Open Mike: Notes vs.* Art

["Open Mike" is the Editorial Page of TOP, wherein Yr. Hmbl. Ed. wanders down tributaries and scolds the internet betimes. It appears now and then.]

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I'm very happy with my cameras recently. My Sigma fp is not yet converted to mono-only, so I'm still using Jason's—and I still need to shoot with the Leica Monochrom. (My plans were interrupted by COVID-19, from which I have recovered.) But I really like the idea of splitting my arsenal into an "art" camera and a "note-taking" camera...the odd and unusual fp-M as a sort of walk-around B&W view camera (that's kinda how I think of it), and the iPhone 13 for taking visual notes.

The life of an artist
This split—a notepad on the one hand and the ambition to make self-conscious art on the other—has a long history with me. Before I first got into photography in a big way, I was into art—I drew and painted, which was my claim to fame when I was in the "gifted kid" stage of the Life of an Artist—so a lot of of my early photographing was as references for drawings and paintings. That is, it was all note-taking—it didn't matter if a photograph worked as a photograph; it didn't matter if telephone wires spoiled a sky. I was only going to use it as raw material anyway.

Then, when I got more serious about 35mm photography, I deliberately and consciously conceived of my shooting as half art and half personal note-taking. That is, I wanted to make "good" photographs to show, but I also wanted to be free to record things, to shoot things I wanted to explore or remember—and just to play around. I conceived of my contact sheets not only as raw material for art but also as my diary. My idea was that the balance should be half and half. I formulated this early on, and it freed me up to not be too serious all the time.

Ever since smartphones got "good enough," they've created tension in my life. All too often, they've been "the camera I've had with me." And that's been to the detriment of my photography, because photographs happen to you when you're out and about with a camera, and, contrary to the common truism, the best camera is not the one you have with you. In fact, it's a very common mistake, and occasionally a tragedy, to have nothing but the wrong camera with you. What you really need to have with you is the right camera, the camera the occasional good pictures should have been taken with. At this point in history I have lots of pictures taken with various smartphones that I really wish had been taken with a better camera.

Convenient and fun
And yet...convenience. It's what drives the evolution of photography. The quality of smartphone cameras as cameras is almost completely beside the point; their great advantage is the convenience of instant sharing over distances. The other day I shot a short movie, in color, with sound, and sent it to my cousin in California (I live in New York), who received it almost instantaneously, watched it, and sent a comment back. All over the course of just a few minutes. When I entered photography school 40 years ago, that would have been utter science fiction. In response to such an idea, anybody with any knowledge would have responded, "that's never going to happen." (It's one of the cool things about getting older...sooner or later you live in the future.) Anyway, convenience has most consistently been the driver of the evolution of photographic technology right from the start, up until this minute, and it's useless to pretend otherwise. And shooting with a phone is fun. Why would you deny yourself something readily available and free that's so much fun?

(As to what "note-taking" is—my iPhoneography—I was going to post some illustrations in this post, but on second thought I think it would just be a distraction. I'll put some examples in a separate post.)

I used to think that the ideal was to have only one camera that could do everything, which is why I've always leaned toward APS-C and Micro 4/3 cameras. I wanted one camera that was suited for both note-taking and more serious shooting. But for quite a while now—at least since Sara and I went to California to meet her parents in 2014, and I took only my iPhone 4s—I've had this idea that using the smartphone frees me up to balance it out with a camera that's more specialized and less suited to covering the note-taking aspects of photographing. I b'lieve at one point I mused in these pages that maybe it should be a Fuji medium-format digital camera...big balancing out little. (I'd link to that post, but I can't find it.) But honestly, a dedicated B&W camera with an enormous viewfinder that yields as much detail as I could want is just the perfect counterbalance to the iPhone...for me personally.

I want to use the iPhone. I'm going to use it. No sense pretending I won't. The important thing is to have something that suits my personal desires that balances it out. And I feel like I've got that now.

Like I say, I'm just very happy with the solution offered by this pair of cameras. One is easy to use and shoots color and panos and movies and everything is available for instant sharing; the other is funky and deliberate, lets me see in B&W again, has a giant viewfinder, and is perfectly suited to concerted shooting ("concerted shooting" meaning shooting when that's all I'm doing). It's ideally suited (again, just for me) to careful, slow, contemplative photographing. The opposite of the iPhone.

