The Online Photographer

Baker's Dozen Deadline: Midnight Sunday

I'll email this to all my Patreon supporters, in case the problems continue and people can't access the site.

However: the deadline for the Baker's Dozen will be end of day on this coming Sunday. Midnight between Sunday and Monday, Eastern US Time. That's 5:00 a.m. Monday in London and 2:00 p.m. Monday in Sydney.

Here's the "call for work" post with all the details.

"House" hasn't been a popular subject, as these Baker's Dozens go, but many of the pictures I've received so far are excellent. Each time I see a new submission I think, "well, I can use that."  :-)

Mike

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.)

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Baker's Dozen Call for Work: House

Hills-DeCaro house, first floor. Initial
design by Frank Lloyd Wright.

For the next Baker's Dozen, let's try something I wrote about recently: houses. There's a long and interesting tradition of picturing houses, which we might talk about along the way.

Here's the game:

The subject should be a permanent freestanding built domicile (where people live, i.e., not a campsite, treehouse, cave, etc.). Mainly looking for a house you feel is particularly beautiful or harmonious, but it can be one that you feel makes an attractive picture (amazing light, elegaic ruin, lovely colors, etc.); that has special meaning to you; or one that you feel has any other specified kind of interest. Exteriors are generally what we're looking for, but interiors are fine if that's what you want to submit.

First prize (just for fun), with me as the sole judge (although I'll be influenced by readers' opinions and reactions): a mini-portfolio of your work posted here on TOP and a written introduction to you. (You can of course decline if you're Greta Garbo*.)

Anyone within reach of these words can play, amateur or professional. (We usually get about 100–200 submissions for 13 places in the portfolio, so your odds are pretty good. On the other hand, the standard is usually quite high.)

How to Submit

This is a call for your own work, and you must own the rights to it. TOP will make absolutely no claim to your rights now or ever; by submitting, you give me permission to publish your picture here at TOP, with credit, but not to make any other use of it.

To submit, please use the subject line:

BDhouse

Just like that...no spaces, spelled exactly like that, no variations. Lowercase "h" in house. The reason is that when I begin building the post, I will search my email stack (which is large and unruly) for that phrase as the subject, and if your email doesn't come up, then I won't see your picture. Pay attention to this, as each time I specify this I do get emails that don't have the proper subject line. Those inevitably either get lost or cause headaches.

I'll announce the deadline when we get near it, but it'll be more or less two weeks from now, so you have some time. As I did last time, I'll try my best to get the result posted reasonably promptly.

Email ONE (1) JPEG, 800 pixels wide, saved in sRGB. Make sure you don't have your email software set to reduce the size of attachments.

Include in the email a paragraph including your name, where you live (city or town and country), any technical details you care to share, your website URL if you'd like me to publish it, and whatever you'd like to tell other TOP readers about your picture.

Name
Location
Technical details
Story or description

My email address is [email protected].

Have fun!

Mike

*Swedish-American movie star active 1920–41 who famously retired saying "I want to be alone" and lived thereafter as a semi-recluse.

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.)

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Chris Kern: "Great subject idea, but unfortunately I will not be able to submit my favorite photograph of 'a permanent freestanding built domicile.' Not because I’m reluctant to share it, but because I didn't make it. It’s an 1895 picture of a stately home in Woodsfield, Ohio, that was shot by an unknown photographer, probably at the behest of my maternal great-grandfather, Wickliffe Ewing Mallory (he apparently always went by 'W.E.' and you can hardly blame him for that) to memorialize the house he had built two years earlier. It’s not the attractive structure that interests me so much as the remarkable tableau the photographer (or my great-grandfather) created of the extended family posed around it. The younger of the two little girls standing in front of the corner of the porch is my grandmother at the age of four. That’s W.E. himself watching the croquet game on the right side of the frame.

"My siblings and I knew nothing about the house until my brother discovered a scan of it on my father’s computer after my mother’s death; my father couldn’t recall why she had asked him to scan it or whose house it was. Years later, when we were clearing out their house following his death, we found an original print among a box of my mother’s memorabilia, which is the source of the scan in the link above."

Mike replies: That really is a wonderful picture. How great for you that it's in your family. By the way, you have quite a feel for architecture. You should give this Baker's Dozen a go.

Charles Rozier: "I thought Garbo said “I vant to be alone—."

Hans Muus: "Re the previous Baker’s Dozen: am I the only one who missed the 'honourable mentions'?"

Mike replies: Oh no, did I forget to add that? I'm sorry. I'll try to do better this time.

The 'Blur' Baker's Dozen Prizes

As announced, we're giving away three top prizes for the Blur Baker's Dozen, chosen by a guest judge, Hugh Crawford. (The full portfolio, if you missed it, is here.)

The prizes are:

$200 for First;
$125 for Second; and
$75 for Third.

Hugh mentioned to me that he wanted to wait a while after the contest ended and the thirteen pictures were presented, so that he could see which pictures he remembered the most after some time had passed. I'll turn it over to Hugh:

Photo by Alan Sailer

"Number one is the photograph by Alan Sailer. Not only is it a wonderful-looking photograph but it’s the one that I remember the most which counts for something. This photograph seems to be all about motion and light and presumably air; there’s a figure, there’s maybe a horizon so maybe it’s outside, but the light seems like it’s mixed; from there your mind fills in all the details. It sure seems like there’s some sort of a story going on, but it’s left to the viewer to just sort of make it up."

Photo by Francis Sullivan

"Number two is Francis Sullivan’s photo. There’s all sorts of formal stuff going on. First, there’s a lot of calligraphic paint stuff going on, two big gestures, the Pink Floyd text, and where somebody wiped the light-colored paint off their hands onto the wall. One of the things I always love about looking at Jackson Pollock's paintings is decoding the order in which they were painted, by what colors and drips overlap sequentially in a story of its creation. Here you can see that the sort of smeared area just above the running figure was probably painted first, along with the Pink Floyd, which seems to be very much aping the cover art for their album 'The Wall.' Of course Gerald Scarfe renders Pink Floyd in upper case and the anonymous graffitist presumably walked up to this wall and said, 'Oh look, it’s a wall. I think I’ll write Pink Floyd on it' without referring to the original artwork and chose mixed case which is absolutely fine. Later, somebody uses a brush to put up an arc of dark paint on the wall, it looks like it is just a pint or so of paint thrown against the wall, but you can see that there are brush marks in it, and paint is dripping from it, so it was fairly considered. Also, you get a sense of how tall the person was because it has the gesture of somebody extending their arm up as high as they can to paint with a little bit of an arc and walking simultaneously. Later after that dried and somebody did something similar with some light-colored paint and you can see where it is dripping down over the dried darker paint. Oh, and I can’t forget those light handprints up above Pink Floyd. Really this is more Shinichi Maruyama or Richard Hambleton than Jackson Pollock.

