marcin wuu wrote, in the comments to yesterday's post:
Hey Mike, did you notice how your articles come in phases, or waves, connected by subject? There's a Leica phase, Apple phase, Film phase, I Bought a New Camera phase, Pool phase etc? We're past the Leica, are we entering Camera Bags? ;-)
It's true. That happens.
I believe it's mostly organic, though; for instance, after yesterday's post we were talking not so much about camera bags as stolen equipment, and a number of people have stories relating to that; those stories lead to other thoughts on the subject, which lead to more stories, and so on. The same post could have led in some other direction, perhaps assisting on jobs and not getting credit, or working for fathers or family members, or something like that. But that's not the direction it took.
I'm sure I direct it sometimes, emphasis intended, because it might be something I'm preoccupied with. The reason I claim it's organic, though, is that it happens the way it happens. That's what I've observed over many years of doing this. For instance, we could be talking about Kurt Markus right now and, let's say, what it means to photograph cowboys in the modern West, whether it's valid documentary or more like romantic nostalgia. But we're not. But there have been no comments on the Kurt Markus post, but a number of comments about my father's stolen bag.
Over the years, I've come to think of it as "energy." Some subjects have energy, others don't.
I do respond to the energy, too. Sometimes I'll wait to put up a new post because the last one is still getting a lot of response; the energy is there and I don't want to dampen it. Other times I'll work hard on a post but it doesn't get much of a response. In those cases I need to move on; no energy.
It's not 100% up to me. I try to create energy for pool, sometimes, hoping to do my little part to increase the fan base for my chosen sport, but my readers come here because of their interest in photography, and I don't have a godlike power to rewire their brains and redirect their interest. One way I got schooled about this was that, early on, when the audience was bigger, I had a great power to influence people buying books—did you know there were a number of books that we sold more than 500 copies of through our links? One surpassed 800 sales. That's influencing power! Especially considering that a full print run of a photography book might be 3,000 copies. But, when I've tried to recommend other books unrelated to photography, do you know how many we would sell? Six, maybe. Or 12, sometimes three, sometimes none. So it wasn't me...it was me + the predisposition of the self-selected audience, who were here because of their pre-existing and independent interest in photography. In short, Marcin's "phases and waves" are created by my energy plus your energy.
Heck, the site itself exists because it generated energy. I started this blog pretty convinced I would never have the discipline to write as much as one post a day, and my "stretch goal"—which seemed very unlikely to happen—was to keep it going for one full year (I had written a blog about politics prior to this one—it wasn't very good—that lasted about a year). Well, at its peak I was sustaining an average of something like 2.4 posts a day, and next November 28th we'll hit our 17th birthday, God willing. TOP has had energy.
Apply the concept to art
The idea of "energy" is significant because the same thing happens with creative work. You might have noticed it: sometimes you get what you think is a really good idea for a project, and and you strategize for it and gear up for it, but, when you get into it, it sputters...for some reason it doesn't "take." Like trying to start a fire and failing. How I experience it is that I don't have the energy for it. Literally, in that I feel logy and dispirited when I try to apply myself. Hence the term energy. Other times, you'll seize upon a subject and take off. Sometimes it might even surprise you, how much energy it has. Hard work doesn't seem like work, enthusiasm carries you along, and you might even take it further than you first intended. It can feel almost like it's not even up to you. If you read enough biographies of artists, you begin to notice how they find their energy as they work out what it is they're supposed to do in life, how they arrive at their mature styles and concerns. It might not be magical, but it sure is fascinating.
If you're creative, you have to be sensitive to the energy, I think*. And willing to have the courage to make changes based on it.
Maybe that's another topic; but let's see how much energy this post creates. :-)
Mike
P.S. Does anyone remember a saying about how a plan is an ambition with a deadline or something like that? I can't remember it or find it.
*One of my personal foibles is that I'm too dogged. I keep trying to do things even after I've found out I'm no good at them. You wouldn't believe how long I thought I was going to make a living as a portrait photographer. I had some early successes doing that kind of work—I did a lot of it and made some good money—but I have very little knack for business, and as a main business I failed at it—not just failed, but failed blatantly, comically, decisively, over and over again. It was clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was not going to succeed as a portraitist full time. But somehow I continued to not get the picture. The Universe didn't just have to whack me with the "Get-a-Clue" stick; it had to beat me repeatedly with the Get-a-Clue 2x4. (I still think I'd like to be a portraitist sometimes. I carry around various pet schemes in my head. They've been there a long time and doubtless won't die until I do. Success at these schemes is certainly possible, with the caveat that I'd merely have to be a different person than the person I am. To be good at business you need to be not just realistic but boldly realistic, I suspect.)
Book o' the Week:
Inspiration Leica Akademie (English and German Edition). A "group show" of 76 Leica Akademie photographers from 16 countries worldwide, curated by Heidi and Robert Mertens. It looks to me like this is going out of print soon, so act soon if you want one.
The book link is your portal to Amazon from TOP, should you choose to support the site.
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:
Grant (partial comment): "There is too much energy on the TOP site. My life is consumed by the articles that you post. There are too many fascinating links that I have not yet had the time to follow. I have three recommended books only partially read and two more still in the wrappers. Please, I need a break. The dandelions on my lawn are mocking me. Perhaps a food and diet phase would give me time to catch up on my life."
Mike replies: Dandelion greens are very healthy for you in salads.
Kirk: "I believe in the discipline of work. The more you work the more it flows."
Kenneth Brayton: "I have no energy for indoor photography. Just not there no matter how much I try. During COVID I have tried. But whenever I get outdoors it is a whole different level of energy. And much better results. Remember the days of 'Good Vibrations'? There is something to that."
You know a bit about me, if you've been reading this blog for a while. From time to time I also get to meet you. I got to meet TOP reader Pierre Charbonneau on the 3rd. You might have seen his name in the Comments. He came by on the first leg of a planned four-week journey taking pictures and visiting friends around the United States. We had lunch at the Chat-a-Whyle restuarant in Bath, which seemed apropos.
