The Online Photographer

A Great Classic

Robert Adams

One of the great classic books of American landscape photography has just been reprinted: Robert Adams's fine, iconoclastic '70s exploration of the Front Range, The New West.

The New West , subtitled Landscapes Along the Colorado Front Range, was foundational for the New Topographics movement, and it marked (as well as anything) a fundamental change for American photography of landscape in general and of the West in particular: if Ansel Adams was in essence the last of the great 19th-century landscapists, echoing their heroic treatment of the West-as-wilderness, pristine, untrammeled and exotic, Robert Adams (no relation) was an early standout among younger generations of photographers who were taking a more jaundiced, documentary look at how land in the West was actually being used.

...Yet few love the land more than Robert Adams, who has written eloquently on the subject in short, epigrammatic essays and books such as Beauty In Photography and Why People Photograph, which I think are crucial companions to photographic books such as The New West, From the Missouri West, and the scarifying Los Angeles Spring. Robert Adams, who is a fine writer and has won both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur "genius grant," is in a sense American photography's counterpart to Wendell Berry.

Photograph by Robert Adams

Maybe a book will be written in the future comparing and contrasting those two Adamses, Ansel and Robert. Both were (are, in the case of Robert, who was born in 1937 and is now 78) environmentalists. But their approach to that is diametrically opposite—Ansel celebrates the land as it supposedly was when unpopulated or very sparsely populated (although the hand of man can still be seen in many such photographs by people who know what they are looking for), and Robert's work is in part a sustained cry of anguish at what has been done to the land through poor stewardship and exploitation; he accepts the presence of mankind everywhere and the banality of many of the elements we've imposed on the land, while at the same time always remaining conscious of the essential dignity of the landscape.

The new volume ($26.49) is a careful and loving recreation by Steidl of the 1974 original. It's a small book, 9x10 inches, and belongs on the shelf next to such books as American Photographs by Walker Evans, William Eggleston's Guide, and The Americans by Robert Frank.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2016 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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Scott Symes: "I'll second your statement about how nice a book it is. I had mine on order for months and then just a couple of weeks ago it was finally released and shipped. The foreword by John Szarkowski sets it up perfectly for the reader/viewer. Highly recommended and a bargain at $27 on Amazon."

Tom Frost: "There has been one book looking at both Adamses: Reinventing the West, by Allison Kemmerer, 2002, Addison Gallery. It's still available at Amazon. I have a copy on my bookshelf."

Brian Adams: "For an appreciation of this photographer, I suggest you read "Robert Adams—What We Bought: The New World" by Tod Papageorge, from his book Core Curriculum published by Aperture in 2011.  —Brian Adams (no relation to Ansel, Robert or Bryan!)"

Kenneth Tanaka: "Thanks for the heads-up, Mike! Although I'm on a book-buying moratorium this is one that I've long wanted but not yet bought...until now! Aside: The charming little film "How to Make a Book With Steidl" features a segment of Gerhard visiting Robert Adams and his wife in their home. It's a lovely segment that suggested what a gentle but very sharp fellow Adams is. Perhaps they were planning this edition at the time."

Franz Josef: "Re 'AA was photographing in the tradition of the 19th-cent landscapists, especially Carleton Watkins,' which Mike wrote in the Comments section—I don't think Stieglitz would agree. He saw Adams as a 20th Century 'modernist' right in line with Strand and Steichen. Carleton Watkins, O'Sullivan, etc. were more akin to journalists covering the discovery and marvel of the Western landscape. Perhaps you're associating their large view cameras with a shared outlook but I think Adams was a modernist working with very sharp and literal elements in abstract form."

Huw Morgan: "Mike, I tune in every day because you are such a good writer, but there are some posts where you really shine. This is one of them. I love the comparison between Ansel and Robert and your analysis is superb."

Ash: "Thanks for letting me know about this book. The images strike a chord with me because I grew up Longmont, Colorado, a front range town that grew from a population of 43,000 in 1980 to over 86,000 people today. When my copy arrives it should trigger a mixed emotional response like Adams designed it to do."

John McMillin: "As a resident of the Front Range megalopolis, I can tell you this—lazy, banal and uninspiring architecture is abundant here. And what's worse, you see everything coming form a long way off, and there's not many trees to hide the mediocrity."

Eric Perlberg: "Tyler Green does a very high quality weekly podcast interviewing contemporary artists and curators. A few weeks ago he spoke at length with Robert Adams."

Michel Hardy-Vallée: "In addition to The New West and What We Bought, aficionados must get denver (all lowercase) which is published by Yale University Art Gallery, and forms with the other two a trilogy of some kind. Whenever someone asks me the perennial tip for avoiding shooting telephone poles or electric wires in a picture, I refer them to Robert Adams, who found brilliant ways of looking at them."

Record Sales (OT)

A frame-grab from the linked video, courtesy WMUR New Hampshire.
Photo on the record jacket, of course, by Anders Petersen.

To continue the OT discussion about turntables we've been sort of having lately*...a few fun facts.

Twelve million vinyl records (actually 11.92m) were sold in 2015, up from a low of 900,000 in 2006. Sales of vinyl records have increased in each of the past nine years. It's the only type of physical music carrier for which sales are growing. Vinyl accounts for 5% of music industry sales, and 45% of vinyl records are sold in independent record shops. The best-selling vinyl record of 2015 was Adele's "25," which sold 116,000 copies in vinyl, making it the best-selling vinyl record since Nielsen started "properly" tracking sales back in 1991, which was about nine years into the CD era.

Here's a nice video featuring Dave Archambault, a former teacher and school principal from New Hampshire who restores old AR and Thorens turntables for a living. His site is Vinyl Nirvana. Those of you who like "crafty" mechanical things (and maybe dream of doing them for a living) will enjoy this.

Mike
(Also a source: Forbes.com)

*Well, I've been having, and the rest of you have been patiently tolerating. Thanks for that.

Original contents copyright 2016 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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robert e: "Well, I, for one, find the conversation pretty interesting. FYI, Adele's album was released November 20th, which means it took about a month for it to break the record for annual sales (vinyl; since 1991). I'm not sure any new albums were being released on vinyl by 1991, but still, a sign of the times. In a similar vein, I was pleasantly surprised to see only 3 re-issues (plus one nostalgia soundtrack) on Nielsen's 2015 top 10 vinyl sales list, and they all happen to be the usual perennials, regardless of medium (Dark Side of the Moon, Kinda Blue, Abbey Road). I find it vaguely reassuring that most of the best selling vinyl is recent music."

Dave Kerr (partial comment): "I don't consider myself an audiophile, rather a musicophile."

Dave: "Silent vinyl: Buying records without a record player (BBC)"

Mike replies: I've heard that. I think that has to do directly, if only partly, with vinyl being an important visual medium. The 12-inch square was for a long time a canvas for photographers and artists, and it was missed as such when it went away. Off the top of my head I can think of two stone great photographers (Lee Friedlander and Jay Maisel) who made a lot of record covers early on.

Archiving FAIL and Other Thoughts

The reason I put up that "Zen of Fishing" post yesterday was because of something Ken Tanaka said—he pointed out that if we were going to talk about "the ones that got away," we should also talk about the pictures we get because of serendipity—essentially, luck. In photography, you miss a lot—you have to—but you also get lucky sometimes, and that makes up for it. In the nice video of the truly great National Geographic photographer William Albert Allard that Joseph Brunjes contributed to the discussion, Bill Allard elaborates on the same theme. He knows what he's talking about, of course, as anyone who is familiar with his work knows.

So for this post, I tried to find some pictures of mine that came about by getting lucky—things I just happened to see because I was "out and about" with a camera and happened to come across them. But of course half my boxes are still in the barn from my move at the end of last summer, and I couldn't put my hands on the prints I needed. Don't know what I am going to do about that.