"So anyway, you’ve got this palimpsest of layered narrative and revisions that probably accreted over a few months. At this point, Francis Sullivan happens by, chooses a shutter speed appropriate for capturing masonry, and a kid with a bow runs through the frame—Time’s Arrow being too fleeting to be captured itself, but the hand of time is frozen. Pretty neat how random chance turns this into an allegory for the passage of time of both long and short duration. On a formal note, the arcs of the black and of the white paint are echoed by the curve of the bow. I would be remiss in not mentioning that this reminds me of William Klein’s work, which is a very good thing."

Photo by Kristine Hinrichs

"The third photograph is the one by Kristine Hinrichs. It reminds me of Robert Capa’s 11 D-Day photographs on Omaha Beach. There were lots of other photographs taken on Omaha Beach that don’t have the technical issues of Capa’s photographs and look like they were taken on a beach in June in nice weather. But which do we remember?"

I'll be contacting the winners to send them their prizes. Congratulations to Alan, Francis, and Kristine; grateful thanks to Hugh. Thanks to the generous donors of the prize money, and to the others photographers whose pictures were included in the portfolio. Last, but not least, thanks to the hundreds of readers who sent in submissions. This was a fun one, and I hope you enjoyed it. With any luck, the idea of "blur" stuck in your mind for a while as a possibility when you were out photographing.

Mike

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.)

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Methods of Creating Blur

At the stroke of midnight last night I counted 240 ±5 submissions for the 'Blur' call-for-work (it's tough and time-consuming to count the number more accurately, for any number of reasons), and so far I've whittled it down to about 60 ±3 finalists. My seat-o'-the-pants feeling about it is that both these numbers are about double the usual, or almost. So this one is going to be tough for me to edit. Well, I guess they all are.

Many people are competing against only a handful of others. For instance, the birdwing-blur people are going to be competing against each other, and the out-of-focus abstract entries will probably be vying for one place in the final 13, and all the bicycle-panning-shot people will be competing against each other as well, most likely. So it goes in contests or in juried shows. With a final set of thirteen, you can't give everyone their due.

In a quick survey, I notice all of the following methods of creating blur: subject motion and camera shake, obviously, including intentional camera shake using deliberate motions; bokeh; deliberate overall out-of-focus; long exposures; long lens scenes through shimmering heat, called refraction; panning shots; flare; the deliberate use of very poor or broken lenses; double or multiple exposures; diffraction; software computational effects such as the iPhone's "Portrait" setting; pictures through frosted, fogged, or wet glass; pictures through multiple windows or panes of glass; soft-focus filters; soft-focus lenses (see illustration below); changing lighting effects, as at a stage show; pinhole images; blur of various types added in Photoshop; multiple images added in layers in Photoshop; pictures taken through dense foliage; and an intriguing picture taken in near-darkness in order to excite extreme sensor noise. Of course, there are many pictures in which two or more of these techniques are combined. And I'm sure I've missed a few!

Bruce Hemingway, My Window. Photographed with the very rare
75mm ƒ/3 Pinkham & Smith Visual Quality Motion Picture lens.

One of the most unusual is a picture of a face seen through a translucent pancake of some sort being flipped in the air from a frying pan! Never seen that before. In fact that's one of a special little category of pictures that are very interesting because of the explanation of what they are or how they were made; I'm thinking of creating a separate post for those. My sense is that there are about five of them, maybe six. (Is it fair to add those to the running for the prizes? I think not, because that wasn't the deal that I announced. Contests are rough when you're not a rule-bound sort of person, as I am not. Because having rules and following them generally enhance fairness, whereas extemporizing can seem like changing the rules in mid-course.)

More soon,

Mike

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.)

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'Blur' Baker's Dozen Deadline is Tonight...

...at 11:59.

The entries have continued to pour in without stopping. I'm pretty sure this one has received more entries than any other we've ever done. And I'm actually now getting entries that people went out and shot this past week specifically for the Baker's Dozen. With a great many of them, my initial reaction is, "Wow—well, that one has to go in the final set." I've had that reaction with a lot more than 13 of them. Lots of great stuff.

Final dust-has-cleared numbers for the prizes:

• $200 for First prize,
• $125 for Second, and
• $75 for Third.

That's thanks to Mark Banas, Anonymous, Anonymous, Richard Parkin, Anonymous, John Gillooly, James Weekes, Bob Burnett, and Christopher May. And TOP. Thanks to all the GoFundMe contributors! I'll save the overage for the next one.

Should help pay for a lens. Or at least a dinner for you and one or two photographer friends.

As previously announced, I will pick the final 13 that will appear here and Hugh Crawford will pick the prize recipients from among the 13. 

I think that's everything you need to know, except I should mention that I'm grateful, because it's a lot of fun to hear from you and see your work. I will have some thoughts about the aesthetics of blurry pictures in due course.

If you have any questions email me at mcjohnston at mac dot com. I'll close the comments on this post.

Mike

'Blur' Update (There Are Now Three Prizes)

First: an excellent recent panning blur, complete with the backstory: Mathieu van der Poel on the Poggio by Simon Gill. The tip came in from a reader in Wales also called Simon. Cycling fans can even buy a print at Simon Gill's website, for reasonable prices. For those of you who don't shoot professionally, the text gives a good example of what's involved in getting a shot when you have to.

Next: The "Blur" Baker's Dozen is proving popular. Entries continue to come in. If I were Ctein, I would have all the data on past Baker's Dozens and I'd be able to tell you where this one ranks so far in terms of the number of entries. But, being me, all I can tell you is that...entries continue to come in.

Finally: Thanks to a number of generous donors, there are now THREE prizes:

• First Prize $192.40 (so far!)
• Second Prize $100
• Third Prize $50

Woo-hoo! Wealth. The weird number for first prize is donations minus fees. I've set a new GoFundMe goal as of Wednesday morning, and added a bit to cover the fees. I'm sure the prizes aren't the most important part to you, but it's kinda fun and it's interesting to see how it works.

You've still got plenty of time to play with blur. The entry period doesn't close until the end of next Monday.

Mike

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.)

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The Formerly Sticky Post

[Ed note: This post is no longer sticky.]

Sticky!
This post is a "Sticky" post and will appear at the top of the stack this week. New posts appear below it, so don't be fooled.

Blurry!
Our "Call for Work" for the Baker's Dozen "Blur" Reader Portfolio is still live, through next Monday. We've gotten some fantastic blur shots so far. This one is going to be fun.

