The Online Photographer

IT'S OUR...Er, Hold That Thought

Rats, it's not our day. We have to wait two more days.

Thursday in the U.S. of A. was THANKSGIVING, where you spend time with your family (I did, and, never mind the comedians, I really like my family), eat turkey (I did indeed, and dinner was delicious—thanks, Barbara and Charlie), watch football (are you kidding? I would have to wear black and weep the whole time), and reflect on all the things we have to be thankful for.

I did that, and boy do I ever have a lot to be thankful for...starting with the fact that my son Xander is having a very successful first year at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Well, no, starting with the fact that I'm still on the right side of the grass at a few ticks shy of 57. But I did a complete inventory of the year. A lot of bad things have happened to me and mine this year. It's been a sort of Annus Horribilis, to quote Sir Edward Ford by way of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. But there are good things in every life on the right side of the grass, and of those, Xander's good experience in college this year (he started in January is finishing up his second semester now) is no. 1 in mine.

I have the TOP community to thank for that, indirectly...it is mirabilis that I'm able to afford to send him to college just when he needs to be sent. So, thank you so much.

But I digress. To continue my litany: next came BLACK FRIDAY, a day of happy shopping gluttony. Traditionally (the "tradition" started recently), the name comes from the fact that it's the first day that malls, big box stores, and giant retailers begin to turn a profit for the year. This is most likely a red herring, as most giant retailers and chains have a positive net income every day of the year. It is also alleged to be the number one shopping day of the year in the United States, which also turns out to usually be wrong—many of the ten days just before Christmas see more shoppers and more revenue for retailers. Most likely, Black Friday is a (successful) attempt to get as many shoppers as possible into the Christmas shopping habit and mindset early, to usefully extend the pre-Christmas shopping season.

Watching the news last night, I noticed that an extremely positive spin was put on the Black Friday stories. I suppose this could be voluntary propaganda, but it appears that many people—especially, according to our news, women—really enjoy black Friday, and many people shop in an extended marathon that lasts many hours. Of course I had dark, sardonic, and amusing thoughts about that, but I will spare you.

So, to continue, today is SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY—and this, I thought, was surely TOP's day! You want small? TOP's gross revenues are measured in the tens of thousands, we have a mighty workforce of one plus the help of many friends and the kindness of strangers, a mascot who is always game but mainly just sleeps and barks at the mailman, and a sprawling world headquarters located in what used to be the semi-redundant "front parlor" of my badly-designed little house. (I really do wonder what was in the head of the person who determined the layout of my house, but that's a sardonic, amusing post for another day.)

But it turns out that Small Business Saturday, a tradition since way back in the hazy mists of 2011 and largely the result of altruistic efforts by American Express, "encourages holiday shoppers to patronize brick and mortar businesses that are small and local" (per Wikipedia).

Whoops, I guess that's not us after all.

But more on this head on Monday.

Meanwhile, do you ever notice that when I take a day off I don't actually take the day off? Today I'm supposed to be off, but I've written this. Thanksgiving was supposed to be work-free, but I wrote that post about, well, Thanksgiving. I don't appear to do a very good job of not-working.

You'd think I enjoy this, or something.

Want something photographic to do today? Look into The Pigs, by Carlos Spottorno, which must be the most creative photobook of 2013. The photographer explains:

PIGS is a term coined by the business and financial press as a way to refer to Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain during their current financial plight.

I have attempted to illustrate the stereotypes brought up by the term PIGS. In other words, what we would see if we were to translate into images the articles we read in the financial press. This is how I imagine economists see us.

The book mimics in form an issue of The Economist magazine. It's not on sale in the U.S. yet, although you can pre-order it, which I have done. (It's priced like a magazine, too, more or less.) There are two nice videos including a flip-through.

Finally, in case you want to get started on Cyber Monday unconscionably early....

Mike
(Thanks to Martin Parr)

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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Panasonic GX7 Notes: Big Noise about Noise

Reviewed by Carl Weese

[This is Part II of Carl's notes about the Panasonic GX7.
Part I is here.]

For the pictures I make with digital capture, my concerns about sensor performance, on a scale of 1–10, have put exposure range at 9 or 10 and high ISO performance down about 5. Give me a choice of an extra 1.0 EV of exposure range or an extra 1.0 EV of acceptable high ISO, and I’ll take the exposure range without hesitation. This is mainly because exposure range still lags behind negative film, while high speed results surpassed film ages ago ("ages" digitally speaking). But I didn't know how much farther they had come recently.

When I'd caught up with comments on the first GX7 post after a weekend away in NYC with dicey Internet service, I found that commenter Steve Goldenberg had asked, "Have you tried a 6400 print from this yet? They're simply astoundingly good." I had not. So I made a series of snaps in the kitchen at night, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400. Of course they're noisy at 100% view, but the increase is quite moderate as the speed goes up, and even at 6400 the noise remains random, without the repeating patterns that scream "digital noise!" After adjusting the 6400 file in ACR and reducing it for letter-size paper in Photoshop CC, I applied a modest amount of Smart Sharpen and sent it to my Epson 3880. The print is surprising. There's noise, but you really have to look for it in the highlights and mid-tones, and even in smooth darker areas it doesn't hit you over the head. If you look close enough, there is some chroma noise in shadow areas that would detract from some pictures.

Rather than comparing the GX7 to other current cameras (to which I have no access anyway) what I can compare to is B&W film used at high speed (I never used color film faster than Kodachrome 200). I went back to the RAW file, converted it to monochrome in ACR, tweaked some of the adjustments, then prepared it for letter-size printing. The noise in that print is even less noticeable.

Here's an example of what I think of as "good grain." This is Tri-X from long ago, push-developed in Acufine for exposure at E.I. 1200 (to be fair, more recent Tri-X and other films would be less grainy even when pushed to this speed, and of course you can't evaluate anything based on the web JPEG—these illustrations are just to let you get an idea of the pictures/prints I'll describe).

Isfahan, Iran, 1969

The grain is obvious in a print, but, typical of Tri-X, it's really beautiful and I think makes a positive contribution to the moody, gritty sense of the picture.

Would real world pictures made at very high ISO with the GX7 do something similar? What I found was a complete surprise. Wednesday was a dark, stormy day. I decided to go out and look for subjects that would give me an excuse to use ISO 6400.

Ansonia, CT #1, 2013

This is a really, really, dark passageway, through an old industrial complex, in a light rain under a heavy sky. I wanted a crisp picture of all this detail and texture, with lots of depth of field. Getting 200th @ ƒ/8 justified high ISO. I intended it for monochrome conversion.

Ansonia, CT #2, 2013

This is in an even darker area beneath the elevated walkway near the stairs you see in the first shot. I thought this would make a good color test, and the 6400 exposure has fallen to 100th @ ƒ/5. At this fairly close distance, keeping the railing and the bricks in focus wouldn't happen at a wide aperture like ƒ/2.

After working up the two files in ACR, then slightly downsizing to about 11x14 and applying a fairly small amount of Smart Sharpen in Photoshop CC, I printed the pair with my HP Z3200. The prints are, to quote Steve, "astounding." The noise in the mono print seems to me only the slightest bit more noticeable than the grain in a print this size from normally exposed and developed 35mm Tri-X. The color print doesn't show obvious noise unless I bury my nose in the smooth-toned bricks on the left. It's much less obvious than the grain in a Kodachrome 200 35mm transparency printed or reproduced at this size. While typing up these notes on my MacBook at the kitchen table, I've gotten up half a dozen times to walk back to the printer room and look at the pair of test prints again, to make sure I'm not imagining things. I've been aware of people's rave reviews of high ISO performance on "full frame" sensors but I had no idea things were moving to this level with smaller sensor cameras. I'm suddenly much more interested in high ISO capture than I was last week.

Now, there's a bit of a cheat going on here because these pictures have tight texture and detail everywhere, which does a good job of hiding grain or noise. Pictures with lots of smooth non-detailed areas of tone wouldn't fare so well. But I'm going to raise the upper limit on the camera's auto-ISO control.

Next time, we will get to features and camera-handling.

Carl
Website / Working Pictures blog

©2013 by Carl Weese, all rights reserved

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Quote o' the Day: Gloria Vanderbilt

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"Be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."

—Gloria Vanderbilt, quoted by her son Anderson Cooper on Late Night with David Letterman, Nov. 19th, 2013

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Everyone's life is a struggle when seen from the inside, is what she's saying, I think. So we might as well be kind to one another, out of sympathy and acknowledgement of each person's struggles with his or her own difficulties.

