The Online Photographer

Latest from Leica

New from Leica is the Leica M Lens Container.

It's made from borosilicate glass and fireproof carbon fiber, which accounts for the $70 price.

I'm kidding. It's plastic.

It will fit any M-mount lens with a height less than 80mm (without bayonet) and a width less than 68mm, including non-Leica lenses.

Are there any lenses that are more fun to collect? There are ~70 years' worth of them now, from a large number of different makers. While cameras and lenses are not guaranteed to be compatible in absolutely all cases, it can at least be said that the vast majority of M lenses will work on the vast majority of M-mount cameras, whether film, digital, and Leica or non-Leica.

Mike
(Thanks to Oren Grad)

Book o' the Week

Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman. A very brief, illustrated overview of the life of America's 16th President suitable for young people.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Link to B&H

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Books of Lincoln Photographs (Followup)

"When a rival called him 'two-faced' during a political debate, Lincoln replied: 'I leave it to my audience. If I had another face, do you think I'd wear this one?'"

—from Lincoln: A Photobiography

I spent yesterday happily immersed in learning more about Lincoln, which evidently you did not—I don't think any recent post here has gotten less response than yesterday's! Sorry about that. (Note to self: TOP readers are not interested in Lincoln.) I also got pretty far into the Benjamin Thomas biography.

Among the things I learned: Lincoln had a lazy left eye, which accounts for the fact that there is only one portrait of him (O'Sullivan's) looking straight at the camera; he was the first President with a beard, which he grew at the suggestion of a young girl who wrote him a letter saying he would look better with one; the killer of John Wilkes Booth, a soldier named Boston (originally Thomas) Corbett, was completely crazy—at the time he shot Booth he had already castrated himself with a pair of scissors to help himself resist the lure of prostitutes, and he later lived in a hole in the ground, which, believe it or not, you can still visit (in fact, there are a large number of Lincoln-associated places you can visit, including the site of a town Lincoln lived in that is no longer there). Corbett eventually escaped from an asylum and more or less vanished.

Abraham Lincoln's last confirmed descendant, a fellow named "Bud" Beckwith, died in 1985. However, George Clooney is a distant cousin.

I don't think I'm ever going to need to know that.

Books of Lincoln photos
Regarding books of Lincoln photographs, I came across this list, on the frankly named "Abraham Lincoln Research Site":

"Among the Abraham Lincoln books that include his photographs are: Lincoln's Photographs: A Complete Album by Lloyd Ostendorf, The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln by Frederick Hill Meserve and Carl Sandburg, Lincoln: A Picture Story of His Life by Stefan Lorant, and The Face of Lincoln compiled and edited by James Mellon. Additionally, there is The Lincoln Family Album by Mark E. Neely, Jr. and Harold Holzer. Also recommended are Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography by Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., Philip B. Kunhardt III, and Peter W. Kunhardt, and Lincoln: A Pictorial History by Dr. Edward Steers, Jr."

The Kunhardts' book is the one I remember. It's been a long time since I've seen it; I'm pretty sure it was in the library of the Corcoran School. My impression was favorable, although I can't say that with assurance. But I guess we've already determined that you don't care anyway.

Mumlered
And check out this weird thing:

Mary Todd Lincoln was said to be "erratic" later in life, which may be her right after having lost three of her children and her husband. Her only surviving son, Robert Todd Lincoln, who evidently inherited none of the traits of his father in any respect, tried to have her committed to an asylum. She managed to extract herself, but the two of them were estranged afterwards.

Wikipedia says of the above, "In 1872, she went to spiritualist photographer William H. Mumler, who produced a photograph of her that appears to faintly show Lincoln's ghost behind her (photo in Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana). The College of Psychic Studies, referencing notes belonging to William Stainton Moses, claims that the photo was taken in the early 1870s, that Lincoln had assumed the name of 'Mrs. Lindall,' and that Lincoln had to be encouraged by Mumler's wife to identify her husband on the photo. [This would have been only a year after she lost her son Tad at 18—maybe he was the one she was trying to summon from the spirit world —Ed.] P.T. Barnum, testifying against Mumler in his eventual fraud trial, presented a photo featuring himself with the 'ghost' of Abraham Lincoln, demonstrating for the court how easy it was to make one of Mumler's images. The image is recognized now as a hoax created via double exposure (by inserting a previously prepared positive glass plate featuring the image of the 'deceased' into the camera in front of an unused sensitive glass plate)."

Maybe we could say that a Photoshopped digital file has been "Mumlered."

And now let us move on.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman. A very brief, illustrated overview of the life of America's 16th President suitable for young people.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Link to B&H

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Open Mike: Mr. Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln is the quintessential and arguably the greatest American. You might think it would be possible to read everything that's been written about him if you set your mind to it, but one lifetime might not be long enough: Paul R. Tetreault, director of Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., says that more books have been written about Lincoln than any other person in world history except Jesus. He should know: in the lobby of the Ford's Theater Center for Education and Leadership (across the street from historic Ford's Theater) stands the Lincoln Book Tower, intended to contain all or most of the books ever written about the 16th President. The tower is eight feet in diameter and three and half stories tall!

The Lincoln Book Tower seen from above

With all those books out there, why recommend just one? The title should tell. Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman is a "carefully curated" collection of images of Lincoln, in both photographs and other kinds of art. Lincoln, who was known as the most photographed man of his time, was arguably the first politician to understand the importance of what we now call "image" to both publicity and leadership.

And you can read it in a couple of hours: the text is a brief introduction to Lincoln's life intended for grade schoolers. Call me weird, but I don't necessarily scorn books for children. They give me the facts quickly and clearly and in overview, and I like that. It's always frustrated me that biographies in particular are by custom so long and detailed. The assumption is that we will want to know every detail that is known. Some such biographies can't even be contained in single volumes. William Manchester gave us 3,008 pages about Winston Churchill in three volumes, which is more than I want to know about Winston, and Dumas Malone had to go one better, giving us 3,329 pages about Thomas Jefferson, in six volumes. I sat down to rest midway through volume two and then let Tom Jefferson go on his way without me. At that rate you'd better be a pretty dedicated reader to acquaint yourself with more than a small handful of the interesting people of history by means of such books. I'd rather get the Cliff Notes. I collected a series for a while called "The Penguin Lives," in which a variety of writers were chosen to write short biographies of notable figures, but the series didn't last very long, unfortunately. There is one about Lincoln, however: Abraham Lincoln by Australian author Thomas Keneally, who also wrote Schindler's Ark, which was made into the movie Schindler's List. Because Thomas Keneally felt enough had been written about Lincoln during the war years, though, his biography covers only Lincoln's life before the war, which is leaving a lot out. Of course, poet Carl Sandburg famously gave the 3,300-page treatment to Mr. Lincoln, leaving not much out at all.

I can't speak to the reproduction quality in Lincoln: A Photobiography, originally published in 1986, because I only have the Kindle edition. But it's a good primer about Lincoln both biographically and photographically, and would make a nice brief introduction for any newcomer to Lincoln's story, whether a young person, or someone from another country, or just an American who wants the basic story laid out in summary, in plain English.

I've written about Lincoln before, for example in this post from 2006.

So what is the best full, adult biography? My vote would go to Benjamin P. Thomas (581 pages) as being the best written. It's graceful, restrained, moves along smartly, and is enjoyable to read. It seems shorter than it is.

I'm sure it's in the Tower. And by the way, the titles of the 6,800 or so books in the Lincoln Book Tower are real—they represent actual books—but the ones in the Tower are replicas made of aluminum, hollow, and all securely fastened together.

Mike

Book o' the Week

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: a Calvin and Hobbes Treasury by Bill Watterson. I just read a dire, apocalyptic article about mental health during the pandemic, so I decided on trying an "off topic" book rec that is slightly lighter than our usual fare. If you don't appreciate it, don't worry, it's a blog. Something else will be along soon.

Link to B&H

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Earl Dunbar: "I grew up deeply admiring Lincoln and devouring a lot of his story. That included a couple of trips to New Salem (Ilinois), one trip to the (newish) Lincoln museum in Springfield, Illinois, at least two to the gravesite(s) and numerous visits to his Springfield home at 8th and Jackson.

Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Springfield,
Illinois. Photo by George Longenecker.

"The home is, to me, the 'holy grail' of all the Lincoln sites. It is both sombre and inspiring at the same time. I have always gotten some chills when I’ve visited. It’s so well done that, even despite the presence of rope barriers, invariably I get the sense that Lincoln, Mary, Tad and all the family might casually just appear, going about their normal, pre-Presidential lives."

A Short History of Unique Success

Did you know that..."The Biggest Camera Manufacturer in the World Is…Fujifilm"?

So says Mike Smith in an engaging short article published yesterday at PetaPixel.

