The Online Photographer

Around the Web on a Tuesday

Still the gold standard for creamy bokeh: a comparison of the modern soft-focus Cooke Portrait PS945 and the ancient Pinkham & Smith Visual Quality IV Series II it was designed to emulate. Is it wrong to be a little alarmed by the Black Queen? Yikes!  :-)

Our friend Peter was featured on ABC-7 News New York.

On this day in history, April 28th, 1945, Hitler's poodle, Benito Mussolini, the narcissistic fascist dictator of Italy during WWII, was executed by Italian partisans while attempting to flee to a neutral country. The reason Hitler gave orders for his corpse to be burned after his suicide was because of the gruesome photographs of Mussolini's desecrated corpse being displayed in public. Don't Google that if you're squeamish.

Last year of war: The latest by S.C. Gwynne is out. He's the author of my favorite book about the Old West, Empire of the Summer Moon, a vivid history of this continent's most powerful Indian tribe, the Comanche. His new book is Hymns of the Republic, about the final year of the American Civil War.

Sam Gwynne

Interviewed by Benjamin Thomas on The Writing Train, Sam said, "A few years ago I wrote a biography of Stonewall Jackson, entitled Rebel Yell, that ended with his death in May 1863 and thus covered roughly the first two years of the war. When I was researching the last year of the conflict, I was struck by how much more violent, desperate, brutal, and vengeful the war had become. This was the product of many things, including the progressive destruction of southern property, southern industry, and southern wealth; the staggering body counts from the Grant-Lee fight in Virginia; the anti-civilian warfare of William T. Sherman and Phil Sheridan; the rise of the prisoner of war camps; the rise of a bitter guerrilla war; and the presence of 180,000 black soldiers in the northern army, which drove Confederate soldiers to unprecedented acts of violence. I wanted to try to convey how deeply the war had changed, and the final year gave me a mechanism by which to do that."

A lesson in visual literacy: I don't read Danish, but these pictures are worth several thousand words. The title auto-translates to "How close are people to each other? These pictures are taken at the same time, but show two very different things." (I was once hired to photograph a demonstration at which exactly six demonstrators showed up. My photographs cleverly implied that there were many more people protesting than there actually were. Although they amounted to propaganda—lies—they scrupulously followed all the standard rules of conventional photojournalism. The camera doesn't lie, but sometimes photographers do.)

This is how: How did NASA get those great film shots of Apollo and the Shuttle? A YouTube video.

Deaths in the family:

• Eric Renner died on April 9th at age 78. Eric was one of the world's leading experts and practitioners of pinhole photography. Sadly, he missed this year's Pinhole Photography Day, which is the last Sunday in April, two days ago.
• Ted Grant died on April 19th at the age of 90. Ted was a leading light of Canadian photojournalism, and had long been liked, admired, and appreciated as a member of the Leica community online and in person. 
• Peter Beard has died. He disappeared from his home a month ago (he suffered from dementia) and his body was found on April 19th. He was a larger-than-life wildlife photographer in love with the myth of Africa and fascinated by human destruction of the nature he loved. His obituary is certainly a riveting read; one of his three wives was supermodel Cheryl Tiegs, and he once narrowly escaped death after being gored by an elephant. He was 82.
• John Pfahl succumbed to COVID-19 on April 15th at the age of 81. He was an inventive, distinctive landscape photographer who played with perspective, references, and humor in his artwork.

John Pfahl. Photo by Sharon Cantillon, Buffalo News.

Is it Ned, or is it Lee? Our friend Ned Bunnell channels Lee Friedlander.

Serif's Affinity Photo for Mac isn't free, but close enough. It's currently on sale for only $24.99.

Fantastic book on color: I'm currently halfway through one of the best books I've ever encountered on color photography. It's called Lifelike by Pavel Kosenko, and, unless you read Russian, it's available only on Apple Books. Totally engrossing. Really good read.

MaxMax's most recent monochrome conversion camera is the Sony RX100 Mark III. They're selling deluxe masks now, too.

Nicholas Hartmann, Vase (no number). November 2019; 3-1/2" high. Wheel-thrown from Special Buff clay; grooves cut on the wheel at the rim, shoulder, and base; foot trimmed. Brush-glazed with Raku Copper Sand (body) and Raku White Crackle (neck) glazes and raku fired.

Got time on your hands at home? Catch up with Joni Mitchell's "Shadows and Light." All the performers are excellent in this and play beautifully together, but it's most poignant for showcasing Jaco Pastorius at his amazing best. Jaco was the Pete Maravich of the bass guitar, an astonishing, flawed, and ultimately tragic virtuoso—his was a sad, sad story, as you can read in this excellent, moving biography. One commenter said, "Jaco...forces you to listen to what he is doing to the bass line of the song...but never gets in the way. Impossible...how does one do that?" This was one of the great jazz records of the '70s (recorded '79, released '80), but got no respect as such because Joni came from folk and pop.

From the World's Best Photography magazine, two features about photography in these awkward times: "Still Lives: In this unnatural state of isolation, photographers show us the things that bind," and "Bored Russians Posted Silly Art Parodies. The World Has Joined In." You have to go look up the originals to appreciate the latter article, but both of these are wonderful.

Finally, the Shelter In Place Gallery. Don't give up on this one too soon—I suspect you'll be delighted when its secret is revealed! Shades of Michael Paul Smith. "…In my opinion," says the gallery's creator, "it's an extremely silly project. It’s the kind of idea that nobody would really care about except for now when we have no choice." Love this.

Mike
(Thanks to Richard Man, Oren Grad, MM, Ned Bunnell, Steve Caddy, Carl Weese, Rich Beaubien, Hugh Crawford and others)

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.

Many thanks to all for your support

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

Jack: "That Peter Beard made it to 82 is amazing. I met him once at a gallery opening showing his African work. The gallery was lit as if we were in Africa including jungle music and a remarkably realistic campfire. It was a fantastic setting with Peter sitting on the floor next to the fire. Alcohol was served and I had my share, enough that I decided I needed to buy one of his works. I decided bigger was better and purchased a huge 5x3-foot shot of an elephant herd from the air that is featured in his book End Of The Game.

"I forgot to consider what I was going to do with it. It was huge and our house had no African theme. My wife, who had gone along with the purchase since she had been served alcohol, the next day stated there was no way I could put it in our house. It remained in our garage for twenty-five years until donated to the Milwaukee Art Museum. At that moment, Peter had been gored and the value shot up in anticipation of his death. So I had accidentally waited for the correct time to make a donation. The value was ten times the purchase price. One lesson for me was don’t drink at photo gallery openings."

Mike replies: Speaking of the value shooting up, hang on to that book. You need some luck to buy a decent copy for less than $300 these days. Abebooks lists copies all the way up to $7,500 for a signed copy with a lock of Beard's hair pasted into it!

DavidB: "I really enjoyed the 'Bored Russians Posted Silly Art Parodies. The World Has Joined In' and the 'Shelter In Place Gallery.' Now that people have been forced to slow down, their creativity is being given a chance to blossom. This might be the 'silver lining' to the current pandemic."

Richard Man: "Uncle Ted Grant was an incredibly kind gentleman who loved to share his love of photography and Leica. Even though he was a 'big name,' he would mingle with amateurs without any airs. He will be missed. (And thanks for the link.)"

David Comdico: "Great post! Lifelike is a good book and covers a popular topic for which, when you get right down to it, there is very little useful information. Interestingly, after publication the author seems to have moved to film and a Hasselblad."

Jim Arthur: "Shadows and Light: In high school I was a member of an 'elite' three-member basement salon. One of our members played bass and built his own speakers. Another had a brother who played bass and built his own guitars. I was the artist and so I painted the instruments. As a result, I have Jaco’s solo debut album (Chris Squire’s too) in my collection. I’m sorry to admit it has not seen the light of day in many years but it is now front and center, clean, and on the turntable. If I’m to be true to the tenets of my 'elite' 1970s high school salon I will now need some sweet weed from South of the border, cheap beer (Olympia as I recall, smuggled in through the basement window), and a bean bag chair.  :-)  "

Awful Tones for Awful Times?

Every time I talk about what digital B&W "looks like," I get a cascade of blowback—people saying things like you can make it look any way you want it to look.

Right, and a lot of people these days seem to want it to look bad.

And anyway, I'm just looking around me at what's typically being done—I'm not talking about best cases, or exceptions—I'm talking about what are emerging as shared cultural defaults, the styles and fashions that are emerging as prevalent.

As a brief case in point, take a look at Todd Heisler's portfolio entitled "What New York Looks Like Now: A Photo Journey" in the New York Times, especially the lead picture and the picture titled "Brooklyn Hospital."

The photographer is very accomplished, and the Times shows some of the best photojournalism being done these days, so this isn't meant as a general disparagement of either. But the tonality in this particular portfolio is too far over the top. A number of these pictures are obviously taken in daytime sunlight and yet much of the tonal range is rendered as...well, black. Not sunlit, unlit. And I get it—the topic is hospital tents and other makeshift temporary emergency shelters at New York hospitals, so the mood is meant to be grim and threatened. Hence the use of the extremely dark, depressed tones. Awful times, awful tones.