A nice thought.

Mike

UPDATE: Quote Investigator notes that this is often attributed to Plato and sometimes Philo of Alexandria, i.e., to "generic ancient sage." But the quote probably traces back to Scottish author Ian MacLaren, who said "Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle"—"pitiful" used in the anachronistic sense of "compassionate, merciful, tender," and (ahem) "man" in the sense of "person."

"Ian MacLaren" was the pen name of Rev. John Watson, who, in 1903, writing under his own name, said, "This man beside us also has a hard fight with an unfavouring world, with strong temptations, with doubts and fears, with wounds of the past which have skinned over, but which smart when they are touched. It is a fact, however surprising. And when this occurs to us we are moved to deal kindly with him, to bid him be of good cheer, to let him understand that we are also fighting a battle; we are bound not to irritate him, nor press hardly upon him nor help his lower self."

(Thanks to Ade for this.)

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Geoff Wittig: "That is so painfully true. As a family doctor, on a daily basis I am astonished by the strength and fortitude of average folks, and by the surprising number of your friends and neighbors who are contending, with quiet dignity, with genuine tragedies in their lives. You just never know when a kind word will make all the difference in someone's week. Or when a casual dismissal or insensitive slight will heap insult on top of injury."

Happy Thanksgiving

The First Thanksgiving by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris, 1915. There are many errors in most representations, including, in this case, inaccurate costumes for all concerned. But, no cameras in those days.

Happy Thanksgiving!

TOP will be off today (well, except for this post, I guess) to honor the traditional U.S.* holiday of Thanksgiving, one of the four major U.S. holidays**. Thanksgiving commemorates the feast of the first successful harvest in New England by a group of English religious separatists who later came to be known as "the Pilgrims," from a term used in William Bradford's journal. Although not the first English settlement, Plymouth "plantation" (i.e., colony) would become the oldest continuously occupied English settlement in what was later the United States of America.

Although it's often said the Pilgrims came for "religious freedom," actually that's not true—they had previously fled England and settled in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic, where religious freedom was permitted. They departed the Dutch Republic because they were troubled that many of their children were "growing up Dutch," you might say. Although their religious observance was an imperative, they also wanted to preserve their English cultural identity. Thanksgiving's significance is generalized now, but is historically based on religious and ethnic white Anglo-Saxon protestant (WASP) foundations.

The Pilgrims landed near what is now Provincetown Harbor, and located the site of Plymouth by expeditions on foot. The place had been a Patuxet village whose residents had been wiped out by diseases contracted from previous contact with Europeans. Not only did the Pilgrims find cleared fields (and the bones of many of the unfortunate previous residents), but they eventually encountered a Patuxet Indian, Tisquantum, a.k.a. "Squanto," who, remarkably, spoke English and had already been to England!

Squanto is one of the great characters of American history. After five members of his tribe were captured in 1605 to be taken back to England, Squanto volunteered to go along because he was curious. He ended up crossing the Atlantic six times in his life. He was the one who famously taught the Pilgrims to raise corn.

Although the Pilgrims' crossing was hard, only two passengers of the Mayflower died on the way; but nearly half of the 100 settlers died of hardship and disease during a terrible first winter in America. The first Thanksgiving, a harvest thanksgiving feast held in the Fall of 1621, was attended by approximately 90 members of the friendly Wampanoag tribe and their leader, Ousamequin, who was more commonly known by his title, Massasoit, which means great sachem or great chief.

Incidentally, wild turkeys were extremely wiley and difficult to hunt even for the Indians. It is most likely that only a few turkeys were eaten at the first Thanksgiving, either shared as a delicacy or reserved for the leaders' table. The main dish for most of the participants would have been meat pies made of venison (deer meat).

According to legend, one of the reasons the Pilgrims chose Plymouth was because of Plymouth Rock, a large flat-topped boulder in the shallows by the shore that could be used as a sort of dock for the smaller ship's launches from the Mayflower. Plymouth Rock is actually a sort of symbolic relic, first identified in extreme old age by the son of one of the Pilgrims who arrived on the Anne in 1623. There's no primary historical evidence that it was of any importance to the Pilgrims/Separatists, but it was venerated in the 19th century. The rock itself was split in half at least once, moved several times, and whittled down until as late as 1880 by people wishing to own literal "pieces of history." Although now not much of a boulder as a consequence, it rests at sea level back in its original location, housed in a columned reliquary, and is seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

Hope you have a nice day, wherever you are, even if today's not a holiday for you. We'll be back tomorrow with Part II of Carl's posts about the Panasonic GX7.

Mike

*In accordance with the Constitution, the United States does not have official national holidays. The government only has the authority to "give itself" holidays. Hence the term "Federal holiday." 

**The other three are Christmas, New Year's Day, and Indepedence Day. Those four, plus Veteran's Day, are the only Federal holidays not observed on Mondays. Many States, local communities, and various religions (including Christianity, which is not the official religion of the United States) observe their own holidays.

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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Apple iPad Air Review

This week's column by Ctein

Part 1: What I Like

My last iPad upgrade was a year and a half ago. At that time, I said I was pretty well hooked on keeping up with the most current model. Well, then what took me so long to upgrade?

It was a combination of Apple messing around with their introduction schedule combined with reliable rumors of what was to come.

There've been two interim releases since the Spring 2012 iPad, which souped up the processor and increased the maximum storage from 64 GB to 128 GB. The former didn't much matter to me. The latter did. It's a law of the universe that nature abhors an empty hard drive. I'd filled my 64 GB iPad to the brim. What held me back were the leaks about the next major upgrade. Namely, smaller, lighter, and lower power.

As I wrote in my review of the iPad3, those three things bugged me about that then-newest model. The Retina display was fine; the side effects of the power-hungry screen weren't. It hit my pain threshold on size, weight, battery life, and charging time, which is why I gave it only a qualified recommendation. Want all the details? Read what I wrote in my reviews back then:

iPad Part I
iPad Part II
iPad Followup

The obvious visible change in the iPad Air is that it's two centimeters narrower than the previous model. The screen's the same size; the bezel shrank. It doesn't seem like a lot, but it makes the device a lot more hand-holdable, and it will fit into pockets and pouches in bags that the older model wouldn't.

The more important invisible change is that it weighs one-third less! That's a huge difference when you're holding the iPad in one hand—one pound is so much easier to heft than 1.5 pounds!

Where did the weight go? Out of the battery. It has 25% less capacity than before, because the second-generation Retina display uses a lot less power than the first. Even with the smaller battery, worst-case runtime is improved. At maximum brightness (and power drain) with all I/O powered up, my old iPad would run down in five hours. The iPad Air runs an hour longer.

Even better, the slimmer battery combined with a 12-watt (instead of 10-watt) charger markedly reduces the charging time for the new iPad. My old iPad took six hours; the new one takes under four and a half. The iPad Air will charge, albeit slowly, while I'm using it when it's plugged in. My old model couldn't do that; it sucked more power while running than the charger could provide.

This may not seem earthshaking, but it makes a substantial difference in usability for me. I'm usually using my iPad under brightly-lit conditions, which means I'm running the screen near maximum brightness. An extra hour makes it far more likely I'll get through the day on a single charge. If I don't, an hour pick-me-up on the charger gets me 80 more minutes of runtime instead of 50. That's nowhere as great as the original iPad, but it's a big improvement.

The second generation screen looks about as good as the first. I see some sample-to-sample variation, so your mileage may differ a bit, but on average it will be as bright as the first generation and the color rendition will be as good. Maybe even better; the samples I've looked at all look a bit warmer, which means they're closer to the D65 standard. It's a quibble, really. All Retina screens look great. The viewing angle seems slightly less, but not a lot and not enough disturb me; I mention it for the sake of completeness.

Yeah, it runs faster, too. Plants vs. Zombies 2 launches in 11 seconds on the new iPad; it took 19 on my old one. But I never had reason to complain before. I'm told that the graphics processor is really improved, but I won't be able to check that out until I get some serious photo processing apps. That's on the schedule; it was one of the reasons for getting the maximum storage model. I can say it's still not powerful enough to run full-res movies under VLC without skips, although it'll handle about twice the resolution it would before.

The new smart cover attaches much more firmly than the previous generation. Combined with the lighter weight of the iPad, I have no worries that if I pick the iPad up by the cover, which I am prone to forgetfully do, the iPad will detach itself from the cover and head groundward.

And that's what I like about my spankin' new iPad Air. Next week, I'll tell you what I don't like.

