The Online Photographer

Open Mike: Thoughts on Collecting

["Open Mike" is the often off-topic, anything-goes Editorial page of TOP. It appears on Wednesdays, with absolute dependability and regularity. —Ed.]

-

Up front: I don't really know what I'm talking about here. When it comes to collecting, I'm not an expert, and not speaking from authority.

"Collection" is of course a colloquial word, with very generalized meaning. Trash is collected (picked up to be trucked away to the dump); any random gathering of things can be referred to as a collection (as in "there was quite a collection of single socks behind the dryer"); and collection to someone who has debts outstanding means something entirely different altogether—that they can be legally harassed, basically. I'm sure I'm the only one of us who knows anything about that.  :-)

But "collection" to a collector means something quite different and much more specific.

I first learned of the more stringent definitions through book collecting. One book that was crucial to my education was John Carter's very famous-within-its-universe ABC for Book Collectors. The product blurb calls it "the one indispensable guide to book collecting," and for once such a description does not exaggerate. The book is now in its 9th edition, updated by Nicolas (not Nicholas) Barker, and I would be very surprised if there were more than a tiny, tiny minority of serious book collectors who do not own it or have not read it. Still fewer who (gasp!) have not heard of it.

It will for one thing introduce you to book-peoples' humor. There's an old joke that a dry martini is made by standing across the room from a cocktail glass of gin and shouting, "VERMOUTH!" Well, a book person would not raise his or her voice, that's how dry they are. If one book person makes a joke to another, it will not be detectable to an observer except by watching the reaction of the recipient, and even then you will have to attend with great care: a very slight smile, the slightest mouse-like whimper of a laugh, or a barely perceptible eye-roll will be the only outward signs. Later the beneficiary of the joke might be observed chuckling—but with no proximate cause. The ABC (as it is known, simply) is a funny book. But you might not know it the first few times you read it.

The Cambridge Dictionary comes a little closer to a working definition of "collection": "A group of objects of one type that have been collected by one person or in one place." It's easy to do much better than that, since those conditions aren't actually necessary, e.g., a museum collection: a collection is a gathering of objects that is curated, has direction or focus, and is organized. Personally I think those are the three key conditions.

Curating implies the application of standards, sometimes of taste; a museum collection is not an expression of one person's taste, necessarily, but standards are certainly applied. Very often, though, a collection is personal, and it makes no sense and means nothing except as an expression of an individual's taste, knowledge, sentiment, or concerns. A key indicator of this is the ability to cull—to remove items from the collection that do not quite belong, to replace items with better examples, to express subtle changes in direction as the collection evolves.

Direction is imparted by means of what are called the "principles of collection." This usually starts as a written statement of the specifics of what one intends to do, or how one intends to go about collecting. There is usually generous provision for modification of these goals on the fly—because, you know, it's just you. For example, one might begin by "collecting the works of Dickens," discover in the process that early editions are not affordable or too popular, and shift to gathering late 19th- and early 20th-century reprints; some time later, one might realize that what one really loves about the books are the Victorian publishers' bindings, and so shift to collecting those. Some of the Dickens titles, acquired early on, then become the core of a broader collection of Victorian publishers' bindings, in which context they fit perfectly; but one no longer needs to include The Pickwick Papers—his rambling first novel, written before he had found his feet. (The principles of a collection can be modified, subtly or drastically, to include favorite lucky finds, to incorporate new interests, or to account for contingencies like finances and availability...and also to keep undesirable things out!)

Organization is what distinguishes collecting from hoarding! You're never a hoarder if it's organized and neat, even if you're collecting beer cans or bottle caps. I know a guy, Mark Noyszewski, a Chicagoan, who is a very accomplished collector of all sorts of pop-culture items from movie posters to comic books to Star Wars toys. He has thousands upon thousands of objects; but it is all magnificently, fastidiously, beautifully organized. He has a real gift for it. It's a key condition of a collection.

Here's a brief outline of some of the parameters you might try to set:

Title: A name for your collection

Limit: What size collection are you aiming toward?

Time of collection: How long are you going to work on it?

Type of collection: What's in it?

Budget per piece: How much will you spend? Set some limits.

Condition: You need some limits for yourself here too, with many things.

Period: What years were the objects you're after from?

Principles of collection: What defines what you're after?

I take a stab every now and then at trying to start a collection. I do not have the best track record. I've always been aware that I "have the gene," but I've responded to that by resisting it. I've never been a collector. I don't collect anything and I don't possess any collections. I have moving boxes filled with CDs and many more filled with books, but neither are collections. I have lots of cameras, but those are an accumulation, not a collection. I have lots of "stuff" but there's no direction inherent in any of it (stuff is better than junk but not old enough junk to be antiques).

I know there are some real collectors in the TOP audience, and I wonder what they think of these thoughts. Me, I'm just an aspirant, which is a nice two-dollar word for wannabee. The idea does fascinate me, though.

Mike

Product o' the Week:

Spiffy new Nikon for hipsters young and old! Buy it here and you keep our engine running.

 

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Stan B.: "The only things I've consistently collected over the decades are photography books (i.e., artist monographs). They have long been a reliable and indefatigable source of: reflection, inspiration, edification....

"Although I've never bought a single one because of its potential collectibility, I've owned quite a few books that I know were worth several hundred dollars each (used). The question eventually becomes—what does one do with such a collection? One can always sell them off individually, the time invested can make for a worthwhile profit; or, donate them to an organization that will make proper use of them—and by 'proper use,' I mean: being seen, shared, and appreciated for what they are.

"I chose to explore the latter route and you'd think that many a photography-related organization that in any way deals with photographic education would at least be inquisitive about such a photo/documentary collection spanning the decades. I contacted well over a dozen photo organizations and never heard so much as a response!

"Finally, I contacted The Bronx Documentary Center, told them what I had available, advising them that the only catch was that they'd have to pay for shipping. I've now sent one dozen forty-pound boxes of books to their library; their students will hopefully gain from them as much as I have, and they're welcome to the remaining two or three boxes upon my demise. The cash definitely would have been nice, but not anywhere near as rewarding...."

Mike Chisholm: "Small but significant typo: it's Nicolas Barker. These things matter to us book people...[very slight smile emoji]. Mike."

Mike replies: Fixed. Thanks Mike.

Mike Ferron: "I have a drawer full of old Nikkormats. Must count for something right?"

Mike replies: I have one of those! They're hard to resist, aren't they? They look the business. But I have only one.

Christer Almqvist: "Getting rid of a collection can be as gratifying as accumulating it. I had too many books relating to photography. I felt buried under them when I went into my study. And I had lost relation to many of the photographers and their work. So when COVID meant hard times for bookshops I sold 90% of my photo books to my local book shop as my personal COVID assistance program. €25 per box of two dozen, or more. They charge €150 for one of them that I saw on display. I am so happy."

Michael Cytrynowicz: "Uh, Mike shouldn't you include the REASON / MOTIVATION why you are collecting something?"

Al G: "Collecting. Never did much of that. Always traded in old cameras for new. I did purchase an old Minolta SRT101 with a 58mm ƒ/1.4 because it was my first SLR, and was stolen during a break in. Nostalgia, not because it will gain any value.

"People collect some weird stuff though. Way back in 1976 I worked delivering sodas for a living. One of the supervisors approached me and asked if I would keep an eye out for any older returnable bottles that might be hanging around in the back room of grocery stores. That led to a discussion about collecting. He stated that he had a barbed wire collection and I scoffed. The next day he brought in a catalog about 50 pages thick. There were pieces about a foot long that were selling for way over $1k. In 1976?! Dang, who knew. He also said that the crates that vegetables and some fruits were delivered in were valuable because the ends were wood and had pictures of the company logo and perhaps a cherubic little boy or girl smiling and holding or consuming the product. Things are only worth what someone else is willing to pay."

Mike replies: I know a bottle collector. His wife says, "the basement is full of bottles."

Also, a friend in publishing told me a story once. He said a man queried them with a book he'd been working on for ten years. (This was well before the internet, by the way.) It was about duck-decoy collecting. It had hundreds of illustrations and was likely to be expensive to produce, and they assumed it could not have much of a market so they rejected it. The author sent a query again, with a cover letter saying, "you don't understand, this will be a definitive work on the subject, I'm an expert...." Again they rejected it. Presently the man appeared in person asking to meet with the editors. He explained earnestly that he knew what he was doing and that there was definitely an audience for his book. The editors were persuaded, so they took a flier and accepted it. Deluxe production, cost a lot of money. Well, you probably know the end of this story—perennial big seller, strong profits for the little publishing house year after year. Turns out, people who are passionate about duck-decoy collecting are really passionate about duck-decoy collecting, and there are way more of them than the number of people who actually collect duck decoys....

Darlene replies to Al G: "Guess who owns: CrateArt.com ? We sell only originals that never made it on the crate, and some can be very expensive, into the thousands of dollars. Been in business for 21 years now. It started as a spin-off from my commercial artist days (created lots of similar art), then took it to be a serious side income for retirement days."

Mike: That is so cool. What a great coincidence...and some of those are amazing!

Tom Z.: "I've found that applying rules and parameters can go too far and take the fun out of collecting, but then maybe I'm not a collector and I just like accumulating, organizing and using things I enjoy."

Kenneth Tanaka: Yes, 'collecting' is an odd topic of human behavior. Odd because the verb collecting is very distinct from its product, the noun collection.

"I’ve amassed over 700 photo books…yet I don’t consider myself a collector. I just buy the books of works that interest me. So I don’t really consider my books a 'collection.'

"Synonymously, among the many art and photo collectors I know, the one with perhaps the largest collection (easily into the mid-nine-figures) also largely just buys what interests her. She does now consider herself a collector but only after years of dealers calling her among their most prized collectors.

"Hoarding, I think, is the same behavior as collecting. But it’s untethered from any anchoring interests or objectives. It’s an illness, a mania. Collectors without genuine collections.

"On the flip side of that thought is a person who once asked me how she could start to collect photography. She had the urge but she also knew she wanted a collection to show for it. Today she has a very admirable collection of early and mid 20th photo prints on her walls.

"There’s also the variant where collecting seeps into one’s mien and social identity. Two years ago I had the privilege of helping catalog one of great intact collections of daguerreotypes. The man who had amassed it over 20 years wasn’t an artist or a scholar. He just found the things enchanting and gradually their pursuit consumed his free time and much of his social and travel time. (Dag collectors are actually a very small, tight group.)

"So it’s complicated. The bottom line: Unless a 'collector' amasses a verifiable legitimate (not necessarily financially valuable or even scarce, just intelligently describable) 'collection' they’re considered ill.

"Just my thoughts."

Passing Thought (Video Conspiracy Theory)

As I've been mulling over the meaning of the Z fc, here's one thing that struck me. As you know, camera reviewers in recent years have migrated en masse from written sites with static illustrations like this one to YouTube videos. Most of these feature either talking heads in homemade studios of varying degrees of slickness, or else the "roving reporter"-style (but still basically talking-head) variant popularized by Kaiman Wong when he was on DigitalRev TV. I like self-filmed ones that concentrate visually on the equipment as the operator adds voiceover, like David Thorpe's, although I do think those need a talking head shot mixed in occasionally, just to anchor us, like old sports broadcasts occasionally cut to the announcers for half a minute.

Most of those are self-produced to some degree, some even shot with phones selfie-style. But of course all of them are videos, meaning the people making them are actually videographers. AKA "vloggers." That word of course is an awkward blend of video and blogger, blogger already being an abbreviation of weblog with the suffix -er added to the stem to form a noun meaning "a person who does that activity." So vlogger means "video blogger"...never mind that videos cannot be, well, blogs in form or format, but never mind.

Anyway, all or most of the people who are reviewing cameras these days spend most of their time making videos. They're naturally interested in videography because it's what they themselves do. Which means the interest of all or most of the people who are reviewing our cameras are naturally biased in favor of the video features of the tools they're reviewing.

Just a thought. I just wonder how much effect that is having on corporate marketing and direction. Remember, the camera manufacturers are eager/desperate to find or invent unique selling propositions, in the face of ongoing disruption in the category, and they do seem to believe that their potential customers think that video production and web conferencing are way up there on the list of things ILCs are good for...which may be because their customers are being influenced by influencers who are video people themselves...

...Whereas to me....

It's no wonder people dedicated to stills get short shrift, such that even a camera meant to be a digital FE2 can't dispense with things like a 3.5mm stereo mini-pin jack for an external microphone, for heaven's sake. Maybe it's just me, but it never once occurred to me that an FE2 with a roll of Tri-X in it lacked a microphone.

By the way, I'm sorry to report that we lost David Thorpe on the 25th of last month. Sincere condolences to Carole, Hannah, and Jonathan. His viewers didn't know David in person of course, but Micro 4/3 enthusiasts the world over miss his words and wisdom.

Finally, I lied—I'll get to that new Nikon 28mm tomorrow. Today is "Open Mike" day, and you know how impossibly rigid I am about schedules.

Mike

Product o' the Week:

Spiffy new Nikon for hipsters young and old! Buy it here and you keep our engine running.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Crabby Umbo: "If I'm not mistaken, in the early 2000s, the Dallas newspaper required their photographers to shoot video as well as still; and that mentality was picked up by a lot of other newspapers around the country; the thought being that they would use moving footage on the website. Even as late as the mid-20-teens, a friend of mine on staff at a paper was told to shoot the key shots, and then hit the video button and make some lame video, trying to think up stupid stuff for the people to say: this was for their features section...appalling!

"At the time, this sounded ridiculous to me, because you could only concentrate on one at a time. If you're looking for the 'decisive moment,' how are you taking 'movin' pitchers'? I may have even read somewhere that the Dallas paper had written their own software to take high-rez frame captures out of video files, to use in the printed paper.

"Anyone with half an education in imaging will tell you that those two disciplines are like wearing two different hats. 'Cause you're good at one, doesn't make you good at the other, and anyone that tells you they are is lying to themselves and you! I've known doc film makers for years and they'd laugh at the idea.

"My pals will also tell you, that when you have a vid and still camera in one, you have two crappy cameras! None of them are using Canon 5D's to do vid, and all are using video-specific cameras for video. They all say, the cameras work better when they are designed specifically to function as a vid camera, and it uses a lot of the 'known' technical names for functions.

"They also told me years ago, a lot of video editing software uses all the terminology of physical film editing. They can't believe how 'clunky' Photoshop was and is: designed by engineers, for engineers, and possibly pre-press professionals, but certainly not photographers (otherwise density would be in stops and contrast would be in grades).

"Oh Lord, deliver us from the tyranny of video features on still cameras!"

Mike replies: Hmm, maybe I should start calling myself Crabby Mike.

Kirk Tuck: "I have to chime in here to give a bit of perspective from the point of view of someone who is using interchangeable-lens mirrorless cameras to (still) make a daily living in the imaging business. I resist buying any camera these days that doesn't include, in addition to basic photography features, a mic jack, a headphone jack and a V-Log profile. I've made my living as a commercial photographer since the film days and I'm sorry to say that the industry hasn't stood still. It's constantly changing, and the content that clients want now, in 2021, is a mix of video and stills. My point of view will be different from that of a newspaper journalist because commercial/advertising photographers have the luxury of shooting a still image and then setting up the same basic shot and shooting a video clip. Clients want both.

"I spent two days last week shooting video and stills for a wine association in central Texas. The main part of the job (it's an ongoing project) is shooting photographs but the ad agency in charge also wants short clips that they can put up on social media sites to drive audiences to the final website. And as standalone marketing.

"I wore a Panasonic S1 camera, set up for still shooting, on one shoulder and a Panasonic S1H on the other shoulder. Both had zooms attached since I didn't want to take chances with changing lenses in the windy, dusty outdoors. The still camera had a polarizing filter on its lens while the 'video' camera had a variable neutral density filter on its lens. There was nothing to change or adjust between the two ways of shooting. Just put down one camera and pick up the other.

"We would set up a scene or scenario and photograph it until we were certain we had the images we needed. Then we'd go back to the beginning and go again but with the video camera. Since both were set up for specific tasks there was no confusion, or time lost, trying to reset one camera to do both jobs. On this particular project we didn't need sound for the video and that made things a bit easier. And one other advantage is that both cameras are similar now, because of firmware updates, and can be used interchangeably for stills or video, if necessary. The video camera backs up the still camera and vice versa. They both take the same lenses and both take the same batteries and memory cards. And the color science between the two camera models matches up nicely.