But this goes too far. It's as bad in its way as extreme HDR or "slider slamming" with color and saturation, or any other species of digital extremism. You can call it "expressive interpretation" if you like, and doubtless that's how it is meant. In my opinion, though, it's not expressive, just excessive. The question about whether manipulation (of the pictures, and of the viewers) to this degree goes too far for photojournalistic objectivity is one I won't raise. To me it's a question of taste rather than appropriateness. Exaggeration like this gives black and white a bad name.

Mike

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.

Please help support TOP through Patreon

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

Omer (partial comment): "My guess is that there is a photo editorial processing concoction in place across the board meant to dramatize or infer seriousness for the sole purpose of attention. Not unlike the designs of supermarket tabloid cover pages. It probably works, unfortunately, meaning the public at large is acclimatized to that look and then won't consider a more subtle finish as worthy."

Eliott James: "While I think this was a creative choice reflecting the horror of what's going on in NYC right now, I agree with you. Being objective (FWIW,) I think it's overdone. I think it might have had even a greater impact if it weren't so dark. I favor creative choice over set traditions but in the end it's a matter of opinion."

Rob de Loe: "OK, so it's not just me. I saw that series before reading this article and had the same reaction."

Alan: "Personally, I like it! It's deep, dark, and moody. Basically, the way I feel today! Perhaps the lack of shadow detail is a metaphor; can't see into them...can't see the light at the end of the tunnel either."

Kye Wood: "I saw these too. And thought the exact same thing. A bit like music. It should be broadcast 'flat.' Then if you want, adjust the treble or mids or whatever, to taste. Season as required. But showing the images as they have, you're not free to interpret them using your own mind—which is like a movie that has overbearing music to push the emotions the scene is aiming for. Hey people! If you do it right, you don't need crunch the tones in the image, or deafen us with violin swells at the movies."

Mike replies: One of the great demonstrations of that I saw was during a lecture by the great photographer Ralph Steiner. He presented four short films consisting of various views of agricultural sprinklers in action, set to four very different pieces of music. He then asked the audience which film was the longest and which the shortest. Great argument ensued. I myself was certain that the piece with the slow music was about twice as long as the one with the bombastic Wagnerian music. Well, you probably can guess the upshot—in the great reveal, Steiner admitted that all four segments of film had been exactly the same. The only thing that was different at all was the music. I was amazed. Even knowing what he had done, it was clear that the music seemed to bring out, or emphasize, very different aspects of the visual presentation. Thinking of the slow music, I felt the slow-motion cascades of water were prominent; whereas the fast music seemed to emphasize the cuts from one camera angle to another.  

Easter in New York

Our friend Peter Turnley and some of his photographs of New York City under lockdown will be featured on CBS Sunday Morning this Easter Sunday. Here's his announcement on Instagram if you'd like to try to catch it. I don't have a TV or I would!

UPDATE: Peter sends this—

"I have been a documentary photographer for the past now almost 40 years. As it happens, I have covered most of the wars of the world of these past four decades. This time, I have found myself in the middle of a war against an invisible enemy, at home.  As I live much of the year in New York, since the beginning of this coronavirus shutdown, I have been going out and photographing and have been keeping a daily diary of my walks and a record of what the many heroes I have encountered tell me. I go out most days—always with mask and gloves and always keeping a safe social distance from everyone, and return to where I stay alone. I think it is essential that the human face of this crisis be documented for now and for all time. Every person has a story—and there are so many heroes, and victims, and too often, some people are both. I feel that it is essential for me that I contribute in giving voice visually to the people of New York during this extraordinary and unique crisis.

"I sincerely hope that anyone viewing this, aside from watching the short piece that ran on the CBS Sunday Morning Show this morning, will take a few minutes to scroll through my A New York Lock-down Visual Diary. This the human face and words of so many heroes and people living through this crisis at this time. This is their story. This is also our story. With love, Peter."

Mike
(Thanks to Ned, Neil, and Peter)

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.

Please help support The Online Photographer through Patreon

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Ray Wallace: "A few years ago I was fortunate to travel with Peter on one of his impressive Cuba photo workshops, and then later was able to bring him to my university for a well-attended presentation as part of the Louisville Photo Biennial. Besides his stunning body of work captured from all over the world, he is a fine public speaker and can relate well to a variety of audience levels. I have followed his work for years and he has been a great influence on my own photographic journey. Simply stated, Turnley is both a true genius behind the camera and an important humanitarian voice in front of it. We all, photographers and lovers of the artistic endeavor alike, can learn a great deal from Peter Turnley’s work. This is some of his very best! Enjoy. Ray Wallace, Chancellor, Indiana University Southeast."

Gary: "Thank you, Mike, for pointing me to Peter Turnley's photo essay of life in NYC during the pandemic. It's long but rewarding."

Luke: "My god, Peter's diary is intense. He is a treasure."

The Weight Around the World

Need a pick-me up? This is wonderful. Always loved this song.

This was posted in September of last year in honor of the 50th anniversary, in 2018, of the song's release in August of 1968.

This is a great version. Let's dedicate this to John Prine, who died of COVID-19 yesterday.

Mike
(Thanks to Steve Rosenblum and KeithB)

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.

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

Thomas Walsh: "This is a fabulous video. Playing for Change has long been a favorite of mine. This concept of promoting the universality of music is, in my very humble opinion, the essence of humanity. One of my favorites, that can be found on YouTube, is the rendition that Playing for Change does of 'Everyday People'—definitely worth a listen. When I taught, I would play this song for my classes. Thank you, Mike, for this post. Stay well."

Robert Fogt: "I crossed paths with John Prine just briefly, in freshman algebra class at Proviso East High School. The teacher was something of a hard-ass, and would seat the miscreants at the very back of the class, or 'Ghost Row.' He would then not call on you in class, or collect your homework, until your parents came to the next PTA meeting to 'redeem your lost souls.' (After which all that homework was immediately due.)

"I spent some time in that back row, placed a few seats away from John, but would notice him scribbling (presumably verse?) in the margins of his textbook pages, until he would eventually write himself to sleep. I can still hear the teacher yelling at him, 'Prine, you idiot...wake up!' So I guess, with even just a tiny bit of hindsight, it should have been obvious that he was destined for greatness. (And I still like to think that his 'Sweet Revenge' album cover grew, at least in part, out of that semester.)"

Duncan: "Steven Colbert showed this after he heard that John had been hospitalized and placed on a ventilator. It was recorded in 2016 but never aired. It is eerie how Colbert introduces the song."

Mike replies: That got a few tears from me. Simple and beautiful. He sure has a distinctive picking style. Colbert did a good job too. Thanks.

SteveW: "That was terrific, thank you for posting it. So positive and refreshing, just what the doctor ordered."

The Photographer's Chair

The entirely surprising story of a photographic "meme," or leitmotif, through its history—"the Photographer's Chair."

Mike

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.

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Paul Duncan: "Fascinating, but dang: yet another of my totally original ideas exposed as the subconscious purloining from the vast cultural meme-yard!"

Robert Newcomb: "Using a chair in a portrait is hard even when they're soft. The more conventional medium high backed sitting or dinning chair will often 'cut through' the subject in an odd place creating an extra appendage as the back extends from the sitter. In a soft plush chair the sitter will often be swallowed as he/she sinks down into it creating an unflattering bad posture slouching look. The very high backed wicker chair pictured serves as a way to seat the subject and act as a portrait background for their body and head without extra appendages. I spent the last 20 years of my photography life doing portraits. In the studio I usually had about a dozen chairs of different sizes, styles, and hues to match the size and style of the person. I hoarded old and odd chairs for these reasons."

We Are Trooper Strong! (OT)

Dang, I missed the launch time. Sorry. Mea culpa. I woke up unusually late today.

Doesn't really matter...11:00 a.m. was just the time that the link went live for the first time.

Anyway, if you want a nice spirit-lifter, take 21 minutes and 12 seconds out of your day and let yourself get carried along with a small band of kids and their supportive hometown in "The City Behind Us: The Story of the Elmora Troopers," the brand-new short film by my friend the filmmaker Bob Burnett and his friends that had its premier this morning. (Longtime readers will remember Bob's short film about the house in the Edward Hopper painting, among other sundry appearances here.)

Just a great, great short. Yeah, there's more than a bit of the rosey glow on this, but heck, don't we need it right now? This is part of what we want to get back to, after the current crisis is over. It's real America, if you ask me. We're a people who come together. We need reminding right now. We are Trooper Strong!

Enjoy, enjoy. Sorry I was late posting this. I've been behind myself for days. More on it later today or later in the week when I get myself combobulated and catch up with myself.

Mike
(Thanks to Bob)

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.

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Harry B Houchins: "Yah, that hit the spot! As an ex-pat Jersey boy (Passaic 1944, Clifton 1962) it moved me. Thanks very much! Made my day...."