To get to that title you have to agree not to call smartphones "cameras," but we can take their point. It's that Fuji has sold 50 million(!) Instax instant cameras, and not only does that make it the largest dedicated camera maker (there, let's call it that) in the world, but it means, "strangely," in author Smith's words, that "the success of [Fuji's] Imaging Division is largely because of film. In fact, Fuji’s digital cameras may actually be making a net loss[,] with film sales cross-subsidizing their development and production." In other words, Instax sales could be subsidizing the X and GFX lines all of us are so familiar with!

And here's an interesting little factoid the article points out that I had never thought of before in exactly these terms...Fuji never actually made its own completely in-house DSLR. It leapfrogged from modifying Nikon bodies directly into mirrorless.

The second X-100, an X100s (2013–14)

Instax flies under the radar for me. I pay it scant attention. I might have done one or two posts on it over all these years. Good thing Fuji is more attuned than I am.

The tale Mike Smith tells—of adroit business acumen leading into a unique path to success—squares with something I was told years ago by a leading independent commentator who had close ties to Canon. He said that a high-ranking contact at that company had told him confidentially that Canon was only afraid of one other company, and that it was neither Nikon nor Sony...it was Fuji. That comment predated the X100 in 2011 by quite a few years and might have coincided with the nadir of Instax in 2004, I don't recall exactly. It was somewhere around that time, anyway, early- to mid-2000s.

Prescient.

So, if you accept Mike Smith's analysis, not only did "the Kodak of Japan" succeed where the real Kodak could not, but it also has succeeded at Polaroid's game where the real Polaroid could not. Interesting. There's no other company like Fujifilm, that's for sure.

Mike

Book o' the Week

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: a Calvin and Hobbes Treasury by Bill Watterson. I just read a dire, apocalyptic article about mental health during the pandemic, so I decided on trying an "off topic" book rec that is slightly lighter than our usual fare. If you don't appreciate it, don't worry, it's a blog. Something else will be along soon.

Link to B&H

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Howard Sandler: "The problem with Instax for 'serious' photographers is that it is too successful. Fuji has done so well making millions of lo-fi inexpensive Instax cameras that it has no incentive to develop more full-featured models.

"I tried Instax after Fuji discontinued their wonderful versions of peel-apart films FP100c and FP3000b which fit the old Polaroid Land Automatic cameras. I've gone through the Instax Wide 300, Instax SQ6 (square) and Instax Mini 90 (full featured). The Instax film, though more contrasty than even slide film (maybe three stops dynamic range), has nice colour and doesn't fade. It scans nicely. (A gratuitous example of a selfie carefully set up with the Instax Mini 90 is below).

"Yet, the Fuji Instax cameras are plastic toys with only two or three zone focus, no built-in capability to add filters or off-camera flash, and little to no manual control. There are some third-party options for cameras, but I find them very expensive and of questionable reliability. There is also an even smaller niche of hacked frankenfuji cameras where the backs of Fuji Instax cameras are grafted onto cameras such as the Mamiya Press series."

Alex Mercado: "The Instax Mini Evo is the camera I recommend everyone take a gander at. It is truly a tiny marvel."

Dennis Ng: "It is quite fun, especially the larger version. The instant appeal with development and the one-of-a-kind feel. Tried it. There are occasions that it is the best."

Photographing a New Justice

Lelanie Foster, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

Congratulations to photographer Lelanie Foster (right), who was chosen to make the official White House portrait of newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. It unfolded extremely quickly for Foster. She had just completed a project photographing the Black women students at Harvard Law School, Justice Brown Jackson's alma mater, when she was chosen for the job. In fact, that project had been published at The New York Times only the day before.

Being chosen was "a complete shock," Lelanie told The Cut, "and then everything kind of started to settle in, and I felt all the honor and gratitude. Then came the pressure of like, All right, get this shot. I started thinking about all the things that I wanted to say in the image and all the things that I wanted to portray in it. These things come together so quickly; it’s different from other shoots where you have so much planning involved. Like, when can I scout the White House? You know what I mean?" Just getting into the White House isn't easy—she said that process took two and a half hours.

She played Sade for the shoot, because she finds it calming and "a nice vibe." Justice Brown Jackson not only approved, she even danced a little. The shoot was a family affair—the Justice's daughters helped critique and direct, looking at the computer monitor, and her husband was so moved he had tears in his eyes at one point. Lelanie had a generous 45 minutes to make the portrait.

Asked what the Justice's confirmation meant to her, Foster told Ebony, "for me, it’s just incredibly empowering. Anytime we see a Black woman, in front and in these kinds of situations, it becomes incredibly affirming. For us to see them recognized, celebrated and honored is beautiful. For me to be just a piece of that and to have spent that time with Justice Brown Jackson in this moment that celebrates her is so special. I feel like I, too, am seen and heard in this way for such a positive reason. It makes me reflect on how important this is for all Black women to see these moments exist. It’s encouraging."

The website See in Black describes Foster as "a portrait photographer from the Bronx whose work is centered in honoring the strength and beauty of Black and brown people, particularly that of women. Her projects stretch across the commercial, fashion, documentary and art worlds. Foster’s commissions include Nike, Hulu, The New York Times, Universal Pictures, BET, W Magazine, CR Fashionbook, and AnOther Magazine amongst others."

And as for Lelanie Foster's aims for her portrait: "it’s always about dignity. It’s always about poise. It’s always about strength, regalness, and reflection. That’s always my guiding light when photographing us."

The portrait was first revealed on Oprah's Instagram account and Beyoncé's official website. Here's some more of Lelanie Foster's work, mixed with personal pictures, on Instagram.

Mike

Book o' the Week

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: a Calvin and Hobbes Treasury by Bill Watterson. I just read a dire, apocalyptic article about mental health during the pandemic, so I decided on trying an "off topic" book rec that is slightly lighter than our usual fare. If you don't appreciate it, don't worry, it's a blog. Something else will be along soon.

New Gear

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

darlene (partial comment): "I was taken back at first by the portrait, thinking it may have been a 'behind the scene' capture. Then a few days later and after I saw it is indeed the official portrait, I looked at it again, and I came back with a different feeling. Maybe you have to be a woman, or maybe you have to be from a minority that up until the recent past were probably passed over for a particular type of position or job title. I see layers in this portrait. Layers that represent getting to the next level. You will see something different for sure. Art is open to interpretation. Mine is definitely different from yours. I am female and I heard early in my career the guy gets paid more because he has a family to support. Thankfully today all the single mothers do not have to listen to that crap any longer. I think there is more meaning in this portrait than a lot of people will see. I see it for myself and I am happy the photographer and the subject are bold, beautiful and courageous enough to think outside the box. They had to be to get where they got!"

Sunday Mystery Men (OT)

For five life points, who are these guys?

Mike

UPDATE: Your official clue is now the new "Book of the Week" below. Congratulations to Wolfgang Lonien and J. Lauretig, who guessed it first (see Featured Comments).

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes: a Calvin and Hobbes Treasury by Bill Watterson. I just read a dire, apocalyptic article about mental health during the pandemic, so I decided on trying an "off topic" book rec that is slightly lighter than our usual fare. If you don't appreciate it, don't worry, it's a blog. Something else will be along soon.

Heeeere's...Blimie and Herman!

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Wolfgang Lonien: "John Knox and Thomas Hobbes?"

Wolfgang Lonien: "Calvin and Hobbes?"

J. Lauretig: "John Knox and Thomas Hobbes."

J. Lauretig: "John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes. Calvin and Hobbes, pretty funny. At first I thought it was John Knox, but the joke became too obvious."

Benjamin Marks: "I know this will seem like another opportunity to pontificate on any and all subjects, but The Complete Calvin and Hobbes has the most interesting Preface by Bill Watterson as it applies to creative pursuits in general. In it, Watterson writes of all the failures he had designing characters and strips in the years leading up to the creation of the basic set-up in Calvin and Hobbes. If you all assumed, as I did for many years, that C&H was a work of instant, inspired, Mozart-like genius, proceeding weekly and directly from the mind of the Almighty straight through the pens and brushes of Bill Watterson, this introduction is the cure to your amazement. It was also, for me, an excellent reminder/instruction that creative pursuits most often require failure in order to find success. And a balance of bravery with doggedness.

"The Complete Calvin and Hobbes can still be ordered from Amazon.

"It is timeless, evergreen, priceless. Actually, not 'priceless' in the literal sense, but to demonstrate what a fan-boy I am: My children actually loved the first boxed set I bought right to death—re-read it until the covers fell off and the glued spines gave up the ghost, folded the pages and spilled various drinks on them, etc. I then purchased a second set for myself, which sits high on a shelf in my office. So from my perspective, buying only one set would be getting all this goodness at half-price. At least half of what I wound up paying.  ;-) "

Baker's Dozen: Objects of Affection

Stephanie Luke
Cottonwood, California, USA

"This image is part of a series I'm currently working on called 'Asphalt Beaches.' It consists of random things I've discovered on the sides of the streets where I live. Generally, I find a lot of debris and trash, but once in a while there is something new and pristine. This balloon drifted by as I was taking my daily walk, so I grabbed it and then destroyed it, in the name of art of course! All pictures are taken outside in the immediate surroundings with my iPhone 13 Pro Max, using a Lightroom app and post-processed with Photoshop."