Ctein

©2013 by Ctein, all rights reserved

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Micro 4/3: What's in a Name?

I've had some great ideas over the years about photography—and a statistically significant number of them have come from Carl Weese.

Carl, who is currently investigating a Panasonic GX7 for us, is an artist and a working pro, a student of photography and a teacher of it, a navel-gazing artist and a social documentarian, a fastidious craftsman, even a graphic designer. (At one point he augmented his photography services by offering fully integrated graphic design services.)

Among the ideas he's tossed my way over two decades or so are the notion that B&W was already perfect in film but digital is the coming of age of color; the idea of using a digicam as a note-taker for ULF scouting; even the proper way to get to grips with the meaning and use of a Leica. He's the one who first explained to me what bokeh is.

And it's frustrating for me, now, because occasionally he'll toss off, in emails, these perfectly formed little thoughts and insights that could really be whole essays. 

Or at least whole blog posts.

Most recently, last night: Is "Micro Four-Thirds" actually a colossal naming blunder?

Why "micro"? In this day of proliferating sensor sizes, many of which really are tiny, wouldn't it cause confusion in the general public when you take an accepted but not particularly well-known or well-defined term (4/3) and add to it a word that means "exceptionally small?" Doesn't that imply, at the very least, that the sensor is smaller than regular 4/3? (Even Carl assumed so at first; so did I. Of course, it was the cameras that are supposed to be smaller, not the sensors.) Doesn't "micro" appear to intentionally underscore the difference in size of a format that is in truth just a little smaller than standard (if standard is APS-C) but difficult to distinguish from it in practice?

Fascinating. Xander told me last night about a company that tried to launch a new product with a name that very soon after became profoundly wrong. The time was just before the outbreak of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome epidemic, the product was a weight-loss pill, and the name the inventors chose for the product was "Ayds." Oops. That's like those poor mothers who named their babies "Harry Potter" a few years before the J.K. Rowling juggernaut burst on the scene.

Carl thinks "Micro 4/3" might better have been called "Mirrorless 4/3," because it's "descriptive, not much more awkward, and wouldn't give the impression the sensor had been downsized."

Of course the common usage of "mirrorless" came along after Micro 4/3 did, I think. It was a retrospective descriptive term. But what if the official name had been, say, "SuperSensor"? Just as accurate, really, because it's supersized compared to digicam sensors...and those were, for the most part, the "mirrorless" cameras that existed before Micro 4/3 cameras along.

I'll bet that would have been a whole lot more popular with the public.

If this is a perception problem in the general public, though, it would be all but invisible to us. Core aficionados of any activity tend to sort out and demystify the terminology of their field of interest very quickly (because it's important to them) and then they just can't see any longer how that terminology might strike an ordinary person who is coming to it cold.

Maybe this a bigger part than we realize of Micro 4/3's marketing doldrums: bad name. As in, actively misleading name. As in, a name that creates rather than ameliorates confusion and poor impressions. (This could be cultural. As many people have noted, miniaturization is prized in Japan, whereas "bigger is better" is normative in the West. Interestingly, market acceptance of Micro 4/3 follows the same pattern: it's popular in Japan and Asia, struggling in North America and Europe.) Too late now, but it sure is interesting to think about...like an awful lot of the ideas I get from Carl.

Mike
(Thanks to CW)

P.S. Incidentally, a not very well-known fact: Carl teaches private one-on-one photo workshops on request. Subject: Anything you want. Most often they're about LF platinum/palladium photography, but, really, whatever you're having problems with and want to know more about, he could help you with.

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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Jeremy: "Please don't suggest 'mirrorless' as a name for anything. It may be expedient in one era but it can't be lasting to call a thing by what it is not. 'Horseless carriage' (automobile) comes to mind as does 'wireless' (radio)."

Greg Brophy: "I just took a platinum printing class last weekend with Carl at The Center for Alternative Photography. My only regret was not taking it sooner. For months I tried to learn it on my own and the money I spent on failed attempts would have easily covered the cost of the class. Carl helped me learn how to do it and demystified the process. We also learned how to process negatives in a tray with pyro and showed how easy it was. I plan on taking more classes from Carl in the future.

"On aside note I got to see Carl's GX7 and it is a really amazing camera. He showed me some things I have not seen other cameras do, which I am sure he will talk about in a future post."

Volusion Note

Much as I appreciate the great outpouring of support for my predicament—and I do—I'd appreciate it if you would not contact Volusion on my behalf. It makes it look as if I'm asking people to do that, which I am not.

The chargebacks are coming through and we are working here to sort out this mess and, most importantly, get peoples' prints to them in as timely a manner as possible. The prints are all finished and the first ones have been shipped to buyers already.

Many thanks. And thanks for all the notes of support, public and private. I have not answered all the private emails, but I have read them all. As for the problems, the common counsel is correct—this too shall pass.

Sincerely,

Mike

Conversations With Ctein

Old friend Michael Reichmann has a nice chat with old friend Ctein. The only problem? I wasn't there!

Except, I sort of am...and you can be too, because it's available for video download from The Luminous Landscape ($10). I've only seen about half of it so far; I do hope Ctein pulls out some prints eventually.

A very pleasant way to while away some time.

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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Caleb Courteau: "I bought and watched this last week. After reading Ctein's columns here the last several years he feels like a favorite uncle (I'm 27). At ten dollars this was an impulse buy. It was a pleasure to finally here the voice behind the columns, which was my main motivation for purchasing the video. We get a dose of his sense of humor (What's the opposite of 'prosumer'? 'Confessional.' Rimshot.), and also get a chance to see some of his prints. The image of the bird's imprint on the window is a real masterpiece, and the image of the night lit woods is a tour de force of print making skill. As a fan of Ctein this was all fascinating to me, but I was just as enraptured by the warm report between him and Michael Reichmann. Clearly they're good friends, and in Reichman and Ctein we have veritable encyclopedias of the history and state of the camera industry and of the art of print making respectively. It's very entertaining listening to them converse and educate each other about their particular areas of expertise. All in all a great way to spend ten dollars and sixty minutes."

Print Sale Update

In response to a number of inquiries: print sale customers who paid through PayPal are NOT affected by the situation with Volusion. We have had no problems with PayPal whatsoever.

Mike

Random Excellence: Zbigniew Bzdak

Photo by Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune

This may be the most amazing tornado picture I've ever seen without a tornado in it. After obliterating a farmstead, the tornado inscribed its path across the prairie. Taken on Nov. 18th, of the Washington, Illinois tornado, by the Chicago Tribune's Zbigniew Bzdak.

There are many more photos of the aftermath of the storm (and a bigger, better version of this picture) at the Tribune.

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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Volusion Nightmare

November 2013 has been perhaps the worst month I've been through in more than twenty years online.

I am stuck in a nightmare I can't seem to get out of.

As you might recall, for our most recent print sale, I set up our own web page with a shopping cart, called "topprintsandbooks.com." I did everything through a service called Volusion. Volusion, Inc., is based in Austin, Texas. I found them online; they seemed to check out, as far as I could tell. Naturally, since I don't know much about that sort of thing, I set up everything through Volusion: the domain registration, the shopping cart page, the credit card processing, etc. I did exactly what they told me to do.

And—of course—I explained to them completely honestly exactly what our business model is, what we wanted to do, and how we wanted things to work. Three products; sale lasts five days; we make the prints to fill the orders; the usual. We've had more than a dozen sales in the past and this one was not appreciably different. It was our third sale with this artist.

I received every assurance from Volusion's representatives that everything would be fine. At no time was I told that there was even the possibility of a problem.

And then we had our sale.

At that point—AFTER THE SALE WAS OVER—Volusion decided they didn't like my business model. They decided I was untrustworthy. They said I was a risk to them. And they informed me they weren't going to hand over the money.

That is, they refused to turn any of the credit card payments they had collected from TOP's customers over to me.

The next question (after I recovered from my shock) seemed obvious: If they weren't going to give the money to me, what were they going to do with it?

They said they were going to return the money to our customers.

Okay. When?

At first they wouldn't say. When pressed, they finally said the funds would be returned within five to ten days.

And then they kept the money.

And kept it.

And kept it.

Ten days passed. Nothing.

Meanwhile, I was trying to arrange alternate methods of payment with our credit card customers (which I'm still working on—if you haven't had a second email from me yet, you will very soon). But, quite naturally, people wanted to wait until they got their first payment back before they sent a second payment.

The bottom line is that now, finally, some of our customers have gotten their money back from Volusion.

But not all.