Everybody has different ways of practicing photography. Everybody has different aims and goals, and different ideas of success. That's okay, of course. And I never mean to dictate to anyone how they ought to work or how they ought to feel about things. A common leitmotif of writing about photography is that people jump to the assumption that we're asserting status-oriented claims about what's good and what's bad—as if, when we dispute it and settle it between ourselves, it would matter. It doesn't. You should have strong ideas about where you stand—I guarantee almost every artist does—but other people are going to go right on doing whatever it is they do. Even if their ideas are all wrong and they don't know a teakettle from a teacup.  :-)

But if I can get back on topic, my idea of photographing really is that it's very much like fishing, if you can ignore the ethical and qualitative differences between "catching a prize fish" and "making a great photograph." It's not the metaphor of the end result but the metaphor of the process of getting to the end result that's rich. Photography essentially is serendipity. You put yourself in the middle of your story, in Bill Allard's fine phrase, but even then you really don't know what you're going to find, what pictures you're going to be able to come up with. The question of why some photographs work and other, similar photographs don't work seems simple enough, but only on a superficial level. Go to a deep enough level and it is profoundly a mystery.

Well, I've just taken ten times too many words to say what Ken and Bill said much more simply. Yeah, we miss a lot of shots sometimes—but then other times, we get something great that we didn't expect couldn't have foreseen. So it goes both ways.

Sorry I can't show you my modest examples.

Mike
(Thanks to Ken, Joseph and, indirectly, William Albert Allard)

Original contents copyright 2016 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:

Steve Rosenblum: "'Dans les champs de l'observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés' —Louis Pasteur. Translation: "In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind." It's easier to be lucky if you are prepared to take advantage of your luck. In my opinion, this is undeniably true in almost every discipline whether it be artistic, scientific, or otherwise."

Jeff Buttel: "A friend of mine studied with Harry Callahan in the '60s, and shared this quote with me. 'I'm a very lucky photographer. And the more photographs I take, the luckier I get.'"

Bruce Bordner: "I have one 'lucky catch' that perhaps is less impressive without the story. Look first: I'll wait. OK, nice shot, but...? Complex story; sorry. August 2010, Quebec lower city, simultaneous French Heritage and Pirate festivals—a target-rich environment. I was stalking the group of pirates for a while. (Nikon F100, Fuji Velvia 100?, Nikon 18–35mm) The crowd was very dense in the narrow streets, so I could only see heads. The locals were mostly costumed, but we tourists were anti-photogenic.... Suddenly the group of French Ladies appeared from the other direction, and the Pirates went in for a taste. My camera was on my face without thinking... Just as the two groups merged, the crowd parted and click and then it all dissolved and we all went our separate ways. As you've said, one's memories of the event add more to our own appreciation of a shot. To me, this is one of my best images, but perhaps not for artistic reasons." 

Dennis Dunkerson: "Perhaps because I do both, I am hooked on the fishing analogy. There are several parallels. Some fish to hang their capture on the wall (Artists); some eat their capture (Professional or Starving Artist?); while others put them back (masses of unseen digital photos). Then there are those that do not really fish that much but prefer to collect thousand dollar rods, lures, fly tying equipment, boats and special fishing clothing. Somehow a good analogy never seems to end."

Yonatan K: "One of my favorite pictures was exactly as you (and Ken) describe. I was out for a walk with my son and a camera and we saw a bunch of pigeons behind a local grocery store (I've had a pigeon picture fetish since childhood). The resulting photograph was a collaboration—my son charged the pigeons and as they took flight, I snapped the photo. I don't know that I would describe it as great in any objective sense, but I like it (in no small part because of the collaborative aspect)."

Mike replies: I like it too. (I did a project in art school, part tongue-in-cheek like most things I did back then, called "The Great Pigeon Safari.")

Manuel: "I discovered William Albert Allard about a year ago, and he became one of my favourite photographers instantly. The video you linked to is quite an inspiration, but when I look at some of W. A. Allard's best pictures, I see the outcome of careful preparation and more than a little bit of patience. In particular, Mr Allard has a keen eye for composition, and it's clear he knows how to wait until everything falls into place to form a significant composition. Sometimes you have to wait for that 'decisive moment' to happen. It might take several minutes, or it can occur in an instant; sometimes it happens right in front of your eyes, sometimes you just have to look for it. Either way you have to be properly trained in order to recognize such scenic organization when it happens. I guess this can only come out of experience. It has little to do with luck: even when it looks like a fluke, it really isn't: you were there, and you were ready to see that significant composition forming in your viewfinder. Joseph Brunies' quotation of Seneca says it all."

A Daguerreotype Lens for Digital Cameras

Prototype Lomography Daguerreotype Achromat 64mm ƒ/2.9 Art Lens

Jeez, some people are born optimists. Lomography hoped to raise $100,000 to make a replica Daguerreotype lens. Out of brass. With Waterhouse stops, no less. (Freaky-styley ones, of course. Or funky-fun, if you prefer.)

A hundred grand? Who are they kidding? They'll never raise that much.

Just kiddin' around. Have a look.

Wow.

That's even more impressive than this much for a little paperback book that was on the shelves of the library where I went to art school.

There are still 12 days left to get in on that, if you want to. (The lens, I mean.)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2016 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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David Dyer-Bennet: "Embrace the power of 'and'!

"Kickstarter has been used by big companies—Warner Brothers was a partner with Rob Thomas in the Kickstarter that funded the feature film based on the Veronica Mars TV series for 5.7 million dollars. (I was a supporter of this; and we received the BluRay of the movie as promised and are quite happy with it.)

"And my partners and I raised $22,000 dollars for a reunion concert and audio and video recordings by a band made up of our friends (and are just now shipping the important rewards, more than a year later; and are likely to end up out-of-pocket when we're all done). (That Kickstarter is closed, so I hope nobody sees any impropriety in my linking to something I'm financially involved in.)

"I see nothing wrong with big outfits using Kickstarter. In the cases I've supported, it's been clear who they were, and it's been clear what they were offering for our support. We were in a position to make an informed decision about whether we wanted to support them.

"The vast majority of Kickstarter projects are still from penniless unknowns; there doesn't seem to be anything happening to make it less useful for them."

Key Thoughts and The Zen of Fishing

I liken the thoughts that I keep in mind when photographing to "swing thoughts" or "key thoughts" in golf. Sam Snead used to say that he’d just hit some practice balls and try to find one or two swing thoughts that worked for him that day, and go out and hope for the best.

In golf at least, the more swing thoughts you have, the worse you do.

Two of my best "key thoughts" while shooting are two mottos I heard about from two different photography teachers. They are "Never clever" and "The name of the game is to fill the frame." I try not to complicate things beyond that. It ain’t easy.

"Never clever" (which comes from a California photo teacher whose first name is Tom, by way of one of his former students, now a real estate agent in Vermont) is helpful because it prevents us from trying to assert ourselves all the way into every frame. Too many photographers are constantly striving to prove how creative they are, as if every photograph they make has to attest to their genius (or, worse, their "style"). Sometimes, what’s in front of the camera is enough; getting out of the way of the picture is better than willfully interposing our own "vision" on every shot we take.

‘Never Clever’: Like a tape recorder, a camera is a recording device. Don’t feel
that the most important thing about every picture is to make people aware
of what a genius you are. Just get in front of your picture and then
take the picture that’s in front of you.

Just fishin’
The other thing I find really helpful is to constantly remember to discard my expectations. Photography is a bit like fishing. You can think and prepare all you want, but sometimes the fish bites and sometimes it doesn’t. (Also like fishing, those who know what they’re doing stand a much better chance of success than those who don’t. But there’s still that element of serendipity involved.) Those of us lucky enough to be shooting as amateurs, for ourselves, ought to remain aware of this. Many photographers force their work to conform to the ideas they had when they shot. But the reality is, some shots work and some shots don’t, and which is which does not always have much to do with what you wanted to have happen.

While shooting, you may get turned on by a certain situation and work it hard, taking many shots from many different angles. But it’s still possible that none of them will be a very good picture. Conversely, you may snap a casual, offhand shot without having any real hopes for it‚ and it may turn out to be the best thing you shot that day.

