interestingly, the part about this that is the most appealing to me (also the only part I haven't basically done already) is having the assistant. I imagine someone who would be a truly gifted photo editor, helping me to discover things in my work I am blind to myself...."

The Latest Gimmick

So have you seen that new trendy style where someone drops part of an old picture into a new one using Photoshop?

Human beings are strange. They love what they love and they're gonna do what they're gonna do, and that's just that*. Human beings also love gimmicks. And excess. Collectively speaking. We just do.

Being an "idealist" type, I don't care for gimmicks and excess. I like "purism" better. Not as in "my way is better than your way"; it's just what appeals to me, and gratifies me. (Of course I do think my way is better. But everybody thinks that whatever appeals to them is best.)

There have been innumerable gimmicks in photography over the years. Too many to count. Really, all that's changed lately is that a lot of them are easier, and much more widely accessible. Photographers who liked bright, vivid color used to chase after specific film types and high-contrast lenses and so forth, and were still largely blocked from excess of the truly wretched sort. That's no longer the case. Digital means that not only can you indulge in whatever form of excess you want, you can positively wallow in it.

Dropping part of a historical photograph into a modern one of the same scene is one of those gimmicks. One of the latest ones. It seems to bonk people over the head with the startling insight that things happened here in the past that you can't see right this second. As in, a murder happened in this hallway, and a corpse once lay right here where you walk every morning on your way to the parking garage; or, soldiers once fought a pitched battle on this street. And so on.

I dunno. I'm always aware of things like this, so the insight doesn't strike me as particularly deep. And don't get me wrong, I love comparing two different photographs of the same subject separated by time. Still, I wonder about the device of putting the two shots together in one frame. My question would be, why?

It's with great effort, great self-restraint, that I have refrained from illustrating this post. I would like to; this particular gimmick, of dropping a bit of an old photograph into a new one, might be something some people haven't seen. But you see, then it would be in conflict with another of my values, which is that anybody can do anything they dang well please with their own photography as long as they aren't hurting anybody, and it isn't nice to condemn anybody specifically. If don't like infrared, but it would still be rude to put up one specific infrared picture by one specific photographer to illustrate that idea. I don't want to slag anybody specifically for work they obviously like and I don't. Well, actually I do want to, if I'm honest. It's just that I'm trying to be polite.

But back to that "why": I don't understand what's wrong with just putting the whole historical photograph next to a whole modern photograph. Wouldn't that serve exactly the same purpose, only better? I do love to look at such comparisons. Definitely.

I don't know. It isn't up to me; I'm not in charge of all photography. Other people can do what they want. Me, I don't like gimmicks.

Other people generally do. And always will, I guess.

Mike

*If you read (and buy into) The China Study, for instance, it seems clear that there already exists an easy way to minimize your risk of the First-World "diseases of affluence" such as heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes. But we'd rather not. We'd rather eat an excessively rich diet loaded with salt, sugar, and fat, animal protein, and processed foods. It's not that we want to get fat and die young; we don't. It's that a 12-ounce steak for dinner and a pint of ice cream every night before bed is delicious and we'd rather not give it up*. Thanks, though.

I honestly saw this on the news the other night: a teaser about how "a new study" shows that eating fruits and vegetables might not be very good for you after all, followed immediately by a teaser about how you could get to try Burger King's new reduced-calorie French fries for free. What an opportunity! Sure, that's news. Now I ask you, how could anyone possibly think that the news has gotten more influenced by commerce? Nonsense.

While I'm on the subject, I went to watch a pool tournament last night, and one of the contestants was an extremely obese man. Not quite to the level of Iz Kamakawiwo'ole, but almost. Every time he missed and lost the table, he would waddle over to the sidelines and pop into his mouth several large spherical breaded and fried objects about the size of ping-pong balls. I don't know what they were, but they smelled delicious.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Christian: "I think the reason to juxtapose the two images into a single frame is to force the viewer into fully picturing the event then into their perception of now. There's still a momentary disconnect when comparing two photos as you look away from one and then look at the other. That's my take on it, for whatever that's worth."

Steve J: "It's the trendiness of a particular gimmick that becomes quickly tiresome. The first time I saw the superimposed history shots, the series presented a different perspective (effectively playing on my interest in WWII history). But not long after this, online general news sites would announce yet another set, often praising the shots as incredible, amazing, or some other type of superlative.

"At this point, the novelty begins to corrode and the inescapable distaste for faddism (whether fair or not) begins to inform reaction. I should say, however, that the media, not just the photographer, who might have an unquestionably earnest interest in this style, becomes an accomplice. And of course, if these series didn't trigger page clicks, the media would move on. Fingers pointing everywhere.

"But yes, I sympathize with the desire to be open and nonjudgmental while still allowing honest opinion its turn, however conflicting this might be. Undoubtedly, there is a place for everything in photography, including selective color shots, but this does not require indifference, or really even acceptance, just begrudging tolerance I reckon."

Steve Jacob: "Since the advent of digital imaging and Photoshop we can manipulate images in far more extensive ways, which is fine as long as there is equal effort applied to the message itself. Often, when browsing the images on some premium photo website, I am left with the feeling that I have just unwrapped an extravagantly presented and bow-tied parcel to find another pair of socks from Auntie Meg. I'm not a purist, I am very open to new ideas and new styles as they become available, but art has to be more than just technically proficient. It should, at some level, change the way I see or think about the world."

hugh crawford: "Thirty years ago, holding a postcard in the scene was an art school assignment, and it was about 30 years old then. Duchamp or someone? It's hardly new, but some people are doing some interesting stuff with it. Some is quite good. The captions make a huge difference. Or are you thinking of something else?"

Mike replies: I was thinking of something else, but that's a fascinating connection.

I Meet Ewa (and Photo Equipment News)

As regular readers know, when I write about pool instead of photography, four dark horsemen mount up. Fruit rots on the trees, well water turns inexplicably odiferous, the sound of screaming is heard in the distance, and readers by their numberless legions drop out of TOP's audience never to be seen again. And people yell at me that they come here for photography, not pool, and that besides, snooker is better. (I am still trying to work out what a "snooker" is. I think it's a bird. Possibly a cartoon bird.)

And I get flustered when I get yelled at. So I'm going to sprinkle in some camera news so all that won't happen this time.

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New Ricoh Pentax Flagship: Did you know Ricoh has a new Pentax flagship camera? APS-C, as ever. TotL. They've followed what seems to be a developing style in choosing a lower number than their previous flagship, the K5-II: the new camera is called the Pentax K-3. They've retained the basic shape of the K-5 (a good thing). Otherwise, the real news is improved specs in almost every area: better AF, bigger sensor, better viewfinder, larger viewing screen, and speedier processor. The"other" news is that the camera says Pentax on the front and Ricoh on the back, and has an innovative/silly feature (I think that should be a new feature category): you can simulate an anti-aliasing filter with the flip of a switch. The camera doesn't actually have an AA filter, but it will helpfully simulate it for you by jiggling the sensor to blur the picture in cases where moire might be a problem for you. Whee, I need that. (<—sarcasm). Dpreview has a good intro.

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So anyway, I got to meet Ewa Laurance up close and personal last night! She's a multiple world and 9-ball champion also known as a trick-shot artist, and a famous Nordic beauty (born Ewa Swensson in Gävle, Sweden). She was co-hosting an amateur trick shot competition at Danny Vegh's northwestern outpost in Milwaukee's village-sized Bayshore Mall. Here she is explaining how to do a shot I just recently mastered. Well, "mastered" might be a bit of an overstatement. (That must be her house in the video, by the way, because I happen to know she owns a Brunswick Monticello, which is what that is.)

Ewa Laurance

Her name, in case you're curious, is pronounced "Ava" (long "A" first, short "A" last, like Ava Gardner).

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Meet Otus: Hoping to cut in on some of that good Leica carriage-trade action, Zeiss recently announced a line of ridiculously-highly-priced-but-hopefully-worth-it lenses. Following the "Touit" example, the new line is apparently going to be named "Otus," thus introducing the glimmer of realization in my brain that I'm probably not going to be able to keep up with all this. These weird names, I mean. I've got "Touit"; we'll see if "Otus" sticks in there too. But if all the manufacturers start a monkey-see on this, I'm quickly going to get lost. Anyway, the first of these onepercenter lenses is now open for preorder: it's the Zeiss 55mm ƒ/1.4 Otus Distagon T*, in Nikon and Canon mount. Perfect for those of you with four grand burning a hole in your pocket and a gnawing desire for a normal lens for your full-frame digital SLR, which thirst has for some unknown reason not heretofore been slaked.

