The Online Photographer

Baker's Dozen: Young Photographers (Call for Work)

Good mornin'.

First of all, it's "Cyber Monday" today. It's the day when you're supposed to buy something through the links of your favorite website to help keep them in business (hint, hint) (wink).

I get remunerated for the number of things I sell through my links as well as for their dollar amount, so even if someone (a hypothetical person) were to order a few things of negligible cost they would still be helping out. I'm just mentioning this theoretically—I'm not entirely sure, but I think the terms of service of my various affiliations specify that I can't actually urge you to use my links. I'm just reporting about Cyber Monday here. Here's a list of those affiliates:

B&H Photo • Amazon US • Amazon UK
Amazon Germany • Amazon Canada • Adorama

But in case you do, thank you! Of course, I'm just as grateful if you ordered anything through my links during the rest of the year, but I'm trying to go along with the program here. I don't know what I'm doing. It's really hard to make a living on the Web.

It's going to take me longer than eight hours to compile the "Baker's Dozen: Leica Lenses" post, so please look for it tomorrow instead of today. I didn't want to start until I had all the entries in, and they were still arriving as of late last night. 

Next up
To paraphrase Monty Python, and now for something completely noncommercial. For our next Baker's Dozen, we'll be featuring younger photographers. TOP's audience skews old (they have more in common with me—you know, like polymathic sagacity and dashing good looks), but I know you're out there! And I'm sure you more mature photographers know younger ones you can clue in about the call for work.

I was going to ask for only teenagers and kids to submit work, but I decided that would be pushing my luck (extra points if you're still a teenager or younger, though). So we'll arbitrarily set the dividing line at your 30th birthday—if you're 29 or younger* on the deadline, you can submit. The deadline will be Thursday, December 14th.

Regular readers might remember this one by my son Xander (short for Alexander). He's 24, and has been shooting his rock-climbing buddies and other sad and scary things with my old Sony A900. 

The specs are the same—send the picture(s) in an email, saved in sRGB and 800 pixels wide. The subject line must be

bakersdozenyounger

...Just like that, or I won't find your entry when I search for it in the email stack. Tell me your name, where you reside, and any details about the pictures you care to; keep the verbiage shortish if you would be so kind, as I am swamped with words...happily, but still**.

On to "Pictures Taken with Leica Lenses" tomorrow—it is gonna be great.

Mike

ADDENDUM: Peter Marquis-Kyle brought up an interesting wrinkle—this is a call for work from photographers who are young now. But Peter suggested we do a call for pictures people of any age took when they were young. It's a great idea, and I'll do that in the future. But not this time 'round.

*In honor of Jack Weinberg, below, who coined the phrase "Don't trust anyone over 30" during the free speech protests at UC Berkeley***. The phrase, which was picked up by a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and radiated outward from there, "became one of the most memorable expressions of the turbulent 1960s era" according to the Berkeley Daily Planet.

Jack Weinberg. Courtesy Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley Archives.

Jack Weinberg is now 77.

**I know I should take my own advice. I've been writing too "long" lately.

***I hope you noticed that this is an old-guy reference about youth. ("Amused myself, and that's half the battle." —Craig Ferguson)

Original contents copyright 2017 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:

No featured comments yet—please check back soon!

Baker's Dozen: Leica Lenses (Call for Work)

Glad you enjoyed the "Baker's Dozen: Smartphone Photographs" on Saturday.

We're trying for two-week intervals, so the next one would naturally be presented on Friday, November 24th...but that's the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., AKA "Black Friday," famous as (usually) the 11th- or 12th- or 13th-biggest shopping day (or so) of the year. So I think I'll post the next Baker's Dozen portfolio on the Monday following. That's "Cyber Monday," a day that might not be quite as popular as Boss's Day (a so-called "Hallmark holiday") but is better known than May 13th, International Hummus Day.

But I digress.

For the next Baker's Dozen, we're asking for pictures taken with Leica lenses.

