The Online Photographer

Flash in the Pan

Guest post by Jay Burleson

Jay Burleson, Flash in the Pan, 1756 French Infantry
Musket Demonstration, Fort Ticonderoga, New York

This photograph is, for several reasons, one of my favorites. Taken in 2015 with a Leica M9 and 75mm ƒ/2, the exposure, composition, and timing were all done well; the subjects are isolated from the background; and all three reenactors express varied and intriguing facial expressions. Most of all, you are seeing a demonstration of an extremely geeky process, frozen in the midst of happening—the firing of a flintlock musket. (Yes, referencing the recent TOP article, firearms aficionados also fit the definition of "geeks." Often right out to the extreme edge of the bell curve.)

The firearms pictured are modern reproductions of the French Charleville musket, first manufactured in 1717. Its production ended sometime during the 1840s. It was a .69 caliber smoothbore flintlock muzzle-loading musket used by French infantry forces around the world, including in many battles at and around Fort Ticonderoga in the mid-18th century. The flintlock mechanism was developed in the early 16th century and was pretty much the standard for firearms until the early 19th century.

The basic working of a flintlock is simple: the hammer, under spring tension, is holding a piece of flint, and when the trigger is pulled, the flint pivots forward forcefully and scrapes the flint against the frizzen or steel, resulting in a shower of sparks that ignites a small amount of black powder in the pan. From an engineering standpoint, the entire system is elegant in its robustness and simplicity.

When the black powder in the pan is ignited, some of the flame created by the burning powder enters a small hole, called the touch hole, drilled through the side of the barrel into the barrel's chamber, which subsequently ignites the main charge of powder in the barrel. The lead-ball projectile, which is seated into the barrel on top of the black powder, is then propelled out of the barrel.

If, under the stress of reloading your musket in a life-or-death situation, you forget to put a charge of black powder in the barrel, the flame from the pan has nothing to ignite, hence it's just a "flash in the pan." Most reference authorities agree that this—as illustrated in the photograph—is the origin of that phrase "flash in the pan," meaning "something which disappoints by failing to deliver anything of value, despite a showy beginning."

Despite my title, I do like to think that this photograph does deliver something of value, after its showy beginning!

Jay

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.

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Keith: "An interesting side note regarding flintlocks; unlike the primer-based ignition in modern firearms, there is a noticeable delay between pulling the trigger and the actual firing of the gun, requiring a 'follow through' of maintaining the sights on target for an additional second after pulling the trigger. Failure to do so would yield a shot way off target. This delay earned the mechanism the alternative name of 'flinchlock,' because any flinching by the shooter is greatly exaggerated by the delay."

David Dyer-Bennet: "Very nice! Getting the priming charge so clearly is fairly rare."

Disguises

TV cameraman (and, of course, TOP reader) Mike Plews wrote a nice comment to yesterday's post about approaching people in the street—he said that a tip he gives to "new kids" is to lose their sunglasses.

I second that. A few additional tips—keep your hands out of your pockets, keep the camera out in the open, and no hoodies! Light clothing helps too, in my opinion, unless you look like the business in dark clothing. Short sleeves in Summer—people won't think you "have something up your sleeve"! Anything that helps you look more like what you're presenting yourself to be can't hurt.

A photo vest helps...even if you don't have anything to load into the pockets and you don't actually need the vest. Remember, people are going to be sizing you up quickly. Photo vests remain useful in that they look faintly silly so they're seldom worn as fashion—who would wear something so dorky unless they needed it?—so to many people they still telegraph "photographer." And that helps you with your bonafides. 

Consider this guy. Who could take that dude for anything but a photographer? And note, no sunglasses, and nothing on his head, and light clothing, and nothing up his sleeve. He's old, too, which helps—people are less threatened by oldsters. If you're younger, you'd best be charming.

You might consider Lee's getup to be a disguise. He's a real photographer who has disguised himself as a photographer.  :-)

Of course, your attitude is the main thing. Peter's got mad skillz in that sense. Me, not so much.

If you're anxious, people are going to pick up on it right away. (Three guesses how I know.) As strangers appraise you, an anxious attitude is a turnoff. My advice is, be fully prepared for a "no" answer and have the ability to treat it like the proverbial "water off a duck's back." If you're all set and ready for rejection, then there's no need to be nervous.

Here are a few photo vests from Amazon, and here's one from B&H. Unfortunately you cannot purchase a good attitude. If you could, I'd recommend it.  :-)

Mike
(Thanks to Mike P.)

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.

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

Josh Hawkins: "Relaxed, approachable smile. It’s been my go to for 20 years. If that doesn’t smooth everything over be prepared to have a nice friendly conversation about who you are, what you’re doing and why. And always stay nice and positive even if you’re not going to get a good photo."

Gordon Lewis: "As a veteran street shooter I can confirm that the less intimidating you look, the better. This of course can mean different things to different subjects, but generally speaking, any photographer with reasonable emotional intelligence has a sense of how intimidating they may seem to other people. I've never been a fan of photo vests and the like, but you'd be surprised how often I'm asked if I'm a pro photographer simply because of the way I carry and handle my equipment. I don't do this intentionally, it's just that most people can perceive that experts move differently from novices.

"The takeaway here is it helps to look like you're confident and know what you're doing. Final tip: Consider what type of person you're approaching for a photograph. I once approached an extremely dapper gent in Philadelphia and asked if I could photograph him. When he asked why, I replied, 'Now surely you didn't leave home today looking this fabulous without thinking that maybe, just maybe, you might turn a head or two.' He grinned and said 'Where do you want me to stand?' The point isn't to use flattery per se but rather to look for a seamless way to introduce the idea of taking a photograph. Frankly, considering you're probably standing in front of them with a camera on your neck or shoulder, they should hardly be surprised if you make a polite inquiry."

Dennis: "Some years ago, when my daughter was a younger child, a photographer took pictures of her on the boardwalk in New Jersey...at first, my parent's instincts jumped to attention, but he was a friendly older gentleman wearing a photographer's vest with a couple of cameras, and he approached us after taking a few shots and talked briefly to us—might have asked for some information, I can't remember. In hindsight, it may have been Bob Krist—I vaguely recall him looking somewhat like Bob does in pictures, and I bought a book of Krist's photos that features some taken on that same boardwalk around the same time period."

Martin D (partial comment): "Personally, I'd rather not be seen in one of those photo vests. I am already rather deficient in the fashion department, and I want my young daughters to accumulate the right sort of memories of their dad! I don't need such vests to look even more geeky.  :-) "

Dogman: "When I shot film, I loved my vests. Especially when traveling—you could carry guide books, maps and brochures alongside rolls of film and extra lenses. But digital cameras and the iPhone kinda did in the need for a photo vest. But I'm not givin' up my cargo pants and Tilley hats...."

Tom: "This is all well and good, but what we really need to know from Peter is how he manages to get a woman he's just met to sit and have a cup of coffee with him."

Mike replies: Your comment made me laugh, because when we talked on the phone I told him that that had never happened with me in my entire life.

Street Portraits

If you read Peter's post from yesterday carefully, you can discern a few things. First of all, it started with simple connection on a personal, human level—a look, a smile, a greeting. Then, engagement—an invitation to have coffee. Next, as anyone might do who was beginning a conversation, he listened, learning her name and where she was from and so on. Then they found common ground, in that he had some familiarity with Somalia, where she came from, and he was sympathetic to her feelings of sorrow about it. Finally he asked if he could take her picture, and got her on board by respecting her own desires for it ("Yes, and please say I am a woman without a country").

So it went like this: contact, engagement, consideration, identification, empathy, and collaboration. Am I wrong about that? I'm not saying all that was programed or deliberate—obviously it just unfolded naturally—but I think you can see all those stages clearly in his brief account of the encounter.

What a far cry that is from the way I take street portraits. I'm shy and reluctant, so I try to sneak pictures surreptitiously or take a hurried shot and move on.

It's possible that many of us have it backwards—we approach situations with the goal of getting a good photograph out of it. Then if we have an interaction with our subject on a personal level, that's a bonus, an extra. To Peter, photography is about life, not about photography. It might be better for me to do it the other way around—my goal might be to make a human connection first, and then, if a good photograph happens to come out of it, that's the bonus. And better photographs sometimes come out of doing it that way anyway. Of course different photographers have different ways of working that are right for them. There's no right or wrong way.

I had mentioned to Peter earlier that I haven't photographed any of the Mennonite people in my area because they don't like it, won't give their permission, and respond resentfully if you try—so I don't. He said he didn't know about the Mennonites, but that, in his experience, if you are clear about what you're doing and go right up to people confidently, without being afraid to get in their space, and then deal with them on a human level and take your cues from how they're reacting to you, you can often take their picture and they're fine with it. Ironically, he said, people will react much more negatively when you try to hang back twenty feet and "steal" a photograph than if you go right up to them with nothing to hide. So it's possible that it's actually harder to take a picture when you're more timid than if you act confidently and clearly.

Humans are remarkably good at evaluating the intentions of strangers—we often make determinations within a split second about the potential threat of a person approaching us. "If I don't think what I'm doing is all right," he said, "how can I expect them to?"

Mike

Peter Turnley adds: Thank you all around, Mike. It might be important to add is that powerful photographs don’t come from a formula—they are about the human story, they most often emanate from human sincerity and authenticity, and, as in life itself, genuine compassion seems to go a long way.

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.

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Hans Muus: "Beautiful—the picture as well as Peter Turnley’s remarks. They made me realise that, quite unintentionally, I have made my best street portraits that way. And his explanation, or is it advice, makes me stronger or more certain of myself. Up till now, after having met a stranger in the street, I often hesitated to ask the photo-question and get my camera out, out of a certain uneasiness to spoil a kind of fragile intimacy that had just been developed, by suddenly wanting to exploit it to my own ends. But actually it is a much more friendly action than the other, sneaky way around, and it might even benefit the other person in ways unforeseen—as per the Somalian woman, presently without a country. Thank you, Peter, and thank you, Mike."

Paul: "Exactly like Anders Petersen: 'To me, it’s encounters that matter; pictures are much less important.'"

Roy Feldman: "When you are working as a freelance photojournalist fear and hesitation is overcome by knowing you wouldn't be hired by that publication again if you don't come back with the shot. This causes one to force yourself towards confidence (not pushiness). If you approach people with the attitude of 'hey, it's my job to get this picture,' without any rudeness or assertiveness, most people are remarkably welcoming and gracious. Being sneaky never works and doesn't make you feel particularly good about yourself."

Bruce Bordner: "My problem 'these days' is that whenever I am about to take a candid un-staged shot the subject(s) will see my camera and immediately pose, ruining it. It's a reflex—they've been trained to look good on the Internet. I have to tell my friends 'stop waiting for the shutter: ignore me.' I don't use any social media so I don't even know what to expect, but it limits and contorts the images I was attempting. I have to be sneaky to get any reality."

Paul Braverman: "A lovely story and more proof that if there’s a friendlier place than the streets of New York City, I haven’t found it. Peter’s advice about photographing strangers is no doubt solid but it has its limits. I lived in Santa Fe for a while. The local Indian pueblos were obvious subjects for photography, but the Indians were having none of it. They were notoriously camera shy, and weren’t—for obvious reasons—too thrilled with the white man in general. I tried introducing myself, I wrote letters, I even attended a tribal council meeting to explain what I had in mind. No dice. For some people, and the Mennonites might be among them, there is no approach that will work."

Mike Plews: "A while back I watched video of Albert Maysles photographing people on the street. He would walk up to people and say 'you have s nice face, may I take your picture?' Seemed to be working pretty well.

"As a TV news guy I approach people all the time. It pays to go slow, be respectful and know when to gracefully take no for an answer. I have about a 50% success rate. One tip I give the new kids is to either lose your sunglasses or put them up on your forehead before approaching people. This seems particularly helpful when dealing with authority figures."

[Albert Maysles, 1926–2015, was half of the "direct documentary" filmmaking team The Maysles Brothers. Among other accomplishments, they made the famous film Gimme Shelter about the Rolling Stones' 1969 tour that captured the notorious violence at Altamont that resulted in the death of a spectator. —Ed.]

Clay Olmstead: "I once took a photography workshop from Mark Thiessen; he told us to use our camera as a way to connect with other people, not to separate ourselves from them. This is exactly what he was talking about."

 

The Magic Happens: the Golf/Tennis/Pool Paradigm in Photography

Here's one really flat-out great thing about photography as a hobby. By way of explanation-by-analogy, permit me to open with one of my patented digressions.

A number of years ago, when the best center in basketball was Shaquille O'Neal, I realized with swelling pride and a fair amount of amazement that I was just as good as Shaq.

...At free throws. During one particularly bad game, I read in the papers that Shaq hit two out of ten. Well, I can hit two out of ten free throws, my brothers, my sisters. Seriously I can. Just like Shaq did, I can pour one in for every five tries or so. That's how good I am. 

(Well, that's how good I was. I can't say I've shot a basketball more than, I don't know, eight times in this, erm, millennium.)

Lest you think I am cherrypicking, I will have you know that I was actually rather good at set shots, unguarded, from beyond the three-point line. For what reason I do not know. But I was. Shaquille O'Neal? One three-pointer in his entire NBA career. Uno. Me vs. Shaq? I like me. Give me nineteen years in the NBA like Shaq had and I would roll, I would rock, I would rage, I would dom-in-ate—I bet I could double, triple, even quadruple Shaq's total of three-pointers. (Because, you know, they'd be leaving me unguarded on account of what a threat I'd be.) I want a piece of that man's paycheck.

