The Online Photographer

Two 'New' Introductions: No. 1

Just a short note about an upcoming book and show. This coming November 9th will mark the centennial of the birth of Robert Frank, the Swiss-born American/Canadian photographer who upended 1950s America's view of itself. There's to be an exhibition of his later film work in Manhattan at the Museum of Modern Art this Fall—apparently not deliberated finished work, but rather culled and compiled from bits and pieces of movie film found squirreled about his home, dating from 1970 to 2006—and his book The Americans is getting a worshipful reprint from Aperture. There's a standard hardcover, and there will be a deluxe slip-cased version in November. The reprint before this one was from Steidl in 2008, done under Frank's own supervision. Robert Frank died in 2019.

The 83 pictures in The Americans were edited from 28,000 frames taken by Frank on a transcontinental trip made possible by a Guggenheim Fellowship. It has long been considered, by acclaim and by critical consensus, to be the most important book of American photography of the 20th Century, or at least the most influential. Philip Gefter illuminates some of its influence in Photography After Frank from 2009.

The survey
The case can be made that there are two main ways to collect photography books, one being to amass what you like in the areas of your own interest, and the other being to attempt a survey, trying to trace and represent in your collection the spidery skeins of influence and importance across many genres and subjects. I've done a bit of each, mostly the latter, although it hasn't really been my privilege to gather a real collection. But certainly if you were going to distill half a hundred books to form a core of almost any collection, of American photography at least, The Americans would belong on the list.

I already have two versions of it, so I won't be buying this latest one, but if I get a chance to inspect it I'll report back.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 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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Blog Note: New Weekend

Going forward, TOP won't be publishing on Fridays and Saturdays, but hopefully will publish on all the other days. However, I'll be posting tomorrow, since I didn't yesterday. (I wanted to give the previous day's long post more of a "soak." It took a long time to write.)

I learned something lately. The last two times I took time off...I took time off. And it did me a world of good. Usually, I just shift to working on other things. The last two times, though, I took it easy. Didn't do anything. Didn't even get on the computer (well, much). It was restorative and rejuvenating. It improved my mood and attitude. I needed that.

I guess this is what normal people call "normal"—most people observe what the French call "le week-end." We probably got the term from them. (I'm kidding. They complain that loan words from English are ruining French, and that's pretty funny since modern English got about a third of its words from French in the first place—you know, those invading Normans. But I digress.)

Most people work five days on, two days off. Time to try that.

Mike

P.S. A few examples of the words we got from French or the French: lots of words in art, music, dance, and theater—including art, music, dance, and theater; photography; chassis, fusillade, aviation, mustard and custard, blue, beige, spinach, lemon and apricot; fillet, fondue, automobile, lintel, terrace, arch and vault; January, television, helicopter, oxygen and stew; maroon, turbine, mayonnaise, beef, nephew, chlorophyll, stratosphere, braille, sedan, nicotine, saxophone and chauvinism; Cheyenne, Iroquois, Chicago, Detroit, armoire, chauffeur, decor, critique, souvenir, sabotage, chandelier, jeopardy, juggler, lacquer, label, lemonade, liquor; lion, liege, matte, mock, magnolia, medicine, and mold; oracle, pervert, petite, pounce, quiet and quote. The list goes on and on, and don't think I wasn't tempted to too.

Original contents copyright 2024 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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Power Past Your Defeats

One thing in that Martin Evening video hit me hard. It's the section that begins at 15:10 with the subheading, "A Wasted Opportunity." He tells the story of stumbling on a new technique that he liked, but failing to sell new clients on the idea because they all expected to be shown numerous examples when he had only one.

Wasted opportunities...yeah. Ouch.

[Ed note: Warning, bloviation alert! This one goes on a bit.]

A Short Tour With Martin Evening

Martin Evening, the important early Photoshop expert whose books a lot of us learned from, sadly died at a young(ish) age in 2022. He wrote many technical books as well as numerous articles in magazines and online. There's one problem with being an expert of any fast-changing subject—it's rather difficult to leave a lasting legacy. He was important, though—and well liked, as you can read in his friend Scott Kelby's remembrance of him.

I found a video made at the Art of Photography Conference 2021 that goes into depth about "The Hits and Misses of a Creative Career." In it, Martin talks about his own work and life. Here are just a few of the insights that go by in the first 20 minutes of the 45-minute video:

—You can learn from models who have modeled for more famous photographers.

—Once you establish a coherent visual style with which you can be identified, people will more readily hire you to do do different kinds of jobs as well as similar ones.

—"Is it for the bank or the book?" That is, know why you're doing a job—to make money or to get a picture that will be useful for your portfolio. Both are worth doing.

—Doing portraits of celebrities, where you have only a few minutes with them, are very different from fashion shoots, where you have hours to prepare and shoot.

—A portrait of a jazz musician (Peter Brötzmann) was "photographed in my flat [apartment] by the way; there was no budget for a studio." We all make do!

—It's good for any photographer to have some sort of dedicated interest in a subject area (food, cars, hair, music etc.)—that way you gain experience in that world  and clients are more likely to hire you for your knowledge of what they do—and what others in their field do as well.