Wolfgang Gressmann
Germany

"Internally displaced boy with tire in Amran, Yemen, 2011. Leica M6, 28mm, Tri-X @ 200; here's my website."

Douglas Martin
Santa Rosa, California, USA

"This object is my wife’s hiking hat. Of course, she is under it, but I think of this as a photo of a hat, with a few clues to let you know something about the hat."

Ken Ginn
Wakefield, Quebec, Canada

"Found object. Mourning dove feathers. I noticed a flash out of the corner of my eye one day while working at the kitchen sink. When I went out to see what might have happened, I found what remained of the dove after a hawk swooped in for its dinner. I simply placed these on my flatbed scanner to make this image. I've scanned and continue to scan found objects. Not every camera is held in hand."

David Kee
Westmont, Illinois, USA

"I was recently diagnosed with leukemia (the good kind, my oncologist tells me, that won't affect me for a while). Coincidentally, I then read an article about the ancient phrase memento mori ('remember that you will die'). Although I didn't need reminding, I Googled the concept which, in brief, is that thinking about the inevitability of your death forces you to savor each of your days and thus enjoy the time you have left. The search results included an ad for a skull ring that I thought would give me a constant prod to do exactly that. This is my macro shot of my ring that for as many days as I have will reside on my left index finger."

Satyan Devadoss
San Diego, California, USA

"This object is a polyhedron lamp, shown during sunset, that I randomly came across a few months ago. It's now sitting in my office. Remarkably, this polyhedron was the basis of my math Ph.D. dissertation more than 20 years ago. The small wooden block is also the same polyhedron as well, crafted by a student of mine 15 years ago while in Massachusetts. (This student went on to become a drummer for the remarkable band Darlingside, then a carpenter, and finally a photographer.) Pixel 3a."

Peter Van Dyken
Duluth, Minnesota, USA

"The John Boland ore carrier which I sailed on as a deckhand in the 1970s showed up at dusk as a discreet object in the fog in my front yard this past shipping season. Taken with a Fuji X-H1 and the 55–200mm."

Mark Gregg
Michigan, USA

"This small sculpture was a gift from my wife and has become a real keepsake. My whole life has been involved in photography, first as a hobby and then as a vocation, and this little guy reminds me of all the wonderful times I have had in my career. The sculpture is less than six inches in height and made of wire."

Jim Simmons
Masterton, New Zealand

"This is called 'Tomato Figure.' To photograph a misshapen vegetable is to work beneath the immense shadow of Edward Weston. 'Nothing new here.' But I'd like to think I'm expressing the joy that he'd find in colour, not to mention the forms as shaped by the light."

Michael Ryan
Shanghai, China

"I had a nice opportunity to do some personal style photos with my middle daughter last week. Pandora just started learning the cello.

"We originally chose the violin but each school we went to for a trial lesson suggested the cello. I was pleased, as I love and prefer the sound and look of the cello, but after the same thing happened at four different schools, I had to ask why everyone was pointing us to the cello. They told us that it's because she's six. She's too old to start learning the violin—she should've started when she was four! That’s living in China."

Daniel Speyer
New York, New York, USA

"Photo of a canoe I had from age 14 to age 70+ (lost in a fire then). It is a rather uncommon ultralight aluminum canoe (a 13-foot tandem canoe weighing only 44 lbs.). A real 'friend' that I normally paddled solo—with it I had weathered wind and waves and it never let me down. The picture was taken in the Adirondack Park, Whitney Wilderness Area, where I canoe extensively. The photo was taken with a Pentax Q and the 35mm-equivalent (so-called 'toy') lens."

Len Salem
England, United Kingdom

"My seaside bucket.

"I was born in London in February 1939, a few months before the outbreak of a World War which continued for six years. For 24 hours a day, factories produced nothing but munitions and other essentials for the country's war effort. For most, it was a time of great austerity. Knowing no better, I did not feel deprived, but new toys did not exist then and, even on birthdays, I received only hand-me-downs or other second-hand things. Until the end of the war I had never tasted a banana, or any other fruit not grown within our own shores. I had never been on holiday.

"In 1946, the year following the ending of the conflict, my parents took me with them to the seaside for their first holiday for very many years. It was of course my first-ever holiday and at that point probably the biggest event of my life.

"I remember the feeling of great excitement when I became the proud possessor of my very own new bucket and spade. I made endless sandcastles and watched, fascinated, as they afterwards vanished with the incoming tide.

"I remember the spade had an unvarnished wooden shaft and a bright red handle. Maybe I'm imagining the red handle, for it was lost many years ago. But the bucket, a drab grey galvanised steel pail about the size of a small flowerpot, somehow survived.

"I look at it now and see myself as a child at the beginning of his life. It is my oldest possession."

And one more for good measure:

Eolake Stobblehouse

Eolake Stobblehouse

Long-long-longtime friend o' TOP Eolake Stobblehouse has died. A Dane who was born Frants Nielsen—"a character I vaguely remember," he said of that name—he died at his home in Manchester, England, of natural causes and apparently without pain or discomfort. "He was dead on the way to the bathroom," his sisters wrote, "no drama, but quietly they said." He had mentioned ongoing health problems but seldom complained or explained.

Eolake was an original. He had wide-ranging interests and a great devotion to spirituality and arts of all kinds. Adam at TidBITS wrote that Eolake was "a genuinely thoughtful and inquisitive soul who was always involved in some sort of personal creative expression." Can't say it better. He always struck me as a person of kindness, compassion, and a humane outlook who nevertheless had a core of sadness in his life; but that last is only my impression. He was an early internet entrepreneur and among the first to make his fortune in this then-new medium. He also was a loyal supporter of other internet endeavors he liked, which fortunately included The Online Photographer. He helped keep us alive for a while.

He also helped in many other ways. I'll tell you one little Eolake story.

Very early on, when I first started accepting ads, I had my ad spaces priced very cheaply, yet they had attracted almost zero interest. It seemed pretty obvious that my 'umble blog, like many of my endeavors, was going to fizzle. Hearing of this, Eolake sent me a little paperback book with an amateurish-looking cover—it was called The Trick to Money Is Having Some. To give you an idea of the kind of book it was, consider this from the blurb: "...money is merely a form of energy, and...the difference between having it and not having it is merely a small but subtle shift in consciousness." Pure Eolake; he loved that sort of soft new-agey talk. I emailed him to thank him, but noted that, first of all, the book had about the dumbest title of any book I had ever heard of in my life, so, "thanks but no thanks," because I knew he liked that kind of stuff but it was just not my cuppa.

He replied in gentle good humor; I don't think I ever once riled or tweaked Eolake, much less angered him. He calmly explained that if I would just read it and open up my heart to the Universe (or some such, I wouldn't know how to quote him exactly just from memory), good things would happen. Well, I was about to lose my house at the time, and the electric company was cutting off our power on a regular basis, and I thought, well, he's done this successfully, and I haven't, so why do I think I know so much more than he does? So I took his advice and read the book. And it was at least in parts as offbeat as I imagined it would be. But at the end I thought, I'm not so smart, so I'll just take the suggestions and do what it says. One of which was that I threw caution, not to mention rationality, to the winds, and increased the price of my ad spaces tenfold. This seemed crazy to me, but I figured I had little to lose, since I was only earning a pittance from them anyway.

To my complete amazement, there was an immediate clamoring for ads on the site. Within an astonishingly short time—on the order of a few weeks—I had sold more than I ever hoped for and was earning enough just from ads every month for me and my son to live on, if barely.

Eolake said, See?

Makes me laugh even now. Probably just coincidence, and yet....

Ads kept me going for a few years, and from then on, each source of income on the site tended to be replaced by a better one. Within a few years I went from having to check the dribs and drabs in my bank account carefully before charging anything at the grocery store, lest my card be declined, to having tens of thousands in my checking account and never having to give a thought to what any particular food item cost.

Perhaps Eolake merely died. But perhaps his soul is streaking along somewhere out in the Universe in a sparkling ball of light and warmth, and he's laughing, joyful to have shed this Earth and its troubles and embarked on the next phase of his spirit's journey. It's almost hard to see how it could be otherwise.

I'm still sad. I wish I had met him. I see that I did not even answer his last two emails, which makes me feel like a sh*t. His sites are still up. He is survived by his sisters Maj-Britt and Karin, who are in my thoughts. (If you know how to contact them, please send them a link to this post.) Farewell, Eolake, and thanks.

Mike
(Thanks to Christian Dönges, Bahi Para, Adam Engst, and several others)

Book of Interest:

Hank O'Neal, Ed., A Vision Shared: A Portrait of America 1935–1943 (Steidl, 2019). The reissue of the best overall survey of the work of the FSA photographers of the 1930s. Every public and school library should have a copy, for one thing. Thanks to Andy Moursund for turning me on to this book many years ago. Originally published in 1976 by St. Martin's Press.

The book link above is a portal to Amazon.