"Yesterday I finished color grading the V-Log video files and sent them along to the client. Edited down there were 18+ minutes of high res video which looked very nice. They'll select bits and pieces for YouTube, Instagram, etc. On Monday I sent over a gallery link to 1,800 photographs which I had converted from raw to JPEG.

"In the last year I produced 12 different video projects for clients. In the same time frame we completed about 20 projects using still photography. Most of the projects had a lean one way or the other but nearly all included both video and photos. It was an especially light year because of the pandemic.

"But there's a beautiful synergy in the use of still cameras for video. I have multiple camera bodies and originally bought them as backups and for the times when I wanted to work fast with a different lens on each camera. When we started shooting more and more video I found that having three cameras with the same color profiles, set up to shoot at three different angles/magnifiications, meant we could produce much better video programming and have more angles to choose from in editing. All shot simultaneously so the action between the three cameras would match up perfectly.

"The Panasonic S1H is our best video camera and is approved for making movies for Netflix. It's great as a video camera...but it's equally good as a traditional photography camera. The flexibility makes good sense from a business point of view and a production point of view.

"Finally, one can always ignore the mic and headphone jacks and disregard the Log file capability. These features aren't cost intensive and won't get in the way for traditional photographers. But for someone who needs or want to make money with photography in the current era the flexibility to go in either direction—or both directions—is a godsend.

"I can't imagine that I would have pursued video if I'd had to buy a second set of cameras in order to do the work. Finally, working with the same three cameras for both disciplines is convenient since I have become so familiar with them through everyday use.

"You can be resistant to market changes and walk away from the video part but I guarantee that the supplier who comes in to do the video work will also offer to photograph the job so, in the end, if you stick to your guns you will soon be out of work.

"If you are shooting photos for fun then all bets are off...."

Steve Rosenblum: "I am quite saddened to hear of the death of David Thorpe. I had great respect for him and his work.

"I rarely use the video features on digital cameras with the exception of my iPhone. It's not hard to ignore the video features on cameras and use them for my own still photography purposes. The one aspect of 'hybrid' design that I object to is the trend lately to put 'flip out' LCD screens on most new cameras. This type of screen cannot easily be used as a waist level finder which I find quite useful for candid and street photography. In those situations I like to use the camera like a TLR which both changes the point of view and makes me much more unobtrusive/invisible to those I am photographing. I like the screen on the Fuji X-H1 and dislike the screen on the XT-4 for that reason. I haven't bought the X-T4 because of that."

Dave Stewart: "That video button can be set to perform other functions when you're in shooting/stills mode, as in many other Nikons. I usually set it to metering, so that I can easily change the metering mode by pressing it and turning the rear dial. At least then it has some use!"

The New Nikon Z fc

If I had a dollar for every time I've heard someone say some variation of "Why can't they just make a digital FE2/FM2/FM3a?", it would pay for a Snowflake.

Well, maybe not quite. But I've heard that a lot over many years, starting two decades ago and more.

Have you ever said it, or something like it? Be honest now.

So now that it's here, what are you going to do about it? This is it, the new Nikon Z fc, and it's exactly what all y'all were asking for.

The top plate is the most "FE/FM" thing about it. Beautiful!

Back down to earth
Of course, it's another retro Nikon. And the last retro Nikon, the Dƒ, was an absolute horror. I mean, it was a pretty good camera—it did a few useful things, like work with manual focus Nikkors, and it had a very nice sensor. Owners actually tended to like it. But they had to avert their eyes to buy it. The factory hit that thing hard with the ugly stick. Conceptually, it was a Frankenstein—retro styling cues troweled on awkwardly all over it, with exactly the authenticity of a very bad fake Elvis, toupée and all. On a camera that looked like its designers had no freaking idea what it was supposed to be, or to whom. (I'll be honest, the Dƒ permanently changed my feelings toward Nikon. I still have respect; just not quite as much as I used to.)

And dammit, Nikon, you just can't throw us a bone, can you? Not even when you're throwing us a bone!

Because there it is on the top plate, in the upper right hand corner, that little red video button. The marketing materials show the allegedly retro thing being used on a selfie stick as a vlogging camera, on a mini tripod for web streaming and conferencing, and with an external mic—you know, just like an intrepid PJ back in the day. Not.

With watches, there are things called "time only" watches. They just tell time. Three hands, sometimes just two. Nothing else. And you know what all the other bells and whistles are called? The things time-only watches don't have? "Complications." I love that. Could we possibly have just one simple "picture only" camera, no complications?

The answer is, of course, no. The bottom line is that you can't escape the age you're in, and you can't escape the fashions of the day. That's life on life's terms. There's actually no such thing as retro.

'She's a Rainbow'

...Except maybe in the realm of style!  :-)

Climbing Mt. Fuji
On the good side, maybe it's intended to be a Fuji X-T4 killer—a knobs-'n'-dials APS-C of agreeable size. (Here they are side-by-side at Camerasize.) I'm not going to close my mind to the Z fc. It could be great. I certainly like the direction.

Takashimaya Historical Museum

Mount Fuji by Takeuchi Seiho, 1893

Although it's a long way to the top of that mountain.

So what do you think? What's your initial reaction to the news? Boy, I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say about this. Unless all those guys who used to pine for this very thing—this very thing—have all suddenly mysteriously up and evaporated.

Hold up!
Tomorrow, the lens. If you have a comment about the lens(es) you may want to wait.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

GKFroelich: "For what it's worth, I've shot with Nikon single-digit F models since the F2 (never had an F nor an F6), and with their digital counterparts since the D2 variants (no D1 nor D6). These days I shoot primarily with Nikon D5s, D500s, and D850s (and I have a couple of D7200s lying about here somewhere). The essential (to me) controls have for the most part been consistently placed, and have operated in the same manner, across all of these models.

"The only mirrorless camera I currently own is a Nikon Z50, with its two kit lenses (I had the V1 back when it was current). The image quality is great, the camera and lenses are small and lightweight, and they provide a compact 'rig' that covers lots of contingencies (I add the now-discontinued 5T and 6T doublets for macro capability with the tele-zoom). But the controls are scattered all over the place, and many are buried in the menus or behind some inscrutable tiny icon on the rear touch screen. The whole experience is very un-Nikon, and I've missed a few photos as a result. As long as I shoot in fully (or mostly) automatic modes, it's not much of a problem, but at times it can be frustrating, even infuriating.

"The new Z fc appears to be a Z50 packaged in a more Nikon-like body, with actual Nikon-like controls on its exterior. I won't pull the trigger until I've learned more about it, and maybe read (or viewed) a couple of reviews, but based in its appearance, I'm a future owner of one!

"Now let's see what they do with the Z9."

Christopher May (partial comment): " I think this will do better than the Dƒ did. That was a quirky camera but I think it would have been a bigger seller had the price been lower. The Z fc comes with a price tag that's going to make it a lot more popular than the expensive Dƒ."

Doug Chadwick (partial comment): "If I could have gotten this instead of my first digital, a D80, I certainly would have. The control layout would have eased my transition somewhat. However 2007 is now a rather long time ago."

Al C.: "I dunno. The front wheel, the ridiculous name (huh? Z-fc?), and the non-serious fonts ruin it for me. And that's in black, never mind the rainbow! I am sorry, but frisky is not in the Nikon gene. This is embarrassing."

Thomas Rink (partial comment): "As I see it, the nostalgia for film cameras like the Nikon FM2 is due to their simplicity and ease of use. This camera, on the other hand, is as complicated as any mirrorless digital camera, but with an even more complex user interface—in addition to the retro-style dials, it also has front and rear command wheels. My Fuji X-T20 suffers from the same flawed design, but at least there is a lens lineup for it."

Alex Mercado: "Without a Prontor-Compur connection; nor a threaded shutter button; and the sensor is below 100MP—this has to be tHe WoRsT nIkOn EvAr!!! Okay, all joking aside, I like it a lot."

Yoram Nevo: "They forgot the 'Auto' setting on the ISO dial. Well that's a real bug. I should know since I'm a software engineer and write bugs for a living."

Stéphane Bosman: "I'm sure there is a market for it, but it is not the people who have known and taken pleasure in using the FM, FE, FM2 and FE2 cameras. As you said, those were simple and a delight to use. My current handheld cameras are an FE2 and an F3, and this new Nikon leaves me much colder than my Fujis."

almostinfamous: "It has everything I want in a camera except IBIS. I am interested in the colourful ones too, actually—might get a few of my former students to actually consider Nikon."

Hugh: "Retro camera. APS-C, therefore limited use with my Pre-AI Nikkors. Complaining about it shooting video is missing the point entirely. Thirty seconds with some superglue would fix that red button so it never shot video again, and you could even stick black tape over the red button like a cool kid with a Leica. Fortunately Canon make the RP, which is full frame, costs about the same, and works beautifully with manual focus vintage lenses…and Fuji make APS-C cameras with matching lenses."

Steve C: "In plain sight Leica is staking a monopoly on simple user interfaces. The Typ 240 brought video, but let you render the button completely inoperable. (Love!) The subsequent next model removed it completely, and the one after struck two more buttons from the camera. When their product director was interviewed about the S and SL's spec-sheet competitors he said 'Yes, but they're covered in buttons. If you want only four, this is the only one.'"

Polarizing Filters on Digital

Does anyone have experience with using ordinary polarizing filters on a digital camera? I really have very little experience with them, even on film. I'd like to hear from you if you use them, or if you've experimented and decided against.

All I know is that I have a pair of good prescription sunglasses that have polarized lenses that I use as driving glasses, and I really like them. They don't appear to be "colored" at all—they're more or less just neutral-density filters. But the way they enrich colors, cut haze, and, especially, render clouds, is quite addicting. I don't always remember to put them on when I'm driving, but on good days—meaning, bright, clear days—I'll usually go for them because they enhance my enjoyment of looking at the landscapes passing by. I'm wondering if or how much a similar effect might translate to digital sensors.

Item second in regard to filters
TOP reader Sroyon Mukherjee (he comments using his first name) has written a very thorough article called "Colour Theory for Black and White Photography Part 1: Digital and Analogue Filters" over on Hamish Gill's 35mmc. It's a deep dive (even if you don't continue into Part 2), but even if you don't read every word, many of the illustrations are excellent and thought-provoking, and well presented. Well worth enjoying. The article is more like a book chapter than a blog post but it's worth scanning through it (my smaller computer balked at it, archly informing me that "This webpage was reloaded because it was using significant memory") and you might well like to return to it for a thorough perusal.

Sample illustration from Sroyon's article

One thought it inspired in me was that black and white really requires a point of view as regards tonality. Maybe we can get by in color just "going with our guts" and picking whatever seems nice with any particular picture, but the tonal differences with B&W are so marked and so different in their effects that we really need to make some fundamental decisions about tastes and goals. It used to be easier; we'd just settle on films, developers, papers (FDP) and filters we liked, and let the tonality play out as it naturally did; but digital is so much more plastic that radically different effects on the same file are possible and we need to have a firmer sense of what we're after in order not to get lost. For instance, the blue-filter devil-child in the above illustration. I would never use a blue filter with humans; then again, I never have owned a blue filter. The only thing they're good for is as a demonstration of what not to do.

I always recommended keeping a small pile of prints and magazine clippings with tonality you liked near at hand in the darkroom, to use to calibrate your tonal palette in your mind before or during working. Still good advice. Maybe better advice now than it used to be, even. Tonality is tougher than color; it has a wider range, and a broader range of expressive effects are potentially admissible and acceptable.

Anyway: recommended. Nice job. And Sroyon must be young, because that was a lot of work.

Mike

Product o' the Week:

The Apple Watch Series 6. This is a portal to Amazon from TOP.

The following image is also a link. You support TOP by buying through these portals.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Martin Doonan: "I used to use polarizing filters extensively (when I was shooting a lot of landscapes in bright light) on digital. They work the same as with film because the incident light is 'corrected.' There are creative ways to use them, too, for which I think digital has an advantage (chimping, live view, etc). For example: a polarising filter can be used to eliminate reflections from the surface of water to 'look under the water' so to speak. But the effect can be tuned as a rotating polarizer enables this to be tuned so you can see partially below the water, maintain some surface effect. Quite easy to get right with digital, much trickier with film."

Jim Metzger: "I will not be the first to say this…you need a circular polarizer, not a linear polarizer for digital sensors. I use Nikon or B&W and have observed no color cast, just intensification of color. I have used them on artwork reproduction and the artists are very happy with the results. Polarized sunglasses will darken the LCD screen on the camera and sunglasses in general will distort the colors in a scene, and I do not use those. I also go so far as to get my prescription glasses without UV filter coatings."

David Rayburn Haynes: "I use polarizing filters on my digital cameras and find the results to be the same as when I used them on film cameras—reduced glare, accentuated colors, increased contrast, and so forth. I rarely use color filters with digital cameras. I find that the Photoshop 'black and white' filter provides much more control."

Brian Geyer: "I find polarizing filters vital, and use polarizers frequently in pursuit of the wildlife and nature subjects that I seek. The benefits are identical, regardless of whether shooting ’chromes or digital images. I'm a Nikon user, and generally find it best to avoid matrix metering when using a polarizer. I auto-bracket the exposure in 1/3rd stops after first setting a fixed +0.3 stop of compensation, using center-weighted manual metering. I've standardized on using B+W's premium series of 'KSM' MRC circular polarizers. Other brands and grades may be equally effective, but do be sure that you use a circular (not linear) polarizer. Polarizers provide the only practical way that you can easily cut through glare and thereby enhance color saturation. I find a polarizer essential in lots of daylight outdoor settings, including city-scape scenery."

Bryan was the founder of Really Right Stuff (RRS). —Ed.

Sroyon: "Thank you Mike for linking to my article; it's an honour to be featured on TOP! I should really thank Hamish too, for giving me the freedom to go down whatever rabbit-hole I like and write about it—at great length! And yes, I'm one of those annoying millennials who enthuse over film photography and darkroom work, without knowing what a drag it was (or some of it was) back when film was the only option and not a fun alternative and luxury :-) .

"Re polarising filters, I have a circular polariser for my 'landscape lens,' a Sigma 10–20mm ƒ/3.5 for Nikon APS-C-sensor DSLRs (I bought the lens off eBay and the filter came with it). But it's new to me and I haven't really tested it yet. I read a book called Light: Science and Magic which has a good discussion of polarising filters, culminating in a remarkable example (at least it seemed remarkable to me): page 47 of this (legal) PDF. I'm not sure if it was recommended on TOP or somewhere else, but I liked the book in general, and learned a lot from it."

Rob de Loe: "Circular polarizers are needed with cameras that have mirrors. Linear polarizers work with mirrorless. I use polarizers extensively because I often work near water. They let me decide very precisely whether or not I want reflections, and how much. Usually you need some reflection to show it's water, but I don't like so much reflection that you can't see bottom in shallow water bodies. Unfortunately my lenses have front filter threads ranging from 39mm to 82mm, so I have to carry five filters.

"Black and white is my thing, so I'm going to enjoy reading Sroyon's chapter. On film, I was much more accepting of whatever decisions the film manufacturer made about how to represent colour with luminosity. I did carry a set of colour filters, but found them a bother and never got much beyond Deep Yellow and Orange. Digital changed all that. Digital laid siege to Castle Tone and sacked it. Tones are what I say they are now. This is why I have no interest beyond technical curiosity in monochrome sensors. I make the call on how colours are represented, and I now have so many different ways to do it in Lightroom (none of which include someone else's presets). Despite talk of sacking, I have my own guardrails. I use the 'Toupee Rule': if what I've done with tones sticks out (or worse, like bad HDR, draws the eye to itself for its wrongness) then I've gone too far. It's not about tones being 'natural' or 'faithful' (compared to what, and to what?). Instead, for me it's about tones being pleasing and balanced. My choices should make sense relative to what's in the scene."

Sunday Support Group: Comments!

I've just finished loading whole bunches of new comments to each of the last four posts.

They are fantastic and I invite you to delve!

I've also written a few lengthy replies.

There are still a couple of wonderful or touching long comments that you will not find published, but later today I intend to contact the writers and ask for permission to post them as separate self-contained posts. (I do that infrequently, but regularly.)