—If you experiment and find a new or different technique, you're going to need more than one example if you want to sell the idea to new clients.

That only takes us to about the twenty minute mark. Of course there's more, but you can watch the video for yourself.

Martin recognized that he was doing some things in-camera just at the time Photoshop was being invented that Photoshop would be very good at, almost as if he was pre-figuring the technology before it emerged. Of course he did go one to become a worldwide expert on Photoshop and Lightroom, whose many instructional books became central to the way photographers would use the tool. This is the one I most remember, although it's no doubt at least somewhat out of date now, at least in its particulars. (Lightroom had just come out and I was getting up to speed with it. I've never actually used it, though.)

The video is thought-provoking but also down-to-earth and practical. A nice way to spend some time talking shop with an influential teacher.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 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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Matt O'Brien: "I have such a high regard for Martin Evening…discovered him as I tried to come to terms with Lightroom and Photoshop. Such a strong and positive influence to so many."

Will You Need the Nikon Z7 Mark III?

Masterpiece? I'm back from my little break. Catching up with TOP again: When I suggested looking back into the archives while I was gone, Michel Hardy-Vallée said he would wait till post No. 10,001, because that would be my first masterpiece. Actually, we've passed that already—there were 1,548 posts on Blogger before I switched to TypePad. I had to take those posts offline because of a misunderstanding with Amazon (they objected to some of the ways I had linked to products), but in reality, TOP is on post No. 10,604 (this one). I'm too lazy to count back to see what No. 10,001 actually was, but it probably wasn't a masterpiece—it was probably just a short workmanlike blurt alerting you to the latest Nikon to go on closeout.

The next Nikon: My friend Izzy at B&H wrote to tell me that the Nikon Z7II is on sale for a stout $1,000 off. The sale will last for seven more days. It probably means that a Z7III is in the pipeline and nearing the launch pad (whoops, block those metaphors, Mike!). But, are you really going to need the III? I haven't even looked into it and I can tell you I wouldn't need it. I don't know how the III is going to improve on the II, but I just take still pictures, mostly one at a time. I'm pretty sure I could make the II work for me if I had to.

The last guy who...(OT): I'm going to wedge one OT blip in here. Have to point out that today, Taylor Fritz is playing the northern Italian Jannik Sinner (whose native language is German) in the men's finals of the U.S. Open tennis tournament. Americans dominated men's tennis during the era of Connors, McEnroe, and Agassi, but it's been a long drought since then. Taylor Fritz's appearance today is remarkable in that it's the first time an American man has played in the final of our national tournament since 2006, when Andy Roddick made his last Open final. And it's the first time an American man has played in the final of any major tennis championship since 2009, when Roddick was beaten by Roger Federer in an epic five-set match, 14–16(!) in the fifth, at Wimbledon. And if Fritz wins (he is not favored), it will be the first time an American man won a major since 2003, when Roddick won the U.S. Open. Andy Roddick, who now broadcasts a very entertaining podcast with Jon Wertheimer called Served, says he is thoroughly sick of being "the last guy who..." and he can't wait for it to be over. He quips that the only guy who knows how he feels would be Fred Perry, who for many decades was the last British man to win Wimbledon. I'm a big Sinner fan, and I don't know who to root for.

Trillion: A factoid on a video went winging past my brain-pan the other day—the claim was that "studies show" that humanity now creates 1 trillion photos a year. That means that all you would have to do to see all of the photographs made in one year would be to look at 500 pictures per second for your entire lifetime, as long as you used every single second in every single day, no sleeping. You know what I always say: Editors needed everywhere! At the same time that these is far more raw material being created, I get the sense that photographers are being less purposeful and deliberate about their projects, and that even photographs meant as art for public consumption are being less well observed, noted, and curated, and placed before the public. But perhaps those things were always an illusion anyway. I can tell you that there are people out there doing very good work who aren't getting the slightest notice.

Suspicion: Speaking of curated work placed before the public, I saw an article in The Atlantic about Wildlife Photographer of the Year (I don't know if you need a subscription to see the link), and I must say I don't quite believe some of the pictures. A couple of them look too much like fantasy Photoshopped creations to me. Even if they aren't, they look like too much like they are. In a few cases, there's not enough of the "slap of truth" for me to believe they're accurate photographic records. Could be I'm just jaded, and that I now approach photographs with more suspicion than I did in more innocent days. Have to say I love the little stoat, though.

Brilliant and hilarious, and short: Finally, I'll pass along a recommendation for "Fredrik Backman on Creative Anxiety and Procrastination." Backman is the author of A Man Called Ove. (And if you think anxiety and procrastination is off-topic, I congratulate you.) My friend and art school classmate Jay, who sent this to me and the rest of our class of '85 (most of us are still in touch), comments, "brilliant and hilarious (and short)." It is that. I've watched it four times. Enjoy.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 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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Sean: "To be funny, self-deprecating and supportive with such brevity proves Fredrik is a soul with wit."