Golf: Once, playing alone at Pine Hill golf course near Pellston, Michigan, I stood at a tee on, yes, a hill, facing a distant green surrounded with, yes! pine trees, and realized that, even though it was a par-three hole, it was a long par-three hole, and there was no way I was going to reach that little tiny green way over there in one shot, so I might as well not try. Assuming I'd reach the green in two, I took a relaxed, easy swing with my trusty three-wood, which I used in place of a driver. Imagine how startled I was, how astonished, when the clubhead seemed barely to touch the ball, and the ball jumped off the club face with a crisp little tock! and sailed in a soaring arc through the air for what seemed like a minute, landed on the green, and bounded and ran another twenty feet or so to end up mere inches from the cup. What?! Wait, I know! I'm secretly great at this game, that must be the explanation for that! Yep, that must be it. Did you see that?

I looked around, hoping someone had, well, seen that. No one had. That's what happens when you play alone on a weekday.

But it turned out I really was great. I hit a shot just that good not even a year later, and an even better one a year after that. In fact I'm so good I probably averaged one completely impressive pro-level shot per year. (Sorta by accident, but hey, flukes count.)

It kept me coming back. Well, for a while. My secret greatness at golf turned out to be a very well-kept secret.

Tennis: The same sort of thing happened in tennis when I was a kid. Every now and then I would hit a shot so brilliant and blistering it was a creditable imitation of Jimmy Connors. (The great James Scott Connors was a big deal the last time I played much tennis. Get off my back, I'm old. So is Jimmy). Of course, you could argue that almost every shot Jimmy Connors played (except the few he flubbed) were as good as, well, Jimmy Connors shots, but that only about one out of every two or three thousand of my shots approached his standard. You could argue that, but I would be ignoring you, recalling my admittedly rare achievements through a Rose #3 filter.

Pool: Finally, regarding pool, I used to occasionally post a "Your Shot of the Day," which featured great pool shots. No one here likes pool, though, so I don't do those any more. But if I did, I might perhaps post this fun shot by Jeff De Luna of the Philippines during the World Cup of Pool finals this year between the Philippines and Austria.

The game is Scotch Doubles 9-ball. Jeff must hit the blue 2 ball, and is trying a long bank off the short rail. But as he's getting set, the 30-second clock is winding down (you can see the progress bar in red in the lower left-hand corner of the screen), and he calls for a time extension. But oh no! he's forgotten that his teammate Carlo Biado already used their one extension for that rack a few turns earlier. As time runs down to the buzzer the ref quickly tells him he hasn't got an extension. So you could see what happens for yourself, I might, in the old days, have embedded the video, like this:

...But since I don't do any of that any more, I'll just mention that I'm quite good at those long banks off the rail, and have hit shots like that many times. (They're not actually as hard as they look.)

Anyway, my theory is that this is what keeps people playing sports like these: It's because every now and then they hit a magnificent shot that's as good as it can possibly be, as good as a pro could do, as good as someone famous could do, as good as they see on TV. So they know the feeling. The only difference for us amateurs is that we do it less often. Sometimes far less often, admittedly, but still...we admire the greats and the pros because we identify.

The parallel to photography must be obvious to you by now. The fine, fun, fantastic fact is this:

No matter what stage of development you're in, no matter what kind of equipment you have, no matter what your level of innate talent, no matter how consistent or inconsistent you are, you're going to take a really great shot every now and then if you keep at it. Snapshooters do it; long-time Leicaphiles do it; phone snappers do it; view-camera sheet-film shooters do it; in fact, anyone who enjoys using a camera regularly will do it. It's not even the old principle that "a blind squirrel finds an acorn every now and then," either, because it's part of the way photography works. We're all out there waiting for the magic to happen. The great art photographer Sally Mann once told me that she "never knows where that next great shot is coming from," she only knows it's out there. An acquaintance showed me her daughter's phone snap of her granddaughter not long ago, and I said, "That's a great photograph." (It was, too. I should know, I told her, I'm an expert.)

Moments of greatness are not denied to anyone, when you think of it. Get out, shoot, shoot some more, maybe some more after that, and sooner or later, or perhaps later than that, the reward will come. The magic happens, like a gift from the Universe. When it does it's just a great big kick, one satisfying treat. It's one of the best things about photographing. Keeps us coming back.

Damn, I'm inspiring myself. I gotta get outside!

Mike

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.

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

Gordon Lewis: "Great analogy, Mike. I just think you should have mentioned the obvious corollary: The difference between pros and most amateurs is that the pro is expected to perform at a high level consistently, even under adverse conditions, whereas the amateur can be satisfied with only occasional flashes of brilliance. Another hopefully encouraging thought is that the best photographers are careful not to show their out-takes, while we ourselves are all too aware of our own. Make a consistent practice of editing the wheat from the chaff and you're likely to feel a lot better about your work."

John Fleming: "Any time you want to post a 'Your shot of the day' please feel free. I enjoy these very much and, oddly, I was looking at a couple of these just yesterday as I had saved your links to them."

John Camp: "You're absolutely correct about all of this. I've played golf for a long time, and I once remarked to a fellow golfer that every single time I go out, I hit a shot that Tiger Woods would have taken at the height of his career—roll in a 20-foot putt, chip to a couple of inches, etc. But that 'doing it all the time' thing is the big catch in life."

Speed: "My favorite lucky shots are the ones I don't even remember taking. They make up for all the great shots that weren't."

Richard Skoonberg: "One of the great art photographers, whom I have had a chance to work with, Chip Simone, talks about finding the 'gift of the day' when he goes out shooting. Truly no one knows where that next great image is going to be found. It is a gift."

Three Strange Dogs

I think I need a vacation! I had a dream last night (as happens from time to time) that I was taking pictures. I was at home, but somehow had a high view of a body of water, which my home in life doesn't have. Three strange dogs had entered my house, which for some reason my dogs didn't object to. Their owners were there too, and I tried to use the dogs to make friends with the people, but, even though they were in my house, the people ignored me, corralled their dogs, and left without acknowledging me. I felt a sense of separateness and hurt feelings—but on behalf of my dogs, who need more canine company and were being deprived of it. At that point, through a window, I noticed that a huge, dense black band of stormcloud, moving in from behind me, was about to obscure the sunny day, which you could still see underneath the cloudbank, above the water. I grabbed my camera, but I couldn't open my eyes, so I couldn't see anything in the viewfinder. When I finally pried my eyes open I took several pictures, but no matter how I tried to adjust the exposure the camera overcompensated for the dark cloud and blew out the sunny highlights over the water in the distance. Giving up, I turned my attention to a view inside the house, which had turned into a dank, crumbling basement. In the composition there was a minor element, a small, spherical glass globule like a clear Christmas ornament or unfrosted lightbulb that I wanted to position against a contrasting blotch of sunlit concrete, to make it stand out, but each time I took the picture, the camera's algorithms, with flashing rectangles in the viewfinder and electronic beeps and blips, repositioned the objects in the viewfinder to its liking, spoiling what I was trying to achieve. I tried again and again, moved the camera this way and that, but the camera wouldn't allow me to control the geometry of the arrangement. I didn't know how it was rearranging reality, and worried that maybe I had gotten behind on developments in the tech.

A "frustration dream," then. (Dreams are often reducible to categories.) Is it a bad sign I'm dreaming of camera handling? I watched Anomalisa last night, which is a disorienting experience. Like I say, maybe I need a good long rest in the healthy air and healing waters at some sanitorium somewhere. Like in an old novel. Hello, Dr. Cheswick, Dr. Taber, Dr. Frederickson, Dr. Scanlon—the famous Dr. Scanlon—Mr. Harding, Dr. Bibbitt, Dr. Martini, and Dr. Seefelt.... Maybe it means I think cameras go too far in trying to be helpful? Maybe it just means I should spend more time practicing. Or reading the manual. I hope none of you are psychologists!  :-)

Mike

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.

(Not) everything must fade away

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Featured Comments from:

John: "I resisted the impulse to begin deconstructing the dream, knowing that I could not outdo this assessment."

Larry Gebhardt: "Man I hate the 'frustration dreams,' but they are usually at least slightly interesting and the only ones I remember most nights. Some days I feel like I'm stuck in one of them when trying to get a digital camera to do something I know it can, but I just can't remember how to get to the right menu or combination of settings. I've been back shooting film lately and there's something so nice about the simplicity of mechanical cameras with black-and-white negative film. With the Hasselblad it had been several years since I used it, but with just a few options it all came back in an instant. Of course there were film cameras with a multitude of custom settings, AF quirks, etc, but I never really used them extensively. On the other side I've never really found a simple digital camera that I could be sure of the results after letting it sit for a while."

Ernest Zarate: "If you do go to that sanatorium, keep your eyes open for the lead nurse. Rumor has it she can do a real number on your head."

Mike replies: Whew, I'll say. And freedom just required stepping out the open window.

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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Featured Comments from:

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

Earthrise and Merry Christmas!

Fifty years ago today—50 years ago this morning, at a few minutes after 10:30 Central U.S. time—a former USAF fighter pilot named William A. (Bill) Anders, who is now 85 years old and lives in Anacortes, in the State of Washington on the West coast, took one of the indisputably great photographs of the 20th century.

Even if you've seen this before, watch and listen as it happens—

Bill Anders was later the Chairman and CEO of General Dynamics, and started a Foundation to support educational and environmental issues. Oh, and do you happen to remember that scene in the movie Top Gun where the pilot played by Tom Cruise encounters a Russian plane and gives the pilot the finger? The pilot who did that in real life was none other than the guy who took "Earthrise," Bill Anders.

I've seen this clip before but it's inherently moving. Each time I see it I enjoy it. And if that's not just the quintessential "hurry up and get the shot" moment, I don't know what is, unless it was Ansel frantically setting up by the roadside near Hernandez. (First, get the shot.)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you! From here in the Finger Lakes of Upstate New York to wherever in the world you are.

I'll be back after Christmas. We have a backlog of topics to cover. May great blessings be yours.

Mike
(Thanks to Gary Morris via Jack McD., and PDLanum)

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.

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Featured Comments from:

Tim S: "Thanks! Great background info on one of my favorite images. It has been a background on my phone and computers for years. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to TOP!"

Yoram Nevo: "And he said: 'Oh my God, look at that picture over there.' A photographer state of mind. Merry Christmas Mike, from the sunny winter of Israel. Best wishes for 2019, your regular—Yoram Nevo."

Rod S.: "Thank you for the link. The reconstruction is beautiful and adds significantly to our collective understanding and appreciation of the Earthrise photograph. I recall vividly watching as a 12-year-old the reading of Genesis 1 during the live television broadcast by the crew of Apollo 8 on Christmas Eve 1968. During the reading, the television image was of the cratered lunar surface passing beneath. The clear implication to me was that we were, at that moment, re-living how God might once have gazed down upon the early Earth. It was electrifying."

Mike replies: It was the most-watch TV program ever, at the time. Here's the address from the crew:

William Anders: "We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

James Lovell:

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman:

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good.

"And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas—and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth."

Corn (and Kyle Batson's Roof With a View)

A couple of days ago I mentioned that it's tougher to see horizons around here at the end of Summer, before the corn is harvested. This year it's been especially noticeable, because we had a longish dry spell and then a week of rain, so the corn seemed to spring out of the ground all at once; first it didn't seem to be there, and now a week or three later it seems to crowd the view from every angle.

In response, David Brown wrote, "Two possible solutions to your corn problem: 1.) A car-top platform with a ladder, like the one Ansel Adams used. 2.) A step-ladder on roof racks on your car. Take it off the racks and use it on the ground. I'm not suggesting you set it up on top of the car." Bill Mitchell added, "Ansel Adams's greatest contribution to photography may have been the car platform (not the Zone System)."

I knew there a great opportunity to mention Kyle Batson was going to come around sooner or later! I love it when this happens.

I will not make any puns on the word 'corny'
But back to corn. First of all, I had been drifting through life in a state of ignorance, imagining that corn was getting taller because of genetic engineering. That might be true, or it might not, but it turns out that the world record for a cornstalk is 30 feet. Some kinds of corn are taller than others. Anyway, it seems to me that "normal" corn when I was growing up in the Midwest was 6–8 feet tall, and that more lately, around here, I've been seeing corn that's 8–12 feet tall. I guess all I can say with certainty is that a wall of 12-foot-high corn at the edge of the roadway makes a pretty formidable "fence" blocking the view. Especially when, as often seems to be the case, the road has a ditch beside it and the field on the other side of the ditch is elevated a little bit above the level of the road to begin with...as usually happens on one side of the road or the other when the road runs across a gentle hillside.

David and Bill are perfectly correct that being able to get up on top of your vehicle is a big advantage in getting a better view. Not disputing that and not criticizing their solution. Actually, in '87 when I did my one and only view camera project, I would stand on the roof of my little Mazda 323 sedan, as the "bumples" on the roof when I sold the car gave witness.