I think it's just going to be a fact of life from now on that sometimes I'm going to get behind in the comments. Not only am I getting slower at writing and editing than I was when I started this blog when I was in my 40s, but I'm getting slower at everything else in my life as well! Which also cuts into work time. Anyway, I do apologize that these won't be posted sooner. I did start to enlist some volunteers to help moderate comments, but then I lost track of where we were and what I needed to do and fell prey again to my disorganized state of mind, and so that is yet another thing I neglected to finish...sigh....

Enjoy! And Happy Sunday. I hope you are well. Take pictures of your loved ones, and get pictures of yourself with them.

Mike

 

The Spectrum of Gearheadism

Something occurred to me yesterday. When it comes to "gear enthusiasm"—sometimes called "gearheadism" except that seems like such an inelegant word—some things require associated skills and some do not.

What would you call this? Active and passive gear geekery maybe?

It struck me that wristwatch collecting is probably as close as you can come to a purely passive or undemanding form of gear enthusiasm. It really requires nothing of the collector except that he or she like watches and wants more than one. The only skill required is telling time. We'll make an exception for guys like Nick, who you met two days ago, because he can take them apart and put them back together again and it's what he does for a living. But I think you can be a watch geek without having much in the way of skills. (As I'm learning on YouTube.)

At the other end might be guitar connoisseurship. Does it make any sense at all to collect guitars if you can't play guitar and know nothing about music?

Although I'm sure there must be non-playing guitar geeks out there, because, well, because geekery.

Some skills and activities require equipment that's so utilitarian that I imagine it can't inspire much in the way of gear enthusiasm...I don't think, anyway. (I don't know.) Knitting, maybe. Do knitters argue over knitting needles? I have a friend who has become a late-in-life potter. He's quite good at it, in my opinion. He's certainly enjoying himself. But I've never heard of a potter who is a connoisseur of throwing wheels or kilns, and has to have just the perfect one, or has to have many alternatives at hand. Maybe I'm just not close enough to it to know. Do those people exist? It seems to me like it would be akin to collecting refrigerators. Surely some kilns are better than others. But if you have access to a kiln you're doing okay. I just can't imagine a potter poring obsessively over kiln catalogs and constantly upgrading to better and better kilns. Maybe once or twice as finances improve. At the very least, I'm going to venture the claim that there's no one who's vitally interested in pottery equipment who isn't a potter. There probably is (see above), but you've got to admit the notion is pretty absurd.

Sometimes gear geekery makes less sense the less you're fitted to practice what it requires. For example, bicycle gearheads certainly exist, but how good does your bike need to be if you're sixty pounds overweight and have the stamina of an 80-year-old couch potato? Surely your bike only needs to be so good and no better in that case...and might even be more difficult and inappropriate for you to use as it comes closer to being a specialized high-end ultralight racing machine. Can you be an archery geek if you don't have the strength to draw back a bow?

Rock-climbing requires gear, but I can't imagine being interested in the gear without being active as a climber. And being a climber is highly skill-based as well as fitness-based.

Some forms of gear enthusiasm might need associated skills only in certain ranges. For instance, surely it's possible to be a car nut without really having any special abilities as a driver. It's probably true that some of the middle-aged guys you see proudly piloting the latest Corvette can't drive any better than the average commuter. As "supercar fails" and "Nurburgring crash" videos attest, lots of guys own more car than they can actually handle. And yet at some level, driving ability surely comes to the forefront...for instance, if your focus is autocross.

Maybe that's one reason pickup trucks are so popular. There's no presumption that you should have any special skills as a driver. (Again, that I know of. Maybe I'm just an innocent.)

In some pursuits, knowledge is the most important thing. My brother collects gems, and you'd think that's a purely passive pursuit, except that the amount of knowledge he has about it would fill a book.

Would birdwatching qualify as a passion that's mainly knowledge-based? It certainly has an activity component, though. (My brother knows how to facet.) It's a form of non-invasive collecting, if you will. You collect sightings on a life-list, but you don't actually molest the birds. If you're doing it responsibly. The moral equivalent of hunting, to adapt William James's famous phrase? The other examples of mainly knowledge-centric hobbies I can think of fall mostly under the heading of collecting rather than gear enthusiasm per se, though.

And in other pursuits, wealth is a prerequisite. Consider Minnesotan John Allen's collection of antiquarian wooden speedboats. Gear geekery of a high order, but you can't collect antique boats without being rich, I wouldn't think. Luxury watch collecting certainly falls under this requirement. John McEnroe, the tennis player, is a devoted art collector, but once said his participation is severely limited because his net worth is only $100 million!

Poor guy....

Photography is flexible
On the spectrum of "active skills required" (guitar geekery) to purely passive (watch geekery), photography is remarkably flexible. At one end of the spectrum, being a photographer can require a great deal of dedication, visual aptitude, and skills. But on the other, well, anyone can take a photograph—just point it and shoot, as the phrase has it. You might not get a masterpiece, but you'll get something. Anyone can participate.

With photography, you pick where you want to be on the active <—> passive scale. You can just collect gear and rarely if ever use it. Or, your whole focus can be shooting and you can all but ignore the gear. As an example of the latter, at the magazine I used to edit we once got a very nice portfolio from a woman in the Midwest. When I asked her what camera she used, she said something like, "I don't know—a Pentax, maybe? My daughter got it for a photography class." She offered to check and get back to me. No gearhead she!

Photography as a passion is unusually generous and accommodating. As a shooter you can be what David Gilmour is as a guitarist*, but photography can be a very involving hobby without requiring that you take pictures at all. Quite remarkable, all things considered.

Mike

*And he collected guitars, as you might remember.

Product o' the Week:

The Apple Watch Series 6. This is a portal to Amazon from TOP.

The following image is also a link. You support TOP by buying through these portals.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Nicholas Hartmann: "I can speak to gearheadism (as you define it) with regard to pottery and birdwatching. No, potters do not geek out over wheels. Some potters own a wheel, although I know many other very experienced and skillful potters who are happy to use any studio wheel that's available. I believe this is because there's no upside in terms of perceived quality or (much more importantly) conspicuous consumption. A potter's wheel that costs less than $700 is probably a piece of junk, but $1,500 gets you a wheel that will literally outlive the potter or withstand multiple generations of abusive students. Few potters own kilns, since even the small electric ones are expensive, hot, and power-hungry, and there is almost no skill or craft involved in using one—it's much more cost-effective to pay for space in somebody else's. Where potters geek out is with glazes, and with firing technologies like wood-firing. But in both cases, the reason to spend money on more glazes, or on a wood-fired kiln the size of a house, is not to be seen spending the money, but to get results that are unobtainable in any other way. That's not gearheadism; it's called 'art.'

"Birdwatching is actually a hotbed of gearheadism, focused (sorry) on optics: how much you are seen to have spent on your spotting scopes and binoculars helps establish your place in the pecking (sorry again) order. Another status signifier is how much you spent to get to where you use the optics: birds seen at or from the farthest West of the Aleutian Islands, for example, can be added to one's USA list, and the more expensive the trip to get there, and more lurid the tales of weather and other hardships endured, the higher one's status. All this is part of the sport of 'listing': what counts is how many birds are on your 'life list,' and vast sums are spent to spot just that one more species that will put you ahead of the other guy (and, as with most such hypercompetitive equipment-based pursuits, it is mostly guys). Most listers aren't actually interested in the birds themselves, except insofar as knowing about the bird helps them find it. But you can also (be seen to) pay a guide for that....

"My assumption is that ever since humans became humans, guys (yep) have been sitting around the campfire one-upping each other about this great flint deposit only they know about, or how the oak branches from over the next range of hills give your spear a much better grip and durability."

Geoff Wittig: "When it comes to bicycles, ironically it is the less fit cyclists who benefit the most from the high tech ultra-lightweight machines. The better your physical condition, the less help you need from technology to make that 40 mile ride, unless you're an actual racing competitor."

Sharon: "I disagree with some of your observations. If you are out of shape, then a good bike is vital or you won't keep exercising. A very good bike is lighter and easier to ride than a cheap clunker. When my son was young, I took him roller skating. I hated using their skates so I bought good skates for both of us. It was a different sport with good skates. The wheels rolled so smoothly—they were a pleasure to use. So I think, the worse you are in some endeavors, the more you need good equipment. Maybe I missed your point, though.  :-)  "

Mike replies: No, I take your point. When my son was eight or nine his guitar teacher said that it's appropriate for a beginner to have a good guitar because they are easier to play and to keep in tune. Of course he was teaching out of a local guitar store. And a grizzled old golf pro once told me that actually all duffers have it wrong with regard to fitted clubs. He said he was a scratch golfer and had the ability to adjust to any set of clubs, so he didn't mind playing with anything; but a set of fitted clubs greatly benefits a beginner who is just learning the swing, he told me, because they won't learn to swing while compensating for clubs that don't fit them. So I see your point about the bikes.

Ken Bennett: "Birdwatching can get quite competitive, and there is plenty of very expensive gear to buy and argue about. Most birders don't care, but some do. (Leica vs. Swarovski! 80mm versus 60mm scopes!! LOL)

"Knitters are less competitive, in my experience, but they tend to collect yarn. A knitter's 'stash' can take up a large room, or more. Yarn seems to me to be like buying a brick of film back in the day— you dream about what you can make with it. The collection of yarn can overtake the making of things.

"All the guitar nerds I know also play. Some of them are even pretty good."

Thor D.: "There is a certain element of owning gear that I find many cultures relate to value or ability signaling. So while some gear may not actually require specific knowledge or skill to enjoy as objects, owning that gear without a certain level of competence would be seen as posturing, which has always been interesting to me. Would a beginner guitarist be able to show off a fancy guitar collection with pride if not able to play well enough to do them justice?

"As for bikes, this is true too. I remember a neighborhood that I frequented was lousy with very wealthy folks who would ride around on $5,000++ mountain bikes that they never even rode off the sidewalk. There is no logic to that, but if you have the money then why not I suppose. As an avid biker I often drooled over the titanium frames and high end components, but after riding a few I realized the difference was so minimal compared to my $600 bike that my bike lust diminished almost instantly. I am just not a good enough rider to need them and fortunately some part of my brain accepted that."

Keith: "Some triathletes have gearheadism really bad, especially where bikes are concerned. They would rather spend many thousands of dollars on high tech carbon fibre bikes to cut wind and rolling resistance, and save a few grams of weight, all in the name of supposedly shaving a few seconds off their bike time. It's funny/sad, since the person on the bike is by far the least aerodynamic part of the system. They would be far better off to buy an OK-to-nice bike, and spend more time training to ride faster. But no, they think better gear is the answer. We call them posers. It's exactly like handing a Phase One camera to a beginner photographer."

John Krumm: "I had an economics 101 professor in college, a fun lecturer with a Greek accent. He was giving us a lesson about something, and mentioned that he collected camera lenses. He had used them when younger, but really just loved the lenses as objects, so now he kept them nicely arranged in a drawer and occasionally took them out for dusting and admiration."

Keith S: "Some of your examples describe collectors rather than gearheads. For a collector, collecting itself is the hobby or pursuit. A watch collector would be more comparable to a stamp collector than any gearhead. A gearhead is obsessed with acquiring the latest and greatest, or different types of, equipment and gear for his interest, usually in pursuit of finding that elusive 'last' camera, stereo system, or bicycle. The difference is that a gearhead intends to use, or at least try, every piece of gear he acquires. A person can be both a gearhead and a collector such as a photographer who has a plethora of digital cameras, tripods, bags, etc. he uses or have tried while also collecting vintage cameras and lenses he doesn’t intend to use."

Mike Plews: "One sign of gearhead syndrome is the desire for a piece of equipment thinking it will change your life, getting it, and then never using it. My Stanley #55 combination plane comes to mind."

Lesley T: "More about bikes. And gear. And guys (or at least the subset of bicycle gearheads).

"We cycle a lot, although at about 75 and 80, we don't cycle nearly as far, or as quickly, as we used to. My husband likes good gear, but it has to work and help to get the job done as efficiently and easily as possible. It infuriates him when we see a couple out riding and the guy is out in front on a (very) expensive lightweight road bike while his wife is lagging behind on a heavier and more cumbersome department-store machine. I have to restrain him from yelling out the window, 'If you want to ride together, and for her to like it...GET HER THE GOOD BIKE!!!' So yes, good tools can help to get the job done, and to make the experience more enjoyable."

James: "When it comes to bicycles. Sigh. Yes. Gearheadism is rife. But as for road racing bikes there is a put-up or shut-up moment. You go race. If Thom Hogan says 'your equipment is not holding you back, your form/fitness is,' there is no proof. With bikes, you can go and get proof any weekend in the summer (or for Cyclocross, fall) you like. Race fees are under $100. Go and race. You will see how much more it matters to be fit than it does to have a nicer bike.

"So, if you are a gearhead in bikes, you have to admit that you are in it for buying the bike, not for the added speed. But we do it for the joy of the thing."

Rob de Loe: "In a conversation about photography I once made the (naive) point that painters surely didn't obsess about gear the way photographers do. A person whose wife was a painter chimed in about the intense and boring technical debates he was subjected to when the painters showed up about brushes, paints, canvases, etc. I think Nicholas Hartmann nailed it: people like to differentiate themselves from others based on technical knowledge and gear. It's a status thing. I've seen people leave hobbies primarily because the gear improved to the point where "anyone" could do it, so it wasn't competitive enough anymore."

wts: "There's a hobby where gear is irrelevant because you can't buy it—railroad mileage collector. That's a person who may go to almost any length to ride a train over a given stretch of track, record it, and boast about it to his fellow mileage collectors who didn't or weren't able to 'get' that track. This is a very frustrating hobby for younger participants as tracks have been continually taken out of service over the lifetime of the older collectors. Walking or riding over a rail trail doesn't count."

cecelia: "As a professional knitter, I can assure you that there are genuine debates about different kinds of knitting needles. However, even very top-of-the-line knitting needles are affordable compared to cameras and watches. Knitting, unlike watch collecting or digital photography, has its major expense associated with a consumable: yarn. A knitter's yarn collection is called their 'stash' and many knitters have extensive and expensive stashes far bigger than they can use in a lifetime. Books have been written on stash."

Mike replies: Gem-cutters often have a stockpile of rough. When he was younger, a friend who is a cutter and dealer took out a very large bank loan—on the order of a home mortgage—to buy the stock of rough of a retiring cutter he knew. The guy gave him a fantastic deal and my friend was able to first cherry-pick the stock, then sell the rest of it piece-by-piece and pay back the entire loan. It gave him a great start on his own stock and was a wonderful gift from the older cutter.

Ian Hunter: "I have always been surprised by new watercolour painting students turning up with cheap paints and watercolour paper. I always advise that good rag paper and artist quality paint make it so much easier. Two good-quality brushes are always enough and better than a bunch of cheapo ones. Sometimes they listen!"

Gordon Buck: "Pocket knives...."

Malcolm Myers: "My wife has bought a couple of 'gearhead' Singer featherweight sewing machines, a 221k and an even more expensive 222k. But she hasn't got the one with the red S model which is even more expensive but is actually not any better. And then there are the wrinkle crinkle versions which literally go for thousands. For a sewing machine...."

Tex Andrews: "Well, I think geekery divides into two basic subsets: appreciation geekery (wine, cheese, jazz, sports stats, but also watches, cars, boats,paperweights, art, etc.), and tool geekery (anything that has to be used for a task to be appreciated—knives, saws, woodworking tools in general, etc.). Anything I don't make but am 'into' is appreciation geekery if I know much about it. But then I also make stuff, so there's maker's/usage geekery in there as well. With power tools, I'm a Makita guy, although there are some tools by other manufacturers I admire. You are correct in identifying photography gear as having a spectrum, and I think it's from appreciation through usage. That's why Leicas get collected, but then also have usage geekery."

Mike replies: That's an excellent distinction and one I never thought of.

Mikko Kalavainen: "Knitters definitely geek over the needles and the yarn. BIG time. And they usually have a whole closet of yarns that may go unused for a loooong time. Yours, Husband of a knitaholic. "

JH: "Mike, I think you greatly underestimate OCD!

"I could easily write a response longer than your post about the people I've known who are dedicated to collecting various things and sometimes using types of gear. From my experiences:

"People buy fancy watches as bling—they're jewelry, not timepieces.

"You don't have to be a musician to collect the guitars of famous people.

"Knitters obsess over yarn. They can own rooms full of it.

"The artist who bought our farm has three kilns she installed in our barn, each for different materials.