Link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Steve Rosenblum: "What very sad news."

darlene: "May peace be with his loved ones. My heart is heavy for you and his friends."

Kenneth Tanaka: "Very sorry to learn of the loss of someone quite familiar here. My condolences to his family and close friends. It is a unique phenomenon of our age that we feel rather close loss for people we’ve come to know but have never met in-person."

Pixii Rangefinder

There is a new pretender, in the old sense of the word: "a claimant to a throne who is held to have no just title."

You can read about the new second-gen Pixii from Pixii here, and Hamish Gill's review is here. It looks interesting and may well be.

I can't, and therefore won't, judge it. It makes me feel old, though. I've been around enough to watch many "claimants to the throne" come and go. As I've been saying for years, "people don't like rangefinders; people like Leicas." Each time I say it, many people will come forward saying, "I like rangefinders," and I'm sure some will this time, but exceptions don't necessarily disprove generalizations.

Leica partisans have historically been very hard on pretenders. The Minolta CLE was, allegedly, originally planned to be marketed by Leica as a replacement for the CL, until both, in the opinion of one famous Leica expert, were killed, deliberately, not because they were unpopular but because they were too popular—their success was sapping sales from "real" Leicas. Supposedly. The Zeiss Ikon, later with a "ZI" appended as a back-formation, was arguably a better camera than the M6 but failed to attract the public. Poor Konica was practically chased from the field by the vicious backlash of Leicaphiles, although its offerings were meant as homages. Not so much the Hexar (with "AF" added later), a fixed-lens M6 lookalike with autofocus that was, according to rumor, originally offered to Leica as well, but certainly in the case of the Hexar RF, which was slandered and villified mercilessly by Leica aficionados, probably because it was actually a real threat. (Konica-Minolta still makes OEM products behind the scenes.) And, again according to rumor (I'm just reporting the rumor, don't kill the messenger), the first digital Leica-mount camera, the Epson RD-1, made by Cosina, was terminated because Leica itself requested that Cosina cease and desist lest it have a hand in spelling the demise of the legendary German marque. (Don't compete with us because you might win?) An uneasy truce was reached with later Cosina film rangefinders marketed under the Voigtländer (also spelled Voigtlaender) name, due to the fact that these were of cheaper construction and were crippled somewhat, with shorter rangefinder baselengths among other things, and so could serve as entry-level cameras to the rangefinder world.

So now it's the Pixii's turn. The original Pixii has been around since 2020, but I know nothing about how well the first one sold or what its reputation is among Leicaphiles; perhaps it just isn't enough of a threat to make their radar, I don't know. Perhaps Leica the company is sound enough now that it isn't threatened by others elbowing in (do note, though, that it's not the company that's even been the problem; it's the partisans). The just-announced second iteration Pixii might be a bit more of a threat, with a 26-MP backside-illumuminated CMOS sensor. Although still expensive at $3k for the base model, it's only one-third the cost of an M11.

It's always interesting when newcomers take a clean-sheet look at camera design. I've always approved, on principle*. It's just that it might not be the most prudent move to do it in the Leica sphere; history predicts that there might be problems, if the new variant is too well received or has the temerity to sell too well.

Maybe? Maybe not? I really don't have a conclusion here. I'll shut up and let you chime in!

Mike

*Disclaimer: the writer once owned a CLE, a Hexar AF (even started a Hexar Club on Compuserve!), and a Hexar RF. Also an M3, and an M6 on two different occasions (the second one belonged to the actor Jack Lemmon).

Book of Interest:

Hank O'Neal, Ed., A Vision Shared: A Portrait of America 1935–1943 (Steidl, 2019). The reissue of the best overall survey of the work of the FSA photographers of the 1930s. Every public and school library should have a copy, for one thing. Thanks to Andy Moursund for turning me on to this book many years ago. Originally published in 1976 by St. Martin's Press.

The book link above is a portal to Amazon.

Link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Dan Khong: "The Konica Hexar RF was a Leica killer. I still have one. It fits the usual Leica M lenses with frame lines appearing in the VF. It has aperture-priority autoexposure. And it has a built-in motor drive! Leica M film cameras today still do not have that."

Rob de Loe: "The Pixii's images will not have the intense, organic luminosity of true Leica images.  ;-)  "

Joseph Reid: If you've told the whole Lemmon M camera story, I can't find it through the TOP search box. So, maybe it's time you filled us in on the details? Otherwise the tale might take on the air of a fish story.

Mike replies: Not much of a story. I bought it from a counterman at a store in Los Angeles who said Jack traded it in on a new camera because he no longer used it much. The counterman provided a letter of attestation that he had personally bought the camera from Jack. He didn't charge me any more for the camera than the going price at the time. I did the same when I sold it to my friend Art, just sent him the letter but didn't add anything to the price. When Art died, I made sure his sister knew about the Lemmon connection so she could find the letter and sell the two together. No idea where it is now.

Mystery of a Missing Camera

Who really climbed Everest first? Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary did it in 1953, but George Mallory (right) and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine perished in an attempt in 1924. The key question is, did they die on the way up or the way down? Whether they summited before dying has long been one of the greatest mysteries in mountaineering.

It's been speculated that the answer could be contained in a missing camera they carried with them. It was one of various models called a Vest Pocket Kodak (VPK), a folding camera made from 1912 to 1926 that was among the first to use 127 film. If they reached the top, surely they would have commemorated it with triumphant photographs of themselves celebrating. Mallory's body was finally found in 1999, which caused a sensation. But Sandy Irvine's remains were not found—and neither was the VPK.

Mark Synnott is a mountaineer and author who participated in an expedition to search for Sandy Irvine in 2019...a search that failed. And there might be a reason why. He thinks there's evidence that Chinese climbers found and retrieved Irvine's body, and perhaps the VPK. The first ascent of Everest's North Face is a treasured national feat in China, and if the VPK showed that Mallory and Irvine did it first, it would rob their nation of that accomplishment. Synnott speculates that the Chinese could have found the VPK and that Chinese technicians either bungled the development of the film or that the Chinese government is suppressing the discovery to preserve national honor. Either way, if they did find Irvine, they're keeping it a secret. Mark Synnott has written a book about the mystery called The Third Pole. (Outside magazine said, "If you’re only going to read one Everest book this decade, make it The Third Pole...a riveting adventure."*)

Salon has Mark's short article giving the outlines of the mystery....

Mike

*I'm "scared of heights" and the highest mountain I've climbed is The Gonzen at 1,829m in the Appenzell Alps in Switzerland (Everest is 8,848m). Armchair adventure is enough for me now. The linked article is a good read. If you're not up for it, maybe have a listen to Tennessee comedian Nate Bargatze's take on his personal Mount Everest. Less than a minute of your time. (I'm a fan of clean standup. Nate's Dad was a clown for the first dozen years of his life, and his recent album has a great title: Yelled At by a Clown.)

Book of Interest:

Hank O'Neal, Ed., A Vision Shared: A Portrait of America 1935–1943 (Steidl, 2019). The reissue of the best overall survey of the work of the FSA photographers of the 1930s. Every public and school library should have a copy, for one thing. Thanks to Andy Moursund for turning me on to this book many years ago. Originally published in 1976 by St. Martin's Press.

The book link above is a portal to Amazon.

Link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Mueller Alois: Dear all, I live for ten years at the base of Mount Gonzen (Sargans), and have yet to be at the peak and have a look down."

Nick Vincent: "It's precisely the (sub)plot of the French animated film (or anime, rather, as it was adapted from a manga by Jiro Taniguchi). It's called Le Sommet des Dieux (Summit Of The Gods) and was released last year. It should be available on Netflix by now. Here's the link to the Wikipedia article."

Quote o' the Day: Eric Kim

-

"It is not about having the 'best' camera, it is about having the camera which you make the most photos with."

—Eric Kim

-

(posted by) Mike

Book of Interest:

Hank O'Neal, Ed., A Vision Shared: A Portrait of America 1935–1943 (Steidl, 2019). The reissue of the best overall survey of the work of the FSA photographers of the 1930s. Every public and school library should have a copy, for one thing. Thanks to Andy Moursund for turning me on to this book many years ago. Originally published in 1976 by St. Martin's Press.

The book link above is a portal to Amazon.

Link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

A Remembrance of Jerry Uelsmann

Guest post by Keith F. Davis

Jerry Uelsmann (right) was a dear friend. I had him give a talk in a symposium I put together in 1995 and he was just great—funny, insightful, and inspiring. We were friends from that point on, and I visited him numerous times in Gainesville.

It was a particular treat to be with him in the darkroom as he worked. His skills there were truly astonishing. My sense was that he hardly had to make test exposures at all—that he could gauge everything so precisely simply from his vast experience and feeling for the materials. That may not literally be true, but it is probably pretty close to the reality. And the simple tools he used to blend images into one another were both remarkable and wonderfully simple. It took some time to get each of his three or four or five enlargers set up properly, with the individual images properly masked, but once that was done, he simply moved his sheet of paper from one easel to the next, making exposures and doing simple dodging and burning as he went. And then the print went into the developer...to emerge under the red light as its own kind of magic.