Terry: "As a Williamsport resident I always try to explain what the Little League World Series is like and this explains that very well. Thanks for sharing."

Three Things That Are Good to Look At

'What you lookin' at?'
Inge Morath, A Llama in Times Square, New York, 1957 ($2,000)

1. Llamas. Magnum is having a sale of New York prints by its members that includes Inge Morath's "A Llama in Times Square." The prints are signed and editioned, signed, or estate stamped, and prices range from $1,250 to $15,000. Included are some very famous pictures indeed: Dennis Stock's iconic (I use the word advisedly!) portrait of James Dean in the rain, Elliott Erwitt's fabulous picture of the man/bulldog (a personal fave), Leonard Freed's wonderful photo of the black kids playing near the fire hydrant, Elliott Landy's photos of Jimi Hendrix, Thomas Hoepker's portraits of Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, Eve Arnold's photo of Marilyn Monroe reading James Joyce's Ulysses. And more.

A lot of the lesser-known ones are good to look at too—car buffs will love Erich Hartmann's George Washington Bridge picture. You could hardly put that together for a big-budget movie today! (Disclosure: Erich's son Nick is a good friend of mine, although we live too far apart now to meet regularly for lunch like we used to.)

Really fun to look at. I already knew many of these pictures, of course, but re-acquaintance is fun and I had a blast immersing myself in these for a couple of hours.

2. Cheap old lenses on expensive new cameras. Jonas Rask had a loopy idea. Well, what would you do if you had a medium-format Fuji GFX50s to hand? Probably not what Jonas did. He discovered that you can put many normal and longer 35mm film camera lenses on the mirrorless digital camera with the larger sensor and the image circles will still cover (sometimes with some correction, but still). So he got the bug for adapting old Minolta Rokkor-X film lenses to his big Fuji.

I'd wager not many photographers are looking to put things like $55 lenses on $5,500 cameras, but the results are wonderful and speak for themselves.

It helps that Jonas is one of the few "testers" whose "test shots" I genuinely enjoy. Even if they're only family 'n' friends portraits, he has a style and a point of view and I like it. Good to look at. I love the silhouette one. That is a heck of a fun post.

3. Two mice having a street fight. Wildlife—or West Side Story? "Sam Rowley's 'Station Squabble' has been picked from more than 48,000 images to claim a wildlife photography award from London's Natural History Museum, voted for by the public," writes Rob Picheta at CNN Travel. I like the public's taste! Nice to interpret "wildlife" so broadly, with a soupçon of double entendre thrown in for spice. You can see the nifty winning picture at the link. Wild life indeed. Musta been Saturday night.

A mice....er, nice idea, and good to look at, too. And that never hurts!

Mike
(Thanks to Nico Maijer and Charles Heuer)

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.

Please help support The Online Photographer through Patreon

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Featured Comments from:

Globules: "A few days ago the CBC radio show 'As It Happens' interviewed Sam Rowley about his winning picture."

Mike replies: Thanks! Here's the link.

Neil Swanson: "I’m in. XF to Minolta adapter ordered. Cheap eBay lens on the way. I have been wanting to try things like this anyway. Oddly I don’t seem to be terribly interested in trying any of my Nikon lenses on the Fuji but maybe after this experiment I will.

"I’m glad you know about, look at and follow Jonas Rask and his reviews and work. I think I’d really like to meet that guy."

Stan B.: "OK...something I'm really not getting here, so I'm (reluctantly—very) putting myself out there to be the royal grand idiot deluxe who stands to be corrected. That is: Just how much in the 'vicinity' of the GWB was that photo taken where all the cars have their steering wheels on the right hand side? Signed, Already Woefully Embarrassed (and nevertheless thankful for the enlightenment)."

Mike replies: Many readers seconded your comment—the JPEG was reversed laterally (and maybe a print too? This can happen when you put a negative in the carrier upside-down). I contacted my friend Nick, the photographer's son, hoping he would contact Magnum, and you'll notice that the photo is right way 'round this morning! So you fixed it, Stan.

If There Was Ever a Cartoon for TOP Readers...

This is very slightly school/work inappropriate, I guess, so a mild NSFW warning. However, if there was ever a cartoon that TOP readers are more likely to "get" than the average population, this is it.

Let me know if you don't get it! I'd be interested.

Mike
(Thanks to JG)

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.

Please help support The Online Photographer through Patreon

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

Pierre Charbonneau: "Humor on photography, I love this one too."

Mike replies: Ha! That's great. I should buy that and put it up on my wall....

robert e: "OK, I got it and laughed, about which I feel both a bit ashamed and a bit affirmed as a photo nerd (for better and worse). Regarding my relief that the subject wasn't a man in a kilt, I'm not so sure."

Hans Muus: "Assuming TOP readers have film roots. I still find it hard to realise how much of what I regard as basic photographic knowledge is unnecessary in the digital age. As an enthusiast relative of 35 recently asked when we were talking photography: ‘Hans, please tell me—what is a negative?’ (Whereas he helped me out with Photoshop already more than a decade ago.)"

Sharon: "  :-D   Loved this one."

hugh crawford: "Funny, the first thing I thought of when I saw this was this classic Penn and Teller bit—and when I saw that broadcast back in the '80s I thought of my view camera."

Mike replies: I love how connections are made on the Internet. I had never seen that Penn and Teller performance before—really clever. And then, later that night, it led me to this old Bravo Profiles show about Penn and Teller from 2001, which I found fascinating in several ways, from the tours of their weird houses in Vegas (Penn is really quite an odd fellow) to the insight of Penn's that they are just famous enough to be able to interact with their fans—famous but not too famous. I was interested in both the link you suggested and the Bravo Profiles piece too. Theirs is a very unique act with lots of layers—more than meets the eye indeed.

Peggy C.: "I don't know which is more funny...the fact that I 'got it' right away or that I seem to be the first female to comment on it. LOL. Here is the photography comic I love. This strip ran from 2006 to 2016 but I still love them."

Mike replies: You weren't actually the first, but the comment moderator has been sick and dragging his feet...for which, sorry!

Year-End Lists

The best-selling used camera of the decade 2010–'19

Moose wrote, "I just don't get lists like this [speaking of our "Best Cameras of 2019"]. Is there some governing body that requires magazine writers and bloggers to do such lists?"

Forgive me, but his exasperation made me chuckle. I do feel ya on that, Moose.

The answer, though, is...because it's fun. Yeah, I know a few people don't like lists (I have one friend who is allergic to the concept), but most people find them appealing. I do.

They can be informative, too.

I'm working on a longer post (not about cameras) today and this weekend, but to hold you over, here are three year-end lists (about cameras) that I found informative. Thanks to the people who clued me in to them (and sorry for not naming you...I live under a waterfall of incoming information and it's getting exhausting trying to keep track of everything).

1. The SLR Still Rules Them All: Our Best-Selling Cameras of the Decade (2010–2019) from the blog of KEH, the used-equipment clearinghouse. Based in Smyrna, Georgia, USA, the 40-year-old KEH claims to have "the world's largest inventory of previously owned equipment," averaging 55,000 items in stock.
2. These were the most-clicked-on cameras in 2019 from DPReview. I assume it's still the largest digital camera review site, but I don't know that for sure. Founded in London, UK, and now based in Seattle, Washington, USA, DPReview has been owned by Amazon since 2007.
3. Finally, from our friends at LensRentals (disclosure: I have a reciprocal agreement with them—I get camera and lens loaners for free to test, in return for which, they do not [sic] ask for mentions on TOP): Most Popular Photography and Videography Rentals for 2019. They also break it down by brand.

So you see, Moose, those annoying lists can be informational too!

Any year-end list you like? Mention it in the Comments. Fun ones are fair game too, not just the informative kind.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 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.

Please help support The Online Photographer through Patreon

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Featured Comments from:

Greg Heins: "You can call me an idiot (won’t be the first time!), but I’m a sucker for year-end best-of lists. Music, books, exhibitions—there is always something there that I’m hearing of for the first time and I have had revelatory experiences from going back to pay new attention."

Iain: "A list of lists? Please stop!"

Mike replies: I was being perfectly serious. I found all three of these links genuinely interesting. I wouldn't have posted them otherwise.

Albano: "I'm still using a 5D Mark II as my main body after buying it from KEH six years ago in BGN [bargain] condition. Still going strong. Great camera."

James: "A list of lists is great! Iowa Public Radio used to do a meta-list for classical music, where they found a bunch of year end lists, and grouped albums by how many other lists mentioned them. It was a good place to find new music to listen to."

R.A. Krajnyak: "Congratulations, Mike! You made my Top 10 List of the Top 10 Camera Bloggers of 2019 Whose Readers Complain About the Top 10 Cameras of 2019 Lists List."

Bruce McL (partial comment): "I always figured that year-end retrospectives were easier to put together than something new."

Mike replies: Quite the opposite, for me anyway. Much more work than normal posts.