"My experience as a racing/track day instructor is that the ability of many drivers is inversely proportional to the ability of the car—it's a zero-sum. One of the best drivers I taught brought a Ford Fiesta to the track.

"Birdwatching is about collecting sightings (or in my case photos) and simply being outdoors. Birdwatchers tend to be conservationists, sometimes obsessively so.

"I know many people who collect cars and never drive them, they just look at them (maybe like their trophy wives?) I know some who are good drivers and they tend to have only a couple of cars which they exercise regularly.

"Many times I've been asked to help photographers who are loaded with high-end gear they have purchased but never bothered to use. Many bought it just before that fabulous trip they planned.

"Collectors are really interesting in what they choose to collect. Sometimes it's just the beauty of the items, sometimes it's memories of them. I had an Aunt who collected toothpick holders; another, plates from tourist spots. I know people with thousands of records—classical, jazz, rock, etc. I know people who have tens of thousands of books, some of a single category, like mysteries. An artist friend has thousands of cheap Mexican carved figures she picked up on trips there—and just finished cataloguing them. A prof in college collected Edison cylinders, then recorded them and manipulated the recordings to make them sound like HiFi. A friend collected electrical/electronic/scientific instruments. When he died he left three rooms of them which his widow still has not figured out what to do with. One of his sons has collected one of every Apple computer—but he makes his living writing about them. A cousin is married to a guy in the guitar pick business who collects them from famous players.

"I could go on, but won't. Enough is enough, especially in comments...."

Open Mike II: Perils of Blogging

So this is kind of funny. When I started writing the "Why A Watch" post the other day, I actually started out intending to write about the Sony A6600. I was going to confess that I really want a Sony A6600, but that the desire makes no sense because I have no more need for it than I have for a wristwatch. I was going to explain that I had kinda gotten interested in wristwatches in spite of myself, despite the fact that I had no need for one whatsoever and no intention whatsoever of buying one. I was going to say that the same thing was true of the A6600. So the part about the watches was just going to be "introductory matter" you might say. After that I was going to discuss why we get GAS in the absence of need.

So then I got into doing a little more research on wristwatches and before you know it...off to the races. Pretty soon I realized the stuff about the A6600 was superfluous, so I just chopped it out and concentrated on the parts about watches. Three posts later and here I am, $157 poorer and with a Seiko on my wrist for the first time in decades.

Such is the life o' Mike...(shaking head in wonderment...). I had fun though!

Mike

P.S. No link to the A6600 here. The reason is that the price has been ping-ponging between $1,200 and $1,400 lately and it's at $1,400 right now. Should you want one, wait.

Product o' the Week:

The Apple Watch Series 6. This is a portal to Amazon from TOP.

The following image is also a link. You support TOP by buying through these portals.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Steve Deutsche: "How can I want one without your review!  8^)  "

Bernd Reinhardt: "Hahaha, let me share my watch lust origin story. About twenty years ago, my friend from Germany came to visit me in Los Angeles, and during a visit to Chinatown, he bought himself a fake Rolex. When he visited again a year later, we were sitting at the table and I was looking at his Rolex submariner. 'Oh, is this your Chinatown Rolex?' He had this little smirk on his face, and it dawned on me that this must be the real thing. 'Why would you spend that kind of money on some Grandpa-style watch?' I screamed. He laughed and said that after wearing the fake for several months, he discovered a tiny bit of rust on it. He became so frustrated and embarrassed that he drove down to Switzerland and bought the real thing that same day. I took a closer look at it and he pointed out how smooth the sweeping second hand glides over the watch face, and from that day on, I started dreaming of nice watches.

"There is very little that we actually need, but there is nothing wrong with getting something just because you really want it every now and again."

James: "Re ...'that the desire makes no sense because I have no more need for it than I have for a wristwatch'.... YOU LIKE NICE THINGS—WE ALL DO."

James Allen: "It was certainly entertaining to 'ride along' on your mental watch quest. I have been wearing one since I was a kid...which was about 5+ decades ago. So I feel the kinship. I work with a few younger guys now, and I'm the only one wearing a watch. It's my badge of life's experiences, all in one tiny, precise, piece of hardware. I even have to change the date when the month only has 30 days vs. 31, and yet it remains. It anchors me to the past as it tolls the passage of my life."

Open Mike (Again): My New Watch (OT)

[This will be indulgent Writer Mike's LAST watch post for a while. Just in case you are not enjoying these. —Disciplined Editor Mike]

-

I bought a watch. As you might have expected I would. (It's the best way to settle down these little—er, let's be nice to me and call them "enthusiasms"*—to which I intermittently fall prey. "Remember the Wista.")

Monday night I went to look at an Apple Watch (I saw the 40mm SE) at the local Verizon store. It's nice, and much easier to figure out than I feared. But I decided that really the last thing I need is another monthly bill**. [UPDATE: Carl tells me the Apple watch doesn’t incur an additional monthly expense unless you want it to have its own data plan. Otherwise it does all its tricks coordinated with your iPhone. If you’re in the house with WiFi the phone doesn’t even need to be near the watch. Away from WiFi it just needs to be within Bluetooth range. Sorry for the error. —Ed.] Then, yesterday morning, I spent several hours watching videos for alternative smartwatches. Interesting to come up to speed on those a bit, but they don't seem like my thing.

So, surfeited with looking at watches online, I decided I needed a dose of reality. I had to go to Canandaigua yesterday for another reason, so, was there a Seiko Authorized Dealer in Canandaigua? The Seiko website said yes: Crown Jewelry on Main Street.

No substitute for the real thing

It was just the place. I got waylaid on the way in by the many watches in the window, and there were many more inside, including a selection of estate watches. The young lady who helped me quickly decided I was asking questions that were too specific ("what is 10 bar in meters?"), so she went to get "the watch guy."

The watch guy turned out to be a man named Nick (right), who knows all about the stock, is a watch repairman and restorer, and owns 33 watches himself. He was wearing a Seiko dive watch on which he had replaced the stock flat crystal with a convex sapphire one. (I asked him to hold his watch up for this quick phone-snap portrait—made with his permission.) Turns out Nick is a photography enthusiast too—he does mostly macro work, mainly of watches as you might expect. We had an interesting conversation. He does know a whole lot. Not your average store clerk by a long shot.

In person
Seeing actual watches was instructive, too. (As it often is with cameras.) It turns out that I was wrong about the sizes: a 40mm case is not too big; it looks fine. Actually it does look a little more masculine and proportionate than the smaller, more traditional (for Seiko) 37mm case size.

I ended up buying a Seiko SNE031, which does have the smaller 37mm case. Nick says Seiko has been making a version of this model for some 50 years. There was a very similar but larger watch (the one just to the left of the red dot in the first picture), but it didn't display the weekday, which I decided I wanted. There was also a much better-looking watch that I was drawn to at first (just above the red dot), but the face was silvery and a little too close to the same tonal value as the hands once we got it out of the bright light, and I thought I might have trouble reading it in poor light.

Curiously, Monday night, looking at watches on the computer until I was bleary-eyed, I had picked out the Seiko SNE039 as being a candidate that had pretty much what I wanted. (It's an "Amazon's Choice," too.) Turns out that the watch I actually bought is the exact same thing except with a white face instead of black. I didn't even realize until I got home. Hey, at least I'm consistent. Seiko SNE032, Seiko SNE036, Seiko SNE047, and Seiko SNE042 are also all essentially the same watch as mine, just with different cosmetics.

The watch I bought is Solar—that is, driven by a quartz movement with a permanent battery that is recharged by light, an innovation first developed by Citizen.

On the plus side, the SNE031 "disappeared" on my wrist practically as soon as I put it on. Very comfortable. On the negative side, it's tough for me to read the day and date in poor light without my computer glasses on (my eyesight is 20/20 with glasses but worse without them).

With tax, my new watch cost only $1.22 more at Crown Jewelers than Amazon charges. Pretty great for a bricks-'n'-mortar store with a real live expert answering your questions. (He can answer your questions, too—yesterday he was shipping one of the fancier Seikos off to Utah. Call or email him if you want to buy a watch and tell him I sent you.)

So, then, why a watch? As an experiment. Many of you had good reasons for preferring a wristwatch, but I like to try things for myself. So I plan to wear this for a few months to see if I think there really is any advantage, for me, over using the iPhone as a pocket watch.

It'll at least be nostalgic; I wore a Seiko not dissimilar to this for years when I was younger. I enjoy nostalgia.

Experiment Part 2: I set it exactly to the second against the phone. Of course I'll have to reset it at the end of June, but then I'll be able to let it go three straight months without resetting. That should give me a bit of a read on its accuracy. I'll report back then. If I think of it.

Here's an interesting video about the accuracy of quartz movements.

More resources
In case you've been following along these past few days with interest, more tidbits for you: Here's a neat video about how quartz movements work. Explained by Steve Mould. (I wanted a quartz watch. Maybe it's because I was a kid when all the fuss over the Seiko Astron happened, but I find I gravitate to Seiko and I'm a fan of quartz movements. When I bought my first good watch, in Switzerland, at age 14, I bought a Seiko, and I was informed by the shop proprietor in no uncertain terms that it was not proper to buy a Japanese watch as a souvenir of Switzerland! But that was a year after the Astron and a Seiko was what I wanted.)

Another recommendation was supplied by Justin Ting and several other readers: "Confessions of a Watch Geek," a New Yorker article by Gary Shteyngart. Finally, the two best books I've personally read about timekeeping are Revolution in Time by David S. Landes and, especially, Longitude by Dava Sobel, which deservedly won many awards. It's been a long time since I read either, but I remember really liking Longitude, the all-too-human story of the the first marine chronometer and its star-crossed inventor. Along with Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea, one of the best books on tech I've read.

Oh, and the best watch in the world? Not one from the "holy trinity" of Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin, and Patek Philippe. It's a Citizen. That's right, a Citizen. And quartz. Check out the Citizen Eco-Drive Caliber 0100. "The most accurate watch anyone has ever produced, anywhere, ever" (Hodinkee)—accurate to well under two minutes over a human lifetime without external influence. (The best mechanical watches manage the same accuracy over the course of a month.)

Oh...and, right after I bought this, while Nick was still in the back adjusting the band and retrieving the box, I started thinking about what my next watch was going to be. Settle down, Mike.

It's a good thing I'm not rich. I'd just waste more money.   :-)

Mike

*I used to follow common parlance and call it "OCD"—humans love intensifiers—but then I read a book about OCD, which is a very serious disorder on a different level altogether than getting all hot about a new watch (or camera). Calling it "OCD" or "an obsession" is akin to a well-fed individual who hasn't stuffed his face in three hours saying "I'm starving"—something I've also stopped doing. ("You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." —Inigo Montoya.)

**Although it's a significant safety device for seniors who live, or spend time, alone—it can detect a fall and send out a distress signal. So I'll probably have one eventually. Consider Kristine Hinrichs' comment from yesterday:

"I have the Apple Watch for a variety of reasons (excuses for tech). However, the primary reason is the fall detection feature. I’m out alone before dawn almost every day, often along the Lake Michigan shore. I’m paranoid about falling and being alone where no one knows exactly where I am. If I fall, a voice asks if I’m OK. If I don’t respond in 60 seconds, 911 is called. I can also activate it manually. It gives me peace of mind—and keeps my friends and family from worrying. Get the watch."

Product o' the Week:

The Apple Watch Series 6. This is a portal to Amazon from TOP.

The following image is also a link. You support TOP by buying through these portals.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Mark Rouleau: "I too wear a Seiko solar. Supposedly runs for 10 months on two minutes of sunshine. Since I live in Rochester that seemed possible."

Mike replies:  :-)

Howard W. French: "The Seiko SNE039 (black face) is available for $99 on Amazon, which is a pretty dramatic discount if the only difference is cosmetic, i.e. the color scheme."

Mike replies: The prices fluctuate daily and it's a few dollars higher now, but you're basically right—and yes, it is the same watch as mine.

There's a bit more to the story. Quartz watches still account for 97% of the market, in volume, but a lot of the profit in the market now is in luxury mechanical watches, and the high-volume, low-cost makers are in a bit of a bind. As Nick put it to me, "mechanical watches used to be a niche market; now all watches are a niche market." (At least I think he used the word "niche"—maybe he said "specialty.") One of Seiko's huge strengths has long been in making very conservative, plain, but highly capable quartz wristwatches of almost incredibly high value—like that amazing solar watch for a mere ~$100, a triumph of modern technology and manufacturing.

But, and as Sir Mix-a-Lot said it's a very big but, Seiko doesn't really want to be in that segment of the market any more! It's trying to position itself as being more upmarket. So it has actually banished the Essentials line—where all the practical quartz watches reside—from its own main website. If you just go to Seiko's global website, you won't find it listed among its new "brands" categorizations. It still exists, but to get there, you might have to Google "Seiko Essentials." (It's still accessible on seikousa.com). Apparently Seiko would like you to think that its basic line is the 5 Sports automatic line of self-winding mechanical watches (also very high-value, but less accurate, less practical watches than their quartz counterparts). Although it does retain some quartz lineage in some of its flagship Grand Seiko brand watches, including in the groundbreaking new Spring Drive movement, it's passing strange that the progenitor of the quartz revolution is now quietly returning more and more to making mechanical watches.

So the SNE039 is a bit of a threatened species—probably not on the endangered list yet. But actually Seiko is not pushing its traditional strength any more.

Michel Hardy-Vallée: "Seiko and Citizen watches are great products when you want to have appreciable quality and still some leftover lunch money. I read a lot of blogs about watches for a while (yeah, these temporary passions can happen for all sorts of things!), and once I mustered the courage to go to a Rolex store to try one, gape in amazement, and tell the clerk who couldn't give a crap about me that I would think about it. So I eventually got myself one of the Orange Monster watches from Seiko, because I wanted a mechanical movement, and I loved the design of dive watch. I took it diving twice, but now it's mostly my daily timepiece. Since it's mechanical, it's not the most accurate, but I check it regularly and adjust it using the noon signal on the radio. That's what I also do with my grandfather clock, formerly owned by my actual grandfather!"

Herman Krieger: "And, if you need a watch repairer:

Peter Wright: "Patek Philippe sends out a lavishly produced 'free' quarterly magazine to its owner list, so I get a copy every so often. The photography in it is excellent. It always includes good articles on fine art, exotic geographic locations, and of course Patek watches. It comes in the mail in a plain brown heavy duty, opaque plastic envelope, without any company logos or indicators whatsoever: just my name and address. I am sure the postman thinks I subscribe the to the worst imaginable pornography. I fear he may be right!"

Benjamin Marks: "Three things.

"First, congratulations! That Seiko is a great piece and I think/hope it is going to make you very happy.

"Second: Regarding accuracy: I remember a comment made by a watch guy on one of the forums to the effect that he changed watches every day and wound and set the mechanical watches when he put them on after a period of inactivity. In practice this meant that his watches only needed to be accurate over the 18 hours he was wearing them on a given day—a standard (say 15 seconds a day) that almost any watch from the last 30 years could meet.

"Third: watch makers are a crafty breed. There is a Seiko (massive, expensive thing) that talks by radio to an atomic clock several times a day and resets itself according to that standard. So it doesn't need to be accurate to several seconds per human life, because it is adjusting on the fly to a very accurate standard frequently. Clever, although I despair when I think of any situation in my own life that might need that level of precision. The thing is also solar powered, but looks like it weighs enough to leave one arm longer than the other."

Mike replies: Regarding your last point, there are actually two types. One is the so-called radio-controlled watch, which, between the hours of midnight and some very early hour of the morning, will reset itself according to the radio signal broadcast from the atomic clock of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado. (There are other atomic clocks broadcasting elsewhere in the world.) One problem is that some devices won't receive the signal if you live too far away from Denver. As with  all radio reception devices, some are better at pulling in signal than others.

The other is simply a bluetooth watch, which checks in with your smartphone, which gets its time signal from GPS satellites and is generally accurate to 50 milliseconds or less. If you want to find out how accurate your computer or phone is—for those in the U.S.—go to time.gov and it will tell you both the Official U.S. Time and also how far off your device is. My Mac Mini is off by a whopping 152 milliseconds this morning—more than a tenth of a second!—but it's usually far less than that.

Naturally, watch aficionados feel that's cheating, somehow, and that a timepiece should keep track of time independently of other devices. I personally like it. Here's a really gorgeous radio or bluetooth watch that is made for the JDM (Japanese domestic market) but that you can actually buy from an exporter on Amazon, with all of Amazon's protections. It has its own app!