Passing the hat!
Want to help sweeten the "pot"? I set up a GoFundMe Page in case you want to throw a few more bucks into the prize fund (several people have offered). If we raise enough, I'll use the extra dough to add prizes to the next Baker's Dozen too.

I (Mike) will be editing the portfolio; the prizes will be awarded by our friend the Polymath of All Things Photographique, Hugh Crawford. Based on this recent photo he is obviously also a wizard:

I had suggested that he ought to wear a wig to be The Judge, but as you can see he already has all the hair anyone needs. Although he reports that the beard is getting a severe trim soon, for an upcoming trip. I'll have him send us an "after" picture if he's willing. People keep mistaking him for Rick Rubin.

Mike

P.S. Despite the disembodied thumb, the picture is not AI! It was taken with an iPhone in Pano mode.

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.)

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Baker's Dozen Call for Work: 'Blur'

Vortograph of Ezra Pound by Alvin Langdon Coburn
(Study 2, 1917)

Our Baker's Dozens are simple: readers submit JPEGs of their own photos, and I curate a presentation of a dozen of them that seem to go together, plus an extra one for good measure.

There's a prize this time: a $100 B&H Photo gift card for first place and a $50 Amazon gift card for second place. Hugh Crawford will be the judge. (I haven't asked him yet, so that's provisional on his acceptance of the judge's robes and gavel*.) [UPDATE Saturday evening: Hugh has agreed to serve as the awarder of the prizes. No word on the wig yet.]

THEME

The only requirement this time is that the picture should use some sort of blur. It can be any kind of blur: motion blur, panning, camera shake, a pinhole image, a picture that is all or mostly bokeh or is deliberately defocused, a picture taken with a soft-focus lens or filter or a toy camera, or anything else you can think of. Blur can affect all or only part of the picture. I will tend not to pick pictures that happen to be blurred but that would probably have been as good or better had they been sharp. The only sharp picture admissible would be of the English band Blur.

Also new this time, you have to tell me whether your entry is an "old" picture (one that already existed before this notice was posted on Friday, April 28th, 2023), or "new" (created specially for this Baker's Dozen). On your honor. Prizewinners, however, will be selected from the "new" pictures. [UPDATE Saturday evening: on further reflection this seems unfair, so if it's all right with everyone I'm going to rescind this and let Hugh award the prizes to any of the pictures chosen. To be clear: I choose the shots for the portfolio, Hugh awards the prizes.]

TO ENTER

Email one picture per entrant to me at [email protected]. Note the "T" in JohnsTon; my name is not Johnson.

Very important: the subject line of your email must be:

BDblur

...just exactly like that. Uppercase-uppercase-lowercase, no space. The reason for this is that I will search my very considerable email stack for that exact term and if your email is not labeled correctly it will not come up and I will never see your picture.

The picture should be a JPEG, 800 pixels wide (yes, wide), saved as sRGB. Include it in the body of the email and please, make sure your email program is not set up to automatically reduce the size of inclusions or attachments.

Please include:

• Your name
• Your address (or where in the world you are, city or town and country)
• A short single paragraph describing the work. This will be published with your picture when you win. You can say whatever you want about it, but what makes it blurry might be a point to consider. Not required though.
• The word "New" or "Old" as explained above.

(Note: if you screw up and need to submit again, please make a whole new complete submission. Do not send additional information in a separate email and ask me to add it to an earlier email, because although that ought to be simple, experience predicts that it will not get done.)

The deadline is Monday, May 8th, at one minute to midnight in the Eastern U.S. Time Zone. I'll remind you.

Untitled Photo by Hugh Crawford

THE FINE PRINT

You must own all rights to the picture you submit and it must be entirely your own work. 

You retain all rights to your picture at all times, except that you grant me one-time permission to publish it on TOP if it's selected (as of course yours will be).

I cannot think of anything else offhand.

EXAMPLES...

...Of past Bakers Dozens:

Cameras

Objects of Affection

Grandkids

In the Museum

Yellow

"It Must Be Color" Part I, Part II, Part III

Black-and-White

Pictures Taken with Leica Lenses

Have fun, and have a nice weekend. Remember the subject line

BDblur

!!!

Mike

*And wig, because our judge will perforce be bewigged, as they are in Blighty. It's a great look.

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.)

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Baker's Dozen: Camera(s)

[Dedicated to the memory of Jeffrey Goggin,
a.k.a. JG, camera-builder extraordinaire.]

-

Carsten Bockermann

"I'm from Bonn, Germany. Here's my website.

"When I received this custom-made camera strap from Hyperion, it immediately occurred to me that I needed to photograph it on my Fuji X100F, wearing a bowtie in matching red."

Bob Rosinsky

"The posterior of my erstwhile Olympus E-M5 Mark II (it was a great camera). The photo was taken with an Olympus E-M1 in 2015 at Siesta Key beach in Sarasota, Florida."

"I currently live in Boulder County, Colorado. I do not miss the ocean."

Pal Kossowski

"I live on the outskirts of Tokyo.

"I always carry a small portable camera with me to capture these unexpected and fleeting moments as they may play in front of our eyes. They later serve as mental remainders…tacks on the map of time…this one being a self-portrait taken in a harsh light with a Nikon 1 camera and a 10mm pancake lens back in 2013…but I still remember the exact place I took this picture while walking some short distance to a car parking after Sunday’s lunch at Denny's."

Mark Hobson

"I live the Adirondack Park near Lake Placid, New York, USA. My web address is: lifesquared.squarespace.com.

"a r g o f l e x Seventy-five—A picture of the making of a picture from the picture maker's point of view."

Richard F. Man

"I live in Palo Alto, California.

"The short version of the story is that our car had a catastrophic failure and fire consumed the car in minutes. No one was hurt but I left my Leica M9 and the iPhone 10 in the car. More photos and a bit more detail at my website. The Summilux was my first and favorite Leica lens. I doubt I can afford to buy another one.

"While I was cleaning whatever is left of the camera, I made up fictional sales descriptions:

My conservative rating for this camera is near mint. A CLA will make this back into a formidable shooting machine.

This M9 has slight sensor corrosion, but Leica should be able to replace it for free.

The Summilux 35mm produces lovely images with great bokeh. Slight coating damage but that adds dreamy signatures to your images.

The shutter curtain is rated for 200,000 actuations and is as precise as when it left the factory 12 years ago.

"Taken with a Hasselblad 203FE with CFV II 50C digital back."

T.C. Lin

"I'm from Taipei, Taiwan.

"A Leica M3 I borrowed from a friend, c. 2008. I was experimenting with Sigma's new DP1 at the time, and took a shot of the Leica on my office desk in the afternoon light. Always loved the Sigma's rendering, even if the camera was frustrating to use."