Pierre has had a successful career as a commercial location photographer. He started out in magazine and fashion photography, but eventually decided that his clients in that world tended to be fickle and influenced by who's in style at any given moment—he found that corporate clients are more loyal and less influenced by who happens to be "hot." He's almost exactly my age (65), and has been in business in Montreal, Canada, for 42 years. He said a typical assignment for him is doing all the publicity and instructional photographs for new commercial and private jet planes; he recently completed an extensive job doing all the photography for a new Gulfstream.
He's been reading me since very early on—since way back in Camera & Darkroom (originally Darkroom Photography) days. That's been a while. I took Jack's M10, hoping to show him a cool camera he hadn't seen before.
Pierre
No such luck. He had his own M10. He works with two lenses, a 50mm and a 35mm, one on the camera and one in a pouch on his belt.
This is his answer to the question "what's your favorite M lens."
We met for lunch in Bath after he toured the Corning Museum of Glass. He speaks excellent English with a strong French accent. He's charismatic and knowledgeable and told me he's a photo hobbyist in addition to being a longtime pro. I really enjoyed lunch and I wish you well on the rest of your photographing trek, Pierre! Please stop by on your way back if you can.
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.
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:
I apologize, but I'm going to need a few more days to finish up the "Objects" post. The reason is that there are two distinct trends in the submissions—pictures which contain objects that the photographer remembers fondly, and pictures that are "portraits" of objects, not necessarily ones the photographer has any personal attachment for. The latter tend to be clean and descriptive and not necessarily personal, and the former looser, more personal, and less centered on the object. The two strains mix like oil and water for me, and my first efforts to distill them into a coherent portfolio haven't satisfied. Going all-in one way or the other is just unfair to the other approach, but I'm still working out a way to combine them. This work is visual, not thought-based. You have to look at things together and see—using the word literally here—how they're working.
I know it's not that big a deal, but I feel I should be responsible to your work.
Tina Brown and the Talk of the Town
In other news, my first piece for the New Yorker (I've submitted three now) is going into the queue for copyediting and fact-checking today (or yesterday or tomorrow), and evidently it's already been turned over to the Art Department for illustration. Apparently the photograph I talked about in the piece (this one) will be represented by a drawing. "Illustrations create a little imaginative space for the reader—that’s why we use them in Talk of the Town, for instance, instead of photos," I was told. "It’s like the idea of the photo, rather than the photo itself."
All pretty exciting! Although nothing's a done deal yet. You're not published till you're published.
Photographers might reflexively take exception to replacing a photo with a drawing (like the color photographer Kim Kirkpatrick used to hate the phrase "original in color" under a B&W reproduction), but I see the wisdom. People do have a tendency to take things too literally, and will sometimes assume something is intended as probative evidence when actually it's just a fer-instance. Then they'll "argue with the illustration," and the illustration becomes a distraction. That's why Ctein is always saying some variant of "believe what I say, not what you see." I learned never to illustrate photo contest announcements, because people will assume it's an example of what you're looking for and will send in more of the same.
Plus, there's a history. The New Yorker originally never used photographs. Unless I'm mistaken, Tina Brown (fourth editor, 1992–98) was the first to allow photographs in the magazine—at least she was the first to use them extensively, and the first to hire a staff photographer (Richard Avedon—in fact he was on assignment for them when he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died in 2004). If I'm not wrong, no editor has yet dared to use a photograph on the cover, praise the ghost of Ross, and that's a Rubicon I hope is never crossed. Traditions aren't all sacred, but some are just part of a publication's identity. The New Yorker is one of the last magazines—maybe the last, I don't know—that uses original art and no blurbs on its cover. Clean and strong. Integrity, since 1925.
Anyway, "they're the NFL," as Michael Wexler said to me, and whatever they want to do is cool with me. I'll keep you apprised.
Mike
Book of Interest this Week
Gregory Crewdson: Alone Street. "Filmic" seems the best single adjective to describe Gregory Crewdson's work; his directed and carefully managed tableau are the still photography version of scenes in movies. As such they are hyper-real; more beautiful than life and more poetic, and more concerted. They're also very easy to enjoy and a pleasure to look at.
This book link is a portal to Amazon.
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:
Kenneth Tanaka: "Preliminary congratulations to you, Mike. I am very eager to see your article published in The New Yorker. I've had a digital subscription to The New Yorker for many years but, somewhat embarrassingly, I seem to spend relatively little time with it. Its longer-form of writing seems at odds with my increasing elderly A.D.D. syndrome. Maybe your features will be just the dose of Ritalin that gets me back into The New Yorker."
Mike replies: "Preliminary congratulations" is just the phrase, and thanks. They do want me to write short pieces, targeting 1,200 words, so the danger of long pieces is slim. I'll be writing for the website, newyorker.com, which I'm told is actually doing as well as the print magazine now, and growing faster.
Richard Skoonberg: "Such exciting news! I wish you the very best! I think you are a wonderful writer and I have enjoyed your posts for years. So good luck!...or should I say 'break a leg?' Whatever, I am rooting for your success."
I'm still working on the Baker's Dozen, I haven't forgotten. Very wrapped up in this piece I'm trying to put together for that other outlet. I might submit it tomorrow, so that'll be that one done.
Ctein wrote to say that all the infrared prints from the sale have shipped. If you haven't gotten either your print(s) or a notification from USPS that it's on the way, please contact Ctein at ctein@pobox.com.
I invited him to write a column giving us his thoughts about the new Mac Studio, and below is what he replied—written as a casual email, mind you. I have his permission to share.
Ctein: "I wouldn't mind writing something about the Mac Studio, but at this point I have nothing coherent nor useful to say. My thoughts are too muddled. I need to straighten them out before I'll have anything worth adding to the chatter.
"The two things that are most messing with my head (there are others) is that, first, I have little interest in the M[x] chips. The switchover, in fact, will cause me problems when I'm forced into it. Which is, hopefully, not going to happen any time soon.