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Danny Vegh's, as you no doubt know (who doesn't?), is the leading purveyor of billiards supplies in the region of Ohio around Cleveland. Only two years ago, CEO Kathy Vegh—who I also got to meet last night and who, like Ewa, also happens to be dazzlingly beautiful in person—opened a store at Bayshore, their first out-of-Ohio retail venture and the best billiards store in Milwaukee proper. They were having a trick-shot contest open only to amateurs. As the only professional in attendance, Ewa did demonstrate some of her own signature trick shots ("these are mine. Mine," she said, dryly referring to the fact that many trick shot artists routinely rip off other peoples' shots).

Here's Kathy on the company's website—on the left with dad Danny, a former ping-pong champion who arrived in America penniless from Hungary and built his retail empire from scratch—and on the right in drab business attire. Yes, I kid.

Interestingly, Kathy's prettier than her pictures.

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All-Weather Nikon: The newest camera in Nikon's "Nikon 1" mirrorless line is the Nikon AW1, which is actually a lot cooler than it might seem at first glance. It's similar to the existing J3, but it's shockproof, freeze-proof, and waterproof to a depth of 50 feet, which, you will note, is a little deeper than most swimming pools, as well as a little deeper than must snorkelers can go. Most of us will only have to remember that when we're in water deeper than 50 feet, we should not drop it. Fetuses and digital-only youths won't see the resonance here, but the AW1 actually harkens back to the Nikonos, which were the leading underwater cameras for many years back in the era B.D. The lenses, excusably, are specific to the camera...they have to be waterproof too.

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So anyway, I showed up last night just to spectate. I'm a beginner, having just taken up the game in April, and what did I know? I thought there'd be sixty competitors, half of whom would be teenage ninjas who do nothing but practice trick shots all day. So I didn't bring my cue. Which made sense. Of course, not bringing a camera didn't make sense—didn't make sense at all, given that I am, er, ahh, well, a photographer. On the good side, this was one of the relatively rare occasions when I actually managed to remember that there is a camera in my iPhone. (Amusingly, I often forget...and I'll see something I really want a picture of and curse the fact that I haven't got a camera with me. While the iPhone is sitting there innocently in my pocket. The thing does talk—you'd think it would remind me. Do you think Siri could be programmed to say, "Hey, idiot, I'm a camera too" at just the right moments?)

Top: Ewa demonstrating one of her trick shots. Bottom: Ewa, the contest winner, and Kathy. Semi-competently photographed with my iPhone (the iPhone is an exceptionally lousy camera, but it must be said that I am a lousy iPhonographer).

Although the event seemed well attended and the mood was festive, only five (five) people stepped forward to attempt trick shots—and two of them weren't even pool players (they were the children of a guy who evidently really, really wanted the prize but had missed his own trick shot attempts). Only one of the five managed to sink her shot—for which she won a brand new Brunswick Authentic pool table valued at almost $5,000! (A Camden, in cherry.)

Brunswick Camden. The shot that won this was not fancy.

Who knew?!? If I had known that the competition would be so managable even for the likes o' me, I would have practiced a few trick shots. I might not have won, but I could have competed.

Sony fail: Sony is perhaps to be complimented for radically lowering the price of its entry-level offering, the new A3000. But apparently there is no such thing as a free lunch: seems the quality plummets in tandem with the price. David Kilpatrick at PhotoClubAlpha is very down on it; among other excoriations, he says "it has the most inadequate electronic viewfinder I can remember using, including finders on various bridge cameras of the distant past." Ouch! (Although he likes its image quality. Sony does do sensors.) All things considered, this is developing into one to avoid. And avoid recommending...but here's a link anyway, just in case. Hey, it is amazingly cheap.

And in case you're wondering, Ewa Laurance in person is personable, friendly, and warm, as well as very poised and confident. Very likable. I talked to a number of nice people. Good times were had, as they say, by all. If you live in Milwaukee, heads up for future Danny Vegh's events.

•     •     •

So, how'd I do? Did I sneak in a bit of pool without the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse showing up and alienating y'all? Talk about a trick shot!

Mike
(Thanks to Robin Pywell)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Pete F: "I think the pictures of gorgeous women saved your hide."

Ed Hawco: "Kudos to Pentax for simple naming (K-3), unlike Olympus and Panasonic, whose product names look like the result of a tipped-over Scrabble board."

Will: "The common thread here with these new Zeiss series seems to be that they are named for birds, which is a fun thread to tie them all together."

phil: "Zeiss might not just be looking to the carriage trade. An Otus + D800E is still a lot less money than a medium format setup, or even the Leica S. So it might be a useful product to someone needing every last line-per-millimeter or detail-per-pixel, like someone making huge landscape prints, if it delivers on its promise to be the ultimate. That would be an interesting test, a comparo between high-res DSLR and new, lower-priced MF setups."

Matteo: "But, Mike, the numbers on the Pentax are not getting lower. See, after the K-5 and the K-3 come the K-1, K+1, K+3...."

paul in AZ: "I like the pool bits. (Haven't played for many years but did in college.) Keep 'em up. I confess to skimming or not even reading the camera items."

I Quit...Again

This week's column by Ctein

This week's title alludes to a column I wrote three and a half years ago, called "I Quit." Sometimes quitting is a long process.

To put it another way, "The darkroom is dead. Long live the darkroom... somewhere else!" As I planned, the monstrous TOP Blowout Dye Transfer Sale was the last big hurrah. It wasn't my last darkroom task; I had a couple of commitments to clear off. Minor stuff compared to the sale, but still, it was work I'd promised to clients. I wound up with just barely enough large sheets of large dye transfer paper to honor those commitments. I was cutting it a bit fine, but it worked out.

So, what were the very last things I did with my darkroom? The next-to-last was an obligation to complete the dye transfer edition of Ken Jarecke's "Face of War" photograph. About ten years back, Pierce [Photojournalist and printer Bill Pierce, long known to one and all by his last name only —Ed.] put Ken in touch with me to inquire if I'd be willing to print that photo for him. I was honored by the request, but I had to think on it. I wasn't sure I could do it.

The photo's one of the all-time great war photographs, and I would argue the greatest to come out of Iraq War I. (Yeah, I know, that's practically trolling for everyone to trot out their candidate for "greatest" but it's how I feel, so have at it. No accounting for taste, especially mine [g].) But it was also well-suppressed in the United States at the time. The major news services, distributors, and papers refused to run it on the grounds that doing so could "hurt the war effort." Yes, an oligopoly can exercise pretty effective censorship.

OK, so what made me hesitate? Well, you will notice that the photograph does not appear here. That's not a permissions issue—Ken would be entirely happy with me including it in this column. It's because I don't think anyone should see it without warning. It's workplace-safe...but it's not entirely sanity-safe. It's not the least bit gory, but it is gruesome. With that warning, here's a link.

Imagine facing that as a 16x20" print in glorious dye transfer, nose to nose with the subject. I really wasn't sure I was up to it. I had to pretty seriously disconnect emotionally when working on that photograph for Ken. Otherwise, it was just too much to take. With long-term exposure and familiarity, I've become sufficiently desensitized to the image that it doesn't cause me grief to print now.

Once I'd finished that task I took stock of the darkroom and discovered a photograph (above) that I'd only I'd half-completed printing, part of the Jewels of Kilauea series. Something had interrupted me midstream (I have no idea what). It seemed fitting to finish off that one last 8x10" photograph before calling it quits.

That I did. Made myself four finished prints. Officially consigned the Ctein Darkoom Era to the dustbin of history. Ceremonially dumped the trays of dye down the sink (don't worry, it's environmentally safe) and watched the inky rainbow swirl down the drain.

In case you're wondering, yes, I do have considerable amounts of dye transfer dye left, as well as a stock of small dye transfer paper. I'm not physically prevented from making more dye transfer prints. Yet. But it's not a decision I'm going to be reversing any more than the one to stop using film (and anyone who might imagine otherwise really doesn't know me at all).

