The Online Photographer

The Biggest Flaw I See in Pictures*

In one way it's curious that Henri Cartier-Bresson is known for "the decisive moment," and for things like Joel Meyerowitz's description of him darting and pirouetting through crowds like a hummingbird, wielding his Leica like a hibachi chef's knife, because it downplays the amount of time he must have spent sitting around waiting.

Because as I understand it, one of his picturetaking strategies was to find a nice setting, and then wait around until something happened in it. Who knows how long he had to wait, but he was a committed, uncompromising guy, so I imagine that sometimes it must have been pretty long. A guy on a bicycle comes along a cobblestone street at the bottom of some stairs; a little girl runs up a long set of steps between some whitewashed buildings; a fat man ambles across a kids' playground; a man hops over a puddle behind a railroad station.

One PJ I know, who is a nice guy and not otherwise prone to criticizing others quietly calls modern digital-tsunami photography "camera-pointing." I think I can be just a tad more subtle, in the hope of being helpful...what I think is that too many photographers take too many photos that are just settings.

The settings need a "punctum," in Barthian terminology.

And what is punctum? A brief definition: "The book [Barthes' Camera Lucida] develops the twin concepts of studium and punctum: studium denoting the cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph, punctum denoting the wounding, personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it" (Wikipedia).

A visual example would make my point more clear:

This is a good example of a picture that is just a setting. I think it's a nice setting, but it's not quite a picture. It's empty of the needed "touching detail." To be a successful picture it needs a punctum. Two young lovers sitting cross-legged against the stone wall, heads bowed together; the hand and arm of a passerby who is disappearing beyond the left-hand side of the frame; a sheet of white paper blown on the wind against the dark stone; an airplane in the sky in the extreme upper-right-hand corner of the frame; something obtruding from a window.

It could be anything. But it needs something.

Many pictures without a particular accent (in which case we might call them "scenes") can work, but, still, most we see are just settings. I think it's the biggest flaw I see in all the photographs I look at out on the Web. Endless waves of pictures washing ashore in which the photographer has found yet another setting, but that is all.

If he had liked the "geometry" of this street corner in Albany well enough, I'm sure old Henri would have waited patiently for ten minutes or an hour for something to happen—something to create a moment, decisively.

But I'm lazy, so I snapped this exposure, settled for a setting, and moved on.

Mike

*But not yours. Please don't reflexively assume I am talking specifically about you, because I'm not!  :-)

[UPDATE Thursday: I'm seeing a lot of misconceptions in the comments, for which I always blame the OP—failure to communicate in a few cases is inevitable, but failure to communicate in many cases is usually the writer's fault. I probably shouldn't have brought up "the decisive moment" or studium/punctum and I probably shouldn't have used just one example. My problem is that I don't like to use real pictures found out on the wild Web when I need negative examples—I don't think that's fair to the people who took the pictures, to single them out and criticize them for what I see as failings.

However, rather than further overspecify my meaning—and that partly because I'm still way, way upside down on comment moderation and it's driving me crazy—I think it might work to say it more simply. What I mean is that taking a random, approximate, undemanding snap of something isn't enough, alone, to make it work as a photograph. There needs to be something in it; it needs to have something. Something that gives it a point, something that draws in the eye, something that you can connect with, something to make you pause and think, something about it that has some measure of beauty, something, anything, that helps an exposure rise above the common mass of everyday average sorta-almost-maybe exposures. Something that touches the heart or engages the brain or reflects the truth or comes together in a form that has particularity or peculiarity, or grace or order, or surrealism or oddity, or meaning, or some other uncommon quality or qualities. Something, whatever it is, to make a picture a hit, not a miss...to someone.

As the now-probably-dated** expression has it: ya feel me?

**Because by the time an expression filters down to me, it's probably not current any more.

Original contents copyright 2019 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.

Harsh reality

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Dean Zepick: "David duChemin's classes on travel photography talk about this. Just sit for an hour in a location and wait."

Mike replies: The strategy has another advantage too, which is that when you stay stationary for a while, people stop paying attention to you. Try it sometime, if you haven't—when you first appear and take up your position, you'll draw attention, but after everyone nearby has satisfied themselves that you're just standing there, you become invisible. They won't notice when you occasionally raise your camera or look down into the viewing screen.

Andrew Molitor: "I am pretty sure that most of the suggestions you have for punctum would actually be characterized as just more studium by Barthes. In fact, as best I have been able to determine, punctum means the telling, wounding detail, that only a supremely sensitive soul, to be specific, Roland Barthes, can detect.

"I cannot tell if it is that my reading habits have changed lately, or if there has in fact been a massive spike if references to Barthes in the last year or two. He keeps popping up."

Mike replies: A punctum by definition has to be specific to each individual viewer, because it's defined by the effect it has on each of us. That's why Barthes uses Barthes, because he's the only frame of reference he has access to, by definition. And I can't judge whether any of my examples might work as a punctum, because I can't see them! I don't see them because they don't exist. If I haven't see it, how can I guess how seeing it would make me feel? I'm only giving some examples of details that might have been in the frame. But maybe something else would have happened, something I can't foresee or imagine.

For me—and therefore quite possibly not for you—the first picture in this post is an excellent example of punctum. The little kid climbing out of the window is a detail that actually has the ability to continue to be startling to me even long after I've already seen the picture. I just can't quite guess what was going on here or what was running through the photographer's head, whether the girls were posing innocently or knew about the kid in the window, whether the whole thing is to be taken at face value (i.e., the girls didn't know about the kid in the window and the photographer was paying so much attention to the girls that he/she simply didn't pay any attention to the kind climbing out of the window) or it was all a deliberate put-on.

I have to say I love that picture completely.

Joseph Brunjes: "This subject is beautifully discussed by Sam Abel in his National Geographic lecture about his book, The Life of a Photograph. It used to be on iTunes U but I just found it again on YouTube."

Dennis: "I suspect this is a can of worms that probably warrants a much bigger conversation. The punctums (puncti?) you listed are mostly people with the others freezing motion of something moving through the scene. So I think that will make some readers assume that you're trying to say those are the types of things an image must have. I can think of plenty of photos that lack a decisive moment, but still include a personally touching detail. Like a tricycle left on the sidewalk in front of a house (instead of just a house). Meaningful words on a sign in front of a church or diner. Even a whimsical clash (or coincidental match) of colors. There's plenty that can be done to turn a setting into a scene."

Mike replies: Exactly so. That falls under "the perils of using only one example."

JOHN GILLOOLY: "Upon an additional reading of this post, I think it might explain a bit more. It seems that most people are able to find stadium and punctum in their own photographs—almost every one of their own photographs. In the commercial setting, this has taken a bite out of some less critical areas of the business. At most institutions, there is somebody that 'loves taking pictures' and that person is quite enthusiastic to offer their photography skills for free. While the photography may be quite bad objectively, they see both studium and punctum in their images. I think this is also why it tends to be very difficult to successfully edit your own work. It's not easy to separate your experience with the photograph enough to determine whether it objectively possesses these qualities. Or shall I say, whether others are likely to find those same qualities in the image."

David Comdico: "As a sturdy and simple heuristic, I think the setting/punctum rule elaborated here is useful. For example, when wading through the vast number of images we are inundated with it seems to me a reliable reference point.

"When faced with more sophisticated work and deeper analysis, obviously things get more complicated. For starters, take the texts associated with these ideas: Cartier-Bresson's essay in The Decisive Moment and Barthes' Camera Lucida: both have had a monumental impact on photography—nd, being subtle arguments, are (and have been) easily misread.

To give two brief examples: Cartier-Bresson warns against the simple staging of photos: 'The elements which, together, can strike sparks from a subject, are often scattered—either in terms of space or time—and bringing them together by force is "stage management," and, I feel, contrived...the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving. Sometimes you light upon the picture in seconds; it might also require hours or days. But there is no standard plan, no pattern from which to work.'

"In Camera Lucida Barthes states, 'However lightning-like it may be, the punctum has, more or less potentially, a power of expansion. This power is often metonymic.' And then goes on to associate (and expand upon) a dirt road in a Kertesz photo with that of a personal experience in Hungary and Romania. That is, the subjective nature of the punctum will tend to erase the image itself and expand beyond it through associative substitution.

"This can, obviously, go on at length (there is much more that can be said about the demonic properties of metonymy). But nevertheless the Pareto Principle still applies."

[Heuristic: "Involving or serving as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving by experimental and especially trial-and-error methods." (Merriam-Webster). Metonymy: "A figure of speech that replaces the name of a thing with the name of something else with which it is closely associated" (Literary Devices.net). For example, "suit" for "businessman." Pareto Principle: Also called the 80/20 principle, that " for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes" (Wikipedia). —Ed.

Mike's only comment to David: in my heuristics, I like simple and sturdy!  :-) ]

Hans Muus: "What a coincidence: my most recent photo, shot January 3, 2019, made me think about Roland Barthes' 'punctum' just a few days ago. At the end of a very grey and dark day suddenly a late sun shone almost horizontally from under the cloudy canopy and lit these houses with a very distinct triangular shape of light. This shape, together with the old fashioned sun screen in the dark at street level and the open dormer windows on top welcoming the sun, drew my attention. I focused and framed the picture. I didn't wait for anything else, just made a bit of haste because I couldn't see how long the sun would last. And then, with my eye glued to the viewfinder and about to press the release button, a young woman's head appeared, as it were inviting the sun much more strongly than the open windows would ever be able to do on their own. You could say it was she who pressed the button and made the photo.

"I didn't take another one, this was it. And I will never forget the feeling I got, of revelation almost, when her head appeared in the viewfinder."

Mike replies: That's a picture.

Thanks for the nice example. And since we're already talking about Cartier-Bresson, he described a similar feeling when the fat man slouched across the courtyard where the kids were playing. I wish I could find it—where he talks about it, I mean—but I can't.

Manuel (partial comment): "The 'decisive moment' is often misinterpreted as the instant something happens before the camera and must be shot immediately, or will be lost forever. While this take is true to some extent, it's a rather superficial one. As Cartier-Bresson himself explained in at least one interview I read, the decisive moment is when everything inside the viewfinder lines falls into place, thus creating a meaningful and interesting composition. You hit bull's eye when you mentioned the bicycle picture: it was when the rider moved across that particular point—between the handrails, which drive the eye to the bicycle—that the scene became a meaningful photographic composition; that was the decisive moment."

[Below is the picture we're talking about, and we're just using it as an example, not holding it up as any great paragon of perfection. Henri is a great photographer, but no photographer is a god. —Ed.]

Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Synthesizing

Synthesize, verb: combine ( number of things) into a coherent whole.

I was going to write more about this, but I see several people have already mentioned it: when deciding on my top five categories, I noticed that in a few cases I could synthesize several into one. For instance, I had "portraits," "kids," and "women" on my list of 25; so what's wrong with "portraits of women and children" as a category? Actually, there might be something wrong with it. I think I need to look at more of my portraits and pictures of women and children all together, to see if they actually do look coherent. Or to see if I could make them coherent if I wanted to and tried to. Maybe it would work as one thing. Or, if it doesn't, then which of the three is really most important to me? Could I combine two of the three? Somewhere in there, there's an answer to what I really find satisfying about those categories.

Also, I shoot a lot of landscapes even though I know I'm not primarily a landscape photographer. But I really love shooting skies and clouds, and find myself doing it a lot just for joy, even when I'm well aware I'm not making great pictures. So then I realized that most of my landscapes and seascapes/lakescapes—and virtually all of another category, sunsets—fit into "clouds and skies." Like the two pictures of mine in this post. So all those could be synthesized into one.

You get the idea.

I'll tell you what, though. As much as I like the concept of concentrating on a few categories or types of pictures in hopes of working with more direction and concentration—I really do feel like I've taken all the desultory meaningless dull dumb nothing snaps I need to for one lifetime—I think that if I'm going to studiously ignore the things that aren't my top priorities, then I really need to think very carefully about my Top Five. And get them right. For example, "women" could be a very different category than "beautiful women." (I suspect that, for me, "women" would be a lot richer and more interesting...for example, I encountered a 106-year-old woman in the doctor's waiting room the other day. I would really like to photograph her and learn a little of her story!)

I liked Jeremy's W.H. Murray quote, too. I've definitely experienced firsthand what it's like to struggle to find clarity, eventually find it, and then feel the power and energy the revelation brings. Still not quite sure how I'll get it, but I want that in my work again.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 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.

Harsh reality

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Mark: "My list ended by being about style, technique and sentiment, not about genres let alone gear. So I’m now in a bit of a quandary: which genres? And are the things I have identified as big ones for me genuinely worth it or in fact rut-like habits of approach and sentiment I’d be better off dumping in favour of 'seeing fresh'? Certainly a very beneficial exercise but no easy answers here...so far...."

Mike replies: I ended up feeling pretty much the same way. I feel like I've made progress but I'm not there yet.

Tim Auger: "As you said, you can consolidate several categories into one. In fact I found the exercise more useful after I had read your third post, so that I could devise more meaningful categories knowing what I was trying to achieve.

"But this does go against the advice you often get, that the best way to improve is to shoot, shoot and shoot some more, no matter what is in front of you. Following the Buffett principle may encourage me to be more discriminating, and go out actively to seek out suitable subjects."

Mike replies: I'd say "shoot, shoot and shoot some more, no matter what is in front of you" is singularly bad advice and definitely not the best way to improve—it's more like a recipe for how to spin your wheels and waste your time. I like this advice much better: "shoot, think, shoot." That's from Mark L. Power.

David Comdico: "This exercise is both incredibly simple and impossibly hard. Really hits you in the solar plexus. It's worn out every defense mechanism I could muster. A good start to the year."

Warren Buffet's Principle (The Little Game, Part 3 of 3)

[Note: Some of you won't like this, and that's cool—we all own our own photography. It just means this post isn't for you, that's all. Don't sweat it—even excellent treatments can't be good for every patient.]

For those of you playing along, in Part 1 you wrote down 25 categories that your photography falls into; in Part 2 you prioritized them or ranked their importance to you.

Here's the big idea:

You should not only concentrate on your Top Five categories, but also actively avoid the other twenty.

The idea comes from "The Oracle of Omaha," renowned billionaire investor Warren Buffett. The story (which I first got wind of in the book Grit) is that one day Mr. Buffett was talking to his pilot, Mike Flint, about Mike's career goals. First, Buffett asked Flint to list 25 of his goals in life. Next, he asked him to think about it for a while and then circle the top five.

Obviously, you'd work hard on your top five.

But what, Buffett asked, about the other twenty?

James Clear, who heard the story secondhand and wrote about it*, tells it this way:

"Flint replied, 'Well, the top five are my primary focus, but the other twenty come in a close second. They are still important so I’ll work on those intermittently as I see fit. They are not as urgent, but I still plan to give them a dedicated effort.'

"To which Buffett replied, 'No. You’ve got it wrong, Mike. Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top five.'"

The concept is simple. The other day, I used fashion photography and macro shots of insects as two genres of photography furthest from my own interests—I don't care about them at all. I've taken exactly one fashion shot in my life and zero closeups of insects. But what that means is that fashion and bugs aren't distractions for me; they're not the things standing in the way of my accomplishing anything. The things that are preventing me from accomplishing what I want to are things I like to shoot and enjoy shooting...just not enough to put them in my Top Five.

My observation over many years is that photographers, for some reason, hate being limited. We all really do like to think we can do everything. Again and again I see this in the work, and hear it in the statements, of photographers of all levels. I even worked up a private little name for it in my own mind—"token genres." Pictures we take which are outside of the mainstream of our work, but which we made just because we had the opportunity to do so and because we wanted to show the world we could. We must think this shows our range and adaptability—when what it probably actually says to the world is, "I'm all over the place and don't really have much of a clue what I'm best at."

I wrote about something similar many years ago when I suggested that you should never have just one wedding shot in your portfolio. The reasoning was that anyone not looking for a wedding photographer couldn't care less if you once shot at a wedding, and anyone looking for a wedding photographer wants someone who specializes in weddings—who's passionate about and committed to photographing them—and that would mean someone showing a portfolio that's exclusively of weddings. Having no wedding shots in your portfolio is fine. Having a portfolio full of wedding work is also fine. Anything in between doesn't do you any good. Nobody's going to hire a photographer to do their wedding based on one photograph. One wedding picture in a portfolio is just taking up space.