"The second is that I am unreasonably fond of the 27" 5K iMac. And I do think it's unreasonable. My last-year's 16" MacBook Pro runs rings around my now-ancient (2014) iMac, along with providing me with a dual monitor setup (I have the LG 5K 27" monitor), which has better color and a larger gamut. Plus having twice as much RAM as my maxed-out iMac. There is no sensible reason why I should prefer working on the iMac. Well, I'm allowed to have my idiosyncrasies, but I don't understand this one and it makes it hard to write usefully about the New Apple Order.
"The likely reality is that if my iMac were to give up the ghost tomorrow, I'd go out and buy the final-generation 27" iMac, either refurbished from Apple or used from one of the reputable dealers, in the minimum RAM configuration, populate it with RAM from Other World Computing, and I'd be spending half as much as a Mac Studio would cost me. And that would likely carry me for another 6–8 years... or until Apple decides to stop supporting the Intel chips entirely."
Note that Ctein does professional printing and restoration, so he falls into the pro user category. I believe he paid top dollar for his 5K 27" iMac when it was the very latest thing, so it's nice to hear that he got his money's worth out of it, both in terms of years of use and his positive feelings for it.
By the way, I'm far from an expert on computers—actually more the opposite—but I read enough of Daring Fireball yesterday to find out that it's pretty well accepted that the 27" iMac is now dead. I had two of them, the second being a 2011 that's still sitting here looking for a home. The only reason I went to a separate CPU and monitor was that I work on a porch, surrounded on three sides by windows, and I needed a monitor that could cope with glare better. I still can't do critical work on photos in the daytime. But my NEC MultiSync PA272W solved the glare problem—it has a non-glare surface and a hood.
And in local news...
It's like mid-Winter here today—five or six inches of fresh snow and 17°F (–8°C). The difference is that we're due for a warm-up tomorrow. The anti-icing wires on the pool table shed are working nicely, so no ice dams! Personally, I count today as the first day of Spring, despite the weather. With Daylight Savings Time newly returned, it should be light till 7:00 or even a little later, and don't think I'm not grateful. Those dark Winter evenings can feel awfully lonely. The seven Temperate Months (capitalized out of reverence), roughly April through October, are the reason to live in the Finger Lakes. Bring it on!
27-inch 5K iMac new at B&H Photo: i5, 8 GB RAM, 256GB SSD, $1,799; i9, 32 GB RAM, 2TB SSD, $3,699 (that's the low end and high end; there are other configurations in the middle).
Mike
(Thanks to Ctein)
Book of Interest this Week
Gregory Crewdson: Alone Street. "Filmic" seems the best single adjective to describe Gregory Crewdson's work; his directed and carefully managed tableau are the still photography version of scenes in movies. As such they are hyper-real; more beautiful than life and more poetic, and more concerted. They're also very easy to enjoy and a pleasure to look at.
This book link is a portal to Amazon.
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:
Thom Hogan: "I'm with Ctein for the most part. A recent 27" iMac 5K Retina configured properly is an excellent tool that should be long-lived (though Apple's yearly macOS updates have many of us living behind the times intentionally).
"Thing is, the 24" M1 iMac fills the need for those who want a lithe all-in-one, and as Mike has noted with his need for a separate monitor to get glare/positioning benefits, a Mac mini or lower Mac Studio model with the proper 4K/5K monitor is probably a perfect replacement for the 27" iMac.
"Those of us with iMac 5K's almost certainly have a small farm of peripherals hanging out on the desk (mine are about 3x the area of a Mac Studio), so the notion of a separate box really isn't an issue. Macsales.com has some very nice boxes that would stack under a Mac Studio and actually take up less space than my current drive boxes when all is said and done.
"As far as I'm concerned, Apple has done a good job of rationalizing the M1 Macs. Portables in 13, 14, 16" sizes, mini, Studio, iMac 24", and later this year a Pro. This is the best set of choices we've had in a long time. I'm not sure that a 27" iMac M1 adds much to the lineup. Indeed, if Apple were to provide one, I'm pretty sure that it would have to be Max/Ultra and the 24" would have to remain plain M1, which is what the mini/Studio distinction is right now."
John Krumm: "My Sierra Juniper just arrived and it looks fantastic. Off to the frame shop."
Bill Beebe: "I certainly understand a strong attachment to any technology or tool, especially if that tool has served you well and allowed you to make a living in your chosen profession. I have experienced the same, but from a pure engineering viewpoint. (I use a camera, and my output can be charitably described as hobbyist).
"What Ctein might be reacting to is the cost of the new M1 variant Mac minis. Let me speak to cost from my perspective.
"I'm fortunate enough that I have a 2019 16" MBP fully equipped with an i9, max memory, and 4TB SSD. That cost $6K. It's a workhorse given to me in 2020 to help complete a contract, and believe me I put it to very good use. Later, I was able to pick up a 2020 13" MPB with the basic M1 (i.e. just 8 cores), on sale for $1.5K. That became my field computer because the idea of carrying $6K of computer out of the house became untenable.
"I can say, without exaggeration, that the 13" will keep up with the 16" with 1/4 the memory, even if the 13" has to hit swap. There are use cases for which the 16" has to be used due to its 64GB memory. But for a lot of other basic use cases, I can't tell the difference in performance.
"But I can certainly tell the difference in battery life. What makes the 13" such a keeper is the speed combined with its very long battery life while out testing in the field. I can run at least eight hours of solid work before I even have to think of hitting the charger. The 16" by comparison sucks down a battery like it's going out of style.
"I understand and appreciate why Ctein uses what he uses, but I hope in the future he'll see that the Apple Silicon based Macs will benefit him even more than Intel based Macs, especially when mobile."
So I can't really say much about this, but, a while back, out of the blue, I got invited to write about photography for a major publication. Actually it's one of the most famous, prestigious, and storied publications in the English-speaking world. Not to displace TOP; in fact, the editor specifically said he didn't want to distract me from TOP. The proposition was that I would contribute short pieces to them intermittently.