Q: "Reading through the previous post and following the links in this post has left me feeling kind of...listless. (Well, someone had to say it.) I'll add a third vote for Jonathan's suggestion of a list of most interesting / satisfying / edifying photo books of the last nine or ten years (depending on whether you think this is the tenth year of the 201x's or the start of a new decade). Maybe not ranked, just a list—to me, these lists are useful as a starting point for exploration, and I'd guess that ranking would vary by reader. Or, alternatively, a list of top 'Random Excellence' photographs or portfolios. Or maybe a list of photographs or portfolios that just missed being 'Random Excellence' posts. There's a wealth of inspiration from TOP!"

Around the Web on a Wednesday

(Cuba)

Paris-Cuba: Our friend Peter Turnley is having a major exhibit, entitled Paris-Cuba, that opened at La Fototeca de Cuba, Cuba's National Center of Photography, on September 21. The show is on view until October 20th. In case you can't get to Cuba easily, there's a video. The exhibit of 104 photographs represents more than forty years of photographing the two places.

(Paris)

Shades of Roger C.: The ladies of IFixit—Kay Kay Clapp, who has the quirky title of "Director of Things," and Sam Goldheart, Lead Teardown Engineer—have taken apart an iPhone 11 Pro Max to see what makes it tick. Just seems full of little bits to me, as maybe the important bits are even smaller bits, but then I confess I haven't watched the whole video yet. I will. I do wish I could get an 11 Pro, but then, I have a perfectly good phone that's already paid for.

Ex Seven what?: Blake Andrews has the scoop on the new X-7000, which has 20% more features than the X-6000. I happened to encounter the X-7000 FAQ right after I scanned this article at DPReview, and the juxtaposition seemed apropos. Also, I think I might start answering questions by saying "the new digital economy offers fantastic opportunities and challenges."

If you don't know Blake's interviews, you should put them on your radar. For a random sample, try his April interview with Charles Traub. I found myself almost alarmed by the idea of getting a portrait of Manual Alvarez Bravo and not even captioning it!

Beautiful book of a horrific subject: Few media reports of any kind—video, written word, multimedia—have captured the dreadful carnage in Syria and Iraq with as much thoughtfulness, compassion, and vividness as 36-year-old Irish photographer Ivor Prickett does in his remarkable new book End of the Caliphate. (The caliphates were political entities based in the Middle East in which the shared Islamic religion was stronger than national or ethnic differences. They were stewarded by caliphs, religious figures who outranked the secular leaders.) Literally the book documents a year in the campaign to retake Mosul from ISIS, but symbolically it gives visual expression to the tragedy of endless strife in the region; and the photographer seems as physically invisible in the pictures as his morality and humanity are pervasive. It strikes me that Ivor Prickett's book, intimate and immediate amid desolation and danger, might well deserve to stand among the great books of war photography from photography's history. It also deserves space on your shelf if you are building a library of outstanding color photography.

The HD Pentax DA 20–40mm ƒ/2.8–4 ED Limited DC WR

Pentax lens: My favorite Pentax lens is on sale for $300 off. Limited-range zooms have always tickled me—Pentax once prototyped a 32–39mm "adjustable 35mm," an idea I liked—and the current 2X 20–40mm APS-C zoom (30–60mm-e) is an adjustable normal lens. Don't mindlessly slam it from one end of its range to the other—think of it as a 40mm, 45mm, or 50mm normal that allows you to tweak your framing a bit. Buy one for the as-yet-unnamed new Pentax reduced-sensor flagship that will be probably be shown in Tokyo on September 21st.

New cameras are coming in October: ...According to an article on Thom's DSLRbodies, there are a surprising number of new cameras slated to arrive soon. Thom says, "It seems that we're in for a spurt of new cameras, and both DSLR and mirrorless will be in that mix. The question is whether the market can handle that much iteration. How many of those models will be 'sticky' and get some traction?" Good question. I have to admit that even I just "forget" some current cameras soon after release...they just seem irrelevant. Even though I'm supposed to pay attention to that stuff.

Venerable names that might be fading:

Cadillac: ...Says one car buddy. Caddy went all-in on German-style luxury sports/muscle car sedans a few handfuls of years ago, and built at least one great car, the ATS-V, which has sold poorly (because if you want a car as good as a BMW, why not buy a BMW?). The direction change created a little too much cognitive dissonance with Caddy's established image as a maker of soft, stately, high-status land yachts. Now, with sedan sales tanking (by one third since 2011!), Cadillac might either prematurely cancel its flagship and most Cadillac-like luxury sedan, the CT6, or—gasp—start importing it to the U.S. from China where it is also built. Cadillac has created some gorgeous concept cars in recent years, such as the Escala and the breathtaking Elmiraj (a modern take on the Eldorado), but those aren't making it to market. For much of 2018, Cadillac recorded its lowest U.S. market share in its entire history.

Pentax: With less than 5% market share and with most of its better cameras in the declining DSLR category—and all sporting aging sensors—it's an open question how long the honorable old Pentax nameplate will be around. It's likely that a new APS-C flagship DSLR will be announced next month—see the news item above—but how many fans will buy it? Relative to his own question quoted above, Thom's educated guess there that it "isn't going to be very sticky" (i.e., get much attention or gain much traction in the market). Ricoh has the means to keep Pentax alive even as a losing venture, but it bought Pentax for a presence in the DSLR business just in time for the big downturn. And businesses aren't charities. On the other hand, it's become sort of a cliché to sound Pentax's death-knell, and everyone's been wrong so far.

The New Yorker: A mere six spins around the sun from its 100th birthday, one of the last and best of the written-word real readers' magazines, The New Yorker, might not be around a lot longer. I haven't encountered any scuttlebutt to that effect. But, the surest sign of the circling vultures is right there under readers' noses. The magazine that has historically resided on the coffee tables of the most gracious upper- and upper-middle-class American homes used to be stuffed to the scuppers with snooty luxury ads, but recent issues sometimes don't even fill their prime ad positions. Page after page passes with no advertising, or just "house ads," an ad from the magazine itself or the parent company, or "comps," which are public-service or traded ads. Where all those luxury ads used to be, it's a desert. That's fine with readers, but not a good sign at all for business. Then again, consider these lines from Joseph Epstein: "The New Yorker, like New York itself, is always better in the past. In the present, it seems always to be slipping, never quite as good as it once was. Did the magazine, founded in 1925, have a true heyday? People differ about when this might be. The New Yorker’s heyday, it frequently turns out, was often their own."

New vs. Old: "Pro Wedding Photographers Compare iPhone 11 Pro to Canon 5D Mark IV" at PetaPixel. The results are surprising, except that, as I've always said, better cameras often show their strengths when pushed to extremes in various ways rather than when things are more optimal. The linked article resembles one I wrote for Black & White Photography magazine in the 2000s comparing a small-sensor digicam to DSLRs of the time. Would you hire a photographer to shoot your wedding with an iPhone 11 Pro?

Rats: No photographers among the 2019 recipients of the "genius grants," AKA the MacArthur Fellowships ($625,000 in five annual installments), which were announced this morning. This year, we are chopped liver.

...On the good side, Mary Halvorson got one.

Mike

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Around the Web on a Tuesday

Photos by Iain Blake

Iain Blake's 100 Strangers: We were talking a couple of weeks ago about approaching strangers on the street to make their portraits with their knowledge and consent. If that honorable old idea (current paragons include Scott Schuman and Brandon Stanton) appeals to you, you really must not miss Round 3 of Iain Blake's 100 Strangers project. (A comment turned me on to this at the time.) Really not much to add, but I felt joy clicking through this collection on Flickr. I found myself thinking entirely about the people and not about the photography. Fascinating work.

Supernatural Metro: Canadian photographer Christopher Herwig has a new book out called Soviet Metro Stations. From the description: "'For us,' said Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in his memoirs, 'there was something supernatural about the Metro.' Visiting any of the dozen or so Metro networks built across the Soviet Union between the 1930s and 1980s, it is easy to see why. Rather than the straightforward systems of London, Paris or New York, these networks were used as a propaganda artwork―a fusion of sculpture, architecture and art that combined Byzantine, medieval, baroque and constructivist ideas...." News to me. I don't know about you, but I'd look at the book just based on that paragraph. This book isn't on the photographer's website, but you can see plenty of examples of photographs from his weird and wonderful book Soviet Bus Stops Volume II there. Apparently Volume I was a bestseller, and no wonder.

Goodman Lab Axis, as seen on Instagram

Dora Goodman of Goodman Lab is becoming increasingly well known for creating imaginative open-source 3D-printed film cameras which she documents on Instagram and on the Goodman Lab website. Not only can you 3D-print one of her cameras yourself, you can tweak the design to your liking and share it with the community—"create devices we always wished existed" indeed. There's a nice interview at Lomography.com.