But there's a little photo-existential problem here, one that "crops up" (er, sorry) from time to time: it's the tendency we all (I mean all us photo enthusiasts) have of assuming problems are technical when in fact they're visual. Because, yes, a telescoping monopod, a stepladder, and a roof platform are all valuable for seeing over the top of the corn: but how do you know when there's a view to be seen above the corn when you can't see the view because of the corn? That is, how do you know where to stop and get up on the roof, or deploy the stepladder? The point is that you can't see the horizon. So you don't know where a good view might be because you can't see it.

Of course a lot of times you can see a little bit of it, or you can see enough to make an educated guess. But I'd say that that's the greater part of the corn problem.

You only live once
But on to Kyle. I usually try to mention when I meet readers, and I neglected to do so when Kyle came by because he wanted to clean up his website before I linked to it, and the mention got put on the back burner, which is a perilous place for anything to be where Yr. Hmbl. Ed. is concerned. Kyle and I met in Corning for lunch one day. He had quit his job, sold his house, and customized a Sprinter van into a camper! It's now his domicile. When we met he had just embarked on a circuit of the country in the van. He told me he just wanted to make sure he had some adventures as his life passed by, or words to that effect.

Kyle Batson at home

And apropos of the current topic, check this out:

Now there's a roof with a view. That'll let you see beyond the corn.

If you'd like to follow Kyle or see more of his adventure, here are his links:

http://www.kylebatsonphoto.com

http://www.desirepath.life

http://www.instagram.com/kylebatsonphoto

http://www.instagram.com/desirepathlife

Mike
(Thanks to David, Bill, and Kyle)

UPDATE: Kyle Batson writes: Hey, Mike! It was so good to be able to meet someone whose writing I admire so much. I am currently in Montana just having passed through Yellowstone. My roof perch came in handy recently to photograph some elk by the edge of the road. It’s a nice place to be, especially to gaze up at the Milky Way in the middle of a forest. I hope to meet again, and if anyone sees me driving around their neck of the woods, be sure to say hello!

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Moose: "We too travel in a converted Sprinter van, but converted at much less effort on my part by the folks at Pleasure-Way in Saskatoon. "What I want to know is how he got up on the roof. There are ladders that attach to rear doors, and which I've considered, but I don't see one on his van."

Mike replies: Here's a viewpoint that shows the ladder. But Moose, do note John's comment below. Let's be careful up there!

John Camp: "As a Midwesterner inflicted with corn and low horizons, I once had a roof rack on an SUV paired with a very compact folding stepladder that I carried in the back, with pieces of plywood that I put in the roof rack to stand on. One thing bothered me, and makes me a little queasy when I see pictures like that of Kyle standing on his Sprinter—the possibility of becoming so involved with the photo-making that you fall off backwards. I had less room on my SUV rack than Kyle has, but the problem is more one of inattention to the danger than it is of room. And if you fall off backwards, you'll most likely land on your head or neck...I solved some of the problem by buying sailing safety cables that allowed me to snap into the roof rack. I couldn't fall off, but I couldn't move much, either. In any case, roof-top photo-making has to be done with some care."

Edward Taylor: "It would appear that Kyle is quite good as a photographer, judging from the links to his site that you provided. Thank you."

Stan B.: "That van is one sweet setup—perfect size!"

Your Photo Assignment for Today

I've been spending an embarrassing amount of time on dating sites lately, because I am a.) lonely and b.) evidently unteachable via experience*. I have learned a few things, such as, things are bad for a lot of people in the Philippines.

One of my standard jokes is that I knew I was getting old when I would see a pretty young woman walking a dog and I'd find myself admiring the dog. Well, one of the ways I know I'm getting even older is that I look at profiles on dating sites and I either want to critique the person's photos, give them tips on how to do better, or offer to come do their photos for them. (This last must sound creepy, because no one's ever taken me up on it. Their loss, however, because, seriously, I would do a splendid job and I'd work for nothing. Hmm, even that sounded creepy.)

I'm sorely tempted to show some of the worst examples, but I do try hard not to show negative examples on TOP, out of respect for either the photographer or the subject or both.

One young lady made a complete hash of a selfie in a mirror. The mirror only occupied about half the frame; the phone she was holding up was blocking half her face; she was looking at the phone screen rather than at the reflection of the lens in the mirror; and everything that was reflected in the mirror was out of focus.

She was cute (what little I could see of her), but my old-guy gene kicked in and I couldn't help myself: I wrote her a note offering some tips for how to do better selfies-in-the-mirror.

Strange to say, I have not heard back from that particular woman. There's a surprise.

But then I thought, hmm, wonder how hard it actually is?

So I self-assigned myself. (Was that re-redundant?) Here's my best attempt:

But I really had to work at this. On several attempts the lighting was atrocious; a couple of other times the excessive detail of the pitiless digital sensor and lens made me look like I was desperately in need of botox, when in actuality I am only mildly in need of botox; and, of course, the client here is recalcitrant and cantankerous and has an unrealistic self-image. (As I always say, I'm 35 from inside here.) And you really can't see the screen with the phone held out of the shot. It's pretty tough getting everything to line up.

And I know I look grim, but the ones in which I attempted to smile made me look like Peter Lorre in M:

But really. If you want a tricky little challenge this week, try doing a halfway decent self-portrait in a mirror with a phone, without showing the phone in the photo. Don't expect to knock it right out, either. It looks like a lot of non-photographer types on dating sites should be able to do better than they do, but it's not as easy as it looks.

The best way to get great portraits of yourself is still to hire a good photographer! You wouldn't sell your house without a realtor, would you?

Mike

P.S. This really is the last phone-photo post for a while—I got a notification from B&H Photo that the Sony A7III has shipped and is en route.

* Actually I was just being funny with "b."—in fact I've met several truly fine people on dating sites, who I liked a great deal even if we didn't have that essential "spark." Statistically the best way to meet a future partner is through a friend, by far, but eHarmony says that "20% of those in current, committed relationships began online and 7% of marriages in 2015 were between couples that met on a dating website."

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.

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Larry Gebhardt: "Mike, I'd try this experiment but my wife would probably catch me and wonder what the heck I was doing. Then I'd probably need to really be able take a good selfie for the dating sites."

Jim Hamstra: "Actually you know you're old when you see a pretty woman walking down the street and you think 'I bet her mom is hot.'"

Euan Forrester: "When I was Internet dating, I didn't have a good horizontal 'cover' photo and since I mentioned in my profile I was into photography I thought I'd better take a nice one. I noticed lots of peoples' cover photos were of themselves in front of pretty backdrops, so I one evening I drove up a mountain road where I knew there was an overlook that I thought would be quiet. I got there a bit late, and it was darker than I hoped, so I set up an umbrella on a light stand, gelled my flash, and put the camera on a tripod with a radio trigger. Just as I finished getting set up, the local ski hill above my overlook closed and car after car started streaming down the hill right past my location. Then someone got their car stuck right beside me and a giant crew showed up to try and get them out. All the while I'm blasting away with my ridiculous 'ultimate selfie' setup. It took me almost 300 frames to get something I didn't hate, all while trying to not look too embarrassed in my photos, and then I sheepishly packed up my gear and high-tailed it down the mountain.

"I ended up meeting my now live-in partner through the site with that as my cover photo. I eventually told her the story, feeling very proud that I persevered through my embarrassment and had managed to find someone as wonderful as her. She replied that she didn't actually like the photo very much."

David Maxwell: "I suppose that as someone who primarily enjoys writing poetry, songs, and fiction, I ought to try to avoid writing comments on blog posts! Seriously though, I have lost track of the number of times over the years that I have started writing comments on your posts only to delete and walk away. I'm not sure what your ultimate goal is with the online dating, but I met my wife of almost 3.5 years online (she gave birth to our first child last Monday). I used OkCupid, a free site with a somewhat sleazy reputation. It was pretty interesting to say the least, and I encountered a bit of wackiness, but I met some really cool women, and, as I mentioned above, married one of them."

JG: "I always promised the women I dated that, if nothing else, when they eventually broke up with me—which they invariably did—they would have some great photos of themselves to post online when they go looking for their next boyfriend. And sure enough, whenever I would stumble upon one of their dating profiles afterward, many of the photos had indeed been taken by me. Sometimes many years earlier, but that was the next boyfriend's problem, not mine...."

Mike replies: I figured I'd better feature this one because we might never get another from you.  :-)

Stephanie Luke: "Nicely lit and exposed, goes without saying—although I just did. But I am intimidated by that guy and his unwavering stare. Also, what is in your hand, just out of the picture? An axe, perhaps, to go with the outdoorsy, he-man outfit? (Yes, I know it's a camera, but still...). I bet you have a nice smile, and from this female's point of view, it would be more inviting to see it!"

Mike replies: Thanks for the input Stephanie...just FYI, this is the mirror-selfie I actually use on the dating sites:

Yup, complete with, um, toilet. Oh well.That's where the mirror is.

Labeled with the date so people know it's recent. It's actually a more characteristic look for me, too, as I am usually smiling like a happy dog. But one very intelligent woman from around here complained that she hated selfies with the phone in the picture. "They're the worst," was her verdict.

Can't please all the people all the time...and most of those people are looking at my profile. Ba-dum-PAH.

(Another Mitch Hedberg joke, modified.)

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.]

The Forces of the Fall

The lower branches of the fallen oak. Some of the
broken sections are twelve inches in diameter.

I'm still experiencing significant aftereffects of the storm—power was off for 30 hours and it's been restored, but unfortunately several circuits in my house are dead, including my entire office (and that whole end of the downstairs). I assume this has something to do with the handoff between the backup generator and the power from NYSEG (pronounced "nice egg," our local power utility), but I haven't yet been able to get through to anybody who can help. 

So I'm breaking my rules and writing from the book computer, upstairs. Hopefully just for today!

They had a lot of snow in Britain and Ireland too, I hear.

Out and about
Yesterday and the day before were days to be prized here—dramatically gorgeous—and I did what was, for me, a lot of shooting. I went out several times.

Two things I noticed to mention. For one, I actually filled up a whole card. "Ran out of film."

Many of you probably do this regularly, and have long ago worked out protocols for making sure you have extra cards in reserve and handy. But I habitually shoot sparingly, normally of static subjects, so I ordinarily spend a lot more time thinking and looking than I do actually shooting, and it's been so long since I've filled up a whole card that I can't even remember the last time. So on my third jaunt out of the house...whoops. No more card space. It's also been a long time since I left the house with anything more than one clean card in the camera—I just so seldom need it. 

I think this was because, much to my surprise, I found myself shooting action. I don't usually do much of that. I'm guessing those of you who shoot action are used to shooting a lot of exposures. Or at least a lot more than I usually do. 

Something and something else
And that brings me to my second observation, which is that whenever I go out meaning to shoot something, I almost always end up shooting something else. I first learned this when I spent a year shooting with a view camera long ago (I'm not naturally a large format guy, as I wrote about years ago). Frustrated with my tendency to shoot carefully pictorial compositions, once I just swung the camera around and took a picture of what was behind me. Then I started doing that whenever I set up the camera, and found that the "behind my back" picture was better about one out of five times.

This teaches an important lesson, at least for me, which is that whenever you go out to shoot, you can find something. It just might not be what you think it's going to be. It certainly wasn't for me yesterday. (More about that later.)

That thought was expressed to me by the great Ralph Gibson when I interviewed him many years ago. Paraphrasing, he told me something like this: I've been doing this for so long, and I'm good enough at it, that whenever I head out with the camera I know I'll come back with something.

Or actually, it teaches two important lessons: the second is that while you're shooting one thing, remember to stay alert and alive to every other possibility, everything else around you. Even when you know where the pictures are you never know where the pictures are.

Documenting is different
Anyway: fun day, out an about with the X-T2. Shooting is fun and it cures all the other ills associated with the hobby of photography. 

I did some more documenting of my downed tree, too, which is an ~80-foot oak (I paced it off), about three or four feet in diameter at the base. It came up by the roots because the ground is so soft now. It was a violent event: the fall snapped many living branches, some of them eight or ten inches in diameter, raggedly in half; the corpse of the tree in the yard is a jumble of broken wood and tells a vivid tale of the forces of the fall.

I'll have some more pictures of that, too, when I get back up to speed. Documenting the felled tree, knowing it won't be there long, reminded me of another of my beliefs, which is that shooting in a documentary mode—just for information, to show the reality of a scene to someone else in a photograph—is to us photographers like scales and finger exercises are to a pianist. It keeps you in practice and cleans up your mind, clearing away all your arty and pictorial and compositional quirks and pretensions. We should all do that every now and then just to keep us healthy, even if only as an exercise. (As I think I once said, photography isn't about photography, it's about the world.)

I don't have my usual footer macro up here to add to the bottom of this post, so I'll just sign off and leave it at that. More anon. March has been quite the month so far.

Mike

[UPDATE: Got the power to the office restored about 1:30 thanks to troubleshooting help from the generator people. All is well. —MJ]

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.

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Featured Comments from:

Bryce Lee: "Running out of space on an SD card is interesting. Normally those of us who were raised in the era of 20- (later 24-) and 36-exposure rolls of film learned early on to be small 'c' conservative when deciding upon exactly what we want to photograph. I still function in film mode when out doing my photography, regardless of the capacity of the inserted SD card. An old habit difficult to break."

Stan B.: "'I don't care so much anymore about "good photography." I am gathering evidence for history.' —Gilles Peress."