Irene Burnes (submitted by Terry Burnes)

"I live in Gardnerville, Nevada, USA. Here's my website.

"This is a self portrait taken by my mother Irene with her Speed Graphic in the 1940s. My parents met at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado, during WWII, where my father was an Air Force photography instructor and my mother was a civilian student of his, having come there from her home in North Dakota looking to help with the war effort. When my father was later deployed to the Pacific, my mother moved in with her parents, who had moved to San Diego. She started a photography business there that ended with the war, while also working at Convair Aircraft.

"My father was a good technical photographer but I think my mother had the creative gene. My interest in photography and whatever ability I have is directly attributable to them. There were always cameras, and occasionally darkrooms, in our homes."

Barry Prager

"From San Fancisco, California, USA.

"This photo was taken of a camera obscura which resides where San Francisco meets the Pacific Ocean near Seal Rock. There is a lens mounted in the top of the camera which rotates 360 degrees every six minutes and reflects down to a 150-inch mirror which is mounted to an observation table, which gives an oddly beautiful image.

"The photo was taken with a Sony NEX-7 and ƒ/3.5–5.6 18–200mm zoom lens which was converted to shoot in infrared."

Marco Alpert

"From California, USA. Here's my website.

"Shot in Central Park, New York City in pre-plague days."

Bruce Walker

"Where: Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. URL.

"Title: Portrait of a self-portrait.

"This studio shot is from a creative I did in 2015. Camera in the shot is a Kodak Junior Six-20 Series II. Shooting camera is the Pentax 645Z, and the lens is the wonderful 645 90mm ƒ/2.8 Macro at ƒ/11, 1/125th second, ISO 100. A single strobe is suspended directly overhead in a seven-foot silver umbrella. Model is Molly Fassbender."

Chris Bertram

"I'm in Bristol, United Kingdom.

"This is a shot of the inside of a camera, or, more exactly, an accidental camera obscura caused by my poor fitting of the curtains in our bedroom. We were astonished one morning by the patterns on the wall and then realised they were the inverted image of the houses opposite.

"My photography."

Willem Numan

"I'm in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

"This is at the annual market for all things camera-related in the town of Doesburg in the Netherlands. Image was made with an iPhone SE on 20-08-2017."

Gary Nylander

"I'm from Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. Here's my website.

"This is my Tachihara 8x10 view camera with a Schneider 300mm ƒ/5.6 lens. I made this photo to illustrate some of the different film cameras (including digital) that I use as part of my overall work on my social media accounts. That's me under the dark cloth. I had set up my digital camera on a tripod with a set of low wattage lights, the exposure time was 25 seconds allowing me plenty of time to walk behind the view camera and stay as still as possible while the digital camera was recording the image.

"This is a camera that I have owned since 1991. The 300mm lens I bought a little earlier, around 1990. I wanted a short telephoto lens for my 4x5 view camera; I didn't realize when I bought this lens over the phone from a camera store in Vancouver, British Columbia, that it would be so big, and that it actually covered 8x10 format. Since I now had a lens that covered the larger format I figured I might as well get myself an 8x10 camera. Easier said than done in my part of Canada.

"The first 8x10 camera I purchased, which was used and also a Tachihara camera was through a mail-order ad in the back of a photo magazine for a camera dealer in California. It was listed as 'mint' and priced a couple of hundred dollars less than a new one. After several weeks it showed up at my door and I excitedly unboxed it only to find it was hardly mint, but well used. I sent it back and got my money back. Then I ordered the new one from a popular camera store in New York City. The new one was perfect of course.

"Although I don't use it that much these days, as I often use my more practical 4x5 camera or my digital camera, I still enjoy hauling out the big rig to make a few photographs now and then. It's fun to use and gives me a unique view of my subjects that I would not normally get with my other cameras."

-

And one more for good measure...

Rob de Löe

"I live in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

"My friend Jeffrey, whose passing in early April of this year was noted in a column on TOP, was a person who viewed any object produced by someone else as a starting point for his projects, rather than an ending point. Over many years of conversations, I absorbed that ethos, and now run with it for my own camera building projects.

"This ugly creature is my enormously functional 'MAB Camera.' The foundation is a Mamiya 645 Auto Bellows (hence 'MAB'). I'm sure that Mamiya's engineers considered their product 'done.' For me, it was the starting point. My MAB Camera lacks the huge range of movements available on my Toyo VX23D, but it has the ones I need to do most of what I need to do. It weighs only 780 grams, and it can mount my Pentax-A 645 ƒ/3.5 35mm lens, my two Mamiya G lenses, and various enlarger and technical lenses. Jeffrey, whose finished 'FrankenKameras' always had a professional and polished appearance, would have politely appreciated my dedication to 'function over form.'"

+   =   +   =   +   =   +

Thanks to everyone who participated! As always, if your picture didn't appear, I should remind you that it's not a contest. I'm just doing my best to create a varied and entertaining set. Many other pictures would have done just as well, but these are the ones that looked right together to me.

A few honorable mentions (the other selects that I shuffled and diced to create the final set): Terry Letton, Jonathan Hayes, Mark Gregg, Rodger Kingston, Bruce Polin, Larry Sumners, San Warzoné, Reese Robinson, Rolf Behrends, Stefan Kassel, Richard Alan Fox, William Harrison, Greg Heins, Sean Felhofer, and Rich Beaubien. If your name didn't appear here, it might simply be because I got several submissions with a similar motif or that I thought would serve the same function in the set, and I had already chosen another one for the finalists' cut.

As I said earlier, I especially appreciated the stories and the memories.

"Good light" to you—

Mike

Book o' the Week

 All About Saul Leiter. The Amazon writeup for this book says "Photography lovers the world over are now embracing Saul Leiter"—and oh boy, is that ever true of me—"who has enjoyed a remarkable revival since fading into relative obscurity in the 1980s." One of my favorite photographers. Beautiful photopoems. Saul's Early Color (which you can still get for around $300) was one of our all-time bestselling book links. (I bought two, one to thumb and one to not touch!)

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Link to B&H

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
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Last Call!

Don't forget the deadline for the "Camera" Baker's Dozen is today (Saturday, May 21). It went very well; we've gotten a lot of quirky, interesting, and varied submissions. Lots of good "camera portraits" and lots of pictures featuring smartphones, when I'll only have space for one or two, maybe three, of each. That's not to say yours can't be one of the chosen ones. But those are the overpopulated categories where the competition will be toughest, in case you're still deciding what to submit.

If you could get yours in by, say, noonish, EST, good enough.