Volusion took the last credit card payment from OUR customer on OUR behalf on November 4th. It is now November 25th and as of this morning, not all of our customers have their money back. Volusion is still keeping it. In one specific case, a payment made on the morning 10/31/13 has not yet been returned. What am I supposed to tell that customer? He trusted me. And I've let him down. He's looking to me for customer service that I cannot provide.

I pressed Volusion again about it this morning. Still, their representative refused, repeatedly, to give me a solid answer.

I'm not quite sure I understand why all this is happening, but I do know one thing: it isn't Volusion's money. They have no right to keep it. It is either my money, and they should turn it over to me, or it is our customers' money, and they should return it to our customers. It doesn't belong to Volusion. They don't have the right to keep it. That's the one thing that seems clear.

The stress of this situation is practically making me physically ill. My heart palpitations, which I thought I'd beaten with diet and exercise, are back. I have been through one of the worst extended bouts of insomnia I've ever endured, and with me that is saying something. (Where's Michael Jackson's doctor when you need him?) And this has triggered my depression. It has been truly miserable, although the stress comes and goes.

I will be working on this situation again today. All day.

I apologize for burdening you with all this, but I do sort of want to keep you in the loop in case I decide not to do any more print sales. At least you'll know why. And I sure wish I had encounted a post like this one two months ago, when I was Googling "Volusion" to see what people thought of them.

To all our credit card customers this time, I can only say that this is entirely my fault, and I'm truly, truly sorry. If worse comes to worst I will reimburse you out of my own bank account.

I wish I had never heard the word "Volusion" in my life.

After this nightmare is over, I hope I never hear it again.

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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Roger Bradbury:

Open Mike: Turkeys

"Open Mike" is the Editorial page of TOP. It appears on Sundays. Sometimes. When I feel like it.

I have to be a little careful here. One way to make writing vivid is to hit things a little too hard. You know. Exaggerate. Overstate.

I could offend people if I hit this too hard, so I gotta keep the reins in hand.

But I just thought someone should state the obvious: America is officially no longer thankful. We're now just greedy.

We probably always were, but, like...like...well, like little kids on Christmas morning, we restrained ourselves a little for the sake of decorum. We waited until the Thankgiving leftovers were in the icebox, figuratively speaking, before we stormed the doors of the Wal-Mart and trampled a few of our less-nimble fellow shoppers underfoot.

(Whoa, boy. Easy.)

I'd like to say that I enjoy Christmas as much as anyone. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be quite honest. It's a Type A holiday, and I'm a Type B personality. Well, maybe Type Z. My goal in life is to have only one thing to do every day, and then put that off until tomorrow. The Type A's, on the other hand, just can't wait to get started charging around hither and yon buying up small mountains of presents for the landfill, dragging trees indoors, slathering the house with blinky lights, and blaring that insanely chipper "holiday music" from every fencepost until every public space in the land has been transformed into some sort of Yuletide North Korea.

I'm personally afflicted by getting songs stuck in my head, so I don't even want to hear the titles of Christmas tunes. It's nothing against the tunes themselves: as Edgar Allan Poe wrote, describing "earworm" in his short story "The Imp of the Perverse," "Nor will we be the less tormented if the song in itself be good, or the opera air meritorious."

Like the rankest conservative, I am in favor of a number of social-engineering laws. Except the laws I would favor would be somewhat different. For example, one would be that no citizen shall under any circumstances be subjected to commercial advertising against his or her will. This would get rid of billboards, television commercials, painted public busses, and about 85% of what makes Christmas so oppressive*. I am also in favor of a law which would forbid exposing citizens to Christmas music against their will. I partly define my freedom in a free country as the right to not listen to any music I don't want to listen to.

A move toward legislation of this sort currently does not have support in Congress, that I've heard.

But look, on a more serious note, speaking of freedoms: it is truly obnoxious—no exaggeration—that businesses are allowed to destroy Thanksgiving for tens of thousands of their employees. The powerless shall forever be persecuted, and the religious will evidently fight with firm resolve and spirited purpose any effort to allow the meek to inherit more than the meagerest share of the earth. That much I understand. But let the little people enjoy their freakin' turkey dinners, you goddamn greedy ogres.

That really should be a law: No shopping till sun-up on Friday.

Meanwhile, I will not be doing any shopping at any store that opens before 12:01 on Friday. After Thanksgiving is over. First, we give thanks.

Of course, my little personal protest will have no actual effect. I already have to scrupulously avoid all retail establishments at this time of year, on account of that little problem I have with the music.

Mike
(Photo by Christy of The Daily Dish, used with permission)

[NOTE: TOP will not be updated this coming Thursday, in honor of the quaint and antiquated old holiday of Thanksgiving.

NOTE #2: Six additional paragraphs were sacrificed in the writing of this post. If you think the ones that are left are over the top, you should have seen the ones you're not seeing.  :-) —Mike the Ed.

NOTE #3: And bravo to Tim Cook (thanks to Chuck Lavis for this.)]

*As you might expect, I really appreciate the emerging trend in online videos of allowing people to skip ads after the first five seconds. Bravo to that. Of course, since I like it and approve of it, it means the practice will soon be extinct.

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.

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

Benjamin Marks (partial comment): "Over the years, the holidays from Memorial Day to New Year's have blended together in retail America like the East Coast megalopolis from Bangor to Washington D.C.—one giant smear.

"In the spirit of the holidays, I refrain from more than a glancing reference here to the preferred public punishments and pillories of yesteryear, like the stocks, flogging and liberal application of tar and feathers. Ha-rumph."

Ed Hawco: "I feel ripped off. Give us back the missing six paragraphs! ;-) "

Rob L.: "Amen. I also really love B&H and I believe Adorama, who shut down their web ordering as well as their stores for religious holidays. Although, I think at least one of them is open on Thanksgiving...so ya can't win.  :-) "

ADDENDUM in the cold light of Monday morning: Regarding Christmas, I might be guilty of self-referentialism. George Carlin has a great joke about drivers. Ever notice, he asks, why everyone who drives slower than you do is an idiot, while everyone who drives faster than you do is a maniac?

The psychological insight behind the joke is fairly profound. It's the reason everyone approves of their own politics. You drive the speed you do because that's the speed you feel comfortable driving. It stands to reason, then, that you believe that speed is the best balance to choose.

If you make the mistake of being self-referential, then everyone who drives faster or slower is in error. They're either driving slower or faster than the speed you think is best. So they're either idiots (i.e., incompetent, compared to you) or maniacs (i.e., reckless, compared to you).

Except, of course, they might not be. What's needed, of course, is a "theory of mind" of other drivers. That is, you have to set aside your attempt to calibrate everyone else to your own comfort level, and first consider that they simply might be doing exactly what you're doing yourself: driving as fast as is comfortable for them. Maybe a faster driver is not being reckless; maybe she has a better car and better skills, and youthful eyesight and youthful reflexes, so she feels comfortable driving more quickly. And maybe she's absolutely right: that is, she really is driving perfectly safely, for her. Maybe a slower driver is an older person who doesn't drive as often and doesn't see as well, so he thinks it's prudent to drive more cautiously. And maybe, for him, it is. Only after you detach the other person's behavior from your own self-selected norms can you more accurately evaluate whether they're actually acting poorly.

It's usually charitable to assume that others are doing the best they can. At least at first.

So here's why this is relevant: the way my own family celebrates Christmas seems just right to me. We strike the perfect balance, I think. It's neither too much nor too little.

So is everyone who chooses to celebrate more or less somehow wrong?

Only if you're being self-referential, assuming that what you do is the reasonable choice and holding everyone else to that standard.

It's quite possible that some people are idiots and some people are maniacs when it comes to Christmas—it's always entertaining to spot the outliers. But of most people, really, you have to step back and say, well, maybe they're just doing what they think is best...for them, and by their way of thinking, and according to their own family customs and their personal energy and level of enthusiasm.

It's not Christmas that I object to. It's the excessive commercial exploitation of Christmas by businesses and corporations—the worship of Mammon.

I especially object to the asinine notion that it's worth obliterating the Thanksgiving holiday just to give Christmas shoppers half a day more shopping almost a month in advance of Christmas. That really does offend me. And I am absolutely offended by corporate bullies who wantonly ruin the Thanksgiving holiday for their dependent employees. That's just wrong.

Preserving Thanksgiving won't hurt Christmas one iota.

It might hurt businesses; but just a little. And it's not the right of business to destroy an old an honored American holiday just for their own gain. It's not like they're being asked to sacrifice all of their Christmas profit; just a little of it.