Here are the specs:

• Send 1–3 JPEGs but no more
• 800 pixels wide
• sRGB
• Tell us who and where you are
• Don't forget the techie details

Send them to me at m c j o h n s t o n a t m a c d o t c o m. VERY IMPORTANT: please use the subject line:

bakersdozenleica

...Exactly like that. The last thing I want to do is scold, but near the end of the submission period I will search my oceanic email stack for messages with "bakersdozenleica" in the subject field, and if your email doesn't come up then I probably won't see your picture(s). So it's important to use that exact subject line. I (a sentient human) won't be looking out for your email; my Mac (a heartless machine) will be. So close is not good enough.

It would be great if you could say a few words about your lens. A picture of the lens itself is not required, but can't hurt. I think I am likely to give a little more weight to pictures taken with lenses that are interesting, unusual, exotic or aristocratic in some way, but don't let that stop you if yours isn't. Pictures taken with any Leica (or Leitz) branded lens of any vintage is eligible. A digital snapshot of a physical print is also okay.

Be creative. That should put you ahead of the game.

Don't forget that subject line. Spread the woid!

Mike

[UPDATE: While Panasonic/Leica lenses are certainly valid for the call, I've already got two I'm definitely going to be using and I'm unlikely to select any more than that. Might select one more. But no more than one more. Just thought I'd tell you in case it might influence your selection decision.

If it's any consolation, Panasonic lenses will feature in a future Baker's Dozen. —MJ]

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

B&H Photo • Amazon US • Amazon UK
Amazon Germany • Amazon Canada • Adorama

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

John Robison: "This is where the essential honesty of contributors must be assumed. I was quite shocked at myself because for a brief moment I considered sending in some random photo, claiming it to be shot through Leica glass (I own no Leica lenses). I cannot imagine what possessed me to entertain such a thought for even that brief moment."

Mike replies: Yes, no juvenile games, please! With our medium here people will not be in a position to critically examine files and fooling people (or me) by being dishonest would not be a terribly slick trick. We're just having fun here.

Thanks for pointing this out John.

Nigel: "I have a Leitz Wetzlar projection lens...cost £6. Does that count?"

Mike replies: Thanks for pointing this out too. Early on, "Leica" (Leitz camera) referred to the cameras, and some of the lenses were branded Leitz but not Leica. I changed the post to allow Leitz-branded lenses as well.

Steve Smith: "Re 'International Hummus Day': Houmous—another word Americans can't spell!!"

Mike replies: Actually it's spelled حمص بالطحينة, ḥummuṣ bi ṭaḥīna, which means chickpeas with tahini, tahini being a condiment made of roasted sesame seeds. The dish originated in the Levant, which is the region East of the Mediterranean. The Turks use one "m," but the dialectal word transliterated into Roman characters is ḥummuṣ, and it's spelled "hummus" by the Encyclopædia Britannica, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, and Wikipedia, and "hummus" is the preferred spelling of the Oxford Learner's Dictionaries, which is the only one I found that gives "houmous" as a secondary alternative spelling. So I'm comfortable with "hummus."

Never poke an Internet researcher with a stick.  :-)

scott kirkpatrick: "הומוס or hummus only needs one 'm'-like letter in any of its natural languages. The 'mm' is doubled to keep the vowels before and after it short in languages that don't know better, like English.

Mike: Doesn't הומוס mean humus, i.e., organic matter in soil? That what Morfix ("the leading online Hebrew-English and English-Hebrew Dictionary") says. At least, that confusion would constitute another good reason not to spell it with one "m" in English.

scott: "My Oxford English-Hebrew Dictionary includes humus as organic matter, and doesn't say anything in either direction about hummus. It's a curious omission, as Israel could not function without hummus."

Jeff Markus: "הומוס a few bars and we'll fake it."

Mike: Jeff wins the Herman Krieger award for best/worst pun not by Herman! Good one, Jeff.