I'm making progress towards making the decision physically irreversible. Sunday, a TOP reader drove down from Mendocino and bought my Beseler 45 V-XL, color head and 8x10 head. That's three out of the four "too big to want to ship" items I listed in my column two weeks ago, gone. I'm delighted...and surprised. Mike and I had a shared bet with the Universe that I wouldn't be able to get rid of that stuff. There are precious few people still looking for darkroom equipment. I got lucky.

So, no new photographs printed in the darkroom, no way, no how. It's become physically impossible. Come early next year, when I sell off all the sets of matrices, even reprinting old work will be physically impossible.

Before then, though, I'm hoping there won't even be a darkroom there. I really have to get off my duff and start working with contractors on remodeling the garage level of the house (where the darkroom is). I've got lots better use for that space.

Ctein

Columnist Ctein says hellos and goodbyes every week on TOP on Wednesdays.

[UPDATE: Ken Jarecke wrote a very nice response to this post in the Comments section, q.v. —Ed.]

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Eduard de Kam: "I really hope that the huge body of knowledge and experience that you acquired using this technique will serve you well when using other methods of printing. Still, saying goodbye to something you have done so long must be strange. I remember me doing away with my darkroom. That must have been at least 12 years ago. It was a strange feeling, but with hindsight I never regretted it. But then, I used only normal printing, not the very special dye transfer process that you mastered. I wish you well."

Bill Pierce: "I believe the first time Ken saw the shot published in the U.S. was on a wall in the Village area of NYC. It was being used as a poster by a British rock group. I was with him at the time. It was a strange experience."

Posts I'm Forced to Write

Every now and then I have to write a certain post, because so many people are sending me links to the same news item. Everybody seems to agree that it's something I ought to be excited about.

Unfortunately, I'm not excited about the Leica "designed" by Apple's renowned Jon Ive along with Marc Newson, whose Pentax K-01 was a nice little camera that flopped as a product.

As far as I can tell, huge amounts of resources, time, and attention were wasted creating a silly meaningless bauble.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The result will be auctioned at Sotheby's for charity.

One thing I do raise my paltry little who-cares objection against: all the news outlets that are saying Jony Ive "designed" a camera. No, he didn't. He just dressed a camera. To design a camera, you have to have a vision of how it might be used, and be free to determine how it should be configured and how it ought to work and what it ought to do. This is no more "designing a camera" than, say, hiring an artist to paint a Rolls and then saying the artist "designed" the Rolls. Yes, you can design a camera without being an engineer. (The engineers are the ones who take the ideas and make them work.) But this isn't that.

Now I've done my diligent duty and written about this*. Always aiming to please.

Curmudgeon-in-Training Mike

*At least this post is the Yin to the previous post's Yang where Leicas are concerned.

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Ed. Note: The following two comments came in one right after the other:

Ian Castle: "'The engineers are the ones who take the ideas and make them work.' No; all the best products come from the ideas and knowledge of engineers. The world is now plagued with heavily designed and styled products which do not always work very well. As a retired engineering designer I recognise that products have to look good but good design means 'form follows function.'"

Marc Gibeault: "As an industrial designer I completely agree with your analysis."

HT: "Mike, if it makes you feel better, I saw this Leica/Apple news on another website and immediately though, 'Man, I bet anything that Mike will hate this camera.'"

Dave Jenkins: "C'mon, Mike! Don't be modest. You're way past the training stage in curmudgeonry."

Grant Tomlinson: "Mike, I don't think you're in training anymore. This post itself is a brief master class in the art."

Mike replies to Dave and Grant: Harrrumph! [g]

'French Kiss: A Love Letter to Paris' by Peter Turnley

As I said before (but should say again), I'm hardly objective about this whole project. I've been talking to Peter about it since he first got the idea for it, I've kibitzed on the various edits as the book evolved, and Peter is kindly giving me a spiff for helping to publicize it. All of which you need to know up front.

So now back to this idea of "home base" I mentioned yesterday, which most readers seemed to really get. I've long been aware that I come to photographs with two hats on. One is my editor's/critic's hat. In that frame of mind you have to be open to all sorts of work, and take creators of art at their work and on their own terms. And then there's my personal hat, where I get to bring my own taste to the forefront. 

That's where I find my own home base, which has long been what I used to call "Photo 101 Style"—35mm B&W photographs of "found life," printed full frame—a style popularized by Henri Cartier-Bresson and adopted by innumerable other photographers as their own over many years. It's just what I love best. It's home, for me. And it's what I do myself. I have very little of my work in that style digitized, but there certainly are a lot of boxes of it in the house.

So Peter Turnley's Paris work—black and white, mostly 35mm photographs of "found life" in the world's most celebrated city—hits me right where I live. This is the kind of work I do myself, or try to. It's the style and technique of photography that I work in, and of all the myriad kinds of photography out there it's the one that appeals to me most naturally and most strongly.

Still and all—I got my copy last Friday, and I have to say I couldn't be more pleased with the way the book turned out.

Peter holding his new book

The book is a very nice size—in fact, its dimensions are very close to the "ideal size" I chose for TOP's books, although it's thicker. Big enough to let the pictures "breathe," but not so big that the book is hard to hold in your hands. The unmarked, matching-color slipcase is beautifully made, and the book in its slipcase makes a crisp and tidy presentation.

The book has very little text, and lots and lots of photographs—138, which means the book is best taken in over several viewing sessions—138 pictures is a lot to look at in one go.

The pictures are laid out one to a page, on facing pages, with none running across the gutter. The presentation is ideally respectful of the viewer's desire to primarily simply see the photographs.

The reproduction is very nice. I neglected to confirm if they have been spot-varnished, but it looks that way. The reproductions aren't exact replicas of Peter's originals (which tend to be much larger anyway), but they are very close in feel to the originals. A full, rich, vivid range of tones.

Many of the pictures in the book are literally of people kissing. Almost everyone is happy, and the feeling-tone, overwhelmingly, is of affection and companionability.

I like the fact that there are a few gay couples included—the spirit of the book seems generous and inclusive. A few pictures bespeak friendship more than love: there are a few children, a man and his dog—even two dogs "kissing"!—and a few old couples. Like this one (I own a print of this, and it's a personal favorite):

Oddly, I have only one problem with the book—and it's completely peculiar to me personally—it's just that I haven't been in a particularly romantic state of mind, or place in my life, in recent years. It's a very romantic book—a romantic view of Paris, a romantic view of love—and I imagine it would resonate strongly with anyone who is close to that state of being at present. But the key word there is "imagine"!

But that's just me, now. Anyone who is flush with romantic feeling should respond to these pictures with great sympathy. You'll have to let me know if you do.

The book was designed from the start to be suitable as a gift book, and it would be perfect for that. Peter actually wanted to print enough copies to last through Valentine's Day. A word about that, though: as you might have seen, the book was featured on the New York Times' Lens blog last week, and it's been selling briskly. Although there are 3,000 copies in the press run, sometime today (Tuesday) the number sold will shoot past 1,000. And it's only been out for a little longer than a week. So of course I'm already getting a little nervous—I don't think it's going to last past Christmas, if it lasts until Christmas. So, yeah, it would make a great Valentine's Day gift, but you'll have to lay in an order before a lot more time has passed. Word to the wise. You know how it is.

If there's a second edition, it probably won't have the slipcase (or be signed—all the first editions are signed). But might be a little less expensive. But there might not be a second edition.

Two more fun little details about this book: Peter thinks that a) almost all the pictures, with maybe just one or two exceptions, were taken with Leicas; and b) he thinks that every single generation of Leica rangefinder camera is represented, from the M3 and M4 to the M9 and M Monochrom. So there's that for Leicaphile interest.

Peter, his assistant James, and all the people he hired to help with the production of the book get all the credit for everything turning out so well. But I am going to take credit for one little thing—the regular everyday price for the book was slated to be $85, but I talked Peter into offering it for $69 during the first "pre-order" month—this month, October. That was me. For you. When the book starts to ship in November I think the price will go back to what it was supposed to be originally. So for now it's a better deal. You're welcome.  :-)

Here's the link to the order page.

It depends what's "home" for you, but I can't see how anyone wouldn't like French Kiss. And if you don't, you can always give it to someone you have a crush on—who knows? Could work. You know what they say about Paris and love.

Mike

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Ed Hawco: "I have a print of the geezer in the wheelbarrow too. I'd love to know the story behind it."