So the two of them balance each other out. One does one kind of shooting I want to do, and the other does the other kind of shooting I want to do.

Express yourself
Of course, the Sigma fp-M paired with the iPhone 13 Pro is a very idiosyncratic answer to the question "which camera?" You could pretty easily make the argument that getting a mainstream high-megapixel FF mirrorless camera with a 24–105mm zoom lens and then having it with me at all times would actually make more sense and be the best thing I could do. But, hey, I've always been an artist at heart. And we march to the beat of our own drummers and take the roads less traveled, right?

Mike

*And by the way, "vs.," the abbreviation for the word versus, is pronounced ˈvər-səs. (Hear it here.) Idiot YouTube has decided that the way to say it is "verse," which is brain-dead. Have you noticed the blinding speed at which the world is becoming illiterate? I come across strange and primitive semi-literate formulations of English almost every day now, even in reputable sources. Verse is the singular of "verses," which means lines of metrical writing. Versus means "against" or "in opposition to." It descends from the Latin word meaning "facing."

Book o' the Week

Annie Leibovitz. At long last, the unlimited trade edition of the humongous, limited Sumo edition by Taschen. Mind you, it's still a huge book—15.4 inches high, 556 pages, and almost 13 pounds. And the price! (But that's nothing—the Sumo weighed 57 pounds and cost $7,500.) This is the closest ordinary folks (with ordinary shelves) will get to the ultimate Annie. It will be released on Friday, and can be pre-ordered now.

This book link is a portal to Amazon. You're very kind use our links, as they help support the site.

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 Krumm: "We like to think the gear doesn't matter, but of course it does, it just is very personal and is not always related to what is broadly popular. So I understand your pleasure with your unusual camera and funky elephant grip.

"I've recently started shooting with a new manual-focus Voigtlander APO 35mm ƒ/2 Z mount lens. [This one? —Mike] I just totally love using it. I'm getting better and better at just looking at the distance scale and guessing the zone. It makes focusing a pleasure, not a chore, when you can skip the whole magnify, fine-tune, then shoot process. But I would not recommend it for most people." 

Mike replies: I focus the 45mm ƒ/2.8 on the fp-M manually too. The AF works fine, but I just like the manual focus.

John: "Re '[This one? —Mike]': Yes, bought a few weeks ago from CameraQuest, the main U.S. Voigtländer dealer, but newly available at B&H. Not a perfect lens, but very nice, with great feel. I'm hoping they eventually make a 28mm version."

Geoff Wittig: "Gaaah. I feel physical pain at the degradation of the English language before our eyes. 'Verse' is bad enough. Nails-on-a-chalkboard for me is 'on accident,' an utterly wrong substitute for accidentally, or by [way of] accident."

Mike replies: I feel like everybody who cares about language has at least one pet peeve that drives them particularly wild. For me it's "loose" in place of "lose." There's no reason why that one in particular should bug me so much—but every time I see it I get to feeling that it might be all right to strangle someone.

Luke: "Easy, Mike. Don't loose it. Breath, breath."

Tom Duffy: "At least a perfect camera combination is possible for you. Always available vs. contemplative. I'm still trying to shoot Tri-X and digital at the same time. And it seems that I really prefer a 6x9 negative to 35mm for Tri-X. And I'm in love with that large 50mm ƒ/1.2 on my Canon. Camera bag no matter what. I don't know how this situation is going to resolve."

Mike replies: What a nice coincidence. I have a quote by Tom Duffy taped to my office wall, and for some reason it caught my eye this morning. After rereading it, I found myself wondering whether Tom still reads TOP, or if he might be among the legion of the departed (there's a lot of turnover in a blog audience, even though this one has many loyal readers who've been reading for many years). And then I turned on my computer and found this comment at the top of the stack. Nice.

Terry Letton: "Arghh. You guys that think words have meanings fixed from on high. No No No. their meaning is whatever the current consensus says it is and that changes over time. Sorry my pet peeve."

Ken: "Yesterday, a photo caption in the paper referred to two cyclists in post-Ian Florida 'peddling' their bikes somewhere or other. I 'must of' missed when pedaling bikes went out of fashion, but it doesn't 'phase me' if some guys just want to sell their bikes instead of riding them."

Kylian: "What? Aren't you going to tell us what quote of Tom Duffy's you have taped to your office wall?"