You've probably already heard that Jony Ive—love him or not, one of the most influential industrial designers of the present epoch—is leaving Apple. The event is not as epochal as it might seem at first blush; Ive will continue to act as a consultant to Apple, and Apple will be one of the main clients of his new company, to be called LoveFrom. There's a summary of the shift at NBC News and also probably 1,001 other places on the Web.

That mysterious red room: A recent TV show called Stranger Things is described in an article at Business Insider as "a delightful re-creation of 1980s small town America." I don't own a TV, but I bet I'd like it. However, apparently there were some scenes that mystified some of the show's audience. "What is the purpose of this 'red room' in Stranger Things?" a post on the forum StackExchange asked. "We frequently see Jonathan go inside this to 'refine' his photos or something. I don't quite understand what happens here. He puts the photo in water, and somehow this makes it more clear? An example is in the first season when he refines Barbara's photo and sees a little bit of the Demogorgon. Is this an old film technique, and if so what is it called?" Ostensibly it made some people feel "impossibly old" that others no longer recognize a darkroom, but that fact seemed perfectly logical, and the viewer's question seemed perfectly reasonable, to me. Darkrooms are careening toward being historical at a frantic speed, and if you don't know what something is, you ask. Ignorance isn't shameful, necessarily; there are lots of things I don't know—for instance, exactly what a Demogorgon is and what its purpose might be in 1980s small town America.

The in-demand Leica Q2

The Most Desirable Camera on the Planet, Q4 2019, is the Leica Q2. Everyone and his uncle wants one, and really, what else do you need? I don't quite understand why, with the new super-high-res cameras, it hasn't become a "thing" to take small segments of larger captures and print them as pictures in their own right. Unless you're compulsive about "getting every pixel," 8- or 10-MP segments of this 47.3MP sensor would work fine for printing up to respectable sizes. This would go beyond "cropping," because it's not just trimming, it's the extraction of small pictures hidden in much larger ones. I've been doing that just for myself, just for fun, for twenty years now. Hmm, pixel-peeping as art?

There's a book called Instant that you might have heard of—it's gotten glowing reviews since it came out. Chronicling the fabulous and fascinating story of Polaroid, it's pure fun as a mashup of photo history and technological progress, with pictures. If you've never seen the author's sub-five-minute promo video for it, you need to. Edwin Land's predictions of the future in the middle of the video are, in the words of my friend Steve, "prescient beyond belief."

Lino Selvatico (Italian, 1872–1924), Girl with dog
("The two friends"), 1917 (detail)

In case you still think you need yet more resolution, perhaps you haven't been looking at enough paintings. Heck, not only can I not see the individual threads of the headband here, I can't even see the girl's individual hair strands. The fact is, strange as it may seem lately, visual impressions can still be made perfectly effectively in the absence of microdetail. Take that, forums everywhere.

You've no doubt encountered the term "BSI sensor." Wonder what that means? Ever since a fellow geek tried to impress upon me that I needed to know how the accelerators in B&W film developers work on a chemical level, I've been of the opinion that we don't need to know how the magic in our cameras happens. What's crucial is that we understand the practical visual effects that we and our viewers can see, and only in that context do the details make a difference. But in case you're curious about what backside-illuminated sensors are, Patrick McDonough of national digital back specialists CommercialPhoto has written a clear, brief primer called "BSI Sensors Demystified."

Got 'im smilin'! Nice modern-style semi-formal family
portrait by Larry Laszlo of Denver, Colorado.

Sarah Neumann writes a blog called The Charlie Neumann Chronicles "detailing the journey of two new parents, a little boy named Charlie and a Pug named Penny. Pretty simple stuff." She recently asked her friend, photographer Larry Laszlo of CoMedia Studio in Denver, Colorado, an accomplished studio and assignment pro, to take a family portrait. Little Charlie, however, had other plans. He proved remarkably uncooperative, but through no fault of his own—he was teething. Mom's samples of the amusing outtakes are published in a post called "First Family Portrait and the Toothless Old Man." Anybody been there, done that? Pro that he is, Larry got the goods in the face of...well, the face, but you gotta feel for all concerned. Funny in a wry, warm-hearted way.

Mike
(Thanks to numerous readers and friends)

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kirk Tuck: "Re: 'The Most Desirable Camera on the Planet....' I laughed so hard coffee almost came shooting out of my nose. A fixed lens point and shoot with a wide angle lens permanently stuck to the front? Now, if Leica has made this camera with a nice 50mm instead, then you would have sucked me into believing your obvious hyperbole. But a 28mm? That's a focal length for people who just can't make up their minds about what should be in their photographs!"

Peter Wright: "'Soviet Bus Stops Volume II.' With a title like that, how could I possibly resist?? My order was placed immediately! (Through your link of course.) I am looking forward to being able to say to my friends casually, 'What books are you reading? I've just finished Soviet Bus Stops, Volume Two myself.'

"As to the Leica Q2, of course it's a most desirable camera! The concept of using multiple lenses of different focal lengths (or a zoom lens) springs from the ancient limitation of the 35mm film negative. Back in the day, (grandad Tuck's day that is 😉) it was immediately obvious (and still is) whether an 8x10 print had been made using 35mm film or medium format, so those of us who liked the small format had to do everything possible to avoid any additional loss of image quality, if we didn't want to mocked by the MF toting crowd. That meant (among other things) that you always had to use the full negative—no cropping! With the advent of a 47MP full-frame sensor coupled with an excellent prime, 'digital zooming' became entirely reasonable. The Q2 is like having a 28–75mm constant aperture ƒ/1.7 zoom lens on the camera—for all practical purposes. And it has AF! And it can go in a jacket pocket! There is are whole genres of photography that can be done with such a camera. Perhaps having multiple primes or a zoom will go the way of tripods, grad filters, light meters, and much else that, though still having some marginal use today, are basically headed for extinction."

Mike relies: The idea of cropping for zooming has a precedent—a few years ago a smartphone came out that had a huge number of pixels, I think 42MP? It was intended to give users enough pixels to zoom by cropping. No idea what became of that, and I'm having trouble coming up with the details.

Adam Lanigan adds: "The phone you're thinking of was the 2012 Nokia 808 PureView. It had a 41MP sensor on it that allowed you to zoom up to 3X and end up with a 5MP image (at 16:9).

Mike replies: That's it! Thanks Adam.

David Gleason: "Re: Small segments of larger captures...you’ve just given me an idea for a fun photo project. I got my Q2 yesterday, and wanted to find something fun to do as a first project. I’m going to extract small areas from Q2 images and print them on my neglected Fuji instax printer. Then I’ll compose them on or around a print of the full image. Should be fun! PS: I agree with your comment about, 'What else do you need?' I just sold my M10, my Leica (Digital) CL, and some other stuff. For 80% of my needs the Q2 is fit for purpose. And for the other 20% I’m hedging my bets by hanging onto my A7RIII. For now. The lack of choice feels good!"

David Comdico: "The Leica Q2 is a bargain when you consider that the equivalent lens on the M mount system, the 28mm ƒ/1.4 Summilux, is by itself $6,595. [I take your point, but the Summicron at $4,395 is closer to being equivalent. —Ed.] Leica is also using the idea of cropping from such a large sensor by creating framelines for different focal lengths. The '35mm focal length' crop is 30MP. Gimmicky, but with the new sensor may actually be usable.

"As for the focal length, it worked for Winogrand—and not to mention the millions of iPhone users around the world.

"Regarding the images referred to in this post I am reminded of Charles Harbutt: 'Most photographs, whether student, fine art or commercial are made by the traditional art school method: define concept, a pre-visualization, then execute that vision with taste and elegance in some medium. The goal is total control. For over a century now, artists in almost every medium have disputed this approach: John Cage in music, Martha Graham in dance, the Surrealists and Dadaists with automatic writing and chance juxtapositions, William Burroughs notebooks, Jackson Pollock’s dribbles.'

"Lastly, Land's discoveries in human vision, what he called Retinex, was truly remarkable. This essay by Wendy Carlos on the phenomenon brought to mind the experience I had as a child, sitting so close to the TV that if I leaned in just a bit I could see the RGB pixels. It's incredible how 'real' interlaced video (480i, transmitted as an analog signal over the air) seemed then. It looks impossibly archaic to us now."

Geoff Wittig: "Iain Blake's '100 Strangers' caught my eye, but probably not in the way he intended. I'm struck by how his subjects very obviously (at least to me) skew younger, prettier, quirkier than any random assortment of folks. It makes me wonder how many wonderful subjects who happened to be older, plainer, more overweight he skipped over to get his 100. Is this a selection bias based on who might be willing and eager to have a stranger take their portrait? Or due to a photographer who seeks out more attractive folks from the random procession? Either way, I feel just a bit cheated. Sort of the way I feel when checking out the author photos on the jackets of books. I suspect (but obviously can't prove) that readers are short-changed because the pool of authors presented to them are restricted to those who look conventionally attractive in a dust jacket photo."