Peter Turnley replies: In 1984 I was invited to participate in a one-year group project documenting the life of one street in Paris, la rue de Lappe. It's a famous street next to the Bastille where there have been traditional dance halls renowned for great music where people like Edith Piaf sang. It was a street that was at that time still very working-class and not yet gentrified, with many bars, restaurants, dance halls, and residential apartment buildings.

The group of photographers that participated in photographing the life of the street that year included William Klein and several other outstanding French photographers, and it was an honor to be part of this group. One day I walked into the courtyard of an apartment building, and as I recall, simply came across this couple, the concierges of the building, kissing, as the husband of the couple sat in a wheelbarrow.

The concierges all lived on the ground floors of buildings in Paris. They were a very important part of the social fabric and history of a street like this. They were often the very salt of the earth—warm hearted souls with lots of stories to share.

Bob Smith: "'It's a very romantic book—a romantic view of Paris, a romantic view of love—and I imagine it would resonate strongly with anyone who is close to that state of being...' Well that did it. I'm more in love with my wife 25 later than on the day we married. I ordered a copy the day you posted about French Kiss, but I'm ordering another one to give her for Christmas to keep at her office (Liz can't stand Valentine's Day...too commercially forced on us in her opinion)."

New Nikon: The Oil That Wasn't There

It's fitting that as I write this, I just read the news that Peter Higgs and Francois Englert have received the Nobel Prize in Physics. They won for predicting the Higgs Boson, a particle that for fifty years wasn't there. That is, it hadn't been detected in the real world. Confirmation came along in 2012; all those articles about "the god particle," remember? They got the prize for theorizing that it must be there.

"I hope this recognition of fundamental science will help raise awareness of the value of blue-sky research," said Higgs, who, nearly as elusive as the particle, did not come out of his habitual seclusion on the news of the award.

Meanwhile, over in our little corner of the known Universe, Nikon has released the D610. Might not sound too familiar, until you hear that it's a 24-MP full-frame DSLR. Which looks very familiar. Then you think, oh yeah, 610 is just an increment more than 600.

Nikon D610. Look familiar?

The D600, which is a wonderful camera, was plagued by reports of oil on the sensor, which some cameras suffered from and some didn't. (If you're a D600 owner, you probably know ten times as much as I do about this issue.) The rumors of the problem apparently (we don't really know) also smeared sales. The new D610 was apparently released to show the door to those negative associations and put paid to the rumors and their attendant FUD; the D610 is nearly identical to the D600 except that it has a reworked shutter mechanism.The supposition is that the older shutter mechanism was the culprit in schpritzing that wayward oil where it shouldn't oughta been.

So is the oil-on-the-sensor problem gone? Nikon can't say. Huh? Why? Well, because it wasn't there. You see, Nikon never really acknowledged the problem in the first place. So it can't very well trumpet the news that the problem has been fixed.

Lots and lots has changed in the camera world over the years. But it's funny how many things have stayed the same. Years ago, I bought a Nikon 35mm ƒ/2 lens that had oil on the aperture blades. Come to find out, it was a known problem that many other people experienced as well. Getting the lens cleaned didn't help, because the oil came back. Various folk remedies were proposed, such as only storing the lens in a particular position or setting it outside in the light of the full moon. Nikon eventually fixed the problem, and later AF-Nikkor 35mm ƒ/2's didn't have any trouble...but Nikon couldn't ever tell us which lenses didn't have the problem, because it didn't acknowledge that the problem was there in the first place.

 

AF-Nikkor 35mm ƒ/2: No problems

So anyway, this is not official, but: the D610 is the one that doesn't have any problems with oil on the sensor.

And that's a very good thing to know. The D600, sans its nagging problem and resultant bad rap, is a really, really nice DSLR. Yeppers, the D800, a.k.a. Y^e Big Dragoon (a dragoon was a pistol that weighed as much as a canned ham) is the über-Nikon, over the top in pixel count (36 million) and filled with full-framey goodness. And it's a handful, the camera version of a monster truck. And therein lies the good news: the D610 will be the D800's more sensible little brother—great size, great feel, great image quality (again, not proved by me, as of yet, but highly likely). I'd recommend it over the D800 for all but the most diehard Nikonians and monster truck fans. And I have a D800.

The D610 is actually cheaper, too.

You can get it in kits with various zooms, but of course I'd recommend a small prime...like, maybe, the old AF-Nikkor 35mm ƒ/2. That would go really good on a D610. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Mike

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KeithB: "Camera manufacturers must hate the intertubz."

Stephen Scharf: "It's a complete lack of corporate maturity on Nikon's part in not owning up to a design-based failure mode: actuating the shutter spritzed oil around the inside of the mirror box. If they adhered to the principles of Shingo, and were humble enough to own up to the problem, then they and the photographic society at large would have benefitted. This lack of maturity is a reflection of not acknowleging that there are no defect-free processes, either in design or in manufacturing. Actually acknowledging there is a problem is a sign of maturity, because then the company can deal with the design or production defects in a transparent way that maintains the integrity of the relationship with their customers. Canon had the same exact problem when they redesigned the AF system in the 1D MkIII; created a big issue for themselves by not acknowledging the problem until Rob Galbraith forced them to, and subsequently lost a lot of pros migrating to the Nikon D3.

"Fuji, on the other hand, has continually been soliciting feedback from its customers on the quirks and performance of its X-cameras, and through a series of design and/or continual firmware updates, taken this system from one that was cool and interesting to a system capable of fully performing as the basis of a professional system.

"This all just goes to show that putting quality first and foremost, and really listening to and acknowledging your customers means everyone wins: the company wins, the customer wins, and the society-at-large wins."

'Quiet Color' Submissions

Once again, I'd like to thank so many readers and others who sent in their pictures to be considered for inclusion in our first book.

Today's the last day for submissions. All in all I received just over 2,100 photographs from 941 photographers.

I'm doing my best to look at new emails when I'm fresh and in a decent mood, and then to go back over all the submissions at a later time to look at them more carefully. It's then that I drop the ones I think might be suitable into a "selects" folder.

Tomorrow I get to work on layouts and sequencing for the first time. (Each part of this process is more fun until the ultimate satisfaction, which is seeing the finished product in your hands. Ultimately, I think artists just like to make stuff...actual physical objects that you can hold in your hands or point to and say "look at what I made, how do you like this?)

As to which pictures get selected, ultimately I suppose it depends on how any particular photograph goes with the others in the group.

Oh, and I'd like to say that it's been a pleasure seeing so many fine pictures, whether I find they suit the project or not.

More updates by and by.

Mike
(Thanks to 941 talented people)

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Home Sweet Home

In advance of my forthcoming review of Peter's new book, I'd like to put forward an idea that I've taken potshots at before. It's that, for most people who really care about photography and have been in it for a while, they have a "home base"—a type, style, or technique of photography that means the most to them.

I encounter this again and again (even among people who keep searching, and can't quite find where home is for them). A few real-life but unnamed examples:

• One friend loves B&W contact prints from large-format negatives, although he also shoots in both 35mm and digital. He has and loves many view cameras.
• One friend, unfortunately recently deceased, loved pictures of teenagers and concentrated on that subject throughout most of his photographic life.
• One famous photographer likes small-sensor digicams with plenty of noise and makes very contrasty, very "grainy" black-and-white prints.
• One friend loves clean color landscapes, often almost abstract. The unpeopled natural world in color is home base for him.
• Another famous photographer has been using the same equipment for decades and takes "found" pictures he encounters on walkabouts.
• One friend-I've-never-met loves a certain camera brand and uses all their cameras, from point-and-shoots to a super-expensive medium-format SLR.
• One photographer is almost completely preoccupied with fashion photography.
• One friend loves multiple images in many forms, from combined images to images presented together in groups as large as 12.
• One friend loves New York city and loves pictures of New York city, and collects books of New York city photographs and photographers.
• Yet another famous photographer used only 35mm B&W and shot 95% of his pictures with a 50mm lens.

And on and on the list could go.

I'll make a few points about this tomorrow but I just wanted to throw this out there so you could think about it. Do you have a "home base"—a kind of photography, or style, or technique, or subject matter that you gravitate toward, or keep coming back to, or love best?

Mike

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Steve Jacob: "I'm preoccupied with shooting London. Lucky I guess to live in a place that millions fly half way around the world just to visit."