Whether you're a professional, an aspiring pro, an artist, an aspiring artist, or an advanced amateur or committed enthusiast, it's just a fact that although you might conceive of yourself as a jack of all trades who can "do anything," you simply cannot do everything well. And when prioritizing, it's not hard to give up the things we don't care about anyway. What's hard for us to give up are all those things we kind of like and enjoy and have spent some time doing—and are a bit proud of ourselves for, if we're honest—but that fall outside of our Top Five. Those are the things, according to Warren Buffett, that are sapping attention, time, energy, and effort from our central interests, our best skills, and what we most want to do. Those are our distractions. They're what are holding us back. They're what we must avoid...painful though it may be.

By the way, I don't think this means we can't still shoot anything at all...if it's in front of us and it's easy. It just means we should recognize distractions for what they are, and that we shouldn't expend time, effort, and energy on those distractions.

Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?

I have more to say about this, but I don't want to dictate the conversation too much. So I'll wait till tomorrow or Saturday to continue. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the meantime.

Mike

*There are numerous accounts of the story online, but James Clear says he heard it from his friend Scott Dinsmore who got it directly from Mike Flint.

Original contents copyright 2018 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.

Harsh reality

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David Brown: "I’ve had a similar approach to life but I only circled the top three, not five."

Jeremy: "This is not only an excellent photography-related advice, I think it’s also an excellent way to deal with all things in life. Following a famous quote (attributed to Goethe, but likely not coming from him): 'Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back—concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.' And your exercise just drives the point that we can never really commit to 'everything.'"

Mike replies: I managed to find it—the quote is by W(illiam) H(utchison) Murray, a mountaineer, from his book The Scottish Himalayan Expedition published in 1951. It is misattributed to Goethe because Murray quotes a translation of Goethe at the end of it.Wikipedia's version is different from yours, so I'll quote it as they have it:

... but when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money—booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!

Joseph Holmes: "Another take on this idea: I got to be a judge in two different national photo competitions, and believe me, the entries that were easiest to quickly reject were the ones where the photographer was trying to show versatility. As soon as a photographer's series contained both black and white and color, or a portrait and landscape, or macro and anything else, boom—next entry. Versatility ranked down there at zero for our criteria. What we loved to see was a series of photos that all clearly came from the same vision. That meant that some of the best series we judged contained images that were all pretty similar. That's not a drawback, it's a plus. That's the question I now know to ask myself. Do all of the photos in a particular series of mine look like they came from the same photographer? (Even better: do they all look like they could only have been shot by me?)"

Edwin Lopez: "In 1977 and 1978 I worked on the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Louis Stokes was the Chair of that Committee. On a luncheon date with him, he told me the story of his being elected to Congress and his meetings with Sam Rayburn upon being elected. At his first meeting with Rayburn, Rayburn asked him to make a list of the 25 issues most important to him. At the next week's meeting, Rayburn looked at the list and asked him to prioritize the 25. Louis Stokes dutifully did so. Rayburn told him it was good list and then said now, next week tell me which of these issues you consider life and death. The next week Louis Stokes came back with three biggies. At that point Rayburn told him that he should be ready to compromise on numbers 25–4. When he got to the big three, he should be ready to leave Congress as the last three issues were life and death ones.

"I've never forgotten this conversation."

[A different] Mike: "I think the realities of time have perhaps forced me to do this subconsciously (there are only so many hours in a day, only so many chances to shoot). Even as I was making my list, I was looking at many of the topics and thinking, 'Well, sure, I took that picture, but it's not really a subject area I actively seek.' Having a camera with you most or all of the time means you have opportunities to take pictures more often than not. But for me, those top items on my list are certainly more fun and interesting to pursue.

"Your wedding example is a good one; I've been asked in the past to shoot weddings for friends and I've turned them down, explaining that I shoot the way I shoot and it's probably not going to be in step with what they want for wedding photos."

Mike J. replies: Reminds me of Ted Orland's old joke: 'When your friends finally realize you are a true artist, committed to making sensitive and meaningful images, they will ask you to photograph their wedding.'

John Krumm: "I did the exercise. I probably won't concentrate only on the first five categories, which are all family related, but one thing became clear. No more landscapes and nature shots without people! They make up the majority of my shooting, and I value them the least."

Mike replies: So that's something good come of this, right there. In fact, one might sum up this whole post as "don't waste too much time on the things you value the least."

John: "There are many ways to manipulate these kinds of exercises by playing word games. Personally, unless you’re a pro and your best bet is specializing, I don’t see the point in limiting myself based on what I currently think. If you had asked me five years ago if I ever would take up bird photography, I’d call you delusional for even suggesting it. Now it’s my main interest and that’s because I kept an open mind."

Mike replies: "Change of mind is not inconsistency," quoth Cicero. Of course, he got his head chopped off, so should we listen to him?

Seriously, I don't see why this is incompatible with keeping an open mind. It has to do with focus and concentration, which sounds like exactly how you're approaching bird photography.

Dan Khong: "'Twas a good exercise. Now I know I am good at shooting people."

The Little Game (Part 2 of 3)

(Here's Part 1.)

For Part 2, prioritize your list. Put the things that are most important to you at the top and the ones that are least important at the bottom.

Be intuitive about it if need be; be logical about it if that appeals. Think only of yourself, not of an audience. Eschew thoughts of remuneration*. Keep shuffling till you're satisfied.

Tomorrow is "Open Mike" off-topic day, and I'm going to write about borosilicate straws and rice. So we'll get to Part 3, the payoff post, on Thursday morning.

That's all for now,

Mike

*Sorry. My favorite sentence in English is this, from Mark Twain: "Eschew surplusage." It rattles around my brain-pan with a thousand other phrases that have taken up permanent residence there. Pay no heed to thoughts of earning money, is what I mean to say.

Original contents copyright 2018 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.

Harsh reality

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Bill Pearce: "Twain's sentence is good, but I can top it. I had a junior high school English teacher, the stereotypical old maid schoolteacher, who was known to say 'eschew obfuscation.' It's sorta the same thing, but with two words that could be found in a dictionary. It's also something that wouldn't be said in any junior high in America today."

Mike replies: I wrote an article called "Eschew Cliché" once. That's a nice phrase too.

The Little Game (Part 1 of 3)

I have a little game in mind, one that might be revealing and helpful to you in your work. There are three distinct parts to it. But I think it might be good to do it in order, so I'm only going to give you the first part today, for those who want to do it "in real time." If you don't want to play the game now, you can always go back and read all three steps later. But I think it will be most beneficial to do the first two parts before you know where it's heading—otherwise, I suspect you might be tempted (even subconsciously) to alter the outcome by manipulating the early inputs.

Here's the first step. This weekend, get a pen or a pencil and a piece of paper and spend some serious time looking over and reviewing your own picture archives. The goal is to write down the list of the 25 categories of things you most like to take pictures of, or that you consider within your area of visual competence and your usual practice.

I'm not talking about professional work or work you do to please others, unless that work also gratifies your soul. Pay attention only to your personal work, the pictures you take for yourself.

What do I mean by "categories"? Well, anything that can be identified. The most obvious would be genre—landscape, sports, glamour, portraits, or any other genre you can think of. Might be subject matter—kids, cars, clouds, or any of a myriad others*. Might be a type of strategy—constructed tableaux, still lifes**, aerial photography and so forth. Might be a certain style or look—snapshot style, documentary style, blurs. Might be a technical category—large format film, fill flash at dusk, studio lighting. Might be a certain commercial category—wedding photography, editorial portraits. It might be a property of the pictures—high HDR, light tones ("high key"), primary colors. Might be a theme—vacation destinations, loneliness, ancient holy places.

It might also be something more subtle—like a personal connotation, a kind of graphic design element, or a feeling, whether it's something you feel or something you're trying to make the viewer feel. It can even be something random or stupid. If it often inspires you to stop and snap a pic.

Anything you can think of along any of these lines. Just anything you can identify as being "one of the things I often shoot."

Or come up with your own possibilities. I've only listed a few, so don't be limited by the few categories I've mentioned.

Much as I'd like to provide a comprehensive list, I don't think it can be done. There are too many possibilities. But you'll see it in your work. Look for the commonalities, the patterns, the repetitions.

Pay special attention to those few pictures you've made in your life that you consider to be total successes, the ones you're proudest of. How would you describe the category they fall into? What is it about them that really cements their appeal, in your mind or your feelings?

When you get to 25, you don't necessarily need to stop looking, because maybe something you haven't thought of is actually more important to you than something you have on your list. For example, I've taken a few cat pictures I'm proud of, because I'm conscious that...well, that it's a category. But I might have overlooked the fact that bodies of water are an important theme in my work. So I might put "bodies of water" on the main list and jettison "cats."

•     •     •

This is the hardest, most work-intensive part of the Little Game, by the way. The next step is much easier, and the third and final step is all payoff, no work. This is 85% of the work, right here. But the more care you put into this step, the more dividends you'll get from steps two and three.

If you don't want to play, don't sweat it. Not every post is for every person.

But give it a try if you have time. There's more to come.

Have a nice weekend! I'm off tomorrow, but I probably won't be able to stay away on Sunday.

Mike

P.S. Even if the whole idea of categorization makes you grouchy, play along. Remember, it's a game.

*The Latin root of "myriad" means "ten thousand."

**That's the proper plural of "still life," by the way.

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Peter: "My first thought was 'Twenty-five!?!? That's too many kinds of photographs. I don't have that many.' But then I decided to just do it and within a few minutes I had 21. Heeding your observation that this should be the most intense part, I kept going and was still adding categories after 35. Now I am reconsidering and re-ordering. When you announce Step 2, I will delete categories numbered higher than 25. Can't wait to learn what it is."

Mike replies: You're doing great. You'll get a lot out of this.

I found it difficult at first too because I was just doing it in my head. When I started looking at my actual pictures it became much easier.

Gerard Kingma: "I like the idea of a game, you got me interested. However! For me, there's a big 'Yeah, but...' to this game, namely that it appears to be exclusively about the subject of the picture. In my humble experience, the subject is, more often than you'd think, the least important aspect of the picture.

"People often ask me, 'What do you take pictures of?' and I usually say something like, 'Oh well, whatever's in front of the camera that makes me want to frame it and push the button.' Similarly, I read an anecdote once (probably here on TOP because I start here every day) about a photographer (and I hope someone can help me with the name) who, when asked the question 'What do you take pictures of?' replied something like: 'I don't take pictures of stuff. I take pictures about stuff.'

"Whatever triggers me photographically is usually a combination of light, shape, frameworthiness, quirkiness, and rarely about the thing that I point the camera at. During Jay Maisel's workshop that I was honored to attend in Maine he badgered us all week about three aspects that make an interesting image: 'Light, color and gesture.' The actual subject is not among those three, and not even the fourth, fifth or whatnot. As you always say, I'm just sayin.'"

Mike replies: I'm sorry to hear you say that, because it means I flubbed my writing task. I took (or tried to take) pains to explain that it's not "exclusively about the subject of the picture" as you say. It's just categories, and you determine the categories. "Gesture" is a category. I think "color" and "light" both need more specification to qualify and be useful ("light in darkness" is one of my categories—see here for a couple of examples)—but it's your list and they're your categories. You be the judge.

Also, the categories don't all have to have names that other people would understand. As long as you're clear about what you mean, you're fine.

And if I may have the temerity to suggest it, I suspect you might benefit from this exercise more than others.

YS: "I don't think you flubbed it, I've got quite the list now. It's an interesting game! I've got subjects, technical and artistic qualities down in my list!"

Mike replies: I'm doing it too, and it's not entirely easy to get 25. Don't forget to look at your phone photos too! There were some good clues for me in there.

What It Comes Down to For Me

The discussion in the previous post was certainly interesting, but sometimes I wonder if we're not getting lost in the minutiae. I thought I should just say what I think as plainly as possible to cut through all the specifics and get to a clear "global" overview of the issue:

Mathew B. Brady, Abraham Lincoln, 1864

For me—just for me, I'm not telling you what to think or do—the power of photographs comes from their connection to the real world. That's where their magic resides, and what gives them their power. A photograph of Lincoln required Lincoln to be sitting in front of the camera. He's not just a meme. The man was there.

(As an aside, Monday was the 155th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.)

The greater that connection, the more direct the connection, the more interested I tend to be, and the stronger my responses. The weaker or more suspicious that connection, the less interested I am. If I'm looking at something obviously created or invented—fabricated—then I'd rather look at paintings or other kinds of art.

The question is, can I retrieve from the picture something true about the appearances of real things, real people, real places, or actual events? That's what cuts to my heart. YMMV, as Internet says.

Of course, we can all argue from now to Kingdom Come about the details, from whether you should crop or not to whether B&W is realistic all the way up to relativistic ramblings about the nature of truth and the im/possibility of honesty.

If you look at the extremes it makes the distinction clearest. Rod Sainty's comment (the last Featured Comment in the previous post) tries manfully to summarize the mechanics of how pictures might hold some truth. On the other extreme, we've all seen "photos" that amount to manipulated, highly unrealistic "fantasy" digital photo-illustrations. Not that there's anything wrong with that if it's what you want to do. But it's not the middle of that range we should be looking for, because that way lies hair-splitting and disputation: there isn't a dividing line waiting to be discovered. Understand the extremes, though, and you can sense what the whole issue is about—and make some inroads as to where on the spectrum you yourself might want to land.

And it's up to you where you land, of course. Your photography belongs to you. Although I think it's better if you do it consciously...but maybe that's just my teacherish nature speakin'.

Not everyone sees it as I do, and that's fine, but that's how I see it.

Mike
(Thanks to all the commenters from yesterday. Very interesting!)

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Dan Homan: "I find myself fascinated by this topic. I might be kidding myself, but I’ve always viewed the goal of my photography as the capturing of a moment or a scene in a way that reveals something ‘true’ about my subject. If I’m taking an image of something large (landscape, building, etc…), that sometimes involves a two- or three-frame panorama to include all the elements I think are important. If it is something very small (snowflakes, spiders, etc…), I may need several images to combine in a focus stack in order to get what I judge to be sufficient depth of field. For macro objects, I often carry my own lighting rather than rely on ambient. For portraits, I will position people in good lighting, gently ask that they change their posture, and try to get them to laugh and smile. In the rare instances that I am trying street photography, I still pick my moments carefully and frame the scene to include just what I want to communicate. All of these things are manipulations of various types, and I am pretty comfortable with all of them; however, I find myself sometimes wondering whether I should crop an image as much as I do, or make a local adjustment for emphasis, or (rarely) clone out an unwanted element from a photo. I list those last three manipulations from most to least comfortable for me personally, and I’ve really struggled on occasion with the notion of what is the ‘true’ thing I am trying to reveal. My personal favorite snowflake photo has a thread propping up the snowflake on one side. It is distracting, but it was there and part of the reason the flake was at such an interesting angle. I’ve shown the image online both with and without the thread, but after a year I still can’t decide which version is the right one.

"Ironically, I’ve been playing recently with ‘still life’ photography where the elements are more deliberately arranged…I am not sure anything will come of it, and I’m still trying to fit this into my previous notion of revealing something ‘true’ about the subject."

Charles Lanteigne: "I find your position wholly understandable and reasonable, even though I don't feel the same way about it. The thing I'd want to resist is the attempt to define photography as a whole around how one feels about this, instead of merely specifying that it's a genre/type/style/approach to photography that one prefers. In other words, I can appreciate that one might prefer images that have not been significantly altered/composited, but I don't care much for the idea that other kinds of photography 'aren't really photography, they're digital art of sorts' or something along those dismissing lines. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go listen to some 'electronic audible art' (which is not really music because it's not a straight recording of musical instruments)."

Mike replies: There is indeed an interesting parallel with recorded sound here. I read a book a while back called Perfecting Sound Forever, basically a history of music recording techniques. I thought the progress of technology was deeply exciting as it raced toward better and more accurate recording of the sounds musicians were already making, but then at some point a line was crossed and it transmuted into the pursuit of better and better fakery, ending up with creating things that never existed in the world...and in that part of the book I was initially dismayed and ended up just plain uninterested. Yet that view is limited too, because in some sense the synthesizing of sounds is just a different form of creativity, new tools that can be used skillfully or ineptly just like old-fashioned instruments can.

I recommend the book. I enjoyed it.

David Comdico: "Agree. Photography's power lies in its ability to describe the particular. This is why 19th Century allegorical Pictorialism has such an odd quality and why photography was for so long dismissed as an art: it was too real. Barthes' punctum is such an example: the ragged sleeve the photo reveals is unintentional but defining. Or more prosaically, witness the high-rez digital portrait that shows every nook and cranny to such a degree that it is unflattering for the vast majority of subjects.

"As a means to gain scientific objectivity, photography has been wildly successful. Think Muybridge or, more recently, the super collider at CERN. We have become so accustomed to the gift photography has bequeathed us that we take it for granted (a problem in itself).