Mike replies:

"I used to do a lot of climbing when I was younger (OK, way younger) to the point of getting frostbite from a winter climb on Long's Peak in Colorado in '77. Experientially, I found that if I kept looking at the summit of a mountain, I would find myself becoming disheartened at my seeming lack of progress as I climbed. I came to realize that since I knew the goal, all I had to do was keep putting one foot in front of the other, and that steady-state, non-introspective activity achieved the summit.

"The insight stuck with me. Much of success in life comes from endurance and not much more. As important as thinking is, I'd make the case that after defining a goal, it's often more productive to simply endure."

—Tom Duffy

[From this post. Bruce Springsteen said something similar about his early career; he said something to the effect that there were setbacks that could have discouraged him if he had let them, but he knew that if he just kept walking, he would get there in the end.]

Danielsroka: "Having both a note-taking camera and an art camera makes sense to me as well. But not just from the nature of the camera (its convenience, quality, etc.) but from where the photographs end up living, and how they get used. My note-photos taken on my iPhone live on my iPhone. They are made to be quickly referenced, lightly edited (at best) and easily shared. My art photos taken with my Nikon D850, on the other hand, live on my computer, where they can be carefully considered and slowly edited. Neither environment is good for the other type of photo for me, so I appreciate having the clear separation between them."

Comments

[Sal Santamaura]

...Have you noticed the blinding speed at which the world is becoming illiterate?...

Yes. And it will get worse. And there's nothing we can do about it, unless an EMP ends the interwebs.

[Albert Smith]

I get the tool versus the note pad thing, but my fear is the once in a lifetime shot that you captured as a "note" because you had only that body with you, not anticipating any real photography.

In April 2012 (in case anyone wishes to look it up) I was in a Publix supermarket in Deland, Florida. Suddenly there was a crashing boom and all the power went out. All you could see is a giant hole in the ceiling and liquid fire pouring into the store and igniting everything in its path. A plane lost power from a nearby airport and crashed vertically into the middle of the roof, continuing into the store with all its burning fuel. I saw two people on fire fall from the rafters as the crew compartment was hung up in the buildings framework. It was not pretty.

My military training kicked in (I was bombed in the middle east) and I grabbed people and made my way to the front exit. I ran out to my car which had, not my Nikon D700, but my just-in-case note taking camera, Canon G12 with its tiny 1:1.7 sensor which could barely tolerate ISO 400. I was the only person there with a camera, but I'm almost embarrassed to look at what I shot. The quality of those early cell phone was worse than my Canon, but the Canon was not good enough.

Lesson for me: my note taking camera has to be equal to my art camera. The Canon was traded in for another Nikon (now a Fuji X-T2). I will not be limited the next time I see Elvis get out of a flying saucer piloted by big foot.

[John Krill]

And by the way: The current generation of photographer that came into photography seem to think they can use different labels. It's no longer film photography but analog photography. The only problem is which type of photon collector are they referring to: the older generation of cameras that use film or the newer technology that use electronic sensors. Both collect photons. And both are analog devices. Your modern digital cameras use a analog-to-digital chip to convert the data (photons) into digital info that the processor can use.

So which analog device are you talking about?

So to keep it simple, and less confusing, lets stick to using the terms film and digital.

By the way there is very little in a digital camera that is digital. The processor being the primary digital device. Your sd card being another. Maybe the focus motors being another. But the vast majority of a digital camera is no different than your old film camera.

[Tom Burke]

Interesting post, Mike, and I enjoyed reading the content about your journey to where you are now.

“One camera that could do everything”. One problem that I see is that if you mean “everything”, you need a broad set of lenses. That R5 and the 24-105 will be pretty good at the sort of photography you like to do, I think, although the f4 maximum aperture might be a bit restrictive. But I suspect that your definition of “everything” is ignoring whole swathes of photography. Wildlife and birds in flight, for example, for which you’d need at least a 600mm on the FF camera; or macro - just to give two examples. Is it possible that you really mean “one camera that could do everything that I’m interested in doing”? That’s fine, of course - very few photographers want to do “everything”.

Tomorrow (Monday) I take delivery of my iPhone 14 Pro. It’s going to be my “one camera to do everything that I’m interested in doing”, which is travel, architecture, flowers/gardens, and quirky odd things. At this stage in my life I shall be happy if I can master its capabilities in these areas, and satisfy my photographic ambitions thereby.