I've written two things for them and am currently grappling with a third. Nothing has come of it so far. For one thing, it's like skipping from pickup games at the friendly neighborhood sandlot straight to the Major Leagues. My mojo has always been that I'm fairly good at stringing words together—I've gotten praise for my writing since grade school—but that's baseline for them. Even their little throwaway pieces just glitter with writing talent. You don't realize how much until you try to do it yourself. For another thing, my bloggerish habits have gotten pretty ingrained. You'd never use a word like "bloggerish" with them, for example. Based on a 365-day year, I've published an average of 1.6 times a day for 16.5 years, and haven't had a vacation that's worthy of the word since George W. Bush was President. That creates...let's call it a groove. lol.
I would say those bloggerish habits are: first, everything's grist for the mill here, so everything gets tossed cheerfully in, down to those ferocious, human-averse little brown-black fisher-cats lurking in these woods; second, everything's done and up. I bash it out and up it goes. I haven't been able to identify it, but I think there's an old black-and-white Spencer Tracy movie (if I were writing this for them I'd have to go research that) in which he plays a journalist, and in one scene he rushes back to the newsroom, plops down at the typewriter, bashes out a page at high speed, rips it out of the typewriter and has a kid run it down to the printing press. If that scene doesn't actually exist, it should. That's like blog writing.
Except they had rules.
And oversight: editors. I haven't worked with an editor for a long time. Direct and immediate feedback from an erudite and informed audience, however, functions excellently as a form of oversight too—it has matured me, and honed my sense of the way what I say will be received. I've personally moderated over 300,000 comments—imagine a magazine writer receiving that many responses for his or her articles. Without, I mean, being driven around the bend by it.
I think my main weakness, and I hope not my Achilles heel, might be that I get all first-persony. Like I am now. I talk to you as me, and that's sketchy in real journalism. Except perhaps in carefully measured little amounts. When writing for a newspaper or magazine, you do get the byline for the reader to ignore (fact: bylines are magically invisible to the eyes and craniums of all but very few readers), but it's best to think of your writerly "voice" as if it's the publication talking, not you. Keep your triflin' self outta sight, you bum. If you don't, it's like physically inserting yourself between two parties who are standing talking to each other. Rude and awkward. So I'm having to relearn some old...manners.
On the other hand, I'm not 100% sure I should. Writing as myself might not be a deliberate didactic choice, but it's certainly the way my style of writing about photography has evolved organically. Who am I to parade my opinions as if they're objective truths? Who is anyone? I don't think it's justified. No one owns photography. Even though everyone thinks they do. Photography is a huge, baggy, sprawling medium, and saying that you know it is like saying you know the ocean or the stars. It can be used for anything, but it's not even constrained to being useful; there are a thousand paths into it and ten thousand things it leads out to. Consider this: a single human lifetime is no longer long enough to look at as many photographs as are made in one single 24-hour day. Photography and everything it contains is even more subjective and personal than, say, cooking, or clothing, where at least there is a semblance of consensus about what's good and bad within various groups in various cultures.
I had a good chance to become a critic. I took a one-on-one class at the Corcoran in writing criticism from a working art critic, and she was quite taken with me and with what I wrote for her. While I was taking that class I engaged in a broad "tasting" of art criticism from all over and from many eras, sampling writers from Lady Eastlake to Susan Sontag, John Ruskin to John Berger, Vasari to Clement Greenburg. I don't need to go into it here, but my conclusion was simply that I didn't want to write that way. It was a conscious decision. I remember where I was when I made it. I was already being published in local publications in D.C. before I graduated, and then, after graduation, the Washington Post offered to hire me to review local photography shows. I was to write two reviews a week. Visit the shows, talk to the gallerist, interview the artist or artists, brush up on their work and its context, and write it up newspaper-style so that it could be cut to fit space. I suppose I should have accepted, but it would have been about a half-time job and they wanted to pay me $100 a week. That wasn't much even then. I was poor as a church mouse at the time and simply needed a real job, so I turned them down. It would have dovetailed nicely with teaching, more's the pity, but I hadn't landed my first teaching job yet at that point.
Hubristic as it may be to say this, and it does make me wince, but I'm an original thinker on photography, for better or worse. I only mean that I have my own opinions, tastes, values, beliefs, conclusions, and photo-pertinent politics; I decided, again very consciously, that I wanted to write for practitioners, people in the trenches grappling with the problems. It ended up being a replacement for teaching. Writing for enthusiasts doesn't join in the conversation with what you might call the establishment gatekeepers, by which I mean the academics, critics, theorists, cultural commentators, curators—the real writers. Traditionally, enthusiasts got exposed to those people through the writeups on museum walls and in the prefaces and introductions to monographs. And I used the phrase "in the trenches" as though it's close to the front lines, but that's a conceit. I was never in any vanguard. I really only mean that I wanted to live closer to the border between photography and the public. I think (hope?) I developed the way I write about photography because that's the way I think it's most valid to write about it. I want to be a specific personalized individual in my writing. I want readers to see an individual engaging on a personal level with the medium. As if it means something to me and matters to me. I want you to see how I feel about it viscerally and not just what I think and what I can think of to say. I want you to know your opinions and tastes do not in any way have to align with mine, yet I do want to model a person who does have strong opinions and distinct values.
If all that is tl;dr, then put it like this: maybe I'm more of a columnist-type than a reporter, essayist, or author of articles. Someone who'd fit better in an Op/Ed section than in an Arts section. I don't know. In any event, I printed out the latest piece I wrote for that publication, lit up every instance of firstpersony with a highliter, and am currently cutting all the me Mike and I out of it, systematically and methodically, like a surgeon with a scalpel. It's harder than it looks.
When this first happened, I was high on hope for a while. Then, during the long delays, I had to accept that maybe nothing would come of it. Had I failed at something I didn't even ask to do?! But I know my editor is on my side—I've submitted, as I said, two pieces so far and he's consistently said he likes them. So something still might happen. I'll keep you posted.