"To deny that objective reality (a nominal one, not a Family of Man platonism) is at the heart of photography is just a rhetorical stunt. That photos can be fakes is actually dependent on this foundation, not vice versa. To claim otherwise is like taking the position that money has no real value because some of it may be counterfeit.

"The naive and propagandistic use of the photographic image is an interesting question, but, mostly, a totally separate domain of inquiry. The conflation of this with some deep artificiality that taints photography is seen as a useful way to gain authority for certain conclusions but this is not only disingenuous, it's unnecessary."

Another Modern Digital Internet Falseism

I read it on the Internet again: "It's no use using older lenses on digital cameras. With today's best digital sensors, you must use the very best, very latest lenses."

I must? Why?

This is another IF (Internet Falseism, a "falseism" being a truism that isn't true). You have doubtless read it a hundred times in one form or another.

What if you want to use a soft-focus lens on a digital sensor? Will the sky fall? The world explode? Will you be arrested?

Must be true, though, because I've read it on the Internet so many times.

Actually, you can use any lens you want to on a digital sensor, no matter what its potential resolution. If it's a good sensor, it will merely capture whatever the look and properties of the lens happen to be.

Optimizers do it best
The only reason to use a high-resolution lens on a high-resolution sensor is if you want a high-resolution picture. But if you have an interchangeable-lens camera, you can switch that high-res lens for a low-res lens and back again, and no hostages are taken and no one gets hurt. You remain free to roam about on your own recognizance and the sky stays where it belongs.

It's a lot of fun to use old lenses on new sensors.

If you "optimize" your camera for high resolution, all you have is a camera that takes pictures with good resolution. You still have the exact same problem every other photographer has with every other camera: what to do with it. How to put it to good use. How to make the dumb equipment make a smart picture. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, or for ninety-nine out of a hundred photographers, incrementally better resolution makes zero difference in the aesthetic and expressive success of any particular picture.

And if you "optimize" your camera for high resolution, all you have is a camera that takes pictures with resolution that is good for this point in history and with today's particular technology. In olden days, John B. Williams wrote a book called Image Clarity that was all about his investigations into how to optimize photography for high resolution. He covered everything. Of course, none of it is relevant to digital photographers today because the technology has changed (and film photographers certainly aren't using film in order to achieve optimal image resolution). That's what will happen to your attempts to "optimize" resolution now, too. Only faster.

Flatware applications
Besides, very generally speaking, optimizing for resolution, these days, is akin to saying Warren Buffett needs more money. I see more pictures spoiled by too much resolution as I see spoiled by too little (just as I see more pictures spoiled by too much out-of-focus blur as I see spoiled by too little).

If it's what you want to do—optimize resolution, starting with the best sensors and the ideal lenses for them, a sturdy tripod, and some way to show your results meaningfully—well all right then. By all means go ahead. It's one thing you can do. It's one look. It's one kind of photograph to take.

And, of course, there might be a few specialty applications which require extreme resolution. A Zeiss spokesman, at a presentation in the '90s, used this example: what if you see a person holding up a table utensil several hundred yards away, and you want to know whether it's a fork or a spoon? ...And you have time to set up your surveyor's tripod, which he recommended and used? John Williams used a slightly more plausible example: what if you're doing surveillance photography and you want to be able to read a license plate from a long distance away? But he had to add as a caveat: ...and you can't switch to a longer telephoto lens? Or words to that effect. Well. There are some pictures that might work better with higher resolution than you can get normally. A few.

I'd own both. Old, bad lenses and new, super-sharp, hyper-clinical ones. One for fun. The other for fun.

Nowadays, we might add a third imperative: what if you want to win arguments on Internet forums about the superiority of your gear choices by showing little snippets of pictures at 100%?

Well now, that's important, as we all know. Just as important as showing whether it's a fork or a spoon, or for reading license plates when you left your 600mm at home even though you're doing surveillance.

...But mine are better!
I hate to break it to the Internet, but there's actually no law that says you get extra life points for a tiny bit more resolution in all your photographs. You get no credit for it. Most pictures will not be better for it. Most people will not care. Even the ones who do care won't care for very long.

Use any lens you want to on your digital camera. You stand just as good a chance of making a good picture with the most highly corrected lens it's possible to buy today as you do with an ancient screw-mount lens with low contrast and poor edge definition. It's just that the artistic problem will be different, that's all.

Mike

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James Weekes: "Hear, hear. Some of my favorite pictures of the last few years are taken with my Holga lens on a Micro 4/3 body. I love the color, and am surprised by the resolution, which is better than my old Holga cameras with TX.

"The biggest advance in my world has been the 20-megapixel sensor on my Lumixes. The color is just lovely and the resolution is really adequate."

Andrew Lamb: "A few years ago, I did some stills on a film set where the DOP was John Mathieson (Gladiator, Logan, X-Men: First Class, etc). He was using a state-of-the-art Red camera but the lens was a Cooke zoom from the early '70s. I asked his assistant about this combination and was told that using an older lens was to stop the image from looking too clinical. Anything goes."

Phil Stiles: "I've played a lot with vintage glass on modern sensors. I would add that the modern sensor can reveal that those old lenses are better than one remembers. My 105mm ƒ/2.5 AIS Nikkor produces great images on my Sony A7rIII. After comparing a Contax C/Y 85mm ƒ/2.8 with a Batis 85mm ƒ/1.8, I sold the Batis. Focus peaking and magnification have changed the ways we can use vintage glass. Since we're viewing on the web, you probably can't point to a shot 'spoiled by too much resolution,' although my guess would be that it's a portrait where the camera sees so much more than the eye that the hyper-realism becomes surrealism."

Huw Morgan: "I have a crazy-sharp 85mm portrait lens that causes me nothing but grief. Every subject looks at the pictures and freaks out over wrinkles and skin flaws that seem to leap out of the screen. I need to apply copious amounts of Photoshop 'wrinkle cream' to make clients happy, eating into my time and profit. I'm looking for an 85mm slightly blurry lens. Anyone have any suggestions?"

Mark Roberts: "Anyone interested in photography would do well to see the movie "Mr. Turner" (about the painter J.M.W. Turner). Director Mike Leigh had hoped to shoot on film to get the look he wanted but didn't have the budget necessary. So he shot digital but used the oldest, least-corrected lenses he could scrounge up. Can't argue with the results." Rob L.: "There's one little bit of 'maybe' here, though—I've had several older lenses that did weird things on digital bodies—reflections off the back elements, or the way they light hit the sensor—so it's worth testing things a bit. But as I age, it's AF, not optical purity, that's driving me to current glass. :-) "

Jim: "In my work (fiber optics) I've been exposed to a lot of recent systems for surveillance and the technology is getting spooky. Only part is due to camera resolution; the rest is digital post-processing. I've seen fisheye cameras over traffic intersections that can read every license plate and are starting to use facial recognition. Did you read about how the British identified the Russians accused of poisoning in the UK—they found many images of the guys and could easily track their movement. Drive across the Golden Gate Bridge and a camera will read your license plate and send you a bill for the toll. I parked in a parking garage recently and the ticket was printed with my license plate ID and used it to help locate my parked car.

"Of course this processing is not intended to create attractive images. But if you want that, you can find lots of software that will manipulate images to make them look 'better,' whatever that means to you. Did you see the New York Times Magazine portfolio a couple of weeks ago with the weird images manipulated by Cindy Sherman?

"The point is that we are reaching a point near where PCs were 20 years ago, where advances are becoming less hardware and more software."

James M: "Just what I need to help me relax about my gear. Can you please post this article once a month, so that the effect doesn't wear off?"

scott kirkpatrick: "'Falseism?' Better is the expression that physicist Wolfgang Pauli made famous: 'Not even false!'" [Link —Ed.]

George Feucht: "Absolutely true about the demand for vintage less-than-perfect lenses for cinematography. Here's a great example. This is the Cooke company re-manufacturing their old, flawed classic lens set due to the demand of the original sets from the '60s/'70s. Things just look too hyper-clean when you use perfect optic on a perfect sensor. Modern, sharp lenses look great on film. As for our new, perfect cinema sensors, they look best with flawed lenses."

Photo of John Lennon (And Double Appeal)

Speaking of the John Lennon stamp, this is a photograph of Lennon I've always liked:

It's a Polaroid by Andy Warhol. It's descriptive, but not grandiose or glorifying: the subject is wearing a T-shirt and hasn't bothered to arrange his hair, although Warhol might have liked the shape his hair makes. And the photo is plainspoken and small in size. Lennon's expression doesn't tell you what to think of him either way: he's not doing a star turn, not trying to make himself look appealing to the viewer with a conventional Murricun grimace/grin, but neither is he showing the darker side that his personality was reputed to have, anger or superciliousness or arrogance. To me, all this makes it more engaging; I find myself searching the picture for clues, as if to ask: what kind of person was this? The eyes seem simultaneously brightened (by the specular reflection of the flash) and obscured (by the glasses). And of course there's something slightly macabre about the portrait, because you're looking at a murder victim, too. And you're looking into history, at a man who died almost forty years ago now. Whatever you see in the eyes is changed by the fact that you know his fate.

And the photographer—who, like all great portraitists, is partly revealed, reflected, by the aspect his sitter presents to us—is dead too. The transaction we're voyeuristically witnessing is one of viewer and viewed, seer and the seen, both famous still, but both long gone.

Double appeal
And by the way, this picture contains what you might call double appeal. It's a lesson I learned in the magazine business from Outdoor Photographer magazine back in the '90s—that you increase your chances of success if you appeal to two different markets or audiences with the same artwork or product. (That presumes you don't limit the extent of  the appeal to either group by including the other.) In this case, the picture appeals to Beatles, Lennon, and "classic rock" music fans on the one hand, and it also appeals to people interested in Andy Warhol, pop art, and modern art on the other. OP appeals to both the photo-hobbyist audience and to outdoor-activity audiences. The key with a magazine was that you could sell advertisements in two separate categories, greatly increasing your chances of selling enough ads. My magazine at the time was a darkroom magazine, which, I recognized, meant that we were trying to appeal not just to one audience but a subset of one audience. (I left in 2000; the magazine folded in 2013.)

The movie industry has codified this down to a rather crude basic level—movies are designed to sell to one of four types of audience—older females, older males, younger males, or younger females. Producers are always on the lookout for movies that appeal to two of the four groups, and one that appeals to three of the groups or (this is rare) all four groups can be a bonanza. Movies are seldom made to appeal to older males exclusively, because, statistically, older males don't go to the movies. Usually, movies targeted to them are also targeted to older females or younger males at the same time. Old fashioned "auteur" movies, categorized as "dramas" now, are the motion picture equivalent of "literary" novels—potentially prestigious, but sales lightweights.

In photography, O. Winston Link is a prime example of double appeal—he appealed to photographers and photography collectors, and also to railfans and steam train enthusiasts. Scott Schumann's "Sartorialist" blog appeals to street photography fans and people interested in fashion; Brandon Stanton's "Humans of New York" appeals to people who like environmental portraits, people who like human interest stories, and people who are interested in New York City.

I realized the appeal of "The Simpsons" years ago while watching it with my then-five-year-old son—he and I would both laugh at it, but at completely different parts. He liked the cartoon slapstick and the in-your-face jokes, I liked the cultural references and sardonic asides. (I think we both rather liked Bart's part wise, part wiseass Bugs Bunnyesque take-it-all-in-stride attitude.)

Any time you can appeal to two (or more) constituencies without limiting the appeal to one of them, you increase your audience as well as your odds of success.

Mike

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hugh crawford: "And a dead medium as well. Warhol used a Polaroid BigShot fixed focus camera (with the amazing chemical mechanical lighting of the Magicubes, also extinct). The Polaroid peel-apart 669 film is long gone and the Fuji is in the outdated and expensive category. A great camera that looked like a toy. With 655 positive negative film I could make 40x50 inch prints. I still have a pack of 655 in my RB Graflex but it's 'too special to use.'"

Eolake: "I have just watched "How The Beatles Changed The World" (I think it was Netflix). It was excellent. Being from 1963, I didn’t know that much about it. They weren’t just the most successful band in history. Warhol’s book From A To B And Back Again is interesting. Like all his work, very abstract."

Mike replies: Relative to the movie you mentioned, I can recommend Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald (Ian MacCormick), the British music critic who committed suicide in 2003. He's a Lennon partisan, but then so am I. And he has an inexplicable antipathy to George Harrison, which I definitely don't share. But it's a fascinating book, and had me going back to many of the old songs to listen to them intently with "new ears."

Doug Thacker: "Warhol must have made thousands of Polaroid portraits over the years, and almost all of them were strong in the way that only the best photographic portraits are. I've always found this fascinating, and instructive. Because he was using rudimentary equipment, with a fixed lens and on-camera flash, the extraordinary character of his portraits comes down to his connection with his subjects, however fleeting, his trust in his own intuition, and his timing with the shutter button.

"As you point out vis a vis the Lennon photo, both the subject and the photographer are now dead. Each of them was among the most influential figures of the century, and each of them was shot by an assassin, or, in Warhol's case, a would-be assassin, Valerie Solanas.

"When Warhol was shot, in Manhattan in 1968, he was rushed to nearby New York Hospital, where his life was saved only by the heroic efforts of a team of surgeons. In all the years following, he would refuse to even walk past that hospital, because whenever he did so, he said, he could see and feel his own death.

"When Warhol fell ill and required emergency gallbladder surgery in 1997, it was this same hospital he was taken to. And it was here that he died, shortly after a routine gallbladder removal.

"It would be easy to look at this portrait of John Lennon by Andy Warhol and see prefigured in it somehow their fatal victimization, but that's not what strikes me. What strikes me in this portrait is their strength and their defiance and their victory. I don't know what more you could ask of a portrait, or of an artist."

Tom Burke: "I can’t comment on the image—pictures of the Beatles (as a group or as individuals) have been around my life since forever.

"But, as an aside, and seeing as this is as much about the Beatles as anything, I’ve come to realise that I was incredibly lucky to be the right age at the right time and in the right place. I remember buying 'She Loves You' in the late summer or early autumn of 1963. I was 13, and it was the most exciting thing I’d ever heard. From then I bought every Beatles single up to 'Lady Madonna' on the day it was released, apart from 'Help!'—I was out of the country that summer. It’s difficult to comprehend now just how significant The Beatles were in the UK in those years. Britain in the early '60s was so traditional—the post-war era had seen a determined attempt to re-assert the normality of the pre war years, but by the '60s that was breaking down. There were parallel changes in other areas—theatre, TV, literature—but pop music reached a greater proportion of the population than anything else, and The Beatles were the first and best of a whole new thing. Much as I enjoyed Cliff Richard in the years before, he was a British copy of US originals. The Beatles rewrote the rule book. And as I got a little bit older and started wanting more than just 'Moon in June' songs, they were moving the same way at the same time. There’d never been a song like 'Paperback Writer,' for instance, or 'Penny Lane,' or the lyricism of 'Eleanor Rigby.' Amazing years. And I think that their significance is demonstrated by the fact that a couple of very old images of John Lennon still considered worthy of note and comment."

The Light's the Thing

Two pictures to illustrate a point:

Before sundown

After sundown

Same camera, same lens, same scene, same framing (or close). The Celestial Assistant suggested a setup change and kindly moved the main light a little—just 15 or 20 degrees, not a huge change. But not subtle either—in the second picture there's a planetary gobo impinging and all the light is ambient.

I've always loved watching how different light changes things. Whether I take a picture of it or not.

It begs a more subtle conceptual problem: is a photograph a picture of the thing in the picture, or the light on the thing? Mostly, I think good pictures are usually of light, whether "what the picture is of" is important or not. Learning how to pay attention to light instead of sorting everything in your field of view into its solid structure is a crucial step in photography if you ask me. In one sense, this didn't need to be a pickup truck...the pickup truck just serves to clarify what the light looked like. Light creates the composition, the mood, the structure of the picture, the color of the picture, on and on.

You can have a perfectly serviceable photograph without good light, of course. Many photographs just show things—places, objects, people, animals. Most of the important aspects of a good photograph, however, a successful photograph, are created by what the light's doing. It's at least half the battle.

You could look at it the other way around as well, of course. That the meaning of the picture is usually in the things it shows, and the light is just a means of revealing it. In the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, for instance, they insisted on flat, overcast light for every picture, specifically to remove the light from being part of the subject and concentrate visual attention more completely on the structures they were photographing.