The Oceanus will be accurate right down to its limit of precision virtually all the time. So here's where we need Ctein—well, I do, anyway, maybe you don't. If you have a watch with a jump second hand—that is, a second hand that jumps from one index to the next rather than moving from one to the next smoothly (and we'll assume for the sake of argument that the jump is instantaneous, which obviously it can't be), how accurate can it be? My presumption is that it's exactly correct once a second, but that it can be off by as much as almost a second potentially added to the inaccuracy of the syncing device. That is, if your smartphone is off by 30 ms, then your watch could never be off by more than 1.2999 (9 repeating, however you write that) seconds. Then we would have to add in the watch's possible error in between synchronizations. But I'm definitely no physicist and mathematician. So I'd probably say a quartz watch with a jump second hand that syncs to a phone is probably "accurate to within a second." But that's its accuracy continually, since its rate of error isn't allowed to continue to accrue.

Curiously, re your comment "I despair when I think of any situation in my own life that might need that level of precision," actually our need for time precision in daily life is usually very loose indeed. One cultural norm that might be changing is that when you look at a clock with hands, you will customarily round to the nearest five-minute increment if you're telling someone else the time—sometimes even to the nearest half-hour. If it's 5:22 and someone asks "What time is it?", you might say "about twenty after" but you might also say "coming up on half-past." This could be changing as more and more young people never learn to use a clock with hands and are only familiar with digital readouts. If their phone says "10:13" and someone asks them the time, they'll say "ten-thirteen," not "about quarter after."

In fact, I seem to remember that a young person in our family once asked what "quarter to" meant when I used the expression....

Dori: "Solar Seikos are pretty neat. I went with a Seiko Prospex Padi Solar SNE435P1. I have automatic watches too, but it's nice not to worry about winding them, good in case of a swim (though mainly desk diver for me), and I don't have to worry so much about having something too expensive on my wrist potentially getting banged around. Something else that's a plus, really good luminescence so I don't have to bring out the brightness of the sun from the phone to just read the time at night."

hugh crawford: "You do know that Seiko was also a camera and shutter manufacturer right? Always wanted a Zenobiaflex just because, well, who wouldn’t want a Zenobiaflex?

"There, I fixed that pesky off-topic posting ratio for you."

Ernest Zarate: "I was an elementary school teacher for 30 years (now retired), having taught in a number of different schools and classrooms. All the rooms had a wall clock in them as a standard feature. Anytime I taught intermediate (5th/6th grade) I often covered up the clock with a sign that said: 'Time will pass. Will you?' No one on earth is more attuned to time than students (recess, lunch, dismissal). My goal was to engage the students in their learning enough to have them ask if they could simply keep working rather than leave.

"One room I was in for a few years had a delightfully frustrating wall clock that never told the correct time. It always displayed times that were hours ahead (or behind) the actual time. It would even change its wildly inaccurate time during the day, the hands spinning forward lazily or quickly until they would stop at some other random point. The solution ended up being a trip to IKEA to purchase a $10 wall clock, battery operated. One of many purchases out of my pocket during those three decades.

"Another school had all the classroom clocks tied to the main computer (a huge monolithic thing menacingly hanging on the staff room wall) I dubbed HAL 9000. The clocks would all gain time each week until it would be several minutes fast, making on-time students tardy—and making for unhappy parents. It was the VP’s job to reset the clocks (a mildly onerous, 24-hour process) when the complaints from everyone reached a level she determined as too much.

"I currently have a wristwatch after not having one for a couple decades. I went with the Apple Watch Series 6, as it synced smoothly with my phone and computer. It also has apps that tie to my Tesla and makes sending commands to the car easier than having to dig out my phone. It took a couple of weeks to get used to wearing a watch again, but now it feels pretty good. It does not incur any fees."

Mike Hess: "My grandfather owned a jewelry store in Northwest Minnesota for 39 years. He was trained as a watchmaker after WWII ended. He was a Seiko dealer. I have always had a soft spot for them. I especially love their 1960s designs. After he retired, he held onto all his watch parts and even had a large inventory of repairs that were never picked up. My uncle has his watchmaker's bench and tools. Plus, the pile of old watches belonging to others is there, too."

Followup: Why One Photographer Wanted a Watch

I had tremendous fun yesterday reading everyone's thoughts and comments about my little side-jaunt into watches. I thought as much. This website has the best, smartest, most experienced commenters. It's really flattering to me that you are reading this. Thank you!

A few more resources:

Here's a printable size guide for face sizes. One problem I have is that I don't like large clunky watches—they just don't feel good on my wrist. The feeling I get from them is similar to when you have a spider on you—get it off! And the fashion these days is distinctly for large watches. Of course it depends not just on preference but also on the size of your wrist. You can clip these out and put the cutout on your wrist to get a pretty good idea how a certain size watch will look on you. 

Here's a short, sweet introduction to the difference between quartz and automatic watches. Won't take up much of your time.

A very kind reader, a watch collector, is actually sending me a watch! Can't wait to see what he has in store for me.

Billionaire bling
If I were going to become a watch aficionado, I think I might be most interested in cheap watches...less than $200 maybe, with an absolute top limit of around $400. As Albert Smith points out, I'd be in good company—there are many pictures floating around the web of Bill Gates wearing one of these:

It's a Casio 200M Duro Analog, and you can have one too for a $50 bill...and get change back.

I don't know, though—isn't it pretty snobby to ape the superrich? Every time you checked the time, people would see you unleash the dazzle and go whoa, who do you think you are, Bill Gates?

Regarding servicing, Stephen Gilbert tells me he bought a Rolex explorer for $195 plus sales tax of 2% in 1969. When he had it serviced last Fall, the servicing cost $1,600, and Rolex insisted on replacing the hands and crystal—which they keep, so I hear, to prevent the old parts from being used to add patina to fakes.

Chris R contributed this quick little 4-minute video of a trashed Tissot being restored. Wonderful.

SmartMike
The watch I'm most seriously considering buying is an Apple Watch with a blood oxygen sensor. I suffer from sleep apnea, and the health-monitoring benefits of a smartwatch seem like they might be worth the cost in added life-complexity. Unfortunately I wouldn't know until well after I bought it.

The wristwatch I would most want, typically, doesn't exist. It would be a smartwatch with no smart features...just an always-on OLED screen with a classic watch face design in an elegant case that keeps perfect time and doesn't do anything else. A dumb smartwatch. It would never sell. I love digital analog displays, though—someday I'll have a car with one.

As always, as Michel Hardy-Vallée points out, XKCD has the correct perspective on all philosophical problems:

You need to check your messages?
And although lots of people had good reasons why they wear a watch, Michael Ryan provided a good reason why a photographer might want a watch:

"I bought a watch to keep track of time while shooting. If I'm on a job in an office and I have six hours to shoot 12 locations I have to watch (no pun intended) that I don't spend too much time at each location. I used to check the time on my phone but I became conscious that it might look like I was constantly checking my messages during the shoot. So I bought a nice Tissot for under 300 dollars. It looks stylish and it's so much easier and more graceful than pulling your phone out of your pocket."

That's valid. I can see that. Appearances are everything.

Finally, I realized, belatedly, that I do own a watch! It's this one:

Cute. Available on Amazon. Nice case and everything. I'd never wear it....

Mike

The following image is a link:

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Bill Tyler: "My guess is that if you do buy an iWatch, you'll be surprised at how useful it is. It's hard to describe convincingly, but I'm on my second iWatch, and my only complaint is that I'd like a longer battery life between charges."

Kenneth Tanaka: "Re 'The watch I'm most seriously considering buying is an Apple Watch with a blood oxygen sensor. I suffer from sleep apnea, and the health-monitoring benefits of a smartwatch seem like they might be worth the cost in added life-complexity.'

I admit, shamefully, that I am something of a closet watch lover myself. On my desk I have a case with a dozen watches, all solar-powered (Seikos and Citizens mostly), basking near the window under their glass-topped case. I doubt I’ve worn any of them for over a year. Why? Because they’re utterly obsolete. Like film cameras they do one thing in one way and that’s it. But they are sure nice to look at. And I do rather lust for mechanics watches sometimes…but only had really a valuable one once, during my 'I'm a master of the universe' phase of life.

"For the past two years the Apple Watch has been my companion. Honestly, it’s been literally 'wonder'-ful, with each new generation introducing even more sophistication. Specifically to your interest in the Apple Watch’s pulse-oxygen facility, yup, it works…kinda. You should realize that it is a bit touchy and not nearly as consistently accurate as a plain ol’ fingertip pulse-ox meter. To quote one of my heroes, Elmer Fudd, 'You must be vewy, vewy, still!' for it to make a reading. And the readings will nearly always be lower than the true finger reading by a few points. But as long as you don’t take it too literally it’s good.

"The more valuable 'health' feature of the Apple Watch is the two-point ECG meter. Some years back I suffered from AFIB and lament that the watch’s ECG wasn’t yet available.

"There are many reasons to get a smart-watch, Mike, and hardly any reasons not to."

Jack Mac: "Your first watch post reminded me that I have several nice watches that I no longer wear and yes I am one of those people who check their pocket watch called the cell phone. So after reading at TOP that checking my cell phone for the time was intrusive, I strapped on one of those nice watches. It wasn’t until reading today’s post on watches that I remembered I had a watch on my wrist! I had automatically been checking the time on my iPhone."

Mike replies: Funny. Reminds me of my early days with the iPhone 4s (my first one) when I'd be out and see something and think, damn, wish I had a camera with me. It took me an embarrassingly long time to remember that, oh yeah, the iPhone is a camera too.

Tom Burke: "I went from automatic watches—a UK brand, Christopher Ward—to the Apple Watch. I’d wondered about an Apple Watch for a long, long time, but couldn’t convince myself. However the improvements in the Series 5 were enough, though I bought the cheapest version (aluminium) in my size.

"Twenty-one months or so on, I love it; wouldn’t be without it. My wife says I let it run my life; my view is that the watch curates it….

"Why did I switch? Well, I enjoyed wearing the two automatic watches I had, but it came time to get them serviced (!) and that was a bit of a hassle. Also, one of them had got pretty beat up and no longer looked as good. I looked at their current offerings and discovered that the latest version of the watch I owned now cost almost twice what I had paid for mine just six years earlier—they had found that their market would bear those increases (£350 to £700).

"Given that I am completely immersed in the Apple eco-system—Macs, iPads, iPhone, TV streaming box, AirPods—an Apple Watch was always going to fit in with my existing technology. I’m a happy user."

Speed: "This is reportedly the most watched (!) appraisal ever on Antiques Roadshow. Hold on...the appraisal that floored our guest, literally! See Peter Planes appraise a Rolex Oyster Cosmograph and documentation, ca. 1971, in Bonanzaville, Hour 1."

Mike replies: Wonderful, that. I think I've watched it about three times over the years. I think some of the crew actually thought he'd had a health event.

Christer Almqvist: "Sometime in the mid 1970s I sat at a table near the Volvo CEO (Gyllenhammar) in a Stockholm restaurant. He wore two watches, one on the left wrist and one on the right. That was his USP [unique selling proposition —Ed.] and well known by everybody in Sweden. My then girlfriend (now wife), a foreign national, asked me why he wore two watches. 'Local time and New York time,' I answered. Totally unimpressed, she commented: 'Can't he figure out New York time in his head with one watch showing local time?' Too many and too-expensive watches may backfire."

Ronnie A Nilsen: "Would have loved an Apple watch, but the battery life is not what I want. I have aa Garmin smart watch, that can do the same as the Apple watch (pulse, blood oxygen, GPS etc.) but can go a week between recharging. And the watch-face can be as simple or complicated as you want it. The Scanwatch from Withings might be what you want."

Woz Alexander: "I have the Withings Scanwatch, and as an ex-Apple Watch owner it's a breath of fresh air. It can do all the notifications if you want it to, but you can also just use it as a watch and let it do its health thing in the background. SPO2, ECG, Steps, Distance, Heartrate and sleep...and it lasts a month (-ish) on a charge. The Apple Watch only lasting a day is a massive downside, especially if you hope to do sleep monitoring as you don't have time to charge it. I also have a bunch of mechanical watches, but they don't get a look-in now I have the Scanwatch."

Al C.: "As a disciple from the school of he who dies with the most toys wins, I have throughout my life indulged and immersed my spare time in complex machines with ineffable qualities, from cars, to HiFis, to cameras, to—for a very short time—watches.

"For a year or so I studied the history of horology, the holy trinity of Vacheron, AP and Patek, and the lineage of the famous movements. In the process, I acquired a couple high-end watches with the most venerated movements (calibers), notably the 2003 and the 2120. I was on the verge of acquiring what seemed to me the grail watch—an equation of time with perpetual calendar—when it dawned on me that watches are a total waste of time. Unlike cars and HiFis and cameras which one can compare, tinker with and fuss over without end, a watch is an impenetrable, inert, passive device. All one can do is to gawk at it.

"Take the perpetual calendar complication. To appreciate its function, one has to wait for the singular moment which comes but once every four years. And even then, one has to stay awake through midnight of the 28th of February. Even so, all that is really needed to implement this complication is a bunch of cams.

"Or take that other cherished complication, the chronograph. To achieve that with the ultimate precision, one needs a column wheel to implement in effect a ridiculously crude state machine, and a vertical clutch. At least, it does need more than cams. I own one with the thinnest of such movements. But I have never used the chronograph function for any practical purpose, except once to time a parking meter. I got a ticket anyway, because I forgot to look at my watch until too late. It's useless, unlike the alarm app on my phone.

"The one watch I do not regret acquiring is a Tiffany-Patek minute-repeater pocket watch. The mechanism is indeed interesting and fascinating. The gong does sound wonderful. But what makes this special is that it belonged to Phillip Franklin, VP of the White Star Line, who famously—allegedly—pronounced the Titanic unsinkable."

John Hagen: "When I am with other people and look at my watch I am telling them I am simply paying attention to the time. If I look at a smartwatch or phone, I am signalling that I am not paying attention to the person in front of me."

Kristine Hinrichs: "I have the Apple Watch for a variety of reasons (excuses for tech). However, the primary reason is the fall detection feature. I’m out alone before dawn almost every day, often along the Lake Michigan shore. I’m paranoid about falling and being alone where no one knows exactly where I am. If I fall, a voice asks if I’m OK. If I don’t respond in 60 seconds, 911 is called. I can also activate it manually. It gives me peace of mind—and keeps my friends and family from worrying. Get the watch."

Kenneth Wajda: "I have a few Skagen (Danish) watches I picked up for $5 each at an estate sale. Like them a lot. Small and thin. You'd like them, Mike.

"Years ago, I was headed to Washington D.C. for a big annual photo shoot, and at the Denver airport realized I forgot my watch. I stopped in a newsstand store (candy, books, headrest pillows) and saw a display of $10 watches. I picked one, and it made the shoot much more enjoyable than if I had to rely on the phone. The remarkable thing is it had a face with a series of metallic circles and when I wore it, people everywhere commented on it. When I reached for the elevator button in the Senate building, 'Nice watch.' When I ordered at restaurants, 'Cool watch.' And it was. It was cheap but looked cool. It lasted about two years before it needed a battery and a band and I got a replacement watch instead. But it will always be the one I got the most comments on, hands down. All that for a tenner!"

Mike replies: Thus the category of "fashion watches," those made to be style statements. And nothing wrong with that.

Open Mike: Why a Watch?

[Ed. note: "Open Mike" is replacing "Sunday Support Group" this week because...well, because I wrote this.]

-

I write about photographing so I write, perforce, on consumerism sometimes. (I love that old Englishy word "perforce," although I seldom use it. An adverb "used to express necessity or inevitability," it means "by force of circumstance." It's very rare in modern speech—not sure I've ever heard anyone actually say it—but you'll find it sprinkled here and there in writings by and about the 18th-century Enlightenment authors I enjoy. I'm currently reading a biography of Swift—not Taylor—and a book about the friendship between David Hume and Adam Smith.)

Guy Who Likes Watches
I write about photographing so I write perforce on consumerism, but here's one that flummoxes me. Recently I clicked on a video comparing an extremely expensive watch with an extremely good so-called fake of the same watch. The video kept showing pictures comparing the one with the other, but the pictures were unlabeled, as if I was supposed to be able to tell which was which...and that I could not do.