Joseph Reid: "One of the best yard-care/exercise experiences I had while owning a house in Upstate NY was having a sick tree felled professionally and the trunk cut into two or three long sections. Then I took over and made firewood out of them using wedges, sledgehammer and axe. I could only do a bit at a time and it took several weekends. But it was great, exhausting stress relief. Splitting those trunk sections was a primal experience."

Joe: "Re 'Even when you know where the pictures are you never know where the pictures are.' Oh my, yes. So true. And that principle brought me to a habit that I've developed: When I'm shooting a subject, of course I always reach a point where I'm finished. I've covered all the angles, I know I've got the good shot in the camera, I've done what I came for. I'm tired, it's in the can, and I'm eager to go home and dump the images onto the computer. But for the past few years I've made it a habit to stop and take a one-minute break to walk through the location, looking up and down and behind and inside, thinking: what else is here? What did I miss? Isn't there one more shot I can take home? I swear, 50% of the time I'll frame a shot that hadn't occurred to me before, and 50% of those times my favorite shot will come from that last idea."

Mike replies: That comment says the same thing my post did but much better. Lovely.

Ann: "About 20 years ago, we lost a 30-foot oak. No storm, no soft ground. I was just sitting at home reading a magazine one night, and it fell over with a huge crash. Rotten at the base of the trunk. The interesting part was that we had just the week before finished building a six-foot-tall cedar fence. The tree fell on a section of that beautiful, sturdy, brand new fence. The posts on either side of where the tree fell were intact and standing up straight. The section that the tree hit, however...shattered. Not a single piece of wood left in between those fence posts that was longer than six inches. That falling tree was a powerful force."

Controlling Lighting

There are two primary reasons to try all different kinds of photography.

One is to improve your chops.

The other is to find out what each kind of photography is like to do and whether it's for you.

When I took studio lighting in school (from a man who would later be a good friend and who is also my son's grandfather), I wasn't very interested in it. There were several reasons for this. One is that I don't like photographing what I can't see. I disliked all my experiments with flash for this reason. Somewhere, I have a set of pairs of pictures I used as teaching tools, of different scenes or subjects, identical except that one was taken with on-camera flash and the other with available light. I didn't like taking pictures with flash, for the simple reason that I didn't know what the result was going to look like.

The other reason is that control doesn't appeal to me. The opposite—serendipity—appeals to me much more. I want to explore with a camera and be surprised by what I find—adapt on the fly to what I see.

Lots of people, however, love the control aspect of photography. There's nothing wrong with that if it appeals to you.

I mentioned recently that I once was a full-time assistant for a studio pro for six months. I learned a lot in that time. My boss was a total control freak when it came to his pictures, and for very good reason—his sets and models cost money, and hence, unpleasant surprises or technical breakdowns or delays cost money.

One little story about him (I won't name him—he was so difficult to work for that one of his former assistants had T-shirts made for all the other assistants in town that said "I Survived ____ ____.") He once had to shoot a brochure for a travel company. One of the pictures he wanted to take was an overhead view of a man and a woman in bathing suits floating on air rafts in a swimming pool. The would be facing opposite ways, holding hands in the middle, and each would be holding a drink in the other hand. He rented a scaffold, hired the models, devised his lighting scheme, found a swimming pool painted the right color of blue, etc.

To assure himself he could get the brilliant effect of sunlight on water, he rented an indoor pool and lit it with artificial light. But there was a problem—the lights couldn't reach the bottom of the pool. He threw all the watt-seconds he could at it, but the light couldn't penetrate the water with sufficient intensity. So he had to switch to an outdoor pool. But it drove him up the wall that his shoot was dependent on sunlight. Never mind the fact that it had been sunny for a month and there was nothing but sun in the forecast—he just hated having to rely on God rather than Speedotron for the lighting for his shot. Everything went fine, the day of the shoot was sunny, and he got the shot. But he complained for a long time afterwards about not having been in control.

There's nothing wrong with having ironfisted control of every aspect of the shots you want to make, including your lighting. I will freely admit that my long-ago boss, the studio photographer control freak, probably made more money from sales of photographs in one year than I have made in my entire career. His was a true Mom-and-Pop business—he did the shooting and oversaw the technical stuff, and his wife did the books and ran the business side of things. They had a 50-foot sailboat, if that's any indication of their success.

As for me...well, one of my favorite lighting situations was shooting a portrait of a friend. There was a north-facing window in the attic of a garage at my grandparents' summer cottage. There were old sheets covering disused furniture in the attic and I used one of them as a reflector. It was hot as hell and I wanted her to wear a particular sweater I thought she looked great in because its green-gray color matched her green-gray eyes. She did, but the "sweater" in this case was literal—it made her sweat! Windowlight on one side, a large sheet hung on the other side, her tanned skin glistening, and the dark rafters of the garage making the background all but black—the light was utterly gorgeous. But it was all completely improvised as I went along.

We all need to know what our own character and personality is. And it's best to go ahead and go with that.

Anyway, all I wanted to say today is that the best way to play around with lighting on a small scale are probably portraits, still life (that's the plural of "a still life"), or macro shots. Start by finding examples you might want to emulate.

The smaller the subject, the less you need a studio, or an improvised studio space, to set up your lighting in.

Triptych by Sean Tucker. Rembrandt lighting with a single Godox AD200.

If you didn't see the video Wolfgang Lonien linked the other day, you should watch it. It's good. The photographer's name is Sean Tucker. I really like the work, the lighting, the planning, the concept and all, but those aren't even the only great things about the video; Sean's seriousness and his work board are both inspiring examples to follow. Well worth the time it takes to watch—it has stuck in my mind for two days now.

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.

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Featured Comments from:

Bill C: "An engaging post. I began my journey into photography with a landscape and urbex focus, and later (after I had kids) evolved into shooting events, with a particular interest and investment in learning how to shoot ballet and dance. So working with the available light has been the norm. However, I've more recently been challenged to shoot studio type work, like promotional work and headshots, that require using studio lighting. I've enjoyed the learning process, even if it is a bit frustrating at times.

"Having control over light means having the responsibility of control over the light, and that definitely adds to the workload. The additional equipment and technique required is also a steep learning curve. But it is very satisfying on those occasions where you manage to capture it! It definitely gives me significant appreciation for the experience and talent of true professional photographers. Finally, I have to say that the Sean Tucker video is one of the absolute best I've seen on YouTube. It is honest, informative, and inspirational on many levels. Thank you so much for passing it along to your readers!"

Robert Fogt: "Having worked for thirty years as a museum photographer, I have to say that lighting—without a doubt—was perhaps the most challenging and FUN part of the entire experience. My 'small parts' bag held, among many other widgets, wire plate stands and various little bits of reflective materials, and small concave cosmetics mirrors to position behind the subjects for edge light. I'd go so far as to compare it, Mike, to playing pool! After digital became the new Polaroid and offered all that detailed and immediate feedback, I would occasionally have to remind myself that it was time to just take the picture and move on to the next. You could just get sucked down the lighting rabbit hole! Fun, indeed."

Roy J Feldman: "Your first point and second don't really match up. You don't like flash because you don't know the outcome; you don't like total control. Well which is it?"

Animesh Ray: "On the one hand, you don't like to take photographs with flash because you like to see what is being photographed, on the other you like surprises. I find flash photography in near darkness, especially on the streets, is full of surprises. What you are after, I think, is control but not too much and surprises but not too much. (Smiley face!)"

Brian Taylor: "Sean Tucker's impressive video reminded me how much richer portraits can become when they emerge out of real relationship. As you probably know, the question of absent fathers, and mentoring, has surfaced regularly in discussions of men and masculinity. With good reason I think. Like many men whose fathers had been traumatised during the second world war, my younger self was unable to find, or accept, the kinds of relationship Sean evidently had with his portrait subjects, so I was pleased to see the subject being explored photographically. I was also pleased to hear Sean's cautions and reservations about street photography (in another of his videos), though much more could be said about that ethically complicated genre."

Warren Jones: "Ha! My father in law loves doing studio work with lights. He has seemingly every kind of light, light stand and light modifier imaginable. He always talks about getting the light just right. Yep you guessed it...he is a control freak!"

Michael: "Thanks for that, Mike. All of Sean Tucker's videos on YouTube are worth watching. He is serious in a way that invites us all to be serious with him, and to understand that photography is like life: it's all there, to learn, to suffer, to enjoy, and even sometimes to be enlightened."

What Is a Studio?

Two small things first: I've just added a bunch of new Featured Comments to the "Bare Bulb" post. Be sure to check 'em out.

Second, I should be done with the Baker's Dozen: Black-and-White" post in time to publish it on Friday, so I can leave it at the top of TOP for the weekend. Coming right up, at long last.

I wanted to mention that the most fun I ever had with lighting was when I shared studio space with my old friend Paul Kennedy at the Paul Kennedy Studio in Takoma Park, Maryland. We were four photographers with independent businesses and shared space; I mostly used the big, beautiful darkroom, earning most of my living as a custom B&W printer. I made exhibition prints for professional photographers, galleries, and museums, and high quality prints for reproduction. I loved darkroom work and there were many and various challenges in the jobs that came in, so it was a fun time for me.

I had a bunch of Photoflex LitePanels, which were 39 x 72" fabric sheets with elastic bands on all four corners. Here's a link to the most useful kind. Rather than buy the expensive pre-made frames for them, I made a bunch out of PVC plumbers pipe. To assemble them, they simply press-fit together; then I could knock them all down and throw the bits in a bag. What let them stand upright was just an inverted "T" shape at one end.

I used these both in the studio and on location. The diffuser panels made the same kind of light (albeit weaker in intensity) as a giant soft box (the point of a soft box is to contain the light and sent it all out the diffuse front panel, rather than waste it some of it on reflection as you do with an umbrella or with a freestanding LitePanel). The opaque panels could be used as gobos (to block light) or as backgrounds—I shot many portraits and headshots with either a black or white LitePanel (same kind—one side is black, one side is white) as my background. Of course I used the white and silver panels as generously-sized reflectors.

As every pro and almost no amateur knows, a large diffuser panel on a frame is also very useful on location in harsh midday direct sunlight...on stands at each end (have two people hold it) so that it's over the head of your subject with the sunlight falling on the top of it, and you get beautiful diffused light on your subject with no harsh shadows. Instant perfect "open shade."

These panels were highly useful on location shoots...I went into a lot of offices to do headshots and executive portraits. But the most fun was simply playing around with them in the studio. (I did lots of studio portraits, mainly of individuals and couples.) It was fun to figure out how to use the various light panels to "mimic" many lights while actually only using one or two. For example, with a single light, you could set up a diffuser panel on one side of your subject as a main light, and set the light up as such an angle that unblocked light would fall on a reflector panel on the other side of the subject. That created the same effect as two lights, one diffused and one reflected, using just one main light. The problem was intensity, which would be much less a problem with today's digital cameras.

To really have fun with lighting, of course, you need a "room-sized accessory"...a studio. And what's a studio? Basically, just a large empty room. Everything else in a studio, like built-in sweeps or seamless paper support systems and so forth, is just icing on the cake.

One thing that can help a lot is having beams or girders on the ceiling so you can clamp stuff up there. The only time I was a full-time assistant, the pro had constructed an enormous barn-sized concrete room with a huge wall in the middle on rollers. The idea was that he could have two sets going at the same time, one on each side of the wall, or, when he wanted to use the whole room, he could roll the moving wall to one side and use the whole space. He also had beams on the ceiling so he could clamp things anywhere and not have to hang lights from tall stands. The ceiling was 20 feet high, though, so getting the lights up there wasn't a picnics for us assistants.

You know what would make a great studio? A prefab garage with no center supports and a high ceiling. You'd have a lot of space for human-sized projects, a concrete floor, and those exposed ceiling joists would be great for clamping things to.

I don't work with lights any more and it's been ages since I've been in a studio. And of course, as in that nice video Wolfgang linked to yesterday, lots of photographers build portable "studios" on location. But for the right photographer, a nice big empty room to work in—a studio—is a highly desirable photographic accessory.

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 Jenkins: "All this talk about studios makes me nostalgic for the great space I had through most of the '90s in downtown Chattanooga. The shooting room was about 20x30 feet with a 12-foot ceiling, a large darkroom with a King Concepts film processor, and a nice space for offices and client meetings. All for $600 a month. Those were good days. However, by 2000, most of my business had shifted to location work and the money I made from having a studio was just about enough to pay the overhead. So sadly, I closed it. But I still miss it. I'm mostly out of commercial photography these days, working on books and magazine articles, but I loved it while I did it."

John Camp: "I just built a studio with three sections—writing, music, painting/photography. Moved in last month. There were some constraints. I'm in an environmentally sensitive area, so I was restricted to the footprint of the previous building, which was not optimal. It is, however, the best place I've ever had to work. (We call it 'The Workshop' because 'Studio' sounds too corksniffer-y.) In fact, I never want to leave it.

"BUT: a studio is more than a big empty space. If you're serious about it, you have to think about things like electric outlets. I have way more than the code calls for, and I could still use more. In places where I had four-plug outlets put in, I could have used eight...you also have to think about exactly what you'll need for plumbing and HVAC, security and storage.

"Big open spaces are subject to bad light and cold spots, so you really have to think about those things. When your lighting guys figure out how much light you need, it's not a bad idea in my experience to greatly exceed that. I did, and I still have a desk lamp.

"If you work with models, you also have to think about privacy concerns.