Kenneth Tanaka: "Re: The Leica Q2 being 'The Most Desirable Camera on the Planet,' well certainly Mike's having fun with hyperbole. Yes, it has been in extremely short supply since it was released earlier this year. And yes, it will almost certainly remain scarce into 2020. But that's partly due to the strange ways in which Leica seems to run their business. I'm certainly not going to promote or defend the Q2 (which I do own) to naysayers. It's costly? Yup. Limited? Sure (although isn't this the World HQ for the Optical Deprivation School for Better Photograhy?).

"But if you ever have a chance to borrow or rent one for a week do it. Even if you're the crappiest photographer on your block you will almost certainly be impressed by one of the most sublime lens/sensor pairings in history. That 28mm may not be your stein of ale but OMG...oooh-la-la!"

I Feel Old

What's so funny about this?

Above all, digital still seems recent to me. I mean, it's only been around for 22 years, in my life at least. I sometimes forget that a whole generation has been born and has grown up without experiencing cameras that don't instantly show what a picture looks like.

I was recently idly flipping through one of those web features that make you click "Next" to see a succession of pictures. The category was "Amusing Prom Photos." In a photo of a couple (above), probably from the '70s or '80s, the boy had his eyes closed. That appeared to be it. Curious, I turned to the caption to try to find out what was supposed to be amusing about the picture.

The caption writer assumed that the boy was "sleepy" and had closed his eyes on purpose. "He doesn’t like to play by anyone else’s rules," the writer opines—imputing motives with abandon—"and if he wants to shut his eyes, he’s going to shut his eyes." More explanation of tech from olden times was felt to be necessary: "This photograph was taken on a camera that didn’t immediately show what it looked like. Instead, they had to wait for the picture to be developed to discover that's the face he pulled on his and his date's very special prom night."

"The face he pulled"? The writeup didn't seem like it was meant to be ironic. The caption writer actually seemed unaware of the possibility that the boy had simply blinked as the exposure occurred and that no one was aware of it when it happened.

I'll fax it to you
Here's a guy making fun of an antique camera...and it's not even a film camera.

(The guy in the video, James Veitch, is the humorist who got famous giving TED Talks about talking back to spammers. Here's another one of his I had never seen before. Very funny.)

Another thing that's mostly of the past now...I ran across a comment recently that noted that redeye was something that "used to happen with old cameras." And come to think of it, I don't encounter much if any mention of redeye any more.

I wonder what other features of "old" photography that we take for granted are actually unfamiliar to the generation born after 1995? There must be more.

Mike
(Thanks to Brian Drinkwater)

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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David Evans: "'I see beauty in the world'—pause, looking at scene—'When this guy moves, there'll be beauty in the world.' So true."

Steve Jacob: "I bought my first SLR in 1981. I bought my first digital camera in 1999. It's now 2019. I have officially been a digital photographer for longer than I was a film photographer. It just doesn't seem like it because time passes so much faster when you get older."

Tam: "To this day the sound of a motor drive on an SLR tickles a reflex in my hindbrain that says 'There must be a very serious pro photographer doing serious pro photographer things around here somewhere.'"

Roy Feldman: "I photographed for Ford Motor Co. for a few years and frequently photographed Bill Ford at podium speeches and auto reveals. Nicest man in the world, but he has a eye condition that causes him to rapidly blink and water after a few minutes of bright light. Knowing this I always over-shot everything on film with the knowledge that in three quarters of the pictures he would have closed eyes. Really happy when digital came along. Felt sorry for photojournalists who weren't aware of this 'feature' of Mr. Ford. Papers ended up using a lot of 'provided by Ford' (i.e., me) in their coverage."

Tommy Williams (partial comment): "Having to decide ahead of an outing whether you plan to make photos inside or outside—due to both color balance and film speed."

Dennis: "Running out of film!"

Tom: "Not long ago I was browsing around what was effectively a junk shop of old film cameras where a young woman was intent on purchasing a TLR. She'd narrowed it down to a Lubitel but the guy running the shop was not offering much guidance. I pitched in, pointing out she could probably find a decent light meter app for her phone. She looked puzzled. When I mentioned 12 exposures she looked shocked. I hope it worked out for her.

"Meanwhile, a young guy was asking how to set a film camera to black and white."

Clay Olmstead: "1. Reciprocity failure. 2. Always shooting with the same speed of film so you could judge the exposure based on light conditions without having to use the light meter. 3. Being the only person at a gathering with a camera."

Large Format Online, c. 2019

Who sez you can't do large format photography online? Earlier I stumbled across The Large Format Photographer Society on Facebook, a Public Group where you'll find posts about everything from how to photograph an angel with a 1952 SuperReflex and Fomapan 400, to a picture of the Gran Sasso Little Horn, to the Tri Tran Signature Fine Art Lens.

The description says "This group is more about images than showing others your equipment," and is strictly limited to 4x5 and up.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Richard Man: "I am on at least three LF-only FB groups, and one 'medium format and LF' group. Plenty of good photos (and so-so ones). LF is a small but, dare I say it, vibrant community. Heck, Jason Lane, an optical designer by trade, is now making and selling dry plates of all sizes."

Richard Parkin: "Facebook seems an odd place to show large format. There are lots of Flickr Groups."

John Wilson: "I am not on Facebook—I just think it is a waste of time—but I really enjoyed the link you provided. Participants of that photography style deserve respect and admiration, I can’t imagine taking off to go take pics and lugging that amount of gear. Since I’m in 70s my Leica X’s And Ricoh GR are all the gear I am happy to carry."

State of the Art Nature Photography

If you have some free time this weekend, take a few minutes to check out The Atlantic's presentation of a few highlights from the California Academy of Sciences’ BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition. Some very beautiful and unusual nature photographs, state of the art circa 2019.

There's a book.

Mike
(Thanks to Jim Hayes)

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David Evans: "Excellent pictures there. Interesting how they make an impression even at a measly 1.5 megapixels. 'Clouds of Salt' is the one I keep coming back to. I would like a large print of that on my wall."

The Million Dollar Fake Leica (Around the Web on a Tuesday)

924 Bel Air Road

Now That's Excess: Check out this wee little cramped house that's listed for sale on Bel Air Road in Los Angeles. How do people manage with so little room to move around in? You really should check out what the current owner has in the garage on the ground floor—see the garage down there, behind the grass? You might have missed it; some people look at this shot and don't even notice the helicopter on the roof. But for our topic, you need to see the fifth photograph at the listing—the dining room. Are you there? Now look over to the right.

Not sure I've ever seen any home decor like that! I guess it's one of the "100 curated art installations" within the house*.

One For the Birds: David Aschkenas has created a new portfolio around the theme of birds. I like the variety in this. Nice conceptual flexibility, to tie a photograph of a sculpture to one of a cobblestone mosaic. I took three passes through the 15 photos (and now one more to count them). Have a look**!

A Brief Survey of the Photographer's Life and Work: This is very short, and won't take you a minute to read. But it's funny***. Try to ignore the interruption of the ad near the end.

Mike
(Thanks to Gabe Bandy)

*Here's what I really think of the place, though. U.S. Americans should all be forced to read up on Roman history if you ask me. With special attention, at the moment, to the fall of the Republic. We're just Rome v.II. Trump = Sulla, the proto-emperor, who revived the dictatorship and permanently destabilized the Roman power structure. Alas, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana). I reserve the right to not publish comment on this footnote but you can write one if you want to.

**I should ask David to write a post about how he promotes his photography. In this position for the past 14 years, I've encountered all manner of photographers trying to cut through the noise and get noticed, in all kinds of ways. It seems to me that David does a better job of it than almost anyone. His early overtures to me were met with the usual, and necessary, armor plating of dismissive skepticism, and I promptly forgot his name—but now I look forward to his promotional emails, and I know his name. And he did that—it wasn't the result of any effort on my part.

***I also think it's hilarious that the New Yorker, following its in-house style as of course it must, puts periods in "O.M.G."

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(Not) everything must fade away

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hugh crawford: "Apparently the artist Liao Yibai has made 10 of those sculptures titled 'fake Leica' at $1,000,000 apiece, and some smaller ones at $100,000. They combine a M4 and M7 design with the angled rewind. Unfortunately they have the back of one of the digital models, which makes it too fake to keep around my house. It’s stainless steel so the weather protection should be good."

Ken: "That house is probably a rundown dump—it just looks better than it is because of a realtor's clever 'staging.'"

Mark Kinsman: "Sorry, only 21 bathrooms is a deal-breaker for me."

Kenneth Tanaka (partial comment): " I very much liked David Aschkenas‘s 'bird' portfolio! Not knowing its background I’m guessing he curated it from his existing photos rather than shot it as a project? I know there must be quite a few TOP readers with large collections of images from their earlier days. Culling through them to curate such small thematic portfolios is a really terrific pastime! (Speaking from personal experience.)"

Bob Cook: "The New Yorker article is great. The Photographer should consider a flip phone next. A retro homage (is that redundant?) to the Holga."

Magnum's Magnificent Steve McCurry Sale

Steve McCurry, Young man walks behind elephant. Sri Lanka, 1995.

