The Online Photographer

The Most Common Mistake I See In Photographs Today

The three people who introduced the Japanese idea of "bokeh" to the Western photography enthusiast community were John Kennerdell, Oren Grad, and Harold Merklinger. My part in it was that I published their articles, and commissioned Oren's and Harold's. As a lens enthusiast hobbyist for a number of years, I also got rather too obsessed with the aesthetics of the bokeh rendition of lenses, and probably discussed it in forums and and published articles to excess.

So this might sound very odd coming from me, but, as I look at amateur, enthusiast, and hobbyist pictures all over everywhere on the Internet and in books and on display, the single technical mistake that ruins more amateur photographs than anything else is: focus problems. Not enough depth of field (D-o-F). Not enough of the main subject in focus. Imperfect placement of the plane of focus is also common.

I really dislike showing, or linking to, actual work as examples. It seems unkind to single out specific photographers to hold up as negative examples; I'm uncomfortable even appearing to shame or ridicule others. So I'll just describe three random pictures that I happened across yesterday. All are digital JPEGs taken with decent ILCs, posted online at a photo-sharing site.

—> In one, an object is being thrown off a bridge, in full sun. The picture is taken from the ground and shows: the object in the air; the bridge; two people rendered relatively small up on the bridge looking down at the falling object; and, in the foreground, several waterfowl standing on the bank. The birds aren't large in the frame—they're still reasonably far from camera position—but because of perspective they're rendered significantly larger than the people up in the corner of the frame on the bridge. Although it looks very much like the photographer had positioned him- or herself so as to include the birds in the composition, they're well out of focus. The picture was taken at ISO 500, 1/4000th, and with an ƒ/1.4 lens at  ƒ/2.4. In other words, there was plenty of room in the camera settings to have used a smaller aperture and gotten the birds in the D-o-F, while still retaining enough shutter speed to freeze the falling object. (Generally, falling objects in the middle distance, especially when viewed at an angle while still accelerating, rather than directly from the side in full freefall, require no more than 1/1000th to freeze the action, and that includes a "safety factor.")

—> In the next, not by the same photographer, the subject is stone columns holding up a structure, a bridge or a pier. Again, full sunlight, and there's no action anywhere, nothing moving. We don't see any sky except a little through the columns, so no moving clouds even. Everything is sharp save one thing. Along the entire left-hand edge of the picture is a fat strip showing the edge of the closest stone column, not particularly close to the camera. It's jarringly out of focus, with poor "front bokeh." Why? Why wouldn't you simply stop down a stop or two, or recompose a bit?

—> In the last, again by a different photographer, we're seeing a scene by the side of a raised highway, looking down the long view parallel to the highway. Again, full daylight. The natural features form a sort of visual gully or halfpipe. The picture area mostly comprises the side of the embankment on the left, plenty of foreground, and scraggly woods and brush on the right hand side, which altogether makes up well over half of the image area, maybe even two-thirds. In the distance, in the center of the composition (and possibly the location of a central point of focus indicator), we see a rise with many buildings and their surroundings, rendered very small in the frame. The distant buildings are in focus, and everything in the middle distance and closer, all of the foreground, all of the embankment, and all of the woods on the right, are out of focus, but not pleasingly so. The comments say, "Nice!" and "Good capture" and so forth. I can't see any redeeming quality or subject matter in the picture at all, or in the composition or lack of it, but of course it would be impolite to say so.

These aren't exceptions; it sometimes seems to me that half the pictures I see have the PFP disease.

The poor focus problem has been made worse by the fact that in recent years, shallow D-o-F has become a signifier of the ownership of large-sensor cameras and large, expensive, fast lenses, such that the poor focus problem morphed into a status issue. And you know how those humans are when it comes to status-signifying.  :-)  Another thing making it worse is the increasingly common but wrongheaded idea that if you pay for a lens with a large maximum aperture, you should use that aperture all the time or as much as possible.

We definitely need an adjustment. A picture needs the right D-o-F, not the least possible D-o-F.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2025 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

jt: "Preach, brother! I think I made this same comment before on TOP, but I have a cookbook where nearly every photo has very narrow D-o-F, and it drives me crazy. These are illustrations. I want to see the food. All of the food."

Norm Snyder: "Interesting thoughts here. They are timely, in my case, as I recently acquired a fast 90mm lens to use for some performance photography. It's decently sharp wide open at ƒ/2, but it definitely works better stopped down a stop, so as to get, for example, the eyes, nose and mouth of a subject all in focus.

"I should have learned. I once owned an 85mm ƒ/1.2 lens for some Canon gear I was then using, and thought it was wonderful, until I looked carefully at images of a performer, shot from perhaps six feet away, in which the eyes were sharp and the tip of the nose well out of focus. It turned out to be a very heavy 85mm ƒ/4 lens."

Steve W: "Thank you, I really enjoyed this, and agree. I think this is why I enjoy using my iPhone so much: no D-o-F issues, lol. (And I can, if I want, control D-o-F after the picture is taken)."

Doug Anderson: "I have the same reaction to photographs that get the near-far focus relationships wrong. I have settled on two simple rules for my own work: 1.) Nothing closer to the camera than the principal subject should be noticably out of focus. 2.) If there is more than one principle subject, e.g. in a group portrait, none of them should be noticeably out of focus. If I can't avoid either of these problems, I don't take the picture."

Dave: "Using the widest aperture just because you have a fast lens—especially with the high ISO speeds of digital cameras—is like driving routinely at top speed in your sports car. You just get fewer tickets, that's all."

Kodachromeguy: "Don't forget the BS belief that more out of focus means the photo has better bokeh. The characteristics of the out of focus portions of the picture are not important, just the total surface area. Sigh...."

Stan B.: "I understand why you don't want to single out unsolicited examples for criticism. But it is important people understand when they are making mistakes in order to grow, mistakes they are very often completely unaware of. I remember when you commented that I had a very original color rendering on a certain photo—or something to that effect. I remember laughing, and very much appreciating such an 'original' (and kind) way of telling me that my color sense needed some real work. It's something I struggle with to this day, but at least I am now no longer oblivious to it...."

B.J.Scharp: "As happens so often in the modern world, many people confuse 'good' with 'a lot.' You can use a slow lens stopped down, and still get 'good' bokeh, and use a fast lens wide open and get 'bad' bokeh."

Stephen S.: "I had a long-term photography gig that I was shooting with Micro 4/3 cameras with zoom lenses, and for a few days, just for fun, I also took a full-frame camera and an 85mm ƒ/1.4, which of course I shot wide-open or close to it, because that would be most different from my other camera setup.

"A few days after submitting the photos, the person I was shooting for called me and was very concerned, telling me that my photos were 'out of focus.' I was surprised by this, as I always reviewed my photos and deleted all the misses and duds before sending them along. After a bit of back-and-forth discussion, and getting the offending photos sent back to me, I discovered they were all the shallow full-frame shots, and even though the close eye of the subjects was tack sharp in all of them, if the far eye was out of the depth-of-field, that led the editor to call the photo 'out of focus.'

"You don't argue with the tastes of the person commissioning you, and, faced with the choice of shooting Micro 4/3 at ƒ/4 or ƒ/5.6, or full-frame at ƒ/8 or ƒ/11, I left the full-frame camera behind."

Color Filters on Converted Monochrome Sensors

Tiffen No. 15 Deep Yellow and Hoya YA3 Orange filters

As regular readers know, a couple of years ago I bought a rather offbeat camera—a full-frame Sigma FP outfit with the 45mm lens and the chimney viewfinder that attaches sideways to the viewing screen. I had it converted to monochrome (i.e., black and white only) by having the color filter array (CFA) stripped from the sensor. The work was done by Daniel Morrison of Monochrome Imaging Services at a cost of $1,200. The cost of the conversion was covered for me by a generous reader.

I seriously adore my camera. To repeat something Lee Friedlander once said, sometimes I get it out just because I want to play with it. Easily among my top three favorite digital cameras since I bought the first of many 21 years ago now.

If you're not interested in my particular technique, I understand. But perhaps (at the risk of sounding stuffy, or worse), you might find it instructive to observe my dedication to my technique. The point for most photographers is not to learn and master every technique, it's to develop and master their own. What that is will depend on you, the depth of your dedication, and your own visual concerns. (And on whatever floats your boat, whatever scratches your itch, whatever gives you what you yearn to be given.) Most successful art photographers, historically speaking, are not jacks-of-all-trades who flit from one set of technical parameters to another like DDD (David Douglas Duncan) did, or like many professionals for hire must do; most develop a mature technique and then stick to it for most or all of their work, at least during the peak years of their output. Sometimes perhaps with one or two sideways jumps throughout the course of their lives...but sometimes not. They search until they find something that works for them and that nourishes their enthusiasm, and then they stick to it. But I digress.