I'm not anti-Christmas. I'm becoming pretty militantly pro-Thanksgiving, though. Unfortunately it seems like it might be necessary, these days.

Mike

Cyril: "It says a lot about the state of the public debate in North America that a writer has to pre-emptively (and profusely) apologize for writing an opinion piece about...Christmas, of all important things. You should be happy you live south of the border, though. Due to Canada's Thanksgiving being placed in October, the Christmas season here starts on the morning after Halloween, Christmas music and all, making November an even more miserable month than it already is (at least for people who enjoy the sight of a sunny day from time to time)."

Finding 'Finding Vivian Maier'

I'd like to see this movie but I don't know where to...well, find it. Is it available for streaming anywhere? Is there a DVD? Is it showing in an art-house theater near you?

I'll see if I can contact John Maloof and find out. Looks good, doesn't it?

UPDATE from John Maloof: "Hi all—the film comes to theaters in the U.S. on March 28th 2014. List of theaters will be available closer to that date but that is the official U.S. release date!"

'I am a solid technician'
But speaking of trailers, the trailer for Siobhan Davies' and David Hinton's All This Can Happen is like a little film all by itself. A poetic encomium to a simple walk. Another film I evidently can't see. But like already.

•     •     •

TOP is off on Saturday, while Yr. Hmbl. Ed. collapses in a heap and stares at the ceiling for 14 hours (I might eventually tell you what's been keeping me so overworked lately, but not yet). See you on Sunday, when we shall share a small, mild bout of rant.

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.

TOP's links!

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

Steve Rosenblum: "The documentary was initially funded by a Kickstarter campaign for which I was a donor. The film premiered in Toronto and is now making the rounds of the film festivals where I'm sure they are hoping it will pick up additional buzz and backing followed by commercial release. The Kickstarter supporters were promised a copy of the film on DVD as soon as it becomes available. Details can be found here.

"I don't think the film is available on DVD or steaming yet."

Bob Burnett: "Looks like Finding Vivian Maier is currently screening at some docs fests—this weekend at CUFFDocs in Calgary. 'Coming Soon' is posted on the web page. I hope that means some form of streaming media or gets picked up for a limited theatrical run before a life on Netflix."

MartinB: "I saw it in Calgary on Thursday and thought it was an excellent film. It was better than expected, painting in details discovered of her life from many perspectives. She is a very interesting person. Highly recommended."

paul richardson: "Opens 'nationwide' March 14th, whatever that means. I can't see this playing at the multiplex, next to the latest iteration of Batman or Harry Potter. Looks like Netflix later in the year may be the best bet."

Ariel_E: "In the meantime (that is, if you haven't seen it yet), you may want to have a look at BBC Imagine's Vivian Maier: Who Took Nanny's Pictures?"

How-I-Shot-This Books

TOP World Headquarters, a.k.a. my home office, is, as regular readers know, sprawling.

It sprawls over more than 121 square feet (indeed almost 122) in a my 1950s ranch house in a town that's quiet to a fault in a let us say "out-of-the-way" State in the Midwest.

Not only that, but the Official TOP Library of Photo-Related Bookery overspills even these capacious facilities, occupying an uncomfortably large amount of space in what would probably be known, were I currently espoused, as "the living room."

Despite having all this space, there is regrettably not limitless room for all manner of photo-related bookery, and I have accordingly neglected several genres. For instance, photographer biographies. I have read and enjoyed several of these, and I have about two dozen of them, but I find myself somewhat put off by, say, the idea of buying a second damn'd thick, square book about some famous photographer when a first one about that selfsame individual is already squatting there on my shelf, glowering balefully down at me, persecuted by my neglect. Biographies of Stieglitz fall under this head. I am fated to die and turn to dust without reading much more about Stieglitz. Something about that fellow just flips my bored switch. I don't know what it is.

Another genre I am short on is what might be called the "How-I-Shot-This" genre. These veer perilously close to mere how-to books. The premises groan already with far too many of those, many inflicted on me against my will by hopeful publishers who haven't noticed yet that I don't promote them.

I suspect the distinction between the two largely concerns the accomplishment and renown of the author-photographer, and the accepted relative goodness of the pictures. With a no-name author, it's a How-To; when it's a famous or at least a rich photographer, then it's a How-I-Shot-This. If the pictures are a bit bleh, and might not be worth looking at except insofar as they illustrate the text, then it's a How-To; if the book discusses famous and good pictures, or at least pictures commissioned for large amounts of money by serious clients, then it's a How-I-Shot-This.

Sound reasonable?

Moving on. This type of book can be very entertaining, now and then. I like to use them as an occasional accent in my Photobookery Consumption—that is, sparingly. One every so often. Sort of like Ethiopian cuisine. I might not eat Ethiopian cusine as often as once a year. But when I do, I soldier through, pronounce it good, and then proceed to take another long stretch of relief from it. That is how I digest How-I-Shot-This books, too.

The How-I-Shot-This genre probably has a long and storied history; I'm not sure I'd know. The oldest clear example of the genre (i.e., not shading too much into the How-To genre) that I know but don't own is probably Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs by Ansel Adams, published in 1984. I was in Photo School in 1984, and had a very restricted photo book budget. In fact, it was a photo book budget which imposed itself significantly into the food and nourishment budget—and still didn't amount to beans. So I used to stand atop the stairs in the old Olsson's Books & Records in Georgetown, D.C., and read whole books without, erm, buyin' 'em. The bookstore employees either tolerated this or did not notice. So I have read Examples clear through.

I might actually own a copy now. If so I cannot find it, which is very similar to not owning it.

Another great How-I-Shot-This book from the same era worthy of all but the most hard-hearted photography enthusiast's attention is Mountain Light, c. 1986, by the late Galen Rowell.

More recent examples that I have enjoyed more than Ethiopian food are Annie Leibovitz at Work and The Life of a Photograph by Sam Abell (although the first Sam Abell book you should have is still Stay This Moment).

Annie Leibovitz at Work works for me more and more as time has passed since its 2008 publication date. Although I'm not a huge fan of Ms. Leibovitz's work in general and especially not of her recent rampant Photoshoppery, which is heartrendingly far removed from the beautiful simplicity of her early 35mm black-and-white work for Rolling Stone, it's not to be denied that her very best shots are spectacularly good, and she's been to some amazing places and met many fascinating people. And, as presented here, she's a good writer. And the book is very well done. It's a special little book. Very enjoyable. Although I digress. Although you cannot tell.

So anyway. The newest book making a splash in this category is Gregory Heisler: 50 Portraits which, as we collectively established not long ago, is being discussed all over the photo blogosphere.

Ctein will be reviewing the Apple iPad Air next week. I recently got one as well, with the idea of investigating how it is to look at pictures on the thing. As Ctein will inform you in due course, it has a "Retina" viewing screen. "Retina," which I thought already had a settled meaning, is a word that, in this case, means "good." I'm actually not digressing this time.

Now add that dearth of free space at TOP World HQ I was talking about.

I took a deep breath, girded my loins, steeled whatever it is you steel, and downloaded The Kindle version of Gregory Heisler: 50 Portraits.

A first for me. Never have I downloaded an e-book version of a photographic book before, of any sort.

And you know what? It's okay. I have survived. I've enjoyed reading the entertaining, well-presented text, and the pictures look quite nice on the "Retina" (sorry, I have to put that dumb name in scare quotes every time I use it) screen. Better than good enough. I mean, I'm certainly used to looking at pictures on computer monitors, and they look fine on the iPad Air as illustrations.

Portrait of Shaquille O'Neal by Gregory Heisler

Partly, I have to admit, that's because I'm not overly enamored of the pictures. Purely a matter of personal chemistry, but I've never been particularly fond of Greg Heisler's work. To me it seems like good, solid commercial/editorial portraiture that accords well with accepted '80s-and-onwards fashions in such work. But I don't get from it a clear sense of personal style or outlook—that is to say, I'm pretty sure if I came across a Heisler portrait in a context where it wasn't clear who took it, I wouldn't be able to guess it was his. His lighting is always excellent, but it's chameleon-like, without any common stylistic thread. Like most commercial portraitists, he borrows various tropes from a variety of sources.

I should tell you that I've always had a bit of a chip on my shoulder about commercial photographers horning in on art-photography venues, markets, and even vocabularies. At least I've been consistent about this over the years. It pushes those buttons just a little that the subtitle of this book is "Stories and Techniques from a Photographer's Photographer." Excuse me? Not to me. That term might uncontroversially be applied to Danny Lyons or Ray McSavaney or Pentti Sammallahti or Saul Leiter or Ray K. Metzker or Lee Friedlander or a folder-full of other photographers depending on what type of photography floats your boat, but no commercial guy since Penn deserves to be called that if you ask me.