It fascinates me how pictures come and go. I took a picture of a farmland scene once that I put up on the blog a couple of years ago. (I didn't do a very good job of capturing it. Wrong equipment.) Since then I've passed that place perhaps as many as forty times and I've never again seen it look like anything. I look at it every time I go by. The light was just right that one time, that's all. There's never been a photograph there since then.

One of the ways to improve your photography is to give yourself an idea. Identical views in very different light would be an idea the right photographer could build a project on, I think, if they had the visual chops and sensitivity.

Back soon
As I do every Monday morning, I'm off to the Moose now to play pool with the guys—Loyle, Jerry, Lyle, Norm, and Tom. Back later to hear what you have to say. I might sneak over early to get a little practice in, too...Jerry's been coming outta nowhere lately and tearing up the joint, and I can't hit the broad side of a barn with buckshot.

Mike

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Walter Glover: "This post of yours brings two axioms to mind for me, Mike: 1.) My commercial days of making photographs of things are well and truly behind me and, in my personal work the pursuit is to make photographs about things. All the qualities of varying light form a huge component in the vocabulary and grammar of conveying the spirit or essence of a motif. 2.) To achieve such ends the notion that light reveals and shadow gives form is forever emblazoned in my photo consciousness."

Mark Sampson: "Subject and lighting are inextricably linked. In the best photographs they combine to make a 'good' photograph a 'great' one. Chicken or egg?"

Kenneth Tanaka (partial comment): "Light, and its strategic conceptual usage is the tool that hobbyists tend to overlook or misuse most in their photography. Light sculpts form. Light sculpts mood. Light manages the focus of attention. Light, not the camera, is the photographer’s tool."

Mike replies: Couldn't have said it better myself (and, in fact, I didn't).

Ernest Zarate: "John Szarkowski wrote a terrific book, The Photographer’s Eye. In it, he detailed the specific choices photographers make, consciously or accidentally, each time they press the shutter button: the frame, vantage point, time, the thing itself (i.e., raw material), and the detail. Great primer and one of my foundation books. Yet, brilliant though Szarkowski was, I’ve always felt the book missed a big one: light. It’s true most photographers can’t choose their light. It is as you say the Celestial Assistant in control. Give that, though, the photographer has the choice whether to use the light being offered. Your point about the farm lit in glory that one time, and never again (the fickle Photo Gods at their devilish best) illustrates the point exactly."

Mike replies: Excellent insight into the great Szarkowski title and one I've never heard or thought of before. But I think you're right.

Jan Kwarnmark: "Henri Cartier-Bresson: 'I go for form, much more than light. Form First. Light is like a perfume to me.'"

Arg: "Lighten up, Mike!"

Limitations Aren't

Photo by Mark Hobson, from "iPhone Made"

Yesterday, David Comdico wrote of Mark Hobson (who has a category on his website called "iPhone Made"):

I admit to being a bit prejudiced against the iPhone-as-camera, but his square iPhone shots are really great. Bravo.

I've noticed over the years that pros (especially studio pros) who are used to using whatever tools are appropriate for any given job—up to and including bleeding-edge high-tech, high-cost ones—often have little prejudice against low-status cameras. They'll cheerfully do projects with toy cameras, cellphones, and pinhole cameras if they feel like it and if it suits the look they want. Mark is a big enthusiast of the smartphone.

What's unusual about Mark is that he's not a chameleon aesthetically. Lots of pros are; they have to be, providing radically different "looks" for different clients and different jobs. I imagine Mark, who has a list of Fortune 500 clients, can do that too. But with the work on his website he works more like an artist.

My observation has always been that artists tend to adjust to the properties of whatever tools you give them to work with. Amateurs hanker for gear that will "do everything," and tend to spend a lot of time thinking about what they can't do and how to equip themselves to remedy whatever the perceived shortcoming might be. But artists work the other way around: they see what the equipment will do and then go out into the visual world and apply it to good advantage, or whatever they consider to be good advantage. So it's difficult for an artist to have "the wrong camera," or lens, or whatever. Whatever you give them to play with, they'll figure out what it's good for (for their own personal definition of "good for") and then use it for that kind of thing. Give the latter kind of photographer a "bad" camera and he or she will come back with "good" shots.

So over the years we've seen great photographs made under all kinds of severe limitations: cross-processed transparency film, Polaroid transfers, Diana and Holga cameras with single-element plastic lenses, pinhole cameras, you name it.

These days, is it possible that the limitation might be that there isn't enough limitation? Cameras have all gotten so "good" that what's starting to emerge is a certain tyranny of sharp, clear, detailed, correct-color, adequate-DR digital images. It's not all the same equipment, but more and more it's the same, or a similar, aesthetic look. Yes, individual practitioners can depart from it deliberately, but then they can get slammed for being "fake" and "contrived" and so forth—even if the picture's just black and white!

One of the interesting things about Mark is that he has such a consistent way of seeing, and it comes through in all his artwork.

Mike
(Thanks to David Comdico)

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

Kenneth Tanaka: "My own shortcut expression to summarize what you've said is, Wherever you go, there you are! [...Jon Kabat-Zinn —Ed.] The work Mark shows on his site has a frank right-in-front-of-your-face quality that would be, if not necessarily distinctive, certainly very apparent in any photographic format. It's how he sees the opportunity (no pun), how he organizes his frames. It hardly matters what camera he uses.

"If I could offer any bit of advice to Mark it would be to drop the 'iPhone Made' distinction. It's dated to anyone younger than, say, early middle age. It's like saying 'color TV.' Just take the photos and merge them into the crowd according to the moments or concepts that propelled them.

"Last year while moving my site to a new host I counted over 30 camera models employed over the 13 years spanned by the images. Fun fact to know...but irrelevant for considering the work."

David Stone: "Very nicely stated. I teach iPhone workshops and one of my main goals is to have the students stop thinking of their iPhone as a phone with a camera, but as a camera with a really useful accessory. Think like a photographer and it will deliver."

Dan Homan: "As an amateur, I think part of our obsession with having the right gear to 'do everything' is a fear of photographic opportunity loss. For me this manifests itself both in individual photo outings and for my kit more broadly. With finite resources, the decision of what to bring on a trip or buy for your kits locks you in place (at least for the time being) in terms of what you can do, so we wring our hands a bit more than we should.

"I've tried in recent years not to worry about it as much and follow the advice I've read here and elsewhere to embrace limitations. On most outings, I bring just one or two lenses and commit to making the most of those choices. I do think this approach has helped me learn to see more clearly and have more fun with my photography."

Frank Figlozzi: "Re 'But artists work the other way around: they see what the equipment will do and then go out into the visual world and apply it to good advantage, or whatever they consider to be good advantage.' Isn't that exactly the way it's supposed to be? I've been photographing since I was 10 and now I'm 77 (do the math). My first camera was an old postwar Reflekta TLR and now I'm shooting digital Fujis. But every camera I've ever used has had limitations. Our job is simply to understand those limitations, work within them and make meaningful photographs. What a beautiful post—it hits the nail on the head."

robert e: "I wonder if future hobbyists will wax nostalgic about the 'look' of vintage sensors and firmware in the likes of, say, Canon's 5D or Nikon's D40? Perhaps there will be apps and filters to simulate the look. Only half joking."

Comments About the 'Yellow' Pictures

Photo by David Stock

I want to thank everybody who participated in the latest "Baker's Dozen" call for work—we received a large-ish number of submissions (about a hundred and sixty) and there were a lot more good ones than were included in the final set.

As usual I could have gone any number of ways with the edit. For example, the three most common subjects among the submissions were road stripes and markings (a number of great ones, but David Stock's simple and whimsical design above won by a whisker for me), flowers, and...little yellow rubber duckie bath toys. At first I thought I would pick a "winner" in all three of those subject-matter categories, but ended up jettisoning that idea in the end as being too programmatic.

The reason was that I was paying attention to sequence. To my mind, the yellows either needed to harmonize or contrast from image to image as you scroll down. The Pressman-Vincent-Poole-Smith sequence (3–6) was decided on pretty early on because they make such a nice progression to the eye, and they're all such super examples of mainstream strategies* that I thought people would identify with. From there we segue to Rich Reusser's picture of daughter Molly—she was a beautiful child and you can almost feel the fatherly adoration emanating from Rich behind the camera, but to me the punctum of that picture is the alarming whatever-you'd-call-it blue of those garish clashing gloves—it took me a long time to acclimate to that! (Additive secondary cyan or aqua is as close as I can come to naming it; the color manages to clash with both Molly's raincoat and Molly.) In Kurt's bathroom picture below Molly, there's a subtle echo of the blue gloves in the not-quite-matching blue of the towel on the rack. I don't think you see that consciously, but try to unsee it now that I've mentioned it.  :-)

As always in editing a set, the problem is flow vs. variety. The cop-out temptation is to pick a set of pictures that are all stylistically similar, but that's almost an affront to the great variety of approaches and subjects you get in any randomly-gathered "group show" (which is really what this amounts to).

And related to that heading, just so you know how much I care about your experience (and my responsibilities), let me just mention as an aside that I received exactly 13 of the aforementioned rubber ducky pictures. [Inset photo by James Hengst.] Do you even know how tempted I was to present all 13 rubber ducky pictures as the entirety of the final 'Yellow' set—as a joke? A joke that would have appealed greatly to the devilish part of my subversive B&W-maven heart. I thought about that idea for three days before I was able to get rid of it. Still kinda makes me chuckle.

Anyway, sequence, and the eye's pleasure in going from one picture to the next with minimal interruption, is why I put the emailed comments from the photographers (if there were any) at the end. I like looking at pictures next to each other, seeing how they play off their neighbors, and to me that's worth the modest inconvenience of separating the texts from the pictures.

Thanks again to everyone who sent work. Honorable mentions include, but are not limited to, Larry Angler, Mike Peters, Bob Gary, Craig Stocks, Marcelo Guarini (loved that one), Scott Campbell, Steve Goldenberg, Cathal Gantly (liked that too), Ricardo Cordeiro, Rod Locket, John Tellaisha, Al DaValle, Douglas Houk, Collin Orthner, Mark E. Johnson, Chris Kern, Ron Mayhew (don't think bringing Ernest Withers into it didn't catch my attention, Ron), Anurag Agnihotri, Animesh Ray, B.D. Parks, Terry Burnes, Randall Teasley, Richard Fox, and Harry Weide. All of their pictures were in the running to the end. There were many more nice ones than that, too.

All much fun for me, so thank you for that.

Finally, in David Stock's picture at the top of this page, do you see the faint faded remnant of an earlier yellow line on the manhole cover? Photographs often show us details we would not have thought to invent.

Mike

* Faux abstract, centered subject, woodsy landscape, critter pic

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

Lois Elling: "I was a kid when I saw my first manhole cover with the painted stripe in the wrong position and got such a kick out of it. I still do!"

Matthew O'Brien: "First of all I am not a pixel peeper. I like the Bakers Dozen concept…other than I lose interest between its inception and realisation.

"Aside from that I am curious. I was about to admire the subtle extra line (1<–>1) when I suddenly noticed. The main yellow paint on the manhole cover has a remarkable physical property. It is capable of painting the empty spaces within the grating as well as the cast iron structure. The only elements which should be yellow in the white box below should be cast iron. The gaps should be dark and may contain a few splashes, but should not be the full colour. Maybe there is an interesting explanation. I never would have noticed this if I had not first spotted the 1<–>1 diagonal."

Mike replies: I thought about that too at first (wondering with my reflexive suspicion if there might have been a little Photoshop going on there) but I've observed a road-striping machine in action, and the line, which according to Wikipedia is a sort of thermoplastic resin that has to be pre-heated, goes down onto the road in a thick sort of ribbon, sort of like wet tape. Having seen it, it makes sense to me that it might have enough body when it's new to span small gaps in a grate. If the manhole cover actually is a grate, which I suppose the photo doesn't actually prove. We're getting very geeky here!

Another phil: "Re the manhole, it is unlikely to be a grate, more likely to be indentations to provide a bit of grip for tyres, rather than flat metal which is very slippery when wet. The yellow paint is (as you say) a resin which arrives in blocks and is melted, poured into a 'box' on wheels with a slot on the underside through which the resin flows.(I was a highways civil engineering tech). Longer lines are normally nowadays done with a vehicle which does all the above in one operation. That's also why the original paint still shows in the indentations."

Richard Gonet: "I really enjoyed viewing this collection. Thank you for initiating this project and curating it. Since we all have different tastes in art, I suspect there are some hidden gems in the ones that were not selected. Is there a way to present the 'runners up' so we can see more of the entries? Even a collection of stripes and rubber duckies would be fun to see."

Mike replies: Here are the submissions by Marcelo and Cathal that I mentioned above.

By Marcelo Guarini

By Cathal Gantly

Philomaphos: "Thank you, Mike, for the Baker's Dozen and for your commentary on how you arranged your final choices. I now can't unsee the blue gloves in Richard Reusser's photograph, and I agree with the comments praising Melissa O'Shaughnessy's photograph. I really like the bonus picture by Marcelo Guarini for its quiet, contemplative colour and the mystery it suggests. I agree with Dave Jenkins' comment regarding the photograph by Darren Livingston—it is a striking, unsettling picture. It's been a pleasure to see them all."

The DIGITAL Glow

Jack W. asked: "Can 'the glow' be obtained with digital cameras and digital papers?"

[If you just happened across this post, we've just been talking about B&W printmaking, and, just previous to that, the aesthetics of B&W tonality as seen in old-timey Hollywood movies.]

My answer: naturally, yes. As I said, I think it's actually easier now. As I said in 2002 in the previous post, 'the glow' is just a look.

There are slight differences, of course. "Long scale" platinum/palladium prints are difficult to reproduce even in ink, still less online, which is why we've had several Pt/Pd print sales in the past. But even fiber-base silver gelatin papers have a subtle depth that is difficult to reproduce exactly.

Color digital inkjet prints are potentially more beautiful than any color printing method in photography's history, although many different techniques have their charms. I say "potentially" because relatively few printmakers* have the gear, the skills, and the taste to produce top-quality prints; but it can certainly be done and it is done, widely. Professional printmakers have a little advantage in that they can spend more on equipment and they practice all day; amateur printmakers have a little advantage in that they can take their time over a single print—even days or weeks—and keep "spending" paper and ink until they get it exactly right. Who's best? Both pros and amateurs have about an equal chance at expressive success if you ask me. Depends on the individual.

Black-and-white has had a much spottier history in the digital age. It's more difficult than color to print well, and (thus) fewer people do it well. Personally I think the materials were getting problematic at the end of the film era, with the new "straight line" films that were problematic matches to certain papers. In the Digital Transition period, equipment and materials for taking and printing B&W digital images lagged behind all the tech and effort that was poured into color printing materials and methods.

Now, I think, we're over that. According to my definitions, we're seven years into the digital era of still photography, and now a.) the sensors are good enough, b.) the printers* are good enough, c.) the inks are good enough, and d.) the papers are good enough.

Actually several of those things are better than good enough. Especially the papers.

So how to you get a B&W print to sing when printmaking digitally? As ever, it's a question of skill and judgment.

In my view, the problem with printing is the same as with cameras: burgeoning complexity. Of course, some people like that...they're tech mavens, and they like being experts, and they get motivated by challenges. Which is all fine. But in general, my feeling with printing is that what keeps people away is that at the beginning of the learning curve you step into a rabbit hole, and the rabbit hole leads to a forbidding underworld of not knowing what to do, and things going mystifyingly wrong, and of not being able to find the information you need to figure out what to do next. Even if you do make it back out of the rabbit hole again, you just have to spend too much time "at a loss." It's not the time and effort to come up to speed that discourages people, as that so much of that time is spent feeling thwarted...just being frustrated and confused. So people get turned off of printing.

Really, the time should be spent "learning the music of tonality," rather than learning to play the instruments, right?

There's no one right way to print. In the spirit of the 2002 post, however, I'll mention a few specifics that might help you get there with B&W digital printing.

• Start with a small printer. When you can make an exquisite small print you're perfectly satisfied with, that's the time to get ambitious and start hankering after the big warships that need an entire small room or a big corner of a large one. There's always time for that.

• Use the best OEM (original equipment manufacturer) pigment/carbon inksets.

• Stick with the OEM's papers at first so you can use their profiles.