"I have a big pre-fab garage at my cabin. I no longer track the prices, but I think I paid something like $45,000 for a steel pre-fab set on a concrete slab with all electric wiring and hookup included, as well as the grading needed for the slab (which was also included in that price.) Arrived in a semi-truck and put up in a week. You could park six cars in in it; we do hang stuff (like dead deer) from the cross-members. Twenty-foot peaked roof, the better to shed snow. I don't remember the exact size but it could be something like 40x40. It's not heated, and heating would be expensive in colder areas simply because the space is so large. It's also hard to keep clean, so you'd have to think about things like what kind of flooring you'd want (polished concrete is relatively cheap and great, and can be tinted.)

"I'd say after a lifetime of writing in places like the basement and the unused third bedroom, that a workshop is a terrific luxury. Every artist or craftsman should try to get one, or find one. I don't know if you're interested, but I think a 'studio' series of posts could go on for days...."

Frank Grygier: "Dean Collins comes to mind when you talk about using panels. He worked his magic using one Metz flashgun with numerous panels and mirrors to control the light. I watch his videos every so often for inspiration."

Eamon Hickey: "Your memories of experimenting with LitePanels and seeing how much you could do with a single light sparked a stone-age memory of my own. Didn't a photographer named Dean Collins become famous-among-photodawgs in the 1980s with a series of instructional VHS tapes on lighting techniques wherein he regularly mimicked six-light, 15,000 watt-second setups with not much more than a penlight and a piece of scrap foamcore? That's how I remember it anyway. The camera store where I worked had a set of his tapes that we rented out, and one of the perks for a young, very underpaid photodawg like me was the ability to take them home for free if they weren't rented out. I learned a lot about light from those tapes. Or thought I did. Since I'm evidently in a nostalgic mood, I'll throw in a shot from 1990 or so that I made under the influence of those tapes, using a Photoflex LitePanel and a single light (outdoors). I was trying to copy something I'd seen in a magazine (not such a bad way to learn)."

Gordon T Cahill: "As the other photographers in my area have been closing their studio spaces, over the last five years, I've been selectively buying their gear and improving mine. Like you I loved my darkroom but now my studio is my fun space to be. Although the market has constricted, because I'm the last studio in town my usage has increased a bit. Although a permanent space is nice it's actually easy, with the cool and cheap gear available today to have either a quick garage/room conversion or a completely portable studio. About 50% of my headshot work is on location and I can set up a reasonable studio with some flip-out panels and a pair of Godox lights in just 15 minutes."

Dennis Huff Photographs the Eclipse

[The following is the text of a private email Dennis sent to some friends. I thought it did a great job of conveying the combination of excitement and stress involved in a complicated shoot of a fast-changing one-time-only event, so I asked Dennis if I could publish it more or less as written. He agreed and here you are. —Ed.]

Words and pictures by Dennis Huff

We're home now and I can start processing a few images. Here's what I have so far.

For the eclipse, I had two cameras set up; The Sony A7RII with the Rokinon 12mm lens, shooting one image every five minutes which will be composited to show the path of the sun during the eclipse [last photo].

 The second camera was the Canon 5D Mark IV with the 600mm + 1.4 teleconverter, all mounted on a guided telescope mount. I would have manually guided the camera but the exposures during totality were calculated to be 1–2 seconds, and I feared at 840mm the sun would be blurred.

I framed the Sony using a phone app which calculated the sun's position during the eclipse.

The guided mount with the Canon has go-to so it found the sun and followed it nicely. I also had a 7" monitor mounted on the Canon to check focus and framing.

Everything went well early on but after a few minutes clouds rolled in and at times the sun was not visible, and I was constantly racking exposure to compensate for cloud cover. Even so, I was thrilled that I was getting mostly good shots.

As totality approaches one must be ready to remove the solar filter and change camera settings (on both cameras!). I had C1, C2 and C3 programmed to various settings on the Canon and with the Sony, went to aperture priority during totality. Sounded easy enough...

So now we are in totality (one minute and 50 seconds), and I have finished shooting the Canon for totality and now move to the Sony, remove the filter and before I can change settings and fire, the group I'm with begin oohing and aahing and crying out so much I looked up at the sun. Oh boy, totality. Magnificent! Astounding! Soul-stirring! Oh crap we're now starting into the diamond ring effect as the sun is uncovering...

...and I haven't shot the Sony yet and I'm so discombobulated, I don't know what to do next. I jump back to the Canon to shoot and, oh no the filter! So now the filter is on and I'm shooting the diamond ring and, oh no the filter for the Sony. Whew, I didn't melt anything! The Sony image will need some Photoshopping to make it right though.

We are now out of totality and things are proceeding well. Suddenly, the mount has stopped tracking. I futzed with it for a bit but just tracked the rest of the eclipse manually.

So that was my eclipse experience. I'm thankful the group was so vocal during totality or I probably would never have looked away from my cameras! Next total eclipse across the US is in seven years from Texas to Vermont; mark your calendars!

Dennis

Big thanks to Dennis. I could just feel the stress and "discombobulation" from his words! —MJ.

©2017 by Dennis Huff, all rights reserved

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.

Always in totality
Give us a “Like” or Buy yourself a telescope

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

Geoff Wittig: "Wow! Beautiful photographs of the eclipse. I've screwed up more than a few potentially good wildlife photos by getting discombobulated and fumbling with camera controls I should be able to manage in my sleep. The relentless 'gotta get it right now' pressure of shooting the eclipse is a whole 'nuther level. The only thing I've done that's remotely comparable was photographing a massive controlled blast at a limestone quarry using a pair of tripod mounted D-SLR's. Everything had to be set well in advance for max frame rate JPEG captures, with exposure and focus pre-set, holding down the cable release starting a second before the blast. The whole thing was over in 5 seconds, without the option of asking 'Hey, can you do that again?'"

Ed Rosch: "Above is my eclipse picture taken with my Olympus Pen F with a 15mm lens. It’s a composite of two shots taken a few seconds apart and was at the Feather River Winery in North Platte NE."

Mike replies: Your shot makes a very interesting contrast to Dennis's pictures. You're recording the experience; he's recording the object/event. Philosophically speaking, I'd say those are different subjects. And offer a clue toward understanding different approaches to the practice of photography.

I could go on about this—but please don't consider that a threat.  :-)

Ed: "You hit the nail square on the head with your comment about my picture. I indeed was attempting to capture the feeling of experiencing the eclipse. I figured that there would be plenty of pictures of the eclipse itself and most of them would be better than anything I’d be able to do. As you point out, very different subjects neither 'superior' to the other. I’d suggest that a viewer engaging with Dennis's images and then looking at mine would have a better vicarious eclipse experience than viewing either alone.

"Delving deeper into the differing ways that photographic subjects and photography itself might be approached is hardly a threat but a very useful topic to be explored. Might I assume you’re familiar with the book Photography Changes Everything?"

Mike: I'm not, but I will add it to the list....

Elton Pinto: "Haha! I love the sense of excitement! That picture of totality is amazing. Thanks for sharing your experience. I also cannot help but think of how photographers sometimes miss experiencing the event in the process of documenting the event."

John Masters: "I felt a lesser amount of Dennis's stress on eclipse day.

"My health hasn't been great lately and I wasn't even going to attempt photographing the eclipse here in Palm Bay, Florida. We were expecting 84% sun coverage.

"I perked up about a week and a half before the eclipse and ordered a sheet of Solar Film, the stuff that knocks down the sun's brightness 100,000 times. After receiving the solar film, I had four days to make some filters for my camera lens and binoculars. I used cardboard, tape, black magic marker, etc., to create filters similar to a bajillion DIY ones on the Internet.

"I ended up sitting out in my back yard from 1 p.m. to 4:20 p.m. that day, and got the best shots of the eclipse I could personally do. I used a Fujifilm X-T20 with a Nikon AI lens adapter, a Nikon 300mm ƒ/4.5 lens, a Nikon TC-14 teleconverter, and my semi-homemade filter built into a 72mm to 77mm step up ring. All this on my trusty tripod. My wife and daughters came outside every little while and used the binoculars and the rear screen of my X-T20 to watch the changes and see our peak coverage.

"So, without the bazooka lenses many photographers have, my shots aren't going to be in National Geographic. But with careful work in Lightroom and Photoshop, I ended up with this souvenir shot of the whole eclipse as seen from the back yard of chez Masters, Palm Bay, Florida.

"Works for me."

Mike adds: Many TOP readers have sent me accounts of their eclipse experiences or links to their own posts about it or photos of it, including Gary Sutto, Mark Berman, and Gary K. Froehlich, and many others. I'm sorry I can't publish them all!

A reminder—if you want to publish a picture in a comment, the picture has to be on the Internet (with a URL) and be no more than 470 pixels wide, and the code to use is:

Of course, you need to replace "image.jpg" in that string with the URL of your image.

Sorry this isn't easier, but TypePad isn't set up to easily allow images in comments.

David: "My wife, my son, and I went to Oregon to see the eclipse. It was to be the first total eclipse any of us had ever seen. On the advice of an acquaintance I just set the camera to make a video recording of us watching it, starting a few minutes before totality. That was the best advice I ever received. The video captures the feelings that the eclipse evoked in us far better than any picture I could ever have produced."

ADDENDUM: I mentioned above that Gary K. Froehlich (who comments as GKFroehlich) was one of those who sent additional material about photographing the eclipse. I have urgent things to do this weekend, but I felt I'd be remiss if I didn't add a couple of Gary's remarkable photos to this post. For one thing, he was one of a very few photographers who managed (not at all by luck—the documentation of his methods he sent me was very involved, and his preparations were exacting) to photograph the transit of the International Space Station across the sun as the eclipse was happening. Here's a time lapse composite of the transit:

Really remarkable. Another thing Gary did was, in one of many fascinating pictures, was to superimpose a scale image of Earth on an image of the totality and the solar prominences:

Just awe-inspiring. This is just a detail of the much larger image he sent me, to allow you to see it in spite of our limitations on image size. Here's Gary and Ann:

Many thanks to Gary for sharing these with us!

How I Practiced Portraiture

I love portraits, and used to do them, both for pay and for art. I got a nice "blast from the past" last week when when I did a senior portrait for the daughter of a friend of a friend. (Or at least I think I did—they have the proofs now and so far so good.)

I can't remember now how I learned about what constituted conventional practice. But what I did was to work with the subject or subjects in several different scenes or situations, almost always using natural light and "found" backgrounds. I would take several hundred shots. From these I would edit my selections and give the client/subject small proof-prints of six or eight choices. They would then pick their favorite, and I would make the final print. (This was when I was working with B&W film and making fiber-base silver gelatin prints.)

Sounds simple, but I experienced innumerable problems.

The most basic one was "who owns the picture." Of course, you know that the photographer owns the rights to his or her work, and retains them until specifically relinquishing them. Technically, legally, the client only owns the print or prints—the physical object—and doesn't have the right to reuse or re-purpose the image in whatever way they see fit. This is difficult for clients to understand, and if they do understand they often don't respect it because it seems unreasonable to them—they paid for the picture, it's a picture of them, and they think that means they own it. ("A dog with a pullet in his mouth owns the pullet," said the redoubtable Scotsman David Hume.)

You do not own images of yourself, however. The person who made the image owns the rights to it. This seems counterintuitive to many people hearing it for the first time. That doesn't mean the owner of the rights can do anything he or she wants to without the subject's permission; but neither can the client do anything he or she wants to with the images without the photographer's permission.

I never had "big" problems where this is concerned, just little ones, although I've certainly heard of big problems. My little problems included people refusing to return the proofs, framing the proofs (which were usually 5x7 or 4x6 RC prints), or having the proofs copied and enlarged as an alternative to paying me for a finished print. I solved the framing-of-proofs problem by having a mask made that put my name and logo on the bottom of each proof. This didn't work in one case, because the client framed the proof logo and all.) Because of that last, I finally resorted to including two finished prints in the sitting price (my last sitting price was $675 in the early '90s—and I photographed some prominent people, including a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice, a U.S. Senator, a television star of the era, several members of recognizable political dynasty families, and a number of prominent citizens in and around Washington D.C.). Once, I sent a small JPEG of a portrait to a friend (of his mother) asking him if he wanted a print. I heard nothing back. Some time later, visiting his house, I found a framed inkjet print of the JPEG (which looked terrible, of course) on display! He had printed out the JPEG on his all-in-one dye inkjet printer, on bond paper. Yikes.

Framing was another headache. I was a custom printer and a recognized darkroom expert, and I put a lot of effort into making excellent fine finished prints. I included detailed framing instructions with the prints. I have no idea how many people took the next step and had them framed, but I know it wasn't everyone. For a while I would drymount the trimmed prints to heavy Rives BKF paper*; once, I visited a friend/client's house, and found my carefully-made, selenium toned, archivally washed fine print attached to their refrigerator with a magnet, among all the color snapshots and cute sayings. Yikes again!

But offering only framed prints is not an ideal solution, because peoples' homes are furnished in different styles and to different tastes, and there's no reliable one-size-fits-all framing option. People will prefer different kinds of frames.

I handled this problem in a neat way. I simply dropped off the finished prints at a framing shop (owned by a friend). Then I called the clients and told them their prints were ready and they could pick them up at their convenience at the shop. Most of them got the point and ordered framing for the prints they picked up.