By the way, my favorite camera picture I've ever done is the one of my friend Kent's M4 which I posted here. But I doubt it would be special and different enough to be part of this Baker's Dozen! A picture of a camera for a contest needs a little something extra, to stand out. (I wonder if there's a post there...the effect of contests on what and how one might shoot. Because contests do have different standards than purely personal artistic direction. And obviously not all the effects are good. Sorry, just thinking out loud.)

This one is pretty light, just fun. But hey, this is the place.

Last chance!

Mike

Book o' the Week

It's Not About the F-Stop by Jay Maisel. Jay was suggested by Moose and this book was suggested by Albert Smith. I got to meet Jay Maisel once. Everybody should meet him in his books, if they haven't already. Might help; cannot hurt. Jay's is some of the most positive, hopeful, and generous picture-taking advice you'll find.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Link to B&H

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Baker's Dozen Deadline

Happy to say that I'm getting some excellent submissions for the "Camera" Baker's Dozen already.

The deadline will be next Saturday, May 21, at noon Eastern U.S. Time, because Saturdays are the slowest days of the week around here and it will be fun to be able to do the first pass through these on Saturday afternoon. I will accept late submissions, but not too late.

I'm certainly seeing some very interesting cameras already. This is going to be a fun one for sure. Here's the information again.

Mike

This is Actually a Different Book o' the Week

It's Not About the F-Stop by Jay Maisel. Jay was suggested by Moose and this book was suggested by Albert Smith. I got to meet Jay Maisel once. Everybody should meet him in his books, if they haven't already. Might help; cannot hurt. Jay's is some of the most positive, hopeful, and generous picture-taking advice you'll find.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

B&H walks the walk.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
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New Baker's Dozen Call for Work: 'Camera'

This is either going to be wildly popular or be a total flop, or something in the middle.

(Sorry, it's an old Mitch Hedberg joke.)

Our next theme for our lovely little readers' pictures portfolio is: "Camera." Any picture that has anything to do with a camera is fair game. Hopefully we will have some fun here.

How to Submit

This is a call for your own work, and you must own the rights to it, so please don't send me anything but that.

By submitting, you give me permission to reproduce the small JPEG of your picture on TOP and that's it. Your copyright remains yours.

To submit, use the subject line:

BDCamera

Just like that...no spaces, spelled exactly like that, no variations. Capital "C" in "Camera." The reason is that when I begin building the post, I will search my large email stack for that phrase as the subject, and if your email doesn't come up, then I won't see your picture.

Please pay attention to that. Last time, people really did...almost nothing got lost. Which I appreciated.

A dog does not have to appear in your picture. Although my philosophy is, it never hurts.

I'll announce the deadline when we get near it. No promises when the results will appear...I've learned from experience that these features just take time to build, so it'll get done when it gets done. There's only one little man behind the curtain pulling all the levers.

Email one or two JPEGs, 800 pixels wide, saved in sRGB. Include in the email your name, where you live, any technical details you care to share, your website URL if you want me to publish it, and whatever you want to tell other TOP readers about your picture.

Lots of people write a paragraph explaining their picture (see the "Yellow" portfolio for examples), so if you don't, just be aware that your picture might seem a little "naked" after it gets picked. (Because of course yours will get picked.)

My email address is mcjohnston at mac dot com. Replace the "at" and the "dot" with the proper symbols and get rid of the spaces. This modest attempt at disguising my address will not fool the web-crawling bots, but oh well.

So, five components:

"BDCamera" in the SUBJECT LINE;
PICTURE (must be your own!), 800 pixels wide in sRGB;
NAME;
WHERE YOU LIVE;
Any COMMENTS you care to make about the shot.

Hope you are up to the challenge! Have fun and don't be afraid to be creative. Total dweeby gearhead geekishness is not required but is certainly not discouraged. You're among friends.  :-)

Mike

Book o' the Week

Jay Maisel: Light, Color, Gesture. This was suggested by Moose. I got to meet Jay Maisel once. Everybody should meet him in his books, if they haven't already. Might help; cannot hurt. Jay's is some of the most positive, hopeful, and generous picture-taking advice you'll find.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
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Baker's Dozen: Objects of Affection

Stephanie Luke
Cottonwood, California, USA

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

Wolfgang Gressmann
Germany

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

Douglas Martin
Santa Rosa, California, USA

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

Ken Ginn
Wakefield, Quebec, Canada

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

David Kee
Westmont, Illinois, USA

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

Satyan Devadoss
San Diego, California, USA

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

Peter Van Dyken
Duluth, Minnesota, USA

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

Mark Gregg
Michigan, USA

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

Jim Simmons
Masterton, New Zealand

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

Michael Ryan
Shanghai, China

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

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

Daniel Speyer
New York, New York, USA

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

Len Salem
England, United Kingdom

"My seaside bucket.

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

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

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

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

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

And one more for good measure:

New Baker's Dozen Call for Work: Object of Affection

[TOP publishes on Mon./Wed./Fri.]

The next Baker's Dozen, with the title "Object of Affection," will be of pictures of objects. Inanimate ones.

Object, noun,

/ˈäbjekt/

A material thing that can be seen and touched.
   "She appeared to be holding a small object"

It can be any kind of object. Perhaps of a sort you have some kind of affection for. I'm loath to give examples, even verbally, because I don't want to risk directing your creativity. Points given, however, for being mindful of the inherent descriptive power of photography.

I'll pick a dozen of the most interesting ones to post, with one extra for good measure. Search the site for "Baker's Dozen" if you want to see past examples.

If you'd like to play, click past the break for instructions.

Pictures Taken With Leica Lenses

[Comments have been added.]

I can't believe it's been more than four years since I first posted the Leica lenses Baker's Dozen.

That one just soaked up work. I feel like it took me a week to get it right. But it was worth it—there's a lot to interest both the eye and mind in that post. Thanks again to all the wonderful readers whose work is featured, and all those who sent pictures I wasn't able to include. 

Mike

Book o' the Week

Eyes Wide Open! 100 Years of Leica Photography Edited by Hans-Michael Koetzle

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Featured Comments from:

Albert Smith: "Thanks for reposting this. Never would have accidentally stumbled across it in the archives."

Herman Krieger: "With my new Leica—"

Rob Spring's Picture: Childhood Revisited

Rob Spring of Barre, Vermont said of his picture from the Baker's Dozen mini-portfolio, "Here is a photo of my grandson, Waylon, with his dad, my son-in-law. This was the last ride on the swing that my kids used more than 30 years ago. The swing was attached to a limb of an ancient but dying Vermont sugar maple which was cut down the next day after standing in what is now our front yard for over 155 years."