• If you want to have fun, once you get going—or better yet as you get going—invest in ImagePrint. ColorByte is just about to switch to new product names—there will be two: R.E.D., which means "runs every device," an easy-to-use interface for OEM drivers and OEM profiles. For B&W, you will need ImagePrint Black, which is the new name for the old full-version ImagePrint v.10; Black will be the name of v.11. (If you buy v.10 you'll receive a free upgrade to Black when it's released.) Yes, you need v.10/Black if you want to do B&W. No, it's not cheap—but you'll get an easy, ironclad interface with which to use custom drivers, plus custom profiles for almost literally every photo and fine-art paper made anywhere in the world. I haven't used this yet, but I keep hearing good things about it, and I admit I yearn for a simpler, more accurate method of printing. If you want to know more about ImagePrint, check out Kevin Raber's article and videos about it at The Luminous-Landscape. Tellingly, the L-L page is titled "Making Printing Easier."

• I use Photoshop CS6 with Nik Silver Efex 2 as a plugin, but whatever you use, I wouldn't necessarily become a converter "nomad," wandering from one to the next in search of the Holy Grail**. Just as with film and enlargers, it's easy to get sidetracked on minute differences in programs, but most of them will do what you need to do; learning what you want done is more important than slight differences in how it's accomplished.

• Forget the old saw that "every good print has a pure black and a pure white." An hour on Shorpy is the sentence for anyone convicted of this superstitious belief! Shadow (dark-tone) and highlight (light-tone) separation is what is wanted. For that, aim for a black just on the gray side of Dmax (maximum density) and a white just on the gray side of paper white.

Detail of a 1939 Russell Lee photo that recently appeared on Shorpy

• Look at the image as if it's real light. That is, look at it holistically. It's easy to get wrapped up in tones for tones' sake—try to relate the tones to what you know about what light on the surface of planet Earth looks like.

• Don't exaggerate. Gentle, gentle with that axe, Eugene.

• If you have ImagePrint, then experiment with abandon and try all the truly wonderful papers we have today! It's getting late on this Tuesday, so maybe papers is a post for a different day. 

I guess the most important point is that learning how tones sing (or "glow," I guess I should say in this context) is a lifelong learning process, a happy and satisfying journey for me for sure. We gradually come to find the expressive tonality we each prefer, and it becomes part of the "signature" of our work in B&W. Peter Turnley told me that when he sits down with Voja Mitrovic to show him a stack of B&W prints, Voja will cast his expert eye on the tones and indicate slight changes that to him would be improvements. Consider that when Walter Rosenblum was exposed for passing off his own later prints as vintage Lewis Hine originals, the original tipoff was that they seemed to betray the characteristic tonality of Rosenblum prints. Look at a book of Ralph Gibson's B&W photos after a book of Lee Friedlander's B&W photos after a book of Roy de Carava's B&W photos after a book of Sally Mann's B&W photos; you will see in each a different and distinctive approach to tonality. If you're a sensitive worker with a sense of what looks right to you in your own work, this will emerge just as surely in digital printmaking as it would have from the darkroom.

Mike
(Several fine printmakers and manufacturer's representatives
contributed to this post. My thanks to all.)

*I use the term "printmaker" for a human maker of prints, and "printer" for a mechanical device device used to produce prints. An Epson P800 is a printer; Charlie Cramer is a printmaker.

**Remember, the point of the search for the Holy Grail is that there was no Holy Grail.

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Featured Comments from:

James Weekes: "Just to add to the chorus. I have used Image Print for years, through two printers, Epson 3800 and now P800. A magical program. The hidden gem of the company is their free tutorials. Almost any problem solved in minutes."

Tex Andrews: "Very, very helpful. Have bookmarked ImagePrint. But there's one I think very important thing I'd like to toss in as a visual artist of traditional media who also does photography now. Digital ink printing is different than chemical printing, and should be judged that way. Japanese whisky is excellent, but needs to be judged on its own terms, not in a constant comparison to Scotch whisky. Same with printing. Printing digitally involves ink, so the real comparison is with ink prints, such as etchings or fine art lithographs. I always hated matte paper and prints until digital; now I adore them, and am having problems with digital gloss paper. It's because I see in the inkjet print the quality of ink on paper that I see in traditional fine art ink prints."

Joe: "I believe that one of the keys to becoming a really good printmaker, whether B&W or color, is to get out and look at great prints—in galleries, museums, etc.—as often as you can. Not computer screens, magazines, or even most books. Look at really good silver and inkjet prints, printed by the masters. One thing I learned from studying great prints is how often the best printmakers are not obsessed with the things we've been taught to do so easily in Photoshop. Like? Pulling all the detail out of the shadows. Sometimes a shadow should just be a shadow."

Mike replies: Looking at prints in museums used to be good advice, but now that museums are saving money by keeping their light levels too low (and that's why they do it—don't believe their hooey about lights fading), looking at prints in museums is just as often a frustration as a pleasure these days. It's a deplorable fad I hope passes ASAP.

Charles Cramer: "I remember you posting a link to Shorpy years ago, and I just love the tonality there. Gorgeous, and so full of light! In my digital printing classes I find that most people's prints are the opposite—too dark. Many detailed shadow areas are almost black. Perhaps this dark style of printing reflects a more modern, bleak view of the world? (Also, the webmaster of Shorpy does a great job at opening shadows and restoring highlight detail. See http://www.shorpy.com/node/451 for before and after examples).

"With digital capture and processing, we can achieve a more linear rendering of tones, without the characteristic curve of film that wonderfully separates mid-tones, but at the expense of compressed highlights and shadows. And in most of the Shorpy images, I see clouds that are pretty compressed—but with just enough detail so they don’t look washed out. The clouds are certainly not 'fluffy,' a la Ansel Adams. Tonality is a series of compromises, and if you want the Shorpy tonality, I think you have to give up some of the highlight separation now possible with digital.

"Another problem that contributes to dark-looking prints are monitors, which I believe can be very deceptive, even when carefully calibrated. I talked about ways to make monitors more perceptually accurate in a talk I did for OnLandscape, (found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d8zxB4zMAg, around the 28 minute mark). Monitors always 'glow' since they are basically lit from behind. Prints have to exist in the real world, and are at a disadvantage. But, it still is very possible to make glowing prints. Just see some Adams, Weston, or Sexton original prints. One very obvious thing I tell classes about making a print glow is: darken the edges, and lighten the middle. I think that deserves a 'Duh!,' but it’s a good starting point."

[Charlie is one of the leading printmaking teachers in the USA. —Ed.]

TOP Classic: Ten Best B&W Movies (and Then Some)

Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious. None other than the great war reporter Robert Capa was the uncredited still photographer for this film, although of course there's no way of knowing if he took this particular picture. But he might have.

[2018 note: Watching B&W movies and paying attention to the visuals is an excellent way to improve your feel for B&W tonality—those old cinematographers were masters of lighting and of their filmstocks. You might also want to read this fascinating exchange about Roger Deakins' cinematography for the Coen brothers' The Man Who Wasn't There from the DVD commentary. And may I just add that I would love to see a coffee-table book of beautiful B&W stills from old movies, including a few of the masterful promo shots and actor portraits done as stills. There are a few more comments and a good example in this post. That would be a beautiful book...but maybe only in my head.  —MJ]

A question I posed on TOP in December of 2006 about readers' favorite black-and-white movies quickly racked up a near-record number of comments.

I tallied the results (no trivial task, either—see what I do for you?) which are presented below. Note that readers made what they wished of the question; I'm sure some people nominated great films, some people nominated favorites, and others paid more attention to the actual cinematography and the use of monotone. It's all good.

I've arranged the results in order of the number of mentions a film got, and then, within each category, alphabetically. In some cases I added the year of release to avoid confusion with remakes or other films of the same title, and for consistency I've generally listed the titles in their original languages with the common English-language title, if it's known by one, in parentheses. For simplicity's sake I haven't italicized all the titles in the main list. You should be able to find all of the titles on the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com).

Of special mention are Sunrise, a silent film that got two votes, and In Cold Blood, which is B&W but also in Cinemascope. A few "finds" among little-known films may be Eric von Stroheim's Greed (although it's not available on DVD yet [2018 note: it is now, under the original title]), Alphaville, and The Battle of Algiers. For obvious reasons I disallowed movies shot partly—or all!—in color; however, the runaway runner-up not on the list is no doubt Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï, which got a whopping three votes despite the fact that it was shot in very subdued Eastmancolor. And, finally, the Special Lifetime Achievement Award goes to Louis Malle's Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows) which is not only in B&W, but has music by Miles Davis, a plot that turns on a B&W photograph, and the movie includes a scene in a darkroom! Can't beat that.

My only personal comment is that I see a subscription to Netflix in my future—I've seen nine of the top ten (gotta go rent The Third Man) and I consider myself fairly cinematically "literate," at least with older classics, but haven't seen anywhere close to half these films.

Thanks to everyone who participated. And if you see any mistakes in the list, please let me know.

[2018 notes: An old film that deserves special mention for particularly lush B&W tonality, although it's a truly weird movie, is Jean Cocteau's 1946 Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la bête) with cinematography by Henri Alekan.

One film I particularly liked that I discovered from this list is Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di biciclette).

A sentimental favorite that, improbably, combines slapstick comedy with nostalgic wistfulness for bygone summertimes is Jacques Tati's lovely M. Hulot's Holiday (Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot)—I feel like I spent many childhood summers at that place, and I don't even know where it is.

Peter Bogdanovitch's Paper Moon also didn't make our list (although his The Last Picture Show did), but I love László Kovács' B&W cinematography for that one.

And if you've never seen Akiro Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai), for heaven's sake run, don't walk. A bucket-list movie without question. I'm not a "repeat watcher" of movies, but I've seen Seven Samurai three times.

And looking forward to the fourth. —MJ]

-

TOP Readers List of Great Black-and-White Films

Citizen Kane (14)

The Third Man (13)

Casablanca (7)

Dr. Strangelove (7)

Breathless (6)

Raging Bull (6)

Shichinin no samurai (The Seven Samurai) (6)

Schindler’s List (5)

Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire) (4)

Manhattan (4)

Nosferatu (4)

Touch of Evil (4)

La Dolce Vita (3)

Eraserhead (3)

Good Night and Good Luck (3)

M (3)

The Maltese Falcon (3)

Paths of Glory (3)

Psycho (3)

Rashomon (3)

Le Salaire de la Peur (Wages of Fear) (3)

Sin City (3)

Stagecoach (3)

Stranger than Paradise (3)

Throne of Blood (3)

Alphaville (2)

Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (2)

The Battle of Algiers (2)

La Belle et la bête (Beauty and the Beast) (2)

Creature from the Black Lagoon (2)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2)

Double Indemnity (2)

Down By Law (2)

Ed Wood (2)

Elephant Man (2)

High and Low (2)

High Noon (2)

Hud (2)

Ikiru (2)

Jules et Jim (2)

Ladri di biciclette (The Bicycle Thief, Bicycle Thieves) (2)

Metropolis (2)

Night of the Hunter (2)

Nóz w wodzie (Knife in the Water) (2)

One, Two, Three (2)

To Kill a Mockingbird (2)

Pather Panchali (2)

pi (2)

Rebecca (2)

Some Like It Hot (2)

Sunrise (2)

Them (2)

12 Angry Men (2)

Yojimbo (2)

Young Frankenstein (2)

Angel-A

El Ángel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel)

Angels with Dirty Faces

Aparajito

Az Én XX. századom (My Twentieth Century)

Battleship Potemkin

The Big Sleep

The Blob

Bob le Flambeur

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

C'est arrivé près de chez vous (Man Bites Dog)

Charulata

Dead Man

D.O.A. (1950)

Double Indemnity

8 1/2

Les Enfants du paradis

Fort Apache (cited for innovative IR photography)

Frankenstein (1931)

The Grapes of Wrath

The Great Dictator

Greed

La Haine

A Hard Day’s Night

Hidden Fortress

Hiroshima Mon Amour

The Hustler

Ibun Sarutobi Sasuke (Samurai Spy)

In Cold Blood (cited for being in Cinemascope)

Jalsaghar

Key Largo

The Killing

King Kong (1933)

Kiss Me Deadly

Kurutta kajitsu (Crazed Fruit)

The Lady from Shanghai

The Ladykillers (1955)

The Last Picture Show

Laura

Lolita

The Long Voyage Home

Lord of the Flies (1963)

Lost Horizon

The Magnificant Ambersons

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The Man Who Wasn’t There

The Manchurian Candidate

Meshes in the Afternoon (short)

Mighty Joe Young (1949)

Misummer Night's Dream (1935)

Modern Times

My Darling Clementine

Night of the Living Dead Night

Mail (1936)

Notorious

Of Mice and Men

On the Waterfront

Orpheus

Ostre sledované vlaky (Closely Watched Trains)

Persona

Les Quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows)

Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers)

Såsom i en spegel (Through a Glass Darkly)

The Scarlet Empress

Scrooge (1951)

Seppuku

Soy Cuba / Ya Kuba

La Strada

The Stranger

Stray Dog

A Streetcar named Desire

Sunset Boulevard

Sweet Smell of Success

Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story)

Tsubaki Sanjûrô (Sanjuro)

The Wrong Man

Have fun!

Mike
(Thanks to all the readers in 2007 who contributed to this)

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bruce alan greene: "All good films in the list. As an aside, watching digital reproductions of B&W films often give a very different impression than that was produced in the the cinema when the movies were new. I have been lucky enough (and old enough) to see some studio prints of some of the classic films on the list. A studio print is generally fewer generations down from the original negative than the copies that appeared in cinemas. Sometimes it is struck from the original camera negative. And if you really want to see the tonality of these films, seeing these prints projected is certainly the way to see them. I have yet to see any digital reproduction of a B&W film that comes close to reproducing the dynamic range and tonalities of the original prints projected in a theater. And, the digital reproductions have also been re-interpreted as well.

"Sad to say that one of my favorite B&W films, To Kill a Mockingbird, is available today only as a restoration from damaged release prints as I believe the negative was destroyed in a fire at the studio. And this restoration doesn't look anything like the beautiful imagery that audiences originally viewed and that I saw in the 1980s. So, if you ever get a chance to see an original print of any of the films on the list, in a theater, do it!!!"

[Bruce is a Hollywood cinematographer. —Ed.]

Bob Rosinsky: "Having seen 95% of the films on the list, it's hard to rate the best of the best black and white cinematography (my personal favorite is The Third Man). A few more: Ashes and Diamonds, Director Andrzej Wajda; Diabolique, Director Henri-Georges Clouzot; Wages of Fear, Director Henri-Georges Clouzot; The Triumph of the Will, Director Leni Riefenstahl (scary content, innovative cinematography); Double Indemnity, Director Billy Wilder; Nebraska, Director Alexander Payne; Repulsion, Director Roman Polanski; Jules and Jim, Director Francois Truffaut; Stalker (B&W and color), Director Andrei Tarkovsky."

Rob: "One of my all time favorite films, never mind just B&W, is The White Ribbon (2009). It is a German masterpiece by Michael Haneke. The cinematography is splendid. Also Ida (2013), a Polish film by Pawlikowski. This is one of those films that you can watch for the visual beauty alone. Finally, anyone who is serious about independent, classic and foreign films has got to check out Filmstruck, which is a streaming service put out by TCM that you can get bundled with the Criterion Collection. It is my favorite streaming service. My wife and I watched a restored version of Chaplin's Modern Times that looked like it was made in 2016, not 1936."

Mike replies: Several readers have mentioned Ida privately to me. It hadn't been made when this list was first published.

Max Cottrell: ""Ida" was made in 2014 by Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski. Netflix: 'Raised in a Catholic orphanage during the Nazi occupation of Poland, Anna is poised to join the order when she learns she has a surviving aunt. But visiting the woman before taking her vows uncovers some inconvenient truths about her heritage.' The cinematographer must surely also be a B&W photographer. Stunningly well shot. I have watched it at least six times, shared it with non-photog friends, and purchased a copy. Not that easy to watch, but very rewarding, especially if you are engaged in spiritual practice."

[Here is the Amazon link for Ida. —Ed.]

Aaron C Greenman: "Hands down the most beautifully filmed black-and-white film I’ve ever seen is Ida—every frame is a beautiful still photograph. I recommend to everyone to watch it today—a wonderful film."

Andrew Lamb: "What? Did none us vote for Rules of the Game directed by Jean Renoir, which features Hank Carter as a butler (he was also assistant director)? ['Hank Carter' = Henri Cartier-Bresson —Ed.] From a photographic point of view, the film is noteworthy for its use of extreme depth of field, aided by special wide-angle lenses made by Kinoptik (think they're still going). This technique pre-dates Citizen Kane by a couple of years. Renoir also made a short film, based on a Maupassant short story, One Partie de Compagne, which has some of the most lyrical B&W imagery I've seen in a film."