In honor of the publication of the retrospective Steve McCurry: A Life in Pictures in 2018, Magnum Photos is having a grand McCurry print sale.

The 2016 McCurry controversy might mean he's better thought of nowadays as a photo-illustrator than a straight journalist (as he was when his medium was Kodachrome—you recall he was chosen to shoot the ceremonial last-ever roll), but he's certainly a spectacularly brilliant one, working to an exceedingly high standard over many years. His pictures have the compositional sophistication and elegance of pre-1839 representational paintings of the sort favored by the salons, often paired with the rich and vibrant color palette of the Impressionists. That style, and his exotic subject matter, have made him hugely popular, and deservedly so.

The prints are priced at $4,000 to $35,000.

If that's on the steep side for you as a buyer, there's still fun to be had in the exercise of delectation: take an imaginary budget of an imaginary $10,000, and decide which print in the sale you'd have if you could have only one. Keeping in mind the prints are large, from 20x24 inches to 30x40 inches, I'd pick this one. I'd love to live with that, large—the rich detail, the small vignettes everywhere, and the great spatial depth. I don't think I'd tire of looking at it. As pretty as a painting.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 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.

(Not) everything must fade away

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

JOHN WOLF: "If I had a spare $7K lying around, I think I'd rather plan a week or two photography trip to Rajasthan or Sri Lanka (or both) and see what I can come back with. The pictures might not be as good, but they'd be mine. If I planned carefully, I'd maybe even have enough for a Z7 to take along."

Xf Mj: "With my $10K I should think I could demand some sort of honest attempt at a 'raw' print just to know the basis for the illustration. For the two in the older post (the rickshaw one and the soccer one) I actually prefer the more cluttered, undoctored ones. It's a shame he feels the need to make those kinds of edits, beautiful though the results can be. But then I should confess I'm guilty of slider-based photo-illustration, and the more-than-occasional digital dodges and burns. I definitely crop and straighten, too. This post has reminded me to always go back and de-doctor my own images after letting them sit for a bit, post-edit. I find I get into polishing an image quite a bit and in such a fever that I start believing the polished one to be more the original than the original. It's fun, like painting can be, but it can sometimes be a problem. It's only when I return to an image a bit later that I see how overcooked it ended up."

Garry Winogrand on PBS

I'm sorry I had to take the past few days off...needed some mental health time (or maybe just plain health time...I slept 12 hours Thursday night! I didn't know I could still do that). But the comments are now all posted for the Ricoh GR III and the "Proper Attitude Toward Tech" posts.

I'm also desperately apologetic that I forgot to mention this in advance of Friday evening when it was broadcast...there's a new "American Masters" documentary about Garry Winogrand on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). A kind reader even reminded me and I still forgot.  :-(

It's not great to look at his pictures within a video—not rich enough, tonally kind of leached out, a bit mushy—like coarse simulacra of the real thing. And although the makers of the show didn't zoom in and move around in the frames, which is a plus, it also wasn't so great that they felt they had to add soundtracks to several sequences. I don't need Dylan in order to look at Winogrand, thanks anyway. And I'm not too sure about those YouTubey infographic titling segments or whatever you'd call 'em. Overall I got the feeling they were casting about desperately to juice up the presentation so that it wasn't just plain old black and white still photographs and people speaking thoughtfully. You know what they say: oh well.

But still, there are some good interviews and insights, and the show pulled together relevant information from a lot of sources and different time periods. I do love hearing Winogrand talk about what he does. It reminds me of the American CIA agents in Steven Spielberg's Munich, all brash and business and no-BS. And it's interesting to see visuals of people like Geoff Dyer and Todd Papageorge. I've never known what either of those gentlemen look like. Kind of spooked me to hear Szarkowski's gravelly voice make some cryptic pronouncement from out of nowhere and then fall silent. I used to talk to him on the phone from time to time.

It's available to watch for free online until May 17th, though it might not be accessible from outside the USA. (For which I'm sorry, but please don't shoot the messenger, please. That goes both ways—US Americans can't watch the BBC's "The Genius of Photography" because it's not available here and even the DVDs are Europe-only).

Personally I admit that Winogrand is not a favorite photographer. I do acknowledge and appreciate his importance (PBS says, "his 'snapshot aesthetic' is now the universal language of contemporary image making"), and I love to hear his thoughts on photography—he's like a street-photography philosopher, is what he is. I've engaged with his work for what feels like my whole life. But he's never moved me. I do respect him, though.

By the way, if you're one of those who are skeptical of Winogrand, and I know you're out there, try this: look at his work carefully, really look at it, and try to mimic his style with just one shot. You'll probably fail, but it might change your life. It did for me when I did the same thing with Lee Friedlander. Who, by the way, would be my pick for "the central photographer of his generation*." That was Szarkowski's famous epigrammatic pronouncement about Lee's good friend Garry.

People treat it as a great mystery that Winogrand left 300,000 exposures incompletely dealt with when he died. The real reason isn't far to seek—he got struck down by gallbladder cancer at the age of 56, which, for a guy like him, was the prime of life. He had a span of barely seven weeks from diagnosis to death. Not much wonder he got caught mid-stride and still in the midst of life.

Oh and one more thing: Now that Cartier-Bresson's The Decisive Moment was finally reissued after decades out of print, the one photographic book most in need of of a reissue might be the chronicle of what is acknowledged to be the photographer's peak year, a stretch of sustained seminal brilliance and mastery that was radical in its time—Winogrand 1964. Until then, if you want a copy, you'd better have deep pockets, or great luck.

It's always good to revisit Garry. It could have been better, but I'm glad he has his first documentary now.

Mike
(Thanks to Zack Schindler and Jim Loudon.
Inset photo of Garry by Jonathon Brand. Thanks to Judi Lamb for the ID.)

*And what generation would that be? Well, Friedlander is 84 today, and Winogrand would have been 91 if he were still alive.

Original contents copyright 2019 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.

(Not) everything must fade away

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Featured Comments from:

Zack Schindler: "Actually you can watch the BBC's 'The Genius of Photography' on YouTube."

John Krumm: "The YouTtube versions of 'The Genius of Photography' have messed up sound, but it's on Vimeo and the sound is fine."

Dogman: "Winogrand's type of photography is not my favorite. But Winogrand did this type of photography better than anyone else. I have the Winogrand 1964 book. It went out of print before I could buy it, but I eventually found a brand-new copy still in plastic wrap and unremaindered for the original list price. One of the few lucky finds I've ever had in photography. Looking back on the 'New Documents' photographers from the standpoint of the early 21st Century, many of the photos seem dated. But that may be due to years of familiarity. And maybe it's because Friedlander has outlived them and produced more work but I have always enjoyed his pictures more than those of both Winogrand and Diane Arbus."

John Krill (partial comment): "Re 'And although the makers of the show didn't zoom in and move around in the frames, which is a plus'—Back in '69 or '70, David Douglas Duncan went on the Michael Douglas show and was showing prints he had done from the '68 political conventions. On the very first picture the camera started to zoom in and pan around the photo when Duncan flatly refused to let them do that. He stated that the photos had been edited by him the way he wanted to show them and by zooming and panning they were changing his edit. They stopped doing it for the remainder of the show. I really never liked what TV always did with still photos, and to hear Duncan tell them NO was very refreshing.

"During the '68 conventions Duncan was working for one of the networks. He would take photos, process them, print them, and then have them put together with his narration for the evening news. I have no idea how he managed it. Also, I could never get any info from the networks and so I don't even know if these still photo videos still exists."

Judi Lamb: "Thanks for your posting, Mike. Well worth checking out! I noticed you used a rare photo of Garry photographed by his ‘side-click’ Jonathon Brand. They worked together at J. Walter Thompson ad agency in NYC. This photo was taken of him on their typical lunch time excursion on 5th Avenue. It’s Garry checking his answering machine in 1965. Very few photos were actually taken of Garry. This one’s a treasure."

Mike replies: Thanks for your help Judi! I couldn't discover the photographer's name. I added the credit below the byline.

There are also some great photos of Garry by Arnold Crane, the divorce lawyer who made an avocation of photographing other photographers. There's one of Garry jokingly shooting his Leica between his legs, one of Garry and Lee F. in Lee's garden, and others. They're not online and never will be, but some of them are in Arnold's book The Other Side of the Camera, published in Germany.

JOHN GILLOOLY: "Finally finished the two-night project of watching the Winogrand film. What I found myself most intrigued by was the arc of life as a photographer. How his path as a photographer was impacted by marriages, divorces, children, health, sickness and then an untimely death that left so much unfinished—unprocessed, uncontacted, unprinted, unedited.

"We have discussed the growing burden and importance of editing and redacting one's work. This film, and the story of Winogrand, really exemplifies the importance of that process. He was big enough that, while his later work might not be edited and presented as he might have wished, it at least has seen an audience. Most of us don't have that luxury.