When you edit and print, forget what you were thinking and hoping for when you took the pictures, and look at the pictures that are in front of you.

This is harder than it sounds. When I took the picture below, of a woman sitting at a piano, singing, the central event in the room was the sound of my friend Becky’s lovely voice: clear, pitch-pure, and expressive of her innate good-heartedness. Naturally, as I shot what was happening I concentrated on her. I also had a very clear idea of what I wanted: I’d photograph her exaggerated facial expressions as she sang different songs for the kids, then print four pictures one above the other on the same page to try to convey the dynamism of the singalong.

Sure enough, when I got down to making the book page, I first tried to realize this idea. I printed out small versions of a bunch of the singing pictures, and tried different versions of the four-pictures-stacked idea. I picked two arrangements that seemed to work best and printed them out.

But they didn’t quite satisfy me. They weren’t quite…well,good. They didn’t quite work. So how come?

Who knows? I had the right bait, right time of day, and I knew where the fish were; I just didn’t catch what I wanted, is all. It happens.

I finally realized that this picture was the best of the group, and that it didn’t need any other pictures to go with it. Some people are frustrated by the blurring…until they accept the fact that the picture isn’t of the singer. It’s a picture of Gina, the little girl on the lower right side of the frame. Who knew? At the time, not I.

‘Discard your expectations‘: sometimes what works is not what you
expected would work. Look at the pictures and don’t get
distracted by your own ideas.

Sometimes you’re fishing for bluegill but you get a perch, is all.

Respect where you stand
As shooters, we all need to be mindful of where we stand in our own development. We need to know when to respect where we are, and when to stretch beyond what’s become comfortable. As beginners, people tend to be impressed with clear, sharp pictures that have good color or tones and are well-exposed. (They look "professional," in the common parlance.) Well, nowadays I can take a clear, sharp, well-exposed picture of just about anything at any time, with any sort of camera; it’s no longer any sort of challenge, and hasn’t been for some time. Some people need to pay careful attention to everything in the frame, and look at all four corners and the background before they shoot. Me, I’d been doing that for so long and so habitually that the challenge for me as of a few years ago became to shoot quickly and reactively, without thinking, trusting instinct. (Using the LCD finder of a digicam has been a big help.) It was tough at first. So, some of my recent shooting is maybe a little too loose. That’s okay. It’s just where I happen to be right now, is all.

Oh, and there’s one more nice correspondence between photography and fishing: the more time you spend, the more inevitable success becomes. You can’t catch a fish without having your line in the water, and you won’t take good pictures without your camera in your hand. Photography is comforting that way. Spend the time, and you’ll get results. That’s a nice "key thought," right there.

Mike

Originally published on The Luminous-Landscape in 2002, and one of my own favorites among my writings on photography. I can hardly believe it's been 14 years since I wrote it! Seems like the month before the month before last. The years they do get behind you.

Original contents copyright 2016 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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Thomas Rink: "Where would be the fun if everything was projectable? OK, sometimes I am disappointed by pictures for which I had high hopes when taking them. On the other hand, there are those outings when there is enough pixie dust in the air to make almost each picture work. I sometimes wonder whether the reason for this is somewhere within my own attitude, like letting myself being carried away by the flow, as opposed to remain attached to some expectations? I am quite sure that it is not 'the light.'"

Five Fabulous Folk Songs (OT)

"When I Get Home" by Pentangle (1971); "Hammond Song" by The Roches (production and guitar by Robert Fripp of King Crimson) (1979); "A Chance Counsel" by Richard Buckner (2004); "My Autumn's Done Come" by Lee Hazelwood ("...Quite possibly the best retirement song ever written," —Dylan Jones) (1966 version recorded when he was 37; there's a more recent version Kim sent me, recorded when he was much older, but I can't find it online); and "Gabriel's Mother's Highway Ballad #16 Blues" by Arlo Guthrie (1970, remastered 2004).

(It's raining today and Butters and I are in a no-ball-fetching-right-now, rainy-day mood.)

Mike
(Thanks as ever to Kim)

Original contents copyright 2016 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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Dop: "I was never a fan of Folk, but have to second Benjamin's recommendation of Kate Rusby, whose songs I love. Here's Kate duetting with Laura Cantrell on a cover of Iris DeMent's 'Our Town.' Then this is the saddest song ever...."

The Ones That Get Away

When Tom Burke was here yesterday I got a chuckle from a picture he showed me that his daughter, Jude Burke, a journalist in London, posted on her Facebook page. It was captioned "This was meant to be a photo of the frontrunners in the London marathon elite men's race but they were too fast for me," followed by a smiley face that was slanted so it looked like it was moving.

Photography is an activity that is peripheral, secondary, to seeing, which is the main activity we're engaged in. We look around the world—often with much greater acuity than non-photographers, since looking is a learned skill—and we take photographs of the things that interest us for whatever reason.

Well, we try. Sometimes we make photographs, that should be. Sometimes we miss them.

Because naturally, when you're heavily involved in looking and seeing, a lot of what you wish you could "capture" in a photograph proves impossible to "get."

I started writing about photography when I was 30 and I started this blog when I was in my 40s, and I'm now on the cusp of 60. Two things that strike me as the biggest changes for me personally as those years have passed—first, personal memory photos are getting much more important to me and attempts at fine art are getting less important, and, second, the list of pictures I missed is getting very long—almost as long as the list of pictures I've managed to get! I remember a surprising number of them, too. It's a category in my head of "the ones that got away." (I've written about that before.)

My brother brought with him a box of old photographs from my mother's house. This is one that I'd either never seen before or had forgotten (but I don't forget many pictures). Xander and me by Lake Michigan, getting on 20 years ago now (not quite). This is the kind of photograph that's getting more important to me as I get older. And it brings another way pictures can get away—we lose them! Or just never see them, or miss them on the way by.

Jude's picture is one main type of the ones that get away, though—a photo where you just fail to capture what you're after. The other main type, I'm guessing, is when you see something wonderful and you either don't have your equipment with you or it's just the wrong equipment. Back when I photographed almost entirely with B&W film, for instance, naturally I had a mental file cabinet of pictures I'd seen that would have had to be in color.

How about you—do you remember any that got away? Is there one in particular you wish you had but don't?

From me to you, carpe diem.  :-)

Mike
(Thanks to Jude and Tom)

Original contents copyright 2016 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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Bob: "I completely agree. I'm in the process of going through my mess of digital and paper photographs and few of my attempts at art are as important as my people photos. My 'ones that got away' are too many to remember specifics. Missed opportunity is a normal part of my photography. One of the drawbacks to chasing better photography through new cameras and lenses is not knowing how to use them when you need to react quickly. But this one has nothing do with missing a shot and everything to do with having new equipment.

"I used my wife's Miata to take my mother to a family dinner. With the top down. My mother was excited to be in a convertible on a beautiful summer day. After we got her situated in the car, which as you know is not made to transport people with limited mobility, I took a couple of photos of her with the most delightful smile on her face. She unexpectedly passed away a couple of weeks later and I was going to use one of those photos to show at her remembrance. But it was gone. I'd formatted the card to use in a new camera. I tried everything to get the image off the card but it was gone. In my mind's eye its a much better photo than the actual image, I'm sure. And maybe that's as it should be. But I really wish I had that photo."

Mike replies:  :-(

m3photo: "Yes, Michael, we are indeed akin to anglers in many respects....  ;-)  With regard to your wonderings, there are also those that 'get away' for a different reason: hard disk crashes, aargh! I won't bore everybody with details but just knowing you had them to then be told after considerable expense that they are no longer, is most painful."

Mike replies: Indeed.