This looks so much like one of my own pictures that I don't have to wonder why I like it. We don't even really need to know that this commemorates the last day of a long-standing tree, although it's a bonus. What it made me think of when I saw it was that there's a relatively short window for us, as children, during which a swing is good for playing on. How long it is, really? Six or seven years maybe, maybe less. But with most childish things that pleased you when you were young yourself, you get a chance to revisit them again when they make your children happy. It's really tough to say who's happier here, the child or the man; they both appear to be enjoying themselves equally. And I'm glad I wasn't imagining the resemblance between them. Their expressions are the same.

I just love pictures like this when they're my own—straightforward documents of people, places and times that were important to me. I would have loved to have taken this, if these were my family members. And it's a charming shot even though they're strangers to me. Great job, Rob.

Mike

Book o' the Week

The Atlas of Beauty: Women of the World in 500 Portraits. "Since 2013 photographer Mihaela Noroc has traveled the world with her backpack and camera taking photos of everyday women to showcase the diversity of beauty all around us. The Atlas of Beauty is a collection of her photographs celebrating women from all corners of the world, revealing that beauty is everywhere, and that it comes in many different sizes and colors."

This is a link to Amazon from TOP. The following logo is also a link:

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Jerker Andersson's Picture: Composition, Colors, Lighting, Love

Jerker Andersson of Lund, Sweden, wrote of his submission: "Early Fall, 2004. My father-in-law, Håkan, and his first grandchild Elsa have a conversation in the dining room. Over the years since then, my wife Åsa and I have had two more kids, a girl and a boy, and my wife’s father has five grandchildren in all. But this was in the beginning. Sometimes I find it hard to remember what life was like without the kids. Lots of time to spend, I suppose."

Formally this is a great candid—it uses a lighting strategy I've seen before but have never heard a name for. If you have two faces looking at each other, and the main light source is coming from behind one of the people and hence directed at the front of the other face, you can split the background and contrast the lit face with a darker background and the darker face with a lighter background. I know I've seen pros do it on purpose; I imagine Jerker recognized it rather than set it up, but it's marvelously effective here.

I suppose we can't help our personal responses to photographs. I've always been interested in what you might call "the ages of Man"—capital M, meaning humankind. This is a quirky thought, but in some ways I wonder if we sometimes aren't programmed to see people of much different ages as being a little like a different species, slightly alien almost, as a way of protecting ourselves. I've noticed that young, healthy people sometimes treat infirm and decrepit old people a bit like they are something "other"—not people who were once just like them. You can't quite get them to say they'll never be like that, but being honest, aging is alarming, so why think it if you don't have to? In our youth, we're somewhat blind to the inevitability of our aging. Conversely, I've sometimes observed that people have a way to talking about babies as not quite being us yet. Children, too, sometimes.

This is probably the most amateur sort of sociobiology. But it creates the wonderful tension for me here: an infant looking at an adult like she will one day be; a grandparent looking at an infant like he himself once was. And their obvious pleasure and contentment in regarding each other. They recognize each other. And yet I sense a touch of wonder, too, on both sides! Makes me smile.

This rises well above the usual family snapshot. Everything's in perfect balance here, composition, colors, lighting, love. Don't you wish all your family photographs could be this good?

Mike

Book o' the Week

The Atlas of Beauty: Women of the World in 500 Portraits. "Since 2013 photographer Mihaela Noroc has traveled the world with her backpack and camera taking photos of everyday women to showcase the diversity of beauty all around us. The Atlas of Beauty is a collection of her photographs celebrating women from all corners of the world, revealing that beauty is everywhere, and that it comes in many different sizes and colors."

This is a link to Amazon from TOP. The following logo is also a link:

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Jerker Andersson: "Thank you for those kind words! From August 1996 to June of '99 I studied photography as art, full time, at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. For a few years after that, I made a modest living as a photographer. But I grew tired of having to hunt for every assignment and then hunt the clients to get my money. I studied to become a teacher of the Swedish language for immigrants instead, and I've been working like that on different levels since 2005. Anyway; if I couldn't take decent family pictures, it would be quite embarrassing! Again—thank you!"

Monika Göhmann's Picture: Character Study

Monika Göhmann of Darmstadt, Germany writes, "In the image you see my parents with my daughter. My mother hated to have her photograph taken, but my daughter convinced her to sit down with her on this day, because we didn’t have any photo of the three of them together. My parents were 95 (father) and 93 (mother) years old at the time. Only four months later, they had to leave their house to live in an old peoples home; in 2020 they both died. So this image is a true treasure for my family!"

At first pass this seemed too plain, and I flipped past it pretty quickly. But it grew on me with repeated visits, and I long ago learned to appreciate it when a photograph has "legs"—staying power—for me. The more I looked at it, the more I liked it. First of all, I just love those wonderful faces—all three of them strong, interesting, personable, and (excuse me sir), beautiful. Then I noticed a certain consonance between the two women—notice how the colors of their clothing echo back and forth. Then the hands. Hands can reveal as much as facial expressions about feelings, and I love how the six hands are arrayed across the picture. Again the women echo. Notice how the man draws the group together, and also how different his hold is on each woman. The two older people are turned toward each other, almost folded into each other—you would guess they are long married even if you didn't know, I think. Neither looks at anything in particular, as if they are content and secure to be together. But the most marvelous thing is how the face of the daughter brings the photographer, her mother, into the picture. Her expression says a lot about their relationship, as well as how happy she is about the occasion. The picture is a character study even to someone who doesn't know the people; knowing the story enhances it. In a world that clamors for attention, there's still a lot of reward to be found in quiet, subtle pictures. I think Monika really got the moment. Sehr gut gemacht!

Mike

Book o' the Week

The Atlas of Beauty: Women of the World in 500 Portraits. "Since 2013 photographer Mihaela Noroc has traveled the world with her backpack and camera taking photos of everyday women to showcase the diversity of beauty all around us. The Atlas of Beauty is a collection of her photographs celebrating women from all corners of the world, revealing that beauty is everywhere, and that it comes in many different sizes and colors."

This is a link to Amazon from TOP. The following logo is also a link:

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Jens Ronneberger: "Ein schönes bild von zwei generationen." (A beautiful picture of two generations.)

Ernest Zarate: "Re 'At first pass this (photograph) seemed too plain, and I flipped past it pretty quickly. But it grew on me with repeated visits….' I don’t think I could have written a better response to the whole 'shoulder tapping' criteria as, at best, a limited (and limiting) metric for judging a photograph’s success. Any creative work (movie, music, painting, architecture, etc…) may seem too (plain, outrageous, etc…) at first pass. That’s the 'tapping' phase, which with this photo ended up with a 'meh.' I think as creators of works, we need to not insult those who view our work by making it so simplistic that a three second glance gives it all away. 'Nothing more to see here. Next!' We must not hesitate to demand a bit of effort from those viewers, provided we reward them with a pay-off for their efforts. I’m glad you gave this photo more than a passing glance."