He understood analogue photography in his own unique and amazing way—unlike anyone else I have ever known. Jerry loved the process dearly. He talked of the darkroom as a laboratory—a place for experimentation and discovery, and that was exactly how he worked.

He was a witty, fascinating person who loved life and loved making pictures. And, of course, ultimately, the two were pretty much one and the same. I will miss him enormously.

Keith

Keith F. Davis, one of the leading American photography museum curators of the last 40 years, retired as the Senior Curator of Photographs at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. He is the author of numerous publications over many years, including The Origins of American Photography: from Daguerreotype to Dry-Plate and An American Century of Photography: from Dry-Plate to Digital, both of which we were privileged to offer here at special prices in 2016. Here's his Amazon author page.

Book of Interest:

Hank O'Neal, Ed., A Vision Shared: A Portrait of America 1935–1943 (Steidl, 2019). The reissue of the best overall survey of the work of the FSA photographers of the 1930s. Every public and school library should have a copy, for one thing. Thanks to Andy Moursund for turning me on to this book many years ago. Originally published in 1976 by St. Martin's Press.

The book link above is a portal to Amazon.

Link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

J D Ramsey: "I always considered Uelsmann special. Before Photoshop he created images that no one else had. Mystical, sometimes humorous, and entirely different. Unique images that mesmerized. Even now, as it is explained that he used multiple enlargers, it still seems magical. Since Photoshop others have created somewhat similar images (e.g. J.P. Caponigro), but Uelsmann was there first, by decades."

Pie In the Sky

On Wednesday, I was really just asking about reissues—what old camera do you wish you could buy new (if any, in Ken's case). I was surprised at how many commenters answered with some version of "this film camera, only digital."

Are we sure about that?

Film ≠ digital
Right now I've been using what is arguably the pinnacle of that idea—a digital camera uncompromisingly intended to be similar to an older film camera, the Leica M10 Reporter (courtesy of my friend Jack). It's supposed to channel the old M3–M2–M4—M6 range, except be digital.

It is a surprisingly successful effort. But in general, the whole idea is inherently flawed. Digital cameras are just different kinds of devices than film cameras—different controls needed, different capabilities, different layouts, different feel. Choices that made sense on the film camera don't on the digital one, and vice-versa. They require different skills to operate, and using them is a different experience. Personally I don't think there's any such thing as a "film camera except with a digital sensor." The M10 is probably as close as it's humanly possible to come, and Leica has done a very good job—the haptics and gestalt really are pretty close to a film Leica M.

The only problem is that what they've come up with is a very odd digital camera indeed. I like it, but it's weird, not remotely like any other digital camera. And not something that anyone could ever have come up with as a clean-sheet design, if film rangefinders had never existed.

Every time a camera maker has tried to make a digital version of a film camera the result has been unsatisfying. Are people flocking to the Nikon Z fc? The Z fc is to the FE/FM cameras pretty much what any "film camera but digital" would have to be.

A film camera, except it's digital

I also wasn't asking for blue-sky ideas, which some people responded with. I mean, it's all good—you can respond however you want to. The discussion can go where it wants. I'm just the maître d' here.

Money
Personally, speaking for myself only, my biggest problem is that I can't afford what I want. So under the category of "camera," what I would wish for is "more money for cameras." Of course, I'd be much richer if I could have back all the money I've ever wasted on cameras, so perhaps I should be careful what I wish for. Rimshot.

Also under the category of "film camera" (Nostalgia Dept.) is "enough money to have XP2 developed and proofed professionally." That's a necessary part of my occasional film daydreams. Which would take away all the work while leaving only the fun. Ha! More pie in the sky. I'd just print, which isn't work to me. (Know what else? I'd print on Ilford RC papers. I never could take RC papers seriously back in the old days—there was all that brouhaha early on that they wouldn't last—but I have prints from four decades ago that look like they were made four weeks ago. Ilford figured it out.)

Back to reality: and speaking of not being able to afford what I want: I'm feeling almost wounded that the Fuji GFX 50R is no more. I've been carrying around a vague idea in my head for several years now that "one day I'll have one." Yeah, right. As if. Never more than a fantasy, but hey, the loss of a fantasy is still a loss. I'm pained that it came and went and I've never even seen one.

You know what they say: Oh well.

Four+two

Four standout cameras I wish were still made, only with modern sensors and imaging processors: Sony F-707; Epson RD-1; Olympus E-1; Nikon D700. You know what I sometimes think? That when camera companies occasionally get one right, they have no idea what they've done. They're just engineers throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, but, when some sticks, they ignore it and keep on throwing spaghetti.

That's too cynical, I know.

Two cameras I wish I could buy new now: Konica-Minolta 7D, Olympus OM-2N. The 7D was my favorite DSLR. I never owned an OM-2N, but my beloved OM-4T's added several fancy features that quite honestly I never used and didn't actually need. The OM-2N would have been all I really needed. The design could be cleaned up a bit, though.

A reissued K-M 7D would have to have a 6-MP sensor! And the same color rendition. Those Minolta engineers got that just right. I've never owned a digital camera with better color. I would love to see what sensor manufacturers could do with six megapixels these days. I'll bet it would be wonderful. We will never know.

Of course, you'd also have to add to my OM-2N wish, "more youthful eyesight." Because I have an OM-2N, and I have trouble focusing sometimes. Not always. In other words, only God could grant my whole wish. We are firmly in the realm of fantasy here, obviously.

Of all six cameras just named, none have any chance of ever being offered again. The F-707 probably comes closest to being possible, but it'll never happen.

I also wish for a digital Xpan—not for me, but because so many other people loved them. Of course, that's the same argument as hoping for a few B&W digital cameras. People would say, "why do you need an Xpan? Just take several frames and use pano software." Yeah, well, but that's not the same thing. It merely ends up with a similar result, which isn't always enough. It's a process thing, a visualization thing, a method-of-working thing. Some people want to make an entire panoramic frame with one shutter click, and would take better pictures if they could do that. They'd work better that way. Same with a B&W digital, but "the majority" doesn't get that.

By the way, I no longer actually wish for a B&W digital camera, because they'd get the tones wrong. Just like they sometimes make a lens with the perfect specs (focal length, aperture, size, shape, and weight) but its bokeh sucks.

This is not a suggestion
This one is pure pie-in-the-sky, but you know what else I'd be interested in seeing? An intentionally optimized modern version of a 1970s MMM ("metal, manual, mechanical") SLR. My sense at the time was that as they solved the various problems, they were also morphing into PAE (I just made that up—"polycarbonate, automatic, electronic") designs. So there was never really a fully optimized paragon of the classic MMM genus. Various cameras came close, and others had specific features that were ideal, but no one single camera ever really put it all together. Again, this is not a real-world suggestion. No such camera will ever be made, ever, and couldn't be popular even if it was. So please don't yell at me that this isn't a practical suggestion, please. I'm not saying it is.

The digital TLR idea is also something that nags at my mind. (This one might actually be a viable product.) A camera with a folding hood like a Hasselblad, Rollei, or Bronica waist-level finder, a viewing screen you look down on, and the square format. Of course it wouldn't actually have to have "twin" lenses. It wouldn't have to be an optical viewfinder; an EVF would be fine. It's just a very sweet way to work...intimate, yet nonintrusive—the camera on a strap at the level of the solar plexus; pop open the viewfinder, look down into a nice clean square viewfinder (which could be larger than the optical ones of yore), and see the world. Anyone who's ever been in love with a Hassie or a Rolleiflex will know what I mean. People think you're looking at something in your hand, not at them. They're not threatened.

I just really liked that way of shooting, and it's too bad it's a thing of the past. But digital camera makers were very inventive and creative in the first dozen years of digital, and the marketplace kept spanking them for it. Soon enough they returned to making nothing but DSLRs and point-and-shoots...just like film, only digital. It was only when Sony led the way to FF mirrorless that they finally started to leave the old 35mm PAE DLSR behind.

And the world turns.

Mike

Book of Interest:

Hank O'Neal, Ed., A Vision Shared: A Portrait of America 1935–1943 (Steidl, 2019). The reissue of the best overall survey of the work of the FSA photographers of the 1930s. Every public and school library should have a copy, for one thing. Thanks to Andy Moursund for turning me on to this book many years ago. Originally published in 1976 by St. Martin's Press.

The book link above is a portal to Amazon.

Link to B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Niels: "Are people flocking to the Nikon Z fc? They seemingly are. Japanese price comparison portal (Kakaku.com) list the Z fc as the 11th most popular interchangeable-lens camera at the moment. From Nikon, only beaten by Z9 and the Z50 kit, thus it sells better than both Z6 Mark II and Z7 Mark II. I'd also argue that the Fujifilm X-100 wouldn't have been contrived without film rangefinders, and that it is quite a successful implementation."