David Dyer-Bennet: "It might be candid portraits for me; I find that's something I slip into even when it's not appropriate (sports photography, say). I certainly can show you a long history of them. And while I shoot landscapes and some flower macros, that's playing around for me, it's not what ever drove me to photograph."

James Sinks: "The night is home. I really can't add anything to that."

Sal Santamaura: "A shout-out to Oren—undoubtedly the friend referred to in your first bullet.   :-) "

Robert: "Surfing. It begins and ends at the beach for me."

Gordon Lewis: "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Mike replies: Well, maybe another example will help. A photographer who likes clear, crisp urban shots, caught on the fly but often looking carefully composed, sometimes accented with a person, often having well-coordinated color, and with strong graphic elements and an awareness of geometry.

Ring any bells at all? Maybe? No?

Julian: "Small-scale landscapes shot on 5x4 is what I keep coming back to. I use digital too but somehow it just isn't the same."

Sean: "It's the city for me. I'm an inner city kid; it's my natural habitat. It doesn't really matter what city I'm in, because the city of my birth (Manchester, England) gives you an attitude that you can't adopt. We're born with it, and I take it to any street I happen to be on, so I never feel like a tourist in a city. A city's noise is my bird song, the smell of its wet pavement and polluted air is sweet to me, and its people are the only wildlife I ever need. Home is where the art is."

Dan Khong: "I am developing a signature style shooting in black and white and square format."

It's Ugly, But It's the Best

The early reviews of the OM-D E-M1 from Olympus—the long-promised and long-awaited "Professional Micro 4/3"—are already calling it the best Micro 4/3 camera yet. Weatherproof, shockproof, with lightning-fast autofocus, it's said to have the best electronic viewfinder ever and the best in-body image stabilization ever. If you like the Micro 4/3 System's peerless panoply of lens choices, you'll want to keep a sharp eye out for the collective wisdom that will really start to fly around the Web when the E-M1 ships less than two weeks from now.

The question will be, will you actually be able to find anything in its huge junk-drawer of features and make it work for you surely and effectively? (Sentences like that are why I never get invited on the press junkets.)

Available now for pre-order from B&H Photo and Amazon.

By the way, Micro 4/3 is not selling at all well in this country, although it is very popular in parts of Asia. Of course, the attitude of photographers who actually care about pictures has always been, as long as they make what I need, I'm good. This whole deal with hobbyists being preoccupied with the business concerns of suppliers is a recent phenomenon; historically, photographers have mostly seen themselves as being outside of the mainstream market for photographic products and materials, going their own way after their own fashion, "doing their own thing" as the '60s expression had it. As long as they could get what they needed to do their work.

So Micro 4/3 might not be popular generally. But it's important here. I continue to think 4/3 is the best format, with the best balance of sensor size and quality, camera and lens size, and d-o-f considerations. (Even though I currently own two FF DSLRs, one APS-C mirrorless compact, and no small sensor digicams—and umpteen film cameras which I seldom use.)

Mike

ADDENDUM: I neglected to mention the other main point of the E-M1, besides its professional build quality. You probably remember the earlier 4/3 series of SLR digital cameras that, as the market sorted out during the aughts, failed to be fully competitive with the emerging standard of APS-C used by Canon and Nikon. Olympus and Panasonic revamped their plans and created the mirrorless category with Micro 4/3, which used the same size sensor but a different lensmount and really took advantage of the smaller sensor size by creating more compact cameras and lenses. The problem has been that although 4/3 lenses were usable on Micro 4/3 cameras from the first with an adapter, the 4/3 lenses were designed for phase-detect autofocus*, and Micro 4/3 cameras used on-chip contrast-detect* autofocus. The E-M1 is the first mirrorless Micro 4/3 camera that has both contrast-detect and phase-detect autofocus, meaning that the original 4/3 lenses now work virtually as well as native Micro 4/3 lenses on the camera. (You still need the adapter.)

And why does anyone care? Well, aside from the fact that many people still own 4/3 lenses, they are also some of the most beautiful lenses ever created for photography, bar none. The full usability of 4/3 lenses brings those lenses back into true viability for the format. It's actually not inconceivable that some photographers who never owned 4/3 lenses before might seek one or two of them out for use with the E-M1.

Complicating that issue even a little further, though, is Olympus's first PRO lens for Micro 4/3, the 12–40mm constant-aperture zoom that will follow the camera to market about five weeks later (late November or early December). This is a lens type that Olympus first completely mastered with the old 35–80mm ƒ/2.8 OM Zuiko first introduced with the mechanical-shuttered OM-3Ti film camera in 1994 (I think. I could have that wrong). One of the best zooms ever made at that time, that lens remained a connoisseur's secret, as it was manual focus and the world (and the camera market) had accepted autofocus by that time.

The tradition of constant-aperture standard zooms of the highest quality continued with the 12–35mm ƒ/2 constant-aperture lens first announced at PMA in 2005. The Big Kahuna of Olympus's SHG (super high grade) line, that lens also unfortunately continued Olympus's tradition of hiding its lights (i.e., its dazzling optical excellence) under a bushel, because by the time it actually arrived a few years later, the 4/3 format had essentially lost the DSLR wars to the by-then more widespread APS-C format. But it, too, was and is a really special lens.

Olympus avoids one error with the new PRO lens (full moniker: Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 12–40mm ƒ/2.8 PRO) in that it only costs $999, far less than the 14–35mm ƒ/2 4/3 lens, which is out of reach for many at $2,299 (and was higher still when it first came out). The new PRO lens might be ignored by some because of the bad smell of the corporate scandal Olympus is having a hard time putting behind it, or because of the aforementioned lack of wild popularity of the mirrorless category as a whole. But if the company follows true to form, the lucky souls who end up with this lens might well have a paragon to prize for years. With lenses now "bunched up at the top," there's no overriding need any more to own a top-grade premium lens—you can do great work with some pretty ordinary and uncelebrated lenses, as long as you like what you have. But the differences are still there for the trained (or jaded) eye, and those differences are still capable of giving owner-users a lot of pleasure and satisfaction.

Here's the PRO lens at B&H Photo and Amazon.

Note that both the E-M1 camera and the 12–40mm PRO zoom are dustproof, splashproof, and freeze-proof.

*See the Wikipedia article on "Autofocus" if you want chapter and verse on what these terms mean.

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Featured Comments from:

Tom Simonsen: "I am torn between the Olympus E-M1 and Panasonic GX7. The E-M1 will work fine with my existing kit of 4/3 lenses; but I will get a much more compact kit with the GX7 and Micro 4/3 lenses. I also like the design of the GX7 better than the E-M1, but I suspect the E-M1 is going to handle better."

cfw: "A camera I paid $700 for two years ago now has a (KEH) resale value of $79 in Excellent/Like New condition (and probably not much more than that through eBay). The hammer in my tool box that I bought 20 years ago has probably not decreased as much in value (and they make a lot more hammers in the world than they do cameras). I think I'm jumping off the acquisition train for several years."

David Kieltyka: "For me, Micro 4/3 is now the most versatile format around. Great combo of size, weight, lens selection, image quality and DoF control. I have a big rig too, a Pentax 645D, but it mostly lives on a correspondingly big tripod. As I've gotten older size & weight have become increasingly more important factors in choosing what I'm willing to lug around on trips, treks and explorations. There's no 35mm camera (I don't like the term 'full frame'...whatever its origin it often comes off as snobbish if not arrogant) on the market with the E-M1's build quality appreciably smaller and lighter than my Pentax! Not to mention lens size and weight. So for me 35mm is now a legacy format...Contax Aria and Pentax MX cameras with light, compact lenses and Provia, Portra & HP5+ film. APS-C DSLRs have similar bulk/build quality issues to 35mm. I do like the Fuji X system (I own an X-E1) but lens-wise it's still a work in progress. So for me it's Micro 4/3, baby!"

Tom Hassler: "Have had mine for a few days now, and it is impressive. All the expected good stuff proves to be pretty much as promised. It is massively customizable (maybe too much so) but once done it's a 'set it and forget it' situation. I really appreciate being able to assign the functions I want to the buttons I prefer, not be stuck with an arrangement that some non-photographer engineer/designer might have thought best. Initial setup is a small investment of time over the life of the camera, with a big payoff."

