The Online Photographer

Philosophical Readings

Aaron James

I mentioned that I got to meet one TOP reader on my recent trip to the Midwest. I had an extra day between visits to family members, so I made a short drive to Peoria, Illinois, to look into real estate, thinking that one day I'll move closer to my son and his family. The opportunities are limited right at the moment, but life comes in waves. Aaron James, a philosophy professor from Peoria, was able to meet me for lunch. It made my day, literally. The Indian restaurant we wanted to go to was closed on Mondays, so we ended up at a little hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant that looked almost comically tacky and cheap; but when we walked in, all the patrons looked like they might be from that part of the world. That's usually a good indication of authenticity at an ethnic restaurant of any sort. Sure enough, the food was excellent, so good that it fired up a hankering for Indian food that I'm still feeling. My son took me to a fantastic Indian restaurant in Bloomington, too. There are apparently a lot of choices in that area. You wouldn't guess that central Illinois, with its endless flat farm fields, would be a hotbed of great Indian food, but it appears that it is so.

Aaron brought photographs. He has an eye for finely considered, gentle compositions, and the color palette he prefers is clean and delicate. He does his work for himself and I could see why he gets enjoyment out of it. I always enjoy seeing work.

We talked for several hours, which managed to seem too short. I always worry that readers will be disappointed when they meet me—Joan Didion once talked about the way people think they'll get something more and better from writers in person, like there's something more and better hiding behind the written words, when actually it's the opposite. I think she said something like "you get the best of me on the printed page."

I told Aaron that I am to philosophers what George Costanza is to architects. I took enough of it at various colleges to learn that I have only a sidewise aptitude for it—the enthusiasm of the wannabe, the admiration of the hanger-on. We got to talking about what kind of philosophy books I like to read, and I said I had trouble reading original writings but enjoyed general nonfiction on the subject. Guided tours, I think I put it, by someone knowledgeable about the subject but who could explain it to be from a contemporary and more distanced perspective. I need it to be put it into context for me.

Here's what Aaron sent me along those lines a few days later (passed on to you with his permission):

Here are a couple of philosophy book recommendations if you're so inclined. They're both books by professional philosophers aimed at a general audiences. So, they're deep (if you will) without being technical. They both relate to life and wisdom, or meaning in life, or what a good life is like, or some such. Those were major preoccupations for ancient and medieval philosophy, less so in the modern period. Some contemporary philosophers are returning to those questions now.

Robert Nozick, The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations published originally in 1989. Nozick was a Harvard prof probably best known for his political philosophy, but also influential in epistemology. As the title suggests these are his meditations on topics like dying, parents and children, love, reality, enlightenment, and so forth. Although not jargon-filled it's best read slowly.

Meghan Sullivan and Paul Blaschko, The Good Life Method: Reasoning Through the Big Questions of Happiness, Faith, and Meaning, Penguin, 2022. Sullivan and Blaschko are Notre Dame profs who based this book on an introductory class they teach. They're both practicing Roman Catholics so it has a religious slant, but it's not intrusive. Not sure what your religious sensibilities are (or aren't) but there's plenty of engagement with lots of philosophers throughout history and other religious traditions.

It's always great to meet readers—I wish I could do more of that, too.

Portraits and photo stores
By the way, the portrait above is an example of an unofficial genre you might be familiar with—"the photography friend across the lunch table." You know how it is—you meet a photo-buddy, one brings a camera to show the other or just has one with him, and one or maybe even both might take a quick snap, one and done (I took two here, but they're identical). Another genre I used to have a lot of is the "photo-store counterperson being an unwilling model for a test shot," but I don't know how long it's been since I've been in a photo store. I miss 'em, I'll be honest.

Aaron asked me what I would do to make portraits better, and I said "two hours, a number of different setups, several different shirts, and lots more exposures." The full portrait file of Aaron has wonderful properties, though—I should do more portraits with the fp-M. I'm already looking at that Sigma Contemporary 65mm ƒ/2. As as aside to this aside, one of the nice things about the fp-M is that the giant viewfinder makes it a pleasure to show people pictures right in the camera. I'll even make the offer to strangers who ask what I'm doing, and they're usually favorably impressed.

I think that's it about my trip. I felt fine for the whole trip, with adequate energy and good focus, but it's taking me a long time to recover. It's also surprising how much work it's been to get back into my daily routine. But I'll get there, I'll get there.

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.)

Featured Comments from:

David Aiken: "I did two-thirds of my BA in the Philosophy department of my local state university in Australia and I'd add another book to Aaron's list, a book that my favourite philosophy lecturer borrowed from me for several months when he discovered I owned a copy. It's Peter Heath's The Philosopher's Alice which is still available on Amazon but at a prohibitive price.

"It contains the text of Lewis Carroll's two Alice books with philosophical annotations by Heath. In real life Carroll was Charles Dodgson, an English Anglican priest and lecturer in logic amongst several other things, and he packed the Alice books with every form of paradox and logical fallacy that he knew. The Alice books have long been a favourite hunting ground for philosophers and logicians looking for examples to use in their lectures and writings. You don't need to be a philosopher to appreciate the footnotes, but they'll bring many smiles to your face as you see what Carroll was playing with as he wrote the Alice books. It will totally change the way you view the Alice books and it may well change the way you read a lot of 'normal,' i.e., non-philosophical, writing. It's definitely on a par with Martin Gardner's The Annotated Alice for those who like the Alice books and are bemused by many of the goings on in them.

"Philosophers do know how to have fun."

Aaron: "I had a great time at lunch, too. I'm very glad you let us know you'd be stopping by Peoria. I think your readers won't be surprised by this, but you're as interesting and amiable in person as you seem online. I get what Joan Didion is saying, but the pleasure of meeting you in person is exactly that—meeting the person, not merely the words. If you get back this way, let us know."

Mike replies: I definitely will.

kirk: "As a counterpoint to someone's comment recommending 'one camera, one lens' (OCOL), the 65mm Sigma is one of my all-time favorite lenses with high performance wide open. A wonderful portrait focal length. It's a totally different look from the 45mm. Not all lenses are the 'same.' You can keep things too KISS. Imagine dinner every day with only one thing on the menu...."

Cirrus!

Yesterday, all things considered, was one of the great days of my entire life. I arrived at a small apartment building just outside of downtown Bloomington, Illinois, after a drive from northern Indiana, to find my son Xander waiting for me in the parking lot—he’d just gotten home from his new job. Upstairs we found his girlfriend Kate, who I first met last summer, and Cirrus, their first child and my first grandchild. Wow, what a huge explosion of feelings! I’m sure a lot of you grandparents out there will relate. I got the high honor of feeding him a bottle (Kate is very thoughtful). At first he was fascinated by this strange face that had suddenly appeared in front of him, and then I got to watch his eyes droop and flutter as he blissed out on his bottle. I kinda feel like I haven’t had such a purely wonderful experience in years.

Such are the small, fleeting moments of life that somehow more than make up for the toil, strain, and sameness of life’s parade of days. Not much to tell, but fabulous to experience. Following dinner at an excellent and remarkably popular Mexican restaurant, we went to Kate’s mother’s house until everyone got tired. I have only two full days with them, because both parents work long days during the week, but at least I get a snapshot of their real lives and of Cirrus at three months of age. He’ll change fast, so this won’t be my last trip.

Although I lived in Chicago for five years, and Woodstock, Illinois (where the movie “Groundhog Day” was filmed) for two, I’d never been to central Illinois before. Compared to what I’m used to, it seems foreign, with a different feel to the land, the light, and the air. Bloomington is a bustling, prosperous college town, somehow cosmopolitan and Midwestern-parochial at the same time.

I plan to visit Peoria on Monday, because I’m thinking maybe I’ll move there. Bloomington is such a hotbed of business and education that there are hardly any houses for sale here. Peoria seems more promising, and it’s only 40 minutes away, which would cut my round-trip commute to see Cirrus, Xander and Kate by a useful 26 hours. I don’t know if I have one more move in me, to be honest, but I have the motivation.

I’m writing and posting this from my iPad. Seems to be working! More updates from my road trip soon.

Mike

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day

Photo by Vijay Ramakrishnan

I probably don't need to tell you this, because everyone who cares already knows, and everyone who doesn't know doesn't care—but yesterday was Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day.

And if you're not 100% clear on what pinhole photography is, you're in luck—Larry Bullis, Tom Lindsay, Guillermo Peñate, Howard Wells, George L. Smyth, Brigitte Harper, Gordon J. Holtslander, and Gregg Kemp prepared a succinct but informative Pinhole FAQ page in 2003 (remember when FAQ pages were all the rage on the Web?) at the pinholeday.org website.

The illustration is Yr. Hmbl. Ed. cheating on the PDBlur entries again—as you know, whenever we have a Baker's Dozen I find a way to show you a few more pictures than the basic 13. This one is by Vijay Ramakrishnan, of Pleasanton, California, USA, who writes: "I have a deep-rooted connection with trees that I can’t quite put into words. They are my favorite subjects, especially oaks. This pinhole photograph is very much an exception to my typical treatment of trees, which tends to have the clarity and sharpness of traditional landscapes. The blur from the long exposure and the fuzziness of pinhole photos give them a dreamy quality that I love. This is one of my favorite tree photos, perhaps because it’s more reflective of the hazy but strong attraction I feel toward them. It was a two-minute exposure on 4x5 film, taken with a Santa Barbara pinhole camera at Filoli Gardens, about 30 miles south of San Francisco."

I like it too. And I like it for the Blur contest because the blur is caused both by the pinhole aperture and by flare, which works well in combination. (Vijay's picture will of course still be considered for the Baker's Dozen; it has obviously already made the first cut.)

Lensless 4x5" Pinhole Camera

Vijay's Santa Barbara camera, which as far as I can tell is no longer available, was made by the Lensless Camera Mfg. Co. in Fernley, Nevada, USA. Its 4x5-inch cameras are great if you don't want to make your own—you can customize film size, effective focal length, and wood type.

Naturally, they're not expensive.

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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DPReview Falls Victim to Amazon's Belt Tightening

Amazon's plan to reduce its workforce by 18,000 jobs apparently has to include the staff of 13 at Digital Photography Review.com, known by one and all as DPReview.