Dennis: "I have a picture of a tree in the woods. The very same tree where, a minute earlier, a black bear cub climbed up several feet and looked at me, while its mother and sibling kept moseying on up the hill. I had a backpack full of gear and a tripod along with me, but wasn't prepared to be able to take a picture 'now'! I knew I'd never get the camera out and ready in time, so I just enjoyed the moment. Of course, it took quite a while before I heard the end of that...'three thousand dollars in camera gear and you don't even get a picture of the bear?'"

Rick (partial comment): "Personally I think there is too much emphasis on photos as visual objects (which they are) but conflated with two-dimensional art such as drawing and painting. I prefer the view (from Willy Ronis) that they are much closer to writing and literature. Think about this for a moment, and compare photos with diaries, essays, poetry etc., etc., and I think you get the idea."

Mike replies: That's a really fascinating notion, and one that I hadn't encountered before. Do you know where Willy Ronis elaborated on that?

Kevin Purcell answers Mike: "The Willy Ronis quote drifts around the net unattributed (as with many photography quotes): 'Photography is far more a part of literary art than it is of the plastic arts.'

"Unfortunately, Willy Ronis didn't say it. Pierre Mac Orlan did say it when writing a letter to Ronis telling him what he must do to get his proposed book Belleville Ménilmontant published. The quote appears on page 31 of Peter Hamilton's book Willy Ronis: Photographs, 1926–1995 but the full text isn't in Google Books. This book at the bottom of page 126 does quote Hamilton quoting Mac Orlan so you can see what he said in context.

"Mac Orlan eventually wrote the text of the first version of Belleville Ménilmontant published in 1954 so one might check there (in French) as he said 'that would be the theme of my preface.' Or buy Hamilton's book which seems to be still available new only from the publisher. It has 120 Ronis photographs in it."

Andy Holman: "Years ago I went on a trip to Australia and really wanted to see and photograph a platypus. I assumed I could only see one in a zoo and was amazed (and a bit skeptical) when an owner of a caravan park said we could see wild ones from a bridge the next morning. Next morning came and we went to the location. Being skeptical I walked out on the bridge without my camera to see what was really there. Looking down into the water there was a platypus swimming directly below. I then dashed back to the van to get my camera. When I returned the platypus had swum upstream and was but a dot in my photo. So I saw a platypus in the wild before even going to a zoo but learned not to be so skeptical about local advice."

Joseph Brunjes: "I was going to try to paraphrase what he said, but instead you should hear the eloquence of his own words. This is William Albert Allard talking about not being able to get every photo he sees."

Mike replies: "You didn't get it but you saw it." That's great—great video, thanks.

Jeff Montgomery: "Luckily, fairly early in my career I read Dewitt Jones' 'Basic Jones' column in Outdoor Photographer where he talked about the photos that he missed and how it was actually OK to only have it recorded in your mind. Lots of pressure was relieved in my mind about missed shots."

Robert Fogt: "When my mother died in 1984, I found this empty envelope among her faded treasures in that top dresser drawer that everyone has. It has been one of my treasures ever since, and I have been adding to its contents for over thirty years now. (But it hasn't gotten any fatter!)"

Sunday Open Mike: Back in the Saddle

Hi, I'm Mike and I'm back.

You (in chorus): Hi, Mike.

I had a nice vacation. My brother, his wife, and their daughter, my niece, came to visit. It was lovely having them here. But it's a long drive for them.

It mostly rained; naturally. Because when one person takes an unscheduled vacation and a family drives seven hours, it has to rain. The Universe has laws. We all expected it, and nobody was surprised. We ended up mainly just hanging around here.

A few updates:

Anders Petersen book: Have you ever bought a photobook you're just not in the mood for? I received Anders Petersen the other day and I have good news and bad news. The good news is that it's a richly produced book of superbly seen photographs and would be more than a safe buy for anyone interested in the photographer—more likely a must-buy, I would guess. The bad news is that I wasn't in the mood.

It's full of pictures with a particular aesthetic slant: like an unending rain, page after page offers up a grimy, gritty, "unflinching," peering-into-the darkness-with-flash, seamy-underside-of-life look. You know, dead animals, damaged or strange-looking people, pubic hair, tattoos, stark carnality and the frailty and transience of the flesh. The "ugly is cool" and chaos-is-rampant kind of outlook on life that for a long time was much beloved of certain kinds of European magazines.

I had a somewhat dyspeptic subjective reaction.

...Which of course is no fault of the photography. I've definitely appreciated that kind of work in the past, and I'm not averse to it—in many ways it's much more interesting than the kind of photographic sensibility that just goes out and mines the visual world for scenic clichés and fests of color. It has grabbed me at times and I'm not immune to its power.

With a whole beautifully-produced book of this kind of work on my lap, though, Petersen's sensibility struck me (most likely unfairly) as an affectation. I'm sure it's only because a Petersen photograph was used as the cover of the Tom Waits album "Rain Dogs," but his photography struck me the same way Waits' music does—not only noirish because that's the way reality happens to be, but because noir is cool. I mean, c'mon, Tom Waits is a successful musician...I'm sure he could afford a nice tidy three-bedroom tract house in the suburbs and a new mid-level SUV if that's what he wanted. At some point, pork-pie hats, soul patches, and gravelly-voiced songs about low-lifes becomes a choice, doesn't it?

It's a good book: I'm just not "into" its worldview at the moment. So I've put the book on the shelf until its time is ripe; there, it will await future delectation, at some point in time when I can fully resonate with the particular strings it plucks.

Tom Burke

The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming! Er, well, one came, anyway. Just this afternoon TOP reader Tom Burke came by for a coffee from Sheffield, in the UK. He lives on the very southernmost border of Yorkshire. He's the first reader to visit TOP Rural Headquarters in 2016 and the first ever, I believe, from Old Blimey. Tom is thoughtful, exceedingly well-informed, articulate, and soft-spoken—which I believe is the only kind of humans they grow in the UK. (It's possible my experience of them is somewhat limited. As we know, all TOP readers are well above average.) He has flagrantly good taste in photography blogs, having been a faithful reader since the early days of "The Sunday Morning Photographer" on Luminous-Landscape.

Tom, who retired a year ago, is in America "swanning around," and he said those of you who are British would know what that means. He left his wife at home—she still works. He brought as a gift a book by Denis Thorpe, for no other reason than he thought Denis is a photographer I should know about. That was nice.

Mid-Priced? Pah: As a P.S.: Remember how numerous readers objected to my characterization of the $3k+ VPI Classic turntable as "mid-priced" in a previous "Open Mike"? Take an inside look at how U-Turn turntables are made, mostly by hand, right here in 'Murrica—Woburn, Massachusetts to be precise. Here's a loaded version—at the expensive end of the range.

You (in chorus): Is that all?

Of course not. More soon!

Mike
(Thanks to Tom)

"Open Mike" is the editorial page of TOP. It appears on Sundays.

Original contents copyright 2016 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:

Stan B.: "I also found the book overwhelming, but for different reasons—though I'd still highly recommend it. Petersen's prints are uniformly contrasty in nature with dramatic, domineering blacks, and most face each other in this book like competing crescendos in a symphony—they're all high drama without a moment's rest to catch one's breath. It's all high notes with little ebb and flow, and after a while, one begins to feel bludgeoned by the sheer intensity and impact of his photos—good as they are! The book has a plethora of images, and it's pure insanity to try and take them in all in one sitting. There's more than enough there for several essays, several books, several lifetimes...."

Mike Plews: "Thanks for the U-turn link. These turntables are both pretty and very reasonably priced. They remind me of the old AR XA turntables, simple and elegant. Made me smile."

David Sculthorpe: "Old Blimey?? Cor blimey, perhaps you meant Old Blighty?"

Mike replies: Just trying to make Ailsa laugh.

robert e: "I'm not convinced that even successful musicians these days could afford the suburban SUV lifestyle. Someone like Beyonce, sure; Tom Waits—a name most people won't recognize—I'm less sure. But your point is taken—he's been too comfortable for too long to write and sing convincingly about the low life. And I'm dismayed that I agree with you, because I also agree with you that the characterization is likely superficial and unfair."