"For the critics in the comments that sort of lessen his work by making the claim that 'if any decent photographer went out and shot that often, with that volume, they are bound to get some great stuff.' Well, I don't necessarily disagree, but having the love, will and tenacity to get out there and shoot on a daily basis is part of the skill. It's very easy for folks to say, 'well, if I shot that much on those streets, I'd have some great images too!' That actually may be true. But that is a huge if. To shoot so consistently even today, with the ease of digital capture, is very difficult. To do it in that era was much more laborious, time-consuming, and expensive.

"He is not my favorite photographer. Not even my favorite of that era of New York street photographers. But I love his total absorption in the process. I love that he just needed it even if he didn't really know why.

"I loved the video sequences with Jay Maisel and Garry conversing. Having spent some time with Jay in NY at his bank a few years back, I really would have loved if he were one of the people featured in the interviews.

"I love this genre of photography and TOP. I'm eager to pursue some of the links provided by the commenters."

A Few Links the Morning After

Hybrid laser-scan/panorama photographs may be used to help rebuild Notre-Dame: Vassar Professor Andrew Tallon uses laser scanners to make incredibly detailed 3-D maps of ancient structures such as Notre-Dame cathedral, accurate to half a centimeter, originally to try to understand the methods of ancient builders. But his scanning maps (which he merges with panoramic photographs) of Notre-Dame could well become invaluable in the rebuilding and reconstruction process.

Because Andrew clambers around on ledges far above the stone floors of cathedrals, he refers to himself as a "tacklehead" rather than a gearhead. But you'll recognize a kindred spirit, albeit one with a honed sense of specific mission in life. Fascinating stuff!

Notre-Dame from the air. A photograph from the National Geographic
archives taken by the U.S. Army Air Service (cropped).

Notre-Dame from the archives of National Geographic: In the same article is a link to a selection of archive photographs of Notre-Dame over the years. Not exhaustive, but nicely inclusive. A portfolio worth seeing.

Bad coverage and good: Foraging for information, I happened across an almost absurdly hackneyed "news" clip from CBS News that managed to make even yesterday's epic conflagration seem rote and dull. They interviewed a fire chief from Philly talking about the difficulties of battling church blazes. Original. Forgive the sarcasm; actually it was straight out of the "When You Can't Think of Anything Else to Do" playbook. You almost knew what the chief was going to say before he said it, and the interview could do double duty for any little church fire in any little town anywhere. Really? Can't even work up a little juice when it's looking like we're losing one of the great wonders of the world's heritage?

By contrast, Frida Ghitis on CNN, employing the recently outmoded written word, got closer to the core of the event in her article "Watching Notre Dame burn, the entire world was in pain." Describes how I felt. "The conflagration brought a feeling of helplessness and foreboding—reminiscent of the devastation on 9/11, in some ways, and perhaps that was part of the effect for some people: the sense—real or imagined—that we were watching a metaphor, a prelude, a warning." The feelings she's describing are essentially religious/superstitious, so it was good she didn't add to her litany, "...a judgement." 

Soaring buttresses: I'm not normally a fan of Ross Douthat, a conservative columnist at a liberal paper, but he was inspired to write a beautiful essay this morning (speaking of judgements). He had been in the middle of writing a column about the troubles of the Catholic Church and was forced to incorporate the news of the fire into his thoughts, and—whether out of necessity or out of courage—he let the bones of both influences show through. The result embodied the sense of interruption that public catastrophes impose on us. He was focusing on the schism inherent in Benedict vs. Francis, the conservative and liberal strains within Catholicism, but returned to the idealism of rebirth, apropos Easter: "The church has always depended on synthesis and integration. That has been part of its genius, a reason for all its unexpected resurrections and regenerations. Faith and reason, Athens and Jerusalem, the aesthetic and the ascetic, the mystical and the philosophical—even the crucifix itself, two infinite lines converging and combining."

David Aschkenas: Finally, TOP reader David Aschkenas has put together a small portfolio of his pictures from the interior of Notre-Dame, taken over the years.

Mike

[CORRECTION: According to The Washington Post, Andrew Tallon died last year, and should have been referred to in the past tense. It brings up another wrinkle, however—the Post also references the fact that no one knows exactly where the late Prof. Tallon's laser scans of Notre-Dame are. Thanks to Ken Berke for this. —Ed.]

P.S. Most of this comes via the New York Times, by the way, my morning read; I'm cribbing from David Leonhardt. (Other still-functioning, not-yet-compromised newspapers are The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, and I routinely read The Atlantic and The New Yorker [on paper, which you must admit is quaint] and visit the BBC.) The Times, which I sometimes refer to as "the world's best photography magazine," has plentiful and robust photographic content, although it can sometimes be a challenge to corral it all. I officially recommend a subscription to the Times for the excellent photography articles. You can access ten articles per month for free. But subscribe. It's worth it.

Original contents copyright 2019 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.

(Not) everything must fade away

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

Kenneth Tanaka: "Thanks to David Aschkenas for sharing his Notre-Dame images. Also, you have a delightful collection of very well-seen international street images, David. I plan to take a deeper your of your work later this week."

Moose: "Re '"the entire world was in pain." Describes how I felt. "The conflagration brought a feeling of helplessness and
foreboding—reminiscent of the devastation on 9/11, in some ways, and perhaps that was part of the effect for some people: the sense—real or imagined—that we were watching a metaphor, a prelude, a warning." The feelings she's describing are essentially religious/superstitious.'

"I don't get it. This hyperbole and these feelings are highly personal; she and you are treating them as universal. It's an old church, Catholic, in France. Churches have been burning since the first one was built. Old iconic structures have burned or been otherwise destroyed, intentionally or by accident forever. Yes, I've seen this one. No, I have no emotional attachment to it.

"We are in Bhutan at the moment, where the central temple of the iconic symbol of the country was was destroyed by fire in 1998 <i>". . . leaving the country in mourning for their holiest of spiritual places. But religious leaders and the King . . . Today, the magnificent temple is completely rebuilt to its original glory. Another monastery destroyed by fire has been rebuilt, all but the altar in a new style. It's glorious, literally awe inspiring, at least to us and our travel friends! Every old fortress, temple, monastery, etc. that one visits has a history of fire and rebuilding, it's only a question of how many times. Getting so worked up about this one, seems a bit like getting hysterical when the sun goes down. It's something that happens regularly, and won't stop. The sun will rise again, as will Notre-Dame."

Chris Fuller: "I was surprised by my response to the news about this tragic event: I mourned and I wept. I mourned for a building, a collection of stones and glass. But it is a collection of stones and glass arranged in patterns of inestimable and moving beauty. It is one of those special places where history, culture, religion, and personal aspiration intersect with one another in a way that is rare anywhere in the world. It's a place that feels still even as thousands of people traverse through it. It's the place that gave birth to the University of Paris, and, thus, it stands as a monument what is good about the Western tradition (without denying this same tradition's many problems). I'm Catholic, so maybe that's part of it. But my Protestant and atheist friends also mourned and wept. So, maybe there is also more to it."

Bruce Polin

Big congratulations to TOP reader Bruce Polin, whose work is being highlighted on the Lens blog of the New York Times.

Bruce Polin, Jay and Missy, Prospect Park, 2018

The work consists of traditional 8x10 film (FP4 and HP5) environmental portraits that are both meditative and collaborative. I really enjoyed the portfolio, which is called "What's the Opposite of a Cellphone Photo?"

Have a look at Bruce's work!

Mike
(Thanks to Bruce)

P.S. By the way, the mysterious "boxy, old-fashioned Japanese mechanism that shot on plates [sic] of film 8 inches by 10 inches" is a Toyo 810MII, and Bruce's whole rig, including the cart he wheels it all around on, does indeed weigh in excess of 100 lbs., as the article says.

Original contents copyright 2019 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.

Want to help?

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

David Comdico: "Beautiful portraits. The intense regard of both the sitter and the photographer creates a forceful moment. What is often missing in photographs made today is this level of commitment, given how easy it is to make a (thoughtless) picture with our (smart) phones and cameras."

Bruce Alan Greene: "It seems to me here, that the great advantage of the large format, besides its awesome image quality, is...its very bulk and slow process. What better 'ice breaker' to connect with strangers in a park than a wagon full of old fashioned and fascinating photographic machinery! And I'm sure that many new friendships were made here as well. Bravo Bruce Polin!"

Two Catalogs

For those of you who are into film and darkroom, Freestyle's new catalog is out. It's very splashy.

For those of you who are into Micro 4/3, the new Micro Four Thirds Joint Lens Catalog is out. The catalog is limited to products offered by companies that formally participate in the 4/3 consortium. There are other lenses available from companies that don't participate but just copy the mount. Leica has more expensive lenses, Canon and Nikon have useful if somewhat scattershot lines, Sony furiously produces lenses with planning that appears to constantly change, Fuji's lineup is the most sensible and well-considered (and my personal favorite), but for variety and pure photogeek fun I don't think anything out there beats Micro 4/3.

Mike
(Thanks to Oren Grad)

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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