Paul De Zan: "The current Blu-ray release (2011) of Citizen Kane is an absolute revelation, the finest transfer of a classic film I've seen. It gives the movie a stunning immediacy I've never felt seeing it in a theater, which I have many times. Highest possible recommendation. Use the TOP Amazon link now!"

Mike replies: Is this the one you mean?

Paul De Zan replies: " I have this set (which includes the very good documentary 'The Battle Over Citizen Kane'), but the disc is the same in both the release you reference and the newer '75th Anniversary' packaging; if it were not, Amazon reviewers would scream bloody murder."

Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir from 1947,
an allegory of impossible pairings

Peggy C.: "I did not know of your blog until only a few years ago or your list would have included the 1947 film, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The cinematography was by the great Charles Lang. I re-watch it several times a year now that I have the DVD. The lighting and tonality are just amazing. This film is the single most important reason for my love of B&W photos and films."

Mike replies: I started watching it on Amazon Prime last night, Peggy, thanks to your recommendation—just the sort of antique movie I like to look at for the cinematography. I have dim memories of the TV series. Lang's B&W tonalities are classic.

Richard Newman: "I am amazed that neither of Ingmar Bergman's great B&W films, Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal were even mentiobed, or, even more, Sergei Eisenstein and Ivan the Great. Three movies with great cinematography by two great directors."

[There are many more good recommendations in the Comments section. —Ed.]

Richard S.: "Glad to see Grapes of Wrath on the list. I starting watching that on TV during a boring Sunday afternoon's channel hopping and ended up completely transfixed.

"Some years ago I knew someone who worked for the British Film Institute, and that year they did a Film Noir calendar; I framed and hung around half of the B&W stills they'd used in the calendar, they were so good."

Grizzlymarmot: "Somehow the list is missing an impressive number of great comedies. Perhaps in their recollections your readers stereotype B&W as menacing or dramatic. The patterns in 42nd Street are mesmerizing. Chiaroscuro makes It's a Wonderful Life wonderful. Mirror scene in Duck Soup; falling buildings by Buster Keaton; stunts by Harold Lloyd—comedy demands the most precise work. B&W is also the most glamorous—Some Like it Hot is in the list but where is Greta Garbo or Jean Harlow—B&W is perfect for creating glamor."

Still Life: Found vs. Constructed

Of the many, many identifiable genres of photography (I'm sure there are more than you think, and the work of some people is beyond category), the ones that most naturally appeal to me are portraiture, candids and "environmental portraiture" (meaning people in their surroundings), and still life.

Regarding the last, there are two basic kinds—constructed and found. Constructed still life ranges all the way from creating amazing ephemeral artwork just for the camera, to the happy activity of arranging objects to be photographed...a great many people get huge pleasure from this, and many people are amazingly good at it. Anything that empowers their practice is something I'm in favor of.

But what I really like is "found" still life...happening upon objects and their settings in the course of ordinary life and stopping to make a careful photograph of them, perhaps rearranging them somewhat but sometimes not. I have on my wall in the kitchen a giant print of an apple that Paul Butzi made for me. It gets a lot of comments, almost all positive, but a professional once criticized it because the background, he said, isn't perfect. True, but it happened to be a just-washed apple I saw sitting on an old army jacket in a kitchen, and I photographed it just as it was. No perfecting involved. In fact, no anything involved, except looking carefully and using the right focus and aperture.

I've never done enough still-life photography to make anything of it...no special concerns have ever emerged, no personal style. But I love it and always have. It was one of the first things I explored when I got the first camera I ever bought for myself.

If you do still life, do you prefer constructed or found?

And, do you have a go-to lens for it or do you just use whatever you have on the camera? I tend to do the latter.

Mike

P.S. To add pictures to the comments, the original must have a URL and be no more than 800 pixels wide, saved in sRGB. Then use the following code in the comment box to load the image:

If and when I find the picture I wanted to use as an illustration to this post, I'll add it.

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David Francis: "Now that I'm in my mid-seventies, I quite like the idea of subjects that don't move and don't object to being photographed, Apart from that, I like the opportunity that still life photography provides for developing my lighting skills. Most of my subjects are of the found variety—things that are interesting as a whole or that have interesting visual details. But there is almost always an element of construction in these photographs as well, largely in terms of selecting the background, setting up the object, and arranging the lighting. As for equipment, I often use my Nikon D7000 with a Tokina 100mm macro lens, but I have also used my Panasonic GX7 with a 20mm lens, and a Canon G10 in macro mode. All great fun, and every now and then you get some really interesting results."

Mike adds: David sent me a beautiful "found" still life as a printed card (along with a donation to TOP, for which many thanks, David), and it's a beautiful little print. I've left it out where I can see it since it arrived.

Dennis (partial comment): "As with other subject matter, the answer to this is that what I like to look at and what I like to do aren't necessarily the same."

Ken James: "I think that still lifes [the correct plural BTW —Mike the Ed.] are my favorite also. Just this morning walking the dogs my friend and I were talking about this very thing, even about found and constructed. I have always really been a studio photographer, so I tend to constructed, but I am working on found. My current undertaking is to find some way to make my constructed more creative and appealing. I like to do simple things, but they are of limited appeal, meaning only to me. For me, a very timely post. Thanks. You are working that wrist quite a bit seems to me." [And paying for it —M.]

Yellow Over Dark Blue

As I said yesterday, the deadline for the Baker's Dozen "It Must Be Color" feature is Tuesday night at 11:59 p.m. I've already received enough submissions to build the feature.

I'm having a bit of a conceptual mindlock about the concept, though. Many people are simply sending in pictures that are of strong colors. I'm not sure that's the same thing as a picture that needs to be in color in order to work.

Pictures that are purely of colors or a color are descendants of things like Eggleston's seminal "Red Ceiling," simplistic advertising and photo-magazine clichés, and the American hard edge / color field painter Ellsworth Kelly. Of course they "must be in color," though, because the color is the point and without the color they lose all trace of meaning or attractiveness. So I will include some photographs of that type in the set. But you're unlikely to do it better than people who have committed their creative lives to it, such as Pete Turner or Harald Mante.

But consider the difference between Ellsworth Kelly and Mark Rothko:

Ellsworth Kelly, Yellow over Dark Blue, 1964–5

Mark Rothko, Untitled (yellow and blue), 1954

Very similar motifs, but to me, the Rothko painting is art and the Kelly print is just colors. (I've never cared for Kelly. I hope his fans will pardon me.)

I'm aware that color affects people differently, and although I'm sensitive to it, I have suspicions of it and misgivings about it. There's something knee-jerk about it, a potential toward some base animal instinctual trigger that I don't trust.

Consider what the English composer Benjamin Britten said of Beethoven, in an interview:

A certain rot, if that isn't too strong a word, set in with Beethoven. Before Beethoven, music served things greater than itself. For example, the glory of God, the greatest glory of all. Or the glory of the state. Or the composer's social environment. After Beethoven the composer became the center of his own universe. Hence the Romantic school.

I think you could say the same thing about Eggleston's "The Red Ceiling." A great deal of reverent verbiage has been piled up at the foot of that photograph, but really, the idea became debased, morphing into the cliché that if you want to be sure of appealing to viewers, "make it big and make it red."

And then consider (in light of the Rothko and the Kelly) this photograph by John Crowley of Clonmel, Ireland:

Photo by John Crowley

Human beings are intensely sensitive to hierarchies of status, and I'm well aware that all Rothkos and most Kellys are "better" or "worth more" than any photograph and you're not supposed to (perhaps not even allowed to) think otherwise. (Ve haff experts.) But I think it's instructive to try to set aside received hierarchies of status and received assumptions about value once in a while, just as a mental exercise; and in that sense I'd say John Crowley's photograph is better and worth more than either the Kelly or the Rothko, as outrageous and contrary as such a claim might be. (At least when all three are democratized to small JPEGs—Rothkos have real presence in person that almost no photograph can match. You can't make a one-of-a-kind photograph, even if you do.) It's just that there's a certain rot in modern art's addiction to color for its own sake. Yeah, yeah, blue and yellow are opposites, wow, and putting them next to each other strikes a certain emotional chord down in the lizard-brain, the amygdala down by the brain stem. We geddit. The Crowley has blue and yellow too, but does more with it, plays with it more, certainly than that simplistic thought-free Kelly print. It gives you a real sense of place and light, and isn't even less lovely.

I've no doubt that most people are going to love the next Baker's Dozen. The submission count is up to 205, approximately. That's going to make it a whole lot easier to edit than the black-and-white set was!

Although I don't think I've received one single "bad" photograph yet.

Mike

P.S. Here's a great photo of Ellsworth Kelly by Sebastian Kim. (Heh.)

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scott kirkpatrick: "That's a powerful Ellsworth Kelly picture. It didn't need color."

Ellsworth Kelly, Yellow over Dark Blue, 1964–5 (original in color)

Tex Andrews: "I kinda felt the same way about Kelly (although I loved his drawings), until I saw a works on paper show of his at the National Gallery sometime back in the late '80s or early '90s. It was revelatory—and he was doing it in the '40s, which surprised the heck out of me. I've thought a lot more of him since. That said, I can see why you seem...'suspicious'? But there really is a zen to his work. The challenge to the viewer is sort of seeing beyond that first smack of color."

Eolake: "Funny, I had the opposite reaction to the two paintings. I love the Ellsworth Kelly one, it really moves me. But of course art is subjective, and the more abstract it is, the more subjective it is, surely."

Mark: "Here’s a true story. Husband and wife buy a Rothko painting many years ago and loan it to a museum. I won’t identify it precisely as I was an ancillary part of the litigation later surrounding it. Husband takes ill and dies. Widow discovers soon thereafter their liquid cash for living was nowhere near what she thought it was and needed money. Gets the Rothko back from the museum to sell. But being embarrassed about her financial position, does this on the QT. She’s advised auction will bring the best return, but she just can’t allow her high society friends to know she’s in difficult straits requiring this sale. So she contacts the art dealer they originally bought it from. He finds a buyer who signs a non-disclosure agreement and an agreement not to resell, all of which is probably not worth the paper it’s printed on, so it turned out. He paid her $9 million for it. Within a year or two he places it up for auction and it sells for $29 million. She then sues the art dealer and the buyer/seller. That was my intro to Rothko, never having heard or seen anything of his before. The photo you display above is much nicer. The fact anyone feels a square or rectangle or two can possibly be worth that kind of dough boggles my simple mind."

Mike relies: What happened with the suit? Seems to me like it was her own fault; she could have put it up for auction herself. It was her own desire to keep it quiet that cost her the extra $20 million. If you want the best price for something, you have to make the product available to the greatest number of potential buyers. Or was she just angry that by having it put up for auction, her own financial position was advertised to her social connections, despite her intentions?

As for the agreement not to resell, I think it's difficult to a.) control events from beyond the grave, b.) control events past your own ownership. I have an acquaintance, a childhood friend who is very wealthy, who bought a large farm property north of Milwaukee on which to build a house and use as a private estate. The farmer had been having a bitter battle as he wished to keep the land out of the grasp of developers. She apparently made him some assurance that she would not resell the land for some period of time—under what exact conditions I do not know; or else he just assumed she would not. I don't know the details. She then found a nicer piece of property not far away, bought that, and sold the first. The farmer was apoplectic. My feeling at the time is, if he wanted to control the land, he shouldn't have sold it. Once it belongs to someone else, he and his demands are out of the picture.

Robin Dreyer: "Although I love representational art as much as anyone (I'm a photographer, after all), it was a room full of Rothkos at the National Gallery that produced one of the strongest emotional responses I've ever had in the presence of art. No JPEG on a screen or even a well-printed image in a large-format book can reproduce the effect of being in the presence of those paintings—especially if they are arranged and lit as well as the were in that room."

Mike replies: I'll second that. I find Rothko's best work very moving in person, almost ineffably so.

William Langford: "To me Art is never a thing hanging on a wall. Art is what happens between the thing and the viewer. As seen in reproductions a Rothko painting is not very interesting. The real thing, seen under the prescribed lighting, with limited seating, and cordoned off for a personal experience...now that is when Art can happen."

Mike replies: I agree with that, but for devil's advocacy, there is John Berger's Marxist critique of the "aura" of the original object in his four-part documentary "Ways of Seeing." "If Sister Wendy Beckett is the kindly grandmother who takes you by the hand, and leads you, beatifically, through the wonders of art history," writes Carolina A. Miranda, "John Berger was the hippie-Marxist uncle who gave you the red pill and told you it was all a mirage." ("Art's red pill: An appreciation of critic John Berger," L.A. Times, Jan. 5, 2017.)

There is No Such Thing as Image Quality

There is no such thing as "image quality" in expressive photography. There are only properties.

This might seem counter-intuitive, or argumentative, or even subversive. Many people who are happily engaged in the discussion about technical properties have fully integrated the term "image quality" and know what they mean by it.

But quality is subjective. Only by first agreeing which properties to value can something be said to have quality. Even if that agreement is implicit or assumed...as it very often is.

Quality is easier to assign when the task at hand is merely technical: to use an example John B. Williams used in his 1989 book (which he titled Image Clarity, not "image quality"), if a surveillance camera needs to resolve the numbers on a license plate at a great distance, then resolution is a desirable property. The more specific the task, the easier it is to reach agreement as to which properties are important. By common agreement, the photography world has come to assume that things like extreme clarity, high resolution, vivid colors, and "corner sharpness" represent "quality."

But who says so? These are just conventions. And such conventions change all the time: for example, Group ƒ/64, formed in 1932 in opposition to Pictorialism (Willard Van Dyke's 683 vs. Alfred Stieglitz's 291, San Francisco vs. New York)  had as one of its aesthetic principles "pan focus," or sharp focus front to back within the represented scene; they liked their pictures sharp. Pictorialists such as Alvin Langdon Coburn and Gertrude Käsebier insisted on exaggerated blur everywhere; they liked their pictures soft. Recently, forum denizens routinely extol greater amounts of out-of-D.o.F. blur as a "quality" rationale for owning larger sensors and expensive faster lenses. Apparently they like their pictures extremely sharp and extremely soft. But that's not always best either. Macro photographers are finding that tiny sensors work well because they give more D.o.F. for tiny subjects.

In expressive photography, all bets are off, because any property can potentially be a "quality" if it's sensitively and appropriately applied—and any property can be a detriment to certain pictures, no matter how universally those properties are conventionally agreed to constitute "good" image quality. Forensic, analytical hyper-resolution might work for some pictures; but other pictures it might work against. Vivid color might be appealing in some pictures; other pictures are better served by soft, muted colors. Some people love to search for the very "best" lens (again, a subjective term), meaning the clearest, the sharpest—even when they can't visually distinguish the results in pictures from the next-best lens...but many people do great work with ancient Petzvals, toy cameras, Holgas and Lensbabies.

As a lens fanatic, lens aficionado, and recovering lens addict, I learned long ago that "all lenses yield their gifts." No matter how "bad" the lens, you can take a good picture with it. No matter how "good" the lens, it's certainly easy to take bad pictures with it.

All properties have their gifts to give, too, in expressive photography. That is, all properties have the potential to become qualities.

So it's meaningless to say things like "One-inch sensor cameras are as good as medium-format film cameras" as I said yesterday. They're different. Each one has its gifts to give. Use it wisely and well and you stand a chance of creating a few pictures that truly do have image quality.

I got a bit addicted to the look of the new 20-MP Micro 4/3 sensor because it has properties I particularly like. Used with the Panasonic 12–35mm, it often had the look of high lens contrast, coupled with a certain coarseness, that looks vivid to me without actually having what I'd call "too much" resolution. The typical D.o.F. looked right to me. It didn't look too smooth or too "gassy." It had a bit of tooth.

...Highly subjective terms! Sorry. But maybe you can sense what I'm saying. The important point is merely that, personally, just for myself, I liked its properties better than cameras and lenses that are conventionally thought to have "better" image quality. I enjoyed making pictures with it just because I enjoyed the look.

I'm hardly alone. I know many people who use equipment that offers supposedly less than the "best image quality" precisely because they prefer its image quality. It suits their expressive purposes better.

When we look at this old advertising photograph, we just look at the picture—we don't care how much Rudolph Hermann spent for the lens he used.