[Bear.]

My favourite 'note taking' cameras are my now ancient in digital years Sigma DP1 and DP2 cameras. They are tiny and slip in a bag or coat pocket, give me a couple of focal lengths. I shoot them zone focussed through an EVF. I much prefer them to - say - my iPhone, which takes perfectly good photos but which I don't enjoy using as a camera, so I don't. The problem with using 'note taking' cameras in that way is that inevitably see and wish to make an image suitable for large scale exhibition but then don't have the right gear. I've tried my Q2 which works perfectly but is too large (and too expensive) to be chucked at the bottom of a bag or in a pocket. I had some success with my RX1 used the same way as the Sigmas but 24 mp doesn't really solve the problem - I might try with a RX-1Rii but won't be able to zone focus with all that resolution. What a lovely problem to have!

[Omer]

I’m not a writer and know it, still, I like words. Two writers who are ideologically the opposite to me are favorites; George Will and William Buckley Jr. I used to rant at Buckley and still do at George Will but totally admire their writing.

As for having the wrong camera, don’t talk to me, buddy. I recently paired a 30yr. old flash unit with a recent mirrorless only to have the pairing foil my grand vision. The flash unit, a Nikon SB-25 that still works but really should be used with an external power pack. The camera, a Panasonic Lumix GX9 is good but its auto focus system has limitations, and the fact that I forgot to uncheck the ‘no shutter release if focus is not verified’ option. My grand vision should have resulted in masterpieces but instead I got, and didn’t get, stuff.* It was my fault. All the preceding I know yet managed to overlook and forget.

All kinds of curse words.

Looking forward to your book, Mike.

*Yep, I know, masterpieces are a dime a dozen.

[Nick Reith]

Talking about pet peeves, the one that grinds my gears is 'drug' instead of dragged.
How did that curiosity creep into the vernacular, one has to wonder ?

[Luke]

I'd like to hear more about that giant viewfinder on the fp.
Do you like it?

[Caleb Courteau]

Mike, your frustration with the misuse of "loose" and "lose" is shared. In fact, the replacing of "lose" with "loose" is so prevalent I wouldn't be surprised if, a thousand years from now, "lose" has been dropped from the English language.

[Ron Poore]

"On accident" often suggests that it is a Freudian slip toward "on purpose."
I meant to do it but can't admit it.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

As a matter for consideration rather than argumentation, it’s been my observation that artists are in the artist mode 24 x 7, regardless of the tools they have at-hand. One of Cezanne’s watercolor paint kits, for example, now traveling with the show that just opened at the Tate, looks like something from a child’s toy chest. And yet he did many quick and marvelous plein air paintings with just such a kit. Art is a communication and expression process, not fundamentally a craft, eh?

Nevertheless I absolutely get your meaning. I long ago realized that many of the images I’m proudest of were recorded with small pocketable cameras. Two weeks ago I bought a brand new Canon G5X Mark II (introduced 2019) to eventually replace my aging, groaning Sony RX100 Mark VII. Yes, I continue to have wonderful, big, sophisticated large camera systems for more premeditated, deliberate work. But today’s excellent small cameras would probably have more than satisfied HCB.

[Jeff]

You featured a comment from Tom Duffy last December.
https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2021/12/addendum-featured-comments-to-the-my-6x9-story-post.html

[Peter Conway]

I’m also annoyed that so many publishers have seemingly stopped proofreading their material before launching it into the world. The best example I’ve seen was a headline in the Washington Post last week: “.N. tech standards race…”.

I’ve worked in technology for 40+ years, and had never heard of the .N. tech standards. Then it dawned on me that they really meant “U.N. tech standards…”. They had been too lazy to proofread the first letter of their headline. Sure enough, the story had an updated headline a couple hours later.

[Greg Boiarsky]

I always keep my phone with me for record-keeping purposes. I also keep it with me when I'm out doing serious photography. It serves two purposes for me:

1. It acts as a sort of digital contact sheet. I can take a quick shot and look at it to determine if pursuing a more serious image is worthwhile. The phone has a much bigger screen, allowing me to check for compositional errors like distracting foregrounds that I might otherwise have ignored.

2. Because I shoot in RAW format exclusively, I can shoot some quick takes with the phone that I can share easily with friends and family. I obsess over my RAWs, so it is usually quite a while before I'm ready to share them.