I ended up thinking the "fake" was misnamed. Actually it's an unauthorized replica. Even the fake costs a thousand dollars, which struck me as absurdly expensive for a watch. Hasn't it been possible to buy a perfectly good watch for a hundred dollars since quartz movements got cheap? Wikipedia tells me the quartz-watch era began more than half a century ago with the Seiko Astron of December, 1969, which cost as much as a mid-sized car at first. I remember that.

Military-style $129 quartz watch. It runs on light, you can wear it water-skiing, and it has illuminated hands. What's not to like?

I don't know what the problem is with a replica Rolex if it costs ten thousand dollars less than the real thing but even an expert can't tell the difference. Except the name; that's a problem. If it's not a Rolex, then it shouldn't be called a Rolex. That's where the fraud comes in. If I were the maker, I'd just call it a Folex (my friend Dan's name for fake Rolexes) and just be up-front that it's a replica.

I'm sure certain patented elements would need to be changed, like the little crown logo. There's nothing wrong, in my mind, though, with replicas. Superformance Shelby Cobra replicas are apparently allowed to use the Shelby and Cobra names now. I don't know the details. But in any event, the new replicas are better than the original cars in just about every way. Except being original.

After fate made me click on that darned watch video, the Dementors of the Internet, AKA the algorithms attempting to take over our lives, decreed that I shall be interested in watches. So watch videos started popping up on my YouTube, watches started appearing in ads targeted at me and in my email inbox—watches all over the dang digi-place. And I sort of am interested, although I didn't know I was. The Dementors aren't right, but they're not wrong. So, being, as I am, online-content-wise, a sheep, I've now watched some more watch videos here and there, and read some articles about watches...you know, just browsing. Which makes the Dementors double down. (Never encourage them.) So now I'm apparently a Guy Who Likes Watches in the files of the invisible but omnipresent Big Brothers of consumerism.

The question
In reality, though, I am, as I said, flummoxed. Why would anyone want a watch?

 

Followup: The Burning Monk

I read once (in this rather scary little book) that as we age, we tend to get better at the things we were always good at and worse at the things we were always bad at. Accordingly, I'm getting even less organized as I age, if such a thing is possible. In any event, I somehow neglected to load the Featured Comments for the "Burning Monk" post...or rather I did, but then I managed to inadvertently default to an earlier version in the compositor (which happens from time to time, despite my efforts) and away they went again. They've been restored now (here's the post again).

Louis McCullagh sent a link:

"I visited the monk's monastery on the banks of the Perfume River. The car was there with details of The Burning Monk."

And Guy Tremblay sent a photo of the car, now on display as a relic.

Photo by Guy Tremblay

Thanks to Louis, Guy, and the other commenters.

Mike

Book of interest* this week:

A Better Life for their Children by Andrew Feiler, University of Georgia Press, published last month. Read the description at the link—fascinating. It's the story of one of the earliest philanthropic collaborations between Jews and African Americans, one that drove dramatic improvement in black education. The story's told visually. *"Book of Interest" means I haven't seen it, but would like to.

The following image is also a link: 

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

What Is an 'Art Photographer'?

Art photography, AKA fine art photography, is just a way of doing photography. It's either a mode of approach or a mode of practice. I'll start with the latter first because it's easy to describe.

Mode of practice: I'll just sort of sketch the standard traditional post-1970 convention; obviously there are many variations. An art photographer typically works on discrete projects, creating what are called "bodies of work." There are tandem goals: to "show" or to be collected. A show can be anything from inclusion in a juried group show or being displayed at a commercial art gallery, to a solo retrospective at a major museum (a "retrospective" attempts to represent the artist's entire career up to the time of the exhibition, and usually is reserved for mid-life or later). These accomplishments are typically listed chronologically, most recent first, in a curriculum vitae (CV) that also includes related accomplishments such as the photographer's academic education and photo-related awards and grants. To be collected is to have one of your prints purchased by a museum for its permanent collection, or by a private buyer known to be collecting along some sort of coherent guidelines or principles (i.e., not just someone who is buying a few pictures haphazardly as decor, for instance). These are also listed on the CV, although sometimes private collectors don't want to be listed by name.

Often, although not always, the art photographer will have a job that relates to her work, for instance teaching at the college level or higher. Many successful art photographers have what's called "gallery representation," meaning they have been selected to be among those artists with an ongoing exclusive or limited association with an art gallery. Finally, a crowning accomplishment for an art photographer is to have their work published in books, called monographs, produced by established publishing houses. A monograph is a book showcasing pictures by a single photographer. Really successful art photographers see their every project reach book form. The highest level of this—the apotheosis, you might say—might be Steidl attempting to publish virtually everything Robert Frank ever created.

Here's a typical exhibition record for a successful photographer, this one for British landscape photographer Jem Southam, maintained by his American gallery, Robert Mann.

Usually, many of these accomplishments support and amplify each other. In many cases photographers work very hard to add to their CVs, and looking at the categories exposes how their activities are focused. A thorough CV might include:

• Solo and two-person shows
• Selected group shows
• Awards and grants
• Collections (institutions or individuals who hold the photographer's work)
• Publications (meaning, of the photographer's own work)
• Selected bibliography (meaning, published writing about the photographer or her work)
• It also might or might not include a record of his or her education and a selected work history, depending on where the CV is presented and whether the education and work history is relevant.

Also, the bigger the name, the more selective the CV. Smaller, earlier accomplishments drop off the list as later, more impressive ones are added. Robert Adams's gallery lists just a few of his museum shows—but in formidable venues such as the Jeu de Paume, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, the Getty, and SF MoMA—as well as a longer list of articles about him in major arts and generalist publications. That's considered enough. A comprehensive CV for him would run to many pages with hundreds of entries.

Sometimes, photographers are so "big" that they dispense with the CV altogether—the implication being that they're so famous they don't need one. But you'd be surprised at how many photographers who we would consider to be well established are still marketing themselves and struggling for their share of the available oxygen.  

Speaking of which, note that one thing that wouldn't be included in a traditional art photography CV would be a client list and tearsheets, meaning published advertisements or other kinds of commercial photography clipped from paper publications and so forth. Although, at a very high level, top commercial photographers segue (easily or uneasily) into art-photographer mode, a harder trick for lesser names to pull off without detracting from their status on one side or the other of the divide. An example of this was the subject of one of my earliest published reviews, top fashion photographer Richard Avedon's art-photography project "In the American West." From the other direction, a number of well-known art photographers now and in the past are available to be hired for commercial work, but you'd never know it from their resumés.

It's worth noting that the career activities sketched above are changing, in ways that are not yet standardized, defined, or universally accepted. Younger and newer photographers and digital imagers are sidestepping the traditional gatekeepers (and also sometimes the hegemony of mainstream academic and critical taste) by exhibiting their work and becoming known on social media and by connecting with new audiences in innovative and unconventional ways. The young Moldovan-American photographer Masha Sardari, to name a single example, has 8.8k followers on Facebook.

Mode of approach: Of course, you can still be an "art photographer" even if you don't practice as one. What distinguishes an art photographer in that case?

Don't hold me to this, because definitions are fraught with peril, but, basically, any time you see a picture that's more about the photographer and what they're trying to say than it is a record or a document of what's pictured, you're in the neighborhood of art photography. Art photographers are self-directed, and their work is about feelings, ideas, and effects on the viewer more than it is about the subjects of the pictures. The difference can be very subtle, as in the distinction between an advertising photograph of the Marlboro Man and Richard Prince's copy of the same picture, or the workmanlike photographs in Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel's Evidence transformed by being curated as, and presented as, art. Art photography is about expression. "Expressive photography" is almost a synonym.

But do note that in "self-directed," both parts of the term are important. Art photography isn't directed or dictated by others, and it might not serve an immediate purpose, but it absolutely is directed—in many cases highly so. Just because nobody tells a hobbyist what to do and he photographs whatever he pleases doesn't make him an art photographer. Look at the work of basically any famous art photographer you care to name and you'll see someone with a strong or even obsessive sense of what he or she is after, and, usually, highly developed and coherent strategies as to how to get there. Many of their aims, intentions, theories and philosophies, means of communication, and what they're trying to express can be radically different from those same things in other photographers, often highly distinctive just to their own work. Compare the work of Diane Arbus, say, with that of Bernd and Hilla Becher, for instance, or Julie Blackmon's work to that of Daido Moriyama. It's entirely impossible to mistake either for the other.

Julie Blackmon

Daido Moriayama

With different intents, means, and strategies, no one could
ever mistake one of these art photographers for the other.

What else it is
I'd also make the claim that art photography can depend on not only what the photographer is trying to say but how he or she says it, whether that means beautiful alternative processes such as Pt/Pd from LF negs, or intricate Photoshop creations, or photo-based mixed media. This claim is somewhat outside of current art establishment norms and links more to craft traditions, but hey, I've always lived and worked in the trenches, never in ivory towers; and I look at things primarily with sympathy to the concerns of the photographers.

In any case, "art photography" is a highly defined term, and very well understood among those to whom it's important (although such people do tend to like to play with the boundaries). It's no more pretentious to call someone an "art photographer" than it is to call someone a lawyer or a carpenter.

It would be great fun to run through a range of various kinds of art photography, with examples, but that's the kind of project a blog writer would never have time for...maybe a three-week to three-month writing project. Too much of a luxury for me.

Hope this helps, though, as far as it goes.

Mike

Book of interest* this week:

A Better Life for their Children by Andrew Feiler, University of Georgia Press, published last month. Read the description at the link—fascinating. It's the story of one of the earliest philanthropic collaborations between Jews and African Americans, one that drove dramatic improvement in black education. The story's told visually. *"Book of Interest" means I haven't seen it, but would like to.

The following image is also a link. You support TOP by buying through these portals.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Colin: "Fascinating! Thanks for this. I've often wondered about the term. Is it now slightly old-fashioned or still in regular use? Personally, I struggle with all such definitions as, of course, is the right of anyone making stuff. I've never liked the terms street, landscape, portrait, etc. I don't even much like the term photographer which I know is ridiculous because it's my primary tool and way of engaging with the world. No-one likes feeling boxed in, and language both defines and enables and limits and directs. The introductory text on my website keeps getting honed down and pared away; sometimes I wonder whether I'll end up with just 'My name is Colin Buttimer'!"

Joe: "Years ago I gave a lecture and slideshow to a group at the National Arts Club in Manhattan, talking about my work as a fine art photographer, and at the end I took questions. One very skeptical guy in the crowd, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, challenged me, 'What exactly is a fine art photographer?' Off the top of my head I said that's a photographer who shoots with the goal of having his prints hang on a wall. I thought to myself, that's probably the most concise possible definition. Next question."

Kenneth Tanaka: "As a nightcap to this topic I think some TOP readers might enjoy this tangentially-related new book by Andy Grundberg: How Photography Became Contemporary Art: Inside an Artistic Revolution from Pop to the Digital Age. I've only recently started it myself but it's bound to alternately make you laugh and to probably anger you. Grundberg is a good, albeit rather dry, writer on photography in the art world with many seminal titles to his name."

Ah, Youth

I mentioned yesterday the occasion (the ice cream walk) when, at the age of about 42, I accepted the diminished role photographing actually played in my real life. At the time I was no longer a professional and I had made not much if any headway toward a career as an art photographer. I was a single parent and working as editor-in-chief of Photo Techniques magazine, and those two things soaked up most of my energy. I still regularly developed film at the kitchen sink every two or three nights.

But what a change that was from my earlier youth! I had a boundless enthusiasm for photography when I was younger. I first realized it could be a job for me when, as a college dropout, I went into the darkroom in the evening and, before I knew it, saw dawn out the window of the basement laundry room where I washed my prints—I had worked hard the whole night and hardly felt the effort. I immersed myself in the culture and literature of the medium, experimented with techniques, haunted used bookstores for good books, saved my money for gear. "Obsessed" is the usual term—"ate, slept, and breathed photography" is another way of putting it. Working during the day as a carpenter and handyman, I took a second job at a frame shop just to learn how to mat and frame my work. Do I wish I had pictures of the odd and very distinctive world I lived in as a handyman, and all the quirky characters who populated it? I'd give a lot for that.

At the frame shop I heard about the Corcoran's photography program and applied. The advantage of art school was mainly that I could concentrate on photography all day long and yet still be doing what I was supposed to be doing! That was heaven for me. I took advantage of it. Although a slob in "real life," I kept everything at school fastidiously neat; although lazy in most things, I decided to work my hardest at school, and I did. I ended up teaching Summer courses, being a stand-in lab manager for the school darkrooms, and frequently worked in the darkroom till midnight before walking the several miles home to my apartment in Georgetown. I kept my camera with me at all times; I made regular circuits of all the museums and galleries in D.C. to look at work. One of my prouder moments was when a guard at the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division saw me leaving and blurted out, "Jesus Christ, do you live here?" They let me call up portfolios of master prints from throughout photography's past and look at them up close and personal, sitting at a table, without glass (although for the really valuable old work, you weren't allowed to touch—at first, a member of the museum staff had to stand there and shuffle through the prints for me. It was only a short time before they learned I was reliable and could be trusted, so they dispensed with that requirement). I looked through all of the original FSA prints on file from the '30s—a formidable task, as there are thousands and thousands of them. Of course I saw all of the exhibits at the Corcoran itself and went to all the lectures, and got to meet all sorts of people, from Emmet Gowin's wife Edith (the main subject of his famous first monograph) to August Sander's grandson Gerd, half a generation older than I. Do I have photographs that simply document the people and places of the long-gone Corcoran darkrooms and all the people I knew then? A few, but only randomly. Do I wish I had made a more coherent visual record? Boy, do I ever. All those pictures I made back then, and I don't have the ones I really want.

When I realized it was impossible to go to graduate school, which I really should have done to continue the career trajectory on which I was embarked, I made an ambitious list of 11 things that a photography teacher should ideally know—I figured if I couldn't get a Masters degree, I could at least "master" the subject on my own by working hard independently. A few of those goals proved impossible. One was to work at a photography museum for six months. I tried several times, until the formidable Smithsonian curator Eugene Ostroff explained to me that it was an insolent goal because supplicants worked very hard for access to the positions that I proposed to experience as a dilettante. But I think I actually eventually accomplished nine of the 11. I actually did curate a public show, and publish a book, and assist for a top-level commercial studio pro for six months, and so forth. Alas, the "piece of paper" turned out to be just as important, if not more so, than the actual knowledge and life experience.

Anyway, I just wanted to mention my ambitious and engaged younger years in photography as a counterpoint to my admission of yesterday. I don't want younger readers to think I'm just an old fuddy-duddy whose ambition goes no further than making casual family snapshots on an evening walk. I mean, that is what I am, but that's what I've become...because with age comes hard reality. It wasn't always that way.

About photographing
And here's a question I'll ask myself and answer just for fun. If I had anything to do differently, what would it be, looking back from the vantage point of traditional "retirement age"*? First I should say, emphatically, that I don't regret anything about my current situation. It's an honor and a privilege to write TOP, and it suits me just fine. I've worked very hard at it—one year in the early 2010s I worked ten hours a day, seven days a week, and took fewer than 10 days off in the entire year—but it's always been a pleasure.

I really should have gotten an MFA, though. The lack of it stunted my career in ways I can only guess. In the '90s, A.D. Coleman and I hatched a plan that each of us was going to be the other's graduate advisor, and we were both going to get MFA's under Bill Jay at Arizona, working independently. Bill was amenable to our plan. But then Bill retired soon afterward. I guess it was too late by then anyway—it turned out to be one of those great ideas that got floated but then floats off like a helium balloon you let go of. You need to do things in the proper order in life, each in their sensible sequence.

But, specifically about photographing—my actual practice as a photographer making photographs—I do wish I had been able to do differently, looking back. This might sound rather odd, but what I wish I had done was to continue to shoot 35mm Tri-X my whole life, and make simple 8x10 RC prints myself, and document the times and the people in my life in the quirky, idiosyncratic, go-my-own-way, follow-my-own-muse fashion that I wanted to. I used to call it my "Photo 101 technique." That's what I loved doing the most. I actually have a very short essay or artist's statement I wrote way back in the very beginning of my adult involvement with photography that sets out almost exactly that course. All I needed to do was follow it. I wanted to be like Atget...keep shooting the same way persistently as the technique of my youth got obsolescent and then obsolete, true to the same muse all the way to the inn. Ah, well.