Crabby Umbo: "Unless I'm wrong, I believe Tom Waits lives in California bliss in the upper middle class enclave of Petaluma...not exactly dirty New Jersey...."

Maggie Osterberg: "Re: 'I mean, c'mon, Tom Waits is a successful musician...I'm sure he could afford a nice tidy three-bedroom tract house in the suburbs and a new mid-level SUV if that's what he wanted. At some point, pork-pie hats, soul patches, and gravelly-voiced songs about low-lifes becomes a choice, doesn't it?' You've made the mistake of confusing the artist with the artist's work. I mean, Joel Sartore doesn't live in a zoo or in a lodge built of sticks in the middle of an Amazon tributary, just because he photographs animals. And there's this weird fetish surrounding 'authenticity' with songwriters and musicians that other writers don't have to deal with. No one bags on a novelist that she has a teaching position at a university, even though her books are about growing up in the [insert non-academic setting of your choice here]. Stephen Speilberg is neither a horse, nor was he a soldier in The Great War, yet, he made a picture called 'War Horse' and no one complained about his lifestyle. Tom Waits and his wife, who is also his working and songwriting partner, probably have a lovely house together, where they dream up all the wonderful songs and theatre that goes into Waits' shows."

Mike replies: Fascinating point, and it sounds right. And it's certainly pertinent. Thanks Maggie.

Ctein's European Tour: Latest Updates

Here is the latest and bestest (and last) info on the Ctein London and Paris meetups:

From Roger Bradbury, organizer of the London gathering:

There’s been a change of venue, though the day and time remain the same. We are now meeting at The Photographer’s Gallery Café, 16–18 Ramillies Street, London, W1F 7LW. Ctein and Paula will meet us there on Saturday 7th May, at 2:30 p.m. Oxford Circus is the nearest underground station.

The café’s website shows that there seems to be quite a range of food. If we are going to be handling other people's cameras and/or photos, it would probably be a good plan to eat beforehand, to avoid leaving greasy thumb prints.

If you are interested, please email me via my contact page. This would help me to get an idea of numbers and if we have to make further alterations to the plan, I can contact you. You will also get my phone number.

From Thomas Paris, organizer of the Paris gathering:

Ctein and Paula will be in Paris this week and they've agreed to let me (Thomas Paris) pick a place where we could get together with some of you Parisian readers of TOP. We're hoping to meet you at the Moncoeur Belleville café on Thursday evening, 28th April, from 7:30 p.m. on. You'll find it by Parc de Belleville, at 1, rue des Envierges and can get there with metro lines 11 (Pyrénées station) and 2 (Belleville station). They serve both drinks and food, so you can have your dinner there, but you'll want to be careful with food as I'm pretty sure we'll be showing both gear and prints.

Booking is not necessary, but I would appreciate it if you could shoot me an email ( mercen@gmail.com ), so I could tell the café how many people they should expect will show up. That would also give me a chance to keep you informed should we have a change of plan at the last minute.

This supersedes all previous announcements. From now on if you're interested in either gathering please contact Roger or Thomas directly.

Mike (for Roger, Thomas, and Ctein)

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined authors. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

Humor!

TOP is on hiatus right now, but you have to check out this funny graphic. True? Thanks to mathewdh for passing this along.

I've posted a bunch of new comments, some very late (sorry...), including several about the London meeting with Ctein.

Mike

Getting Together With Ctein in London UK

From Roger Bradbury

Recently TOP's friend Ctein wrote: "Paula and I will be in London the first two weeks of May, in case someone there wants to arrange a get-together while we're in town.”

I'm arranging the get-together (I'm Roger Bradbury). I’m told that previous get-togethers have gone very well, so I’m looking forward to it.

I’m going to go with Andrew Lamb's suggestion of The Camera café, at Aperture Photographic, 44 Museum Street, London, WC1A 1LY. Ctein and Paula will meet us there on Saturday 7th May, at 2:30 pm. Holborn, then Tottenham Court Road, are the nearest underground stations.

The café website shows that there's a small range of food, but lots of choices if you drink tea or coffee. If we are going to be handling other people's cameras and/or photos, it would probably be a good plan to eat beforehand, to avoid leaving greasy thumb prints.

If you are interested, please email me via my contact page. We don’t have to book a table (I’ve phoned them) but it would nice to get an idea of numbers and if we have to make any alterations to the plan, I can contact you. You will also get my phone number.

—Roger

[Note: Comments are open on this post in case you have questions or experience any difficulties. —Ed.]

Clyde Butcher Book

This is time-sensitive so I thought I'd better alert you: pre-orders for Clyde Butcher's new book are 15% off and signed by Clyde. I know he has a lot of fans!

Back to not working,

Mike

TOP on Staycation

Longtime reader David Raboin passed by TOP Rural HQ the other day. Unfortunately he couldn't stop in to say hello—he's an airline pilot, and recognized Keuka Lake (on the right) from the cockpit. The larger, closer lake is Seneca.

Okay, the word is a horrible portmanteau, but its meaning is coming to be widely understood—a mishmash (Yiddish again! From mish-mosh) of "stay" and "vacation," meaning time off when you don't go anywhere.

My bro is coming to visit, bringing his wife and daughter, and Spring is springing, so I'm going on "staycation" for the remainder of this week.

One exception: I will be providing updates about Ctein's peregrinations to London and Paris, and announcements about meetups in those cities. Arrangements are underway but still fluid. So if you're interested, do stay tuned. (I will put the info on Twitter as well [I feel like a twit writing "I will Tweet"].)

I hope to complete my acquaintance with the Panasonic GX8, which I think is quite possibly the nicest design of any Micro 4/3 camera I've tried yet, perhaps tied with the OM-D E-M1, another favorite.

TOP shall return on Sunday. See you then! (There are a lot of new comments yet to be posted, so the recent conversations aren't quite over yet.)

Mike
(Thanks to David Raboin)

Original contents copyright 2016 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.

Without spilling any beans, may I just say I think I love Panasonic lenses?

Learning to Print: Solid Advice

These were both comments to the "Open Mike" post on Sunday about learning how to print. I thought they deserved their own post. Bob recently retired from a career making beautiful high-end studio portraits of dogs (how can you not like that?), and Geoff is a small-town medical doctor in Western New York with a longtime passion for photography and a huge book collection. He has written many (more formal) book reviews for TOP.

Geoff Wittig: "Totally agree with the recommendation above for Jeff Schewe's books. The Digital Negative (second edition) was just published in September 2015, so it's pretty much up to date in terms of current versions of Photoshop/ACR and Lightroom. Schewe's approach to image processing is pretty much style-agnostic, giving you access to all of Photoshop/ACR and Lightroom's tools without dictating what your images should look like. Schewe gets right to the point and doesn't waste your time. The Digital Print dates to 2013, but that's fine because printer technology isn't changing as fast as software versions. It's excellent on how to translate the image on-screen to a physical print that reflects what you're trying to do artistically. The two books together pretty much give you all the information you need in a very approachable format.

"As of seven or eight years ago there were a goodly number of books on the subject. But it's a moving target, and print books are basically a perishable commodity as software versions and printer technology advance. Harald Johnson's Mastering Digital Printing was a good overview, but the latest (second) edition dates to 2004, so it's no longer very useful. Uwe Steinmueller's Fine Art Printing for Photographers: Exhibition Quality Prints with Inkjet Printers (third edition) is pretty current as it was published in late 2013, and has some good information, but it's also packed with lots of redundant stuff about specific printer models and the writing style confirms that English is not his first language.

"George DeWolfe's B&W Printing: Creating the Digital Master Print dates to 2009; so it's a bit old, but he is a very skilled printer. Be forewarned that he's a bit dogmatic and is also trying to sell some software tools. Finally, David Taylor's Photographic Digital Printing is current (April 2015), but it's too elementary to recommended, and Rob Sheppard's New Epson Complete Guide to Digital Printing is both too simplified and entirely Epson-based."