Why am I telling you this? Not to be obnoxious, although it's always a bit obnoxious to intimate, even gently, you don't really care for a good worker's good work. Only to emphasize that this is why I'm perfectly happy to read this book in its Kindle version on the iPad—because it's not close to my heart, either in terms of the book's genre or that of the photography. I don't really need to see a picture of Shaq sitting in a giant chair any better than I can see it on the iPad. I get the idea. But it's just this style of portraiture that I don't particularly care for—Gregory Heisler is very good at it, and the stories of how he worked to make them are excellent. The book is informative and easy to read and not condescending at all.

You might well feel differently than I do about the work; lots of people love this style. So if that's the case, maybe you'd be better off getting the paper version of this book and Vivian Maier: Self-Portraits in the Kindle version for your tablet, instead of the other way around.

Either way you'll enjoy it.

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:

stephen: "Oddly (or maybe not) the thing I liked best about the Heisler book was Heisler. He is, no doubt about it, a master of lighting, but, in the writing, he comes across as a genuinely nice guy, enthused about what he does for a living."

Gato: "I bought the Heisler book when you mentioned it a while back, not because I'm fond of his photography but because I like the way he talks/writes about photography. Tte majority of the text deals with his creative process and how he works with his subjects, which is what I hoped for. Technical details get a pretty light treatment, with hardly a brand name in sight. And I am liking more photos than expected, though I largely agree with you that Heisler is too much the chameleon. Although I bought the hardbound this does seem like a good candidate for a tablet. Much of the interest is in the text, and Heisler's photos, intended for magazine reproduction, depend more on content than reproduction quality to make their point."

Bruce Van Valen: "I was fortunate to have spent a week with Greg Heisler this past summer as a participant in his 'Lightwork' workshop at Maine Media. I think if he were to read your comments he would get a good chuckle at the notion that he is too much of a chameleon because I think he would say that that is exactly his intention. In fact he is very conscious in his avoidance of developing any trait that runs through the work that makes it identifiable, what he refers to as becoming 'a thing.' He is definitely a guy who enjoys his work and he is obsessed with light of all kinds. If any readers have the opportunity to attend one of his workshops I highly recommend it. He is a very down to earth guy and a great teacher."

Very Cheap Apple? Or—?

I'm hoping some of you computer mavens can explain to me if this is a good deal: a 13-inch MacBook Air for $975.

I can't keep track of 'em all. What say ye?

TIA.

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.

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

Mike Anderson: "Good enough to do TOP publishing on the road, but not good enough to do imaging work."

Jack (partial comment): "Had I not actually used a MacBook Air with a mere 4 GB of RAM, I would have agreed with the other comments. I have a mid-2011 Air with just 4 GB of RAM, and I can run Lightroom and Photoshop at the same time with huge files and it does not stumble. I have 16 GB of RAM on my main machine, but for road work, 4 GB works well enough for me. Those who say 4 GB is not enough, are either Ctein, who probably needs 32 GB, or those who really are guessing and assume 4 GB of RAM will crash. I works quite adequately, and better than people think."

Panasonic GX7 Notes, Part the First

Review by Carl Weese

This will be the first of several short posts detailing some of my reactions to the newly introduced Panasonic Lumix DMC GX7 camera.

Quick background: I began using Micro 4/3 format with a Lumix GF1 about three and a half years ago. I thought it would be a supplement to the APS-C system I was using, more appropriate for some of the work that I do with digital capture (I still do some of my work with large format film, which is something to bear in mind when you consider my comments). Instead, I quickly found I only used the previous digital system to access lenses I didn’t have equivalents to in Micro 4/3. As the (rather few) lenses I needed in the format became available and I got them, I stopped using APS-C entirely, not so much as a conscious decision, as that it stopped being something I needed. I preferred the results, for many reasons, from the slightly smaller format cameras.

About a year later, I got on the B&H waiting list for the Lumix G3 when it came out, because I wanted the integral EVF. When it arrived, I found that the build-quality wasn’t as nice as the GF1, but the EVF was, as expected, much better, and more convenient than the accessory EVF for the earlier camera. They had bumped the MP count from 12 to 16 without losing exposure range (a.k.a. dynamic range) or noise performance, though without improving either.

Then, I was, in digital age terms, patient. GX1, G5—many offerings of ever smaller cameras, which are for a different audience—while all along Olympus was keeping up or jumping ahead with their own new cameras. Until the GX7 was announced.

It had always been obvious to me what I wanted from Micro 4/3—a digital experience as close as possible to my decades of using M Leica film cameras. When the GX7 was announced, I got on the waiting list. This past Halloween, as dusk set in, there was no Trick (we live far enough out in the country that there are no kids on patrol) but a definite Treat. A new tool delivered by a weary UPS driver.

Storm Fronts, Ancramdale, New York, 11/17/13. With my earlier Micro 4/3 cameras I would have needed to do a lot of work in Adobe Camera RAW to hold the wide range of subject brightness here. With the GX7, an exposure with no plus or minus compensation held the range so easily that I had to raise the contrast in ACR to convey the drama of the scene.

All the talk about this camera seems to center on the "retro" styling. In fact, the new design of the body and controls really is a big deal and will be the subject of subsequent posts. But for now I want to talk about the capability of the sensor. No graphs or charts, because what I care about is how much subject information the sensor provides that, after RAW processing, I can make into convincing detail and tone in a print.

There's plenty of data in a RAW file that you can't print. RAW file processors can also invent data that wasn’t recorded, based on an algorithm analysis of existing data (that's also known as "guesswork"). I don’t find this convincing—RAW processing is easy to overdo. Nothing new about this, of course. The Zone System and similar traditional techniques were all about the fact that film can handle vastly more data than printing paper. The trick to controlled exposure and development is to limit the film’s data content to a range the printing paper can handle. That well-controlled combination of film and paper can handle a range of subject brightness that still exceeds the ability of digital capture; but capture keeps on improving and catching up.

Compared to the G3 (I haven't seen results from any intermediate releases) the GX7 has a big gain in exposure range. Not a tweak, but more like nearly 2 EV of usable, convincingly printable exposure range. Scenes that would have strained the ability of the earlier camera fit so comfortably that they look a bit "flat" at the ACR defaults and need to have their range expanded in RAW processing. As a side effect, many scenes that would have required minus exposure compensation to avoid clipping the highlights are fine without compensation. This is good because if you haven't lowered the overall exposure to save the highlights, you won't have to pull the darker values back up in RAW processing, and that can mean richer, smoother dark values in the final print.

The other sensor issue everyone cares about is high ISO noise. I'm old enough that I'm just amazed at how much better digital capture is, even with smaller sensors, than 35mm film ever was. Still, comparing again to the earlier Lumix G3, I'd call it a one-EV gain: 1600 looks like 800 used to; 3200 looks like 1600 used to. That means that in "available darkness" I won't hesitate to use 3200 and will expect results I couldn't get close to with 35mm film.

•     •     •

Next, camera body style, features, and handling.

Carl
Website / Working Pictures blog

©2013 by Carl Weese, all rights reserved

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Featured Comments from:

Sam: "Yay! Carl's back! Can't wait for more posts, and more pictures hopefully? I always enjoy looking at my lovely print of yours of the Bon Air Motel."

Steve G, Mendocino: "An excellent start and I'm very much looking forward to the rest of the series. I currently have a pair of G3 bodies and was happy with them, but your observations on the dynamic range of the GX7 vs. the G3 have acted like a shot of starting fluid on my GAS!"

OT: King Death

JFK by Jacques Lowe, 1961

Like many Americans my age and older, I do remember where I was 50 years ago today. We were living in Boston while my father completed his MBA at the Harvard Business School. His graduate school education had been interrupted ten years earlier when he and his brothers, my uncles, formed a successful company in their native Indiana. We lived in a small apartment complex in Cambridge. My mother and brothers and I were returning home to our apartment after being out, and we found our housekeeper (who we called a "cleaning lady," a term I believe is now out of date) in the living room, sitting in an armchair that was normally unofficially reserved for my father. She was crying. I believe she took my mother aside somewhat, to spare us children the news, but I overheard: the President of the United States had been killed.