In the '80s, when I was teaching full time, a mentor convinced me I needed make bigger, more imposing prints if I wanted to have any success in the art world, and that I needed to move from one coherent, definable project to another that was distinct from the last. I did that for a while, dutifully. Then came magazine work and reviewing, which obliged me to switch from camera to camera and technique to technique. And then came the (disruptive!) transition to digital, which shook everything up.

But little did I know then that a) I wasn't going to have any art-world success anyway, and b) 8x10 RC prints would have carried me through the transition to the digital era just fine: add an ordinary letter-sized flat-bed scanner and I would have stepped over the divide into the online era as neatly as you please, but entirely on my own chosen terms.

You don't really need to do any particular thing in your work, except exactly what you are driven to do. It will actually serve, as long as you commit.

I'm happy enough anyway. Things worked out. No complaints. Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans**.

I think that's enough of these discursive reminiscences! Time to move on to other topics, starting tomorrow. Is there anything you'd like to read an "Open Mike" about?

Mike

*I'm not retiring. Standard joke: "my retirement plan is to keep working."

**The quote is by Allen Saunders, the American writer, journalist and cartoonist who wrote the comic strips "Steve Roper and Mike Nomad," "Mary Worth." and "Kerry Drake." The quote first appeared in a 1957 Reader's Digest article. It was made famous by ex-Beatle John Lennon, who used it in the lyrics of the song "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)" dedicated to his son Sean.

Book of interest* this week:

A Better Life for their Children by Andrew Feiler, University of Georgia Press, published last month. Read the description at the link—fascinating. It's the story of one of the earliest philanthropic collaborations between Jews and African Americans, one that drove dramatic improvement in black education. The story's told visually. *"Book of Interest" means I haven't seen it, but would like to.

The following image is also a link: 

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Mark: "And as a famous pugilist once quipped: Everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

Mark van der Wal: "Thanks Mike for your article. Your sustained passion makes sense having heard your history, enthusiasm and determination from your youth. So much more to the story as we read of your background and experiences. How does one even quantify the value of viewing so many photographic prints in teaching terms or just mere artistic influence? A regular reader for many years. Thank you."

Blake Andrews: "I found myself nodding along as I read this. Obsessed. Check. Shoot film every day? Check. Develop regularly in the sink? Check. No MFA, check. Career trajectory dormant? Check. Long darkroom sessions leading to RC print piles? Check. I’ve plugging away at film photography for 25 years (half a million frames and counting) and I haven’t lost interest yet. I suppose the obsession diminishes for some. Hope I don’t ever reach that point, but of course the future is unwritten. Thanks for the heartfelt post. Check."

Energy and Appetite

Tom Burke said yesterday: "Here's another thought to add: is it possible that when you stop feeling that you're learning new skills and gaining new knowledge but are instead just garnering experience, the passion for (whatever it is) just drops? Not just photography, but lots of endeavours? The 'Do I really want to do this for the rest of my life?' moment?"

A few thoughts about that. First, golf, exhibits 1, 2, and 3 (I'm going somewhere with this, so bear with me):

1. An old commercial: the professional golfer Tom Kite, then at the top of the game, and another golfer are seen getting massages. The other guy asks Kite if he's going to play in an upcoming tournament in Hawaii. They discuss it, sounding glum. Kite, in a resigned tone of voice, concedes that he's being paid an appearance fee to go and he's getting the trip for free, so he sighs and says something like, "I suppose I have to." The joke, of course, was that most weekend warriors would kill to get a free trip to Hawaii to play golf. To me, however, the advertisers' message backfired and an alternate moral was more clear: if you have to do something too much, even a thing that to most people is a special pleasure can become a chore.

2. Once I was out on a golf course with my brothers, playing 18 holes on a regulation course (as opposed to the adjacent par-three course which was more my speed). As the hands on my watch wore past three hours, I suddenly realized I'd had quite enough of golf: I was thoroughly tired of laboring against my own swing and would have quit for the day right then and there if it were easy and polite to do. Had to grind through two or three more holes after that, though.

3. After Vijay Singh won his Masters, tales were told of his epic appetite for practice. Legend had it that after his win, he went to the range and striped the tee until dark. Wikipedia says, "he is known for his meticulous preparation, often arriving hours before, and staying long after, his tournament rounds to work on his game on the driving range and putting greens."

All these things had a decisive effect on me: I never wanted to be a professional golfer. No, let me re-word that: I wanted to never be a professional golfer! Not that I ever could have been—I have slightly more talent for golf than an armadillo has for hacky-sack. But I never had the slightest desire, even in daydreams. No, thank you: I decided I was perfectly happy to blither my way around a par-three course a handful of times a year. That matched my appetite for the game. (I don't even do that any more, although I miss the camaraderie with my bros.) Sink to your level and embrace it!

It's the same way with pool, if the truth be told. I love pool, and I think it's a fascinating game and I'm better at it than most armadillos. But do I have the discipline and patience to run through my "daily" practice routine every single morning? No, sir, I do not. And I know lots of drills, but an hour spent drilling is fifteen minutes too long for me. Would I have wanted to be a pro pool player? Well, the level of skill of Jayson Shaw or Alexandros Kazakis would be great fun to possess, and it's thrilling to watch. (For me anyway.) But even if I were young I would never have the patience to put in the time it takes to get to that level. And I know it.

Be an amateur
I think I first applied this realization to photography following an after-dinner walk with my son, who was then about six, to get ice cream, back when we lived in the town where Groundhog Day was filmed, Woodstock, Illinois. I had along a Contax Aria camera and a Zeiss Contax 35mm ƒ/2.8 lens (still have the lens) and two rolls of Kodak Tri-X. The evening was beautiful and the light was particularly nice. When I got home I developed the film at the kitchen sink and the next day I proofed the two rolls and in my makeshift basement darkroom and made eight or ten nice prints on 8x10 paper using my amateur-level enlarger*. The handful of prints were a highly competent documentary of that particular walk, but beyond that, nothing particularly special.

I decided at the time that that was about the perfect level of involvement in photographing for me.

I like to photograph—it's an essential part of our medium's culture, and the culture of photography is one of my three or four main interests. But do I have the will and the desire to do it every day, all day? I've always been pretty clear that I don't. Note that there are critics who aren't photographers at all—A.D. Coleman comes to mind—so it's not essential to be a photographer to be immersed in its culture or to write about it.

After that, though, when parents would contact me asking if I thought photography school was a sensible investment for their children, it put me in a quandary. I loved photography school: I feel toward the Corcoran School of Art all the sentimental attachment alums are supposed to feel for their beloved alma mater. It was a great privilege to attend for three years and I enjoyed it intensely. Virtually all my experiences there and all of my many memories are good ones. But no, when viewed without rose-tinted glasses, actually art school is probably a particularly poor allotment of resources if what you're trying to do is equip your progeny to deal with the task of making their way in the world. I felt disloyal to the Corcoran in advising against all it had offered me, and I especially didn't want to pour cold water on any kid's dreams, so I avoided the question when it was possible; but on the other hand I didn't want to lie to parents. A genuine dilemma.

My recommendation to anyone who asks is that one simply should have a thick, tough skin in evaluating and appraising what to do for a living. Photography is more likely to be rewarding—and more pleasurable—if one's practice of it is somewhere in the range between dabbling and a dedicated long-term avocation. We all have to come to terms with where our photography fits in our lives.

Chase the dream
And if someone really wants to do it "all in," full-time, front line, do or die, the first questions to ask, and ask comprehensively, would be about a.) their energy level, and b.) their appetite for work. Those are the two essentials that must be present if you ask me. If both those things are genuinely high, they have a chance. In which case, I tip my hat to them.

Mike

*Which did however have a top-flight lens. I still have not one but two, one for each fist when they bury me I guess!

Book of interest* this week:

A Better Life for their Children by Andrew Feiler, University of Georgia Press, published last month. Read the description at the link—fascinating. It's the story of one of the earliest philanthropic collaborations between Jews and African Americans, one that drove dramatic improvement in black education. The story's told visually. *"Book of Interest" means I haven't seen it, but would like to.

The following image is also a link: 

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Richard Skoonberg: "Mike, thank you for promoting Andrew Feiler's wonderful book, A Better Life for Their Children. The story and images describing the legacy of the Rosenwald Schools are both fascinating and deeply moving. Rosenwald was the CEO of Sears in the early twentieth century. He and Dr. Booker T. Washington created a plan to build schools in the rural South so black school children could attend school in the Jim Crow era. To build the schools, the black community put up a third of the money, the local school board put up a third of the money, and Rosenwald put in the final third. These were often one and two-room schoolhouses with one or two teachers with a K-12 curriculum. These schools helped to create a generation that provided the leaders for the Civil Rights movement. Andrew Feiler's book is the first photographic survey of these schools.

"As a side note, Andrew is a member of our local photo-crit group, so we were able to watch this book project from its inception. Currently, many of the images from the book are one display at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in downtown Atlanta."

Mike replies: Thanks for sending me the PDF sample pages from the book, Richard (downloadable here). I enjoyed that.

Geoff Wittig: "That's a perfect summary of what's necessary to find a calling in life. Energy and boundless appetite for work are prerequisites, but love of the process is also key. I love photography, everything from playing with the gear to image capture to making an excellent print. But I couldn't summon the constant energy and enthusiasm to make it a career.

"Medicine, on the other hand, continues to captivate me after almost 40 years. I was that annoyingly eager student you wanted to slap for being so perky. I loved working 100 hour weeks as a resident for the intellectual challenge and the satisfaction of mastering something difficult. I still find myself reading papers outside my specialty because they're so darned interesting. The challenge of being thoroughly competent and continually improving is just as compelling now as it was when I was a newly minted 26-year-old MD. I still love the work, every day. What I did not expect as a swaggering young doc was the emotional toll of seeing patients I've come to know so well aging, becoming frail, and dying. Which is where photography has been a Godsend for me. A chilly morning spent scouting, setting up, and capturing a perfect sunrise panorama grounds me and keeps me sane. So I can keep loving my calling."

A different Mike: "'And if someone really wants to do it "all in," full-time, front line, do or die, the first questions to ask, and ask comprehensively, would be about a.) their energy level, and b.) their appetite for work. Those are the two essentials that must be present if you ask me. If both those things are genuinely high, they have a chance.' You are correct sir. I've been fortunate to have made my living solely by making useful photographs for other people since 1979. The dedication and amount of energy it takes to be even moderately successful for someone without either a trust fund or a hook of some sort is beyond the ability of most people to comprehend. Over the past seven days I worked seventy-six hours covering twelve very important events for my main client. Each event was about two hours long. Then I had another two hours in which I would have to download, organize, rename, edit down from 3–5,000 images (people make funny faces when they speak, and people also blink, and when photographing an event with a few hundred people, having more of a selection is always easier than submitting photos of funny looking people with their eyes closed) a cull of about 120–180, adjust the raw files in ACR, convert to JPEG, and then upload to a web gallery. That gallery would then be linked to a story on their web site. And then do it again that evening, which would get me home at 9:30–10 p.m. after arriving at 8:30 a.m. that morning. The next day, do it again.

"Very few people can grasp the amount of physical work entailed in schlepping the gear, looking for angles, crouching down, hustling from one end of the field to another to get in position, and the level of concentration required to do this both during the event itself and afterward in the post-processing. Amidst all of this, three of the days were well over 90 degrees and very humid. To paraphrase Yogi Berra—photography is 90 percent mental and the other half is physical. You really have to be willing to put in the work that it takes to become proficient and develop a voice, to continuously stay up with the technical challenges and changes, and to always push yourself to do the very best work that you can on each and every assignment. If you don’t, then you’ll eventually find yourself doing something else down the line."

Kenneth Tanaka: "I do not completely subscribe to the vocational prep. I am one of those (old) people who still believes that the primary objective of getting an education is to learn how to learn. Still, one would be foolish to ignore practical economics. Consider that the annual tuition and fees at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) this year top $50,000. (And good luck getting accepted at all!) Now consider how many art jobs are likely to pay anywhere near that amount for an entry position (or even after three years). Now consider that an entry-level programmer at, say, Google will likely easily earn $120,000 or more. Yes, attending a school such as SAIC may enable you to make connections that will propel you after graduation. But not that much. Your best shot is probably to land a faculty job with benefits that offers you summers to pursue being that 'artist' you wanted to be. And some top art school grads do exactly that.

"But I gotta say that Mike's suggestion 'Be an amateur' is perfect advice especially where photography is concerned. Attending art school to learn a trade such as print-making or textile design, might pay-off (in 15–20 years). But it's a lotto-class long shot for photography. 'Photography is more likely to be rewarding—and more pleasurable—if one's practice of it is somewhere in the range between dabbling and a dedicated long-term avocation. We all have to come to terms with where our photography fits in our lives.' Truer words were never writ."

Sunday Support Group: Dippers

One thing I've noticed, and suspect is true, but can't support with statistics or facts...

It seems to me that a largish number of photographers are those who dip in for a while and then depart. You know the types I mean? Someone who was around for a while, seemed promising or made a splash or who you seemed to be hearing about everywhere, and then, a few years to a decade later, is gone again. "Rises above the waves" is an expression that might fit. The phrase implies the possibility of sinking below the waves again.

One person (I initially wrote "guy," but they're not all guys) might spend a year or two working on a cohesive body of work that's internally very successful...and then that's it; there's not a follow-up body of work and another one after that. Another might publish a book—a very good book—and then that's...their book. There's not a second one five or ten years later, nor one after that. A commercial pro might be hot for a while, and have a distinctive style, pull in the big bucks for a time, then seem to fall out of fashion and disappear. You might know of somebody locally who was cobbling together a career by doing many things, teaching a course here, giving a gallery talk there, having a show at a local gallery or frame shop or restaurant, adding to a resumé bit by bit...and then, ten years later—remember so-and-so? Where'd they go? Whatever happened to that guy?

I think an explanation in some cases is that it's hard work to be a photographer, and there often isn't a lot of return for it. When people find they don't get sufficient reward or attention in return for hard work, they very sensibly stop working so hard. They go do something else, or maybe modify their practice to make it fit into a more balanced life—turn their intended vocation into an avocation, say. Who wants to work for nothing?

And it takes a lot of work and dedication to be a full-time photographer, regardless of whether you want to make a living at it as a pro or create art and market yourself that way. One art photographer I knew said his life was 25% photography and 75% marketing. A husband-and-wife art-photographer duo, both accomplished artists with multiple monograph books to their credit, split the year up evenly: six months for photography, six months for marketing and sales. They weren't shrinking violets about the latter. They crisscrossed the country meeting up with established collectors and museum curators, trying to sell the work they made during the other half of the year.

-

It's hard work to be a

photographer, and there

often isn't a lot of

return for it.

-

Is it any wonder that there are a lot of photographers who work hard at it for a while and then fade away? It's not based entirely on just the vagaries of their skills. We all tend to believe that everyone is trying his or her hardest all the time, and that however they're doing is the best they can do. I don't think so. It takes tremendous dedication to go all-in as a full-time photographer. When someone comes on strong and then fades away, my guess is that, at least in some cases, they just got tired of working hard for nothing, so they went out and got a real job, one that would actually pay the bills, and dialed back their photography.

The time is past when just putting yourself out there is enough to get you noticed. I used to joke that being a professional photographer was like being a professional eater. A whole lot of people eat; but, amazingly, some people actually do earn a good living at it. They travel the world, eating and then telling about it. But those professional eaters are only a tiny fragment of all the eaters in the world. And you can't just decide that you're really good at eating and automatically start getting rewarded for it.

It's hardly a mystery. People do what they get rewarded for. If they're not getting enough money or attention in return for the work they have to put in, is it any wonder they dial back and go do something else? And then some time goes by, and by and by we're saying, hey, remember her? Wonder whatever happened to her.

She was a dipper, is all. Gave full-tilt, full-speed-ahead photography a shot for a while, then sensibly and intelligently reappraised and redirected. I think it happens all the time.

Mike

Book of interest* this week:

A Better Life for their Children by Andrew Feiler, University of Georgia Press, published last month. Read the description at the link—fascinating. It's the story of one of the earliest philanthropic collaborations between Jews and African Americans, one that drove dramatic improvement in black education. The story's told visually. *"Book of Interest" means I haven't seen it, but would like to.

The following image is also a link: 

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Edward Taylor: "This is exactly what happened to me. Back in the late '60s to early '70s I was a very successful photographer and made really good money too. I was in demand.