Bob Rosinsky: "The best way to learn how to print is to purchase a decent 'budget' inkjet printer [such as the Epson P600  —Ed.]. Avoid printers that use small ink cartridges. Start out using one type of paper—one that is RC and relatively inexpensive—Epson Ultra Premium Luster or similar. At the very least, start with a monitor that is 'okay.' I recommend purchasing a simple device for calibrating the screen. Start out with a photo editing program that allows for 'soft proofing.'

"Spend some time reading about printing. I think The Luminous-Landscape is a great site. I've gotten a lot of useful tips from well-known gurus who are willing to share hard-earned knowledge. The more you read and learn through practice, the more skillful you will become. If all of this sounds intimidating, try hooking up with someone who understands color management and has been printing for awhile. To become facile (meaning you hit it right on the first or second print) requires technical skill and artistic vision.

"Please bear in mind, I am a fastidious printer. I am 57 years old. I've been printing since the age of 14. A lot of the skills I acquired in the darkroom are relevant in the lightroom.

"As for casual printing, it is possible to achieve pretty good results. Like anything, the more you learn the more you'll become aware how much you do not know about what you do not know. It is highly rewarding to 'see' the final print prior to pressing the shutter button. It takes a lot of practice to achieve that."

And there you have it: study and practice.

Mike
(Thanks to Geoff and Bob)

Original contents copyright 2016 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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Open Mike II: A Question for the Mavens

I like the word "maven." It means "an expert or connoisseur" (with subtle undertones of "know-it-all"), and, like many of my favorite words, comes from Yiddish. Yiddish words enhance our vocabulary far out of proportion to their numbers. Who doesn't like words like schlep, schlub, kvetch, meshuga, nudnik, golem, glitch, drek, kibitz, and a recent favorite, schmaltz, which means both melted chicken fat and excessive sentimentality?! How wonderful is that? Oy vey! (Is there a Yiddish word meaning "wonderful"? There seem to be about twenty that are put-downs. You nebbish.) I'd use Yiddinglish words more often if I could remember how to spell them. I always have to look up megillah, for instance.

Anyway, there are a few downsides to my job. One is that I can't stick to one camera forever and ignore all the rest. Another is that I can't be a maven. Mavens, in photography, know everything about a few things and very little about the rest; which is great, and as it should be. We learn what we need to learn in depth; the rest we let go. This is not only admirable, it's necessary.

So, a question for you software mavens (mensches all of you). If ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) isn't the greatest raw conversion software for Fuji X-Trans files, then what is ACR best at? Whose files does ACR ace? Is ACR better than anything else for any particular company's files?

Just curious. I love ACR. It's home for me. I do 80% of my editing there. It's...it's....

I could go off, but I don't want to kvell.

Mike

"Open Mike" is the editorial page of TOP. It appears only but not always on Sundays.

Original contents copyright 2016 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.

The best new old photography book.

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Open Mike: Learning to Print

A reader contacted me the other day wanting a recommendation of a book, PDF, video or online course to learn about photo printing. It's been so long since I recommended one that I really don't feel I know the landscape any more...apart from Ctein's columns on the subject, which can be found under "Ctein" in the Categories list in the right-hand sidebar. Most notably (going from most recent to least), "Photoshop vs. Printer-Managed Color Printing,"Product Review: Epson SureColor P800 Printer," and "Are Profiles Obsolete?" Oh, and there's a piece called "About Printers," but it's an overview of the state of printmaking, not a guide to machines.

Can anyone who's been through the learning process recently recommend other good learning resources?

(Please, don't just make random suggestions just based on a searches—we can all do that. Let's hear from people who actually used the book or materials in question.) I'll post the best answers here.

Original contents copyright 2016 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:

Peter Wright: "I found Jeff Schewe's two book set: The Digital Negative and The Digital Print to be very helpful. They covered a lot of ground aimed at producing a good print. But read Ctein's columns as well (especially 'Are Profiles Obsolete?') for a well-rounded education."

Chuq Von Rospach: "Martin Bailey's Making the Print from Craft and Vision is a good resources, and Martin's site and podcast are worth digging into."

Jeff: "LuLa, a.k.a. The Luminous-Landscape, which now costs $12 per year to subscribe, provides full access to their video archives, including various educational videos. There is one extensive tutorial (12 hours) on 'Camera to Screen to Print,' with Jeff Schewe and Michael Reichmann, that is very informative. I also recommend Jeff Schewe's two books, The Digital Negative and The Digital Print, for folks who prefer books to videos.

"I think, however, that the best learning comes from doing, and workshops can really provide a great jumpstart, provided of course that the leader is a good teacher, not just a good photographer."

Kenneth Tanaka: "The late Uwe Steinmueller's book Fine Art Printing for Photographers: Exhibition Quality Prints with Inkjet Printers, now in its third edition, is perhaps the best all-around reference for digital printing that I've seen. I recently updated my copy of the first edition to the Kindle version of this third edition."

Eric Erickson: "I used to struggle with printing. In the past I used both Lightroom and Photoshop with little success. The difference came with the most recent edition of Lightroom via the Creative Cloud. That in addition to Scott Kelby's book on Lightroom CC. [Currently the #1 bestselling book in the Darkroom and Photo Processing category —Ed.] Kelby makes it very easy and understandable. I use a Canon 9500 and find it much better than my old Epson. I am sure the new Epsons are fine but the old ones where somewhat of a challenge to use.

"I generally print all my work through LR and start with a 4x6 print to test the lightness/darkness and colors. I then print bigger, generally 11x14. Just remember to feed the larger paper through the bottom feeder and not the top feeder. The other thing I use a lot is YouTube. Whether it is printing or changing out a light switch, YouTube has a video on it and it helps a lot. I am a big fan. Hope this helps."

Andre Y: "I like Ben Long's two printing videos on Lynda.com. They start you out at the beginning and take you very far with a small set of tools (mostly levels adjustment layers with masking in Photoshop). He starts off explaining how to get B&W prints to look good and what that means, and then links that to color. His main adjustment is contrast, which to me is the main post-processing adjustment all of us (ought to?) do. It's also a photo-oriented teaching video instead of a technique-oriented video. That is, you're given photos with a number of real-world problems that you work on, and he also shows you his solutions. You may not like how he processes his photos (they're quite punchy), but he teaches you how to use the tools well enough that you can process and print to your personal tastes, and you can figure out how to progress yourself in the future. The videos are detailed and extensive, but short enough that you could watch them in Lynda's trial period. If you like them, you should sign up for the service."

 

Bunnell: Fujifilm X70 vs. Ricoh GR

The new Fujifilm X70 and its evident inspiration, the Ricoh GR II

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Guest post written and illustrated by Ned Bunnell

I was intrigued when Fujifilm announced the X70 in January. The press release touted it as a premium fixed-lens compact camera. Design wise, clearly it’s the baby brother to the X100T. However, its specs indicate the X70’s primary mission is to compete with the Ricoh GR II. Having shot almost exclusively with the GR and GR II for the past three years, as well as shooting film several times a year with the GR-1v, you could say I’m a devotee of Ricoh’s compact camera design philosophy. Knowing this, Tony Rose of Popflash Photo loaned me one of his first X70’s and asked me to see how the X70 compared with the GR. After shooting with the X70 for two months, I have a few thoughts about the X70 as a GR competitor and why Fujifilm entered this niche market.

Both cameras use a 16.3 MP APS-C sensor and a 28mm equivalent ƒ/2.8 lens using seven elements in five groups. Fujifilm dropped the hybrid viewfinder used in the X100T but added a tilting touchscreen to the X70. Knowing that some users might miss having a viewfinder, Fujifilm offers a VF-X21 optical viewfinder that looks like a clone of the Ricoh GV-1 (see above), and they both have framelines for 21 and 28mm. Ricoh sells a .75 wide angle converter lens* that increases the GR’s field of view to 21mm. Although I have not seen any announcements from Fujifilm, it’s likely they’ll offer a similar converter lens. There’s already a setting in the X70 to select "wide conversion lens."