Open Mike: What's In a Name

I've been hard at work puzzling over the name-to-be of TOP's photo book publishing company, so names and naming have been much on my mind.

A good name needs to be distinctive, easy to remember (at least after you've "got it"—that is, after it's set in your mind), and—crucially these days—readily searchable. I've complained in the past about not being able to search for the last Zeiss/Cosina rangefinder, the Zeiss Ikon (see the discussion of "the first flaw" in this post—that problem has gotten better with the passage of time, however), and I'm having similar problems with Canon's IS primes...the "IS" bit is not sufficiently distinctive to keep noise out of the search results. I actually quite approve of "Touit," on the other hand. If you search "Touit lens" you'll see why—very clean search results. "Touit" might sound dumb the first time you hear it, but it's actually a name, and it works the way a name should—to readily distinguish what it's attached to from other similar things.

Two bland words doth not a name make
I came across a not-so-good name a few days ago: "Reality Construction." Difficult to remember, as "reality" is not a word anyone naturally or necessarily associates with construction; somewhat nonsensical, in that it's hardly necessary to make a distinction from unreal construction; and it's a plain English word, so the second part of the descriptor (or a near cousin) is absolutely necessary in order to Google it. So that business is depending on people to memorize not one but two words, one of which is not very memorable.

Probably the biggest problem for me is blandness. There's a company that deals in vinyl records that calls itself "Acoustic Sounds." That's not a name—it's two bland words that make up a bland description. Sure enough, I cannot remember it, even when I try...I've probably had to look up that company 100 times over the years. I now buy my records from "Music Direct," which for some reason I can remember the name of.

The names that annoy me the most are business that simply appropriate another name for themselves, and, in the process, often drag an honorable word thereby through the mud of their venal selfish affairs: a local appliance store, for example, is called "American." You can't legislate against that, but I hate it anyway. I'm not going to call my company Washington Publishing or Lincoln Books.

Most good names are not descriptive, either—which, I'm learning, is most peoples' first impulse when you ask them for suggestions. Think of all the photo-industry names that use some word from photo-technique, from Aperture magazine to Pixel Press. Good names become associated with whatever they're associated with—they earn the association, you might say. There is nothing descriptive or even distinctive about "Will Smith," but most people can't say those two words together without thinking of the actor and probably a few of his roles. The initials "BMW" contain nothing descriptive, but the associations are rich.

Descriptive names often involve claims, such as "Best Plumbing" or "Foremost Farms." Those always make me think, "says you." Claims can backfire: the tagline of Photo Techniques magazine is "The magazine for serious photographers," and at photo shows I probably heard the line "If I don't subscribe, does that mean I'm not serious?" a hundred times a day. Each time from someone who thought they were being very original, no doubt.

(One descriptive name I saw the other day on TV made me chuckle, though: it was an exterminator company, and it was called "Critter Gitters." A Google search shows it's not very original, though.)

The strategy that works best
I think the easiest way to make a name is to combine two familiar and easily-pronounced simple words in a way that no one usually combines them. A great many distinctive names are made up of such constituent parts. Watergate, for example, and...

...And I can't think of another one. My brain is just not good with names. I don't remember them, and I'm definintely not good at inventing them. In my attempts to write fiction, I often can't come up with fictional names without some effort, and the results are often pretty woeful. (Dickens was greatly inspired by the names of his characters, and reportedly couldn't begin a book until he felt he had the names right.)

Long story short, unless it's already too late for that: I'm 92% sure I've got the name for our book venture. Who knows if it's good or if people will like it; probably I won't even know until we publish our tenth book (knock on wood) and people begin to really associate the name with our products. It's been an arduous decision process. And unfortunately the buck stops with me. Everybody I ask has conflicting opinions. But I'm the one who has to decide, in the end.

I'll announce the new company and its name soon, after I've filed for the trademark.

Mike

"Open Mike" is the editorial page of TOP, in which Yr. Hmbl. Ed. maunders on about something even more vague than usual. It appears on Sundays.

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Phil Maus (partial comment): "I've given a lot of thought to the very dilemma you're facing now. Here's just one thought, by no means original, but something that's occurred to me in the internet age of naming businesses: Go to GoDaddy, 1&1, or any other of the multitude of domain name registrars that feature a 'Find your new domain name' search box and begin brainstorming with your keyboard."

Mike replies: Yes, absolutely necessary, and I am doing that.

Steve: "I've always liked names from local places: your suburb, a nearby river or hill, there's nothing like location to add richness to a name."

Mike replies: A good idea and a nice idea, but many placenames locally have unpronounceable native-American-derived names (they are often not authentic, just knockoffs or close cousins of actual Indian words). I considered Fox River Books—the Fox River runs through the middle of our town, and it's an elegant name—but Fox River is already used as a tradename by a large financial services company I wouldn't want to get into a tussle with, and "Fox River" results in 134 million hits in a Google search.

You can see how hard this is.

"Waukesha"—the name of my town—is a superb name from a search standpoint, as it's the only town in the world with that name (compare with "Springfield" for contrast). But I know for a fact, from talking to many operators and customer services reps from all over the world on the phone, that not very many people can pronounce it—there's even disagreement among the residents of the town as to how to pronounce it! So you can see the limitations there.

Roger: "I'm thinking you should follow the lead of all of the small companies that strove to be first in the Yellow Pages for their particular industry. So...AAAardvark Books it is."

Steve Jacob: "TOP Photo Books?"

Mike replies: Just Google it, and you'll see why it's a bad idea. More than two billion hits.

My Stomach Hurts (Computer Question)

The coming Mac Pro. Photo by The Verge

Everything goes away eventually.

A comedian I just discovered, John Mulaney, has a nice line in his Comedy Central special: "I was once on the telephone with Blockbuster Video...which is a very old-fashioned sentence."

Heh.

"That's like when your Gram would be like, 'we'd all go play jacks down at the soda fountain.'"

Everything goes away eventually. Horseback riding is very gone away (I used to ride, before I was ordered not to by a guy in a white coat, on account of my back.) Pool appears to be going away. (This post isn't about pool.) The tables you can buy new are for the most part almost too cheap and crappy to bother buying, the pro game is in such a state of doldrums that even some top level players have to sleep in their cars when they're on the road, and the number of Americans who self-identify as "pool players" has dropped by 17 million people in just seven years.

...Making this, of course, the perfect time for me to get into the game.

The personal computer is also beginning—but just beginning—to go away. We're in the era of the "device" already.

In years to come, GOFs (grumpy old folks) will be dated by their familiarity with the personal computer. You remember Apple vs. IBM? You actually know what came before PCs? You once had a cathode ray tube monitor?!? (And like, what's that?)

Your computer was a box you kept on your desk? Wow, you're old.

It's coming, you smug fortysomething fetuses. Get prepared.

So anyway, the new Mac Pro isn't getting very much attention—because personal computers are starting to be over. No one's making much of a fuss over it. It isn't getting much mindshare, to use a term that didn't exist back when the newest developments in personal computers would be sensational international news.

...Making this, natch, the perfect time for me to get serious about computers. ("Natch" was short for "naturally" and was something that adults who grew up during the 1920s said. I still remember adults who grew up during the 1920s, although they're kind of over now too. More's the pity; I liked that generation*.)

So my questions. Anyone else looking forward to when these will ship? Anyone else looking forward to the first reviews? Gonna get one?

I think I might get one. But only if they're really good and not very popular, which would make them just the sort of thing I like.

Mike

*John Mulaney also said something that you just don't hear very often. "I'm not Jewish, but I've always really liked Jewish people," he said, describing his Jewish girlfriend. Funny that you don't hear people say that straight out like that very often, but as soon as he said it I realized it's exactly the way I feel. I've always really liked Jewish people.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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BWJones: "I've been planning on updating several of our many year old Mac Pros to the brand new black tube Mac Pro when they came out. Alas, this year's sequestration followed by a government shutdown means that for this scientist, we are again delaying computer purchases in order to keep our people employed. When/if the science funding corrects itself, I'll buy these bad boys in a femtosecond."

Steve D: "I love portable technology but as an engineer/draftsmen/modeller (who renders a lot of things in 3D), I can't fathom an internet connection fast and secure enough that I would ever want or trust it to do any of my work over. That box on my desk is called a 'work' station for a reason. Could I do that in the near future on a wonder device? I'm sure it's technically possible, but my hands and eyes don't scale. So if it can connect to a keybord, mouse (or sketch tablet) and drive two 30" dual monitors then maybe someday. Till then steady as she goes."