Patrick Dodds: "Backman's talk is delightful; thank you and Jay for the link. A Man Called Ove is equally worth the time."

GKFroelich: "The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is a prestigious and long-standing event conducted by the Natural History Museum (in the U.K.), which imposes strict standards for submission. Take a look here—in particular, read the sections on ETHICAL REQUIREMENTS and PHOTOGRAPH REQUIREMENTS (especially subsection 7 under the latter). Of course, some viewers will ignore the above and impose their own judgements."

Chris Kern: "Stuart A. Thompson of The New York Times, a reporter whose beat includes 'covering how false and misleading information spreads online,' has a piece in today’s edition that challenges readers to identify real and AI-generated videos. (I only managed to get six out of ten.)"

Mike adds: The piece is called "A.I. Can Now Create Lifelike Videos. Can You Tell What’s Real?" The piece reinforces the idea that our default should now be to assume something is fake, until convinced otherwise.

Blog Note

I've had two days off and need to take another two days...I'll be back on Sunday! Nothing dire, just a needed vacation due to that ol' overwhelmed-by-life feeling, which raises its head every now and then. I'm sure you know it yourself. Thanks for your patience.

There are, amazingly enough, more than 9,000 posts on this little blog; 9,054 to be exact. Maybe poke about a bit? For instance, you could revisit the story of a large bear named Bear from just about exactly ten years ago. For something more photo-oriented, nearby is the cautionary tale of Slater's macaque.

Back soon, and kind regards!

Mike

The Last Day of Summer

Sunflowers: Took this yesterday to show I've got nothing against sunflowers.  :-)

Yesterday was the last day of Summer where I live. It was a glorious day: A cold front with a high-pressure system behind it came through in the morning, and when I went for my walk it was 65°F (18°C) and dry—right now it's below 50% humidity for the first time since I started walking.

There were people everywhere on Labor Day Monday. Bunches of cars clustered around houses where gatherings were being held, downtown buzzing with traffic, all the restaurants that remained open jammed. And then, Tuesday morning: everyone vanishes. Back to school, back to work, back to year-'round homes scattered all over the East or Florida. Things get quiet fast. At the end of October it will get even quieter—the last of the Summer people will have made themselves scarce by then.

The season is always over faster than you can believe.

Carjat: By the way, if you got curious about Étienne Carjat after Sunday's post, you can find some caricatures and some photographs by him on eBay and Abebooks. A guy on Abebooks is selling what were most likely pages from Carjat's book. A few people have asked for a link to a good book of Carjat's work: there isn't one, at least to my knowledge. There might be one in French.

EV downturn? There isn't one of those either, actually. All the brands except Tesla and VW saw gains in Q1 2024. Here are the numbers, from GreenCars:

1. Tesla: 135,928 units year to date, down 8.6%
2. Ford: 21,507 units year to date, up a whopping 60%
3. Hyundai: 13,654 units year to date, up 79%
4. BMW: 11,369 units year to date, up 66%
5. Kia: 11,239 units year to date, up 85%
6. Rivian: 10,632 units, up 30%
7. Mercedes-Benz: 9,822 units, up 54%
8. Chevrolet: 9,119 units, up 56%
9. Volkswagen: 6,585 units, down 32%
10. Cadillac: 5,939 units

VW lost because it discontinued the e-Golf in Q1 2023 and hasn't gotten the replacement to market yet. As for Tesla, surely some of those other companies' increases come at Tesla's expense. InsideEVs adds that Tesla is "...navigating some Tesla-specific problems, like its aging vehicle lineup, lack of a sub-$35,000 offering, and [a] loudmouth CEO."

Meanwhile, there's this. The takeaway, if you don't want to follow the link: "...sales of hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and EVs hit new highs in the first quarter of 2024. Hybrid vehicles were the big winner, with sales more than doubling, and owners becoming even more loyal." A worrisome tendency across all automobiles—gas powered too—is a lack of affordable options.

Howard Bond: A memorial exhibit of his work will be at Darkroom Revelations Gallery in Indianapolis, Indiana, this coming weekend.

The exhibit, with 30 of Howard's prints, will be open on Friday, Sept. 6, from 6–9 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 7, from 1–4 p.m. Viewings can also be arranged by appointment.

Darkroom Revelations is managed by Tom Potter, Gayle Moore and Nancy Frass, who were friends and students of Bond and are themselves accomplished photographers in large format film and digital. The gallery is located in the Circle City Industrial Complex, 1125 Brookside Ave., Indianapolis. (Thanks to Eric Schoch for this.)

Walking: By the way, I'll leave this to you (because why would I presume otherwise), but I've done a little digging, and, as best as I can tell, 6,000–8,000 steps a day is optimum for people 65 and older, which includes moi. It's what I shoot for, anyway. I actually enjoy it, and it definitely does make me feel better the rest of the time.

Now it's time to get out into the weather!*

Mike

*UPDATE: I walked 7,627 steps, minus however many I walked around the house this morning. But I worked up to this very slowly, and if I don't feel good once I'm out, I don't push it.

Original contents copyright 2024 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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