Phil Askey started DPReview in 1998 and sold it to Amazon for a rumored $20 million* in 2007. Since then, it has continued acting as an independent review site, attempting to transition to YouTube with the hiring of the team of Chris Nichols and Jordan Drake from The Camera Store five years ago (they have since jumped to PetaPixel). DPReview announced today that it will suspend operations on April 10th and take down all of the site's content at some unspecified date in the future.

Strange fact
It brings to mind a strange fact that has been little noted. I've long marked the end of the era of the "digital transition" as the date of the demolition of Building 9 at Kodak Park in Rochester in 2007, the first of the spectacular demolitions that provide a visual analogue for Kodak's swift and brutal decline. But, assuming that that is a good inflection point, then it was only five years between the end of the transition period and the peak of the digital camera market, which occurred in 2012. Since then it has been a story of accelerating decline, as development slows, the ILC market becomes saturated, the former mass market makes do with smartphones, one company after another fails or fades, and the remaining ones follow the strategy of offering mavens "more for more." And as mavens buy less, less often.

It's really not DPReview's fault. The peak is past; the business is going downhill; the popularity of dedicated cameras is fading.

Wanton disregard
I'm especially sad to see all the information on the site destroyed. One of the best things Phil Askey did was to make a conscious effort to document the entire era in photographic history. By excising all of that from the record, it might be that as much information will be destroyed at a stroke as was lost when Julius Caesar burned the great Library at Alexandria in 48 B.C.** It's a shame and, frankly, a disgrace. The Internet is simply not a good repository for culture, information, and stored knowledge.

Mike

*A reader who shall remain unnamed heard this back then and thinks the information is reliable, but I can't confirm it, so to me it's a rumor. The terms of the deal were not disclosed to the public.

**Seneca the Younger quoted Livy as saying that 40,000 scrolls were destroyed. Depending on how much information could be stored on a scroll—I don't know—it's plausible that DPReview's many thousands of pages could rival the amount of information in 40,000 scrolls.

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.)

Featured Comments from:

Steve Rosenblum: "It is ridiculous that they are going to delete all content on the site. It would cost Amazon the rounding error on their per minute profits to maintain that information on AWS [Amazon Web Services, an on-demand cloud business with $62B in revenue —Ed.]. I suspect they are planning to sell the information to some other entity, as it is valuable, but I don't know. I'm sorry to see this, I have followed them since they started and found their content to be very helpful."

Dillan: "Fun fact: Chris Nichols sold me my EF 50mm ƒ/1.4 when he worked for The Camera Store here in Calgary. Right out of the box, it just wouldn't focus on my 5D, so I brought it back the following Monday. He exchanged it for another one, no questions asked. I had the whole sad tale prepared, but I didn't need to tell it. It's a small thing, but I never forgot it. That was a lot of money for me at the time. It's still my favourite lens, and I am still a devoted Camera Store customer."

David Brown: "Re 'The Internet is simply not a good repository for culture, information, and stored knowledge.' Hear, hear! Paper can burn, true enough; but digital storage can so easily be unplugged even with the best of intentions."

Nicholas Hartmann: "Whaat?! Amazon, of all companies, can’t set aside a matchbox-worth of storage for DPReview’s archive? No more camera purchases from Amazon for this dinosaur…."

PaulW: "Your comparison of losing DPReview to the loss of the library of Alexandria is spot on. I'm still in a bit of shock over this. It's hard for me to fathom that such a valuable resource and so much valuable historical information will be lost to a business decision."

William Cook: "Sorry to see the site go. Way back when, I enjoyed reading the new camera reviews. Those reviews were not the usual regurgitation of camera maker’s press releases or spec sheets; they were honest hands-on reviews. In those days I was keen to keep up with the fast-moving market and technology, not so much any more. And that’s probably the personal micro reason for the macro problem. Still, sad to see them go."

Tom Burke: "This does feel like the end of an era. Like many others there have been times when I have availed myself of DPReview’s pages extensively—and then long times when I haven’t. The former were generally when I was considering a purchase. I would then use the (relevant) forums a lot in the period immediately after I’d made the purchase, and found them helpful.

"Scrolls: a comment in a book called The Book, by Keith Houston suggests that that book (smallish hardback, 426 pages including text, notes and index), might hold as much as seven times more information than a scroll occupying the same volume of shelf space. The Book is about the development of books, and the media on which they have been written or printed. Strongly recommended, for its informational value, and also because the hardback, at least, is a beautifully produced object. Not fancy, but elegant and purposeful. If you want to know about papyrus, scrolls, the development of writing, and way too much about vellum, this is the one for you."

Mike replies: I used to have a wonderful mini-library of books about books. Alas, lost and scattered due to moves, volumes left behind here and there, and other vagaries of time.

Tommy Williams: "It looks like the Archive Team at the Internet Archive is taking some extraordinary steps to save as much of the DPReview content as they can which goes well beyond their normal scraping and storing, so maybe—this time—we won't lose such an important piece of history."

Greg: "Here's a link to Dave Etchells praising his 'competition': Quote: 'It’s hard to state the sense of loss I feel, trying to come to grips with DPR’s closure. It leaves a gap in my world, as over-dramatic as that sounds. It’s true though. I think most people imagined us as competitors, and we were to an extent, but it was a very friendly competition. The photo business is an unusually congenial and friendly one to begin with, and I counted many on the DPR team as good personal friends.'"

Andrew Kochanowski: "I don't want to be a contrarian, But twenty years ago a site like that had some value to compare objective information between equipment that was rapidly changing. Whether it was a new Nikon or Canon or a new system, it was useful to be able to access the objective information about it and a bit of subjective feel-in-the hand, maybe make some decisions on what to buy.

"Now and for the past 10 or more years? Not so much. Ever since its Amazon acquisition and especially in the past few years the content was uninspiring. Yes, a compendium of what's new and when was it issued. That's about it. Ah, but the forums. Yes, moderated in the best 1990s tradition, dominated by would-be experts with fragile skins. I thought you got kicked out of there Mike? I sure did, many years ago. Not that I had much to add to the my gear is better than yours threads, so maybe it was for the best."

Mike replies: I did, in the Askey era. Phil apparently had a burr under his saddle about other people acting like they knew something. But, in fairness, the posting that got me booted was actually pretty obnoxious. It wasn't as bad as some other things that didn't get people kicked out, but I could see their side of it.

Peter Croft: "Oh, here we go again. The big fish snap up and swallow the best of the small fry, then close them down. Think Lotus (Microsoft), Word Perfect (MS again), Macromedia (Adobe), Micrografx (Corel) and a dozen, scores of others. We pay big money to own software, only to find it orphaned. Macromedia Authorware used to be a career path in its own right, but Adobe got their hands on it and shut it down! As soon as I learned Amazon had bought DPReview, I thought that this would happen, and it has. I especially liked the sample images shot around London before the 200 lbs. gorilla stepped in and took it away to the USA. And like you, I immediately thought of the huge database of camera and lens data accumulated. Surely that can't be lost? Surely that must be preserved and made available in some way. To trash that would be a crime. What a damn pity. At least it will free up all the time I spend each day reading the site."

Lost to History (OT)

Yesterday was the day of America's other Christmas, the Super Bowl. The Kansas City Chiefs won, but they had to have help from the refs. The game was high scoring and tied right near the end—both things we normally want to see in a Super Bowl—but then the game got ruined. With less than two minutes to go the Chiefs were given an unearned extra set of downs. So we'll never actually get to know what would have happened. Could have gone one way; could have gone the other. Lost to history now.

No dog in the fight. No connection to either team.

Here's CCN's curated collection of the best still photos from the event. And one extra for good measure, for halftime show fans. And finally, some great photos from the other 56 Super Bowls, starting at number one in 1967.

Herodotus, in Book I of his Histories, tells us that the great Athenian statesman Solon, one of the seven great wise men of ancient Greece, wouldn't call anyone happy until their life had ended; for only then could it be certain that no further catastrophe lay waiting. "O Solon! O Solon! O Solon!" cried poor doomed King Croesus on the pyre, "Count no man happy until his end is known!"

Great game, till it was ruined. Now it has a big fat asterisk next to it forever. Too bad.

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.)

Featured Comments from:

Richard Barbour: "Sorry, I don't know where it's written that the refs don't call deserved penalties near the end of a game. Or even why anyone would question it."

Mike replies: Sorry, no sale. 1.) The refs hadn't been calling penalties for minor holding all game long. 2.) Neither the grab nor the hand on the back impeded the progress of the receiver or changed his course in any way. 3.) The ball was un-catchable, thrown way over the receiver's head. 4.) The ref didn't call the momentary jersey grab when it happened, but waited till he saw the play didn't work, which meant the Chiefs would have faced fourth down and a field goal leaving time on the clock. I can't speak to motive, so I won't, but it was a bad call.

The Chiefs got robbed as much as the Eagles. They were deprived of the opportunity to win the game on merit.

Albert Smith (partial comment): "I know that I'm in the extreme minority, but I have less than zero interest in any of these sports events, Super Bowl, World Series, World Cup, etc. ... When I was a kid there were many movies made in the '50s about WWII, and one recurring thing was when soldiers were trying to determine the authenticity of other soldiers encountered, they'd ask something like, 'Who won the 1939 World Series?' The German soldiers in American uniforms would be tripped up and exposed. The number of times that this trope appeared in movies made me think that I could never be in the military. I couldn't tell you who won any sporting event last week."

Jeff (partial comment): "Also no dog in the fight here. ... The Eagles could have won instead had they not: 1.) given up the longest punt return in Super Bowl history (and at a crucial time)…their special teams were horrible all year; 2.) committed the only significant turnover of the game, a fumble by the QB, resulting in an opposing TD; and 3.) failed miserably on defense in the always crucial second half, permitting the Chiefs to complete every pass attempt (except a deliberate throw-away), and allowing six yards per carry on rushing attempts, with every drive resulting in a Chiefs’ score."