Kalli: "Just to date myself, I'll reveal that my first notebook computer (and first Mac) was an iBook. The first generation iBook G4 12". I'm not ever buying a box that you park on your desk ever again."

Ctein: "Dear Mike, No. Just, no. This is a machine for an extreme power user, which you are not. And I am not. Lloyd Chambers is. Very few people are. Which is why it as rumored that Apple would be dropping MacPro line entirely.

"I can see what's happening here—you, having made a clear decision on what to buy next, are getting distracted by shinies. You don't need to second-guess yourself. Or, if you really do, go back and re-read the previous columns you wrote and all the excellent advice you were given back then, and make a different call, amongst the options that were discussed then. But, do not expand the playing field. No need, no gain, much pain."

Rodger Kingston: "Since the late '80s I've always bought desktop (or tower, or whatever) computers, along with the biggest CRT or LCD monitor I could afford. Then several years ago along came the 27" iMac [latest version —Ed.] with the entire computer built into the screen. I do a lot with Photoshop, and this iMac is more than up to the task. I watch computers getting smaller and smaller in all their various iterations, but I can't see a way around the need for large screens for doing graphic work. I love this iMac; its a sweet little friend, and I hope it stays around in one form or another for the rest of my working life."

Mike replies: I have to admit that's almost certainly what I'll get next...even if I didn't listen to Ctein, which I do. My mid-2010 27" iMac has been nearly perfect for still photography and general computing, the best computer of all I've owned or used beginning with the original 1984 Macintosh.

Joe Holmes: "Oh, I've been waiting for such a long time for a new desktop Mac (running Photoshop, DxO, Aperture, and Final Cut Pro—all at the same time!), and for quite a while I feared Apple had decided there would never be a new desktop Mac. Now my only fear is that this craaazy-looking new box will be so exorbitantly priced, and that it'll involve upgrading so many peripherals (Thunderbolt??), that I just won't be able to justify the expense. But boy, I'll try. My 'Early 2008' Mac Pro is starting to feel pretty creaky."

Oskar Ojala: "I think that those things are just tools, like hammers and pickup trucks, and thus have been relegated to mundane status, making way for new hip technology. There are still people who need those for their work, it's just not that mainstream anymore. When was the last time people talked about what kind of CPU they had? Now for some real dinosaur stuff, look into the world of hifi.  ;-) "

Mike replies: Don't get me started on hifi. Seriously, don't. :-)

The Next Trend in Cameras

When I was at Best Buy yesterday looking for the TV antenna that's been out of stock for weeks, at least I got to see the Canon Rebel SL1 (a.k.a. EOS 100D) for the first time.

Interesting.

It might be an impressive exercise in miniaturization, but it's the opposite of elegant. A lumpen, stunted little beastie. It might come close in size to the sleek Fujis and Panasonics and Sonys it is meant in some pathetic way to answer, but has nothing of their exquisite proportion and style.

And yet—predictably perhaps—I would hit the Like button. It's...friendly. I'll bet it's easy to take to...and easy to take along with you. Easy to take, period.

Close in size, maybe. But light years apart in stylishness.
Illustration courtesy Camerasize.com.

—And it's nice and simple, too. It made me want to play with it.

Now, as you might know, I have an unerring sense for the next trend. I have a sixth sense for the Zeitgeist. My thumb is on the very pulse of pop culture.

It's really quite amazing. For instance, the first time I saw an adult wearing a baseball cap backwards, I'm sure I stared in amused amazement. It was a look my friends and I had outgrown by twelve. With one deft fashion move, the guy had made himself look not only like his emotional development had been arrested at approximately age ten, but also like his IQ had recently been lowered surgically. Quite an achievement for one twist of a hat. I remember thinking smugly to myself, well, I might not know a lot about fashion, but that's one fashion that's never going to catch on. It was as plausible as a craze for wearing vests backwards or a boot on one's head.

I still think it looks dumb on grownups, but it developed into a fashion that has been a wee tad more popular than I once imagined.

And ditto for intentionally messy haircuts and four-day beards (although the beard itself is a natty fashion move that will never go out of style).

Next up: "Lunchables." Combine tiny amounts of the unhealthiest possible foods in  elaborate, wasteful packaging? Worst food product idea in history. Won't last ten minutes.

Way back when Cher got a tattoo? Impossible to reclaim the shock effect at the time. Only sailors and truck drivers—no, only old sailors and old truck drivers—had tattoos. But beautiful singer/actresses? Beyond daring. And I was dead certain it would never spark a trend.

—And then after it did, I remember thinking, well, at least no black people will be getting tattoos!

In my youth I had a job that took me all over D.C. in a pickup truck. I was sanguine about its usefulness, naturally—the giant tub in back could carry anything up to multiple sheets of 4x8' drywall, and yes, that was a lot better than trying to strap said drywall to the roof of, say, a Beetle. But as a vehicle I could hardly imagine anything more horrible to be stuck driving. To my teenaged self, the BMW 2002tii was perfect. Spacious, light, economical, comfortable, responsive, quick—it was like they could stop trying to improve cars right there; they'd done it. My employer's pickup truck was its antithesis. Somewhat earlier in life, I also had to drive a Ford Bronco with a small-block V8 delivering medicine all over Ozaukee County for a pharmacy. Granted, its 4WD might come in handy in a pinch—but it was a crude little pig of a truck that drove like a very fast forklift. Then, inexplicably, a few weirdos started driving Jeep Wagoneers and Broncos by choice, as normal everyday vehicles to get around in. Just flat odd, I thought. Takes all kinds. I honestly believe I snorted the first time I heard the term "sport utility vehicle." Misbegotten and lame! Like they were going to get the men and women of America to drive around in trucks, after the oil crisis. Yeah, right! That would never happen. And no one would ever in a million years drive a pickup truck unless, of course, they had to.

Ahem. Now I drive an SUV. Granted, the one I drive is still the only SUV I've ever been behind the wheel of (true), but still.

Prescient, I tell you. Thumb on the pulse.

So anyway, I'm calling it: the next trend in cameras is going to be simplicity. How minimalist can they be? How few controls can a camera have and still have all the controls it needs? The most radical, up-to-the-moment cameras are going to be the most sleek, most svelte, most intuitive ones. Companies will vie to see who can make the simplest, most responsive, easiest-to-learn cameras. Each one will be more beautiful and elegant than the last. The public will lap them up.

It will be a Renaissance, I tell you. A high point. I should know—I have a feel for these things.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Mark: "As far as I am concerned sports photographers started the backward baseball cap trend. The cap being backward is a wonderful thing. The cap keeps the sun off your head and the bill helps to shade the back of your neck. Plus it keeps the bill from getting in the way when shooting verticals. Any time I am shooting either an event or a sport outdoors, I suddenly become a backward-cap-wearing late 40s fashionista who does not feel at all stupid thanks the the cameras around my neck and shoulder which make this look justified."

Mike replies: So you're saying it's photographers who are responsible for...a fashion faux pas? Say it isn't so. [g]

John Krill: "The new Leica M is probably the best example of this trend in simplicity. Talk about few, if no buttons, the Leica is a sure leader."

Mike replies: You're right, Leica is the leader in this. I really hope it catches on. May they lead the way.

Joe: "Have to disagree about the four-day-old beards—it's in the retired guys' Bill of Rights. After shaving nearly every day of my working life, I've earned my four-day-old beard!"

Mike replies: You'll learn. After you're retired for a while, it will just be a beard, one that you trim once a week. We don't need no steenkeeng shaving! Go Joe.

(Exception: guys whose wives do not approve beards. I know several.)

Edward Taylor: "Well, I finally got my Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera yesterday, and it is incredibly simple—very few controls. And how did I feel? Limited? No, I felt strangely liberated. With only a few controls, I knew what every button and control did within minutes. I think the concept has some staying power."

Tbannor: "I love the SL1. It's tiny, unobtrusive, especially with the kit 18–55mm STM lens, and quiet, even when not in silent mode. Silent mode pretty much is anywhere there is background noise. Image quality is just fine. I'm not a huge EVF fan, so it works for me. I don't care much what a camera looks like as long as it works."