Another problem, of course, which many of you (including wedding photographers) will be all too familiar with: they want to see all the shots. Editing photos is one of the hardest things about photography, even for experienced photographers. I've heard of wedding clients who complained that they "only" got 500 proofs when they "knew there were thousands of shots." Like the photographer is holding back all the good ones?

This problem probably gets down to who controls the image. The photographer thinks he or she gets to say what the best/final image is; the client thinks that's their right. The way I look at it, providing an edited selection of proofs is a compromise between these competing interests. If it were up to me, I'd just pick the best shot and the client would never see any of the others. If it were up to the client, they'd get everything (never suspecting how difficult it is to edit and choose for the simple reason that most people don't edit and choose: they just pick everything that strikes their fancy. That's why you see dozens of similar shots posted on photo sharing sites—the person who posted them "liked them all").

My experience was, the more proofs, the longer it took to get a print order. You can offer to help, but then you find you're teaching "Editing 101" to every new client.

The last problem is that most people are very picky about images of themselves, and quirky about what they want to see. Some people are sensitive to a certain perceived defect in their appearance, and they will pick a photograph of themselves that doesn't show that defect even if it's far from the best picture overall. Or they will pick a straight-on frontal picture simply because that's what they're used to seeing in the mirror.

Once, a few years ago, I will admit to making fun of an unknown woman for the picture of herself she posted on Match.com. There was only one single picture, and it showed her sitting on a porch, holding a beer, dressed in an impressively filthy T-shirt. It made her look like she had just come from spending a long period of time underneath a car. I made a joke of this to my brother, privately, but the thing is, my years as a portraitist gave me the insight to understand why she had posted that particular picture. Most likely it was that it either showed some little idiosyncratic feature of her face that she liked, or concealed some such feature that she disliked. And never mind the dirty T-shirt.

Anyway, for whatever reason, people often pick the wrong proof. You might say it's just a matter of taste, but I say no—it's my work, and I'm a better editor, and I know best. Anyway, I often made two finished final prints: one of their choice, for them, and one of the correct choice, for me.  :-)

Anyway, I always used to tell portrait clients to let their friends and families decide which one the best picture of them was, rather than doing it themselves. I'm sure that worked.

I've never worked as a portraitist in the digital age. I'm sure things are different now. I also suspect a lot of things are the same.

My portrait clients this past week were lovely people—friendly, gregarious and warm—and their confident and nice-looking daughter had the self-assurance of a well-raised child. She did a splendid job posing, and her mother acted as a stylist and did a very nice job of that! They were great to work with and I had fun doing the portrait. I do hope it suits their needs. I charged the price of a box of printing paper, and the gentleman kindly gave me a generous tip. So far I've send them un-watermarked small JPEGs as proofs with full permission to post them anywhere they want to. If/when they make a final choice, I'll send them a prepared full file for printing, and the name of a recommended printer.

The next thing I want to try is to hire a model for a portrait. I want to experiment with what it's like when I'm completely in control and the subject doesn't have any say at all. Should be an interesting experiment, and add to my lifelong learning about this kind of work.

The payoff in portraiture is when you happen to make a picture that the subject really likes. My '90s portrait of photographer Sally Mann that I showed in this post in 2015 (it's one of the few of my portraits I have in digitized form) was one of those—Sally really liked it, so much that she asked for the negative so she could print some promo pictures for her own use.

And she never returned the negative, of course. Sigh.

Mike

*This was self-defensive, mainly: it prevented framers from dry-mounting the print using too hot a temperature, which could impart the texture of the release paper to part of the surface of the print.

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John Camp: "Most people don't understand this, but they are brilliant judges of faces—most people have a forehead, two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, a chin, etc., yet we are able to instantly pick out acquaintances from the thousands of possibilities we see passing us every day. That expertise is exercised with portraits: a good photographer gives us a professional example of a subject we're interested in from birth, and because it's a portrait, rather than an actual living face, we have no inhibitions about studying it closely, every pore and freckle. And we make judgments about them too: is it possible that the woman on Match.com did just crawl out from under a car, and was perhaps interested in attracting, say, a Harley owner? The beer and t-shirt would hint at that...."

The Watkins Glen Exam

I wanted to add something to Euan's comments yesterday about Watkins Glen: namely, that Watkins Glen is a nice test for a photographer. If I taught photography in this area, an assignment to come back with three good pictures from Watkins Glen might be a good final exam. It's a test both of vision—somehow cramming the 360-degree drama of the spaces around you into a bounded rectangle, and adequately avoiding standard naturey clichés while doing it; but also a test of technique. There are so many bright, sunlit areas right next to deep shadows that it's a constant challenge to meter well and fit the subject brightness range optimally into the sensor's exposure range AKA dynamic range. People who just put the camera on go and swing it around in devil-may-care fashion letting the camera technology take care of the details are bound to lose a good number of shots to poor exposure.

It's a test of a camera's dynamic range, too. Here's an out-of-camera JPEG that gives you an idea of the basic lighting problems of the place:

I've lost the highlights rimming the pair at the top of the steps, and wouldn't want to lose any more, but you can see how dark and empty the shadows look down where Xander is.

Here's a variant I like better that required a radical amount of HDR shenanigans in Photoshop just to get it to look like a normal out-of-camera snap:

Gradients, local color correction, the works. (There's a lot of green light in the shadows down there.) And of course you have to leave in a lot of contrast, or you'll miss the light-and-shadow feel of the place.

As an example of that, here a beam of sunlight happened to hit the froth at the bottom of a waterfall:

It would be very easy to overcorrect this—but if you did you'd lose the dappled-sunlight, deep-woodsy feel of what you were looking at. The light and dark is the point, with just enough detail to imply what's in the shadows. (I don't like this picture particularly, but it's good as an example.)

Photographer at work in the upper reaches of Watkins Glen. See him up there on the bridge with his tripod? He probably didn't want me in his picture, but I wanted him in mine.

Anyway, if you ever visit Watkins Glen, take along your widest-angle lenses and your best chops, and watch yer highlights! The place well worth seeing without having a camera along at all, but it's also a fun challenge for a photographer.

 

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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Look Up / Look Down / Look Everywhere

Words and photos by Jim Hughes

I was just discussing the value of "looking up" with an attorney friend, an enthusiastic photographer here in Camden. His hobby was about to become more expensive, apparently. He had just asked if I thought the new Fuji GFX, with its 50-megapixel sensor, which costs more than twice as much as my old $3,000 Miata, would make his pictures better. He was already thinking of upgrading from his new X-T2. No, I answered, it's not the camera that makes the picture, it's the eye. I showed him a print of one of my most recent photographs, taken at a worksite just across the street from his home and office, where a bridge is being replaced, fouling traffic for these past many months. He studied the print for a long time, then announced: "I would never have seen that, not in a million years." I pulled out my own camera, an X-Pro1 purchased last year for less than $500 when it was discontinued, to which I have affixed an ancient 28mm ƒ/2.8 Canon rangefinder lens, and started reviewing for him the images I'd decided not to print, showing cement being poured and bent-over workers smoothing it like glass. "A record of an event is not a picture," I said.

Here's the frame that caught my eye:

Jim Hughes, Triangulated Apparatus, 2017

That happened when I looked up. The next day, again in town, as I was about to enter the local grocery to buy a jug of cider, I happened to look down and made this photograph, which I am about to email to my friend who is still learning our mystifying craft, as of course we all are:

Jim Hughes, Apples, Pears & Skateboards, 2017

Years ago, while doing research for Shadow & Substance, my biography of W. Eugene Smith, in his files I came upon a well-read copy of Zeiss Magazine, from 1938, when he had just begun freelancing in New York City, had been offered a job at the Daily News, and turned it down. "I'd decided I was not really cut out to be a Daily News photographer," he later said.

In my book, I wrote about young Gene's quest to find himself photographically: "He walked the city's streets looking for unusual angles...then holed himself up in his darkened bathroom, often printing through the night. And when he wasn't photographing or printing, he was reading books and magazines about photography.

"He seems to have read one article over and over, practically memorizing it: 'What is Your Viewpoint?' by Leo Nejelski, one of Zeiss Magazine's stable of accomplished photographers. Following normal sight patterns and merely recording on film what one sees, the author suggested, 'has nothing in common with picture making, the expression of thoughts and emotions by means of photography.'

"In a series of carefully drawn examples, Nejelski outlined the advantages of photographing from what he called 'low-point perspective,' 'high-point perspective,' and relative to a given subject, any vertical camera position in between—or, for that matter, any horizontal position a full 360 degrees around the subject. His point was, let the mind's eye roam to set the creative spirit free."

Not too long ago, I received an email from Nejelski's daughter. My book, it turns out, had finally come to her attention, and she just wanted to thank me for remembering her father as the teacher he always had been.

Jim

For many years, Jim Hughes was the editor of Camera 35. Later, he was the founding editor of Mike J.'s all-time favorite photo magazine, the original Camera Arts. His books include the superb biography W. Eugene Smith: Shadow and Substance—The Life and Work of an American Photographer, and the monograph Ernst Haas in Black and White. Retired now, he writes occasionally for TOP (see his other articles by finding his name in the "Categories" list in the right-hand sidebar). He and his wife live in Maine.

©2017 by Jim Hughes, all rights reserved

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David Dyer-Bennet: "Yes, work the subject, by all means. Either taking actual pictures, or just moving around and visualizing what you could get. Or even standing still, if your head does 3D modeling that well! It's not inherently better to shoot all the ideas you come up with and pick one later, it's not inherently better to figure it out and just shoot one which is wonderful. They're all equally valid (there's a continuum between those extremes of course).

"Of course, for some subjects, there is less time available to work them than others; that's a real-world constraint that cannot safely be ignored.

"These ideas, by the way, apply (in my allegedly humble opinion) throughout photography; they're just as applicable to shooting a wedding reception, grip-and-grins, wildlife, landscape, abstractions, whatever. Every level from the artiest art to the basest commercialism. (Okay, they don't actually seem very applicable to medical imaging, for one example; so not absolutely all photography.)"

Geoff Wittig responds to David: "I would argue that the same principles absolutely apply to medical imaging! Okay, not so much to MRI scans, though they can sometimes be compelling and beautiful in their own way. But (for example) photographs of surgical procedures can be dry technical illustrations, or they can be dramatic and artistically beautiful photographs without losing any teaching value. One of the nurses I work with took a cell-phone photograph (with the patient's permission!) of a cesarean section. It was perfectly composed, with the emerging infant and surgeons' hands dramatically lit by the overhead operative lights, the rapid light falloff letting the OR clutter fade into darkness. A beautiful image, even ignoring the compelling subject."

One Weird Thing About Landscape

As far as genres of photography go, we all have ones we gravitate toward and ones we leave alone. In the middle are ones we willingly dabble with but don't devote ourselves to. I'll never photograph insects, for example—don't grok bug pics—and I've always enjoyed photographing kids when I get the opportunity (not often recently). And occasionally I'll do a night scene. But I can name a number of photographers who are devoted to night scenes or have done a book of them, and David Alan Jay, my predecessor editor at Darkroom & Creative Camera Techniques, couldn't stand pictures of kids. Never took them, never published one. And of course accomplished insect photographers are masters of a very difficult art—their craft takes time and effort to learn.

But no matter what you like or don't like, almost nobody spurns landscape. Almost every photographer has done at least a few. Even Cartier-Bresson shot a few straight landscapes. August Sander too. I'm sure there are well-known figures in the history who have never done a single landscape—Helmut Newton, possibly?—but I'll bet they are few and far between.

I've been shooting much more landscape since I moved here to the Finger Lakes, and I've noticed something funny about the shooting: there are times when all the shots I take are good but none of them are great.

I'll show these two random "farmland" examples, from a stint of shooting the other day:

Sauder's farm, Welker Road

Sauder's Field, Welker Road

See what I mean? Both are good. Neither is great. Not only that, but every shot I took that session was the same...all of them were okay, but nothing really truly hit.

This is different than the photography I'm used to. I wrote an essay once that got a lot of play in which I said, "To be honest, most of my pictures suck. The saving grace of that admission is that most of your pictures suck, too. How could I possibly know such a thing? Because most of everybody’s pictures suck, that’s how. I’ve seen Cartier-Bresson’s contact sheets, and most of his pictures sucked. One of my teachers said that it was an epiphany for him when he took a class from Garry Winogrand and learned that most of Winogrand’s exposures sucked. It’s the way it is."

In other words, I'm used to junk-and-gems in the unedited mass of exposures. A bunch of throwaways—pictures that suck—and that occasional great shot.

Landscape doesn't seem like it follows that rule. I feel like I can get a pretty good shot every time I shoot a landscape. But the ones I really like, that I think really work, are just as elusive as those kinds of shots always are.

What it means is that there are numerous times when I go out shooting and come back with a bunch of exposures in which every single one is good but not a single one is great.

I find this almost...confusing. When I was an editor, one of my jobs was accepting and rejecting manuscript submissions. I wasn't very good at it. There were two kinds of submissions I really liked: the ones that were really good, and the ones that were really bad. Because the decision in each case was easy. It was the ones in the middle I had a tough time with. The ones that seemed like they were almost there—too good to reject outright—but not quite worthy of an unqualified, enthusiastic, wholehearted yes. I had trouble with those decisions.