Jeff: "Not necessarily a thing of the past. Put a digital back on a 500 C/M, including the modern Hasselblad version. As for 'getting the tones right' with a digital B&W camera, that’s why I carry colored filters when using a Monochrom. Much of the time, however, the tones are beautiful even without, especially from the original M9-based Monochrom with 18-MP CCD. My prints, viewed next to my former silver prints, don’t lie."

Bob Johnston: "I had a K-M 7D. You are right, the colours were outstanding and it was a joy to use. Mine wasn't too reliable though. I had to use gaffer tape to hold the battery cover closed. Then there was the dreaded black frame problem. The downfall of Minolta was a tragedy. They were by far the most innovative camera designers."

Mike replies: The troubles with mine started when it would occasionally tell me that there was no lens attached—even though I only had one lens for it and never took it off the camera. I would have to unmount and remount the lens several times in order to take an exposure. The electronics gremlins multiplied after that. The results I got with that camera were excellent, though.

Bob G.: "I think, Mike, with these posts, it seems that any reincarnation would not work, like the recent examples of 'retro' in form or function. And when they are produced, they’ll elicit the 'uncanny valley' syndrome we used to have to deal with in animation (and still do). The recreated product may technically answer all the needs, but something will still be 'not right' and it will feel like an imposter, to be eventually rejected."

Bear.: "Stopped at Leica store and had a play with the M11. Dang. All I need now is money."

Camera Query

Lighthearted question: If you were to name one camera from the past that you wish they'd start making again, what would it be?

Any era, any type.

And it could have updates (technology, mechanics, build quality, cosmetics) if you want. 

Mike

P.S. I've got my pick in mind, but I don't want to steer the conversation.

Book o' the Week:

Ernst Haas: New York in Color 1952–1962. "When Haas moved from Vienna to New York City in 1951, he left behind a war-torn continent and a career producing black-and-white images. For Haas, the new medium of color photography was the only way to capture a city pulsing with energy and humanity. These images demonstrate Haas's tremendous virtuosity and confidence with Kodachrome film and the technical challenges of color printing."

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

John Holland: "A very intriguing question! I really had to think for a long stretch about this. I'd imagine a particular camera from my collection, and then think naww, it has this or that annoying aspect (for me). I finally thought of two, one for film and one for digital. For film: Olympus OM-2n. No updates necessary. For digital: Olympus E-1, but with a modern sensor. Perfect form factor, super quiet. All successor Olympus DSLRs have better sensors and worse ergonomics. I should say the answer kinda surprised me, because I've shot mostly Nikon since the early '80s. But both these Olympuses (Olympii?) are more pleasant to walk around and shoot with all day long. They bring home the shot. So does Nikon, but ya gotta nurse/curse it a bit more."

David Graham: "Sony F717."

Hélcio J. Tagliolatto: "Contax 159."

Stephen Scharf: "Fujifilm GFX 50R."

Mike replies: Wow, what happened?! I just heard about this when I read David Myers' comment. I'm...taken aback. It's only 3 1/2 years old.

Stephen replies to Mike: "My guess is the advent of the GFX 50S Mark II did it in. Likely the newer camera is selling quite a bit better. It could have also been a supply chain issue with respect to availability of sensors. If I recall correctly, they both use the same sensor, so it could be that Fujifilm decided to use the allocation for the more popular and profitable camera.

"Like David, though, I really liked the GFX50R; both it's form factor and image quality. A good buddy has one and just loves it."

Brian O'Connor: "No battery, mechanical 35mm film camera new. i.e., Pentax K1000, SP, Nikkormat, OM-1 etc. I love those old cameras, but am a bit sick of fixing them. It would be nice to have one that is clean and new.  :-)  The other one would be a film body that only has the electronics necessary to take Canon R/Nikon Z/Sony FE/ lenses. It would be interesting to see how those lenses performed on film."

Ray Noble: "I miss my Minolta Maxxim 9. It was rugged, had excellent handling, great lens selection and most of all was very intuitive. I am sure I read the manual because I always do, but I never had to refer back to it for anything I wanted to do with the camera."

Dennis Mook: "Mamiya 7."

Michael: "Nikon D700 with 24-MP sensor."

Richard T: "The ergonomics of the Olympus E-1 remains unrivaled (and dampened shutter cherry on the cake). Can’t believe they knocked it out of the park right from the get go and not once revisited that design."

Mike replies: I can't believe it either. Seemed like a winner to me. In a sensible world it would be on about v. VIII by now.

ASW: "Interesting question. I wouldn't mind a reissue of my Nikon D700, as I don't think any of Nikon's newer DSLRs really replaced it. I would keep the build quality, size, and form factor and ask for an upgrade of the sensor to the latest technologies. I would be happy with 24–30 MP (I'm mostly still happy with 12 MP)."

Henri van der Sluis: "For me Canon A-1, would buy it today again without hesitation in spite of the fact that I still have and use my first A-1 that I bought in 1980. No updates…don't change a good thing; plenty of modern alternatives available."

Herman Krieger: "My favorite all time camera was the Zeiss Super Ikonta B. I had a prewar model, that I carried with me while in the Army Air Corps during WWII. I later had a postwar model."

Ricardo Silva Cordeiro: "A resurrection of the Epson (or Cosina/Voigtlander) RD1. Could maintain the APS-C sensor, but a current one from Sony. It should also offer more frame lines for various focal lengths.

"Just wish there could be a accessible rangefinder camera, on a market of so much high-performance cameras this niche model could be successful—just target the marketing to nostalgia. It could even be stripped down in some areas, like removing the back screen or/and any video features (so the image processor can be older/cheaper), a true purist camera at less than 2,000 bucks."

Rick: "Hasselblad Xpan. Much missed—sorry I sold mine, a unique camera."

Jim Grey: "Nikon F3 all the way."

Bruce Bodine: "Olympus E-1 with updated Kodak sensor."

Wolfgang Lonien: "Olympus OM-2N."

Yoshi Carroll: "Sony F-707 with interchangeable lenses and an APS-C (at least) sized sensor."

Kodachromeguy: "The Rolleiflex TLR based on the robust F chassis. These cameras were so incredibly handy, durable, and optically excellent."

Allan Ostling: "I want Nikon to reprise the Nikon 1 system. I cherish the 70–300mm 1 Nikkor which affords an 810mm equivalent view, perfect for birding and much lighter than any other 'serious' lens for this demanding task. I have two Nikon 1 J5 bodies. The last of the line, the J5 has a 21-MP BSI sensor which was an improvement over the 18-MP V3 body. I also use the 32mm 1 Nikkor 32mm ƒ/1.2 (85mm-e) mounted on a V2. A V4 or a J6 would be a real treat."

Patrick Medd: "Given that a used Mamiya 7 is now selling for approximately £4,000 and a reconditioned Rolleiflex for not much less, we must be approaching the point where it starts to make economic sense for one of the manufacturers to start producing a new film camera—probably in the medium format arena."

Mike replies: I'm watching for this to happen. It's what happened with collectible classic LP records: as the prices for originals rose to $60, $90, $150, $200 and higher, 30 years ago it became viable to press new reissues at $30, a price that had previously been unheard of for new vinyl records (the going price is now $40). If the choice was a used original for $300 or a pristine, unplayed new reissue at $30, the latter had its own appeal and seemed "cheap." (You can get such records at places like Acoustic Sounds in Salina, Kansas, or Music Direct in Chicago, Illinois.)

Fred Haynes: "Ha! We all come out of the ‘woodwork’ with a post that asks such a question! Me? Definitely the rangefinder Nikon S2! After that, the Olympus OM-1. I loved the S2, and I foolishly sold it to buy the Olympus. But I love the OM-1 too; the match needle metering was so simple and easy to use. The finder was bright, it was just a pleasure to take pictures! If I had the Nikon today, I’d just use the 50mm normal, and a 35mm wide that I had as well."

Bob G.: "There are too many to list…but in view of that, I wish fancifully that each major manufacturer somehow would institute a boutique division that would explore their best camera and remanufacture it, addressing any small problems in the past. Some older cameras had maybe only a few things that made it less than perfect. The reproduced model might be chosen by customer consensus and made to a pre-order amount. But then, it’s all wishful thinking…you really can’t recreate the past that’s in user’s minds. Change or improve one thing, and it won’t be the same…."

Mitch Krupp: "Pentax 6x7. Well, maybe it's just the time of my life when I had a 6x7 that I'd like back...."

Mike replies: Amen. Nailed it, the source of most nostalgia.

Update on the Previous Sale

Just an update: we're closing the books Ctein's Infrared Print Offer a few days from now, so if there's anything you need to communicate with him about, please do it now!

[email protected]

Thanks again to everyone who participated. We've received many nice compliments about the prints.

Mike

One Advantage of Making a 'Desert Island' List

It's a form of foolishness to compile little lists of "bests." (Why limit yourself? Could you really look at ten movies over and over again? Eat only ten meals?) But here's one practical advantage of a "Desert Island" (DI) book list: it will probably reveal what's most important to you personally.