Back when panchromatic films were "less panchromatic," color filters were meant to correct the spectral response of the film. Early plates were orthochromatic, meaning, sensitive to blue and green but not red light. Because earlier panchromatic films tended to be weaker in response to the red end of the spectrum, and yellow filters subdued the response to blue and green light, at one time there were yellow filters in many different strengths to allow photographers to tailor their tones exactly to their films as well as their tastes. Eventually these choices boiled down to three: light yellow, medium yellow, and deep yellow. With thick-emulsion B&W films such as classic Kodak Tri-X 400 [1954–2007] and Plus-X [1954–2011, R.I.P.], as well as Super-XX [1940–54] and Verichrome Pan [1956–71]* before them, a medium yellow filter, known as a K2 and also known as a Wratten No. 8, was just the thing to correct the spectral response of the films. I kept K2 filters on all my cameras at all times in my early years. Well, except when I was shooting color film!

You might think that color filters would have the same effect on monochrome sensors they do on film, but that hasn't been my experience. A K2 filter has so little effect on my converted Sigma that I basically can't see it except in direct A-B comparisons. So I tried a deep yellow filter. The only ones readily available are from Tiffen, though, and I don't care for Tiffen filters because they're laminated. They make them by sandwiching a piece of gel between two thin layers of glass. They perform well; I just like the idea of filters made of single pieces of dyed optical glass, that's all.

The Tiffen Deep Yellow 15 (Wratten No. 15) works pretty well, but the effect is still a bit mild.

Finally I "went nuclear" and bought a Hoya YA3 Orange filter. Extremist! Hoya is the top Japanese filter brand; they make Nikon filters and probably do other OEM for all I know, as well as selling under their own name. The Wratten number of the orange filter is 21, and it cuts out two stops of light, vs. one stop for a No. 8 and about one and a third to one and a half stops for a No. 15. Hoya has long been my go-to filter brand.

That was the ticket. It's a stronger filter than I would have used on B&W film, But it has an effect on the stripped sensor that's just a little more pronounced than the effect of a K2 filter on Plus-X. It makes Caucasian skin look great; I'm interested to experiment to see whether it's ideal for other skin tones, but haven't done so yet. Note that the EVF image still looks neutral on a converted camera—the camera can't record color—but if you happen to have a converted DSLR, you will see the heavy overall orange cast. I photographed for many years with SLRs with yellow filters on the lenses, and after while a camera viewfinder didn't look right to me if it wasn't yellow.

The loss of two stops of light isn't a problem in most situations, as monochrome sensors are remarkably consistent across different ISO settings. Jacking up the ISO a bit doesn't seem to have much effect. Of course filters are removable, too.

If you use a monochrome camera such as the wonderful Pentax K-3 III Monochrome, or the Leicas such as the slightly pricey M11 Monochrom or the Q2 Monochrom (a camera that has a devoted owner base like the Leicas of yore), you might want to try a 2-stop orange filter and see if you like what it does.

Taken with a Hoya YA3 orange
filter. Larger version here.

Here are some of the effects of the orange filter to look for:

• Blue skies will darken, although not excessively;
• Contrast is modestly enhanced;
• Assuming proper exposure, more detail will be available in clouds;
• Grass and foliage has a darker tone;
• Open shade will darken;
• There might be a modest reduction in atmospheric haze;
• Caucasian skin looks lighter and smoother;
• Blemishes and blotchiness on Caucasian skin are minimized;
• Freckles and red hair will lighten (sometimes too much, so watch it); and
• Overall tonal balance looks richer and somewhat more vivid.

Of course not every effect will be observable in every picture, as it's strongly subject-dependent.

A good learning exercise with a monochrome camera would be to purchase a Hoya YA2 2-stop orange filer and also a G(XO) green filter and shoot a bunch of things with both filters and compare the results. Things to try: blue skies and clouds; Caucasian skin; Black skin; older peoples' faces, or faces of teenagers with blemishes; redheaded people with freckles; vases of flowers of many colors including red; grass lawns; subjects in open shade; scenes with lots of lush green foliage.

Of course, monochrome converted cameras aren't necessary for black and white. "Color camera" image files converted to B&W in post also look very good. They're useful for learning, too, as you can add and remove "virtual filters" in your editing/processing software with abandon, and get a pretty good handle on the effects of virtual color filters. That's a perfectly workable solution if it works for you. It depends on your "mental workflow" among other things. I personally much prefer a dedicated monochrome camera that doesn't see color—it makes for a much stronger commitment to B&W, and a clearer mindset as you're out and about with the camera. But it is possible that the preferences of reasonable persons might differ**.

Daniel at MIS can convert most cameras that use Sony sensors. Contact him to see if he does conversions on the camera of your choice.

Mike

*And Verichrome before that, which was a legacy of Kodak's purchase of the British firm Wratten & Wainwright in 1912—also the source of the name "Wratten" for filter numbers. Verichrome was introduced around 1907–8, and re-introduced by Kodak on a safety base in rollfilm sizes in 1931.

**I get tired of "YMMV."

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Jeff: "I carry yellow and orange filters for my Leica M(9) Monochrom and M10 Monochrom (the former now sits mostly unused), much as I did when shooting B&W film. I don’t like unnaturally darkened skies (preferring, for instance, Ansel’s decades-earlier renderings of ‘Moonrise’), and never owned red filters. Most times with the M10M, I shoot without any color filtration. (One individual on the Leica Forum prefers a green filter for general use, and for skin tones; to each his/her own.) Conversions with color digital offer far more convenience and flexibility, but I find that one must refrain from using a heavy hand with color channel adjustments. However, the B&W 'mindset' (avoiding color distractions) from using a monochromatic sensor (like B&W film) is worth the trade-off for me."

Good Pictures With Bad Cameras (and Vice Versa)

Comments are up to date as of 10:27 p.m. Tuesday.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes when people are selling their fancy, expensive cameras online, the pictures of the item can be particularly crappy?

Make up your own joke.

I'd post the absurd example I ran across, in a auction for an OM-D E-M1 Mark II, but that would be mean. The illustrations seem to have been taken with a phone, remarkably incompetently.

I've always been of the opinion that a good photographic craftsperson can exercise deliberate control over any kind of camera. Is there any reason why pictures have to be sloppy because the photographer is using a phone? 

Of course there are two kinds of "deliberate control." One is technical, the other is artistic. Technical control implies that you can use good composition, framing, exposure, etc. even when you're using a smartphone or some kind of sub-optimal camera. More than half the skill of making beautiful technically competent shots doesn't reside in any camera.

Artistic control implies a different goal—that the photographer understands the inherent properties of the equipment and is deliberately exploiting those limitations to make characteristic-looking pictures. Why use a Diana toy camera to try to make the pictures look like they were taken with a TLR? Whatever we're using, we can choose to make it look characteristic of that kind of picture. And that can include deliberately giving up control.

As an example, take a look at some of the Holga wedding photography of Zoe Larkin. Now, before you get your umbrage all ruffled, she doesn't do weddings exclusively with the Holga—they're just a fun little extra. She says on Instagram, "I charge a tiny amount for this as an add-on, despite the high costs of both purchasing and developing film, because I genuinely love doing them...and the serendipity—one might even say oftentimes capriciousness—of lo-fi, point n’ shoot film…but that is what makes it so darling."

f minus, Girl in a whirl, 2007
(CC by 2.0), Holga 120CFN

There's a whole community of people out there who embrace that lo-fi capriciousness. Generically known as Lomography. I don't know much about that world, but here's how the ever-useful Wikipedia defines it:

"Lomography is a photographic style which involves taking spontaneous photographs with minimal attention to technical details. Lomographic images often exploit the unpredictable, non-standard optical traits of toy cameras (such as light leaks and irregular lens alignment), and non-standard film processing techniques for aesthetic effect. Similar-looking techniques with digital photography, often involving "lomo" image filters in post-processing, may also be considered Lomographic.

"While cheap plastic toy cameras using film were and are produced by multiple manufacturers, Lomography is named after the Soviet-era cameras produced by the Leningradskoye Optiko-Mekhanicheskoye Obyedinenie (LOMO)."

As regular readers know, one of my hundred favorite photobooks is Iowa by Nancy Rexroth.

Keep the goal in view
But if you're taking pictures of your Z7 or R6 to post it for sale on eBay, it's the opposite. The fact that you're using your smartphone is no excuse for not understanding flare, focal length choice, basic composition, and basic exposure. A good photographer can take competent product pictures with a phone. Consider that Tika Jabanashvili of Tbilisi, Georgia, photographs for Vogue and uses Apple and Huawei phones. Some of the best photographic technicians I know use Micro 4/3 cameras. And so on.

Okay, I'll say it—the joke is that it's no wonder that seller is offloading his OM-D E-M1 Mark II—doubtless it takes crappy pictures too. His for-sale illustrations make it seem that he doesn't have much skill with cameras or feel for the visual.

I could tell stories, but I don't want to be mean. I'll just say that cameras only intersect with skill and intention—they don't make up for those things when they're lacking.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Stephen S.: "Without an example posted, some readers may vastly underestimate how incredibly bad a photo taken to sell a camera can be. I came across a Facebook Marketplace listing for a camera where they didn't even get the entire camera in the shot. The top third of the camera was cut off in both the front and back photos. The camera occupied only the top half of the frame, and the bottom half of the frame was just the empty table surface the camera was set on. They had even failed to capture the manufacturer's name on the prism, a detail I think would be noticeable enough to warrant framing that would include it in the shot. Why someone would think that photos of an item you're selling that fail to show the entire item would be sufficient is truly beyond me."

Mike replies: Years ago there was an eBay seller who I was absolutely convinced displayed pictures taken with intentional camera shake to cover up minor problems, dirt, and small irregularities on the surface of the item. Although most likely fraudulent, he also had at least a small point, as anyone who has done closeup photographs of objects knows—a camera that looks clean to the eye in person will suddenly be covered with dust and fingerprints in a high-res, well-lit shot.

Ed Hawco (partial comment): "I understand and agree with your point, but I think maybe there’s something you’re missing. Namely, that the person selling the camera might not be the owner of the camera. It might be the offspring or spouse of the camera owner, who has died or maybe taken off on a bender or a wild fling with a tarty waitress and this is the spouse’s revenge. Or it might be what most of us are thinking: the camera is stolen!"

David Brown: "One of my best photographs ever was made with a Brownie Starflash."

James Weekes: "Addressing the Holga issue. First a bit of history. I started using Dianas in the '70s and progressed to Holga when Dianas disappeared. Along with two other photographers, we figured out how to tape them, inside and out, to eliminate light leaks, which were and are 5% serendipity and 95% ruined shots. When I moved to digital I really missed my toy shots. A friend pointed out that there were Holga lenses available for Canon, Nikon and Micro 4/3 cameras. I have amassed some of these and use them all the time. Gone are all possible light leaks, but that wonderful look remains. The color is just as odd but just as 1950s looking. With all the tools available in Photoshop and DxO (I recreate 120TX) and a good inkjet or commercial printer, one can open even larger horizons. Of course, I shoot square. And, you can sort of see your focus in the viewfinder."

Mike Plews: "First, Iowa is a gift. Every serious photographer should see it. I recently took on scanning 300 photos my now 104-year-old mother-in-law took on the family farm during the late 1940s and early 1950s. She used an Ansco 620 and shot Verichrome pan.They were processed at the local drug store. The pictures are enchanting, priceless family treasures. They may become a blurb book for family members. Something about the meniscus lens on the Ansco and Verichrome pan, dreamy images from a lifestyle that is about gone. If I can find the time I may even take a few down to the darkroom."

James: "Michael Kenna uses a Holga. This is a great book. You can read an interview here where he talks about using Holgas."

David Comdico: "I used to turn my nose up at toy cameras but I have come to love them. They break down the photographic process to the basics. Nailing focus with a Holga or capturing a good diptych in-camera with an H35 is a pure joy."

Two Failures

Moon hunt: Summer lasts half as long as you want it to, and goes by twice as fast as it should. The last robin fledgling of the season left the nest today—I saw it; the cantaloupe are out at Raymond Shirk's farmstand (he grows the best cantaloupe in this, I don't know, hemisphere); and the corn's as high as a man. Summer is fast passing by.

Last weekend I noticed from the apps that sunset and moonrise were happening at more or less the same time, around 8:45, so 8:45 on Saturday and Sunday found me driving slowly down country roads out on the high flatlands peering around looking for the moon. Funny thing though. The air was clear on the sunset side, and the moonrise side looked clear, but there was some distant overcast, far off, that shrouded the moon until it was more than ten degrees up over the horizon. Eventually it rose out of a hazy glow in the overcast into the clearer sky. By that time the possibility of balancing the light had passed.

The next night I did eventually see a lighter glow in the dark sky appear, but, again, not until it was well above the horizon. I positioned it next to a silo near a barnyard where a single outdoor light illuminated a single pickup truck. But the moon couldn't quite delineate from behind the haze, and it was too bright relative to the sky and the rest of the scene already. I tried a few exposures. I have a vague notion that if I understood Photoshop better, I could merge two exposures together to make a passable illustration of what I might have been able to see if things had worked out better. But to be honest, I lack motivation for things like that sometimes. If the picture's not there, no use forcing things, unless for some reason you have to.

Forest bonfire: I experienced a worse failure recently I am still kicking myself hard about. And will probably be kicking myself about for a while. My neighbor Les and his wife, who live on the lake, have a big field higher up on the hillside. Two years ago they hired some Mennonites to clear an acre or two of forest. The land clearers made a great diffuse jumbled heap of trees on the low end of the hillside, which Les told me they would eventually burn. Imagine four or five semis parked alongside each other—that's about how big the heap was. For two years it just sat there, drying out and settling, with grass and weeds growing around it and through it.

A month ago I was driving by on the way to a regular appointment in Watkins Glen and could hardly believe my eyes. The Mennonites had taken all that wood and stacked it tightly in a shape that resembled an elongated church dome. It was at least thirty feet high. The rough branches and twisted trunks were so cleverly pieced together that it looked like a completed puzzle or an art installation. And they must had had a crane. At the very top, they had placed a giant stump, roots intact and weaving down into the wood underneath. I saw it near dusk on a cloudy day. It was amazing. Especially on a brooding overcast night, it looked timeless and mystical, like some kind of Druid offering to the gods far back in the mists of time. I knew I had to come back with the camera, and that it would be worth it to come back again and again until I got the shot.

But did I? A week later, I was making the same regular weekly trip to Watkins Glen, and I passed the huge bonfire structure again—and again had the same thought, that I really had to photograph it before it was gone.

The third week, same trip, I didn't think of it until I was headed up the hill. Then I passed the woods that blocked the view of where it had been, and saw a giant heap of ash that was still smoking. It smoked for several days more.

Ow, ow, ow. That one's going to hurt for a while. Of course, you're never sure if something would have made a good picture until you see the picture. But I'm pretty sure.

What's that Jay Maisel quote? "Never say you’re going back—SHOOT IT NOW!" I could have shot it when I first saw it if I'd had the camera in the car. And I had at least a week to go back. If I had only remembered.

If I make an educated guess about a possible photo opportunity and head out a-huntin', I can't really complain if nothing comes of it. But when the universe gives me a gift and I don't have the wits and grit to simply take what's offered, that's on me. Damn. There are now two great once-in-a-lifetime pictures I could have had since I got the new camera that I missed.

Mike

P.S. I'd say live and learn, but, to say that, you've got to learn.

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Jeff1000: "I completely relate! I was driving my rig, a 2024 Kenworth T-680, heading west on I-10 in Louisiana, nearabouts Baton Rouge. The sun was going down, pulsing the way it does, and the sky was on fire, like streaks of red painted on a pale canvass. I was driving a section of the Interstate that's elevated, like a bridge, above the Louisiana swampland. The swamp looked absolutely evil, like it was under the spell of Satan. Streaming red light raked across the swamp, and my imagination conjured up the scary creatures that were surely lurking under the water’s red surface: alligators, eels, snakes, leeches; heck, maybe even the creature from the black lagoon. I’m sad to report though that I never got the shot: the shoulder of the bridge’s road was just too narrow to accommodate my tractor-trailer."

Dave Levingston: "The moon and sun do that every month. The day before the full moon you often get around an hour when both the moon and sun are above the horizon. There is often haze on the horizon that obscures the moon, even when the sky is clear. And at the moment there is smoke from the fires out west making it worse. Atmospheric conditions are better in colder months, but the amount of time when they are both visible is shorter."

robert e: "The cynical gloss of this post would go something like: 'you can't win for trying, and you can't win for not trying,' but of course only the trying gives you any chance at all. It's just that you need luck, too. Once upon a time, it seemed that every serious shutterbug kept a spare in the car. I don't think that's a thing any more. Is it because the phone is now the spare? Is it because digital cameras aren't as good in that role as were all-mechanical film cameras? I think it's a bit of both. Come to think of it, spare tires are disappearing, too. What's happening to us, anyway?"

Allan Ostling: "Your missed bonfire photo doesn't hold a candle to the shot that I missed in 1995. I was driving a rental car in Tasmania when I spotted an echidna sitting in the road. I slowed, and missed it, but did I stop and take a photo of this seldom-seen egg-laying mammal? I did not, and regret it to this day."

anthony: "True story: Some guy took a stunning close-up of a great snowy owl in a snowstorm in northern Canada which won a major competition 10–15 years ago. He said he had initially taken a number of shots of the owl, and left to return home. After two hours on the road, he turned around and went back (in the snowstorm!), found the owl in the same place (!!), and took the prize winner(!!!) And so it goes…."

Jackpot Photography

I drove 135 miles to three different doctors' appointments yesterday. I started out in snow flurries, but it turned out to be a fantastic day. The Finger Lakes don't always reward you with the benedictions of the amazing local weather, but it's something special when it happens. All day long I drove through the most beautiful light. The skies cleared and clouded again over and over, the clouds were ever-changing, the snows came and went, the wet roads reflected the almost heavenly brightness of the skies. I didn't have my camera with me and I had no time to stop to take pictures, but just looking was almost as good. I saw picture after picture. My brain would pick the spots where I imagined compositions would come together—over there—I'd park there and walk up to that spot. I like photographing more, but simply looking at the world with a photographer's eye is something I enjoy almost as much.

Good pictures for me don't come steadily. I'm not able to force the world to yield a treasure on demand just because I've got my gear with me and I'm out looking. But when the pictures are there, sometimes they seem to be all over the place. They fall out of the world and come tumbling at you. Based on long experience, I would guess that, had I been photographing yesterday, I would have gotten maybe five really good shots and another three or four pretty good ones, from twenty or thirty attempts. Of course you have to see them as pictures before you actually know. But yesterday was a jackpot day. Or would have been, if I'd had my camera along and time to stop and use it. A few of the pictures are still in my head.

I did manage to exhaust myself. I've been really sick these past two and a half months. Breathing has been hard. The least little exertion leaves me exhausted. I'm dizzy and unsure on my feet and sometimes get vertigo. All kinds of things go haywire when your tissues don't get enough oxygen. I'm paying for yesterday today: I've been bone tired all day today. But I heard maybe three more times yesterday, from three different people, that the pacemaker is probably going to help a lot, solve a lot of problems, make me feel a lot better. I have high hopes.

Don't forget I'll be off all through the middle of next week. It will be the fourth operation of my life, and possibly the most minor one. Butters goes into the kennel on Monday, I'll have the procedure Tuesday, home by Tuesday night or possibly Wednesday morning, then I'll be allowed to drive again by Friday. Who knows how I'll feel, but right now I'm not making any plans.

Ooh, I missed some good ones yesterday. But at least I got out. I started my day all worried that the snows were going to slow me down and make me late. It went the opposite way; the weather was a blessing.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

James Bullard: "I am sending healing vibes your way Mike for whatever it's worth. It won't be worth as much as I wish it would be but....

"I know what you mean about days like that. Sometimes I go out walking or driving and see photos everywhere. Other days, nothing. It seems to be a combination of my state of mind and the day itself. If I can calm my mind and 'get into' my surroundings it will be a good day photographically. On other days the light and other circumstances overpower any resistance my mind has as the landscape says 'Look at this.' If the two don't come together, though, I find that the walk or drive is helpful in itself to quell the mental storm."

Henning: "I wish, as do all your readers, that you come home next week if not rejuvenated at least fully re-oxygenated. Hopefully the pacemaker will fix a lot of things, including giving you the energy to take your camera with you all the time. You know the drill: You may or may not have the time, the weather may or may not cooperate, but if you don't have your camera with you, you're unlikely to come home with a picture.

"Not long after I met my (future) wife over 55 years ago, she asked 'are you going to take that thing to bed with you?' No, and I didn't take it into the shower then either (cameras weren't shower-proofed in that era) but otherwise, pretty much a 'Yes.' In spite of that, there were still lots of pictures I missed. I've not regretted any picture I've taken, only the ones I missed."

Half the Battle is Being There

I went out photographing yesterday, and a nice thing happened. But before I get to that...

...On November 1st I was driving into town on a brilliant sunny day. The sky was very active: lots of clouds of various types rearranging themselves with the appearance of urgency. But lots of blue sky too, and the kind of brilliant, intense sunshine we get on cold days. As I crested the top of the big long hill leading down to the little Mennonite-owned grocery story, I saw a wall of opaque gray shrouding the land up to the north of me, from west to east, enveloping the town of Penn Yan where I was headed.

For one thing, it was a beautiful sight. I've deliberately given up trying to photograph particularly volatile weather here; you just can't capture fast-changing conditions and the magic of different things happening all at once in different directions. But boy, do I ever enjoy it. When I saw that wall of gray streaming across from the West, I thought, "it's got to be raining in town."

But no. It was snowing in town. A furious snow squall of the sort we get around here once in a while. Dense clouds of giant flakes so whipped up by the roiling wind that they don't seem to be falling downward at all. Visibility shuts down and it gets tough to see. One football field away, all you could make out of cars or the road were floating pairs of tiny headlights, two little dots of light amid nothing but gray. The squall was intense enough that the locals talked about it afterwards, in casual encounters around town—in the line at the bank, at the Post Office, or at the little mainstream grocery store. "Did you see how hard it snowed?" I went into the plumbing supply place, in one of those pole-barn warehouse-type structures with no windows, and encountered a friend, and we talked a while. When I emerged from the store the snow squalls were gone, having moved on to the East.

The temperature was above freezing, but the grass was covered with that light, lumpy snow that looks a lot like like cake frosting, so white it was almost glittering in the sunlight, which had returned as quickly as it departed. Next stop was the gas station, to check the tires. When working on your tires, you keep your head down, bending over, screwing and unscrewing the little stem caps* and holding the hose to the tire valve till your back starts to...um, tire. You don't tend to look up or pay attention to much else.

And after the time I took to do that, I looked up, and all the snow was gone, as if it had never been there.

First snow of the season.

A picture for the taking
So here's what happened yesterday. On Sunday I found myself coming home from Geneva, driving up the hill shown in this post, carefully passing one Mennonite buggy after another (they go visiting on Sundays). It was just after sundown on a crisp day. At the top of the hill there's a small graveyard of the sort that dot older areas of the country, most of the graves a century old and more. Glancing over, I flashed past a dramatic picture—a line of headstones silhouetted on the horizon line, against the dying brightness of the clear Western sky. I thought, there's one. Right there.

I didn't have the camera on board. But I noted the time, 5:30, and thought, I'll need a clear day.

Usually you can't do this. Too much can change; sights, even from exactly the same vantage point, wink into perfection and disappear, whether quickly or slowly. The physical world is a river that looks like it's staying the same but actually is never the same. Jay Maisel, one of the most successful professional photographers in America, certainly in his era and probably "of all time," says, "Never say you’re going back—shoot it now!" (All photographers should be issued a couple of Jay Maisel books when they buy a decent camera or get into photography.)

But yesterday it was a carbon-copy day, same weather and light as the day before. My thought was, naw, that never works. But it nagged at me, so at about 4:45 I set out.

I didn't have high hopes. First there's Jay's "shoot it now!" ringing in my ears. And I didn't know if the shot was actually there from the road; what if the best view was from off the road? I don't like to trespass. Or what it it was only there from the road? Almost as bad. What if the elements weren't actually visible at once from one standpoint? That happens with me sometimes—what I think is one view is actually an amalgam of the succession of visuals from the fast-moving car, melded into one in my mind's eye. (Using AI—authentic intelligence.) Being a little self-protectively pessimistic, I gave myself a 15% chance of success.

But half the battle is being there. I drove past, turned around, pulled over as far as I could without pitching into the ditch, put the flashers on, and there it was. Just as I had seen it the day before. A picture for the taking. I set up the tripod, climbed to the other side of the roadside ditch, looked at the scene with the camera to see just where I should be standing and where the right view was, clamped it to the tripod, and then took a dozen shots with minor framing and exposure variations.

Got it! FWIW.

It'll be a while before I download that card, but when I do, I'll be sure to upload that shot to Flickr so you can see it. I'll call your attention to it when I do.

This experience isn't a contradiction of Jay Maisel's rule, by the way. His words are still words to live by. But it's nice to know that even though you shouldn't say you're going back, sometimes you can.

Mike

*You're going to laugh, but due to my "reviewer nature" I have a favorite kind of stem cap.

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Rob Griffin: " Sounds like a really good example of being prepared to be lucky! You were indeed lucky that the image you saw repeated itself 24 hours later, but you were prepared and made yourself available to be lucky. Can't wait to see the photo!"

Hugh Lovell: "I've been trying to build the habit of getting up very early Saturday mornings, skipping my walk, and driving to a place I've not been to before or been very often. Few people, little traffic and interesting light (SF Bay area dweller). Mixed success; best results so far were photos of the SF Bay bridge with pre-sunrise behind it (taken from Rincon Park, SF), which was beautifully enhanced by several flights of California brown pelicans flowing through. Will continue to work this practice."

A Picture A Day (PAD and PAW)

I can't remember when this became popular...I think it was in the aughts, the 2000s, whatever you want to call the decade of 2000–2010. People would commit to posting a "PAW" (picture of the week) or "PAD" (picture of the day) on their websites or sharing sites. Digital made this more feasible than it had been with film.

I always kinda deflected that off a thick carapace of grumpiness (or cynicism), like, yeah, whatever. Of course I never begrudge other people whatever other people want to do, because it's their business and as long as it doesn't hurt anybody I'm okay with it. And of course there is the great Jamie Livingston Some Photos of That Day project as the apotheosis of the PAD notion. In its own way, "Some Photos of That Day" was as epic a project as August Sander's documentation of the German people in the interbellum period. But PADs and PAWs weren't something I was going to get all a-flutter about. It never seemed like they were for me.

But I think I might be changing my tune. Here's a weird thing I first noticed when I lived in Maryland three decades ago: I seemed to take a lot of good pictures whenever I was reviewing a camera. Why was that? I puzzled over that mystery for a while, but the answer turned out to be obvious—very obvious: when I had a camera to review, I had to strap it on and get out and collect some snaps with the dang thing. Without a lot of plans or ideas or highfalutin' constructs. Just get out of the house and gather data—exercise the camera, feel what it felt like to use, get some "test shots" to see how everything worked. Whether I wanted to or not.

I needed to, because I needed to use the camera and get some results in order to write something sensible about it. For a long time, my commitment to my readers (this was at Darkroom Photography magazine which later became Camera & Darkroom) was to use a camera for three months before writing about it. I've been lazier lately.

I was always aware that I had a problem sticking to the testing mentality: each time I went out for tests and trials, eventually I would revert to just taking my own kinds of pictures for myself, same as always. I'd start out trying to be good and putting the gear through its paces, but I'd end up just being me and doin' my thang.

I interviewed Ralph Gibson once, and one of the things he said to me was, I find that whenever I go out to shoot I always come back with something. I'm paraphrasing, so that's why that's not in quotes. Could have been ...I always get something. He said that early on he would wonder, when he went out, whether he would get something good or not. But as time wore on and he got more seasoned, more experienced, he realized that he was good enough that he would get something every time he went out looking for it.

So I've now been through three short periods with the new axe (now more than a year old actually!) during which I made an effort to take a PAD. A picture every day. Just get out with the camera, look around—join the hunt—find something that works. Not just any exposure; something I'm halfway satisfied with.

And you know what? That really works. Whaddaya know.

Here's the bottom line: when I get out with a camera, if I'm being halfway picky about when and where, good things happen. Once I get into the "head" (mindset, it's also called) of looking for pictures, then I start taking notice of possibilities at all times, not just when I'm photographing. Right now I've got eight or ten ideas for future pictures in my head, and there are at least three locations I've only seen in the afternoon that I want to visit early in the day when the sunlight's coming from a different location. My visual mind doesn't turn off just because I can't stop to take a picture because I have to get to the dentist or whatever. I'll tell you one thing I do different in picture-taking mode: I simply use different roads to get places. Or take detours. Not because I'm specifically hunting for opportunities, just because I might see something I haven't seen before. I'd say a third of my pictures are ones I've taken when I return to something I've already seen.

Now, this might not help you because maybe you don't photograph near home (some people reserve picture-taking for vacation or mountain hikes or some other specific activity), or maybe your projects are specific and require arrangements or permissions, like a friend who photographed his high school classmates in their current oldster lives. But if you want to get pictures, and if you enjoy it when the magic happens, the baseline is that you've got to get out into the world with a camera in your hands. And plain old quantifiable goals along these lines can really help. A PAD or PAW is just one of these goals. You can get creative with them if you want to. For instance, I suggested to one shy street photographer that he should collect refusals. That is, he would approach someone and ask them if he could take a portrait of them, and every time somebody said "no" he got a point! It was a way to turn a negative into a positive. The game was to collect fifty points and see how many actual portraits he collected along the way. Because a lot of people would say "yes," too—as long as he was asking. 

I used to be "above" the PAW and PAD idea. (Looking down on it.) But each time I've tried it for a few weeks, it has worked great for me. It's been just the motivation I need to take an hour and get in the car or at least make sure that the camera is in the car and ready to go.

Try it; you might like it. Even if you think you won't.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Kristine Hinrichs: "This is one area where I have significant expertise. I am in my 13th straight year of 'Project 365"—taking at least one photo each day to post on social media. I have not missed a single day. In that time I’ve progressed from snapshot quality images to award-winning work and currently a solo exhibition. Because I’m posting publicly, I'm clear that not every day will be 'art.' However, I know that in order to produce worthy images I have to be there to take them. I found some of my best photos when I was just 'out looking for something interesting.' I find it gets easier as time goes on—it’s a habit like reading the paper, making morning coffee, etc. I find this has also made me much more aware of my surroundings—I see things that many people just pass by."

Bengt Carlsson: "You know what Mike? I've done a PAD for 10 years now, still doing it. It's been the best decision in my photography life. Seriously. It's made my photography evolve. I'm publishing my photos on a website, Blipfoto.com. Since my mother tongue is Swedish, I still feel a bit restrained when it comes to communicating in English with other members on that site, but I still produce photographs every day. Some of them are good, many are so-so, but I wouldn't have grabbed any of them without this PAD mania. A good habit, highly recommended!"

Nikhil Ramkarran: "Every time I have tried one of these exercises, I have gotten photos that I am very happy with. I can't speak to objective quality; I doubt that I could ever meet the standards of the majority here, but for my own peculiar tastes, top quality. My main problem is that the pressure quickly becomes incredible, and the minute I adjust to anything other than one a day, I peter off within a month or so. I must obsess obsessively or not obsess at all."

Chris Bertram: "The photo-a-day thing was really my way into photography, so I'm grateful for it. Back in 2007 (16 years ago already) some friends and their network started a 365 Flickr group. I had a simple 1 megapixel(!) Fuji camera, but then things got competitive. So I bought a Nikon D40, and started to read about photography, look at photobooks, the history etc. Did some dabbling in film with a Rollei and a Voigtlander Leica-clone for a while too. Anyway, I've not done it for years, but the competitive nature of it in our group forced me to learn and develop. At some point I started reading TOP."

S Ware: "Long time reader, breaking silence as a PAD project proponent. I’ve been doing a photo-a-day project for a few years, and it has contributed greatly to my enjoyment of photography, if not necessarily to the quality of my photos. Since the stakes are so low (it’s just a daily snapshot, after all), runs of a few days or weeks of 'meh / done it before / just plain boring' snaps fade into the background when looking back over a previous year’s PAD. It’s a great habit! Now I need to figure out how to make myself do something similar for deleting old images…."

Mike replies: Yes, there must be a corollary in terms of later editing...such as, at the end of a year of PAD, first you winnow the year's PAD shots to 100, and then, after contemplation and solicited feedback, to 40. So the product of a year of photographing every day is a portfolio or set of 40 curated pictures.

Of course this would have infinite variations, including actually showing one photo for every day as Hugh Crawford did with Jamie Livingston's Polaroids.

Dave Millier: "I started publishing a photo of the day on my website on 22 November 2022. It's useful because it keeps my website active. Just got back from a trip last night and I'm five days behind as a result. The guilt is strong in me.... My approach is not to aim to shoot and publish an image on each day. That seems silly and a rod for your own back. Rather, I publish an image each day taken from a recent batch of pictures. Eventually I run out of pictures and have to go on another shoot. The incentive is do enough shoots as to not completely run out of pictures. It's worked so far."

Paul McEvoy: "I sometimes wonder what happened to some of those old photo blogs. They were around when I was just getting serious about photography. There was a guy in Toronto who did a lot of color architecture stuff, a young guy who did full-frame 35mm black and white...a million of them. The Internet has gotten a lot less interesting with everything filtered through Mark Zuckerberg products. There was such a weird and interesting variety of blogs of all sorts back then. Music and otherwise. It was mostly cool back then and now it's mostly not.

"Says I who doesn't have a website but has an Instagram page...."

September Resolution: Portrait Photography

I wrote the other day that I used to make good money doing portraits, years ago, but that now I actually have a hard time giving them away. This has persisted for a number of years.

There are also problems associated with trying to do portraits for free. Often, misunderstandings arise. A few examples: in one case I scheduled a senior portrait weeks in advance. The day came, I spent two hours at the shoot, I made a web page of the proofs—at which point the mother said she thought her son should have gotten a haircut first. I sort of mumbled politely to the effect of "well, too late now," but she said, "what's the problem? It's free, so I can get you to do it as many times as I want."

My response:

!

She didn't take into consideration that while it didn't cost her anything, it cost me something in time and effort. And that maybe I didn't want to do multiple shoots of her son again and again until she got tired of my generosity. I mean, they'd had a couple of weeks to get him a haircut. (She was a good friend, so I don't mean to be critical. I'm just pointing out the disparity between our goals in that transaction.)

In another case, aware that I was having communication problems doing this, I put in writing exactly what I would provide. The client insisted that he wanted to pay, so I said that $50, the price of a box of inkjet paper, would cover incidentals. He gave me a crisp $100 bill, then proceeded to make all sorts of demands that were not in the agreement. I wasn't blameless in the bad feelings that ensued; I admit I copped a resentment, because...well, for a lousy hundred bucks, I am not your servant boy. If you want to pay a full fee, then you can boss me around.

Ken Bennett, who I believe is or was a professional photographer (although I didn't ask him before writing this), had this to contribute: "The problem with offering 'free portraits' is the lack of takers—people think there's a catch. The portrait is free but I'll sell you the prints at a high markup. Or some other way of separating you from your money. I helped organize a Help Portrait event for first responders a few years ago and we had a hard time getting anyone to show up for this reason, even with our police and emergency response folks promoting it. No, really, it's free and we send you the photos. Really."

That's what happens to me now. I ask people if I could do a portrait of them, they say yes, I give them my card, and then I never hear from them. No resentment this time; it's absolutely up to them, and they're free to not follow through for whatever reason. I'm fine with that. But it is disappointing. And more importantly, it doesn't work.

Outmoded attitude
Trying to see this from a different perspective: maybe I just have the wrong attitude. I came up in a time when portraiture was a valued product and people paid for it. Because that was the way it used to be. Well, perhaps I'm stuck in that mentality. Even offering portraits for free, my conception of the transaction is that I'm giving away something of value, and that people should be grateful. So maybe that was true from the 1840s up until 30 or so years ago; but maybe it's no longer true.

Another reader left a comment suggesting that I should pay the sitters. That is, hire models. Funny thing is, I gradually became convinced of the same thing a while back.  And the truth is, I am getting something out of the exchange; I'm getting to indulge my muse and do what I like, which is make portraits. And I end up with a picture, one that looks the way I want it to look. So why shouldn't I think of it like I'm the one who's getting something out of the transaction? Rather than think of it like I'm doing my sitters a favor. Because that might be an old-fashioned assumption now. One that belongs in the dustbin of history.

Paying people to sit for portraits has one problem, which is that it's out of the ordinary. If people are suspicious, it might strike them as odd. But there's always the trope of models and modeling to fall back on; that's a common part of the culture, and people get it. Making the transaction clean would at least get rid of the problems of working for pay and working for free. I'd be the boss. (Whatever that means.)

I'm going to try it, before the winter's over. In the spirit of experimentation. That's my, er, September resolution. I'll report back to you then.

You can yell at me if I forget, come spring.  :-)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Louis McCullagh: "I was in computer sales (very long time ago) and when when I was arranging exhibitions to introduce new product or specialist software, I charged people to come (they got lunch included and coffee etc.). I also rang them the day before to remind them. When people pay it means they are truly interested and will likely turn up. I have seen exhibitions where no one came!

"In photography I gave a 100% free photo shoot and framed 20x16" (image) photo. It was the only time I had to do a reshoot. Basically I was not being paid (it was an auction and the money went to a charity), and the relationship changed. The auction looked as if it was going to end at about $75 (which worried me, as I would have given $75 to avoid the hassle of the shoot), but two people started to bid it up. Normally my rate for the above was $600.

"Another time I offered a free photo session (different circumstances) and stressed that there was no thank-you required, but they got me a $50 voucher anyway. Then I was in the doghouse because I didn't thank them for the voucher. I 100% did not want it. It was like, here is a gift, and then getting a gift back, which in a way reduces the value of the original gift. (That might upset some of you who have no sympathy for my point of view).

"Free is a dangerous concept you need to tiptoe around."

Mike replies: That's a great line, Louis—I will try to remember to steal it.  :-) 

I mentioned in past post about this subject that when I was a teacher I did portraits for school families and yearbook pictures for seniors for only a nominal fee ($100). I did the portraits outdoors or at the school on weekends or during off-hours.

A surprisingly number of people "forgot" and left me hanging, or cancelled at the very last minute—not infrequently leaving me at the school all set, ready, and waiting for them. It got so bad that I began asking for a $20 reservation fee to schedule an appointment. The fee was refundable only if they gave me 24 hours' notice. A few people complained about this, but it was purely self-defensive. I did have to return a few deposits just to avoid further trouble. But the no-shows went way down. Apparently they really didn't want to waste that deposit. And in one case, it was a family who had a summer home in Bermuda. Human nature can be funny.

Also in a past post, I recounted the experience of negotiating with Richard Avedon's studio for the use of one of his pictures in a magazine article. His conditions were interesting—he would not supply a repro print (the equivalent of a file in those days!); we had to copy the picture from one of his published books, which we got from the library system. And we were required to neither pay him nor offer to pay. As I understood it (I was dealing with his third assistant), the concept was that we couldn't afford his fee but we would be insulting him by offering anything less. Tiptoeing around, indeed.

Calvin Amari: "One problem with your proposed plan and 'Free Portraits' sign is a more fundamental communication problem. Here on Planet Earth the sign would need to say something like 'Free Third-Party Outsourced Selfies.'"

Mike Peters: "This is why I don't photograph people for a fee. It's never enough to deal with their egos, body dysmorphic disorders, lack of taste in clothing, bad grooming, poor posture, etc....

"I do photograph people for organizations that are paying my fee, and that makes it a bit easier as a third party is generally doing the judging.

"If you do want to do this, it's better to charge a huge fee for the shoot to cover your time and the costs of an assistant and a makeup and hair person on set, then use a very good retoucher for the final selects. A friend of mine does that, and is quite successful. It helps to have a bit of a dog and pony show to make the people feel special.

"Additionally, a high fee, one that will make you squirm to quote, will also garner you far more respect than a low fee, or, god forbid, giving it away for free. No one takes a freebee seriously. You come across as desperate and pathetic to those with money, as your friend with the unkempt son has illustrated.

"Paying people to photograph is useful in the beginning to give you a very strong body of work to show to prospective clients. However once you do, you really have to treat yourself, your craft, and the time and money you've invested in gaining your experience to create the portfolio with fees that are commensurate with your skills.

"The sad reality is that most portraits for money are all about flattery. And to my eye, flattery isn't very interesting photographically. Pretty photos of good-looking people are generally dull. No one wants to pay for interesting photos of themselves because they don't understand them.

"Think of it this way: Avedon made interesting photos, and Scavullo made pretty people look prettier. Whichever one you think is a genius will tell you more about where you should be going with this."

[Ed. note: Mike is a gifted people photographer.]

David Saxe: "People's reactions to their portraits can be strange sometimes. I don't do them anymore, but when I did, people either loved them or hated them (and me with it) for reasons that were not entirely clear.

"Centuries ago, I was employed as a medical photographer at a large teaching hospital in Montreal. Due to the lack of teaching, the summers were usually very slow, so I passed the time making free portraits of the other employees who I came into contact with in my day-to-day activities. One of those persons was Joe, who was the cashier at the cafeteria. He had immigrated to Montreal from Russia about ten years earlier. The word was that he had been in a labor camp for six years for insulting some official. He had felt that he had been unjustly dealt with by this person and had voiced his dissatisfaction in a way that got him thrown in jail. Upon his release, his family brought him to Canada.

"One day I asked him if I could take his picture. He was delighted, and came to the studio that afternoon after his shift ended. I liked the portrait, and I gave him a print a few days later and he thanked me for it. From that day on, he would never let me pay for my coffee. When I walked by the cash register with my cup, he would reach into his pocket, pull out fifty cents, and put it in the till. 'It's OK,' he would say.

"This went on for a year. One day as I passed through the line he said that he had shown the photograph to one of his sons. 'My son said you made me look like sh*t,' he said. 'Could you do it over again?'

"I said sure, and suggested he drop by the next day.

"No, right now! Today," he replied, quite forcefully.

"I said I had no time to do it today but I would be happy to do it the next day.

"'Who the hell do you think you are,' he said. 'I have bought you coffee every morning for the past year and how do you repay me? By taking a picture of me that makes me look like sh*t. My dog could take a better picture than you can. Fifty cents, please,' he said, as he held out his hand.

"As I paid for the coffee, I wondered what he had said to that official in Russia so many years ago that would have put him in a labor camp for six years.

"We never spoke again."

Mike replies: Wow, that's a better post than the one I wrote.

Bruce Bordner: "Even before phone cameras, I have been irritated by the 'posing reflex' that so many people have. I sneak up on them to get the shot I want, but they snap around and give me that smile and ruin it...I just feel creepy. Professional models are far better at looking natural if you are doing it for the picture. You should try it soon instead of agonizing over the expense. Just once, as a treat to yourself."

Ed Hawco (partial comment): "Importantly, the selfie has changed the aesthetics of portraiture. For most young people today, 'a photo of me' is a selfie, which generally includes a self-assured smirk and a bit of a duck-face (selfie-talk for the pursed lips that were so ubiquitous in the early days of selfies). Whether it’s a smirk, a duck face, a smiling head toss, or some other affectation [and don't forget the too-wide-angle lens distortions —MJ], that is the 'look' of photographic portraits today, and people can achieve that all by their lonesome."

Albert Smith (partial comment): "More than once I have presented my subject with a hard copy print of at least 8x10 inches just as a 'thank you' for allowing me to take their photo, only to have them look at it with a 'what am I supposed to do with this?' look on their face. Several asked if they could scan it to put online or if I could send them the JPEG. Tangible things don't excite people of a certain age."

AlexV: "I shared the contents of your post with my Japanese wife, and she cited the following saying: 'Tada hodo kowai mono wa nai' ('Nothing is more risky than something that is free.')"

Photo 101: Watch Those Details!

Glad to be alive
I find that I photograph reflexively sometimes. I'm increasingly struck by the beauty of the world and the weather and feel more and more grateful to be a crawly-creature scuttering about on a tiny area of the surface of this suspended pearl; and so on some occasions when my surroundings seem magical, I'll grab my colors-camera*, AKA the iPhone, and compose a quick memento. I suppose the impulse is to hold on; reach out, grab it, possess it, preserve the wonderfulness of it. Of course you can't. I'm often reacting to many things that can't be shown in the picture anyway—the temperature, the smell of the earth in the air, the warm gentle breeze pushing its way around me—the experience of a summer evening. And neither can the little sensor capture much of the magic of the colors and the light of moment. For that you need a large-sensor camera—like a Micro 4/3!

Ahem. Anyway, I call these impulsive air-grabs at the beauty of the world "Glad to Be Alive Pictures." I do it too much, and rarely does one of them please me as a picture. But doing it reflects my attitude of gratitude, so I do it.

Careful of those highlights!
This one illustrates a basic shooting problem. On any camera, not just this one.

I was trying to get the iPhone to hold the corrected exposure. To change the exposure on an iPhone, touch an area and a little yellow square metering area will appear around it, with a slider next to it that features a sun symbol in the middle. Slide the sun up and down on the slider using your finger anywhere on the touchscreen in order to lighten or darken exposure. The trouble is that the iPhone reverts quickly to what it judges to be the proper exposure, and I don't know how to get it to not do that [Ed. note: See yischon's comment below]. The exposure doesn't stay where you put it for very long. So you have to be quick. Here, I put the metering area on the setting sun and lowered the exposure until the highlights looked like they wouldn't be too blown out.

Anyway, of course I noticed my dog Butters wandering into the shot—I thought, oh, good, that will help the foreground—but I was paying attention to the exposure when I took the picture.

In fairness to me, it was pretty dark when I took this! And the lens was on the widest setting—Butters wasn't actually right in front of me. It wasn't until I reviewed it later that I realized that what I had photographed was actually a violation of doggy potty privacy. Oops. The lesson, of course: always pay attention to the details in the finder! It's not always easy. 

By the way, here's an illustration of why you might want to change the exposure on an iPhone picture:

This is my apple tree in the twilight. This is about how it looked to me, on a night with a deep blue sky with bright stars.

...And this is the picture the way the iPhone wanted it to look. Yuck. I mean, thanks for trying to be helpful, iPhone, and it's technically remarkable that little ol' you can do that, but it looks like about 4 p.m. on a blah day.

By the way, contrary to received opinion, the iPhone is actually very easy to hold. You can wrap your hand firmly around it. All you have to do is not block the lenses. The trouble with the iPhone as a camera is that there's no sensible position for the "shutter release" or go-button or whatever you want to call it on a phone. I don't suppose I'll ever stop getting a picture all ready to take and then...turning the phone off. D'oh!

Mike

*"My little boy startled me at age five when he offered his first critique of Daddy's artwork. He had asked me to take a picture of how small his watermelon hard candy had gotten in his mouth, opening his mouth wide and presenting the remarkably diminished candy on his tongue. Never one to refuse a proffered photo opportunity, I took the picture. Later, though, when I showed the print to him, he launched into a tirade that I still think is wonderful: "Daddy, you need a new camera. Your camera is a grays camera. You need a colors camera. When you buy another camera next time you should make sure it has colors in it." And so forth. It was a pure critique, succinct and pointed—art criticism direct from a five-year-old heart." From "The Grays Camera," originally published in Black & White Photography magazine in 2006.

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

yischon: "The built-in Camera app on the iPhone does have AE/AF lock, but even though it's not obvious, once you've learned how to do it, it's easy to recall: Hold your finger on the screen for around two seconds to set AE/AF lock. You can still swipe up and down to adjust exposure."

Mike replies: Many thanks! I didn't know that. I suppose if the iPhone is really one of my two cameras now, I ought to learn how to use it....

Keith: "Well...I thought...does my Motorola Android phone camera have a focus lock?? And it does! And it works exactly the same way—including showing the exposure slider! After all these years of not knowing that! Thanks Mike for passing that on. PS. Still much prefer a 'proper' camera. Cheers, Keith."

Luke: "My android phone lets me position a shutter 'button' wherever I need it on the screen. This makes it much easier to hold and shoot. Also, a two-second timer allows a steady hold, and more precise framing, after punching the button. Silly work-arounds for a telephone posing as a camera, but they help."

Sebastian: "Your first paragraph on this post is awesome. Thank you.

"You really need a Ricoh GR IIIx anchored to your jeans pocket (or coat pocket mind you)—large sensor, 40mm equivalent, etc."

Mike replies: Must be a good seller; all versions are out of stock at B&H Photo.

Antonis R: "While on the subject of phone hacks...er...I mean instructions, I have permanently set –0.7 exposure compensation. Unlike other settings like AF/AE, once set, it stays through subsequent launches of the camera app (assuming Preserve Settings > Exposure Adjustment = ON). I figured I can deal with noise in the shadows better than highlight data lost forever. I consider it a 'safe' starting point. If time allows I can always counter any underexposure with a temporary adjustment move (the slider you mention). And big thanks to yischon for the AF lock tip. I was just as clueless  :-(  as you Mike."

What's Valid and What's Not, and Why?

Sam G. wrote: "For me, the more interesting idea is whether camping at a spot for hours on end removes the genuine serendipity. If you want a person to stand in a very specific spot in order to complete your composition, is it that much different to wait of hundreds of passers by to randomly walk through rather than just ask them to stand in the right spot? In both cases, you are imposing your vision on the scene rather than letting the scene present itself to you."

He was talking about Jeremy Paige, whose work I like (what little I've seen of it, in the video)—I didn't know of him before this. He comes off as the real deal. I'd like to see more of his work.

The issue of what's valid and what's not in getting a picture is interesting, although perhaps overblown in most cases. Of course it's a thorny thicket. It has has to do with psychology, status, and assumptions and expectations. It also seems to have a lot to do with Internet culture, which has a marked petty-and-vindictive streak. People can get criticized severely for almost anything, because...well, because they can, I guess.

What's okay and who says so? People can slammed for all sorts of alleged transgressions. A photographer once shot a project in the dark, using IR film and an opaque red filter. She put a bunch of nearly-nude friends in a room and shot away, discovering later what she had gotten. Were those not "her" photographs because she couldn't see through the viewfinder what she was shooting at the time the shutter fired? What about a guy who shot from the hip for weeks and then edited severely? I know of a very good photographer who shot that way for years, although I can't remember his name. Is it okay that Robert Frank exhaustively "worked" some of his pictures for The Americans to come up with a picture that looked like it was one quick and thoughtless snapshot? Robert Doisneau got Internet-shamed at the end of his life when people found out something that had long been known, which is that he wandered around Paris for several hours with the couple in Le Baiser de l’Hôtel de Ville, taking many pictures of them in different locations. A friend who knew him said he was very troubled by the harshness of the accusations, which he shouldn't have been, because the accusations were thoughtless, not to say mindless. How about setting up a camera with a motion detector to trip the shutter remotely when something happens in front of it? How about suspending a camera around a cat's neck and setting it to fire at intervals for a cat's eye view of the world?

All these things, which are all real examples by the way, have outraged somebody somewhere. Why? Who gave them the right to set the rules?

Jeremy Paige rediscovered Cartier-Bresson's method, which in many cases was to find a scene and plan and wait. I use that method sometimes, as with the paddleboarder shot. That doesn't mean the shot is staged. I didn't know a paddleboarder would come along. The thought hadn't crossed my mind until she came into view. (I was waiting for a canoe, which never came.) I didn't tell her to stand, or how to dress, or instruct her where to look.

Anyway, if staged pictures are somehow tainted, then pretty much all fashion photographs and all still lives are tainted. If posing is bad, then most portraits in history can't be good.

