Happy 2023!

2023

It's here, the New Year. They go by fast these days. It's like watching the telephone poles flash past as the train speeds up.

It seems to me that the range of possible outcomes on a number of fronts—personally, professionally, within my family, and nationally—is particularly broad this year. The upside would be tremendous, the worst-case scenarios scary. It's probable that this year will be a memorable one and possible that it will be fantastic. We're going to need some luck and the favor of God (as you understand {pronoun}), but hey, that's always true.

I wish you and yours the very best. I'm thinking of how Brett Weston (1911–93), son of Edward, used to sign his letters: "Good light and good negs." I guess now that would be "good light and good files," which maybe doesn't have quite the right ring to it—is there some better way to say it? But we know what we mean. Photography is a curious and quixotic pastime, but remember that every lens will give you its gifts if you let it. Aim high and fail often and the successes will inevitably arrive. Let's all go out and get some great ones in the coming year, and, above all, have some fun. Thanks for everything.

Good light and good pictures,
Mike
Flickr page / New Yorker author page

Original contents copyright 2023 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 or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Dillan: "Thank you so much for the positive thoughts about the new year. When I look at the news, it's doom and gloom. I came here, and I feel good again. Thanks, Mike, and Happy New Year to you too!"

Anton Wilhelm Stolzing: "A great post on occasion of the new year. I feel the same: scared and hopeful. All the best!"

Stephen Cowdery: "You can relive Brett’s 'good light' in a studio/cabin where he stayed in from time to time in his later years. Walking distance from Point Lobos, and a short drive from Carmel and not too far from Big Sur."

John Krumm: "Hear hear. Good light and good prints. And that includes online prints. I look at images on Flickr and such as digital prints, and each phone and computer that views them is a new gallery display you have no control over, each with its own lighting character, resolution, size and viewing distance. By the way, your good captioning practices on Flickr has made me up my caption game. That's one of my resolutions. Better captions!"

Rick Twigg: "'Every lens will give you its gifts if you let it.' That's a keeper!"

Stephen Lewis: "Good light and good pixels."

 

Comments

[Omer]

Good light? Bleh.

I wish all of us good flight of fancy.

[Matt O’Brien]

Good Light and Good Pixals.

[Zyni]

2023 will be year in which everyone knows that 1.5 degrees is gone (we know it is gone already in fact, see https://www.economist.com/interactive/briefing/2022/11/05/the-world-is-going-to-miss-the-totemic-1-5c-climate-target for reasonable summary, but people do not yet admit so): year in which young people and poor people finally know for certain how awful their future will be and how badly old people have treated them.

So no, 2023 will not be a good year. Probably now all the good years are in the past for all humans.

(1.5 degrees is not of course a hard limit: 1.4 is not OK and 1.6 is not catastrophic. But 1.5 is as good a place as any to draw the line. And in fact current trajectory is for perhaps 2.8, which is, without doubt, civilisation-ending.)

Just need to respond to people who say happy new year: we should not be happy, we should be extremely angry.

[Sal Santamaura]

..."Good light and good negs." I guess now that would be "good light and good files,"...

It's both for me. I developed three rolls of film yesterday, and will print some digital captures soon. By the way, Mike, I've just adopted your practice of leaving a yellow filter on my film camera lens all the time. No longer will I risk dropping one of those expensive pieces of glass over the edge of the Grand Canyon. Might as well compose and focus the same way my film will "see."

[Mike Ferron]

You have a great New Year Mike. (After the last few we all deserve one)

You mentioned lenses as my new lens just arrived. A Tokina 100 2.8 Macro in a Canon EF mount. B&H has then discounted to $299. You can’t find a used one for that price. I plan on leaving it on my 6D for the next year. Not promising I won’t take the 8x10 out for a ride now and then but for the most part the above mentioned will be my OCOLOY rig.

[Bahi]

Time to update the footer that appears beneath each post, including this one about 2023. It‘s still carrying a 2022 copyright date :-)

Wishing you peace, happiness and health in 2023. Thanks for all your excellent work in 2022!

[Les]

Happy New Year, Mike!
How about:
Good light, good bytes and good night!

[Rob Griffin]

Happy New Year Mike! Good light and good exposures! Hoping for a good year for us all, each and everyone.

[Rick in CO]

Good Light and May All Your Pixels Be True!

[Jeff]

Well, for your Be It Resolved / Bar of Soap post last week, I commented: “I just hope for good health, good light and time to shoot and print.” So, ditto.

[Moose]

My resolutions for 2023 are 20, 24, 42 and 50 MP.

I expect to continue shooting whatever enters my visual field and interests me, with whatever gear is at hand or whichever body and lens I expect to give me the best results.

Unless something changes. \;~)>

[Bear.]

I’ve heard two main hypotheses as to why time goes faster as you get older, (a) each year represents a lesser percentage of your overall life and (b) the richness and depth of acquiring new experience and knowledge makes time feel slower, and as one’s experience grows with age, we settle and the enrichment and depth both decline. I subscribe to both. Nothing can be done about the former. But I do wish your 2023 is deeply enriched by joyous and healthy experiences that, at the very least, creates the feeling and appearance of a long lasting happiness.

[Henning]

May the photons be with you.

[darlene]

Happy New Year, Mike.
May your pixels be whatever you hope for them and more. Thank you for keeping the light on.

darr

[Dave Jenkins]

Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.
Dave4 Jenkins (85)