[xf mj]

As a very new father, I am suddenly in love with my iPhone. I can take soooo many easy snaps. It is regularly there to capture moments with my daughter. I would be missing so much if I followed my normal picture-taking process with her, and the deliberate use of a "real" camera might intrude on the moment. Sometimes her look, and the light illuminating her, makes great shots despite the equipment, and they are too fleeting to be worth grabbing the Equipment.

That being said, we've got 100s of snaps of her, and it has only been a few weeks. It's really hard to not pick up the phone when any smile or any yawn happens. Makes me wonder what it would have been like with film. And I do have to allow myself to instead just experience the moment.

Even so, I know I won't regret having such a rich record of her.

[William Lewis]

Heh. Been on a MF film kick of late (the newly available Kodak Gold in 120 for cheap hasn't helped 😎 )

Got out my Rolleicord III again and I am waiting impatiently on a Zeiss Super Ikonta A 531 6x4.5 folder.

And the Leica type 240 is always there too. Much fun 😊

[Daniel]

Your I-Phone for photos. Sounds fine until it gets cold. Three friends have found their shut off in temperatures from 38, 35 and 27 degrees(f). They die in the cold and the Apple folks tell them this is "normal".
Can't even call a tow truck if they get stuck in the snow.

[William Lewis]

I would also argue that rather than illiteracy, what we are experiencing is a level of language change unseen since the Middle English of Chaucer. Communication changes but remains communication.

[Dave]

Remember when newsmen had good vocabularies?

I read an article by Penn Jillette, of Penn and Teller fame, in a late '80s PC Computing magazine. He had a space for his musings at the back of the magazine for a year or so.

He wrote at length about a handy use of the word "metonymy" at your next stuffy soiree.

Behold, a reader's letter to the editor appeared about five months later.

The reader described how he irritated newsman Edwin Newman until Newman called him an "a-hole".

The reader replied to Mr. Newman, "Metonymy, right Ed?"

The group around Mr. Newman suddenly hushed. (Maybe this irritating man isn't such a buffoon if he knows of such a word?)

Edwin Newman thought for a second and said, "No, synecdoche!"

The irritating man slunk away from the uproar of laughter.

[Thomas Mc Cann]

Th Guardian U.K.Sunday newspaper has a regular side column decrying the decline of the language.
My current hate is the use of 'floor' instead of 'ground.' It's infuriating.

[I don't think I've heard that one. A UK thing? I'll be on the alert for it. --Mike]

[Zyni]

I have not noticed the blinding speed at which the world is becoming illiterate. Because it is not becoming illiterate. Is in fact, becoming literate. How many words of written natural language do you think exist today? How many were written in the last twenty years?

Well I do not know this either. But if we take just fiction from google corpus then up until 2000 there were 61.3 billion words of it (is not reliable before about 1600 I think). Between 2000 and 2010 another 29.4 billion words were added (and probably much more since then).

So probably more fiction has been written in the last two decades than existed twenty years ago.

This means two things: language is changing more rapidly than it has for at least a long time, and more people and a wider variety of people are now writing than ever have done before.

And so the language changes. The word that was once pronounced ˈvəːsəs is now becoming pronounced vəːs, just at the word that was once pronounced ˈmɪstrɪs is now pronounced either ˈmɪsɪz or mɪs or mɪz and has in fact become three different words and grown new meanings.

Here is the thing. People have complained about language declining for thousands of years.

And yet today we speak a rich, complex language, just as we have always done. It is not the same language: we no longer speak the language of Bēowulf, or of Chaucer or of Shakespeare. Not many people can even read Bēowulf, Chaucer is very hard and Shakespeare is mostly possible but I think still a bit hard:

It was the Larke the Herauld of the Morne: / No Nightingale: looke Loue what enuious streakes / Do lace the seuering Cloudes in yonder East: / Nights Candles are burnt out, and Iocond day / Stands tipto on the mistie Mountaines tops, / I must be gone and liue, or stay and die

This is hard even for native English speaker I think?

So the world is not becoming illiterate at blinding or any other speed.

[Sorry if the English here is not perhaps perfect: it is my third language and sometimes gets infected with the others.]

[Merle]

Regarding words, I follow and enjoy the Grammarphobia blog: https://www.grammarphobia.com

Also, folks might enjoy Mother Tongue : the story of the English language by Bill Bryson. https://www.worldcat.org/title/608015155