Whatever we choose to think of as "quality" tends to be status-related, and it also tends to disappear over time. I've been in this game long enough that I've witnessed many people who take the search for "image quality" to extremes—and I've heard about many others who did the same before my time. What does that matter now? Almost nothing. "PhotoDes" said yesterday: "Many of the famous Baroque era artists experimented extensively with different pigments for their paintings—Prussian Blue, zinc white, etc. were valued for their intensity and were regarded as a characteristic of high-quality work." Does anyone but art experts even recognize that when looking at Baroque paintings today? I'd say not. We just look at the paintings. We're not aware that the shade of the blue is a status-marker, or that Piet van der Flooj (I just made that name up) was cooler than the rest of the kids because he used it. Similarly, let's hypothesize about a photographer who went to the greatest extreme to make the absolute best quality digital image—spent huge sums of money for the best equipment, exhaustively compared editing software, etc., etc., optimized everything...but did it in, say, 2003.

Who cares now? No one, probably, except as an historical curiosity. And that's assuming we even know how that old image was made. That former "ultimate perfection" has long since been eclipsed by ordinary equipment and materials.

It takes courage these days to stand up to the conventional wisdom and not care about conventionally agreed-upon "image quality," but to go with what you like and what suits your work. And you're justified in doing that. Because strange as it is to say, there really is no such thing as image quality. There are only image properties—and almost all properties potentially have their gifts to give. It's up to us to impart the quality.

Mike
(Thanks to many of the commenters from yesterday)

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Bahi: "Beautifully expressed and insightful. It’s still a hard lesson to really take to heart, though."

Michael: "Thanks for that, Mike. Right on! I've just met a really telling example of your argument by a landscape photographer, Thomas Heaton, who lives near me in the Northeast of England. He had received a comment on YouTube sympathizing/complaining about some blobs of water on the lens when taking a photo on the Northern Irish coast as Hurricane Ophelia hit. This is Thomas's rejoinder, with vivid illustrations of image quality, not picture quality."

Wes Pittman: "I wish you had published this about $20,000 ago."

hugh crawford: "I'm generally in the choir you are preaching to, but...painters obsess over paint in a way that photographers can't even imagine. Paint is complicated. Paint is expensive. Blue paint particularly so.

"Who's Rudolph Hermann? looks like Paul Wolff, but kind of faded. I love his automobile photos but I've lusted after his Zeppelin photos for years. Also Dr. Wolff was rather obsessed with the technical details of photography and wrote several fine books on the subject, which is where I recognized the photo from. Too bad about the whole Nazi thing but his photos are beautiful."

Mike replies: I found it on a blog post about Paul Wolff, who is the person I was searching for. Sorry but I cannot locate the page again. It was a good blog, I thought, from what I scanned there. The author thought the photo was by Rudolph Hermann, so I repeated that...that's the kind of secondary detail that Mike Johnston of the Fact-Checking Department doesn't quite have enough pep to drill down on.

Gary Nylander: "This is a great blog post and thought provoking. Coincidentally, just before I read this article I was looking through some 35mm color negatives that I had just got back from the lab. I made the pictures with a 1936 Leica III with a 50mm Summar ƒ/2 lens—uncoated. Yes it has bad lens flare when pointed toward the sun, but even though the flare might be considered undesirable for some photographers, it has its own unique kind of beauty that could not be achieved otherwise. With the sun behind me and illuminating the subject straight on, I doubt if anyone would be able see that much difference between a modern day lens of the same focal length. So as you say 'all lenses yield their gifts.'"

s. wolters: "Elementary my dear Johnston! During the three decades that I worked as a designer I presented all kinds of artwork to clients, almost on a daily basis. Image quality was hardly ever an issue in the discussions. Words like quality, taste and beauty should effectively be avoided anyway. As soon as they come up you probably made a bad proposal. That does not mean that they are unimportant. It's semantics, and English is not my mother's tongue, but I would use 'image quality' internally during the product development a lot, in many different ways:

1. How good or bad an image is, especially in relation to the function of it, the condition: ‘This image quality is bad, you cannot even recognize who is who.’
2. Good characteristics: ‘This image has a lot of qualities, but color genuineness [i.e., accuracy —Ed.] isn’t one of them.’
3. Representing value, dignity, worth: ‘This image looks cheap, we need more quality, more grandeur.’
4. When comparing the impact of images: ‘We will lose quality when we replace image X by image Y.’

"Measuring things has become very important these days. However, quality is very hard to measure. Maybe that is why there is such a strong focus on quantitative values. More, faster, cheaper, more profitable and so on. Most of the times this means: Money! That’s why managing processes sometimes become more important than the end result. Quantity has become the new quality."

Mike replies: ...Which is funny because look at the comment that happened to come in immediately after yours:

Colin Work: "The way it is generally bandied about, IQ makes more sense if you think of it as meaning 'Image Quantity.'"

1" Sensors as Good as Medium-Format Film

Shopping is fun but....
Right. I shouldn't be saying this. Things used to be easier; now, competition has gotten fierce—even The Huffington Post (fer Pete's sake!) is publishing camera reviews and posting affiliate links to Amazon and B&H Photo. It's getting a lot tougher out there for cool old dudes who actually like to write words down such as, um, moi. And who at least sometimes provide content that goes more than just a little way past exactly what the marketing departments of the corporations we serve that serve us want us to say to shift product.

This is my competition now too. (The link is to the pretty young woman above vlogging* about the Sony RX100V as a vlogging camera. She doesn't write; but then, I don't shoot video.)

I shouldn't be discouraging anyone from shopping, is what I'm trying to say.

But I just want you to look at something amazing, and take a second, placidly amid the noise and the haste**, to fully appreciate where we are and what is happening.

Just look at this. It's a photograph. The photograph is of an unidentified woman, and it was taken by a photographer I've never heard of before named Andreas Jordan (to whom thanks, at a couple of removes). Enlarge it by clicking on it, then contemplate it, and then evaluate it visually from a holistic standpoint, i.e., without drilling down into picayune specifics.

Given that most photographers now look at most photographs on screens now***, ain't that good enough? I'm just sayin'.

Granted, it's not the ultimate in detail, by today's standard, but doesn't it give you pretty much all the detail—all the information—your actual human eyes could, at a distance where you'd be seeing that woman, the subject, in about the same way? Doesn't it get the idea across about as well as anybody needs?

And that's a picture from a one-inch sensor. It was taken with a Sony RX100V, the fifth iteration of a tiny digicam that has a 1" (8.8x13.2mm) sensor. The sensor in the V iteration has a BSI (back side illuminated) sensor that gives it 315 focus points and the ability to capture AF in .05 seconds. Phil Hall at TechRadar (no link because the page imposes sound on you unwillingly, a new trend I happen to detest): "Using the same stacked Exmor R back-illuminated CMOS sensor technology that we first saw in the RX100IV, Sony says it has tweaked the chip, while the clever stacked sensor design means it has memory chips built right onto the back of the sensor. This means data doesn't have to flood out to the edge of the sensor, and, coupled with a new LSI chip, it means the sensor can deliver incredibly fast readout speeds."

My readout, from my brain I mean, is that while there are differences, 1" sensors are now virtually as good as medium-format film was in 1991.

Back then, my friend Jim Sherwood, an art photographer who did a lot of shooting of major storm damage in 6x7, switched from a ISO 100 speed film (Kodak Vericolor 100, I think it was, a low-contrast negative film beloved of 1980s art photographers who shot in color) to an ISO 400 speed film, which had just gotten good enough. While RX100V captures might not be quite as enlargeable in prints as Jim's 6x7 cm negatives were, it certainly beats the pants off it for color correctability and low light sensitivity, and for detail and image quality as long as you're looking at it on a screen. Of course, it does cost $998—but then, that was about $560 in 1991.

It's da bomb, as people who were that vlogger's age ten years ago used to say.

Where I'm going with all this...
...Is a question. At what point are we going to learn to stop worrying and love da bomb?**** At what point are we just going to start making pictures again?

When digital cameras came along for most of us in the late '90s and early 2000s, digital just wasn't good enough. But we all wanted to use it anyway because it was so liberating and so much fun. The first one I used, an Agfa—there's a name not everyone knows now—was not even close to one megapixel, and I remember thinking: too bad you can't get decent images from this thing, because using it is like being a kid let loose in a candy shop. Wheee.

So we started this endless roundel of trying, comparing, shooting "test shots," making the most fanatically minute comparisons, and of course upgrading, always interested in the latest and the next. "Neomania," I called it back then. We became maniacs for the newest thing.

But at some point, I just assumed, things would settle down and we'd go back to just...well, making, and looking at, pictures. You know, without caring how the pictures were made. Are we there yet?

That still hasn't quite happened, I don't think. And now I'm wondering if maybe it never will.

Oh, and speaking of 1" sensors...
...If image quality is all you're after, and not that wicked new processor and the last soupçon of AF speed, you can get the same image quality from the RX100IV for $100 less. Or, for that matter, from your iPhone, as long as you attach a DxO One to it.

The iPhone as a 1" camera

(Oh, right, right: DxO One: B&H, Amazon.)

One-inch digicam / 8.8x13.2mm sensor = MF of only 26 years ago = who'd a' thunk?

Mike

*Vlog, n., video log, a weblog in which most of the postings are in video form.

**The reference of course is to the "Desiderata" (desired things), a 1927 prose poem by American writer Max Ehrmann. Largely unknown in its author's lifetime, it became popular through several spoken-word recordings in the 1970s. It was not written in 1692, a fatuous but oft-repeated claim based on the fact that the rector of St. Paul's Church in Batimore, Maryland, included it in a compilation of devotional readings for his congregation, which is apparently where the creators of the spoken-word recordings found it—and the church was founded in 1692. "Editors needed everywhere," as Yr. Hmbl. Ed. always says.

Here's a book jacket photo of Max Ehrmann, who was born of Bavarian immigrant parents in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1872, and died in 1945 before his poem became famous. He was educated at DePauw University in Greencastle and later received an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University.

And here's the poem, just to cover the faint possibility that you've never encountered it before—

DESIDERATA

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

It's contained in a largely unread compilation of his poems, and there are various letterpress and calligraphic presentations of the poem available intended for framing.

Some of the poem's ideas might have been "in the air" in the 1920s. I hear strains in it of the ideas espoused by the Oxford Group (founded 1921 as "A First Century Christian Fellowship"); of Schweitzer, whose The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle was published in 1931; and of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous (1935) as represented in "The Big Book."

Although it may be sappy, and beloved of sappy sorts, and thus easy to dismiss, the poem's advice, one must admit, is uncommonly sound, not to mention beautiful.

There...now, you're not gonna get all that in a vlog, are ya? (Quiet, you in the back.)

***Even though more people are printing more photographs now than ever before, it's still a small fraction of the photographs viewed on screens. I can't substantiate any of that, but I believe it's true.

****The reference is to the subtitle of Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, a black comedic farce about how deranged leaders could needlessly trigger nuclear war—which obviously can't happen because our leaders are so sagacious, cautious, probitious, contemplative, policy-savvy, humane, empathic, steeped in culture, and wise.

...On second thought, better re-watch Dr. Strangelove.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Dave Wilson: "Among far too many others, I have both (all three? iPhone as well) modern devices you mention above. Frankly, for 90% of use cases, they're all you need: but this approach does mean that, when I pick up my FF camera, the reasons I still own it come flooding back. But I'm not going to chuck it in my work bag and take it to London daily, something I don't need to think about with either the DxO or RX100V."

Mike replies: You'll note that our vlogger astutely says at one point that the smaller the camera, the more she'll use it. Struck me as both true and also honest.

Andrew Molitor: "I dunno, hasn't there been a 'nerd' community for a long time? I distinctly recall in the 1980s spending a lot of time dorking around with lenses and films and testing this and that. Photographers, culturally, seem to have a terrible problem with looking for technical solutions to creative problems. I don't know how far back in time this goes, but I assume there were fistfights about how what percentage of silver nitrate to use in this solution or that. Or maybe it really arose with the internet forum? I don't know. But it's been around as long as I have been aware of these things, which is a few decades now."

Mike replies: I've read enough in the old literature to suspect that distracting disputations about image quality have been going on at least since the Daguerreotype went away. Maybe it's essentially social—part of how we keep each other's company—given that the creative side of photography is so solitary? As I've lived only half of my photographic life in the age of the Internet, I can say with some confidence that the Internet did supercharge the tendency, no question.

Bill Tyler: Along with the other footnotes, you might want to include the definition of 'probitious.' The most recent uses I've found are both 18th century, one in Congreve's Judgement of Paris, and one in 'An ESSAY On The Scheme and Conduct, Procedure and Extent of MAN's [typography sic(!) —Ed.] REDEMPTION. Wherein is shewn from the Holy Scriptures, that This great Work is to be accomplished....' Title pages in the 1700s did tend to run a little long. Anyhow, a definition, please!"

Mike replies: Found that....

Love the scrawled owner's commentary. And the library stamp, which to a book collector would amount to vandalism.

I think I did read around in the 18th century too heavily when I was but a lad, although I never encountered the worthy William Worthington. Re "probitous," which is what I originally wrote, I think I made it up, on account of I have always wanted there to be an adjectival form of the noun "probity."

When I started writing for magazines I fetched up against the uncomfortable fact that I had made up a lot of words and was in the habit of using them. I had to stop that.

I guess I should go change it...probably to "upright," which to my ear doesn't have the same brawn or antique burnish or Latinate depth, alas. Or maybe I shall leave it as it is, and count on our exchange here to redress the error.

cdembrey: "With the rapid decline of the middle class's discretionary funds, expect more competition for those few remaining dollars. Small bloggers will be squeezed just like small brick-and-mortar stores were in the past. Unique products will become more important. In many cases podcasts are both easier to consume (politics, literary criticism) and videos are more understandable (technical subjects—don't tell me, show me). For me, I'm listening to more podcasts, and have cut back to only TOP and Eric Kim's blog. Speaking of Eric Kim, he said in his Review of the Pentax 645Z and Digital Medium Format Photography: 'My idea of the future of photography: either buy a digital medium format camera, or just use your phone.' I'm not impressed with gear-geekish-gobbledygook, so g-g-g goes in-one-ear...."

Mike replies: Funnily enough (is "funnily" a real adverb? If it is, then "probity" should have an adjectival form, dang it. I'm going to stick my head in the sand on funnily), about half a year ago I decided to use my iPhone as one of my two main cameras, and since then have been trying to decide what the other one should be. And the logical answer keeps coming up, "go medium format." But I can't, because I can't afford it. So, one for Eric Kim.

Life is full of frustrations! ...But I'm learning to look on the bright side, which is that I'm being geeky and I don't actually "need" any particular camera or kind of camera. I'll keep working on actually believing that.

Michael Kay: "I agree with your comments about 1" sensors. I have the original Mark I version of the RX100 and it is remarkably good. But they are not cheap. Here is a cheap camera which produces a surprisingly high level of detail with its 86x56mm sensor. It only cost £15.49 (about $20). Read the text and click the link for the enlargement. You will be surprised."

David Dyer-Bennet (partial comment): "'Deteriorata' may almost justify the existence of 'Desiderata.' Maybe." [Link added, and thanks to Steve for it. —Ed.]

Jim: "I have an RX100, and plenty of medium format cameras. The RX100 does not even come close to 35mm film, to say nothing of medium format. If your standards are that low that you cannot tell the difference, it might be time to reevaluate your sensibilities. Digital is still not good enough."

Mike replies: This post twisted the tails of several medium-format film photographers—among which, Jim's comment was the mildest. One old friend came close to removing TOP from his RSS feed. All I can say is, wait till tomorrow.

PhotoDes: "'Twas ever so. Many of the famous Baroque era artists experimented extensively with different pigments for their paintings—Prussian Blue, zinc white, etc. were valued for their intensity and were regarded as a characteristic of high-quality work."

The Diptych (But Not Really)

Image pair. iPhone 7 Plus, taken last Tuesday. This one's still in progress, no pun intended.

Although it masquerades as being altrusitic and exalted, the Art World (cap-cap) is a lot about status. That's why we call pictures "images" now—because photo-based artworks that were not strictly straight photographs were called images to differentiate them, and the practice spread from there to all photographs presented as art in museums, and then soon, because it was clearly a marker of status, to all photographs. (I personally still prefer picture, a more specific and actually more dignified word. It will come back into fashion someday.)

Image pair. Pictures in the frame taken with a Contax 139Q and Carl Zeiss 35mm ƒ/2.8 lens on Kodak Plus-X and printed on Ilford Galerie, 1980s.

"Diptych" (dip-tick) simply means any two flat surfaces hinged in the middle. In the medieval world the format was common for many things, including decorated screens, wax writing tablets, and ecclesiastical devotional paintings. Because the word (and less frequently triptych, meaning three hinged panels) was frequently seen in museums, it came to be applied, for status-indicating purposes, to any discrete pair of, yes, images presented side by side. Unfortunately for the status-mongers, the proper word for two separate pictures presented together is really just the plain, unadorned word "pair."