Hugh Smith: "Before I became a poor pro photographer, I worked in a camera shop. There I predicted with your accuracy that no one would invent autofocus...Bell and Howell tried with triangulation. Then, with equal precision, I predicted digital would never replace film. I'm right up there with you, Mike."

Auntipode: "As a camera curmudgeon, I hate complex controls and I distrust automation. My phone's camera never gives me what I want. I like the images from my OM-D E-M5, but I hate the littered protuberance of potato-eye buttons and the Byzantine menu system. Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!"

Mike adds: Yeah! Get off her lawn!

Bad Days

I had a bad day on Thursday. I started writing three different posts, and each one, despite dogged labor, had to be mercy-killed.

Nothing else was going right, either. I went to Best Buy to get three different things and came away with none of them. Struck out...strike one, two, three.

Does that ever happen to you? It happens to me with a camera sometimes. You just know there was a picture there, and you worked it but you weren't quite sure you got it, and when you saw what you got you just really, really wanted it to be something...but it was just not quite there. It's those oh-so-close ones that make you mad.

My Dad used to like to make French-style omelettes, and he had a saying..."Sometimes you get an omelette, sometimes you get a mess of eggs."

Tomorrow's another day.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Animesh Ray: "For a scientist, most days are like that."

David Littlejohn: "From Will Rogers: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."

Random Excellence: Andreas Sakka

"Where my father used to work" by Andreas Sakka

This was taken in the summer of 2010 from the fourth floor of my Dad's seafront property in the town of Margate in England (postal code CT9 1UN to be precise). There he has a workshop where he used to manufacture dresses and skirts to sell in the shop on the ground floor. He stopped the practice some years ago when making clothing in-house was simply not economically viable in this era of mass-produced imports from around the globe. Whilst the workshop is now unused, the wonderful views over the gardens, beach and marina remain, and there is a lovely light in there as the sun sets over the sea.

The photo was taken during a 30-day photo challenge; for one month I took a photo every single day despite whatever else I was doing, or the weather. And by taking one photo a day, I mean I tried to take one meaningful and semi-decent photo a day, rather than a pointless snapshot. It's a challenge that is really quite difficult, but very rewarding and educational. More than anything, I found it really made me look—and I mean to really look, properly, at the world with a surprising intensity. It's fantastic the things you notice when you really look. Anyway, it's a challenge I'd heartily recommend to anyone practising photography. Before you can take a decent image, you must be able to look and see the world around you. Properly.

Andreas

©2013 by Andreas Sakka, all rights reserved

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Dan Horton-Szar: "A lovely and subtle photograph. I live less than twenty miles from Margate, in the city of Canterbury. In fact I recall recently photographing the lighthouse visible through the window in the shot above.

"I agree heartily with the idea of challenging yourself to take at least one meaningful photograph every day. The reason for this comment is to recommend Blipfoto.com, an online community based in Edinburgh which is designed for exactly this purpose. You are allowed to post just one picture per day and it has to be taken on that day. I'm up to day 150 so far, and it has done wonders for my photography. Nice bunch of people populate the site too. I've no vested interest in this, just that it's been a very good experience for me and thought it might interest other TOP readers."

The Cream Sometimes Rises

The McNay Mansion, San Antonio

This week's column by Ctein

Mike's recent post on Dave Hickey and the comments that followed made me realize that there's actually quite a bit I have to say on the subject of good art and photography and our perceptions of the modern state of affairs.

It's not uncommon for folks to think the modern state of art (and photography) is a pale shadow of what it was in times past. Putting aside questions of personal taste (some people hate color, some love color, some hate nonrepresentational art, some love it) there's certainly a bit of a bias towards thinking the past was better.

I suspect that's more sample bias than anything else. For example, there are a fair number of Americans who think British TV is just uniformly wonderful, because all they know of it is what PBS imports into the U.S. Gatekeepers can make a whole genre or body of work look a hell of a lot better than it really is.

History is the ultimate gatekeeper. Most crap doesn't survive. Wealthy patrons are no guarantee of taste. If anything, the opposite. They enable art to happen; and that's a wonderful thing, but I'm not convinced they do much to elevate talent. I have seen truly wretched and appallingly bad historical portraits in rich people's homes (and in some museums). Honestly, most of the patrons can't tell the difference.

The Legion of Honor in San Francisco has an unusually impressive collection of mediocre and bad art (intermixed with a certain number of gems). The reason is that most of it was acquired by the nouveau riche of the 1900s—the California robber barons. Not generally folks of exceptional taste, although of exceptional wealth.

Especially noteworthy is a bust by Rodin, a portrait of one of those Barons (I can't remember which one). It might very well be the single worst piece Rodin ever made. It is certainly the worst piece I've ever seen, and not by a small margin. It is just astonishingly awful. I don't mean "meh." I mean "bleahh!" I suspect the Baron was terribly pleased at having acquired an original Rodin. I imagine Rodin was terribly pleased at getting a chunk of the Baron's money...but it's not too much of a stretch to guess he didn't much respect (or like) the man.

Rich people who do have taste and a discerning eye stand out. If you want to see a collection by someone who had a brilliant eye, visit the McNay Museum in San Antonio. Marion McNay was born into oil money in Ohio In the late 1800s. Against the strenuous wishes of her family, who felt it was not appropriate for a woman of her station, she went to the Art Institute in Chicago. After that, she taught art and worked as a commercial and medical illustrator. She was quite the rebel, for one of the 0.001 percenters.

She married five (!) times, outliving most of her husbands, adding to her already considerable fortune with each one. A chunk of said fortune went into constructing an extraordinary mansion in San Antonio, parts of which she designed, and accumulating an even more extraordinary collection of artwork.

I visited the museum a month ago with several friends. What impressed the hell out of us was how incredibly good the collection was. This woman had an eye! I don't think I've ever seen so much excellent art in one single collection, in so many different styles and media, in my life. (Of course, a lot of the excellent work on display was acquired by the museum after McNay's death. I'm talking about the work McNay herself acquired.)

If the Legion of Honor is the Omega, the McNay is the Alpha.

It's not that rich people can't have taste, it's just that being rich is no predictor of it. The money just lets them indulge themselves, for good or for ill.

Finally, I close with this thought. Nostalgia is just another way of saying "I've forgotten all the bad stuff."

Ctein

Ctein—his name is pronounced "kuh-TINE," and yes, it's his only name—is TOP's regular weekly columnist. His columns appear on Wednesdays.

©2013 by Ctein, all rights reserved

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Followups

Past print sale: regarding the recent Caponigro Father/Son print sale, I've received word that all the prints are made and about a quarter have already shipped, which is fast work. We'll post another update when all the shipments have been sent. Very eager to hear how people like them!

Future print sale: As I mentioned yesterday, our next sale will feature three beautiful prints from Peter's new Paris book, all made by Voja Mitrovic and signed by Peter. It starts on October 29th. I think. Or a day or two thereafter.

Turnley book: First day sales were beyond outstanding, and something like 20% of the entire print run is already spoken for. So the press run might go faster than anyone expected. As for the only complaints I've heard, it's true that international shipping is regrettably expensive...but then, I think it entails Peter's assistant standing in line at the shipper and filling out the customs forms by hand. It works the other way around too—just recently I was fielding complaints from U.S. Americans about the high cost of getting Here Far Away from the U.K. Meanwhile, Ned Bunnell has found a nice book for you with free shipping...! A decent copy of Daido Moriyama's 1972 masterpiece Shashin yo Sayonara (Bye Bye Photography). The shipping cost on that one is very reasonable, you must admit.

Here Far Away book: ...And speaking of that, I kind of wish I'd never gotten started doing updates about Here Far Away—it almost needs its own blog, where we could cover nothing but daily updates on its status. But, I think I've located a source of supply. I'll let you know ASAP.

Call for Work: I'm feeling humbled and grateful. Humbled to have so many wonderful people willing to send work at my request, and grateful for all the nice comments and thoughtful submissions. It's really nice to hear from so many readers I don't usually hear from, and it's also been fun to put some actual pictures with the familiar names of frequent commenters. I've been going through all the submissions as they come in, and then returning to each one in order for a more careful, contemplative look after a little time has passed. Thanks to everyone who has already submitted work, and for those who haven't, the door is still open, up until October 7th.

Mike
(Thanks to Ned)

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