Luck, Good or Bad

When I was a kid I hit a robin at a hundred and fifty feet with a Daisy pump-handle BB gun, which are accurate to, at best, about thirty feet...after calling the shot to my friends. The only reason I mention this is because afterwards, I really struggled to understand whether it had been good luck or bad luck. Good, because it was an amazing fluke of a shot that I could never repeat if I'd had a thousand more tries, and my friends were amazed and impressed. Bad, because I had no intention of killing the robin for no reason, meant the robin no harm, and wished I could undo the damage I had done after I did it.

This morning I had to go to the cardiologist. And it snowed, starting just before I had to leave and ending just as I got home. And it had not snowed here yet all month. What are the chances it would snow just for the three hours I had to drive three towns over? Bad luck, right?

But the snow was amazing. A light, wet snow with wind, blowing and misting everywhere with a sort of half-fog. The sky the same light gray as the ground. The fields lightly frosted, the windward side of objects and buildings and trees and even a giant heap of spare railroad ties shaded with white. And, quite honestly, if I didn't have to go to the cardiologist I never would have left the house. Good luck, right?

It was a target-rich environment. I should have been shooting. There were picture prospects everywhere—almost literally everywhere I looked. But I didn't have my camera with me. And I couldn't have stopped anyway, because I was, you know, going to the cardiologist. And couldn't be late for my appointment. Bad luck.

Very quickly I decided to simply enjoy the sights, and I did. One more amazing experience added to my stock of beautiful visual experiences in the Finger Lakes. All of which I'm very lucky to have seen.

On the whole, though, overall, I still don't know quite how to feel about the trip. It was either lucky or unlucky. I still don't know which.

I have health stuff to go do now—calls to make before everything closes—but here's an unrelated snap of Butters last night. It was a rainy, cold, inhospitable evening. Earlier in the afternoon he had gotten to play with his big buddy Wex and fetch his favorite toy, a rubber discus Wex's owner brings with her. He was tired out and pretty contented lying there by the fire, except that he didn't want to be bothered to look back at the camera.

Mike
Flickr page / New Yorker author page

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.)

Featured Comments from:

Bill Tyler: "In an almost unrelated incident that I still remember more than 50 years later, I did a physics lab where the goal was to measure the charge on an electron. My measurement came out correct to at least two more decimal places than it had any right to do, and I remember commenting on my lab report that this was due to luck, not skill. Sometimes you just hit where you have no business hitting. In a further bit of good luck, no robins were killed in my experiment, and even the electron survived."

Bill Bresler: "Glad you could enjoy the scene without stopping to make photographs. "I decided to simply enjoy the sights, and I did." This really resonated with me. There will be other photos for you to make. You're on one helluva roll with your new black and white work and a day off won't hurt. When my kids were small, back in the late 80s, I decided I had to buy a hellishly expensive video camera with a hefty VHS recorder that hung from my shoulder from a wide strap. I videoed the kids for 2 years or so before it dawned on me that I wasn't a part of the 3 year old's birthday party. I was merely the videographer. So I put down the videocam and recorder, and joined the party. I've never regretted that. "I decided to simply enjoy the sights, and I did.", is sometimes a great choice."

Dave Glos: "That is a darn nice environmental portrait of Butters. Can easily sense the indifference from your partner—'whadda ya want, I am quite enjoying this fire.' The tonal disparity between the blue dusk outside, and the orange glow from the fire inside, confirm which side of the wall is more hospitable. While I love B&W, this one deserves color."

Ken Owen: "Curious seating you have there next to the fire. I don't think I've seen anything quite like it before."

Mike replies: Those are auditorium seats that came out of a Mason's Hall in a town about 50 miles from me. They were installed about 1850 and removed in 1911, then spent the next century in storage in the attic of the Mason's Hall. Finally they were sold and a bunch of antiques dealers in this area all got various quantities of them. The woman I bought those from said they were her last ones and almost everybody else's were gone too. They're very steampunk—the metal casting is ornate and the bentwood seats have decorative patterns in them made with small holes. The seat fold up just like modern theater seats. Here are a couple of better pictures (sorry about the doghair drifts on the floor—I have a bad housekeeper):

They're actually quite sturdy and comfortable!

Mike Peters: "A photographer without a camera is just a pedestrian. When you leave the house, take the camera. Every single time. Even just walking Butters. If you have to go somewhere, leave a half hour to 45 minutes earlier, so you have time to stop if you want. However if you don't stop along the way, now you'll have time to get out of the car and walk around a bit once you get to your destination. You just might find something that you weren't expecting. Or you'll just have a bit of a walk. Either way, you'll immerse yourself in your environment. But, if you leave your camera at home, you can be guaranteed that there will be no photographs."

Robert Cole: "Mike, unusual events gave you a rare experience with ephemeral beauty. You recorded it with your head and heart, and conveyed it to the world through your words. Good luck indeed, for all of us."

Mike Ferron: "I am glad you wrote this Mike. Several times I shot at things when I was a kid and actually hit them. Bothers me to this day as I am not a hunter and no good came from my actions. Maybe the hunting instinct lives within us, but for me? I do not like it."

Happy 2023!

2023

It's here, the New Year. They go by fast these days. It's like watching the telephone poles flash past as the train speeds up.

It seems to me that the range of possible outcomes on a number of fronts—personally, professionally, within my family, and nationally—is particularly broad this year. The upside would be tremendous, the worst-case scenarios scary. It's probable that this year will be a memorable one and possible that it will be fantastic. We're going to need some luck and the favor of God (as you understand {pronoun}), but hey, that's always true.

I wish you and yours the very best. I'm thinking of how Brett Weston (1911–93), son of Edward, used to sign his letters: "Good light and good negs." I guess now that would be "good light and good files," which maybe doesn't have quite the right ring to it—is there some better way to say it? But we know what we mean. Photography is a curious and quixotic pastime, but remember that every lens will give you its gifts if you let it. Aim high and fail often and the successes will inevitably arrive. Let's all go out and get some great ones in the coming year, and, above all, have some fun. Thanks for everything.

Good light and good pictures,
Mike
Flickr page / New Yorker author page

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.)

Featured Comments from:

Dillan: "Thank you so much for the positive thoughts about the new year. When I look at the news, it's doom and gloom. I came here, and I feel good again. Thanks, Mike, and Happy New Year to you too!"

Anton Wilhelm Stolzing: "A great post on occasion of the new year. I feel the same: scared and hopeful. All the best!"

Stephen Cowdery: "You can relive Brett’s 'good light' in a studio/cabin where he stayed in from time to time in his later years. Walking distance from Point Lobos, and a short drive from Carmel and not too far from Big Sur."

John Krumm: "Hear hear. Good light and good prints. And that includes online prints. I look at images on Flickr and such as digital prints, and each phone and computer that views them is a new gallery display you have no control over, each with its own lighting character, resolution, size and viewing distance. By the way, your good captioning practices on Flickr has made me up my caption game. That's one of my resolutions. Better captions!"

Rick Twigg: "'Every lens will give you its gifts if you let it.' That's a keeper!"

Stephen Lewis: "Good light and good pixels."

 

Be It Resolved

Time to start thinking about photography-related New Years resolutions again! What are you planning to do in 2023?

I'm already embarked on my own plans, and for once I think it's going to stick. The reason is that 2023, finally, is the year of my OC/OL/OY. The term, if you're new here, means "one camera, one lens, one year," and it refers to a deliberate suspension of complication for a defined period of time combined with a temporary moratorium on shopping. A reader loaned me his Sigma fp-M and 45mm ƒ/2.8 back in August of 2022. By the end of August I had bought my own, and by October 23rd it got back from being converted. These two identical monochrome Sigmas were really the only two cameras I used throughout the Autumn season of good light. Of course I'm still taking visual notes with the iPhone—and the iPhone is what I use for illustrations here, mostly—but that's "work," and it's not getting in the way.

"Bar of Soap" (large version with description text)

Setup documentation. Carl Weese taught me to do this.

So my resolution this year is simply to keep my OCOLOY going, through to the end of the good light next Fall. Given my level of enthusiasm, which is high, I think I stand a pretty good chance this time. I'm usually one of those "New Years resolutions are made to be broken" kind of people.

No rush. You have till Sunday to decide. Which might include deciding not to fuss with New Years resolutions. But why not make a big bold grab, just for the fun of it?

Mike
Flickr page / New Yorker author page

Original contents copyright 2022 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.)

Featured Comments from:

Nicholas Hartmann: "I’m about to start a similar project involving a Sony RX100 Mark 5A, a little camera that is about the size of a chubby flip-phone and fits into an unobtrusive belt pouch. Despite being no-excuses portable everywhere, it possesses a very sharp lens with a zoom range equivalent to 24 to 70mm, and a 20-MP sensor. The Mark 2 predecessor of this camera—almost identical in size and with an only slightly less capable sensor—has been my go-to (mostly color) travel camera for years; its only failings are a slow lens and the need for a bulky add-on electronic viewfinder, and the 5A solves both of those problems. But it’s the built-in 'film' that is so important: the Sony sensor has none of the artifacts of a cell phone camera, but at high ISOs is has just enough noise, and of just the right character when correctly processed, to recreate the kinds of images I treasured back when I was shooting with T-Max 400 and a good lens: pictures in which grain functions simultaneously as an overall abstract texture and as a carrier of very fine detail. I have recently found myself craving that effect, and I cannot get it with my 'big' Micro 4/3 Olympus: monochrome conversions from that sensor are just too smooth and pasty, with no tooth or grit.

"Maybe the correct term here is OCOY rather than OCOLOY, since the lens doesn’t come off the camera but its focal length can be modified. Once I simplify the interface—the PDF manual is over 500 pages long and devotes hundreds of those pages to functions and capabilities that I have never heard of—I hope to end up with a modern, digital version of the Olympus XA: a camera that goes with me everywhere and does everything I need. I’ll report next year."

Richard Alan Fox: "I will try not to purchase any photographic equipment except paper and ink for an entire year."

Mike replies: A good one! But tough.

Open Mike: Boxing Day! And Elliott (OT)

I'm really not sure if it's such a good idea to name storms. I'm not sure how I'm going to feel the next time I meet a human being called "Elliott." I might feel...wary, at least.