I've always liked working with image pairs, I think because I love photobooks so much. I know Ralph Gibson works very hard to find the right image pairs for facing pages, and one of the reasons I love Paul Caponigro's The Wise Silence so much is the way pictures on facing pages in that book work together—something Paul and his then-wife, the distinguished book designer Eleanor Morris Caponigro, worked on very deliberately.

Mike Johnston, Berkeley, 2015. Fuji X-T1 and XF 14mm ƒ/2.8.

It's both an easier and a more difficult way to work—easier because sometimes pictures which aren't quite enough alone can inform and enrich each other and become more than the sum of the two, and more difficult because sometimes the proper pairing can be elusive.

One thing I've found over the years is that it's visual work. That is, you might have an idea about which two pictures will work together as a pair, but it's not until you simply see them together that you really know. And then, as with all pictures, it takes living with them for a few days to know if you've got something or not. So it's best to work with small workprints. You could also work out a way of doing it on the computer, of course. However you do it, don't do it in your head—the work is done with the eyes.

John Paul Caponigro, Uyuni, Bolivia, 2012, an iPhone image, and Paul Caponigro, Frosted Window, Revere, Massachusetts, 1957, a view camera film photograph, printed together on one 17x22" sheet. A TOP Print Offer from 2013. (Pairing by Paul.)

As with all editing, sometimes things you really want to work just don't, and sometimes visual combinations you don't suspect will work, do. It's fun. And very satisfying, when it works.

Try it!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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hugh crawford: "I once bought a half frame camera specifically to make diptychs.

"Currently I'm on a nonatych binge (if that's Greek to you it just means nine images or whatever). Since I'm laying out over 750 of them for the Jamie Livingston book.

"This one just blows me away."

Are Classic Photographs Still Relevant?

A nice "idle question" for a sunny Tuesday in the Finger Lakes...are classic photos and photobooks still relevant as references, inspiration, and instruction for today's photographers?

I'm not sure.

Granted, I love the history of photography; I love learning about the great practitioners as well as the excellent-but-little-known ones; and I certainly love looking at old photographs, from Shorpy to snapshots, and everything from the greatest of classic photobooks to ancient, musty photo annuals and antique instruction manuals.

But I'm wondering how relevant it is in today's world, or whether the great pre-digital-era work of the second half of the 20th century has become...well, history.

A few of the changes: today most photographers work in color. That's a big change from when I got into photography in 1980, when most serious photography was still B&W*. Cameras see very differently now—many of the problems that were with us for well over a century have melted away in the era of super-duper sensors and computer-controlled electronics, such that the better cameras nowadays see conspicuously better than most humans do**. While photographs were historically quite difficult to modify or fake, and it was possible to spot it in many cases when they were, today they can be heavily edited and modified with great ease, and the changes are often completely invisible, if the creator wants them to be. Furthermore, the formal culture of photography is changing***, in ways that aren't quite understood yet; even the cultural uses of photography seem to be morphing from one state to another, in at least as major an upheaval as the Kodak and the hand camera craze in the 1890s changed the way photography was used and conceived of.

I recall that when I mentioned one of the formative books of my photographic education—John Szarkowski's Looking at Photographs—one commenter said he thought all the examples were old-fashioned and didn't help him much with what he himself was doing. Another shock was seeing an exhibit of contemporary photography at the Art Institute of Chicago and noticing how out of place, how plain and old-fashioned, two 35mm B&W 11x14s looked amid all the altered and concocted and variably colored wall art.

I don't know. Maybe photographs recognized from life and taken at once with a single release of the shutter-button aren't entirely "relateable" any more. Maybe, some time in the recent past when I wasn't watching, they left the realm of the relevant and entered the musty catalogs of the merely historical.

Mike

*It's a revisionist commonplace for pontificators to claim that color has always been important, trotting out autochromes and Kodachrome and Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky and hand-coloring and yadda yadda yadda in support of the argument. That's largely fatuous: until at least the 1960s and '70s, "the colors of photography [were] black and white," to quote Robert Frank's famous dictum. Color was for amateur snapshots, advertising, magazines, illustrations, and pornography, and only slowly and weakly made inroads into fine art and documentary and newspaper photography starting, slowly, in the '60s and '70s. An interesting process, to be sure, and one that's fun to chart; but that's no reason to overlook the fact that most serious, artistic, ambitious photography was B&W and more serious photographers by far worked in B&W than color until at least the 1980s. Of course important color photographers existed, but color was a "poor stepchild," quietly looked down upon, and the occasional color photographer was usually either a token or an exception. B&W was the baseline standard of that era in serious photography—the basic assumption, the fallback.

**In human vision terms, the best cameras now have about 20/2 vision in terms of resolution, and far better dark vision than the human eye. They don't quite have better color discrimination, thanks to the handicap of the Bayer array, but they're getting there.

***If you don't think it is, quick, name the three leading photographers of the 21st century in your country. Then name a famous show or book that everyone has heard of.

Mike

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Michael Poster: "At least with respect to art: all art of the past can be useful (and informative) to the current generation of artists. Photography, for sure. But I’d argue that painting, drawing, literature, and music are useful too. At the museum, I spend as much time with Caravaggio, Sargent, and Hopper as I do with Cartier-Bresson, Arbus, and Friedlander."

Jamie Pillers: "Mike, I suspect you've opened a can of worms here...or maybe opened an old wound. Excellent! I for one believe that photography today is welcoming to everything...from the classically crafted-in-a-darkroom B&W image to all the craziness offered up by all the digital bells and whistles we have today. I've been at it for many years, starting from hours and hours breathing fixer fumes back in the '80s and '90s. I miss those creative and calming times in the dark. But that amount of time pursuing a beautiful print is seriously unavailable to me anymore, given the piling on of life's other responsibilities.

"Thankfully the digital era arrived and I could still pursue that beautiful image here in my office. But I know there a lot of people are still enjoying the joys of film photography. A friend has just started a film-based community photo group and it's growing like mad. And I must say, I'm truly glad that I can't name the three leading photographers of today. The digital era has, to a huge extent, democratized the world of photographic art. There's so much to look at these days, so much impressive photography available to inspire us!"

Marvin Van Drunen: "Books of photographs from well respected, not to mention famous photographers are important to me...but I'm a 67-year-old man with adequate funds to purchase any and all of the photo books that interest me. I've taken pictures for at least 55 years and that history in my life has created an interest in what has gone before. But, I'm quite sure my children are not interested, at this stage of their lives. They are a the stage of life when their major focus is the care, feeding, and future college education of my grandchildren. They may, in the future, be interested in looking at the work of historically important photographers. But not now. My kids don't have the funds or the time or the inclination to study the history of photography.They are, at this time, interested in snapping hundreds of pictures with their iPhones. My job is to encourage them to a least get the pix off their phones and in some way backed up! And, some day they will inherit my collection of photo books. I hope they will at least look at them!"

Robert Gordon: "Two weeks ago I saw the Irving Penn retrospective in Paris. Breathtaking in terms of variety of content and print quality. Immediately ordered the catalog, which is exceptionally well printed."

Stan B.: "Hard to gauge the extent and relevancy of this transition while actually immersed within it, since the changes are still ongoing and the outcome in flux. No doubt the B&W print era is over. More relevant—is the print era over altogether? Photography has sacrificed its primary raison d'etre (preserving the moment for history) for the immediacy that modern technology has now bequeathed it. More compartmentalized than ever, photography is definitely expanding as far as what it is, how it's used and what it means to all concerned...individuals are free to pick those facets that most interest them, and make of it what they will. If you're going to be seriously involved, it helps to be familiar with the history of your medium, and for those more attuned with its past, to at least try to appreciate what is current.

"P.S. That said, unless it's a topical, just published, news photo, nothing surpasses the power and eloquence of a printed photograph on a gallery wall. Many a time, I've thought I've seen a photograph online—only to really discover the photograph for the first time upon viewing it in print form."

Benjamin Marks: "The most important skill that a good photographer has is the ability to see rather than simply look. So yes: this will never go out of fashion. Or, to mangle Hillel: The importance of photography is seeing; all else is commentary."

Paul: "William Eggleston's work seems to be as popular and relevant as ever. Just go on Instagram, you will see his hashtag is happily alive and kicking with daily updates by people of all ages. I wonder if Eggleston would choose an iPhone camera instead of a Leica in 2017 if he was to begin shooting images for his Guide."

Edward Taylor: "Every few months, more photos are uploaded to the Internet than were taken in the entire 150 or so year history of black and white film. Searching for an hour, even on Instagram, I can find many unknown photos that are arguably as good as anything that has come before.

"Even more surprising to me is that I actually dislike many classic photos that I used to really admire, if not love. Now they look technically weak and perhaps even a bit trite. I look at them and think, 'what's the big deal.' An awful lot of art is emperor's clothing and I am beginning to see that in classic photos as well.

"Of course, there are still many that I love, but all together, they represent a tiny fraction of the photographs I admire today. It's hard to say where photography is going, but it will become harder and harder for any photograph or any artist to truly stand out. In every small corner of the world, in almost every amateur or pro's hard drive, website, or portfolio there is amazing work. In several lifetimes, we could only take a brief glance at a microscopic percentage of it all."

Steve Jacob: "Despite probably being median age for this blog-site, I am and have always been a fan of the colour image, and I have thumbed my bargain copy of Herzog's Modern Colour a hundred times since I received it (thanks Mike!).

"I have books by Walker Evans, Elliot Erwitt and others, but that's not because their images are black and white, but because they transcend the technology. If they had been taken with an iPhone they would be just as good.

"Photography is an art based on science, and idealised representational photography will age faster than humour or humanity. All I see when I look at an Ansel Adams image in the flesh is how dated it looks. I can admire the craft in the context of its time, but I have seen so much breathtaking landscape photography in the last 20 years than I am numb to the whole genre.

"Far too much old photography was admired for the craft, not the content. This is largely because it was difficult. Digital has removed the constraints. They key to the craft now it to make it convincingly invisible, which in its own way is no less difficult.

"Even so, digital is as liberating as the 35mm camera was in the 1930s. It demands more of us because it allows us to do more, yet so many demean that very aspect of it.

"It is ironic, because now, content is everything. Copying what is in front of us is no longer worthy of applause. It requires a new perspective in which, I believe, the iPhone has as much of a role to play as the dedicated camera, if not more so. Life is just getting interesting, I think."

Are Images Getting More or Less Real?

You know how a thought can sometimes hit you between the eyes? Like a small blob of something softish moving at a velocity sufficient to keep it airborne. It arrives with a wettish splat and jerks your head back. Ouch!

The thought that hit me yesterday was this: as camera technology, lenses, and processing have gotten so much better, are images becoming more realistic, or less?

I mean more like the reporting or recording of subjects that might be seen by our own eyes, "in the flesh" as the expression is. I was looking at A6300 examples on Flickr and my eye fell on a complicated B&W picture of a woman looking up at the camera amid a scene. The light looked like nothing I have ever witnessed in the world, impossibly dark with areas here and there that glowed like light sources; the detail was so extreme that every micro-feature on the topography of her skin could be charted by a dermatologist; the local contrast made every slight change of value pop into high relief. Her skin looked as hard as obsidian, glowing from within. It looked like a scene from some distant planet, under some different sun. Then a little while later I was at a review site and idly clicked on a picture the site offered up, and was met with a fantastical cityscape that looked like a poster for a science-fiction movie. Cars made long blurs, their headlights streaked bars of white, on tangled curlicues of expressways against a candy-coated sky, while the skyscrapers of the city-center rose in the distance like a fantastical Oz. High DR had banished every shadow and lighted every shaded crack and crevice. The colors were lightened and brightened to a remorseless unceasing cheerfulness. I kept staring at it and realized I could not make it transport my mind to an actual scene, something that I myself might see, somewhere, anywhere, here on Earth.

Both pictures were appealing; neither could have been captured, or not very easily, on film; both exhibited the pictorial conventions of our present window in history—that is, they looked like we collectively seem to think pictures are supposed to look. And both dutifully exhibited in different ways the technical virtuosity of today's equipment. Both pictures were good by most conventional measures. It's just that—splat!—neither one looked, well, very real.

I'm not drawing any conclusions about this because...how could you? Two pictures out of billions don't tell us anything. And I'd show you the pictures, but I try desperately not to use negative examples on TOP. It's just not friendly, to dangle one artwork by a specific individual before a crowd for the purpose of picking on it. Anyone could expose to unfriendly fire nearly any photograph that any one of us ever made. It's not what people want when they share their work. Work shown to others is both a gift as well as an unspoken appeal for affirmation.

But I do wish I could unthink that thought.

Mike

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Neil Partridge: "Oh my word you've just crystalised a thought of mine that's been lurking for years. I've never been that keen on anything posed, artificially lit or obviously photoshopped. I much prefer something that looks like a momentary grab of something real and untouched. So yes I agree...We need more reality (for those who prefer it)."

Rob de Loe: "There's definitely an emerging aesthetic that I think of as hyper-realism (or in the second example you used, hyper-unrealism!) As sensors and lenses allow us to record more detail, I'm seeing more and more images that I can only describe as 'clinically sharp and detailed.' This development will be a boon to people doing forensic photography, where the ability to see the smallest detail in a crime scene photograph is a huge advantage. But I don't think it's necessarily improving photography. I see portraits now where I can count every pore on the person's nose, and that's not very appealing. Similarly, there are countless super-detailed, super-sharp landscape images that, to me, are also super lifeless and clinical.

"I realize I'm just defining my own tastes here. However, I think it's worth raising the topic because we've already reached the stage in the development of the technology where for many people current possible digital image quality is 'too good.' I think this fact explains why there's a small resurgence in film, alternative printing techniques, and interest in 'alt' lenses. On the plus side, we are in a golden age of photography where we all can have almost exactly what we want."

bongo: "To 'make you look' was/is the goal, not to accurately represent the scene."

Bill Wheeler: "I know exactly what you mean, and you describe a 'not-very-real' picture well—at least, as I would describe it. A few weeks ago, I photographed a mountain view with my DSLR, and while the photograph had its own appeal, it didn't look real to me. I emailed the image to a long-time friend with whom I share photographs, and he liked it a lot. It wasn't as 'all-out' as the photograph described in your piece, but still it did not look real to me. This past summer, I attended, twice, an exhibit of Ansel Adam's photography. It also didn't look 'real' to me, but it was gorgeous to behold!"

Mark Hobson: "Welcome to the world of Pictorialism Redux, Digital Edition.

cdembrey: "Same as it ever was. Way back in the 19th century they were doing double exposures to put the same person in a photo multiple times. Get it right in camera is not a modern concept. At the turn of the 19th/20th centuries the pictorialists were distorting reality. A little later Man Ray, Ansel Adams and others were changing reality to suit their tastes. In the past image manipulation required a dollop of creativity. Nowadays just a couple of clicks will do you. 8-D  "

John McMillin: "The other night I spent a few hours on Zillow researching the local market. The groaning sounds I made had nothing to do with the crazy prices or ugly houses I found. My reaction was to the repulsive, overcooked HDR photography that showed up in three-quarters of the listings. I saw lurid colors never seen in nature, while other photos were so brightened that colors washed out almost completely. Window views showed strong halos, adding unreality, and white walls were marred by exaggerated shadows that made them look dirty and greasy. This look has more to do with fashion photography and hobbit-fantasy movies. It's unattractive and unappealing to me. If I saw such scenes with my own eyes, I'd head for the closest eye doc!

"I also work in this field. I work to give my clients realistic images with true colors. When I use HDR—usually outdoors—I use it so mildly that it's not obvious. Indoors, by mixing natural light and direct and fill flash, I aim for honest, naturalistic images. This took time and practice to achieve. My competition seems to do no lighting, but simply to shoot a wide bracket, and then fiddle with the results until it meets their standard 'imagery.'

"IMHO, overuse of HDR is a common mistake that is spreading way beyond its wise use."

Roel Kramer: "My thoughts: Too realistic...maybe often a loss of atmosphere. Human eye (at least mine) do no see all the details that are shown in many current cameras/lenses, certainly not in dim light. Something unexpected, seen in a short flash, will give you an impression of what is going on, without details. You will not reproduce this image/feeling with a supersharp picture.

"I only shoot B&W film and even I have this problem with the current lenses. My test for your question would be: take classic B&W pictures (a Koudelka shot from Gypsies; HCB, for example 'Boy carrying a wine bottle'; 'Migrant Mother'...) and ask yourself: how would this shot have looked when it would have been shot with current technique. Would this have been an improvement or would it have lost its appeal? More of these questions!"