Charlie Dunton's Picture: Seize the Day

Here's what Charlie Dunton of Yorktown, Virginia, had to say about his submission for the "Grandkids" Baker's Dozen portfolio:

"I took this photo of my granddaughter during a visit to a local Five Guys restaurant for lunch. I spent the entire time photographing her, ending up with over 200 images. This [picture shows] one of the few times she gave any indication I was even there.

"Once home, I imported all the photos into Lightroom and discovered I had a nice story board of our lunch together. I selected 35 images that best told the story and added captions to each from her perspective. The caption for this one is, 'Oh, hi, Dadada, you are getting this aren’t you?'

"The story in brief: dip your french fry in a small cup of ketchup and lick the ketchup off the fry; try the same with the end of a crayon from the restaurant followed by a big yuck face; Dad notices ketchup on your chin and brings out a towelette resulting in strong objections; notices she has dried ketchup on her fingers that’s hard to get off so sticks fingers in ketchup cup for a bit, then finds to her amazement that the ketchup now wipes off easily; decides it’s time to change her dress which immediately brings out the finger of doom from Dad followed by a terrible pout face; lays head on table dejected at how long grownups take; new idea, draw Mommy a picture with the crayon; then sing Mommy a song they just learned, 'The Itsy Bitsy Spider,' complete with hand gestures and facial expressions followed by a big high-five from Dad.

"I saved everything in a Lightroom collection and didn’t share it with anyone for over 13 years. Then I had them made into a hardcover book and gave it to her on her 16th birthday. I think she liked it almost as much as I because the first thing she did when she got home was call her best friend and share it with her.

"We still have lunch together on occasion, but I don’t bring my camera any more. She wouldn’t stand for it. But what if I pull out my iPhone and pretend to be playing with it like all the kids do? There’s an idea.

"Sorry for all the words, but how else could I share 35 images when only one was allowed?"

Having not seen the other 34, I'll venture to say that one seems to do nicely!

I have only a couple of comments: first, that photographing active children in motion is actually a pretty good exercise of shooting skills. I was once asked to photograph four small but highly energetic brothers playing in their enclosed but well-outfitted back yard, and since I wasn't being paid I decided to try to do it on the fly, without asking the kids to hold still or pose or otherwise help to make my job easier. It was surprisingly challenging—getting coherent pictures was like trying to swat flies. They were in continual motion and seemed to never pause for long. Pointing the camera seemed a signal to move away. I shot three rolls of 135, which was 105 exposures, and had to settle for a couple of dozen competent shots, five or six to please the parents, and one photograph I thought was really good. Lots of blurs and shots just after the visual peak of the action.

I do like the relaxed, candid quality of this shot; it's clear it's not formally posed and that Charlie wasn't going for formal perfection. I think that makes the picture stronger. Despite the natural, candid feel it's still formally beautiful. The cropping, which would be too tight for some pictures, works with rather than against the gesture of the body and cock of the head, which in turn works with the expression of the mouth; the light is lovely, and the colors are harmonious and complement the lighting in turn. But nothing's excessive or overdone. A nice shot of a happy child mid-flight.

Taking 200 shots of one subject is what I'd call "working a subject." It's quite possible to get a shot this good with one lucky shot with a smartphone, but it will happen only occasionally. If you want to do it on purpose you usually have to work for it, like Charlie Dunton did. As a big-name photographer once said to me, "nobody sees how many shots you throw away."

Children disappear quickly—I still find it hard to believe that Sally Mann's son Emmett, memorialized as a boy in a number of his mother's famous pictures, has lived his whole life and is dead and gone now. Seize the day, they say. While that might be literally impossible, every now and then you can seize a good picture, which, although also impermanent in the long run, will at least outlast the moment.

Mike

Product o' the Week:

The brand new 2021 Apple 10.2-inch iPad (Wi-Fi, 64GB) in Space Gray. My iPad is my least necessary but most-loved Apple device. I could get by with my phone and a desktop computer, but I use this constantly and I like it best. Check out that price.

The above is a link to Amazon from TOP—anything you buy while you're there benefits TOP. B&H Photo is closed for the rest of September for Succos.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Sharon: "What an adorable child! Well done."

Charlie Dunton: "Mike, Thanks for the kind words. I must confess, this photo of my granddaughter was originally going to be the 'Oh, hi Grandada...' shot, but I had another that worked as well for that purpose and I decided the one I submitted made a much better final photo in the series. The caption for it is actually, 'Well, that's all from adorable moi. We had a lot of fun at Five Guys. TTFN. That's Ta Ta For Now, in case you didn't know.' If you would like to see the other 34, the full series with captions is here. Click the upper left image and then use the 'next' button on the site, or the right arrow key on your keyboard. Thanks again, Charlie Dunton."

Baker's Dozen: Grandkids

(Charlie Dunton)

(Rob Spring)

(Jerker Andersson)

(Monika Göhmann)

(Marc Vayssières)

(Kent McColl Wiley)

(Jeremy Fagan)

(Paul Martini)

(John Gordon)

(Chris Kern)

(Michael Gay)

(Craig P. Beyers)

And for good measure....

(William Schneider)

Honorable mentions (the other finalists, from the group I used to build this final set): Roger Bartlett, Lara Arnold, Jim Arthur, Terry Burnes, Roger Bradbury, Eric Peterson, Nick Cutler, Patrick Murphy, Rodolfo Canet-Castelló, and Marty Knapp. If you don't see yours or find your name above, no need to despair, as I have several other sets planned.