Coincidence that the sensor size, lens FOV and optical accessories of both cameras are similar? I think not. By offering a very similar camera system with a tilting touchscreen (which is quite responsive and accurate in selecting focus points) Fujifilm is likely to sway potential customers to buy the X70 versus the GR II which is looking a little dated these days.

Fujifilm reduced the body of the X100T to create a smaller, almost pocketable camera. Like the X100 series, the X70 is a beautifully built camera adorned with retro looking buttons. Many say the X100 and now the X70 look similar to the classic rangefinder camera. After comparing the black X70 to my Leica M4, a classic film camera introduced in 1968 (above), it’s clear Fujifilm did a great job matching the luxurious black paint of the early Leicas. Compared to the X70’s beautiful fit and finish, the GR is the epitome of minimalism. Void of any shiny buttons, housed in a matte black finish with a boxy shape, the GR is meant to be unobtrusive but highly functional.

The X70 is a bit thicker due to its fixed, non-retractable lens, whereas the GR is slightly wider to accommodate its array of controls and very secure thumb grip which occupy the right backside of the camera. In reducing the size of the X100T and needing to use a bigger frame to hold the LCD, Fujifilm had less space to lay out the buttons and controls. The body feels a little crowded especially on the back of the camera, which in my opinion hurts the handling and ergonomics of the X70.

Compared to the X70, the GR makes one-hand operation intuitive and comfortable. The GR’s controls and extensive customization options allow you to assign your most used settings so they’re within fingertip reach, and you never have to raise the camera or move your hands between shots.

Having always shot in raw, I was pleasantly surprised by Fujifilm’s out-of-camera (OOC) JPEG film simulations. While not as accurate as what I get from shooting DNGs with the GR or even the X70’s own raw files, the X70 JPEGs exhibit film-like colors, good tones, and nice contrast. However, if you dig a little deeper into the X70 JPEGs you will notice smearing in subtle details even at ISO 800. Note: you can't control noise reduction with the X70’s X-Trans filter, versus the GR, which has no AA filter and lets you turn NR off if desired. Technically, the GR produces more detailed images than the X70. But it might not matter in this rapidly changing photography world.

As part of testing the X70, I posted images on Instagram from my iPhone using unedited OOC JPEGs. Folks don’t notice the X70’s image smearing but they immediately like the color and saturation. Many photographers today don’t do any desktop image processing, never shoot in raw, and are more interested in easily transferring images from camera to phone. Therefore, the X70’s film simulations, which are ready to upload and post on social media, could actually be more important to a prospective buyer than the GR’s superior files and better ergonomics.

(While I’m impressed with the X70 colors, I prefer the detailed, full range images I can process from my GR. The GR's raw files are extremely malleable; I can pull out more detail from the shadows, and the conversions to B&W from GR files are excellent. And while I’ve read claims that the X70 is better at high ISOs, my tests at night using a tripod at ISO 3200 indicate the GR has more detail and better contrast and shadow definition vs. the X70 image, which is noticeably smeared and lacks detail. If I put the X70’s pleasing OOC color aside, both raw and JPEGs from the GR have more bite or detail—but you’ll have to use Photoshop or Lightroom to process your images.)

Am I going to abandon my GR for the X70? Not a chance, as the GR’s image structure and ergonomics suit my style of photography perfectly. However, since they’re both very capable and enjoyable cameras to use, when asked via direct message on Instagram how I netted out the cameras, my reply was "one has a beautiful body, and the other would suit a ninja warrior."

Quite a few folks on the gear forums have asked "why" the X70? The 28mm fixed lens APS-C camera market is a niche. Nikon put their toe in these waters a few years ago with the Coolpix A, but it was discontinued in less than two years. Ricoh sells the majority of GRs in the Japanese market, where it has developed a cult-like following. I’m sure one of Fujifilm’s goals with the X70 is to keep its loyal X-series customers in the fold, even if those customers want a compact, street-shooter style camera.

I’m actually hoping the X70 does well. It might prompt Ricoh to respond with a strong GR III offering, since they disappointed many loyal users with a rather meager upgrade from the GR to the GR II. Competition, even in a niche market, is a good thing.

X70 and GR photos

GR photos from Cuba

Ned

*Note that to use the conversion lens, you also need an adapter.

Ned Bunnell is an avid photographer with an eye for people, places and classic cars. He retired as president of Pentax US (Ricoh Imaging) four years ago. You can follow him at Instagram.

©2016 by Ned Bunnell, all rights reserved

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Ken Ford: "Very nice review! I was initially interested in the X70 until I realized it did not have an internal finder—that killed it for me. Shoe-mount OVFs are a poor substitute for a built-in VF of any kind."

KeithB: "While the intended meaning of the statement 'If I put the X70’s pleasing OOC color aside, both raw and JPEGs from the GR have more bite or detail—but you’ll have to use Photoshop or Lightroom to process your images' is completely understandable in context of the article, experienced Fuji X users often advise using Photo Ninja, Iridient Developer, Capture One, or other raw converters for Fuji X files. This is especially relevant since the review makes mention of 'color smearing' and image detail in general, which the Adobe ACR raw converter is known to have problems with when processing Fuji X files."

Quote o' the Day: Roland Michaud

"To do something interesting, you need time. Nobody ever has time. Everyone is always in a hurry. Time is the secret."

—Roland Michaud (see some of his and his wife's fine photographs here)

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(Thanks to Eliott James)

ADDENDUM: I really just wanted to post this to introduce you to the delightful Roland and Sabrina Michaud, who seem very much worth getting to know. But the discussion of time in the comments, which leads back to the "Eight Hours" post last month, is interesting too.

Since then, I've been reading the very interesting book Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time by Brigid Schulte, recommended during that March discussion by my brother Scott, who, over the years, has been a steady and excellent source of reading recommendations.

It turns out that "busy-ness" has become a status symbol. In the U.S. it's an unintended consequence of a number of societal forces, most notably the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938. That's the law that first separated hourly wage-earners from salaried workers, and mandated overtime for hourly workers who worked more than 40 hours per week. But back then, only one out of seven workers was salaried; the rest were wage earners. And the salaried workers were higher-level managers, who were expected to take care of their own leisure. Now, a third of workers are salaried. And there's no law in place that limits the hours a salaried worker can be made to work. Combine that with the laws regarding benefits, and the result is that wage earners are highly likely to have time on their hands: in the lower echelons they're probably employed only part-time, and many companies even refuse to give workers a steady schedule, in order to prevent them from taking a second part-time job. So wage earners are now more likely to be lower class and to have time on their hands. Meanwhile, workers who are salaried are pressured to work many more hours than a mere 40 a week. But those jobs, of course, include all the best ones, the ones filled by all the better-educated and more highly qualified people—and that pay well.

Et voilà—it's a sign of status to be busy. It means you're better educated, have a better job, and are earning more money, and it implies that you're essential to the people you work for, because why else would they make so many demands of you and depend on you so much?

An interesting study that author Schulte recounts is one that analyzed hundreds of those Christmas letters that people mass-mail to their friends and family during the holidays. An overwhelming majority of those, it turns out, are mainly concerned with emphasizing busy-ness. Doing so much! Working hard, playing harder! Activities every which way! No time for anything! ...All just basic markers of high status.

Of course what it made me want to do is to write a Christmas letter emphasizing how un-busy I am and all the many ways I take time to stop and smell the roses. But that's not because I'm above it all; it's just because I'm a contrarian, and going against the grain means status to me.  :-)

Anyway, a very interesting book. I second Scott's recommendation, if you're interested in the subject.

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Bob Blakely: "tl;dr  :-)  "

HaJe: "Time is not something you just have. You have to take time. Only then will you have it."

Chris Y.: "Ah, Greg Brown—

Love calls like the wild birds
It's another day
The spring wind blew my list
Of things to do away...."