It seems like it's the same way with landscape shooting. There's just a lot of it that's "almost there," almost something, not bad at all...but just not quite good enough to earn that wholehearted yes.

I always used to wonder if students are sometimes grappling with editing and having so many problems with editing simply because not a single shot is good. It greatly complicates the editing task! But really, there's no rule or law that states that any of the exposures in a given body of shooting has to be a keeper. Maybe everything is a "no." Even when everything is an "almost."

Personally, I feel a great loyalty, a great fealty, to the the idea that every shot that makes it into your "body of work," every shot that earns the status of a "keeper," a picture to show, a picture you'll call your work, yours, your own, should be something to which you can give completely unreserved, wholehearted, enthusiastic acceptance. A yes. Everything else should be a no. Even the "not quites."

Even when everything you get is a "not quite."

A 'yes' is a relief
Here's one I like (that single light on the far shore makes it for me—hard to see at this size; you might have to click to embiggen):

I took it with the iPhone, if you can believe that. (Still working on a review of the camera in the iPhone 7.)

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.

Land, sea, and air
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Ken: "Re 'See what I mean? Both are good. Neither is great. Not only that, but every shot I took that session was the same...all of them were okay, but nothing really truly hit': In my limited observation, most landscapes (definitely mine, at least) benefit from having special light, whether a storm, twilight or whatever. In your examples here, two that are good but not great have kind of ordinary light. The one you like has much better light. I think that finding good light is the secret to successful landscapes, even more so than interesting subject matter. If you have both good light and interesting subject matter, you usually end up with pretty good shots. Add a good composition, and you have the recipe for great pictures. Does that oversimplify it?"

Dennis (partial comment): "Food for thought, Mike—is this really unique to landscape photography or is this more attributable to the fact that landscape photography is just something you dabble in?"

Mike replies: Good point. I don't know.

Geoff Wittig: "I think you're on to something, Mike. It's easy to take landscape photos that are pretty enough (especially here in the Finger Lakes!) but still just don't 'sing.' The same is true for landscapes anywhere. I've been taking landscape photos steadily about 25 years, and my percentage of real stinkers is now pretty low. But the fraction of shots that are really something special remains very small, no matter how hard I try. It just seems to me that the necessary intersection of good technique, compelling composition, perfect light at the right time of day and a subject that sings remains an elusive thing. And the more infrequent and casual I am about trying to take such photos, the lower my success rate. Sometimes I'll shoot for weeks without anything meaningful; and then, unexpectedly, I'll take three or four photos in a day that are all portfolio-worthy. What changed? I don't know! Maybe if I did, some of the challenge and the incentive to keep trying would be gone. Maybe it's best to consider it magic, or a random gift from the muse."

Mike replies: At least a mystery. And maybe, yes, magic.

s.wolters (partial comment): "Helmut Newton once made a series of very dark gloomy landscapes. Maybe he was just fed up with all these nudes and wanted a change. Cannot find them anywhere on the net. But there is a book called Sex & Landscapes."

Mike adds: Ah, so that's what "S&L" means.  :-)

A (SFW) spread from Helmut Newton's Sex & Landscape

eo adds: "A quote from Helmut Newton in American Photo’s July/August 2001 edition: “I had to wait until I turned 80 to see someone, finally, take an interest in my landscapes. Before that, no magazine wanted to publish them, or had even shown an interest in them! When you are locked into a photo genre, it is very difficult to get out of it.” At the time, he had recently debuted two series of landscapes, one being Sex & Landscapes and the other, an ad campaign for Absolut vodka."

Dave in NM: "I think you've hit on the reason for the current trend of hyper-realism in landscape photography. I also think that it's very difficult to elicit emotion with a landscape photograph. There's a very narrowly defined sweet spot for reverie in the natural world. That sweet spot is unique to every individual—it's tied to memory, and it's experienced with all five senses. I'm not talking about aesthetics. Beauty in and of itself does not make a worthy picture. I'm talking about involvement; that sense of being drawn into a picture and experiencing it first hand. Landscape done well is difficult. Hitting that sweet spot often seems more like a binary exercise than a matter of degrees...at least, that's how I experience it."

Stan B.: "I suspect it's because usually (usually) you have less 'moving parts' in a landscape, or at least they're moving slower and you have more time to check, assess, recheck—unlike, say, in street photography. As a result, your shots can have the exact exposure, composition and everything else you could control... except for that momentary magic, the one missing element you can't contemplate that can often make a picture, despite your best calculations. End result, a perfect picture postcard—instead of a good photograph.

"Perhaps that's why those incredible tornado landscapes are so mesmerizing—they introduce the element of the unexpected into a usually staid landscape composition."

Richard Newman: "For me, the thing that differentiates good from outstanding landscape images is the presence or absence of a focal point (or two). The farm house provides foci, but the field shot doesn't. The bottom image has two, the building and the tree. In this case it works well. The building leads to the water, and the tree to the sky. So there is no conflict. Anyway that's my point. A really good landscape needs one or two focal points.

"The Finger Lakes sure are photogenic aren't they? I've always liked that area."

Ed Hawco: "Can't help it; had to meddle. Here's a quickly processed version of the farm scene with some effects to make it pop a bit:

"I'm not calling this finished, but it's pointing down the road I'd go with the full-resolution version if it was my job to do so.

"One other note: as I was working on this scene I found myself wishing for a wider view. As it is, it's a photograph of a farm. From a 'landscape' perspective, I'd rather see a 'landscape with a farm in it.' (Wider.)"

Fred Haynes: "You know it bothers me that a picture, and one presumed to be good, or maybe better then good, is taken with a bloody phone! Its like the 'other side' is winning!"

Mike replies: I need to write a post or two about that. I've detected a few trends lately.

Dave Karp: " I think that one of the issues with landscapes is that we don't always work hard enough. If the scene itself is beautiful, with a little work we can get a good photo. By its nature, landscape photography often presents the opportunity to really 'work' the scene. Unlike the quick 'react and grab' of a street photo or sports photo, the landscape often sits there relatively unchanged. Of course, there are times when the clouds are moving quickly, or the lighting is changing rapidly, but often, the landscape allows for some real work. Changing locations, switching lenses, moving in closer, thinking about exposure, waiting for the weather or light to change, and/or switching orientation of the camera, can all make for a better photograph than the one we first envisioned. The fact that we can often get a photo that feels pretty good right away often discourages the hard work of making a really good one."

Keith Mallett (partial comment): "Since I think of myself primarily as a landscape photographer your post makes me want to elucidate, primarily to myself, exactly what and why I feel driven to illustrate my love of place with photographs (and sometimes with words). I know my main drive is an endless fascination with land: the way it has been shaped and formed by either natural process or mankind’s hand."

Dave New (partial comment): "Out of curiosity, after reading Keith Mallett's post (he and I resonate about emotional responses to the landscape), I went to his site/gallery. Highly recommended as a random excellence post. He gets what it takes to invoke an emotional response in the viewer, something I am still learning to do."

Alan Carmody: "I looked them up, and I believe Adam Sauder, the farmer, spells it 'Sauder.' 'A,' not 'O.'"

Mike replies: Thanks Alan. Fixed now.

Kenneth Tanaka (partial comment): "One reason that your landscape images may often initially seem generally 'good' is because they’re actually mementos of a much richer sensory experience. You’re not just looking at the picture; you’re remembering the sounds, the breeze, the scents, the temperature of that moment. As time passes those other memories usually fade leaving you only with that picture which might not stand on its own."

[For the full text of "partial comments," see the full Comments Section. This might be a good place to add that "Featured Comments" are not a selection of the "best" comments, but of representative ones, for people who don't have time to read all of the comments for a given post. Often—in this case particularly—there are also some really good comments that aren't featured. —Mike the Ed.]

mike plews: "I think there are two reasons why these pictures are good but not great. First off you are a good photographer so everything you shoot will meet a certain standard. The second consideration may be that you have not yet lived in the Finger Lakes area long enough to work through the images that initially grab you. You simply may not yet have the deeper understanding of your environment necessary to make that distinctive image you are looking for. Keep shooting. I have been commuting from a farm in the Loess Hills of Iowa since 1994 and only in the last few years have I felt like I was at the point where I could 'look through it to it.' Enjoy your infatuation with your surroundings and give it some time."

Mike replies: "Look through to it"—I've felt that too. Wise words sensei Plews.

There's More than One Way to Hunt Wildlife Photos

We've covered the story of wildlife models and photography game farms before, but Quartz's authors and photographers do a thorough job of presenting the issue in a new article called "Love wildlife photos? There’s a good chance they weren’t shot in the wild." The "window-shade" illustrations are a nice touch too. Well done.

In principle I have nothing against the practice, especially considering that people do the same thing with killing animals; we've all heard the stories of big cats being chained up on "widlife preserves" so they can be safely shot as "trophies" by "big game hunters." (Scare quotes well deserved.)

Good for you, Great White Hunter

And yes, whenever humans are responsible for animals, there will be a range in the animals' treatment from ethical and humane to cruel and atrocious. I'm sure not every photo-game-farm wolf, fox, buffalo or cougar is well cared for. But it's not inherently a crime for animals to work for their keep, and all in all I'd rather have them posing to be shot with long-lensed Canons than with high-powered rifles.

As for the photographic results, well, we're learning to be skeptical, aren't we? Listen to what the human photographer says about any picture, and decide whether you want to trust what that person says about what you're looking at. Photographs don't lie; only photographers do. And then only sometimes.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, here at TOP rural HQ we're trying to be courteous to the mother robins who have built their nests under the eaves of the pavilion out back. At first, the dogs coming out the back door would scare them out of the nests and into diversionary tactics; but now they've learned that the canines down on the ground won't hurt them, and they sit there impassively, eyeing all three of us. I try to move slowly and stay out from under the pavilion roof.

My first Spring in this house I tried to dissuade the robins from building their nests on the patio, but robins are bloody-minded in their determination to build their nests where they want to build them: nothing will make them change their minds. So I figure we'll just do our best not to bother them until the hatchlings strike out on their own. It's not so bad. I feel a part of the project, in a small way.

The robins' nests with the mothers gone. It doesn't make for much of a picture, but I don't like to disturb them when they're at home egg-sitting.

Back to the photo game farms: I suppose they're harmless, all things considered. I know the subject is controversial, and any judgement I might make about about it open to challenge and criticism. But it doesn't matter what I think anyway. Different people have different feelings about animals and that's just the way it's always going to be. Check out the article and see what you think.

Mike
(Thanks to Jim Hayes)

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This photo was not staged
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Ken: "To me, as both a nature lover and an amateur photographer, the biggest thrill of photographing wildlife is the experience of encountering and seeing the animals in their natural environments. Any pictures I get are bonus."

Dennis: "I have no conceptual problem with well run game farms or with photographers using them. I'm sure many specific game farms are problematic. But to me, it isn't wildlife photography; it's closer to zoo photography—maybe somewhere along a sliding scale—and as a result, ends up being something I'm just not that interested in.

"A picture of an animal is a picture of an animal; in and of itself, rarely exceptional as a two-dimensional image. Context is everything. It's not a particular arrangement of form and color that makes us react to a mountain lion cub one way or a snarling grizzly another. Wildlife photos rarely stand on their own as art; they're usually accompanied by some text that provides context. Captions at least or maybe a whole story. Without that, they're postcard pics.

"Ctein once argued on this blog that nobody cares how hard you worked to get the picture and there's obviously truth to that, but I think that with wildlife photography, viewers appreciate knowing that they're looking at something that was difficult to get. I know that reading about how Greg DuToit obtained his 'lion at watering hole' images made me appreciate them more. I looked into a wolf preserve while vacationing in Colorado last year, but my daughter wasn't quite old enough to join us in a 'work encounter' package. Maybe on a return trip. But I had little interest in actually photographing the animals. I'll take a mediocre photograph of an animal that I legitimately encountered in the wild over an excellent photograph of a captive animal any time. (Just like I prefer shooting candids over posed portraits). They're different 'animals' and to each his own."

Miserere: "I strongly object to these wildlife farms, in the same way I object to photographers using model agencies. If you want to photograph a human, book a safari to the nearest concrete jungle and take your chances. That human beings sell themselves and allow to be photographed in exchange for money is disturbing and inhumane (I mean, have you seen the lankiness of those human models? Clearly they're not being fed enough!)."

Mike replies: What an interesting opinion. And one I've never heard before, which doesn't happen often with photographic subjects.

Dave Elden: "Re robins: I have a nest in a similar location that I can watch from my desk. I am very happy to see the birds there because of the way they chase the squirrels off—a squirrel being chased by a robin hasn't got time to chew anything it I don't want it to! Plus the entertainment value of the chases is considerable. Robins, a sign of spring here in Ottawa—although it's snowing right now on top of extensive flooding."

Daniel: "Don't really have a problem with those using handlers and game farm animals. What I do have a problem with is these photographers failing to label the images as captive/tame animals. Many of these photographers try to pass off the set up with tame animals as 'Wildlife' rather than quasi-zoo shots. At least places like Yellowstone, Ding Darling refuge and so many where photographers photograph the same semi-tame animals over and over are 'in the wild' without a handler. Animals so used to people that you can photograph with a normal lens at times—but still 'in the wild' as they are not being driven to a location and a handler helping manage the animal for the image.

"If you photograph it, label it correctly."

Hwo to Cure Perfectionism

Here are a few suggestions for curing photo-related perfectionism.