In the days that followed, my main memory was that the news and the funeral dominated television, and I was cross that most of the cartoons I liked were preempted. I did watch some of the coverage. My memories are, quite typically, visual: I saw John-John's salute, and the President's wife, mysteriously draped in black so that you couldn't see her face, and I was fascinated by the riderless horse with the backwards boots, which I thought was very curious. (I've always loved horses. The custom of the caparisoned horse representing a fallen noble dates back through the mists of time all the way to Genghis Khan.)

The riderless horse in JFK's funeral procession.
Photo courtesy Kennedy Library.

In some ways, I don't think America has ever really recovered from that event in Dallas. The country immediately split: Lyndon Johnson's Great Society was the most extensive flowering of Rawlsian liberalism in American history, and Barry Goldwater's trouncing by Johnson in 1964 planted the seeds of right-wing Movement Conservatism. We can't agree on what happened that day 50 years ago, or what its influence was on the decade that followed. About all we know is that the Sixties would have been very different had JFK been President until '68 and then lived on.

Various Kennedy documentaries have melded together in my mind, there are so many of them. The story is one of the great dramas of American history. I think the one that really affected me was the PBS American Experience episodes "The Father" and "The Sons" in 1992, but I have clearly conflated that in my mind with the later documentary narrated by historian and author David McCullough. I don't have enough patience with video to sort them out now. And all the television coverage (I have antenna TV, no cable) is reminding me of those days 50 years ago when, at six, I couldn't watch Mister Ed.

To bring this back on topic, consider that JFK's White House photographer, Jacques Lowe, probably artistically speaking the best pure shooter ever to occupy the post, was informed before he died that his 40,000-negative archive could not be insured, because it was priceless. So he put it in the most secure place he could imagine—a special safe in the vault of JP Morgan bank in the basement of a secure building in New York City: Tower 5 of the World Trade Center. Destruction heaped upon destruction.

Say what you will of saviors and eternal life: on this Earth, Death is King.

Mike

UPDATE: Our friend Errol Morris has produced a short film about the best evidence of what happened fifty years ago today—the photographic evidence.

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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Featured Comments from:

Jeff1000: "I was down the street from you, Mike, in the factory town known as Worcester. My third grade class at Rice Square Elementary school was sent home early, the entire school of course. I remember walking home in an army-like formation, as the school mandated, on my way to Plantation Street. When I arrived home my beautiful young mom was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. She appeared surprised to see me home so early and she just looked at me searchingly. I said, "Ma! Ma! The President’s been shot and he’s dead." Over the next few days I watched the gray and somber images being played over our black-and-white TV set."

Chuck Albertson: "Like most others who can remember it and are still around, I was in grade school (4th grade) in Las Vegas, out on the playground at recess. I noticed that one of the teachers keeping an eye on us had a transistor radio to her ear, and she said something to the teacher standing next to her, whose jaw hit the floor. A kid standing next to them heard what was said and relayed it to the next kid, and I watched the news sweep across the playground like a breeze blowing through tall grass."

Animesh Ray: "I was 9, in fourth grade, in India, in a small town near Calcutta. I remember the low winter sun that would slant down into the walkway between two rooms in our three-room flat, the light reflecting off the red cement floor casting a glow into my parents' bedroom that housed the radio. My mother sat there that afternoon in front of the radio and told me President Kennedy was dead--someone had killed him. Not even a year ago we had read in the newspaper of Mrs. Kennedy's visit, when she had dressed up in a sari; that was the reason I had heard of President Kennedy, that his wife, though an American, had worn a sari like an Indian woman. Yes, we cried too. It was because we had thought of him as a friend of India.

"Many, many years later I understood a bit more as to why we Indians were so moved by the news. It was the high point of relationship between India and the USA, with John Kenneth Galbraith as the US Ambassador in India having cultivated a profound regard for the US through his liberal stance, and the USA's help to India in the Sino-Indian war that occurred just a few years before. It was as if we lost a friend."

Vivian's Selfies

Reviewed by Kenneth Tanaka

Vivian Maier: Self-Portraits by John Maloof

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By now the legend of Vivian Maier should be familiar to most TOP readers. Maier was a Chicago nanny who also turned out to be an extraordinarily devoted and talented, but intensely secretive, candid "street" photographer. Since her basically posthumous discovery following a series of 2007 abandoned property auctions, Maier has become a de facto patron saint for amateur photographers worldwide. With each batch of newly disclosed work, Maier’s talent emerges as clearly equivalent, and in many cases superior, to many of the most celebrated street photographers of the 20th century.

Two books of Maier's work have been previously published, one each from the collections of John Maloof and Jeffrey Goldstein, the primary holders of Maier's work. Vivian Maier: Self-Portraits is drawn from Maloof's collection and, as the title implies, presents a specific genre of her images.

I jokingly referred to the images in this book as "selfies" (proclaimed this year's word of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary). But none of the book's 89 images actually resemble the look-at-me snapshots that have become mainstays on social sites. Rather, Maier's "self-portraits" appear to be a mixture of carefully composed scenes and inadvertent self-inclusions, with a smattering of images taken by others with Maier's camera.

In her introductory essay, Elizabeth Avedon observed that the images lack hints of emotion. I agree. None have a happy or even a commemorative feeling, although many do appear to have been taken during Maier's travels. Vivian didn't seem to enjoy smiling. Several do convey a slightly narcissistic feeling, particularly those of her that resemble press portraits. But none impress me as images of a lonely person. Rather, they're images of a person alone. Many seem to be experiments in using herself in compositions.

Although a few of the images have been previously published, most will be new to your eyes. This is especially true of the final 30 images which are in color. Apparently Maier enthusiastically adopted color later in her life, after dabbling with it since the 1950s. Judging by the images in the book she had a nice eye for color compositions, too.

The book itself is the same 10x11" squarish layout as Maloof's 2011 book by PowerHouse. But I'm delighted to report that the print quality of images in this book, which is also published by PowerHouse, is exponentially superior to that 2011 book. In fact both the color and B&W plates look about as good as it gets in photobooks today.

(A Kindle edition is scheduled for release on November 26, 2013.)

If you're already hooked on following the discovery of Vivian Maier's work, as I am, buying this book is a no-brainer. But even aside from the contextual lore the plates in this book present an excellent study of possibilities for creative photographic self-representation. I know of no other book of such a study and for that reason alone it's worth the investment for dedicated photographers.

If you're in New York before December 15, 2013 you might want to visit the corresponding "Vivian Maier: Self Portrait" show at the Howard Greenberg Gallery.

Ken

©2013 by Kenneth Tanaka, all rights reserved

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Featured Comments from:

Doug C: "Thanks for the tip. We just got in from seeing the show. Well worthwhile. Beautiful work. I would not have known about it had I not read this post."

Steve Barnett: "Ken writes, 'I know of no other book of such a study and for that reason alone it's worth the investment for dedicated photographers.' There is Lee Friedlander's book Self Portrait. Of course 'selfies' have been made by painters for centuries, so it makes me curious why some people feel uncomfortable about photographers taking it seriously. I think it gave Maier that excuse we all might need from time to time to explore idea's in a freer way, something that can be laughed off, but underneath there is an idea forming."

Mike adds: I was surprised to discover that The 2005 reprint of Lee Friedlander's Self Portrait is still available. Not only that, but Lee has reprised the idea, in a 2011 Yale Art Gallery title.

OT: A Tale of Two Movies

This week's column by Ctein

This fall I saw two movies that were conceptually so similar that they could share the same description. Both were, for the most part, successful, and I can recommend them both. The ways in which they approached their subject, though, were different enough, artistically speaking, to make for an interesting compare-and-contrast.

Both were suspense movies, and for that reason this review is going to be entirely "meta." I hate having a suspense movie ruined by knowing details of the plot before I'm supposed to. Consequently, I am going to tiptoe very carefully around all the plot details. I request that you be equally circumspect in your comments. Assume that even the least spoiler or reveal will be redacted by Mike's mallet. Okay? We're good? Let's continue.

Both directors are from south of the border (Mexico and Ecuador respectively). Both movies are about how astronauts deal with having a space mission go seriously wrong; both focus on people, not technology, while making serious, and mostly successful, attempts to be as scientifically accurate as possible. Both got praise from serious critics.

The first movie is one you may never have heard of, due to its limited release. Happily, it's a movie that should play quite well on the small screen.

Europa Report by Sebastián Cordero has an ensemble cast with no big-name actors. It's a cinematic version of an investigative report on the mission failure of the first crewed spacecraft to visit Europa. It is a suspense mystery, related in a nonlinear fashion. The movie opens with a technical failure midway through the voyage, and part of the puzzle is just what that failure was. The movie unfolds from there to what happened before and afterwards, from several viewpoints—record footage from the mission, extensive statements by the pilot on what went wrong, and the reactions of the project manager and staff back on earth. The story unfolds in real (if nonlinear) time, spanning two years.