Elliott kicked my ass. Winter Storm Elliott, I mean. I survived, of course, and that's good, and I'm not as bad off as some people—I'm not trapped in a car on a freeway with no gas left, and I'm not without power after two and a half days with no help in sight. I didn't die, and some people did. So I'm grateful it wasn't worse.

We had intermittent brownouts all day Friday, and the home backup generator cycled a bunch of times throughout the day. On Friday night, the rest of the neighborhood was without power and I was sitting there feeling smug, with the lights and the heat on, listening to the generator chug away, thinking, aren't I lucky to have a generator. Then I heard its little engine go berserkoid for ten or 20 seconds and fall silent. The house went completely dark and quiet save for the momentary beeping protests of all the electronic equipment shutting down. Uh-oh.

This isn't good.

It was not good. It was one outside. I mean 1°F (that's –17°C for you Europeans). The wind was howling, 21 miles per hour sustained and gusts to 47 mph. What used to be called the wind chill (now called the "feels like") was –20°F, and felt every bit of that. Bitter cold. Snow was blowing everywhere and the roads that were wet with rain that morning had frozen. I live at the bottom of steep hills. There was a travel advisory. And it was eight o'clock at night on the day before Christmas Eve.

The guy from the company that sold me the generator said he wasn't going to try to get somebody to me that night, so I should try calling him in the morning. So I piled up all the blankets I could find and burrowed down. Kinda like Winter camping, but without the wind and the wet. (I went Winter camping once as a Boy Scout and woke up with my hair frozen to the floor of the tent. That's a little more inconvenient than it probably sounds. This wasn't as bad as that; but I didn't sleep much.)

The rest of the neighborhood got power back at 7:00 Christmas Eve morning. But not me. That's when it dawned on me that the problem with the generator, whatever it was, was what was keeping me dark. The generator was somehow stuck in its "generator is supplying power, keep grid off" position.

I went to town for breakfast and a little warmth. The nice man from Home Power Systems arrived about 9:00, worked for a while, told me he had bad news for me, collected a check for $240, and left. As I understand it—and I don't really understand it—first the generator fried its own transfer switch (a $2,000 repair), filling the basement with that sickening aroma of "something electrical is burning"; then the fried transfer switch and/or the bitter cold and/or something else destroyed the motor in the generator. Upshot: the home backup generator is totaled. Worse, in the moment, was that there was no way to get me back on the grid. It was very cold in the house, and I was dressed in my full Winter gear but still cold—my body doesn't seem to generate heat like it used to. And it was Christmas Eve.

The HPS guy told me I needed an electrician to "bypass the transfer switch," and that any electrician would know what that meant. Using my phone, I tried to find an electrician...and found a long list of "CLOSED, reopens Monday morning." I started worrying about the pipes freezing and all the rest of the damage that could occur to the house if it spent a sustained period below freezing. And what were Butters and I going to do for two days? I kept my cool, but to be honest I was not in the best state of mind at that point.

Long and short: I finally did find an electrician, by the name of Richard Bruno, a strapping young go-getter about six and a half feet tall who is 21 years old and had started his business at age 18. He says he works on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day "every year." Meaning, I guess, the three years since he was in high school. He arrived, bypassed the generator panel, and I finally got power again at about 3:00 in the afternoon. Big relief! It had gotten down to 37°F in the house, and the pool shed hit 19°F. Richard collected a check for $540—emergency call, the holiday, all that—which I was glad enough to pay, and grateful to be able to pay. It's going to cost another $500 if I decide to make the bypass permanent and go back to living without a backup generator. All told I was without power for 19 hours during the worst part of the storm.

I kept the heat up and all the lights on all Christmas Day! Just because I could. In my 12-step program, we're supposed to start our morning prayer with a "gratitude list," and I do what I'm told because I want to stay sober. As you can imagine, "a warm house" started my gratitude list on Christmas morning. My prayer was more fervent than usual.

Like I say, other people had it worse than I did, some much worse, so I'm not complaining. My homeowner's insurance might pay for a new generator or at least the cost of removing the old one and making the bypass permanent. We'll see.

The whispering cold
You know the two worst things about the experience? One was the irony. I mean, I have a generator to give me a backup in case of emergency. The irony is that it was supposed to provide power in a blackout, and instead, it was what was locking me out of the grid after clean power to my neighbors had been restored. Irony of that sort does not sweeten life.

The second was that I had a sort of existential crisis in the silence and the darkness. I live alone, and I don't mind it so much usually, but I depend on my electronic devices for a sense of company. I still had my phone during those 19 hours, but I didn't want to use it more than was absolutely necessary because I didn't know when I could recharge it again. Sitting and lying there in the dark through that very long night, hour after hour with nothing to do, with the house getting colder and colder and the wind howling through the trees, and relief uncertain...let's just say it was pointing out to me how alone I really am. Not pleasant.

There is a poem, number 37 of the 200 or so Cold Mountain poems by the legendary hermit-poet of China, Han Shan, who anonymously left his poems written on rocks and bits of tree bark at the foot of the mountain he lived on. It goes like this:

I think of all the places I've been,
Chasing about from one famous spot to another.
Delighting in mountains, I scaled the mile high peaks;
Loving the water, I sailed a thousand rivers.
I held farewell parties with my friends in Lute Valley;
I brought my zither and played on Parrot Shoals.

Who would guess I'd end up under a pine tree,
Clasping my knees in the whispering cold?

Han Shan
(translated by Burton Watson)

I remember being moved by that in college, and the book is still on my shelves all these years later.

But I'm back to normal now, and all is well. No complaints; these things happen. I just need a couple three days before I have to meet anyone named "Elliott," is all.

Mike
Flickr page / New Yorker author page
(Inset: Han Shan by Yan Hui, 13th century)

Original contents copyright 2022 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.)

Featured Comments from:

Bob Keefer: " Does this fancy generator system come with a warranty? I mean, what a disaster, though it's good you appreciate the irony. Living in the woods in Oregon we're well accustomed to power outages, and last year we finally broke down and bought a generator ($1,000, delivered from Amazon). Nothing as fancy as yours—we have to haul it out and plug it into the main electrical panel (our non-automated transfer switch cost us about $200 to have installed on the panel) and fire it up. I think we've used it four times already, and have been very pleased with it. You're making me really glad we didn't spend the money on a higher-tech operation! Glad you survived.

"Merry belated Christmas, and wishes for a great 2023. Thanks for all the work you do to make photography fun and interesting for the rest of us."

John Berger: "Just to note: don't minimize your little Acura Survival Pod that should be available with at least half a tank of gas all year long...and very capable cell phone recharger as well. Hmmmmm...."

Daniel: "Could be worse...you might have a plug-in electric car."

James Bullard: "My name isn't Elliott so you are safe reading this. During the Ice Storm of '98 (I think it was '98, correct me if I'm wrong), my house went without power for an entire week. We survived it because we had a wood stove. The state (NY) wants to phase out wood stoves but if you have the space to have a small wood burner it can run when the grid or a local thing like your bypass switch fails and they are simple enough that you don't need a degree in engineering to stay warm. Here's hoping your heating system isn't tested by nature again. Happy New Year."

Juan Buhler: "…And here I was thinking I was going to read some story about Elliott Erwitt with my coffee this morning. Glad you’re well Mike, and greetings from California! It was sunny and in the 50s yesterday where I am."

Anton Wilhelm Stolzing: "Not a nice Xmas story. And so revealing. Backup generators—I would not say they do not exist in Europe, but indeed they are the exception, not the rule. My idea would be: Step down: Opt for a camping equipment for emergency situations, one that provides warmth for one room, light, and a one or two flames hotplate for cooking. A huge battery pack to recharge smartphone etc. does no harm either."

David Brown: "I feel your pain! We have occasional ice storms down here in North Texas. Actually, they used to be a lot worse. Ice will form on every surface, especially tree limbs and power lines, until a tree limb and/or a power line will snap! The worst for me was January 1979 (that storm is famous and still remembered down here.) I was without power for five days. When the power finally came back up on my block, my neighbor only then discovered that his electrical service panel had been pulled off of his house by the ice. He still did not have power. Suffice it to say, that I now own a very good and dependable portable generator. It will not power the whole house, but we can have light and heat from natural gas. I have considered getting a whole house generator, but now I’m not so sure.… "

Mike replies: In fairness, my electrician said my whole house unit was a inexpensive one, and he pointed to the motherboard in the transfer box and said, "that's older than I am." He said the new units are much smarter than mine, and that they can distinguish brownouts and cope with them.

Geoff Wittig: "Sincere sympathy, Mike. We have lived on a rural hilltop an hour west of you for the past 37 years, at the end of a 1,000-foot-long gravel driveway. It's gorgeous in Summer and especially in Autumn; and Winter has its own austere beauty. I have made many lovely photographs and paintings here. But the downside is not trivial. We were snowed in for three days by massive drifts 10 feet high after the 1994 Nor'easter. We lose electrical power typically 4–5 times a year, usually just for a few hours after a high wind. Last month it was because a runaway downhill truck took out a transformer pole. After the 1991 ice storm it was two weeks without power. We long ago decided not to bother with a generator, after hearing numerous tales just like yours, along with carbon monoxide horror stories. We're now very experienced at lighting the candles and oil lamps, and gathering around the wood stove until the power returns. Kinda like 19th century life.

"Generators are complicated devices with many potential modes of failure, built to meet a price point. Manufacturers have surely run the numbers and know precisely how unreliable they can be before profits take a hit."

Robert Roaldi: "Makes you respect all the more those pioneers from centuries ago."

Chris Dale: "It is a hell-of-a-thing to be without power and thus without heat in a part of the country that gets cold. I live in Minnesota, perhaps one of the few places that is consistently as cold as northern New York. You story made me cringe; of course, I was thinking about your pipes all through the story. So glad to hear you didn't have to deal with that nightmare. I have been considering a generator. Now, not so much."

Mike Ferron: "This so reminds me of two years ago when we in central Texas got hit with first an ice storm, then six inches of dry powder snow with a temp that was 2°F in the morning and the temps never went above the freezing mark for five days. Understand, I moved to Texas from Maine, and these conditions are no big deal. In Maine that is. In a latitude that = Northern Florida it is a big deal. We went five days unprepared with no power or water. Four pots of water on the gas range kept the house in the 40s and I filled the bathtub with water and then snow for flushing water. I now own two Dyna-Glo kerosene heaters with a few days' supply of fuel, a small inverter generator, and four lights that run off of power tool batteries and lots of those batteries that remain charged. Fool me once!"

Kye Wood: "As a writer, you'd hope to elicit an emotional response in your readers minds. Well, sport, you did. Your post immediately took me back to every dark, long night of the soul I've ever lived through. I don't think I've ever seen swearing here, but SH*T MIKE! What a horrible horrible no good bummer crap of a series of things to happen. Glad to hear you landed on gratitude. That's where it's at. May your trials be trivial and first world problems at best, from now on. Kind Regards, Man who lives in 22°C during Christmas zone."

Tom Burke (partial comment): "Sorry to hear about your misfortune but glad to learn that you had power for Christmas Day. That was potentially very serious—long periods of exposure to cold really aren't good for humans. Here's a rather alarming account of what just getting cold can do to the body."

Mike replies: Yes, I noticed the long dose of cold seemed to take a toll. Interesting article.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday

(TOP will pause for a few days for Christmas, as we do every year)

Bronzino, Adoration of the Shepherds, 1539–40

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
    And wild and sweet
    The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom     
     Had rolled along     
     The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,     
     A voice, a chime,     
     A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each foul, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,     
     And with the sound     
     The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,     
     And made forlorn     
     The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;     
     "For hate is strong,     
     And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;     
     The Wrong shall fail,     
     The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

—Longfellow

-

Happy holidays to all of us, each and every one, however you celebrate; and God bless and keep you and your family. Thanks for stopping here, and see you before next year.

Mike

What Do You Want for Christmas?

I need to put up some links, so maybe you can help me out. I'm an affiliate of Amazon and B&H Photo. (Well, and also Adorama and the Book Depository). With the limitation that it has to come from Amazon or B&H, what do you want for Christmas this year?

(Or for Hanukkah, Chinese New Year, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Las Posadas, or Boxing Day. Or Solstice, or Festivus.)*

I think I'll feature all of the comments to this question. I don't think I've ever done that before. [I should have known not to promise such a rash thing! —slacker Ed.]

Mike

*Diwali is the Festival of Lights, the most important holiday in India, celebrating good over evil. Las Posados is a novenario (period of prayer) celebrated in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America and among some of the Mexican diaspora in the United States; about one-fifth of the population of the United States is either Mexican-born or of largely Mexican heritage. The solstice, on the 21st, is sometimes celebrated by "nones"—not capitalized—"people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or 'nothing in particular' when asked about their religious identity." (Pew Research.) Nones now make up about a third of the population of the United States, although many nones continue to celebrate Christmas—presumably as a secular, commercial holiday. Festivus is the spoof holiday adopted by the character Frank Costanza, played by Jerry Stiller, in the 1997 Seinfeld episode "The Strike." It was invented by Daniel O'Keefe and was celebrated by the O'Keefe family as early as 1966; the Seinfeld episode was written by Daniel O'Keefe's son Dan. Now a so-called "idiosyncratic ritual," Festivus is celebrated by some Seinfeld fans, presumably nones and presumably always tongue-in-cheek, on the 23rd of December, in part as a stance against the pressures and commercialization of Christmas. Sixty-three percent of Americans are Christian (Pew Research), but 93% of Americans celebrate Christmas (Gallup). Hanukkah is not the Jewish version of Christmas; it is a completely different holiday. However, 32% of Jewish households in the US celebrate cultural Christmas in some form, including 71% of Jews married to non-Jews (Pew Research).

Original contents copyright 2022 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.)

Featured Comments from:

Kye Wood: "As a Micro 4/3 lens aficionado of some renown (in cheek is my tongue), may I suggest the most underrated lens I own—the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 9–18mm ƒ/4–5.6 lens. Currently on sale for $100 off. I have nine incredible Micro 4/3 lenses. Most costing over $2k each. But that one is the 'never fails to amaze' me one."

[Ed. note: The link is to the international version, but in this case you might thank us—it's less than half the cost of the USA version, $252 and change vs. $599. I've always thought it's pretty safe to buy a lens with no warranty, especially when you have return privileges.]

Bob Keefer: "Can you become an affiliate at Lens Rentals and at KEH? Think of the money you could make off me. ;-) Oh, you mean products. Things I'm tempted by: Canon R7, Pentax K-1 II, Billingham bags."

John Shriver: Leica M10.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Americans and anyone else who celebrates on this day. A day of rest, reflection, and gratitude. And possibly some American football*. We'll be back tomorrow. Peace and good wishes.

—Mike

*Maybe even some World football, from Qatar, a word which cannot be pronounced correctly. (How to pronounce "Qatar.") As you of course know, the most momentous sporting contest, pitting the European Union against the United States**, doesn't begin until November 30th.

**The Mosconi Cup. "The Mosconi Cup is an annual nine-ball pool*** tournament contested since 1994 between teams representing Europe and the United States. Named after American pool player Willie Mosconi, the event is comparable to the Ryder Cup in golf and the Weber Cup in bowling." (Wikipedia) There are two controversies in the Mosconi Cupt this year: despite his dominance in events he was allowed to play in—as a Russian he was banned from some International tournaments—Fedor Gorst, 22, of Russia, was left off the European team; and the controversial Earl Strickland, 61, who won five U.S. and three World 9-ball titles from the '80s to the early 2000s, was named to the U.S. team despite—or perhaps because of?—his volatile and erratic behavior while playing, sure to tee up the Mosconi Cup crowds. Anyway, enjoy your Thanksgiving and whichever form of football you prefer!

***I never write about pool on TOP. Which is a shame, because then you have no way to find out about extraordinary and delightful demonstrations like Fedor Gorst's seven racks in less than 27 minutes, Shane Van Boening's impressive runout (starts at 33:02), or Justin Bergman's 18-rack package (i.e., streak). On a bar box, but still. Your loss I guess...you'd think, as clever as I am, I'd find a way to sneak those links in somehow. Happy Turkey Day!

Foxy Vixen Booty Call (OT)

I was out in the pool table shed yesterday around nightfall, knocking balls into the pockets, when I heard the most ungodly sound—a wild, haunting cry like something out of a horror movie; something between a shriek and a yowl. It seemed to come from close by. Butters, my nine-year-old dog, who was out in the pool shed with me, became agitated. I heard other dogs barking at the noise from much farther away. Butters dropped his ball and began whining and whimpering excitedly, racing between the door and the window. Again and again it sounded. I listened intently, trying to discern what it was. It seemed to be coming from somewhere down the road south of the house.

The first thing that occurs to me in such a situation is, do I need to help? But I quickly realized the sound was not human. Could it be a dying animal? Something run over by a car? Possibly. It was a mournful sound that seemed to trail off in a sort of moan; it seemed to imply that some sort of violence was occurring. I decided to get Butters inside—I have a slight fear of wild coyotes in the woods at night, as they are known to occasionally prey on domestic dogs. As we went through the back door I found myself shuddering at yet another of these cries and thinking, whatever the heck that is, I am not going to investigate. It's out there, and we'll just stay safely in here.

Then it struck me what it could be. And I thought: I am going out to investigate! Maybe I'll get a chance to see it? So I got my coat and boots on and grabbed a powerful flashlight. Leaving the dog behind, I headed off between my outbuildings out to the road. The scream sounded again, very close.

The temperature was just barely above freezing. It had been raining most of the day, and everything outdoors was wet. It was all but totally dark—there was just enough light left to discern that the sky was still overcast. The Summer people have all departed, so there were no cheerful porch lights or window lights anywhere—the houses were just hulking masses of blacker black against the fast-falling darkness. And the trees are all leafless now.

I stood listening in the cold, wet darkness. Nothing. Did it know I was there? Stepping gently and softly, I walked slowly down the road, barely able to see, keeping the light off so my night vision would improve. I reached the bridge over the creek, looking back into the gloom of the creekbed as it receded up the hillside, and paused again to listen.

On the bridge I was above the creek, but the creek comes down a gully or ravine, and, especially on the south side, opposite my land, the bank juts sharply upward and looms over the road. The big trees that cover it tower far above that.

The howl sounded again, loud, and seemingly right across from where I stood! 

I made my best guess, pointed the flashlight, and switched it on. It illuminated, dimly, the craggy line of the top of the steep bank, and cast a circle of light on the bank and the lower parts of the trees nearest me—right in the middle of which, unmistakably, were two animal eyes staring back at me, shining brilliantly with reflected light!

I looked for a moment and turned the light off, so as not to ruin my night vision, and the animal howled again, softer than before. Switching the light back on, I saw the two bright eyes watch me for a few seconds then turn away. As the animal got up and began to walk, she came out from behind the stump that had been obscuring most of her body and I could see her entire profile. Although she and everything else looked faint and greyish in the weak light, I saw her entire body from nose to the extravagant tail, called a brush. A red fox.

That's what I had realized it might be, back at the house. Conditions here this year have been kind to foxes—I've seen more of them than any other year I've lived here. And foxes scream—that's a usual term for the noise I had been hearing. The male, called the tod, or reynard, or dog fox, will scream to warn other males off his territory, but the ones who mostly scream are the females, to signify to nearby males that they are there and ready to mate. It's actually a little early for that yet, so maybe the one I saw was a male staking his claim to his turf; who knows?

So it's no wonder Butters got worked up at the sound of the screams—foxes are distantly related to dogs, fellow members of the canidae family. 

She—or he, as the case may be—disappeared into the woods and didn't scream again. The next time we hear that scary scream from the woods in the night, I will know exactly what it is, and I'll know not to worry—it doesn't mean some sort of horrible violence is has occurred in the night. It's the foxes, sending messages only other foxes can properly decode.