Bottom line, though: sure is fun. When he approved of something, my late brother's late banjo-playing friend Jimmy-James Rollins used to say, laconically, "fired up!" And this has lit a fire under my katuschka, no doubt. I feel like I'm in it. I like to write, and I consider myself lucky that I get to. (It's thanks to you, too, and thank you again.)
But what the hell was I thinking, turning down the Washington Post when I was a wet-behind the ears newly-struck BFA grad? I had forgotten that. Was I crazy? Who did I think I was? That would absolutely have been worth the slog for six months just for a single line on the resumé! It's quite possible to argue that when it comes to career, I'm an idiot. Really. I'll try my best not to be an idiot this time, but please, keep your fingers crossed for me on that, would you? Because that's always going to be touch and go.
Mike
P.S. This piece: not counting breakfast and not counting my little jaunts out to the pool shed with Butters to rustle my creaky bones: 1,663 words, ~3:45 from concept to completion, ~45 minutes between finishing and posting. That's how that goes, in Bloggerdom.
Book of Interest this Week
Gregory Crewdson: Alone Street. "Filmic" seems the best single adjective to describe Gregory Crewdson's work; his directed and carefully managed tableau are the still photography version of scenes in movies. As such they are hyper-real; more beautiful than life and more poetic, and more concerted. They're also very easy to enjoy and a pleasure to look at.
This book link is a portal to Amazon.
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:
Alex Mercado: "Re 'one of the most famous, prestigious, and storied publications in the English-speaking world': OMG!!! YOU'RE WRITING FOR TIGER BEAT?!?!?!?!?!?! Seriously though, you're a crackin' good writer. I feel confident in saying that's the reason why we all come here. I will be crossing all my fingers for you."
Mike replies: Tiger Beat? Let's not get too carried away. A guy always needs something out of reach to aspire to in the future. :-)
Dave Levingston: "First, I have to say I do love your writing. That's why I come here every day to see if there is a new post. It's the best writing about photography that I've ever encountered. Second, you reminded me of one of the greatest feats of writing that I've ever witnessed. It was many, many years ago when I was a newspaper photographer. There was a breaking story right at deadline. The best reporter in the newsroom sat down at his manual typewriter and started writing. When he would finish a paragraph he would hit the carriage return several times, rip off the paragraph using the paper bail, hand the paragraph to a copyboy who then ran with it to the line-o-type operator. He then wrote the second paragraph and repeated the process. He wrote the entire story in about 10 minutes without ever being able to refer to what he had already written. And it did not pass through an editor. It just went straight to the line-o-type and on to hot type and the front page of the newspaper. I was awestruck watching it happen."
Mike replies: The real-life version of the movie scene!
Kenneth Tanaka: "I hope this opportunity becomes a thing for you, Mike. I think it would be very productive and constructive for you to work under the pencil of a top large-market editor occasionally. About ten years ago I backed-into doing assigned photo work for one of America's top modern and contemporary art galleries and one of the world's top living sculptural artists. It was a sobering, draining, educational, and exciting experience of self-discovery for a guy in his mid-50s who thought he knew everything about himself. I would chew my left leg off at the hip rather than do any assignment photography again. But I would not trade those experiences for anything. I made life-long friendships and got quite a bit of my work published, too! I think this experience might have similar results for you.
"One more thought; I think writing about photography for a non-shutterbug audience would also be a strong experience for you. It will almost certainly force you past your own tendency toward personal retrospection, past photography's techie-ness, and put you front-and-center with explaining the fundamental essence of a photograph. Cold shower, anyone? Refreshing!"
darlene: "Mike my fingers are crossed for you. I do believe writing is your calling no matter how big the space, the topic at hand, or the argument. You got this!"
MarkB: "If some editor at a publication that-shall-not-be-named-but-can-be-surmised, ahem, explicitly asked you to write for them, isn't that request solely based on what you've written here, in all its bloggerish glory? So be yourself and run it up the flagpole! Editing yourself while you write is like driving a (real) car without using the clutch pedal—just makes noise and smoke and damages the machinery, IMHO."
Mike replies: Well, they certainly allow for stylists. But there has to be respect for the general tone and approach of the publication. The integrity of the publication comes first. Publications have a culture, you might say—history and tradition.
Maybe the main thing I have to relearn is to how to take my time on a piece, let it percolate, and be willing to rework it substantially—you know, what's called "writing" to most people. For example, so far I can't help but organize the piece in my head and then whack out the whole thing from beginning to end in one sitting. Which is a little funny. I don't have to do that with these, but it's almost a reflex at this point.
Chuck Albertson: "I was wondering when the Times was going to replace the Lens blog. Now, if they could just bring back a chess columnist...."
Interestingly, I got several propaganda comments on the "Inevitable Putins" post. We've all heard, of course, about foreign agents or bots spreading misinformation on the 'net, but this is the first time I've been aware of being the target of it. I got two; both seemed suspicious (I have pretty good "radar" after vetting 300k comments), but one of the "posters" seemed to have a track record here. (The other one was partially in Russian, which was, um, sort of a tip-off.) Ah, but I was fooled...when I check suspicious comments, the first thing I do is to check the past comments of the commenter to see if he or she is a regular. If they are, then even if the comment is sketchy I'll run it...don't want to be too quick to censor. I assumed that the compositor looked at all the identifiers when compiling the past comment list. But little did I know that it searches the comments only by name. So if the name is "Tom," then every comment from a poster named Tom will come up in the history, even if they're from different email addresses. So, live and learn...now I'll know that when I'm checking a suspicious comment, I need to do a separate search on the email address. I thought the program was already doing that, but no.
TOP, out on the remote fringes of current events...but not immune.
Mike
(Thanks to Matt Haber)
Book o' the Week
Ara Güler's Istanbul, one of the more amazing books in my collection. I'm also amazed it's still in print. Not only does it culminate a longtime habit and a vast body of work for the Turkish photographer of Armenian descent, one of the few world-famous photographers from Turkey—a labor of love—but it's a unique and wonderful example of bookmaking. If you don't buy this, at least see one sometime.
This book link is a portal to Amazon.