"But I noticed that the people who were in demand a few years earlier were the people I was replacing. I started to think it was just a question of time before I was no longer the 'go to' photographer. I felt a little like I was on a treadmill having to keep moving to stay relevant and knowing that I couldn't go on forever like that.

"One of those photographers that I replaced (at a newspaper) was particularly annoyed with my success and made that fact clear in a number of ways. One day he asked if I would get lunch with him. I thought he was going to apologize for his bad attitude and ask me what my secrets to success were. But he didn't. He wanted to warn me. I could sense that he actually wanted to be helpful, so I listened. He said that what he had learned during his years in photography was that photographers were like rock bands. The vast majority have limited lifespan. One-hit wonders at worst, or an album or two, and they are no longer relevant or able to sell their new stuff to anyone. He said, 'Few bands can be The Beatles, and few photographers can be Ansel Adams.' I had two kids at the time, so I made photography a hobby and went to med school."

scott kirkpatrick: "Bill Owens had a hit with Suburbia. It fell out of a job photographing for a South Bay newspaper (remember local newspapers?) He did one more book, but then started a chain of microbreweries, which was just as much fun and paid much better."

Ed. note: Here's the link to the reprint. The out-of-print reprint. A book that I wasn't attracted to when it came out, but that seems to get richer and deeper as the years go by.

Mike Chisholm: "When I first got seriously interested in photography, around 1984, after a decade or so just 'taking photos,' I fell in with a guy I happened to meet, Richard, who was simply the best, most painstaking darkroom worker I have ever known. His selenium toned prints on the old Agfa Record Rapid were truly outstanding: the blacks were so rich they looked edible. He won various competitions, and once exhibited alongside Fay Godwin. Then Rich simply seemed to fall out of love with photography. It may or may not be a coincidence that around that time he met and married a woman who was into more athletic outdoor pursuits, and the next thing I knew he was a dedicated windsurfer, and had sold off his cameras and darkroom kit to finance the new hobby. Last thing I heard, he had become a serious aquarium enthusiast. I have similar stories about, for example, Andrew, the hippie smallholder who became a skilled carpenter, moved to New Zealand, became a financier (!), took up photography, then painting, then [insert various other phases]. Last heard of leading groups in some intense Sufi-style dance meditation.... Luckily these people leave a trail of top-class used kit in their wake!"

Ken: "My wife was a successful photographer and made a decent living for about a decade and change. Eventually, she got burned out from a mix of the hassles of running a business and dealing with unreasonable customer demands; having to always be on top of your game at every shoot; the 'good enough' attitude that spread alongside iPhones; and, not least, the desire to have predictable hours and a steady paycheck with benefits. Plus, if someone isn't self-employed, they might be surprised at how many jurisdictions (municipal, city, county, state, federal, etc.) want to tax a slice of your earnings...add in insurance, advertising, gear, software, and equipment costs (e.g. lights), and it is not easy to make a living at photography. And that's before you even get to maintaining a website and keeping your skills up-to-date.

"My wife went back to school to get her master's degree and is now much happier—and rarely even picks up a camera anymore. Me, I've always been a hobbyist. Good enough to occasionally wow family and a few friends, and anonymous outside that small circle. And that is good enough. I enjoy shooting and looking back at pictures from the receding decades, and will keep doing that as long as I continue to enjoy it."

Bryan: "I remember (dimly) reading about the results of an interesting study a few years ago. It revolved around the consequences of paying someone for making, in this studies case, a nice painting. The study involved children (or teenagers?) but I don’t recall the actual ages. They tested three groups and in all three groups the children already liked painting pictures in class before the study began. With the first group, the researchers started paying the children for every painting. The second group got praise for every painting. The third group were basically left on their own. After a time period the researchers withheld payment and praise for the two groups getting both. In almost every case the children stopped painting when payment or praise ceased. The third group continued happily smearing paint on craft paper without a pause.

"Of course life is more complicated than the study suggests but we as artists aren’t that different from children, after all we are the same species. So perhaps this study may in part explain these disappearances over time."

Nigel Voak: "I suppose I fall squarely into to this category.

"A move to another country and language at the age of 28 gave me the opportunity to try to make photography my profession. I had been passionate about photography since my late teens.

"I managed, with luck, good contacts, and hard work, to make a go of it for a while. I worked mainly with one of Italy's leading opera houses and a leading national dance company. It was an enjoyable period of my life. I even had two or three exhibitions of my work and I was published at a national level.

"But slowly things changed. I was working in an area that depended on subsidies from the national and local government. Slowly public funding was reduced, which meant less work.

"At the same time I had learned the language well, and my skills as a structural engineer became interesting to employers. Family pressures to lead a 'normal life' were also mounting; performing arts photography means working strange hours. Also, I earned far more as an engineer.

"For ten years I combined my engineering job with photography, until seismic changes at the theatre where I mostly picked up photographic work saw me cast out. First the head of the press office was replaced, and the new chief brought in a 'big' local photographer who demanded exclusivity. Then, a month later, the artistic director of the dance company was ousted in favor of a more 'edgy' director. A change of photographer ensued and I lost this gig too, as a fresh photographic vision was required.

"I became totally disillusioned with photography, but also, if I am truthful with myself, I had reached the point where I felt I was going through the motions. I could produce a good competent set of pictures from any performing arts scenario without the tension and curiosity I once had. I suppose I had nothing more to say photographically. I think this might account for the fact that lots of people in the artistic professions shine for a while and then disappear. They just get bored with the whole thing.

"Photography has been a lifelong passion, but I just do it for my own pleasure now. It takes me to some interesting places and I have had some interesting encounters with people thanks to photography."

Followup

I think I found the place I mentioned Mark Brautigam before, the photographer who did the series "On Wisconsin" that I linked to the other day. It was in 2011, in a post called "A Few Examples of Naturalism in Photography." Some of the links in that post are broken now.

Do you actually read old posts on TOP? I often wonder how many people do.

Hope you're having a good Saturday.

Mike

Product of Interest this week:

As Porsche does with the 911, Fujifilm just keeps refining its perfect pocket camera and making it better and better. Also available from Amazon.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

'Burning Monk' by Malcolm Browne

Malcolm Browne, Burning Monk

Today is the anniversary of one of the most well-known pictures ever taken, known as "Burning Monk," taken on this day 58 years ago.

It's a picture of the death by suicide of Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, as a staged protest against government repression of the majority Buddhist religion in South Vietnam. The picture was taken by Malcolm Wilde Browne, who had become the AP's first permanent correspondent in Saigon when he was stationed there in November of 1961. He might have been the only Western journalist there on that day in 1963.

President Ngo Dinh Diem had "won" a rigged referendum and proclaimed himself President of the new Republic of Vietnam in 1955. A Catholic, he repressed Buddhists with escalating brutality, which in turn inspired escalating protest. At the time of Thich Quang Duc's death by immolation, Diem himself had only a few months to live. He fled a U.S.-backed military coup in November of 1963, initially embarrassing his pursuers by eluding them through subterfuge. After believing he had negotiated safe passage to exile for himself and his brother, Diem was executed in the back of an armored personnel carrier by ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) officers.

The AP has an informative page about the famous photograph as part of its "Explore" series. "In a pre-digital world," the AP relates, "it took a remarkable 15 hours over 9,000 miles of AP WirePhoto cable for Malcolm Browne's Burning Monk to become breaking news." And the picture the papers broke on June 12th was not this one—initially, a different frame, now mostly forgotten, was the most widely published image. It was that picture, not this one, which had such a visceral impact on then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

Malcolm Browne was an accomplished photojournalist and a skilled photographer who filed many stories and would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1964. Talking about his most famous photograph, Browne remembered that "the monks were telephoning the foreign correspondents in Saigon to warn them that something big was going to happen. Most of the correspondents were kind of bored with that threat after a while and tended to ignore it. I felt that they were certainly going to do something, that they were not just bluffing, so it came to be that I was really the only Western correspondent that covered the fatal day." After a long and distinguished career—and a memoir, called Muddy Boots and Red Socks: A Reporter's Life—Malcolm Browne died in New Hampshire in 2012, at the age of 81.

Malcolm Browne in 1964. Photographer unknown.

Greg Myre of NPR's All Things Considered wrote, "In a war that would produce many shocks to the American public, Browne's photo was one of the first and remains an iconic image of the war a half-century later." You can see a larger version of the image here.

Mike

Product of Interest this week:

As Porsche does with the 911, Fujifilm just keeps refining its perfect pocket camera and making it better and better. Also available from Amazon.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Cliff McMann: "This picture is four years older than me, it wasn’t until years later at history of photography course at NOVA Community College that I saw it for the first time. I remember the visceral reaction, mine and the class’s. Beyond the power of images, some images possess power."

Mike replies: Hey, I used to teach at NOVA!

Tex Andrews (partial comment): "This ranks as one of the most horrifying images I have ever seen. There are many, many horrifying images—which in itself is a horror, compounded by the fact that with so may you'd think we would have had enough and learned to be better humans, but no, we have instead become inured to horror it seems—but what so unnerves me even so many decades later is that in this image this man is still alive. It's unbearable to me."

John Krill: "I'm going to suggest two books on the Vietnam War. The first is The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam and the other is Once Upon a Distant War by William Prochnau. Both have excellent description of the crisis with the Buddhists. All Buddhists were still badly mistreated even when I was in Vietnam in 1969."

Two Bodies of Work

It's possible my affection for the 41 pictures in Mark Brautigam's "On Wisconsin" is in part due to the fact that I used to live in Wisconsin and am familiar with the State, and have tried to take similar pictures myself. He's caught the distinctive landscapes of rural Wisconsin, some typical activites—the deer hunters, the tubers—and I love the guy with the big old "snow-thrower" in the trunk of his car. I knew some of these types. It's a nicely balanced set, and that style—the half documentary, half art photography on 4x5 color film (I'm only assuming—could be 8x10, could be 6x7) was a typical look fifteen or twenty years ago.

If "On Wisconsin" has got some years behind it now (I first wrote about it on my old Blogger blog, NLA), Brad Walls' "Pools, from Above" is brand new, coming to my attention not even two weeks ago. (If you can't see the Times, here's the set at his website.) It's an interesting strategy, devised as a project that would allow the photographer to work despite COVID-19. He "scouted" the pictures using Google Earth, and shot with a drone, once making as many as 50 attempts before he got what he was looking for.

Neither of these are what I'd call portfolios—they're projects or "bodies of work," single sets in pursuit of a unified idea. Very different from each other, each of them successful in my opinion. Do you like either of these? Do you agree with me that they're successful projects?

Mark is a former Marine educated at MIAD, the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and Brad is an aerial photographer who lives in Sydney, Australia.

Mike

Product of Interest this week:

As Porsche does with the 911, Fujifilm just keeps refining its perfect pocket camera and making it better and better. Also available from Amazon.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Open Mike: Rebellion

["Open Mike" is the Editorial page of TOP. It appears on Wednesdays assuming Yr. Hmbl. Ed. is feeling compliant and not rebellious.]

-

In my 12-step program, which doubles as my spiritual program, we have a concept we talk about called "rebellion." Stripped to basics, rebellion is when we stop doing what we're supposed to do and rationalize picking up that first drink or drug: "why can't I have an occasional glass of wine like normal people? Just one glass every now and then can't hurt."

When I was getting sober, after a period of about three months of sobriety, I got rebellious and decided to drink just one beer—just one. Amazingly, that one single beer kept me drunk for eight months.

Ha ha, but that's the way it works for us. Being a rebel, an idea to which our society likes to pay lip-service, is dangerous for us. I once heard a story about an alcoholic who, after years of sobriety, decided it was totally unreasonable that he should be deprived of enjoying that occasional glass of vintage wine at genteel lakeside gatherings with sophisticated friends—he spoke the words quoted above. Three weeks later, his sister found him dressed in nothing but his underwear, crouched in a dark clothes closet with the door closed, clutching a half-gallon bottle of vodka to his chest and weeping. So much for one glass of wine. Keep coming back.

Please, no
Well, I think May was a month of rebellion for me. I stopped following my diet, I stopped doing housework, skipped meetings, even stopped doing some of the things I had decided I want to do...I was being noncompliant with my own desires, in other words, which makes no sense. In a way, rebellion is refusing to be an adult. Another term for it is "protest behavior." You're saying, no! I was upset about my brother being sick, and my rebellion was in essence a fight against accepting "life on life's terms." Adults know you have to accept what life throws at you—and at least, be humbly compliant with what you know you have to do for your own good and the good of others in your life.

Photographer David Vestal had a blunt motto that encapsulated that adult attitude: "Do your work."

Taped to my computer

I'm back on my diet now, back to doing housework, back to work on my projects. I stopped rebelling. And I've lost the 10 pounds I gained during my travels. Life is life.

Tip for travelers
In case you're on a whole-food plant-based diet and have trouble eating out, I discovered a fast-food restaurant called Fresh City Express on the Massachusetts Turnpike. It was in a Service Plaza right next to the McDonalds. I had a Thai bowl that I wouldn't mind having again. Another tip, courtesy of my son Xander: Chipotle! Without much trouble you can construct a vegan burrito or bowl that's healthy enough, and delicious. Go easy on the guac.

COVID-19
I was happy to see on the COVID-19 dashboard this morning that Yates County now has 0 active cases and 0 people hospitalized, and only two people in quarantine. This is very good news. And I had three friends over to play pool last night, the first time I've had a group over to play. In fact I saw a record number of friends yesterday, and it was nice.

Meanwhile, the meaning of mask-wearing has flipped. Formerly, you wore a mask to be a good citizen and do your social duty to others, and if you refused to wear one you were showing...well, rebellion. Now if you don't wear a mask it means you've been dutifully vaccinated, and if you wear a mask it shows you're the rebel because you refuse the vaccine! Because of course the vaccinations contain Martian listening devices (or whatever, I don't keep up).

I got the vaccine more or less as soon as I was eligible. I still wear a mask anyway. As rebellion against—?

Shaving, I guess.   :-)

PayPal and eBay
I haven't used PayPal and eBay much in recent years, so I was shocked when I started selling cameras and lenses in my latest closet-dump. The fees have become astronomical. I sold one lens and had to pay a fee of $119! Worse, eBay now insists on direct access to my bank account. I don't mind direct deposit, but—call me old-fashioned—I need approval of outgo. I learned to my consternation that eBay decided I owed it more than $200 and they just dipped into my bank account and took it, without so much as a by-your-leave. It feels like handing your wallet to a pickpocket to hold. I just don't like it.

I don't make you contribute to Patreon. I ask you. If you don't want to, you don't have to.

I'm planning to set up a separate account for eBay in which I'll keep limited funds, and if I can't, I'll just have to stop using eBay...after 432 feedbacks over approximately 24 years. I'll miss it.

But then, how else do you discover new things?

Mike

Product of Interest this week:

As Porsche does with the 911, Fujifilm just keeps refining its perfect pocket camera and making it better and better. Also available from Amazon.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Woo-Hoo! New OM Digital Solutions Lens

This is more interesting than your average lens introduction. OM Digital Solutions (catchy name), the company that used to be the Olympus camera division, has introduced a new product...the very existence of which reinforces the notion that it's going to remain viable as a producer going forward.

The new lens is a zoom in the high-end "PRO" (catchy name) series (man, I can see why the companies don't like me), an 8–25mm (16–50mm-e) ƒ/4. A rundown of some of its features, which include most everything that's de rigeur in today's top lenses:

• Usable wide open; specifically marketed as appropriate for astrophotography
• Near-macro close focusing
• Standard screw-on filters still usable (not always true on ultrawides)
• Switchable from AF to manual focus on the fly
• Splashproof, freezeproof, dustproof
• Front element has fluorine coating to repel dirt and moisture
• 16 elements in 10 groups, with various alphabet-soup high-performance glass types including a "dual super aspherical" (DSA) element
• Not a feature per se, but note that the front element extends in use
• Reasonably compact and light at 3.5 inches long and 14.5 oz. (411g).

Looks nice. Looks...practical. Perfect candidate for a high-end two-lens zoom kit. Costs $1,100, which isn't crazy by today's rather crazy standards. The new lens is labeled "Olympus," which OM Digital Solutions has said will continue to be the brand name of its photographic products.

Available for pre-order now.

Micro 4/3 lives!

Mike

Product of Interest this week:

As Porsche does with the 911, Fujifilm just keeps refining its perfect pocket camera and making it better and better. Also available from Amazon.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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: