The Online Photographer

Stories of the Resurrection

Wishing the Christians amongst ye well on this holiest of Christian holidays.

When I was a small child, the folk traditions of Easter thoroughly stumped me. Even at age five I was aware that bunnies don't lay eggs, and the idea of decorating food only to destroy the artwork a day later seemed wrong somehow; and the hunt for hidden eggs didn't seem to have a payoff, to a kid with a sweet tooth, because once you've eaten a hard-boiled egg or two, that's enough of that. None of it made sense to me. I liked Halloween and loved Christmas, but Easter was puzzling.

From there it was almost a relief to discover, later on, the Biblical and religious significance of today. 

If you're a reader of the Bible, the stories of the resurrection can be found at Matthew 28:1–20; Mark 16:1–20; Luke 24:1–49; and John 20:1–21:25. (All available online. Here's an article I thought was interesting about a new translation. A postmodern Bible?)

Happy Easter, if you celebrate it! And if you don't, have a nice day anyway.

Mike

A TOP World Exclusive

What are the qualifications for trustworthiness in a photograph? Here's something you haven't seen anywhere else.

Mike

Book o' this Week:
Sugar is the silent nutritional crisis that is hiding in plain sight. The best book about it might be the prescient 1972 classic Pure, White and Deadly by the British scientist John Yudkin. Recommended. <—This is a portal to Amazon; also available at the Book Depository for global delivery with free shipping.

Original contents copyright 2021 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.

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Slick, Cool, and Pretty

Well, my main computer is dead in the water as of yesterday...won't boot up. This is, if porous memory serves, the second time I've experienced this with a Mac in the past 37 years.

The very first Macintosh I used was the very first Macintosh...the original 128k Mac of 1984, which I used in art school. A gallerist named David Adamson was convinced that computers would play a significant role in the art of the future, so he bought six Macs, donated them to the Corcoran School, and then donated several hours of his time every week to teach a couple of courses. I was the only student who used MacWrite rather than MacPaint.  :-)  Those were the only two programs for the new computer at the time it came out, I think.

The first computer I owned—a graduation present from Mom—was the second Macintosh, the 512k "Fat Mac" of 1985. Since then I've owned another 15 or 16 Macs, for an average of about one every two years. That counts three that belonged to employers rather than to me. I think the only other time I had a failure to boot was, ironically, with the most trouble-free Mac I ever used, the Quadra 605 of 1993, provided to me by an employer. One day it failed to start. Dead. Nothing was broken or amiss; it turned out that there was a little battery on the motherboard that was used to kickstart the monitor, and it was depleted. A new battery was inserted and all was good again. 

I've liked every Mac I've owned except the Mac Classic, which was basically outdated when it was introduced, and a fractious, clunky desktop model from Apple's nadir, the John Scully years. My favorites were the Quadra 605, an early Powerbook called the 160, and my first 27" iMac. One of the worst problems I ever had was with the original Bondi Blue iMac, Steve Jobs' initial product on his triumphal return to Apple, which I also owned. A CD got stuck in the CD bay, and of course the entire computer was hermetically sealed with no user access. After days of hassle I basically broke into the box and pulled the offending CD out by force, using about the same level of sophistication that a burglar uses getting into an unoccupied house. Except I made more noise.

It annoyed me that it was a problem that didn't have to happen at all—most CD drives had drawers at the time. Jobs apparently liked the self-loading slot because it was more elegant. Harbinger of the future, as it turned out—Apple now has a long history of making things less functional so they can be slick, cool, or pretty. Bah, humbug, is my official position...and yet I kinda like the styleyness of Apple stuff too. My favorite Apple device of all is the iPad, which is also the least necessary computer-related thing I've ever owned.

The bad thing about living at TOP Rural Headquarters is: everything's a drive, and anything specialized is a long drive. So I'm in for two and a half hours in the car later this afternoon to drive the computer (a Mac Mini) to the Apple store. If they can't fix it, I have an appointment at a Mac specialist in Rochester for Monday.

I'm writing this on my second Mac, a 21.5" iMac I keep upstairs that I use for Zoom meetings. This one is the opposite of the downstairs one—stripped down and leaned out about as far as possible. The downstairs computer carries the freight of decades of crap carried over from the last Mac to the next Mac, and it's an impressive amount of clutter. If it were a house and everything on it were a physical object, I'd be on "Hoarders."

My next Apple purchase will probably be a phone. Do you think, when the iPhone 13 comes out, that I can justify upgrading from the iPhone 7 Plus? The latter is not even very old, but they say the cameras are better on the newer ones....

I imagine my next Mac will be the M1 version of this, with the best screen I can get. The 21.5" iMac is really all I need in a desktop, if I'm honest. It's not fancy and not advanced, but it's the perfect embodiment of the Apple ethos which has been a part of my life for so long. 

Mike

Gear o' The Week:

I'm going to get a review unit of the Fuji GFX 50R as soon as the weather gets nice. Believe it or not what really appeals to me about it are the simplified controls. It has all the features I like and not many I don't like.

The above link is a portal to take you from TOP to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Here's a handy portal to B&H Photo, which also sells the GFX 50R:

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
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Dan Khong: "Mike, Macs are like family in your life. The next one deserves to be named Mac Johnston. Just sayin'."

Timothy Auger: "Moving from an iPhone 6s to a 12 Mini, I would say the new camera does astonishing things for its size, and amazing things in the dark. Massive step forward. But are the files as good as (say) my 12-MP Fuji X30? In terms of pure resolution, they're better. But otherwise, on close inspection, not. Noise reduction and sharpening applied with a spade. Depends what you want it for. Terrific for casual use, or smallish display or print sizes. Worth getting? Yes."

Stephen Scharf: "The new cameras on the new iPhones are pretty impressive. Check this out; an interior real estate ambient light grab shot taken with my iPhone 12 Mini. A beautiful Oakland hills mansion taken Tuesday evening while walking by the living room to the back terrace to shoot twilights for the listing agent. Single frame, single exposure JPEG with some small tweaks in PS.

"And...the sensor on the iPhone 12 Pro Max is larger."

rob l: A leap from 7 to 13 will be a very nice jump - not only to you get a much improved camera, faster everything, and a better screen, the form factor hopefully will be similar to the 12's return to the iPhone 5 ethos, with makes camera use easier with a defined side to the phone.

"Trayless CD players rock—the offense was not exposing the manual eject hole to the world, which used a familiar paper clip a la the old floppy drives to pop out the offending media. But the trays we frequently broken by students and other careless folks, so there was more than simple aesthetics driving that change."

Oskar Ojala: "When the iPhone 11 came out, I upgraded from the 7 plus to the 11 Pro Max. In theory the cameras are supposed to be better. In practice the Apple camera software does such heavy-handed processing that my images look garish; there's too much sharpening and local contrast and images tend to be a bit dark. The magic is gone. I Googled and other people have encountered this problem, but there's no way to fix it. So I'm resigned to using a third party program to shoot raw, but it takes away the convenience and I don't bother so much anymore. In other words, if your 7 plus works, don't fix it! Save the money for something else."

Ben Rosengart replies to Oskar: "With regard to shooting raw on iPhone, I believe some of the newer phones support it in the first-party Camera app. Yeah, here we go. Full disclosure: I work for Apple.

BWJones: "You will love the new iPhone from the camera perspective alone. The computational work that is going into creating routine images makes me surprised that the traditional camera companies have not been engaging in this same sort of thing."

Drenched with Light

It's getting lighter. (...In the Northern hemisphere.)

Observed: tonight there was still a little light left in the sky at 6:10 p.m. I love it.

Sunset in nearby Rochester was at 5:39 tonight, versus the earliest sunset time, which was 4:35 on December 2nd through 14th. And, there are only 29 more days to go until Daylight Savings Time, when sunset will be an hour later. (I actually favor abolishing DST, but, as long as it's a fact of life, I do enjoy the Springtime shift. I was up before sunrise this morning, but I'm more likely to enjoy the added daylight at the tail end of the day.)

It makes me laugh now, but I distinctly remember that I was in my twenties before I was fully conscious of the fact that there's less daylight in the Wintertime. As young people we all seem to neglect to bring our attention to bear on sundry common and/or obvious facts; it's just that those facts which escape our attention are different for each of us. The most common are probably words—most people saunter into adulthood with a number of misconstrued words still in their heads. As life goes on we sort those things out: the average 60-year-old knows four times as much as the average 20-year-old.

Or, perhaps I should only say that I probably know four times as much now as I did when I was twenty. The difference is that I thought I knew more than I actually did when I was twenty, and now I'm much more conscious of all the things I don't know.

These days, I'm exquisitely sensitive to light. It changes my mood. My house is small, which gives it a lot of surface area, which means plenty of windows, and so the interior transforms on sunny days. I treasure those long Summer days that are drenched in light. Looking forward to them feels more and more like hope. The ebb and flow of the longer and shorter days as each year progresses looms larger and larger for me as time goes by.

Sometimes I wonder: is it photography I love, or merely light?

Mike

Book o' This Week:

In honor of Black History Month, an eloquent Black voice on the issue of race. Pulitzer-prizewinner Isabel Wilkerson's much-lauded book Caste: The origins of our discontents is a book for our historical moment.

The above link takes you from TOP to Amazon. Here's the book at Amazon Canada. "As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases."

Original contents copyright 2021 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.

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Albert Smith: "Re '...As life goes on we sort those things out: the average 60-year-old knows four times as much as the average 20-year-old....' I think many twenty-somethings know technology at a level that smokes me in my mid-60s. I've never streamed anything, never heard a podcast or used 10 percent of the capability of my phone.

"You are correct, though, if we are talking about the natural world. While in the military, I was a mid-level leader of a group that deployed to the Saudi desert for the first Gulf War. We arrived in total darkness after 20 hours on a plane. After a few hours, the sun started to crest the horizon, so I said, 'well, that's the East.' One of the young teenaged troops ask how I could know that, to which I replied, 'the sun comes up in the East.' He looked at me like I was crazy saying, 'only in the States, not in other countries!' That kid could no doubt do anything on a computer, but he didn't know the earth rotates in one direction."

Mike replies: Perfect example of what I was talking about. And funny, too! Thanks, Albert.

RubyT: "I have similar reactions to light. We recently moved from Tennessee to Colorado partly because Tennessee is so cloudy and the older I get the more I miss the sunshine of growing up in the west (but Austin, where I grew up, is just too hot).

"As a child I always loved looking at pictures of jewelry and gems. I was in my forties before I put together that jewelry and photography are both really about appreciating the interaction of light and objects."

Mike replies: You would get on well with my brother Dr. Charlie. He taught himself to facet gemstones when he was 14, and has been an amateur gemologist all his life. He talked his way into spending half his senior year in high school working at the Gemology Department at the Smithsonian. He trained himself to be a pretty fair gem photographer, too.

Cary Talbot: "Honestly, I don't know how you can love photography and not love light. Seeing some awesome light hitting a subject or scene is what makes me want to get a camera out and know how to capture that moment so it can be relived and shared. It's always all about the light for me. Even the most incredible vista is simply meh in flat, uninteresting light."

Douglas Orr: "Back in August 2017, I wrote this about light: As a photographer, I have always appreciated good light. But exposure to a copious amount of light is also soothing to the soul. When we are outdoors, communing with our natural surroundings, I am not certain that out of all the ways our senses are being stimulated, that we fully understand how important exposure to sunlight is to our joyful mood. I have been more keenly made aware of this effect after the addition of a sunroom to our homestead. Our new glass-walled room overlooks a treed lot, a northern sky, and the adjacent deck is populated with four bird feeders and potted plants. Spending time daily in this sunlit room allows for me to more acutely observe the dancing nuances of nature's subtle light progressions, the wildlife activity, and seems to elevate my spirit."

Recent News

I'm not feeling great today. I'm a bit under the weather.

Wanted to point out a few things of possible interest and possible concern to you, in passing:

Home studio crash crisis: I don't know Benoit Paillé except as a photographer. I featured a picture of his as a "Random Excellence" after encountering it in The New Yorker and I've seen quite a bit of his work since then, mainly on Instagram (not all of which is entirely work safe), and I admire it a lot—it's distinctive and inventive. I don't know what kind of person he is, although it seems clear he's a mix of free spirit and eccentric. And possibly other things.

Benoit lost his home, his workspace, and his wheels all at the same time. Triple whammy.

The news is, Benoit has suffered a personal difficulty that has left him in a bad fix—he had a serious accident in the camper/truck he built for himself in 2019, the one he travels around in and lives in as he photographs. The truck was destroyed. If you'd like to extend a helping hand, someone named Jacob Pomerleau has organized a Go Fund Me for Benoit to help him get back on his feet.

Cool it, the parents are home: As of yesterday the USA is again being run by grownups. You might not expect this from me, but one thing I'll say is that the Democrats had better go out and listen hard to a lot of Trump voters. Yes, the latter have been misled (now there's the understatement of the century); yes, they have come down on the wrong side (the side of the 1%, although you wonder at what point during the storming and trashing of America's Capitol that some of the perpetrators might have thought: wait, are we the bad guys here?); and yes, they are deeply confused about a lot of things (they think liberals are "leftists," to name one absurdity*). But they are people too, their distress is real, and they have valid concerns. Black people have realized for a long time that society and capitalism, never mind the police, aren't generally working in their favor. And now a lot of white people of the type who were prosperous and felt like fully vested citizens fifty years ago are experiencing exactly the same thing. Wealth inequality and corporate monopoly have gotten way, way out of hand in this country, and business-as-usual and politics-as-usual just aren't cutting it for a lot of people. Namely the bottom 70% of the population. The Dems have been complicit in that too.

Inequality and the radical steps being taken to promote and protect it is the real driver of the divisiveness in America. You just can't arrange everything to be ever-more-heavily rigged in favor of people who already own too much of the wealth and are granted too much favoritism, and expect a one-person-one-vote democracy to go along. We desperately need some changes in the way the spoils are divvied up.

The Curious Society: Ken Jarecke is attempting to start up a new photography magazine! This feels a little like, er, an impossible project: you might as well announce that you're planning to build corded land-line telephones.

But I'm in. I've always had this idea that something like LIFE magazine should be subsidized for the sake of shared culture. Seems far-fetched to imagine this new idea will be quite that, but there's always a place for a little touch of the best of the old in amongst all the new. I'll be watching with interest and wishing them well.

There's an interview with Ken at PetaPixel.

New Fuji: In only six days, according to Fuji Rumors, Fuji will be announcing a slew of new and updated products. The press announcements are expected on the 27th. Fujistas, keep an eye peeled. I'll be watching.

Mike

*If you want to hear one very mildly left-wing idea: I don't support a minimum wage of $15 per hour. I support a minimum wage of $600 per week. Think about it.

Book o' This Week:

Peter Lindbergh On Fashion Photography, with text in English, French, and German. Original coffee table version or small 40th Anniversary version, take your pick. Both are hardcovers. The links above will magically transport you to Amazon.

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

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
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AlexV: "Re the similarities between Trump supporters and African-Americans, in 2016 or so, SNL had a skit featuring an airing of an African-American version of 'Jeopardy' on which a white MAGA-type (Tom Hanks) comes on to play. As it turns out, he shares a number of concerns with the other players, and thus he answers a number of questions correctly. In the end, however, a question on racial identity breaks the sense of sharing."

Mike replies: One of my favorite SNL skits of all. I've watched it at least six times. Brilliant writing and acting, just bang on. When Keenan says, "Wooo, you all right Doug!" it cracks me up every time.

Robert Roaldi: "FYI, the Canadian photography magazine Photo Life is shutting down in February."

DavidB: "I subscribe to a photography magazine (Arizona Highways) and have several corded, landline telephones (original Western Electric, no less). Maybe I am the target audience!"

Lenya: "Isn't Lenswork going well despite Maureen Gallagher passing, or should we also be concerned about it? I would happily subscribe to another magazine of a similar kind, even though I do not have a corded phone. Unfortunately, I guess, this undertaking is going to the opposite of Lenswork, judging by a very superficial glimpse at the interview. Imagine a world in which Lenswork would be a bi-weekly arrival to your mailbox. Would that not be marvelous?"

Open Mike: Martin Luther King (OT)

The only meeting between Martin Luther King Jr.
and Malcolm X was incidental and brief.
Photo by Marion S. Trikosko.

I'm sorry to let MLK Day go by on Monday without comment. Especially since Dr. King himself said, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends."* Given the events of 2020 this is not a time for silence.

I tried to find a picture I could use and kept coming up short, and then I found a picture of the funeral that arrested my attention, but I got dead-ended trying to research it. One rabbit hole after another. It happens sometimes.

You can see that picture at the top of this page—click it to enlarge and study it. I'm sure many of you have seen it before; I'm reasonably certain I saw it before, many years ago. I looked at it in thoughtful contemplation for a long time. I recognize shamefully few people in it, but Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young are walking just behind and to the left of the coffin. Is that Ralph Abernathy at the front of the picture? And is that a young John Lewis in the glasses to the left of the wagon?

If you know who took it, or a guide to who's who, let me know. I couldn't find either. I must be losing my touch. Either that, or the Internet is letting me down.

I also couldn't find a short interview I recall from many years ago—Jesse Jackson on "The Tonight Show" (I think it was) giving a brief capsule history of black people in America. Very moving. One of the great American stories. But I found this clip of Rev. Jackson giving one of many interviews about the assassination (Rev. Jackson stood right next to Dr. King when he was shot). He says, "he was very much in touch with life and death, but he was not a man afraid to die—or afraid to live."

At the link for the picture, scroll down and read the section entitled "The 'Mountaintop Speech'" if you don't know that story. A good short synopsis.

Assassins of the good are among the lowest forms of the human animal, IMO, craven, cowardly, hateful, vile.

Mike

*Another rabbit hole. I can't find the citation; it's not on Quote Investigator. It sounds like his cadence and style, so I'm going with it, but it doesn't matter how many times it's repeated on the Internet, quotations need citations.

UPDATE: Ronny A Nilsen and Lee say that this quote comes from a series of lectures broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in November and December of 1967, published first under the title of Conscience for Change and later as The Trumpet of Conscience.

The picture in this post is in the public domain.

Book o' This Week:

Peter Lindbergh On Fashion Photography, with text in English, French, and German. Original coffee table version or small 40th Anniversary version, take your pick. Both are hardcovers. The links above take you to Amazon.

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

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
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What Was Under Your Tree?

So what'd ya get for Christmas? Or Hanukkah or the holiday you celebrated? Anything photo-related you're chuffed* about?

(I got myself a pool shed. Although not fundamentally photo-related, it's scheduled to be transformed into an exhibition space next Summer, or possibly the Summer of '22 if funds don't allow it this year. I think it counts.)

Mike

*Speaking English now. The word translates into American as "very pleased."

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.

Book of interest this week:

Picture This: How Pictures Work, By Molly Bang
(clicking on the link above takes you to Amazon from TOP)

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Happy New Year!

I'll be back with a new post tomorrow. Wanted to wish you well today.

Regarding 2020, two jokes I liked: one, on a billboard: "2020 needs to pull over and just let me out...I'll walk."

And a meme from the Internet: "I can't believe I'm smoking weed at a family gathering and the illegal thing is the family gathering."

My thoughts are with all those who lost loved ones to COVID-19 in 2020. (I notice that Dawn Wells, "Mary Ann" from the old sitcom Gilligan's Island, succumbed to the virus two days ago. With the exception of The Wizard of Oz, Gilligan's Island was the first TV show I ever watched with live actors in it. I remember clearly where I was. I was so struck by their predicament being marooned on an island that I failed to notice at first that it was a comedy and not real (in my defense: I was six). Previous to that I had mostly watched cartoons, and the live shows I had seen on television were serious: Walter Cronkite, the funeral of President Kennedy, and astronaut John Glenn orbiting the Earth.)

Regarding 2021, may this be the dawn of a new day. I was up this morning in the dark, and watched the moon setting as the dawn arrived. I hope the New Year will be better for you, for me, and for us all.

More mañana.

Mike
(Thanks to Stan B.)

Original contents copyright 2021 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.

Book of interest this week:

The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St Clair
(clicking on the links above takes you to Amazon)

From The Book Depository (free shipping worldwide)

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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Viggo Johansen, Joyful Christmas, 1891

Many of us will be more isolated than usual this year, and some who aren't might be taking greater risks than they would like. For me it will be a quiet Christmas spent alone, wishing I could be with family and friends. I hope to have a peaceful and contemplative day that includes prayer and meditation. I have a nice meal planned.

I sympathize with others who are alone but hey, it's not the worst thing in the world. This too shall pass. We can get through it.

This year has been a trying and tragic one. Still, we just passed the Winter Solstice, and from now on the light lasts longer. My prayer is that 2021 will be a brighter year, for my country and its people and for all people around the world. We all hope we will make headway against this capricious and erratic virus and that it will begin to die out. In the meantime, we each do our part.

I thought Viggo Johansen's picture might remind us that Christmas can be a celebration of light in the darkness of Winter. Fight back! Stand in the light, whether actual or metaphorical.

A Christmas Carol, which I'm re-reading now, is at root the story of a spiritual awakening. Groundhog Day, which I'll re-watch on my break, suggests that accommodating to the knottiness of existence is a repetitive task. Both are light entertainments, but their positivity is a little more than empty treacle and cheer. I think I'll also try to find a bluegrass Christmas album, on account of you can't be in a bad mood while listening to bluegrass.

I'll be taking a week off. I'm not planning to do anything. I'm just going to rest and take it easy for a few days, and get lots of sleep.

Meanwhile, I wish you a Merry Christmas and good health. May you walk through these days with a light heart and an easy step.

Back real soon,

—Mike, Head Writer and kitchen help of T.O.P.

Random Excellence: John and Yoko by Lilo Raymond

John Lennon was shot and killed by a deranged fan outside the Dakota, where he lived with his wife Yoko Ono, 40 years ago today. He was 40 when he died.

This picture, taken not long before John was murdered, is by Lilo Raymond, a photographer whose easy-going, gentle pictures I've always liked. It was featured in the book Yoko published after John's death called John Lennon Summer 1980, credited to "Yoko Ono with Eight Photographers." Of the eight, Lilo was the only woman. You can read what she has to say of the experience in the book if you go to this link and click on the relevant thumbnail (left, middle). She had a way with high-key light; many of her pictures seemed to be of light. Posters of her work were very popular. I remember a book of hers called Revealing Light but I haven't seen it now in many years. Lilo died in 2009.

The best book I've read about John Lennon's work is Revolution in the Head by the music critic Ian MacDonald. Ignore the Kindle preview, which contains only supporting matter and nothing from the heart of the book, which consists of appreciative and informative mini-essays on every Beatles song in chronological order.

Mike

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.

Thanks to all our Patreon contributors!

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

Marcelo Guarini, We miss you John

Marcelo Guarini: "A minimalist homage to the great musician John Lennon in the 40th anniversary of his absurd, tragic death.

"I tried to convey his iconic image with round dark glasses using as few elements as possible, here two tubes from paper towel rolls, a bent piece of cardboard and some post-crop vignetting. A small but heartfelt tribute to his life and music."

Benjamin Marks: "A wonderful image, and one that I had not seen before. I was in high school when John Lennon was shot and I remember the news ripping through the corridors. By 1980 the Beatles' music wasn't culturally front-and-center; in fact, it was the comfortable music of many of our childhoods, played on records that became nicked and scratched until the skips in the albums became—in our heads—parts of the songs. But he was the first public figure I 'lost' and in a manner so randomly stupid and vicious, particularly considering what he had given the world."

Cyber Monday Deals, a Computer, and the Two Cameras I Covet Most

SONY LENSES on sale

NIKON CAMERAS and LENSES on sale

FUJIFILM CAMERAS and LENSES on sale

CANON CAMERAS and LENSES on sale

Superpowerful superlight: For Apple fans, the MacBook Air with the new integrated M1 chip might not be the best computer, but it's got to have a shot at being the best-yet travel laptop. 0.63 inch thick (1.6 cm) and 2.8 pounds (1.3 kg), with specs that would have sounded implausible to a science fiction writer twenty years ago. All for less than that Sony/Zeiss 24mm ƒ/1.8 lens I like so much (the price on that is never going to come down into the realm of reason).

You can get a hundred bucks off if you preorder the MacBook Pro M1 today too.

[WARNING! Somewhat NSFW illustration past the break]

 

Happy Gratitude Day

Happy Thanksgiving! It's celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the USA (Brazil too), and that's today.

This month marked the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Separatists (later called pilgrims) to New England. I didn't see any fuss at all being made over the occasion. Possibly because we were all too busy fighting over the elections? Or, it may be because European hegemony is beginning to feel uncomfortable as an object of veneration. The real significance of the Pilgrims, however, may just be that they were a key group in a diaspora. When a small group of emigrants settles in a new area, the area tends to become populated disproportionately with their descendants. Estimates of the number of present-day Americans who are descended from that tiny band of 102 pilgrims, half of whom perished that first terrible Winter (they set out on their journey, after a number of setbacks and delays, tragically late in the season), range from five to 15 million; and estimates of the number of their descendants worldwide run as high as 35 million.

I wanted to talk briefly about gratitude today, since this is the day of Thanks. I'll be thinking of better Thanksgivings today, but also feeling grateful. I've been working for the past two years or so on being happier...I'd like to feel more content from day to day, and learn to travel through my days with an easier step and a lighter heart. It has worked beyond my wildest dreams. It's not like I'm working at it very hard or very consistently; but even a little effort appears to be enough to see results. "We found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him," wrote Bill Wilson, and that's been true for me.

Gratitude is absolutely a key component in a practical spiritual toolkit. For one thing, it's the antidote to self-pity. The two are incompatible feelings; you can't be grateful and self-pitying at the same time—the two won't arise together and seldom co-exist. Since self-pity is one of the main causes of our unhappiness and discontent—one of the main pathways by which self-will, ego and greed poison our attitudes—knowing of an antidote is powerful. Whenever I'm feeling sorry for myself, or put-upon because things aren't going my way; or when the idea that I'm the one who knows best is festering in my mind; or I'm feeling dismissive or intolerant of others (because this is one of the guises self-pity and self-will often takes), or I'm just feeling grouchy because nothing ever goes my way—I counter it with gratitude. I turn my thoughts around to everything I have to be grateful for, try to put that negative attitude into its proper perspective. Is what's happening to me so bad? When I think of others who really have problems, much worse than mine, and feel compassion for them—immediately, it right-sizes my own complaints, making them diminish like an ice cube in a bowl of hot water. Instead of counting your complaints, which is our natural human tendency, try counting your blessings instead. It works. We can actually make self-pity evaporate using this mental trick. It pays immediate dividends, instantly improving our mood, attitude, and outlook.

If you want to be hard-headedly practical about it, you can work on gratitude in concrete ways. Try this: before the end of the day today, take a pen in your hand and a blank sheet of paper and scribble down ten things you have to be grateful for. Don't plan out your list in your head first. Don't bother prioritizing. Include big things and little things. Don't make a big deal of it—in fact, don't bother keeping the list past an hour or two. If you have any trouble getting going, start with the basics: my list often starts with I'm alive; I'm sober; I'm not sick; I have a roof over my head / a warm place to sleep; I'm not hungry and so on. Start there and you won't be able to stop at just ten. If your experience is like mine, one or two of the things that pop into your mind unbidden will surprise you.

I have friends who write (actually write, rather than just think about writing) gratitude lists every day. I know three people who take turns texting each other three things they're grateful for first thing every morning. They find it gets their days off on a good footing—it's like getting to the starting line of a good attitude for that day.

When using gratitude as an antidote, the first step is learning to recognize self-pity when it rears its ugly head. It doesn't take much. You get the knack quickly and it gets extremely easy. Once recognized, disinfect it by shining a little gratitude on it. Watch it wither. If you have to struggle with it, so be it—it will still work in the end. But you might also find the process can become so automatic it sometimes takes literally seconds. See if it doesn't improve your mindset and your outlook, and help you get through a day or an hour with an easier step and a lighter heart.

Because, of course, if we're being forthright and practical, every day can be Thanksgiving!

At any rate I hope you have a good day today.

Wishing you and yours the best, on this fine and generous little holiday.

Mike

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:

Johan Malan: "Good evening Mike. Hope you had a very blessed Thanksgiving. About the origin—Heather Cox has a daily newsletter, and she covered the history in it today. Happy reading!"

John Arlington: "An excellent post. But with regard to the first featured comment, our day of national Thanksgiving did not originate at the time of the Civil War. President George Washington issued a proclamation on Oct. 3, 1789, declaring for 'the People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving' to be held on 'Thursday the 26th day of November,' 1789. Coincidentally, so it was this year, as well."

Gert: "Mike, What a good post. I thank you for it. I put it in my toolkit for life and Life! (If you get my meaning.) Graceful Thanksgiving to you!"

CR: "I would add that this shouldn't come at the cost of ignoring your problems. Just because others 'really have problems' doesn't mean you don't 'really' either. This is especially the case with mental health. If you're depressed, get help; just trying to convince yourself you're fine because others might have it worse, e.g. psychosis, personality disorders, etc., won't help, and you might actually get worse to the point where you do have those problems too."

Doug Vaughn: "Thank you for this post. I think I'm naturally inclined to be a pessimist and I get 'down easily' (my Mom was/is the same way). I have been trying to be more grateful, and it does certainly help to remind myself how lucky we are in so many ways."

The Nikon F, 1959-2020

The Nikon F has died at age 61, after six iterations.

Some time within the last few days Nikon Japan added the 旧製品 ("old product") tag to the webpage for the F6—while the Nikon Direct store in Japan now shows 販売終了 and Yodobashi Camera shows 販売を終了しました, which are just shorter and longer ways of saying "sales have ended."

The F series, Nikon's flagship professional 35mm film SLRs, lived from April of 1959—the company's first SLR—to now, November of 2020. But, like Kodachrome, it endured far past the time it could have. Nikon managed to keep it in the catalog well into the digital age.

The F6 was not, of course, a relevant product for Nikon at the end or anywhere near it. However, many photographers still living will have memories of F's past.

I personally owned a F4s, bought new. Although I was very camera-proud of the purchase for a while, for actual use on the job I eventually went back to using a pair of N8008's (called F-801 in Europe).

The F6, last of the F-series, has now been
labeled 旧製品, "old product"

One of my memories of the F4 didn't concern the one I owned. I walked into Pro Photo in Washington, D.C., where all the professional photojournalists had their repair work done, and saw two F4s's, painted tan, on the repair table (the techs worked out in plain sight of the walk-on traffic at Pro Photo). Both cameras looked horribly beat up. Partly, I suppose, because the paint wasn't a very durable surface. But that wasn't all. Based on appearance they could have been ten years old. As I was talking to the owner, Dick, I learned that both cameras had been brand new only six months earlier! Pro Photo had painted them in desert camouflage for the Gulf War when they came out of their boxes. Sorry that I don't remember their owner's name any more—or it's possible Dick didn't tell me. He was by nature taciturn, but also, most likely, discreet.

I also owned a collector-grade F2 bought long after its era. I never took a single picture with that one, but it was beautifully built.

Anyway, the Nikon F is dead. Long live the Nikon Z!

Mike
(Thanks to Oren Grad)

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Sal Santamaura: "Procrastination doesn't pay. I waited until August 25 to place my order for an F6 with B&H, hoping to secure one of the four units they've received roughly twice each year for quite a few years. Now I'm waiting for the B&H email advising my order is cancelled. Or, if uncharacteristically optimistic, delivery of an F6 from the last batch Nikon ships to dealers with open orders that were placed before the discontinuation. Fingers, crossed, but not holding breath."

UPDATE from Sal, Wednesday Nov. 11th: "It's time for an update to my featured comment. This morning I received an email message from B&H notifying me that the F6 ordered in August was just shipped and will arrive here in two days. Friday the 13th will be my lucky day!"

Mike replies: That's pretty cool, to know you got one of the last ones.

Mark Sampson: "I disagree that the Nikon F is dead. As long as 35mm film is still made, some of those cameras will be in use after anyone reading this post today has passed on. Rather like the Douglas DC-3, of which nearly 200 are still operational, 85 years after the type's introduction. (It was said for many years that 'the replacement for the DC-3 is... another DC-3.')"

Speed: "Wikipedia tells us that the Nikon F was introduced in April of 1959 priced at $186 with a 5 cm ƒ/2 lens. An online inflation calculator figures that would be $1,664 in 2020. Wikipedia again: The Nikon F was succeeded in 1972 by the Nikon F2 series after a production total of 862,600 bodies. The Nikon Z that Mike mentions sells for a few dollars under $3,000 without a lens—but the 'film' is free. An interesting comparison would be the new Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max which is priced from $1,100 to $1,400. A completely different way to make terrific photographs and Apple will sell a ton of them. Statista tells us that Apple sold more than 200 million iPhones per year between 2015 and 2018. And more than a few went to serious photographers."

Michael W Purcell: "Still occassionally shooting with my Nikon F from PJ days in the later '60s. Damn thing just won't quit."

Photo by Lynn Burdekin (larger size on Flickr)

Lynn: "I used the Nikon FM and FE for quite a few decades until moving to a Canon 5D soon after it came out. Loved the 5D. Then one day in 2015 I was browsing in an op shop (charity store I think you call them) and I asked if they had any cameras. Usually they keep them on display but there were none in sight. The staff member mentioned they had some in a box out the back and would I like a look. A few minutes later he returned with a large cardboard box filled with old cameras most of which you wouldn't look twice at. Then I noticed an old tan leather never-ready case with Nikon F embossed on the front. Inside was a plain prism F in chrome with the original 5cm ƒ/2 lens. It was dusty and the mirror was hanging up but on a hunch I bought it. It wasn't until I got it home that I noticed the serial number: 6407XXX, which I believe makes it a late 1959 model. A CLA later it looked like new, a thing of beauty.

"The F6 looks a great camera, but I'll stick with the metal, mechanical F. There's something magic about history."

Helcio J. Tagliotto: "Nikon F can also save your life!"

Mike replies: I enjoyed that.

Quote o' the Day: Kate Sweeny

"Unfortunately," said Kate Sweeny, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, "studies show that anticipatory dread only increases as waiting drags on. Quite a lot of research suggests that the worst is yet to come as far as anxiety." (Professor Sweeny specializes in the psychology of waiting.)

—Quoted in
"How Long Is This Going to Take?
Americans Settle In to Wait"
by Sarah Lyell, The New
York Times, Nov. 3, 2020

I don't know about you, but I'm going to watch a pool match or two on YouTube and an old episode of "Da Vinci's Inquest" on Amazon Prime Video, and go to bed.

I showed Andrew yesterday's post this afternoon, and he seemed pleased. I asked him about the live-edge table now in his showroom, the one in my pictures. He created it on spec. With six matching chairs and a matching bench, It's the most expensive piece he's ever offered, at $8,000. It's for sale. The black "river" in the middle is epoxy resin, which he could only pour a quarter inch at a time! He had to stay up all night during the pour to keep adding more resin. The cherry spice rack cost $100.

By the way, I was pleased that I didn't get any comments saying the post had nothing to do with photography. Several of the photo-essays I've posted over the years have drawn comments to that effect, especially the one about my old pool table going together. I suppose I could take such comments as compliments, of a sort, because they indicate that the pictures must seem "transparent." I grew up on photo-essays of a similar sort in LIFE magazine and National Geographic. I like doing them. I wish I had an excuse to do more.

Be of good cheer, friends—

Mike

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The 13th Annual iPhone Photography Awards

Dimpy Bhalotia, Flying Boys, Varanasi, India

This is the Grand Prize winner in the recent 13th Annual iPhone Photography Awards.

I was struck by its similarity to several photographs I know, perhaps none more so than this very significant one:

That's the Hungarian photographer Martin Munkácsi's "Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika," [not] taken on a Liberian beach [see below]. It's significant not only because it was one of Munkácsi's best-known photographs (it's on the cover of one of the better books about him), but because Henri Cartier-Bresson said it was responsible for giving him direction. Here—translated, I assume—is one quote: "I suddenly understood that photography can fix eternity in a moment. It is the only photo that influenced me. There is such intensity in this image, such spontaneity, such joie de vivre, such miraculousness, that even today it still bowls me over."

(There are various quotes. He talked about the picture on numerous occasions.)

If you'd like to see the other winners in the iPhone photography contest, here's a link to veteran photography writer Olivier Laurent's article about the contest in The Washington Post, which will provide a sampling, and here's a link to the Awards website for a deeper dive. 

Mike

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Richard Parkin: "How can it be Lake Tanganyika and Liberia? I think the former is correct and the latter waaaay out, probably a thousand miles or three.  :-)  "

Mike replies: Sorry. Evidently the confusion goes way back. Munkacsi sometimes titled the picture "Liberia, 1930," and apparently he took it when he was on assignment for a magazine and was supposed to be documenting the changes in Liberia in the 20th century. But it wasn't published as part of the assignment—it first saw the light of day in a different magazine a year or so later. Apparently then he began admitting that it was taken at Lake Tanganyika.

But I shouldn't have repeated something I read hastily. My bad.

WTTW

Word to the wise: It is not too early to begin planning the holiday [Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, Festivus] cards for this year.

Every year I do the same thing: I put it off till too late because I always think it's too early until it isn't. Right now is actually the perfect time to begin planning a mailing in the single-digit days of December for Christmas, or the third week in November for Hanukkah, which begins on Dec. 10th this year.

Hop to it!

Mike

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Stephanie Luke: "You inspired me to create my card for this year today. Thanks!"

Peter Turnley's Harrowing and Beautiful New Book

Just published! Signed copies of Peter Turnley's newest book are now available for pre-order. A New York – Paris Visual Diary: The Human Face of COVID-19 is a deluxe softcover with 60 images from each of the two cities, 120 total.

The book is a testament to our shared humanity in the face of difficulty, a reflection of both trouble and hope.

You can also order the book with a limited-edition, signed, silver gelatin 8x10-inch print included. You can choose one of these three pictures:

I apologize if anyone misses the print opportunity; given the size of Peter's Facebook following these are going to go quickly.

I'll have more once I get to see the book. It's exceptionally strong work, and an exquisitely judged, finely balanced, well-paced set. There really isn't a weak picture in the book.

Ahead of time
TOP is off tomorrow, so please come back for a new essay (which I've actually written in advance for once!) mid-day Sunday.

May you have a good and restful weekend, and a safe and healthy one. If you happen to be any kind of health care worker, special gratitude to you.

Mike

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Albert Smith: "Wow, this is great. CBS Sunday Morning had a segment on this project some time back, which led me to the web to see more photos. But I'm old school (or just old) and prefer actual, tangible photos between covers that can't disappear on the whim of who ever is hosting them online. Thanks for bringing this news to us."

Random Excellence: Paul De Zan

Paul De Zan's photographs of San Francisco's dark orange sky:

It's very hard to believe that it's been eleven years since we first featured Paul De Zan's aerial photographs of San Francisco. [Here's a link to those 2009 aerial photos. —Ed.] This is a sampling of his photographs of the strange phenomenon known as the "dark orange sky," caused by a combination of wildfire smoke higher in the atmosphere and fog. "The orange hue is caused by the same process that causes the vivid colors at sunsets," says the National Weather Service. "Shorter wavelengths of light (blue) are scattered quickly, leaving only the yellow-orange-red end of the spectrum."

The unusual phenomenon didn't last:

September 10th, 2020

Same view a day later from somewhere near the same spot

Many thanks to Paul for these.

For more of the dark orange sky from above, my friend Scott Paterson of Saabnet posted a drone video on YouTube.

Mike
(Thanks to Paul and Scott)

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JoeB: "It is hard for me to believe these photos were not helped along with a 'custom' white balance to enhance the orange. A bit of underexposure and it surely is an enhanced and questionably accurate representation of reality."

Stan B. replies to JoeB: "I don't blame you for being...skeptical; but as someone who saw it, was surrounded by it, and also has their own evidence of just how apocalyptically orange those skies were—I can assure you, no manipulation was necessary! I have RAW files where the the orange hue is considerably deeper than what is displayed here...."

Nicholas Dade: "The photos aren't enhanced. I am 50 miles south of there. The orange day was dark and orange. I took photos out my window and matched the exposure to what I saw outside. My photos at 4 p.m. that day look like they were taken at dusk."

Paul De Zan: "Here's the original camera file from my favorite of the five above. I did light it up a bit, as reality wasn't quite as dark. No other changes. It was a truly extraordinary day. I'd never seen anything like it before."

Kristine Hinrichs: "I read that the Halide camera app has experienced a huge increase in downloads because it could capture this orange as it appeared—other apps auto-corrected the WB."

Marc: "I’m from the Snowy Mountains in regional Australia and feel that colour down deep. I suspect millions of Australians can after last summer. I’ve a photo from January 4th, the sky filtered into this dark, burnt shade, nighttime two hours before sunset, on the long day and all-nighter we spent waiting to defend from a predicted possible ember attack which we were fortunate to not have arrive (goggles and N95 facemask adding to the hot discomfort, getting up out of the camp chair all night to check falling black leaves for warmth, punctuated by the absurdity of turning over struggling, upended Christmas Beetles confused by the fluorescent lights shining out of the garage doors). It’s such an ugly colour to me now, and I watch your fires burning, feel deep for you while knowing I’ve got to plan and prep for it to come again, savouring briefly the blue-green-yellow of a normal spring."

VSL Lowers the Lights

I got on a call with Kirk Tuck this afternoon and before I knew it we had talked for two hours and 15 minutes...that was a surprise. Felt like 35 minutes.

Kirk is stepping away from his blog again. He's done it in the past, but unfortunately it looks like he means it this time. I understand. Although I won't be joining him.

You can read more from the horse's mouth (so to speak). It was nice of him to mention me in his "see you around."

Check out the bokeh in that second image! I love it.

And one more
Thanks for all the mentions of photo-writers from the past who we miss. Another one I miss, by the way, is Ctein. Just because he didn't have his own site doesn't mean he wasn't adding a lot to the discussion online. I think he wrote almost 350 columns for this site.

I'm happy to say I won't miss Kirk—but I can say that only because I'm pretty sure we'll keep in touch. I suspect he's just starting down a new road, and, given his amazing chops and incredible energy, I can't wait to see where it leads. Kirk Tuck is one seriously accomplished guy. He deserves all the success he has enjoyed.

Mike

P.S. If only he'd see his way clear to get that sports car he wants, so I could enjoy it vicariously!

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Rick_D: "Kirk can't not blog. This is demonstrable. And we can't have Kirk not blogging, so the weird forces comprising the internet will intervene and he'll be back, as it was written. I do not understand how anybody endures a Texas summer so understand why, come September, any Texan wants to hang it up and go do...anything else anywhere else. (I write this eyeballing a weather forecast threatening us with 111 tomorrow.) My best wishes to all involved."

Ming Thein Calls It Quits

Ming Thein, whose standout blog was the cream of the crop in the photosphere for most of its existence, is calling it a job well done and will be moving on. He announced his decision yesterday (or was it the day before? The final post doesn't seem to be dated) in a long final post accompanied by an extensive personal portfolio.

I left my own thoughts in a comment to him there.

Bygone blogs
Which now-defunct written-word photo sites do you miss? There are many that have come and gone. I still miss Rob Galbraith, and of course Michael Reichmann, although his site has marched on since his demise. Plus one more which I can't quite recall the name of right now. It'll come to me*.

Ming will be missed by a great many, no question, and we wish him very well.

Mike

*Someone once said that remembering names as you grow older is like you've hired an aged clerk who has to shuffle down to the filing cabinets in the basement to retrieve the information...he'll get back to you, but it's going to be a while. On the good side, blanking on names as you get older is normal and not a sign of incipient dementia, according to experts, so if that's been worrying you, don't let it get you down. I realized there's nothing wrong with my memory when it occurred to me that although names are slower and slower in coming, images still pop to mind immediately. If I'm trying to think of, say, Ernest Borgnine, his face pops up in a split second, but the file clerk gets back with the name after a cigarette break. My memory has always been visual.

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Paul McEvoy: "When I got into photography around 2004, photo blogs were all the rage. There were a lot of people shooting 35mm film and scanning it and posting a picture a day. It was a fun time to get into photography. Film was still very much in the mix but digital was starting to roll. I wonder what happened to the photo bloggers but I can't remember their names. Certainly the internet had an innocence about it at the time that's not around anymore."

Stan B.: "There were many good blogs circa 2005, run by many good photographers, and the names will not return no matter how long I may wait.... They created an excellent platform for discussion, connection and community; unfortunately, it was short lived. FB, vacuous vlogs and the fact that keeping an active blog going on a daily basis demands a whole lotta time, energy and commitment sealed the fate of that much-missed era."

Stephen Scharf: "My guess is that Ming is going to focus on his new, and I might add, very successful watch company, Horologer Ming. There's a lot more money in luxury watches than in commercial photography, and Horologer Ming has established itself as a premium brand right from the off, with critical acclaim from all the major watch blogs and websites. One of the smartest and most accomplished people I've encountered on 'the interwebs,' only Ming Thein could move from professional photography to designing a watch that won a Grand Prix D'Horlogerie De Geneve in 2019 with his second watch design."

John Camp: "I once saw Ernest Borgnine driving down Sunset Boulevard in his Rolls-Royce. Vanity plate: Borg-9."