Mike

Featured Comments:

Mark Sampson: "When I lived in Alexandria, Virginia, red foxes were common in the neighborhood, and sometimes in the evening, or at night, they would scream like that. My wife said 'like someone was murdering a baby.' It was a quiet, if crowded, neighborhood of town houses...one evening I heard a fox's scream just before taking the dog out. As we went by the next row of buildings, I saw two policemen walking from their car. I asked 'what's up?' and one said 'we had a call for someone screaming.' I said 'I've just heard a fox.' And one cop said 'Yeah, that's what we thought, but we have to check it out, have a good evening,' and we went on our respective ways. There are stories about our dog getting loose and chasing the fox, but those are for another time...."

Mike Ferron: "Way back when there was a blood-curdling, non-human scream from the woods behind the house one night. It sounded otherworldly and yes it was disturbing. Just might have been a 🦊...."

Dave Millier: "I live in London. There are foxes everywhere. If you drive around the neighbourhood, you will see 20 in 10 minutes. A family lives next door to me. The cubs are hilarious; I can often watch them from my bedroom window, rolling around and play fighting. Not so amusing when one of them broke into our Eglu and ate the chickens. And they do make an unearthly horror-movie wailing and screaming that sounds like murder being done. They are not closely related to dogs (which come from wolf stock); more closely related to raccoons. There is a fox selective breeding experiment where foxes developed dog-like appearance and behaviour within a few generations. It is fascinating in itself but when I checked the details for this comment, it appears things may not be as they seem. Some light reading."

Mike replies: Or not so light; but thanks for that. The Russian Farm-Fox Experiment was featured in the NOVA documentary "Dogs Decoded," which I loved and recommend to anyone who will listen. (It's getting hard to find.) It was nice to catch up with that a little.

Peak Color

We've had a picture-perfect Fall season here in the Finger Lakes, with lots of cool weather to cue the leaves to change. This past weekend was probably peak color. Both days were beautiful, sunny and clear. I had to reluctantly set Jason's fp(m) aside and get my color camera out (of my pocket).

"Peak color" is a strange notion. Human beings are generally subject to the MBB complex—"mostest biggest bestest." If somebody builds a ginormous house, the next person wants a bigger one. If somebody drives a humongous pickup truck, the next guy wants a better one. The changing of the leaves is an odd thing to want to max out, but we're humans—we want there to be a peak!

And what's "peak" supposed to be, anyway? Is it a single day? An hour? A minute, maybe?

I don't think there is a "peak." The changing and falling of the leaves in Autumn is a shifting, changing show that doesn't have any absolute climax. From beginning to end it's lovely. Phase shifts into phase and stage slides into stage and then changes again. My observation is that the most beautiful time in a beautiful place lasts a while, each day being a little different. The top of the bell curve is a flat stretch of days that are wonderful if the light cooperates.

I guess that's the peak, then. Anyway, if there is a peak, we're in it. And is it ever pretty to look at.

By the way, these pictures are just illustrations, meant to show you what the area looked like over the weekend. Taken with the note-taking camera. I don't take real pictures of fall foliage.  :-)

May I have my B&W back now, pretty please?

Mike

Book o' the Week

Leica M: Advanced Photo School by Günter Osterloh, second edition. My favorite of all the Leica gear books. And they are legion. You will actually learn practical stuff from this one. Used, but this is the latest edition from 2011.

The book link above is a portal to any purchase at Amazon. You're very kind use our links, as they help 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.

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Sympathy for Florida

Hurricane Ian making landfall (NOAA photo)

Sending sympathy and solidarity today to our neighbors, countrymen, and friends on the West coast of Florida and across the central section of the State. Yesterday at 3:05 p.m., Hurricane Ian made landfall (defined as the point of lowest pressure crossing land) at Cayo Costa, 20 miles north of Fort Myers, as a Category 4 storm, with sustained winds of 150 mph. Spreading destruction in a wide swath across the State, it dumped over two feet of rainfall near New Smyrna Beach and more than a foot in Orlando. It is currently downgraded to a tropical storm but is strengthening over the Atlantic and is expected to make landfall again in South Carolina later today, possibly as a hurricane, meaning a storm with winds of force 12 on the Beaufort scale, equal to or exceeding 64 knots / 74 mph.

My friend Jim Sherwood did an extensive photographic project of the aftermath of hurricanes and tornadoes 20 to 35 years ago now. I'd have to check with him on the time frame, but I know the project included Hurricane Hugo in 1989. His pictures were amazing. One that I remember showed a car neatly perched on top of a concrete lawn table as if on a pedestal, and another showed a more or less perfectly preserved bathroom hanging in the air, the house around and underneath it having been torn away by the wind. The toiletries were still arranged in orderly fashion on shelves and the window with its "X" of masking tape was unbroken. Jim paid his own way to areas devastated by several hurricanes and tornadoes. He used a Pentax 6x7 and Kodak VPS color film, and made 16x20 prints of the work using a Hope commercial processor. The set was extensive and dramatic, but has never been published. Jim is an accomplished photographer, with pictures in the permanent collection of MoMA and other top institutions.

Some friends who were flooded out of a low-lying area of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 opted not to rebuild. They moved instead...to Denver, Colorado, known as "the mile-high city," 5,280 feet above sea level.

Mike

'Golden Oldie' Books o' the Week

I was going to link to The Life of a Photograph by National Geographic ace Sam Abell, the book version of Sam's video talk we've been discussing, but guess what? Sold out since we mentioned it the other day. You can still score one of the few remaining copies of the 4-volume Sam Abell Library from 2013, but buy it directly from the publisher—they still have it at the $75 publication price (I called them in Santa Fe to check), and Amazon is already charging four times more. We need a reprint of Sam's classic Stay This Moment!

This book link is a portal to Amazon. You're very kind use our links, as they help support the site.

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.

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Featured Comments from:

Bruce Bordner: "I was very tempted to go out and shoot after Hurricane Sandy in NJ, but I was dissuaded by many stories of homeowners becoming very upset by photographer/videographers 'feeding on their pain.' I can't really see their point unless they thought everyone was making money from pictures of their disaster...I still don't get it, but I didn't want to chance it. Be careful if you're in one of these situations and be very respectful—they're hurting."

Mike replies: I believe most of the scenes Jim photographed were when people were absent. I could be wrong. But I don't recall seeing people in his pictures.

Albert Smith: "I live halfway between Orlando and Daytona and as usual we spend the week before the actual landfall watching every news update for changes in the projected path of the storm. It is nothing less than slow torture. You go to bed thinking it's going in a divergent direction then wake up with the cone right over your town. Five days out, three days out, one day out, they are still not sure. The most distressing sight is the so-called spaghetti paths, a dozen 'expert weather centers' project the expected line of movement and they are always in disagreement. The Euro center seems to be closer than most over the years, but they insist on adding in the never-even-close tracks and averaging them into a cone. I wonder what it was like 100 years ago before satellites and computers when the first clue that a storm was coming was the storm landing. The new technology is great but I know that I shaved some time off my life watching the stress inducing coverage leading up to the storm, 90% of which was wrong.

"We can't complain or feel bad about our situation: tons of flooding, power lines down (no electricity, well water, air conditioning TV, etc.), no supply to stores or gas stations, and mentally contemplating that there will be weeks of this. Giant trees are down, collapsing power lines and assuring no quick fixes. But other than some roofs and underwater living rooms, the houses are still here and just looking at photos from the southwest coast of the peninsula will make us feel like we won the lottery.

"The issues with supply from the pandemic was bad. How can anyone expect to rebuild after this? Thousands of from-the-ground-up new houses will be needed and last year you couldn't find basic housing supplies like drywall or roof shingles for general maintenance. This will take years.

"To my fellow Floridians: be strong. To the folks in the path in the Carolinas, pay attention and don't dismiss what's coming. Good luck to you."

Photographic Links regarding the Late Queen

I've learned a lot about the royal family this week. I'm not a royal-watcher, nor do I identify with them in any significant way. Although of course you pick up a certain amount about them by osmosis, as it were, and I did learn the story of Diana at the time of her death (it involved photographers, after all).

But I've read a lot about the late Queen this week, including a biography I'm partway through. Of everything I've come across here are the three not-to-be-missed tidbits for photographers:

First, this lovely story from the former Queen's Police Officer, Richard Griffin. Various outlets have been rewriting and rehashing the story in written form, and people have been sending me links to one or another, but the original is this video. A lovely little anecdote.

Next comes the article from Popular Photography called "A closer look at some of Queen Elizabeth II’s favorite cameras."

Lastly, the most important one, IMO, from The Guardian, "The story behind the portrait of the Queen the palace used to announce her death," by Luke Dodd. I think this is the original; similar articles have appeared elsewhere. At any rate this is the best telling of it. Although it's a short little article, it's a rewarding read—it's like a little photography lesson from Jane Bown (note no "r." It's not "Brown"). Jane (1925–2014) is one of my very favorite photographers, a touchstone. I love her work, her methods, her thoughts about what she did. And I'm pleased she existed.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Migrant Mother, by Sarah Meister. "Each volume in the One on One series is a sustained meditation on a single work from the collection of MoMA." Forty-two pages with many illustrations. An engaging guided tour of the history and lore of "American photography's Mona Lisa."

This book link is a portal to Amazon. You're very kind use our links as they help support the site.

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Basic Camera Functions

I'm back from my trip. The purpose of it was for my son and his mother to meet for the very first time, 29 and a half years since his birth. He has a sprawling family on her side, and we met only a fraction of them, but there were a lot of new faces, and some I remembered from the old days. And I got to meet my son's new girlfriend, Kate, for the first time. Nobody knew in advance how it was all going to go, but it seemed to go as well as it could have. There was a nice spirit all around; one of reconciliation, and compassion, and forgiveness, and generosity. Kate is pregnant, and has experienced intermittent feelings of illness, and she is taking very good care of herself and their as-yet-unnamed son-to-be, but we managed some touristy activities as well. The high point was the National Aquarium in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, which is absolutely an A+ attraction—Kate and Xander both especially like aquariums, and I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. Despite having lived in the area all those years ago I had never been there before. It's really well done. If you're ever near it and find yourself considering a visit, don't hesitate.

Visitors at the National Aquarium in Baltimore,
which was remarkably crowded on a weekday.