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Featured Comments from:
Benjamin Marks: "Hmmm. I think the broader point is that no corner of the web, no matter how innocuous in its content, is free from being the next battlefield. My assumption, or perhaps simply my fear, is that AI's get more and more sophisticated that this space we have created will become more their domain than ours. I realize this comment has a HAL-9000 ring to it, but my sense has always been that TOPpers are a relatively small community compared to the Bigs, or the 'Net as a whole (also, more good-looking than average). If you are a spam-bot, modest size is no protection from notice and attempted interference, apparently. Welcome to the future."
Dan: "How flattering to be deemed worthy of response by the Puti-bots! Your reach and influence extend to the corners of the world!"
Mike replies: I'm actually pretty happy just to have a small corner shared with all you fine readers. :-)
To embed a picture in the comments, use this code (this is a screenshot, to prevent it from being garbled in transmission):
...Where http://image.jpg is a picture on the Web no more that 470 pixels wide. Sorry, there's no way to upload a picture directly from your computer to a TypePad Comment Section. It has to be a picture on the Web.
If it's wider than 470 pixels, part of it will be cut off.
You can always post a link, of course.
Mike the Managing Ed.
(Thanks to Earl)
Yr. Hmbl. Ed. is taking a few days off. Back soon. Thanks for your patience.
The word reminds me of one of my favorite stories. My high school students used to have to roll their own film onto the developing reels, of course in total darkness, in a separate little film-loading room off the main school darkroom. And obviously I couldn't go in there to help when someone got into trouble. So, to be supportive, I wrote an encouraging word on the wall of the film-loading room using luminescent darkroom tape.
One day I could hear a girl in there just getting more and more stressed out, swearing and moaning. Things were obviously not going well. I stood on the other side of the door, trying to soothe her and calm her down and talk her through the task.
Finally the deed was done. Or some approximation thereof. She burst out of the film-loading room, complaining angrily. "What is that word on the wall?!? Why did you put that there? PAT-EYE-ENTS. I could not figure out what that meant. What in the [expletive deleted] does PAT-EYE-ENTS mean?!?"
The word on wall, of course, was "Patience."
She did feel appropriately chagrined at herself when I broke the news to her. :-)
Regular readers know of my fondness for random real estate
interiors found on the web...love that wall hanging....
I'll be back in a day or three. I'm not sick, not sick and tired, not tired and lonely, not unsettled or upset, not dyspeptic or discouraged or disenchanted. Just need a little down time.
Kind regards,
Mike
[Republished lest you should miss them. My apologies again; my days got a little out of control for a spell. Here's the original post. —Ed.]
Tex Andrews: "Oh, be still my heart! My favorite film camera of all—the GSW690II. It was with this camera that I started to consistently shoot better, and oddly fell into my current and long time project, going on about 15 years now. To get my current camera that owns my heart, my 645Z, I had to trade in a bunch of gear to get the price down to 'only excruciating.' Almost all of the trade-ins hurt, but this one was by far the one that really made me sad, and does to this day. I'll get another one one day, but when I traded it in it actually felt like a betrayal, that camera had been so good to me. I felt faithless."
John Hufnagel: "If I recall correctly, the Graflex Combat Graphic was the first camera colloquially known as the Texas Leica. It even looks like a Leica."
Tom Duffy: "I really like my Fuji GW690III. The loud 'Ping!' when the leaf shutter goes off is about as un-Leica as you can get. 23 years ago, I brought it with me to Disney World on a family vacation and shot many rolls of Kodak 400 speed color negative film in 220 format. I came back with a large number of good pictures. My hit rate was actually way higher than my average. I've heard it described as 'everyone's second favorite camera.' Except yours, evidently. :-) "
Steve C: "I watch Joel Meyrowitz's Masters of Photography course (which is excellent by the way), and he walks around shooting in the street looking like a seven-foot-tall Star Wars villain and nobody seems to notice. Ashley Gilbertson is the same, looking like a rock'n'roll guitar tech or perm'd biker, but gets the most incredible, up close, essence of humanity pictures."
Mike replies: Yeah, I really think it's a matter of personality and social adeptness. It's what you project to other people. And how you feel about yourself.
s.wolters: "It’s not only the camera, it’s the camera in combination with you. With my Pentax 67 I had the same kind of experience as you had with that Texas Leica. With my Rolleiflex people always reacted positively and sometimes tried to make contact or even wanted to pose.
"I envy some female photographers. A few months ago I was at a tourist hotspot where fifty people tried to photograph an overwhelming landscape with their smartphone in vertical mode. Only three or four had a proper camera. One of them, a pretty girl with very short pants and very long legs drew all the attention. Her rucksack full of equipment would have made any paparazzo jealous. As it happens when traveling around I also saw her at some other places. Because of her appearance she always made contact with anyone within minutes, using her bulky Canon 7D combination as a conversation piece. A Texas Leica would probably worked for her as well, but a phone camera or point and shoot not because those aren’t special enough to start a chat. One of the reasons I’m using Micro 4/3 is that think I look rather harmless with it. With a FF DSLR I feel that one day I will get lynched by an angry mob."
Robert: "I have almost the exact opposite experience. I‘ve taken thousands of pictures of strangers and hardly any of them have bothered to look. Most were taken with Leica rangefinders rather than a Texas Leica, admittedly, but many were taken with a Canon 5D Mark II with a 24–105mm on it, some even with a Rolleiflex. I remember one day in London where even when getting very close no one seemed to be bothered, and another in a small town in Germany, and the same thing. Same with all over Asia, except there people often do look then smile widely after the picture is taken. I am not usually furtive. So maybe it's the U.S.—I've never shot there."
Ilkka: "Maybe the problem was that you thought of it as Texas Leica instead of New York Linhof. A big handheld camera instead of a more convenient and faster 4x5 replacement."
John Krumm: "I have similar results shooting strangers, at least in the Midwest. Here in Duluth people see you coming from a mile off. They don't usually think you are actually taking a photo of them. What usually happens is they stop walking or even stop their car so that you can take your shot without them in the way. Nowadays I pretty much never see anyone else with a camera around the neck. I'm the only weirdo in a town of 85,000 who does that, it seems (I know there are a few others, just not when I am out and about). That's why so many of my people shots are from a distance...."