Details:

1. Submitted by Charlie Dunton of Yorktown, Virginia, USA. "I took this photo of my granddaughter during a visit to a local Five Guys restaurant for lunch. I spent the entire time photographing her, ending up with over 200 images. This was one of the few times she gave any indication I was even there." There's much more to Charlie's story, and it's pretty sweet, but I'll save it for when I do individual posts about the pictures.
2. Submitted by Rob Spring of Barre, Vermont, USA. "Here is a photo of my grandson, Waylon, with his dad, my son-in-law. This was the last ride on the swing that my kids used more than 30 years ago. The swing was attached to a limb of an ancient but dying Vermont sugar maple which was cut down the next day after standing in what is now our front yard for over 155 years."
3. Submitted by Jerker Andersson of Lund, Sweden. "Early Fall, 2004. My father in law, Håkan, and his first grandchild Elsa have a conversation in the dining room. Over the years since then, my wife Åsa and I have had two more kids, a girl and a boy, and my wife’s father has five grandchildren in all. But this was in the beginning. Sometimes I find it hard to remember what life was like without the kids. Lots of time to spend, I suppose."
4. Submitted by Monika Göhmann of Darmstadt, Germany. "In the image you see my parents with my daughter. My mother hated to have her photograph taken, but my daughter convinced her to sit down with her on this day, because we didn’t have any photo of the three of them together. My parents were 95 (father) and 93 (mother) years old at the time. Only four months later, they had to leave their house to live in an old peoples home; in 2020 they both died. So this image is a true treasure for my family!"
5. Submitted by Marc Vayssières of Davis, California, USA. "When my wife was dying of cancer a visit by our granddaughter was the only thing that could still cheer her up. Completely oblivious of the tubes and other medical devices Aveline would climb in the bed and cuddle with her Nana for a little book reading."
6. Submitted by Kent McColl Wiley of Earlysville, Virginia, USA. "A photo circa 1900 that contains many relatives on my mother's side of the family, by the Wadd Brothers. My grandmother, Jessie McColl Sclater, is the young girl with a lace collar on the front left. She is in front of her grandfather, John Cunningham MaClure, of the Royal Engineers who established the white settlement of Abbotsford, BC. His wife, my grandmother's grandmother, Martha MacEntyre MaClure, is to his left, and to her left is my great grandmother Susan MaClure McColl. Photo courtesy of Vancouver Archives."
7. Submitted by Jeremy Fagan of Liverpool, UK. "My Dad died about five years ago, in the early hours of a Sunday morning. We drove down to see my Mum, and by the time we got there, there wasn’t anything practical to do, so we went to Rockingham Castle, and my daughters played with their Grandma. Memory is a funny thing—I could have sworn that I took this picture that day, but when I looked for this picture for the Baker’s Dozen, I see that it was actually at the same place about six weeks later when we’d gone down again to help sort out Dad’s books and CDs. My Mum had cared for Dad for nearly a decade, and this picture shows her now being able to give them all of her attention, on a beautiful Spring day. She’s just been with us for a week this summer, and the three of them are still this close."
8. Submitted by Paul Martini of Bluff, Utah, USA. "My granddaughter Blaire in an approximately 800–1,000-year-old Anasazi/ancestral Puebloan kiva."
9. Submitted by John Gordon of Kalamunda, Western Australia. "Tabitha and Angus, my grandchildren, fooling around on the front deck at a beach cottage we rented at a small Indian Ocean coastal town several hours north of Perth, Western Australia, in 2008. They were both natural models and I was fortunate to get this with my then new-to-me digital camera, a tiny Nikon P5100 point-and-shoot. I love the pose and the colours. Tabitha later was in high demand as a model for several years and Angus was head-hunted for the junior squad of a professional UK soccer team. Today, she is applying to do her PhD at one of Australia’s most prestigious Universities and Angus is enrolled in an environmental science degree. Tempus fugit!"
10. Submitted by Chris Kern of Rockville, Maryland, USA. "This photograph was made in the backyard of our family home in Leonia, New Jersey, sometime during the summer of 1951 by my father, Gene Kern (1914–2010). The subjects are his father, Robert (1886–1963), and my sister, Robin (b. 1949). It was shot with one of the best film cameras I've ever used, a prewar Zeiss Contax II with a collapsible 50mm Sonnar lens, which my grandfather purchased in New York from a German-Jewish refugee—reportedly for an exorbitant price because he wanted to help the fellow out without embarrassing him by appearing to offer charity—and which I inherited many years later as a teenager."
11. Submitted by Michael Gay of Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. "While visiting our local botanical garden, my 'wood nymph' granddaughter exclaimed, 'Hey, Granddaddy, check this out.' She picked the setting, struck the pose, then BAM, I took the shot."
12. Submitted by Craig P. Beyers of Ashburn, Virginia, USA. "A picture of my grandson, taken with my iPhone on a Disney cruise with my daughter and family. Benjamin was impatient as we waited for lunch on the ship and was unable to stay still. His father placed him on the window sill (Porthole sill? Porthole surround?) where he stood, sat, and finally—at my urging as I visualized this photo—lay down and stayed still for less than a minute. This was the best of the multiple photos I took. I like it because of his look, the lovely clouds in the background, and the way the porthole and surround acts like a leading line to bring your eye into the photo. While the clouds are the whitest and brightest part of the image, the slight glow on Benjamin’s face also draws your eye. His curved body laying on the porthole surround complements the surround and the porthole. I printed this and a picture of his sister as gifts for my daughter, which she’s framed and has in her house. I’ve done the same and have both pictures in our apartment."
13. Submitted by William Schneider of Athens, Ohio, USA. "Not having any children or grandchildren myself, I'm glad that you offered other options for entry. This is a photograph of me in 1950 with my maternal grandmother. Readily apparent from my father's photo, he and my grandmother had a wicked sense of humor when they got together. Their personalities still live for me in this photo. When he died, I inherited his collection of Kodachrome slides and the 35mm Kodak Retina camera that he used. I spent about half a year working part-time to clean away mold and digitize the slides. It was a lot of work, but there are so many treasured memories in the pictures."

Thanks to everyone who participated! This was a lot of fun.

Mike

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

James: "I am guessing that anyone with grandchildren would pick the same number 1. Well done Charlie Dunton! And one out of two hundred is not a bad keeper rate.  ;-)  "

Mike replies: Oops. With all the care I took in editing and formatting this, I still kinda messed up. Originally I had numbered the pictures 1 through 13 just as a key to connect them with the corresponding verbal matter below. But then I got the idea of putting a thumbnail next to the writeups, which obviated the need for the numbers. Then a few comments and emails made me realize that it was too easy to associate the numbers under the pictures with a ranking, i.e., best to worst. That's not what I intended. They're in a visual order I thought was effective, but it's not a ranking. So now I've put the name of the person who sent the picture in parentheses below each picture...but it's too complicated to remove the numbers from the formatting below (in the TypePad compositor, once you start a number series it becomes automatic), so I've left those in. I'll learn to do this blogging thing someday.

JOHN B GILLOOLY: "I really enjoyed this process and then seeing the final images. I also find it fascinating and instructive that on first pass through the images, some seem quite 'regular.' Nice photos but not necessarily photos that might rise to the top. But in context, with the small anecdote that accompanies each image, it all comes together. It pushes me again to remember that doing more with fewer images is crucial. Thanks for this BD—looking forward to additional iterations of this set and the next BD."

Mike replies: This is one of the things I'll talk about when I write about some of the individual pictures.

Martin Doonan: "As an outside observer, number 5 really struck me the most—it is the one picture here that told the full story by itself without me needing the accompanying text."