I took the Sony A6600 and tried to use it, although I forgot to bring it in from the car on the Aquarium visit. Although I took only a couple of hundred exposures, it was really the first time I had used the A6600 since I first tried it as a loaner from LensRentals. I'll show you a few pictures from it tomorrow.

Wait for it
One of the surprises, not a good one, is how slow it seemed. Of course one of the many "vexations" (I like that obsolescent word) of the iPhone is that it's so slow and awkward to use—if I see something like an airliner against a while cloud or a speedboat passing a perfect position in a lake composition, I've learned to not even try to get the iPhone ready, but just to observe the sight. Well, unfortunately, I have some of the same feelings about the A6600. It just seems to take a while to go from off to on and ready, and even if it's in the "On" position it takes too long to wake from sleep. Shutter lag also feels long, although it might not be.

One of the great advantages of the classic film Leicas—M4 through M6—is how responsive they could be. Shutter lag (the interval between pressing the button and the film being exposed) was famously short—if memory serves, 19 milliseconds vs. ~80 ms. for a pro SLR and 150 and up for an amateur SLR (many were around 200 ms.). But of course you don't have to turn on a film camera—it's always on. With the Leica, I got into the habit of zone-focusing it by feel depending on the situation I was in—at the Aquarium, for instance, I might have set it to six or eight feet and just carried it that way. Then when you raise it to your eye you have just a little adjustment to make. At any rate, good film cameras were "shutter-button priority"—there were a number of things you had to do to get ready to take the shot, but if you pressed the button the shutter went off and that was that. It didn't refuse to fire until the settings were all set.

It struck me that it's kind of curious that for all our "measurbating" and comparing of features on digital cameras, we don't really make a big deal of the basic responsiveness numbers, although AF speed might be an exception. I guess because these are so hard to measure, and differ based on circumstances. Does anyone know of a site that has compiled a comparative list of functions like turn-on time, wake from sleep, AF speed, latency, buffer clearing, and other responsiveness traits? I do see these mentioned hither and yon, but as I say I'm not sure we pay these things sufficient attention.

Anyway I did notice that with the A6600 slumbering on my shoulder, hanging from one of Al Stegmeyer's UpStraps, too many beats pass before it agrees to take a picture. Repeatedly, things changed before I could get a shot. Part of that is down to my rusty chops, but part of it was the camera's fault.

If you'll excuse a digression (of course you will, because those who don't are long gone by now!), the UpStrap is by far the best camera strap I have ever used—and many famous photographers starting with Jay Maisel agree with that. My new one is the "Friendship," and it's the best small-camera UpStrap yet. I have several similar older UpStraps, but I have other cameras now and needed a new one for the Sony. The only one I've ever found that stays on my shoulder without fuss.

Everything has an arc
And incidentally, while I am on the subject of responsiveness, the new iPhone is definitely worse than older ones. The auto-turn-on feature is a pain—I'm going to turn auto-turn-on off if it turns off—and the swipe commands are too many and too touchy to be convenient, although I suppose a few adroit young people will have them mastered. My brain doesn't work that way. Plus, the camera is now so configurable that it's actually possible on the phone to get into that dreaded state where I've done something and don't know right away how to undo it, which is the tell-tale curse of all overly electronic-i-fied devices. And face recognition is worse than the old fingerprint recognition, because it assumes you will be shining the moon of your mug directly at the screen at all times, which I often am not. So the iPhone-as-camera is leaving its signature strength—simplicity—behind. That trend will continue, because it always does.

More about "what I did on vacation" tomorrow or Monday. At any rate, I am back.

Mike

(New Book of Interest coming on Sunday[?])

Grit and Grace: Women at Work in the Emerging World. Unfortunately, this will be the posthumous swan song of the indefatigable documentarian Alison Wright, whose untimely death at 60 in the Azores this year meant she never got to see it published. Wright's photography was inextricably entwined with her life's dedication to social justice, a sense of acceptance of humanity, and a roving search for beauty and color.

Our link to 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.

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Featured Comments from:

robert e: "What a momentous occasion. Glad it turned out well. Best of luck going forward.

"My Canon M is as slow as it gets. Like other commenters, I've trained myself to touch the shutter to wake it up before I even lift it. It helps, too, that I often have a manual-focus and -aperture lens on it. My biggest 'vexation' with it is the lack of a viewfinder."

Jim Arthur: "It’s good to have you back and I’m glad the trip went well.

"I agree with you on the importance of responsiveness. I still shoot with an old EOS 6D and the combination of an optical viewfinder and back button focus allow me to grab a shot in the blink of an eye. I guess I take it for granted.

"Back in the day, DPReview included a Timing and Performance section in their reviews. I imagine this became less relevant once people got used to the idea of digital and digital performance improved across the board. I just took a look at their 2004 review of my Olympus C-8080 and there is an entire page dedicated to timed camera operations."

Omer: "The wake-up lag and the settings info lag in the viewfinder has been a Sony issue for a long time. DPReview has reported it many times and only recently has Sony deigned to change it but only in the more expensive full frames. The reputation that Sony does not understand what photographers need in cameras is justified by exactly these issues. As for the shutter lag, the E-first curtain shutter mechanism actually has one of the shortest lag times in the industry. The thing is, only the closing mechanical shutter is heard and so the perception of lag stems from not hearing the two curtain shutter mechanism. If you use the A6600 enough, you'll learn to either press the shutter before lifting it up, or in the settings keep it from going into sleep mode."

Tim Swan: "Nothing has been faster between intention and photo than my Leica M6. But here's a tip for faster iPhone camera start-up. On your iPhone, go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch. Scroll down, then select Back Tap. Select either Double Tap or Triple Tap and set it to open the camera. Now, as long as the power is on (even if you're not logged in) you can double-tap the back to open the camera app."

Mike replies: Wow. Excellent. Thank you for that.

The Best Camera in the Universe

Webb's First Deep Field

-

"[Photography] is fast becoming the
right hand of the astronomer."

—Peter Henry Emerson, Naturalistic
Photography for Students of the Art, 1889

-

"NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe so far. Affectionately known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this is galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 and it is teeming with thousands of galaxies—including the smallest, faintest objects ever observed.

"Webb’s image is approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length, a tiny sliver of the vast universe.

"The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s largest, most powerful, and most complex space science telescope ever built. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency."

(Photos and text courtesy NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI [Space Telescope Science Institute]. Read more of the description of Webb's First Deep Field here.)

The JWST

(Courtesy XKCD. See it at the site to read
the alt-text. Here's what L2 means.)

Mike
(Thanks to Dennis Joy and others)

Book o' the Week

The Mindful Photographer by Sophie Howarth. I only know of Sophie Howarth from her time as a curator at the Tate Modern in London, but my impression then was positive. Her brand new book (it only came out a few days ago) is about slowing down as a means of enjoying photographing more. It's said to contain a curated collection of photographs along with anecdotes and explanation.

The book link is your portal to Amazon from TOP, should you wish to support this site.

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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:

Speed: "NASA tells us, 'The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago.' Remember when we used to count the seconds between a lightning flash and the subsequent thunder to calculate how far away the lightning was? It'll be quite some time before we hear a rumble from SMACS 0723. The universe sure is big."

Mike replies: It boggles my mind that Voyager 2, traveling 35,000 miles per hour, took 41 years to cross the heliopause, leaving the solar system into interstellar space. After that, the nearest star to ours is 4.246 light years away. And that's just two stars in one galaxy that has 100 thousand million stars. And then you look at the tiny patch of sky in Webb's First Deep Field, a patch of sky that could be covered by a grain of sand at arm's length, and there are many galaxies visible...it's way beyond incomprehensible.

John Krumm: "As a sci-fi fan, to me that telescope/camera seems straight out of a movie, with clean and curvy lines. It's a looker, as you would say."

Nikon SLR 1959-2022

The Nikon Single-Lens Reflex may be dead at 63.

Nikkei Asia is reporting this morning (links below) that Nikon will withdraw from the DSLR market. However, it says "production and distribution" of existing DSLRs will continue. This would parallel the end of film SLRs, when the last F, the F6, was kept in production for many years as NOS (new old stock, i.e., a last production run stockpiled and continuing to be sold as new product), the last of its noble breed, while at the same time no new F models were forthcoming and no more production of the F6 was being contemplated. If this report is based on what will become an official statement, it will mean we have already seen the last Nikon DSLR, and that there will be no more new ones to come, ever.

This may well be non-news, however. Our friend Thom Hogan, who probably knows more about Nikon than anyone at Nikon does (I'll say I speak tongue halfway in cheek, to avoid offending either party) takes a dim view of the Nikkei article, noting (links below) its lack of attribution and the mishmash of recent and older information as well as of specific and general pronouncements. (It highlights how good it is to have Thom as a Nikon analyst, gadfly, and expert; would that Rob Galbraith were still doing the same with Canon. Ah, nostalgia.)

Nikon's true all-rounder, the affordable D7500

The current Nikon DSLRs, ranked in order of desirability, are:

The D850 (pro FX/full-frame, $2,800);

The D7500 (prosumer DX/APS-C, a bargain at $999);

The D500 (pro DX/APS-C, $1,600);

The D780 (prosumer FX/full-frame, $2,200);

The D5600 (amateur/consumer DX/APS-C, $800 with kit lens);

The D6 (specialist professional FX/full-frame, $6,500—don't buy unless it's a business expense and you can depreciate it); and

The D3500 (entry/cheapie DX/APS-C; with kit lens, $650 that probably won't be money well spent).

Get 'em while you can. An era may be slouching to an end.

Here's the article on Nikkei Asia; here's Thom's commentary. Read them in sequence, but read both. Despite being at odds, it's quite possible they're both broadly right.

Mike
(Thanks to Dean Johnston)

UPDATE: Nikon has posted an apparent denial of the Nikkei report without naming Nikkei. (thanks to Wolfgang Lonien for this). The denial reads, "There was a media article regarding Nikon's withdrawal of SLR development. This media article is only speculation and Nikon has made no announcement in this regards [sic]. Nikon is continuing the production, sales and service of digital SLR. Nikon appreciate your continuous support."