Hugh: "It’s a person thing, not a camera thing. Not a criticism really. I never had any problem doing street photography with a Pentax 67. Same size, much more noise. Speed, confidence, and a friendly smile when people notice."
Stan B.: "Come to think of it, Tod Papageorge did some exemplary B&W street with it...."
Mike replies: He certainly did.
David L.: "Regardless of the comments, putting a 6x7 or 6x9 negative in an enlarger and printing it on fiber-base paper is a sublime experience. I had Fuji 6x7 and 6x9 cameras and regret letting them go."
Martin D: "I loved l, loved, loved that camera. Had both the 90mm and the 65mm 6x9 versions. For me, the very size and monstrosity of the thing made me invisible, like wearing a hi-viz jacket and helmet—people just took me for someone from a different world and ignored me. This is the camera to take Walker Evans-style shots of everyday life. I used Agfa Scala B&W transparency film—wow, how those massive transparencies came to life on the lightbox. Took the best portrait of my father with it. One roll of 120 only gives eight shots, I metered carefully and used only one shot for my father, it was perfect. Boy, I miss this camera."
Mike replies: Did you know that film was just plain old Agfa APX 100 with reversal processing? True.
Eric Brody: "The closest I ever came to the 'Texas Leica' was the Mamiya 7II, a fabulous lightweight rangefinder with some of the sharpest lenses I've ever used, and I've used a lot of lenses. Even though each lens had its own, almost silent, leaf shutter, I never used it for people, so I never got to scare anyone. What interests me about this conversation is how people seem to sort to two groups, those with the 'courage' to do street work and those, like me, who are irrationally afraid of it."
Mike
Book o' the Week:
Vivian Maier Developed: The Untold Story of the Photographer Nanny, by Ann Marks, is the most complete picture of the mysterious governess-photographer yet—and the picture is more surprising than we thought. NOTE: There is a similar-looking book that appears to be an attempt to confuse buyers. Beware!
the link can be a portal to Amazon for your holiday shopping. Thank you kindly for helping support The Online Photographer!
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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:
There were some, er, misunderstandings and perhaps even a few hurt feelings here this past week, so, a few clarifications.
One reader said (rather rashly perhaps, as he is an excellent commenter): "I don't expect you to post this comment, as I have the impression you do not like dissent from your views." The sentence quoted was what I call a "kicker"—a parting shot at the end of a comment that doubles down more forcefully on the point the writer is trying to make. ("Kickers" are common in contentious comments—in fact, I've learned that when I find myself adding a kicker to one of my own comments, it's a good idea to wait a while and reconsider the comment.)
Do I really not brook dissent? Perhaps a little—I'm opinionated, and, like everyone else, I'll make a case for what I believe in. But in the main, I don't think so. In a great many posts, you'll find comments pro and con, sometimes right next to each other. For example (only an example, and yes, examples are not proof): in the Alt/Indie music post:
Commenter 1: "Huh. I've heard of Jeff Beck and Ray Davies (if it's the same Ray Davies I used to know), but none of the rest of them. I think they stopped writing good music around that time."
Next Comment: "Mike, thanks for that. I opened the Spotify playlist and it made my day. It's right up my alley."
So one reader who did not like the music and one who did. I think if you dig around a bit, you'll find that I very often feature opposing viewpoints in the Featured Comments. And that often includes comments that disagree with the post.
What I don't allow—and this may be the genesis of the reader's objection—is back-and-forth. Altercation.
"Altercation is the spoken part of a quarrel, the parties speaking alternately. An altercation is thus a quarrelsome dispute between two persons or two sides." [Century Dictionary]
So if someone makes a comment, and I reply, the original poster gathers his forces and girds for battle and weighs in with a second post defending his first post more strenuously—and then I disallow that. But it has little to do with the fact that the second post is a dissent; it has to do with the fact that it's the beginning of an altercation. This is enshrined in the Comment Guidelines thusly:
The goal is simply to keep the conversation pleasant, collegial, and helpful. I don't like "flame wars" and I don't permit them to get going in TOP's comment section.
Why not? Simply because I've been online since before the word online came into common use—first on Xtalk at Dartmouth in the mid-1970s, later as Darkroom Photography magazine's official representative on CompuServe in the early '90s, and so on—and I know how it goes.
It goes like this. The missiles fly alternately, each side digs in, tempers grow hotter, ad hominem begins, and then the world spins on its axis as we continue our voyage 'round the sun, until presently Godwin's Law plays out and one accuses the other of being a Nazi, at which point (see the link) that person (the accuser) loses the war.
Don't tell me you've never seen it happen.
Ever seen real firemen put out a fire? I got to witness it once. I was awakened in the middle of the night by sirens. Looking out the window of my third-floor (the top floor) walkup in Georgetown D.C., I could see flames in a window of an apartment on the third and top floor of the building across the street. Several fire trucks screeched to a halt in front of the building and firemen scrambled all over. They moved fast. It was impressive. Within seconds there were firemen on the roof. In no time at all they had a ladder to the window where the flame was. One fireman bashed in the window and another followed close behind with a hose. They had the fire out in no time (a resident had fallen asleep while smoking in bed, and fortunately survived). They were impressively efficient. I had a panoramic front-row seat to the whole drama. It was very entertaining.
They didn't leave for a long time, and evidently felt no compunction to be at all quiet in the dead of night, so after a while I got dressed and went down to poke around. A fireman I talked to said it was only a little mattress fire that had scorched the room but hadn't spread beyond it, and I replied that they sure moved quickly even so. He told me that they always move fast, because fires can get out of control quickly.
Bingo.
I had one reader years ago who repeatedly made contentious comments and seemed always to be picking fights with other readers. It was a headache for me, as I had to spend time and effort repeatedly explaining to him why I was editing and disallowing his comments. Finally he said, "But I like to fight. That's the whole reason I get online and it's the reason I come here." And he issued a threat: "If you're not going to let me fight, I'm leaving!"