Andreas: "Re '...because why else would they make so many demands of you and depend on you so much?' Because they exploit you? ;-) "

Burple: "Actually, six out of seven workers aren't salaried today. According to the BLS, just under 60% of all workers are paid by the hour. Also, Dan Clawson and Naomi Gerstel's book Unequal Time: Gender, Class and Family in Employment Schedules, winner of the 2015 Max Weber Award given by the Society for the Organizations, Occupations, and Work section of the American Sociological Association, is an excellent read on this subject."

Mike replies: Fixed. Thanks.

Turntables and Vinyl Records Are Indisputably Superior (OT)

As far as I can tell, human endeavor most closely resembles a neverending staircase. All I know is that people constantly talk about "taking it to the next level." But they never seem to be satisfied with the next level once they get there, once again needing to take it to the next level. This appears to go on for infinity.

I mentioned a turntable on Sunday, and now I wish I'd done the whole post on turntables, because that topic seemed to draw the most lively and interested comments. For the turntable skeptics out there, this is my comebacker. True, I do 95% of my music listening from files on the computer; but the other 5% is vinyl, and if that 5% were to be subtracted from my life it would leave a terrible hole. For the turntable is indisputably superior. I'm about to tell you why.

It's because if you listen to music files or CDs, then you can't spend $300 on this:

What is it? It's a Fozgometer, of course. And what does a Fozgometer do? It measures azimuth, naturally.

And what is azimuth? Well, picture an ocean liner. It's moving forward in a straight line, but it's not perfectly level—it's listing to one side or the other. Or (gasp!) first one side, then the other. The same orientation or movement when applied to the phono cartridge at the end of the tonearm is called azimuth.

(Here's a visual explanation—azimuth setup starts at 3:33. Metaphor torturing begins at 4:04.)

After discovering the Fozgometer (online, I mean—I do not own one), I encountered the following apparently perfectly straightforward review:

 

5 Stars Reviewer: Ed

The Fozgometer is the most precise method for setting azimuth that I have found.

 

...Indicating, logically, that Ed has searched for, and found, other methods for setting azimuth...all of which were inferior to the Fozgometer. Well, at least at the time he wrote his review. Did his search continue thereafter, for an even more precise method? I would love to know...while guessing that Ed is already a very happy man.

I rest my case. Truly, as was so aptly said in the late 1980s (i.e., well into the era of the CD) by one audio writer whose name is lost to history but whose words live on: "A CD player is just a CD player, but a turntable is a toy forever."

There is just no end to the toy potential of a turntable and vinyl records. You can always take it to the next level. It is a staircase to the clouds—and beyond.

Mike

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Bob Cook: "Wow, just wow. Here I am listening to music in a live setting, either because I'm playing as part of a group, or attending a performance. All the time without the ability to measure or set my azimuth. Or, er, your azimuth. Or maybe their azimuths. Is there even a plural for azimuth?Is there a support group for azimuth-deprived people like me?"

Mike replies: No, but there is an antidote. Get yourself a turntable!  :-)

JG: "You don't want to know how much time and effort I would put into aligning phono cartridges and properly setting up turntables when I worked for the late HP [Harry Pearson, founding editor of The Absolute Sound magazine —Ed.] back in the 80s. Given the scale of movement that's involved with a vinyl groove pushing a highly polished but microscopic piece of gemstone around, literally everything makes an audible difference. And I do mean everything...at times, it was a nightmare! But when everything was working together, the sonic rewards were glorious!"

Michael: "Thanks for that, Mike. With your illuminating OT pieces on audio equipment, cars, and pool tables you entertain me hugely, plus you reassure me that my photography habit is on the mild side of Gear Obsession. Whew. What a relief. Thank you thank you."

Marcin Wuu: "Whenever I'm recommending music to my audiophile friend, the first question he asks is always: 'is it available on vinyl?' And if it isn't (which is a rare case I admit—these days everything is available on vinyl, usually made in Japan, which I'm told is the best), he won't listen to it. Just like that. Blows my mind."

Paul Richardson: "I come from the vinyl era, and still have many, many albums. What I'd like to know is what it would cost to get a decent turntable these days: one that isn't over the top, but that I won't immediately want to upgrade. Not state of the art, but not junk either. It isn't at all clear to me, the way it was forty years ago."

Mike replies: I'd look to Music Hall. No need to get their top models—for that kind of money you'd have to do a lot of comparison shopping by listening—but the MMF 2.3 comes with a cartridge and sounds surprisingly alive. I owned a predecessor model and always liked it. The MMF 5.1SE is attractive and a great all-rounder and still not terribly expensive when you consider that the cartridge is included.

Avoid the ~$3–400 automatic 'tables sold in various guises under old names like Thorens, Teac, and Marantz. (They probably all come from the same Far East factory.) The problem isn't so much that they're junky, which they kind of are, but that they don't bring much analog goodness to the table. Sort of flat and lifeless, so why bother?

I've owned Regas but I don't like them that much so I don't tend to recommend them. But others love them so you might too.

If you buy off Ebay, count on having to buy about three turntables to get one. They'll arrived damaged or broken because everyone says they know how to pack 'em right but not everybody does, or you won't be able to get a part you need, or they just won't sound good because something isn't right. I know whereof I speak. (My turntable is an Ebay special from the '80s.) You can get decent turntables from Ebay; it's just a crapshoot is all. You never know how much money you'll have to throw at it in order to come out a winner.

A safer solution for buying used is to buy from specialist restorers such as Dave at Vinyl Nirvana, Malcolm at Doctor Dual, or Pat at Pat Leaver.

Al C.: "As every certified gearhead knows, a piece of gear is defined by its putzability. The more physical, mechanical, putzable, the better. Hence cars of a certain vintage and dial-festooned cameras—all objects of desire for gearheads. In audiodom nothing beats the turntable—more specifically, that thing of physical beauty (redolent with the beauty of physics): the tonearm. And nothing is worse than digital black boxes. Pixel-peeping is tiresome. It's too easy. Anybody can do it. Sound-peeping is nigh impossible, because it relies on auditory memory, which is fleeting and utterly unreliable, not to mention highly susceptible to suggestions. That is why true audiophiles do not peep. We—to paraphrase Mike—torture metaphors instead."

Anthony Shaughnessy: "With digital music isn't it all about playing with software—codecs, etc.—which is far more interesting to a certain class of nerd person."

GKFroehlich: "Re: '...indisputably...': 'You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.' —Inigo Montoya."

The Entry Ticket to Sony A7 Just Got Cheaper

The Sony A7 II with the new Sony FE 50mm ƒ/1.8

If you're interested in jumping into Sony's very hot full-frame mirrorless system and you want a native lens, the price of admission just went down. With not one but two normal primes already available for the system—the highly corrected Sony Sonnar T* FE 55mm ƒ/1.8 ZA ($898) and the manual-focus Zeiss Loxia 50mm ƒ/2 Planar T* ($949)—Sony has introduced a third, the Sony FE 50mm ƒ/1.8. There are lots of differences, but perhaps the main one is the price: only $248. Paired with the least expensive body of the A7 series, the A7 II, at $1,698, that means that the cost of a basic body and a standard normal FE lens has dipped below $2,000.

The new 50mm is a classic old-fashioned design, very similar to a lot of older lenses from decades ago. (Albeit with one aspheric element, which the old lenses didn't have.) Just looking at the design, I'd predict that the lens will have quiet, unobtrusive bokeh and possibly even that nice property of older lenses whereby they're less sharp wide open, allowing you a little "sharpness control" depending on the aperture you pick. Very useful when you don't always want "clinical 'n' analytical" sharpness all the time! But we'll see about that.

Anyway, a nice option if you're stretching to buy the camera and don't have a lot left over for your first lens. And who knows, maybe that's not the only type of buyers who will appreciate a lens with a little more of an old-fashioned look.

I'm guessing I'm going to like this lens. Hey, a little nostalgia never hurts. Perfect for an OC/OL/OY, too.

Mike

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