Consider, however, this Ward's Auto headline from 2008: "GM Denies Reports Saturn Faces Elimination in New Restructuring Round." The article begins, "A report that suggests General Motors Corp. may kill its Saturn brand is 'wild speculation,' the auto maker says." (GM killed its Saturn brand in October of 2009.)

Or this:

September 2015: "Withdrawing from the camera business is not true and there is no official plan to stop production of cameras and lenses." —Samsung official statement.

April 2017: Samsung withdraws from the camera business.

Or this:

Olympus Corporate Strategy statement, November 2019: "For Imaging, however, we currently have no plans to sell the business. The task is therefore to stabilize and strengthen its market position. To achieve that, we...have already established a clear and exciting product roadmap for the coming months and years ... Imaging is and will continue to be an important technology and innovation driver for our other businesses." (Olympus sold its imaging business in June 2020.) 

I'm just sayin', is all I'm sayin'. I'll stick by that last sentence in the post.  —MJ.

Book o' the Week

The Mindful Photographer by Sophie Howarth. I only know of Sophie Howarth from her time as a curator at the Tate Modern in London, but my impression then was positive. Her brand new book (it only came out a few days ago) is about slowing down as a means of enjoying photographing more. It's said to contain a curated collection of photographs along with anecdotes and explanation.

The book link is your portal to Amazon from TOP, should you wish to support this site.

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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.

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

Ken: "Being a current owner of D850 and D500 cameras and having previously owned a D7500 (and having used all of them extensively), my personal experience is that the D500 should be number two on that list after D850, and at the very least, it should in no way be rated below a D7500, price notwithstanding. In my opinion, the D500 is a better value than a D7500, even if it was at twice the price."

Alex Mercado: "'…Nikkei has learned.' I won’t claim to know Nikkei's guidelines for business trends articles, but this story is stating a de facto standard; they learned there is no further development of SLRs and posted an article about it. A cry for critical journalism feels like pedantry here. I doubt the global economy is contingent on this market sector, let alone this business trend article. I don’t think we really need a source at Nikon for this. Or a press release. The lack of DSLR representation on Nikon’s home page backs the story. This may be a hard pill to swallow for Nikonians holding out for the Dƒ Mark II, but alas, the SLR preformed exceptionally to a respectable age of retirement. Farewell dear single lens reflex."

darlene: "Today [Tuesday  —Ed.] is George Eastman's birthday. To announce it may be the end of the Nikon SLR era is interesting to read on this particular day. 

Bill Tyler: "'Nikon is continuing the production, sales and service...,' but notably, not R&D."

[Note that in the following Featured Comment, Thom responds to some comments found in the full Comments Section. As an aside, it's true that I don't usually allow commenters to respond to other commenters, but there's an exception—when they're being helpful. Thom is definitely being helpful here.  —Ed.]

Thom Hogan: "A lot to comment about.

"1. 'Nikkei has learned.'

"This isn't a gold standard. It's not even a defensible standard, as it can't be assessed. A reputable news organization's standard would require something along the lines of '[publication] has learned, based upon interviews with a top executive who provided the information only if they could remain anonymous.'

"The reason for this is simple: you're identifying where you got this information from in at least a general fashion. Nikon is a top-down managed company. The only place such a decision would have been made is at the top. Indeed, I've heard from several lower level Nikon managers, but I don't trust their statements because they weren't backed with anything that indicated that a decision came from higher up.

"2. The FTZ adapter was a half-hearted attempt.

"I'm a little surprised that Nikon didn't include AIS indexing, though I suspect that was because of the fear that someone would attempt to put a pre-AI lens on the adapter and break something. But I'm not surprised that we didn't get a screw-drive motor, as it has power implications and complicates the focus performance. Until we got the Z9, battery life has been a bit too shy to consider adding a constant power draw.

"3. DSLRs are [not desirable]

"Sure they are. To some people for some things. The D500, for instance, is still in the top three APS-C cameras you can buy today, and only recently eclipsed in any way (by the X-H2S for sure, and in some ways, arguably by the R7). And most people denigrating the D6 haven't actually used one. It's strange that Nikon didn't manage to tell anyone what the key difference in that camera was, but all of us using it can tell you: state-of-the-art focus, with superb user control. Those dedicated AF sensors are huge and fast (and yes, quite different than the D5 ones).

"4. Nikon denies the article

"As Mike implies, they didn't. Note the disconnection in Nikon's 'denial' between development and production. Nikon is still producing, selling, and supporting DSLRs, for sure, and I don't see that changing any time soon. But nothing was said about continued development.

"Bottom line is that DSLRs will be abandoned by Canon and Nikon at some point. The pertinent question to ask is whether there is any continued development going on. In Canon's case, I'm pretty sure that there is no new DSLR development going on (based upon off-the-record discussions with a couple of people who might actually know). In Nikon's case, I'm not so sure. I've heard rumblings about one project, though not in the last two months. That 'last two months' is critical, by the way. Nikon top management makes decisions just prior to their fiscal year end (March 31) and then begins pushing those down the chain during and after the financial and shareholder meetings that follow. So it's possible that Nikon has made a decision to stop DSLR development. However, I wouldn't think this would be conveyed to a 'Nikkei staff writer.' The old Nikkei would have reserved passing on such information under one of their top reporters' bylines, and alluded to where the information came from."

Rob L.: "If you have to end a line, having the D6, D850, D780, and D500 stand as the last examples of the breed is a fine tribute. I love my Zs, truly love the Z glass, but I’d still like to have a D500 to glue to my 200–500mm. It would have been nice if Nikon has been able to produce one final DLSR and recognize the breed formally; but the pandemic plus a shifting market won. Thankfully they weren’t too late to adapt—or at least, I hope they weren’t!"

The iPhone at 15: 'You Have to Adapt. What Else AreYou Going to Do?'

iPhone doodle

The first iPhones came on the market at about this time 15 years ago.

It's an era now. One that has hugely impacted our hobby. As Enric Martí puts it, "You go through life having to change. The world is moving quickly. You have to adapt. What else are you going to do?" That's from a nice article and portfolio called "The iPhone at 15" from the AP that has some interesting reflections on the iPhone and a diverse selection of photographers' personal pictures. Enric Martí, a native of Spain, is deputy director of photography for the AP.

Enric Martí

By the way, about the picture at the top: I'm sitting here drinking that mug of tea, which helped me discover that the iPhone has parallax! I was very self-indulgently taking a picture of the pretty light, as I often do, when I noticed a particular streak of light that was on the screen but that I wasn't seeing with my eyes. Turned out it was because the lens is offset up in the corner and the view is slightly different from what I typically see when from behind the screen. When I moved my head around, the little reflection showed up. I moved in on it to show it better. It's mild, and you'll only notice it doing closeups, but yeah, a sort of parallax.

I stopped off at the Verizon Store to look at the 13 Pro again. My old phone is starting to worry me, acting buggy. I do need a dependable phone...I think I bought my current phone right around this time six years ago, back when the iPhone itself was only nine.

Mike
(Thanks to Kenneth Tanaka)

Book o' the Week:

The Mindful Photographer by Sophie Howarth. I only know of Sophie Howarth from her time as a curator at the Tate Modern in London, but my impression then was positive. Her brand new book (it only came out a few days ago) is about slowing down as a means of enjoying photographing more. It's said to contain a curated collection of photographs along with anecdotes and explanation.

The book link is your portal to Amazon from TOP, should you wish to support this site.

Here's our link to 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.)
Featured Comments from:

Peter Komar: "I am not trying to spend your money but get that darn phone. I have the 12 Pro and for me it has brought back the joy of photography. I have mentioned this before but it is very easy to shoot IR with just a filter and shoot in night mode. The ease of use and editing on the phone adds huge bonus points."

Albert Erickson: "Mike, I haven't commented in awhile since I have been away, but I saw that you were looking at the iPhone 13 pro and will tell you it is truly an amazing piece of photo equipment. I used to say I would never use my phone for serious photography, but I have changed. I now use my phone much more than a real camera. Further, I can print nicely small 5x7 or 8.5 x11 prints from the 12 MP built into the phone. Just an observation. I think you would find the phone very useful from a photographic standpoint. All the best, Eric."

Joseph: "I'm overdue for a new iPhone too, but I can't bring myself to do it this late in the cycle. The new ones will likely be here in September. Especially when you skip several generations, iPhone camera improvement is really quite remarkable. I still use an OM-D E-M5 from 2012, but an iPhone 5 from that same era? No thanks."

Chris A Beloin: "Turns out that 92% of Apple products are made in China, and our trade relationship with them is very much in question with recent events. Better get that iPhone now in case it takes a couple of years for Apple to resource manufacturing to another location, should that supply chain get sanctions, etc."

Gavin Paterson: "I bought an iPhone 13 six months ago; it’s a revelation! I have Nikon, Fuji, Canon, Sony digital systems, as well as Nikon, Olympus, Leica, Ricoh and Voigtlander film equipment, but most of the time have just the iPhone in my pocket, so now (at last! says my wife), will cull what I have to be subject-specific, such as telephoto for wildlife, and enjoy a simpler life courtesy of Apple!"

V.I. Voltz: "You should see the parallax when the 13 Pro Max can't decide if something is macro or not and starts jumping between the 28mm-e lens and the 13mm-e lens. Hope you don't have a latent Brian malfunction. [I love that typo so I left it in. —Ed.] But, I must say, it's about the only flaw I can find with the camera, within its basic limitations."

Rich: "I went from an iPhone 6 to a 13 Pro and I can confirm that the cameras are amazing, considering their size. I use it a lot as a feed for Instagram and visual note-taking. Also only have to charge it every couple of days, although I don’t make a lot of calls, so YMMV."

Hugh: "Hmmm...you feel you need to change cameras frequently because of your job as a photography commentator? The most important photographic instrument of today is the phone—iPhone or Samsung—yet you are on a six year old iPhone? That's a bit like still shooting with a Canon 50D in DSLR terms.  :-)  There was a big jump in picture quality with the Samsung S10 (2019), and probably with the iPhone around that date. In this country one can get an immaculate refurbished S10 for £200 and a sim only contract."