To which I had the satisfaction of replying: "Bye." (Made meself laugh, and that's half the battle —Craig Ferguson.)
Seasons in the wrong
Another problem I have is when commenters make statements I know to be wrong or misleading. Sometimes I let these stand, sometimes I don't feel like it. I've been doing this job for so long that I can even recognize which particular misconceptions are popular at any given moment, and sometimes I know the source from which they emanated, even. Back in the film days, when someone stridently made a bunch of claims as if he knew it all, I could usually tell you what book he just read. Currently it's that a Micro 4/3 sensor "cuts off part of the image," sigh, not. The photographer chooses the lens for the subject and that's what determines whether the subject fits the angle of view. Occasionally I chase one all the way down, just so I really know what's what. But you can't do that with everything. Each misconception has its season, and then it subsides. Care to argue whether fixer sinks to the bottom of a print washer because it's heavier than water? (Because some washers drained from the top and some from the bottom, and people had to decide which is better.) Of course you don't. Just like we no longer care to argue hotly about whether up-rezzing a three-megapixel file is just as good for a medium-sized print as having an expensive 6-MP camera to start with. I've no doubt that some people who are happily arguing whether "equivalent apertures" exist (no, they do not) were at one time arguing, equally happily, the effects of added sodium sulfite on film grain. It's a fool's errand to try to correct every instance of every misconception as it arises; you'll spend your precious hours playing whack-a-mole. Each of us only has 4,000 weeks here on Earth, give or take, and you already stand to lose eight of them stuck in traffic.
It's always something. In discovering the basics of photo tech, everyone has to go through their not-quite-there-yet phase.
Cordial and mature
So a commenter can reply to a reply, but only if the tone is right. That's the way I do it. Because I really don't like flame wars, and fires are best put out early. If shutting down an argument before it starts means giving the appearance of not tolerating dissent, well, too bad, but so be it. At this point I have moderated some 298,000 comments, give or take 10,000, and have devoted many, many weeks of my life to the task. I might not know what I'm doing, but I know how I do it, you've got to give me that.
And by the way, fixer does not sink to the bottom of a print washer. So now we've got that settled, once and for all.
Mike
Products of the Week
Which one is best? Panasonic S1R (47.3 MP), Sony A7R IV (61 MP), Canon R5 (45 MP), or Nikon Z7 II (45.7 MP)? You know the answer.
The above are links to Amazon from TOP. Once you're at Amazon, anything you search and buy will be credited to TOP. The following logo is also a link if you click on it:
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:
Rob de Loe: "I feel like arguing. You can pick the topic! ;-)
"P.S. For a period of a couple of months, the newspaper I read most often could not let readers make any comments on stories at its online site because the company was looking for a new comment service. It was a wonderful time, in hindsight. Unfortunately, they found another comment service, and now the comment section is just wretched. Despite the rules about 'civility,' it's just angry people sniping at each other. Blech."
Mike replies: I've always conceived of the Comments Section as a "Letters to the Editor." A curated and edited collection of thoughtful responses, objections, corrections, and added information. The "Featured Comments" started out as a minimized version of the comments as a whole, for the convenience of readers who did not have the time to read all the comments. But that was back in the days when I got 24,000 views a day (now more like 8–12k) and a post could get up to 200 comments (I think 274 was the all-time record? Something like that). That doesn't happen any more.
Robert Roaldi: "Holy crap, you just gave me a scare. I just went into my photo 'data base' and checked all my 4/3s images, but thankfully there's nothing missing from any of them."
D Glos: "Contentious thought for the day. It's nice to come to this spot on the internet where everyone appears to play nice and there is always something interesting to ponder. Whether the convivial appearance has been carefully cultivated by your erudite moderation, or more naturally, by the good nature of your audience, matters little to me."
Mike replies: Definitely both. I take half the credit, but no more than that.
Sharon: "I like your approach here and hate forums where people argue ad nauseam. Thank you!"
KeithB: "I thought for sure you were going to link to Monty Python's 'The Argument Clinic.'"
Bruce Bordner: "But I've paid for the full five minutes....
Mike replies: No you haven't.
RubyT: "This is one of the few sites where I will read the comments. I am never afraid of what I will encounter here, and I appreciate your work in this regard. I often learn things new things by reading the comments here, which I wouldn't if I were avoiding potential flame wars."
c.d.embrey: "Re 'Do I really not brook dissent? Perhaps a little—I'm opinionated, and, like everyone else, I'll make a case for what I believe in.' Mike, during the height of your veggie diet obsession you got very upset when people disagreed. The Mayo Clinic was wrong, so were all the U.S. Government nutrition guidelines. You said my doctors at Hoag Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach were incompetent."
Mike replies: But did I disallow your comments? I don't believe I did. So that's not suppressing your views. You got to express them. You don't get to demand, however, that I agree with everything you say.
And I doubt I said your doctors were incompetent. I might have claimed that doctors make poor authorities on nutrition generally, despite public perception, because a.) the majority of American medical schools don't teach nutrition; b.) the typical PCP (personal care physician) has never taken a single course in nutrition; and c.), by and large, medical students leave medical school with less interest in and curiosity about the science of nutrition than they had when they entered.
Rob L: "Your comments section is what makes your site so valuable. Your cultivation of that rich plot is deeply, deeply, appreciated—this is the web I fell in love with in 1993. This is the online community that we were promised in Wired magazine and long lost Omni, and a true jewel. I say that, having been edited here once, as I was being a twit and trying to raise an argument—and I deeply appreciated the effort you made to keep this community open, diverse, and tremendously informative, all while keeping a collegial tone in saying—'no, not that, here, thanks.' Thank you, Mike. I've been a web developer since there was a Web and have done so professionally nigh on mumble mumble years, and this site is a testament to what we built this world wide community to be."
Pak Wan: "This post makes me so happy as one of your readers. Your effort and leadership to curate your blog commentary and readership is missing so much in the online world. Thank you!"