Most of my DI book list is small format B&W film photography. And as I was mulling over the list, more great books kept coming to mind. Where is James Ravilious? Elliott Erwitt? Eisenstadt? Salgado? Minor masters like Dan Weiner and Charles Harbutt? Larry Towell and Eugene Richards? Leonard Freed? The names kept coming. But they were all, or mostly, small format B&W film photographers. That's what I did; it's what I liked. I did it because I liked it and I liked it because I did it.

Ken Tanaka just told us that he is "thoroughly devoted to color photography" and color in photography, and that he has a "special shelf" where the most frequently viewed selections of his 750+ volume photo book library live. So what do you think the chances are that his special shelf does not contain mostly great examples of color photography? Whereas color was mostly missing from my list.

I have a friend who is devoted to esoteric fine art and avant-guarde photography. He has (or had, I don't know) a famous collection of 5,500 photobooks—and not a single volume of Ansel Adams or Joel Meyerowitz. Many of his books are extremely scarce and rare. And he likes books that are authored, as cohesive, self-contained artistic creations in themselves, as opposed to collections and compilations. I don't know which books he would save first in a house fire, but I'd bet heavily that the best-selling and quite common trade book Henri Cartier-Bresson Photographer, a greatest-hits collection, which was on my list, wouldn't be in his arms as he exited.

John-Paul Caponigro was an early convert to digital imaging and is a master of Photoshop. Wouldn't you think his DI list would reflect his passion for those things?

My friend Andy Moursund, book dealer par excellence, has a photobook collection extracted from the many thousands of books that filtered through his bookshops over many years. He's always had a special feeling for books about New York City. When I asked him what he specialized in, he listed a number of things, then added, "...and books about New York City, of course." That "of course" seemed to imply that it was just natural that anyone would be interested in those. We could ask him, but I'll bet his DI list would contain several NYC books.

Geoff Wittig is a hardworking family doctor in nearby Dansville who has a passionate, longtime interest in landscape. He both paints and photographs, in color as far as I know. I've only heard stories of his book collection, which exceeds the space he has to contain it (it's definitely on my list to rectify that as soon as this COVID thing leaves us alone), but I'll bet money his personal DI list would contain mostly, or all, books of color landscape photography, and maybe painting too. And that he'd be left thinking of the landscape-in-color books he had to leave off.

Reveal
So such a list is only a reflection in a mirror. But, of course, our reflection in a mirror can reveal ourselves to ourselves. Because with only ten or twelve to choose, the things that really "get us where we live," the things that are really most important to us, the things we love best, will tend to crowd out the things were merely approve of, or admire because we think we ought to, or that we think others would enjoy.

So think about a DI list, if only because you'll see yourself reflected in it. Don't be shy—go for the gut. Include only the things you love the most. Maybe it will help clarify what you're actually most interested in, when push comes to shove.

Mike

Book o' the Week:

Ernst Haas: New York in Color 1952–1962. "When Haas moved from Vienna to New York City in 1951, he left behind a war-torn continent and a career producing black-and-white images. For Haas, the new medium of color photography was the only way to capture a city pulsing with energy and humanity. These images demonstrate Haas's tremendous virtuosity and confidence with Kodachrome film and the technical challenges of color printing."

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

James Weekes: "I am glad that you made it clear that these were your favorite books for a desert island and not the 'best' books. Best varies from person to person, favorite remains."

Geoff Wittig: "Thanks for the shout-out, Mike! I do indeed have a fairly extensive collection of color landscape photography monographs, including 'greatest hits' like Art Wolfe, Galen Rowell, and Christopher Burkett. But I also have lots of black and white landscape volumes. Ansel Adams, of course, but also Michael Kenna, Don Kirby and other contemporary masters. I just added a summary volume of Robert Adams' work, though now monographs on paintings are my main obsession. If the house was on fire, though...I'd be grabbing the Chris Burkett books and the exquisite Arion Press letterpress version of Ansel Adams' Sierra Nevada."

robert e: "Mike, you're also making a great case for the value of other peoples' 'desert island' lists, as a kind of specialist curation. I may not know much about niche 'X,' but that list by somebody who has been deep into it for decades is going to be a great place for me to start. All the better if said connoisseur is known to us."

Animesh Ray: "This necessarily will be a rather personal choice, which must be colored, subconsciously or otherwise, by personal experiences. I grew up by the banks of the Ganges. My connection with the big brown big-hearted river of my childhood must impose heavily on my choice if I am to be stranded on a desert island. I will take with me Raghubir Singh's The Ganges, if only to dream of those lost days."

Dave_lumb: "Strictly speaking a Desert Island list should number eight if you follow the format of the BBC radio programme.  ;-)  I compiled my list a while back, and it does reflect my interest in British, primarily rural, life."

Patrick Medd: "The definitive treatise on the male need to make lists is perhaps High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, which should certainly be in the list of top ten books about lists."

Favorites (Take With a Grain of Salt!)

Thomas Walsh asked:

I always enjoy the 'Book o' the Week' as well as the links to books by the photographers that you write about. I had no knowledge of Jerry Uelsmann and found his work interesting. I also enjoyed the blog on Ernst Haas. My question is, of your personal collection of books dealing with photography or photographers, which ten would you want if you were on that proverbial desert island? Thank you.

Hmm, interesting. I have a friend who hates lists, because he feels they promote a mindset that's antithetical to openness to new things. Ranking things, in his view, trivializes and reduces them. But I have a weakness for lists—they're fun for me, in an indulgent, sort of squirrelly way. So I'll attempt it. These are just my personal favorites, though. And only "as books"—this isn't a list of either my favorite photographers, or the top photographers I would necessarily recommend other people get to know. The list is all B&W and all social documentary, for one thing, albeit often with artistic and expressive flair.

It's not very up to the present. My "active period" as a photographer lasted at best 23 years, from 1980 to 2003. I lost my darkroom in 2000, and bought my first digital camera in 2003. Of course I started photographing at age seven and was out shooting a few days ago, but that 23 year figure is accurate. I had more success writing about it than doing it, and we tend to migrate into doing what we are rewarded for.

Most of the books here are ones I learned something from—work I engaged with because it related to my work, or at least my aspirations for my work. So there's no attempt here to create a survey or to be inclusive or anything else of that sort. Also, I can only recommend editions I've seen. Sometimes reprints can be as good as or better than the original, sometimes much worse. You have to check. In no particular order:

Lee Friedlander, Like a One-Eyed Cat. Readily available used.

Hank O'Neal at al., Eds., A Vision Shared: A Classic Portrait of America and Its People, 1935–1943. Whoa, it's been reprinted! I didn't know that. The best collection of the work of the Farm Security Administration photographers of the Great Depression. I haven't seen the reprint; I have the 1976 edition. If anyone has seen the reprint I'd be very interested in your estimation of its qualities. This should be a Book o' the Week assuming it's well done. But you can't assume.

Aperture magazine issue 111: Swimmers, available in hardcover. I believe this was edited by Nan Richardson; my copy's in the barn so I can't look. An obscure choice, but you asked.

Josef Koudelka, Exiles. I'm not currently up on the various editions; the one I have is from Aperture, 1988, the American version of the one published in Europe by Robert Delpire.

Helen Levitt, Crosstown (PowerHouse, 2001). Note that Ms. Levitt didn't like this book—she didn't want to sign my copy!

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Photographer (in print for many years and through several editions from Bulfinch). Looks like this has been reprinted too, by Prestel, in 2020. Haven't seen the reprint. The ideal collection, the ideal introduction to him.

Keith F. Davis, Ed., Multitude, Solitude: The Photographs of Dave Heath (Nelson Atkins, 2015). I love this book so much I'm kind of afraid to look at it too much. Lots of my favorite books show too much wear. I should have bought two. Masterful work, masterful book. I'm a great admirer of Keith's books in general, but this is his masterpiece I should think.

Peter Galassi, Ed., Roy DeCarava: A Retrospective (MoMA, 1996). Roy's original prints are actually so extreme in his chosen style (he deliberately printed dark and murky—combine that with the current fashion for tepid, wan lighting in museums and you get disaster) that this book is a rare case of reproductions being better than originals IMO. These reproductions look like originals under strong light, something possibly no one will see ever again. Hyperbole? Perhaps. Get the book. Forced to pick one all-time favorite photobook, this would be the one.

Vanessa Winship, Schwarzes Meer (Mare, 2007). Never available in the U.S.A. Text in German. A portrait from peacetime of the region of the world currently being torn apart by war. Pure shooting of great genius.

Jeffrey Fraenkel, Ed., Seeing Things (DAP, 1995). I like all of Jeffrey Fraenkel's collections, but this one remains a favorite.

Be cautious reading too much into all this. To be taken with a grain of salt as they say. The full list of books I treasure for various reasons would easily be over 100, and a "ten most recommended" list would be completely different from this one. Also, I could easily put together a ten best of color photography, a ten best of photo history, a ten best of readings, a ten best of surveys (only two on this list), a ten best of snapshots and "found" photography, and off we go, merrily.