First, a few words about the words. The other day in the "Level With Me" post, I wrote, "...a fair number of photographers are meticulous or fastidious (the more pejorative words might be fussy or picky)...."

It's tough terminology all right; a lot of the available words have negative connotations. And if not connotations, associations. To be technical-sounding—and also neutral—it's become common to refer to the characteristic as "OCD" or "obsessive" or "compulsive" or those latter two words linked together. I confess I've been guilty of this me own self.

Well, wrong, wrong, and wrong. The word is perfectionism—and "control issues" and perfectionsim are not OCD. I finally got around to reading up on OCD recently—at a reader's recommendation I read Judith L. Rapoport's The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Washing: The Experience and Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. OCD is a serious (but curable, or at least manageable) mental disorder that manifests itself as extreme, insistent personal superstitions that the sufferer tries to cope with by means of private and personal ritual behaviors, usually concealed from others, the most common of which, in the early stages, are repeated washing (as of the hands) or repeated checking (to see if a door is locked or a stove is off, for example), but which can proliferate in all sorts of wild ways and can be extremely bizarre. It is a distinctive malady and is not in any way the same as being fastidious about level horizons or enjoying careful craftsmanship.

As an aside to my aside, In some outlier cases perfectionists deserve pejorative terms! I once helped a friend to sell a particularly superb example of a Leica M4—he had searched high and wide for it, and it was a survivor, without blemish or defect. We located a German collector who paid top dollar—er, deutsche mark—for it, and we shipped it off to Germany. A month or two later it was returned along with anxious importunings for a refund. Obviously with the use of a magnifying glass, the collector had identified a "pinhole" defect in the chrome plating of the top plate, which a.) was not visible to the naked eye at a normal eye-to-hand viewing distance, and b.) the collector admitted was very likely a factory defect—meaning, Leica made the camera that way and the pinhole was there when the camera was brand new.

Now that dude—er, der Kerl—had a problem! But it was a problem with perfectionism. Not necessarily OCD.

Anyway (a former editor of mine once said, "you do go on, don't you?"), maybe I'll try to find a different technical term.

I like persnickety.

Slider anxiety
Level horizons and rectilinear lines are hardly the only persnicketyness related to pictures. One I've written about before is "slider anxiety"—defined as the fear that you haven't pushed that slider hard enough, and that maybe a little more might help. Could that picture use just a little more sharpness/saturation/max black/vibrance/whatever? You're worried that people might think your picture isn't quite enough of something, and your anxiety and insecurity allows you gradually to creep over the edge of right reason into excess. Or, you find yourself fretting about whether your lens is sharp enough in all ways and in every situation. Maybe you replace a perfectly nice older Canon 50mm Macro with a Sigma 50mm ART and then replace the 50mm ART with a Zeiss Otus 55mm and then find yourself worrying that maybe, just maybe, the Leica SL 50mm is just a tiny bit better than your Otus.

Whatever it is, here are two ways to deal with persistent persnickety thoughts:

• Go the other way. Do the opposite. If you fret and fuss over whether your pictures are saturated enough, force yourself to shoot heavily unsaturated pictures for three weeks. If you worry over whether you have a big enough sensor in your camera, buy a 1" sensor camera and see what you can do with it. Put the Otus away and shoot with a Lensbaby for a while. Whatever it is that you find yourself anxious about, take the bull by the horns, confront the demon, and banish the angst!

Remember those Islamic mosiac-makers in the Middle Ages who would deliberately place one tile out of place because perfection was reserved for Allah.

And if you're persnickety about level horizons, be glad you're not my student. You know what your next exercise would be.  :-)

• Find a different outlet for the impulse. I learned this when I forced myself to photograph with a view camera (a beautiful Wista) for a Summer, for the experience. What I found was that my 35mm shooting suddenly got much more free and loose. I realized that I had been composing very carefully and deliberately with the 35mm camera—which I had not even been aware of before. When the view camera came into my life—a camera much more suited to careful and deliberate compositions—it relieved my 35mm shooting of satisfying those impulses.

If you recognize some photographic impulse that you know you're being persnickety about, find a way to embrace and indulge it outside of your main picturetaking or -making activities. It could very well help.

(Of course it's possible that your photography is already the outlet for some less-than-healthy impulse, as a way of diverting it from some other area of your life. In which case, carry on.)

The not always silent sufferers
I lived underneath a woman who had OCD once when Xander was a baby. I never met this unfortunate sufferer, but I gradually learned some of her habits. The first was that she had to sweep and mop all the floors in her apartment every evening, including moving all the furniture away from the walls. (The rumbling and scraping of furniture being moved every night at the same time mystified me for a good long while.) Another was that every morning she left for work with her briefcase in one hand and a large shopping bag full of clothes in the other. A neighbor who did know her told me that she dropped off the clothes at the laundromat every morning and picked them up on her way home. And this is what tortured me—although the clothes came back from the laundromat folded, every morning she re-folded each item of clothing on an ironing board in her kitchen and marched it individually into her bedroom to put it away in the drawer. Her bedroom that was directly above mine, that would be. Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp. Every morning. Back and forth and back and forth. Starting at 4:45. And me with a baby to take care of, short on sleep anyway.

Funny, with apartments hard to get in the near suburbs of Chicago at that time, the one I got happened to be sitting vacant. Coincidence? Unfortunately not.

Well, I do go on. That's enough about this—this should have been a short post. Butters is getting very antsy to go out and chase down his tennis ball...

...Which—oh, all right—he is obsessed with.  :-)

Mike

P.S. That old Canon Macro is one heck of a sharp lens.

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.

This post needs an illustration, but I'll try not to
obsess about it.
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Larry Gebhardt: "Was the spelling in the title intentional?"

Mike replies: I experimented with different misspellings. I originally put the mistake in the word “perfectionism,” but then I thought that people might be searching for that word so I’d better not screw that up. No one would search for the post with the word “how.”

Had to get it just right.  ;-) .

Roy Feldman: "See last sentence: 'Surrealism lies at the heart of the photographic enterprise: in the very creation of a duplicate world, of a reality in the second degree, narrower but more dramatic than the one perceived by natural vision. The less doctored, the less patently crafted, the more naive-the more authoritative the photograph was likely to be.' —Susan Sontag."

Mike replies: I've always thought that the best photograph is one that looks like it just fell out of the camera, no matter how hard you worked to get it. The best art looks artless, in my view.

SteveW: "This column has struck a chord with me. I avoid editing photos like the plague. I shoot JPEGs in-camera, and that is that. Once in a blue moon I will crop, but only to send out for a print. This column provided a kind of revelation for me, in that my avoidance of the sliders is to avoid anxiety brought on by indecision and uncertainty. I don't like to go there. Perhaps the best medicine would be to rock and roll with the sliders and just let it rip. Thanks Mike. P.S. I also obsess a bit regarding lens quality, but I thought that was normal, haha."

Mike replies: It's certainly common, but I don't know how normal we are.  :-)

Hans Muus: "Beautiful piece. And so recognizable. The (very) late hours in the darkroom spoiled with endlessly reprinting the same image with very small changes—changes so incremental I couldn't tell the prints apart in daylight the next morning. And then there is 'backwards perfectionism,' the urge to re-do all your earlier work in the style/technique you practice now, thus not only exerting your present energy in the wrong direction, but also denying your former self."

mike plews: "Twenty two years ago I witnessed a murder. After the initial shock wore off I was left with a pretty solid case of depression. I was sad, anxious and felt like my body was encased in cement. Just getting out of bed was a colossal challenge. And there were nightmares right out of Hieronymous Bosch. I recognized my condition for what it was and decided that if it did not pass in a reasonable period I was going to seek help. In a month I was OK but it left me with a deep respect for people dealing with chronic depression. Since that time I have never said depressed when I really meant sad or frustrated. Same for OCD. This stuff can hurt just like a broken bone."

Mike replies: Yes. Depression is an extremely serious disease; it kills a lot of people. There's a very good 52-and-a-half minute summary lecture about depression by Stanford's Robert Sapolsky on YouTube. I like the way he balances the physiological and psychological components. It takes a certain genius for reductionism to create such a comprehensive overview, and he does an excellent job. (I was originally tipped to the video by a TOP reader.)

Andy Johnson: "Re 'I lived underneath a woman'—that must have been very uncomfortable...I prefer to be on T.O.P."

Nick Hunt: "Mike—firstly, I have to correct you. It's 'pernickety'—no 's.' (Well darn me—autocorrect has just told be it has got an 's.' Wretched thing must be set to US English.) Secondly, my slider anxiety is different. I am fearful of moving the slider too far. What if I go over the top? What if my photos are thought of as (oh, horror!) gauche? Your 'aversion therapy' approach—apologies for another misappropriated and abused medical term—won't work. If I use less colour or less contrast or whatever for a week, then at the end of it I'll be...perfectly happy. Less is more. I love working in monochrome. Maybe I need to go super-saturated? But then there's the gauche thing, remember? Oooooph...."

Mike replies: Your aversion therapy would indeed be to make over-the-top, boldly gauche, crass photos for a week. But remember you only need aversion therapy if you are trying to cure yourself of a behavior that troubles or impedes you. If it doesn't bother you, then it's just the way you are. No cure needed.

Mus: "____________LEVEL HORIZON____________"

Bruce Gerencser: "I am a perfectionist. The why I am would take too long to explain. The short answer is that I spent most my life in Fundamentalist Christianity, both as a member and a pastor, and certain beliefs I held drove me towards perfectionism. This perfectionist tendency, of course, has filtered down into my photography work. There is no such thing as a perfect picture, and that poses a real problem for perfectionists. 😀 When I am editing photos, I have my definitely-not-a-perfectionist wife help with deciding which photographs I keep and which I delete. I've found she tempers my perfectionist tendencies.

"Forty plus years of walking the perfectionist trail has resulted in what my counselor calls Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD). OCPD has OCD simularities, but is not OCD. Here's a link you might find interesting."

Alberto: "Reading your articles is always a great inspiration for me and I'm so amazed from your ability to find so many interesting arguments, not only strictly related to photography. I find your 'Hwo to' article very funny to read and inspiring. I will follwo your example and I will let my photography to be more forgiving to small deffects."

alex-virt: "Another great article I can relate to! I am obsessed with sharpness and compulsively view my each picture at 100% and check sharpness in every corner. To cure this, I bought Nokia Lumia 1020, a 40MP phone whose lens is woefully unsharp in the corners. Have been shooting with it for about a month almost exclusively. I am thinking of doing a 'One Camera, One Lens, One Year' exercise with this phone.  :-)  "

Richard Skoonberg: "I like this point you made: 'Remember those Islamic mosiac-makers in the Middle Ages who would deliberately place one tile out of place because perfection was reserved for Allah.' It reminds me of beautiful Afghani carpets. When you compare these beautiful, handmade carpets to similar versions manufactured by machine in Europe, the difference is found in the imperfections created by handwork and manual looms: the borders aren't square, patterns don't repeat properly and there are flaws caused by the loom. The European versions are perfect and square. But it is the imperfections that delight the eye and reflect our humanity back to us."

Mike replies: I like your last sentence very much...well said.

Bob Rosinsky: "I have OCD. As did my mother and maternal grandfather. Unfortunately, my grandfather, a pharmacist, self-medicated. My mother spent half of her waking hours ritualizing, and I suffered from age seven up to age 35. I did not ritualize so much as suffer from intrusive thoughts (obsessions). Imagine a radio blaring horrendous words, awful sentences, and toxic content nonstop. Tourette Syndrome often accompanies OCD. I've had long bouts of Tourette; not fun.

"For me, the onset of OCD started around age seven. My first severe bout started in the fourth grade and persisted, nonstop, for a year. Eventually it receded. OCD is an anxiety disorder, so for many, it ebbs and flows.

"My intrusive thoughts were terrifying. Not until age 35, when I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, did I seek psychiatric care.

"My first visit with the psychiatrist changed my life. Within five minutes he diagnosed my condition as OCD. Furthermore, he told me about a class of drugs (SSRIs) that are effective in the treatment of OCD as well as certain other anxiety disorders.

"I was relieved to learn that there were other people who suffered from OCD and that I was not a freak, not alone. On the other hand, I was ambivalent about taking a psychotropic drug.

"After a lot of soul searching, revealing my 'secret' in gory detail to my wife, and two or three more sessions with the psychiatrist, I consented to begin drug therapy. It took a year or two, along with weekly sessions with a licensed mental health counselor, to find the correct drug and dosage and acquire coping skills.

"My quality of life skyrocketed. By my 37th birthday, my mind had quieted down and the Tourette Syndrome receded.

"I am 58 years old. I continue to visit a psychiatrist every other month. I have a weekly session with a CBT therapist.

"In graduate school, I became interested in neuroscience and sensation and perception. I am especially excited about the rapid pace of progress in brain science.

"I have always been a fastidious photographer. Many photographers, designers, engineers, chefs, craftspeople, tradesmen, and others are fastidious, and they are often held back over smallish details at the expense of losing sight of the big picture. I believe perfectionism is stifling. However, I think there are distinctions between perfectionism and paying attention to details. Perhaps perfectionism and an eye for detail fall along a spectrum. I can only speculate.

"I've read that OCD will be excluded from the next revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It is being reclassified as a neurological disorder rather than a psychiatric illness. Hmm."