It really does play like a real world space mission gone awry. Europa Report resonates with the Columbia investigation, the Challenger report, and, if you're old enough to remember, the Apollo 13 postmortem. The movie takes place after the fact; the suspense and the mystery derive from the viewer being in much the same position as the investigators. You don't know the totality of what has happened; you have to assemble the pieces and develop a coherent whole picture.

For anyone with any affinity for the space program, it's an extraordinarily moving movie, due to the technical and human realism. When the project manager expresses her anguish at not knowing what has gone wrong, it brings you to tears.

Two flaws keep the movie from being entirely successful. The lesser is that the initial technical failure turns out to have a completely implausible explanation. Non-technical viewers won't catch it, but for a movie that is attempting verisimilitude, it's, well, lame. That particular failure mode simply never, ever would happen on a real mission. That wouldn't matter, except it's the very first mystery you're presented with and so it demands a believable answer.

More seriously, the movie becomes predictable. Once you discern the pattern (most viewers will), you know that when the astronauts behave in certain ways, there will be certain consequences. It's not like a bad teenage horror movie where they stupidly split up to explore the haunted house, with inevitable carnage. The characters in this movie have very sensible and believable reasons for doing everything they're doing. But when the consequences become predictable, there goes a lot of the suspense.

Still, I recommend it. It's rare to see intelligent, accurate space drama. I doubt it will pick up any awards, because pictures this low-key rarely do, but it is a very good movie. Fortunately it will play very well on a small screen, since you'll likely not get to see it in a theatre.

The second movie is, of course, Gravity by Alfonso Cuarón. Instead of being a suspense mystery, this is a suspense thriller, one that demands the biggest, clearest screen you can see it on. I saw it in IMAX 3D; I've never felt any other movie needed that.

Instead of an ensemble cast, 99.9% of Gravity involves just two major stars. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are at the very top of their forms. It is all about them. This is, in my opinion, where one of the few weaknesses shows up in the movie. The movie drops us right into the thrill ride with hardly any foreplay. I think the movie would do much better with just ten more minutes of character development at the beginning. These are characters you're supposed to genuinely care about. Clooney and Bullock are amazingly good, but I think that's asking a bit too much from the very weak character development the audience is given in the few minutes before things go all roller-coastery. It worked for me, but I know some viewers who just couldn't engage with the actors.

But so long as you can, you're off and running. The script is excellent and the dialogue is realistic and believable, carried by exceptionally capable actors who know that the entire movie is riding on just them. There should be a couple of Academy award nominations coming.

I feel obliged to point to the most evident technical inaccuracy in the movie, because this movie also strives for extreme verisimilitude. Fortunately, it's an inaccuracy you can entirely ignore, as it's just a plot device, not a central mystery as in Europa Report. The orbital mechanics in the movie aren't real. You'd think that would be a big deal for a movie set in Earth orbit, but it's not! The friend who recommended Gravity to me is a genuine rocket scientist working for SpaceX. It didn't bother him; it didn't bother me. Don't let it bother you.

This wasn't done out of ignorance; the technical advisors knew how to do the orbital mechanics correctly. The problem is that if the orbital mechanics were done correctly, the events of the movie would take place over months or more, as they do in Europa Report. That becomes an entirely different movie, especially when the point of the movie is about two characters and how they deal with adversity and each other.

One last observation. I'm pretty well convinced that Cuarón worked with two different endpoints in mind. The movie as shown plays great. But I'll bet anything that he also considered ending the movie after the last bit of spoken dialogue. That works, too!

That's it for this time. Next week I'll be reviewing the new Apple iPad Air.

Ctein

The Ctein show plays on TOP's big screen on Wednesdays.

©2013 by Ctein, all rights reserved

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

Spencer H.: "I'm glad someone else watched Europa Report. I have always really been into astronauts and space, and this was a very rare movie that really got it right in the believability department. I did find that the 'found footage' documentary style was most likely the most successful and well done I had ever seen. At times I was almost buying it, really getting invested in the whole thing. I agree with you 100% on the issues with the movie, but in the end, it was still very fun, and one of the better 'hard science fiction' movies made in a long time."

Stephanie Luke: "I've seen both of these movies—one in glorious 3D and one through Netflix on my computer screen—being a fan of space stories and special effects. I enjoyed both immensely.Your reaction to them was very similar to mine. I only had one little carp about Gravity. Sandra Bullock, though a lovely woman, is, after all, over 40, and no one can have skin that perfectly smooth and flawless without liberal application of Photoshop (or some similar software). I'm a huge fan of Photoshop—as anyone knows who has ever seen my photographs—and 'making the world more perfect one image at a time' is my dearly held motto, but it was so unreal in an otherwise very realistic-seeming film."

Ed Hawco (partial comment): "Regarding the character development, I wonder if the lack of it was a deliberate choice based on the idea that we, the viewers, are supposed to put ourselves in the shoes of the characters and to wonder how we would feel and what we would do. You could argue that any good piece of fiction uses this device, but in this case I think it was more deliberate than usual."

John Robison: "Well, I guess we are all different. I happened, and I mean 'happened' to see Europa Report. I was waiting for the glue to dry on a 4x5 plywood box camera and looking through Netflix when I came upon it. It is so hard to make fiction look like authentic reporting and this just did not seem to me like something real. Besides Apollo 13 (and yes, it had its inaccuracies) the last film that felt real to me was Good Night and Good Luck. When a movie is filmed so as to look like reportage then the bar is very high."

Rob Reiter: "Saw Europa Report at home and Gravity in 3D IMAX and I agree completely with your comments on both. It's like you read my mind. Should I be concerned?"

Mike replies: Ctein cannot actually read minds. On the other hand, he knew I was going to say that.

Axedge Books (TOP Books Update)

In response to numerous queries, an update about TOP's first book:

• I'm pleased to announce that we have a name: It is Axedge Books. And as our motto:

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." —Abraham Lincoln

As Ken Tanaka noted, the business name isn't actually that important, since we're planning to market our books pretty much exclusively here on TOP. So, quickly on to two more important developments:

• Our Project Manager is Jim Schley, who, quite apart from being one of the most gifted human beings I've had the honor of knowing on God's green Earth, is one of my oldest friends. Jim is currently Managing Editor of Tupelo Press, a 21st-century independent literary press based in North Adams, Massachusetts. (I'm currently in negotiations to have Tupelo Press do our order fulfillment.) There are so many interesting things about Jim that it's hard to know where to begin, but I'll just mention that he's had an outstanding career as an editor and in publishing and has shepherded more than 200 books through to publication. (If you're a regular reader, you've recently encountered his wife and daughter, here.) We could not be in better hands, of that I'm convinced.

• We have a book designer! And it's a TOP reader, no less, one of several who offered his services after reading about our project here. After interviewing several really good candidates, we're on the cusp of contracting with Patrick Côté. He's a Canadian (no, not the perhaps better-known Canadian mixed martial artist of the same name—at least I think not) and a longtime reader (and not infrequent commenter) here on TOP. His company is called Rare Species. You can see some of Patrick's work at the link.

• We probably won't hit our target publication date of March 4th ("march forth," geddit? Auspicious date for the launch of new ventures, at least among punsters). Oh well. Later in the Spring of '14, though, we still hope.

• There will be 500 copies of the first book. That might not be enough to go around, but we have to calibrate, calibrate, calibrate...I just don't know how popular our books are going to be, or not. So I plan to be conservative at first and adjust gradually from there.

• We're going to shoot for a selling price in the $40–$60 range, so hopefully there won't be too much of a cost premium on account of the near-micro press run.

• As soon as we cement our agreement with Patrick (when Jim can get some basic specs from him) we'll begin to contact photographers asking if we can use specific images. I hope to include a handful of "friends of TOP," a handful of pictures that have been featured on TOP, and a handful of pictures by TOP readers.

I meant to get back to the selection process during my recent three-day walkabout, but I didn't get that far. Soon. There must be more hours in each day somewhere....

Mike
(Photo of Jim Schley by Luciana Frigerio)

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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Featured Comments from:

Michael: "After reading this site for so many years, I will pay the 'top' end of that price sight unseen, now.  :-) "

Mike replies: Thanks! One down, 499 to go.

Ernie Van Veen: "Later in spring? May the fourth...be with you."

Mike replies: Ernie, you go sit in the corner.