A friend—actually I forget who, maybe Mark L. Power or Frank DiPerna, both gone now, both among my teachers—bruited the concept of a "sponge period," that time of life when we're soaking stuff up, curious, questing, intense, intent. I'm older now, and know what I know. I still love new work and I still love photobooks, but I have to admit that I seldom engage with books now like I did when I was armed with Tri-X and a 35mm camera and could make prints; for years now I've been thinking of others more than of myself. But that's as it should be, so it's all all right.

Mike

Book o' the Week:

Ernst Haas: New York in Color 1952–1962. "When Haas moved from Vienna to New York City in 1951, he left behind a war-torn continent and a career producing black-and-white images. For Haas, the new medium of color photography was the only way to capture a city pulsing with energy and humanity. These images demonstrate Haas's tremendous virtuosity and confidence with Kodachrome film and the technical challenges of color printing."

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

David Mackenzie: "I have the 2019 edition of A Vision Shared. The quality of the book is excellent from the binding to the text to the quality of the image reproduction. I haven’t seen an earlier version so I can’t do a comparison, but this edition is excellent."

First Pitch (OT)

Best first pitch ever: Kim Ye-Lim of South Korea. Retire the trophy. (She's a figure skater, can you tell?) And although the spin is the main attraction, that's an elegant throw she made, too. Obviously a talented athlete.

And this must be one of the worst. This is more like what would happen if I did it!

There should be a name for the opposite of a "bucket list": all the things you know absolutely for certain you will never do. Bungee-jumping, own a jet, do a backflip on solid ground, read Proust—and to those, I could add "throw out a first pitch."

Carly Rae Jepson is a singer, I found out, and also a good sport. She was laughing at herself. And apparently she was nailing it in practice; she just tightened up at showtime and failed to release, that's all.

Mike

Book o' the Week:

Ernst Haas: New York in Color 1952–1962. "When Haas moved from Vienna to New York City in 1951, he left behind a war-torn continent and a career producing black-and-white images. For Haas, the new medium of color photography was the only way to capture a city pulsing with energy and humanity. These images demonstrate Haas's tremendous virtuosity and confidence with Kodachrome film and the technical challenges of color printing."

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Jim Arthur: "I walk around my local park almost every day and over the years I’ve found a few baseballs rolled up under bushes, etc. I kept the first few but now I just chuck them out into the nearest diamond to be found by some lucky kid. Eventually it occurred to me that I should try my hand at pitching again since I have these few baseballs stashed in the back of my Jeep. (I was the star pitcher of my Little League team when I was 10 years old.)

"I unearthed an old softball glove from the back of a closet and began using one of the pitching practice areas in my local park...and as a potbellied graybeard I’ve received a few double takes.  :-)  These practice areas have a mound, home plate and a large rubber sheet covered in chain link serving as a backstop. I started extremely slow because my arm is now 50 years older and I’m in sad, sad pandemic shape, but I found that my accuracy came back almost immediately.

"I’ve fallen into the habit of throwing balls once or twice a week as a fun distraction and now I think I’d be pretty good at throwing out a first pitch…if I was famous. This new bit of activity and break in my routine has prompted me to restart my old habit of daily stretching and light weight training. I must say, I feel great. I don’t know why I wasn’t exercising throughout the pandemic. For anyone who like me just sank into their couch or computer chair over the last few years I can highly recommend a little spring time activity. Just start very slow. My approach was to design an exercise routine that assumes I’m ten years older than I am."

JTK: "Re 'There should be a name for the opposite of a bucket list.' There is Mike, there is. And it rhymes perfectly with bucket list."

John Cecilian: "Dont know if this link will work for you but don't give up on the possibility of throwing out the first pitch. My business partner loved the Cubs her whole life and circumstances came together for her doing just that in their World Series year, and you can see the joy she had being on Wrigley field and throwing out a first pitch. Thought you might like this."

Mike replies: Impressive!

Jerry Uelsmann 1934–2022

Jerry Uelsmann (I always heard it pronounced beginning with "you'll," as "YOU'LLs-mun"), who was famous, especially in the last third of the 20th century, for his endlessly creative surrealist combination printing, died in Gainesville, Florida, on April 4th, at the age of 87. He made photomontages entirely in the darkroom from multiple negatives, some of which were known to appear in more than one of his works. He was the ex-husband of Maggie Taylor, an early proponent of surreal montages made in Photoshop, although, as a master printer who was able to do things in the darkroom that many others who tried could not, Uelsmann himself chose not to make the transition to digital imaging.

He studied as an undergraduate at RIT with Minor White and Ralph Hattersley, graduating in 1957, then did graduate work at Indiana University, earning his MFA under his mentor and influence Henry Holmes Smith in 1960. In that year, during a period when photography was entering into university curricula around the nation, he was recruited by Van Deren Coke to teach at the University of Florida, where he spent his career.

Jerry Uelsmann, Self-Portrait

That career can be said to have been somewhat charmed; he came along at just the right time. He is widely credited with bringing the then-current sensibilities of Pop Art into photography (and/or vice versa), in kinship with artists such as Joseph Cornell and Robert Rauschenberg. His career reached an early peak in 1967 with a one-man show at the Museum of Modern Art and a Guggenheim Fellowship beginning that same year; in that period, an entire issue of the influential journal Aperture was devoted to his work. He was a founding member of the Society for Photographic Education (SPE) among many other accomplishments and honors.

Although the work itself may be something of an acquired taste, he was celebrated as the leading proponent of his style throughout the 1970s especially, and of course thereafter, although my own impression is that he gradually became less and less well known after the advent of digital imaging, when artists such as Julie Blackmon, Dominic Rouse, Maggie Taylor, Gregory Crewdson, Erik Johansson, John Paul Caponigro, Loretta Lux and many others began to expand the aesthetic territory he had once inhabited more or less alone. Uelsmann constructed his pictures by moving the same sheet of paper from enlarger to enlarger—"most photographers carry many cameras with multiple attachments," he said, whereas he carried only one, but "most photographers have one enlarger. I have half a dozen."

Combination printing has been a constant thread in photography from early on: Oscar Rejlander and Henry Peach Robinson are fixtures in most histories of photography, never mind such tricks as the Cottingley Fairies or gag postcards showing a single giant potato on a horse-drawn wagon. More modern artists such as Duane Michals have used some of the techniques as well. But Jerry Uelsmann was sui generis. No one did what he did quite the same way, with quite the same range of inventiveness or at his level of darkroom prestidigitation and skill, and most of his creations are easily recognizable as his. He leaves behind a plentiful legacy, both as a teacher of generations of students and as a distinctively unusual photographer/artist.

Mike

Book o' the Week:

Ernst Haas: New York in Color 1952–1962. "When Haas moved from Vienna to New York City in 1951, he left behind a war-torn continent and a career producing black-and-white images. For Haas, the new medium of color photography was the only way to capture a city pulsing with energy and humanity. These images demonstrate Haas's tremendous virtuosity and confidence with Kodachrome film and the technical challenges of color printing."

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Bob Rosinsky: "I had the opportunity to see him present his work and give a talk at the Polk County Museum in Lakeland, Florida ten or fifteen years ago. He impressed me as being approachable and somewhat modest, truly a nice guy. Back in the '70s, when I was just getting into processing and printing black and white, I was in awe of his work. With digital photography entering its third decade, it's understandable why people today may find it quaint."

John Camp: "And he published a book in 1992 called Photo Synthesis with a foreword by A.D. Coleman. Still available on Amazon."

ASW: "I'm not sure if I should admit to having never heard of Mr. Uelsmann before this post, but 'Self-Portrait' definitely brought out my first LOL (as the kids say) in a good long while. I think I would have liked him."

Mike replies: I always wondered if he meant he had his head in the clouds.  :-)

The Shadow Knows

Zack S. wrote to say, "Many years ago the CBC had a show called Nightfall which was a radio drama show and were mainly supernatural stories. Episode number 22, 'Deadly Developments,' is about photography and is quite good."

Here it is:

I don't think we've ever posted a radio show on TOP before! Always something new. Thanks Zack.

Mike

UPDATE from Zack S: "Here is a description of the episode; 'Professional photographer André Phillipe and his assistant Steve prepare for a photo shoot for an upcoming horror novel. They have acquired a Von Hensdorf—a rare camera from pre-war Germany—which has an unusual outcome when used.'"

Book o' the Week:

Ernst Haas: New York in Color 1952–1962. "When Haas moved from Vienna to New York City in 1951, he left behind a war-torn continent and a career producing black-and-white images. For Haas, the new medium of color photography was the only way to capture a city pulsing with energy and humanity. These images demonstrate Haas's tremendous virtuosity and confidence with Kodachrome film and the technical challenges of color printing."

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Earl Dunbar: "Oh! I used to listen to 'Nightfall' (though not every episode) from several of my homes in southern Ontario. CBC has an extraordinary place in my heart—in the '70s–'90s it was some of the best radio anywhere."