Is it inauthentic to take many shots of a scene to see what will work best? How about when a large-format photographer consults charts to find out when the sun will be in the right position, or finds a vantage point so she can exclude something intrusive? Is that dishonest? We were just talking about the San Francisco de Asis Mission Church in Ranchos de Taos, which John Camp photographed showing the parking lot and commercial buildings that surround it. Are all the photographs and paintings that omit those things somehow lying?

Lying is at the core of the real issues here, of course. We're mainly affronted or offended when we think someone was trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Pretending something is one thing when it's another thing. Le Baiser de l’Hôtel de Ville looks like it was a snapshot, therefore people are critical when they find out it's not. Of course, not very many viewers have a very subtle knowledge of what's involved in making pictures, so the first thing that begs to be examined is their assumptions, not the pictures.

We all set our own rules. The real responsibility is to be considerate of viewers by acknowledging what is really going on.

And speaking of the paddleboarder shot, I'm interested in making a combination shot of that scene, one that includes both the geese and the paddleboarder. That was suggested by Ritchie Thomson in the comments. But of course, if I did, I would say, "this is combination photograph. The geese and the paddleboarder actually passed this spot about ten minutes apart." I suppose I should look up the time stamp on the two images and give the interval in exact minutes and seconds! Because you can never be too careful.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Benjamin Marks: "Outrage is tiresome, and useless if we are talking about making art. The Internet has fooled us into thinking outrage is useful, or that it matters. It doesn't. It is just a tribal marker, and folks must be pretty lonely and lost these days if they take such satisfaction in banding together in this cheap copy of community.

"Here's my two cents. As long as no one is getting hurt in the making, all bets are off when art is being created. Plan, stage, pay, tech-up, tech-down, stalk, hide, buy gear, paint your belly with blue woad and howl. With the above proviso, all that matters is what the viewer of the art feels. There isn't a 'sin' listed in your post, Mike, that would keep me from being moved by a beautiful image."

Alan Wieder: "This is a very thoughtful post. Your examples are great and my thinking is that critics should make pictures of their own authenticity rather than condemning what other photographers do."

Kristine Hinrichs: "Your inspiration was that couple in a canoe. Even if they were paddling, it’s likely a much 'lazier' scene than the paddleboard which (to me) exudes a different physicality."

Niels: "I love the light and detail/texture of the photo on Flickr."

Sam G. [the OP —Ed.]: "To be clear, I wasn't passing judgement on the validity of a photograph. A staged photograph is not any better or worse than a serendipitous photograph as long as, as you said, the photographer is honest about what they are doing. I like Jeremy's work. It is incredible! I just thought it was interesting how some of his photographs seemed to push the limits of what it means to be serendipitous.

"An attempt at an analogy...if you pick a number at random from the phone book, and happen to call your old friend from high school that you haven't talked to in years, that's serendipity. But if you continuously call random numbers from the phone book until you ring your old friend, that's brute force."

What Comes A-Floating Down the River

At the northern end of the eastern arm of our lake there begins a long stream (how long? A search didn't turn up that information), with dams and waterfalls and the remnants of 19th-century mills, called the Keuka Lake Outlet, through which Keuka Lake drains into the larger and lower Seneca Lake. The Keuka Lake Trail runs alongside. Various stretches of the Outlet are used by recreational boaters and fishermen. At the local Arts Fair a couple of months ago, I saw a picture here—a couple in a canoe paddling lazily past this spot. I saw the picture without seeing it, because I was off to the side and a couple of hundred feet away when the couple in the canoe came by. They passed by, and I couldn't get into place in time.

(View an enlargeable version of this shot here.)

Since then, I've been back to this spot twice more to to see what I might get. I worked out the vantage point I wanted for the background and put a piece of wood on the ground so I could return to it easily, set the camera the way I wanted it, and retired to a bench in the shade to wait. It's very near the public landing, so lots of watercraft stopped short of me because the people were headed back to pull the boats out of the water.

On this occasion I patiently photographed this same scene with all sorts of craft passing—multiple kayakers, a sleek speedboat, a strange one-person fishing-boat contraption with an electric trolling motor, this young paddleboarder...and a flock of geese. Strangely, everyone passing (even the geese) looked at me, except the people in the speedboat. None of them even glanced over. I waved to most of them, and spoke to a few. The geese were amazingly cooperative, arraying themselves in a single line, perfectly spaced. The thought crossed my mind that they looked too perfect, and people would think I had cloned and Photoshopped them into place!

Are they bitin' today?
Theme song for this picture: J.J. Cale's "The Old Man and Me," a song I've always loved. I used to call it the theme song of my life. The lyrics describe a situation that is lyrical, pastoral, touching, profound and profoundly ridiculous all at the same time:

The old man he catches
The fish in the morning—
He rides the river every day.
I sit on the bank and
Holler when he passes
'Hey, old man, are they bitin' today?'

I wake up in the morning,
Thinking 'bout my troubles
I go down to the water
And they pass away.
And when the old man comes
A-floating down the river
'Hey, old man, are they bitin' today?'

Now here we got a thing
That keeps on rolling.
It ain't heavy, don't take it that way.
The old man and me,
We got a good thing going—
He catches fish, and I sit all day.
He catches fish, and I sit all day.

I could write a whole post on that song.

Muddle
But which one is "the" picture? They all work, and yet none of them were exactly what I had in mind. You have to avoid being bloody-minded ("stubbornly contrary or obstructive: cantankerous") when photographing. I am willing to be patient when hunting a photograph, but I've noticed over the years that when I get too attached to the idea of the picture I think I want, often nothing good comes of that. On the other hand, I'm good at accepting serendipity when it happens, and it happens often. Sometimes I will go to a place to photograph a specific thing I saw, and try hard to get that shot, only to have to accept the fact, later, while editing, that the shot I went after just isn't much. On the other hand, when I'm out taking one shot, sometimes I happen on another scene, and that one is the good one. Photographing is like fishing—you equip yourself, position yourself, encourage good luck as much as you can, but you're still not entirely in control of what you're going to get. You have to stay open-minded pretty much every step of the way. Especially, you always have to be open to the fact that maybe what you thought would be a good picture, isn't.

So is the paddleboarder "the" picture? ...The one I should be open to? I like it. At the same time, my instincts are a bit muddled—I'm not quite certain it all comes together. Maybe this is it, or maybe there's not a picture at this spot. (The geese came close for me too!)

Time will tell
The answer, for me, almost always comes as time passes. When pictures are new, there's a residue of false enthusiasm that clings to them. But after some time goes by, usually the good ones come forward more—that is, I like them better—and the poorer ones fall away—they offer me less and less. That's when I realize that I've "forced" something that doesn't quite work.

So I'll let some time pass, and see how I like the paddleboarder. But whatever happens, I think I'm going to return to this spot at least one more time this summer, to see what happens by.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Aaron: "I'd love to see the geese version. I think your understandable concern about it appearing too perfect is reflective of our cultural moment. Serendipity happens. But, because it's technically possible to create a fiction that is indistinguishable from an authentic spontaneously serendipitous moment it becomes harder for all of us to trust and appreciate an image of such a moment. And because visually we've been trained with certain expectations of perfection we now have an unending stream of simulacra of serendipity. It's hard to distinguish photography from graphic arts (and nothing against graphic arts, by the way). I don't think there's an antidote to this except to find photographers who we trust to give us those moments within certain conventions of image manipulation without violating the authentic moment, perhaps image manipulation that calls appropriate attention to the moment without fictionalizing it. That's clearly an art and not a science and people will understandably disagree about what counts as appropriate manipulation."

Mike replies: First, here's the variant with geese:

Second, to your main point, very pithily (is that a word?) stated, I've long thought the same thing. People don't tend to like that argument, but the fact that photography is not as much a pure record as it used to be has dampened my enjoyment of photographs somewhat. I remember when I learned to be wary of photographs with telltales of manipulation (including excessively perfect "spontaneous serendipity"!), and also when I realized that I was becoming more reflexively wary about the truth-value of all photographs.

Kevin Crosado: "A magazine editor I used to do prepress for back in the noughties would have had me Photoshop out the paddle-boarder because they distracted from the photograph of the building...."

John Camp: "People shooting digital often shoot multiple takes of a single evolving scene. Did you, by chance, get a shot of the paddleboarder entering the scene? Or did you wait until she was in your pre-selected shot, and then take it?"

Mike replies: I only took two of her, which is too few. I generally don't take enough variants, and often, back in front of the computer, wish I had more to choose from. I suppose I'm still too attached to the old idea (or habit) of anticipating just the right moment and hitting the shutter at exactly the right moment. In this case I have one of her entering the frame, and then the one at the top of this post. I didn't take one of her in the middle of the scene because I realized she wouldn't contrast well unless she was in front of the darkest background. I took 36 shots of this scene altogether, with various watercraft, which is, by coincidence or not, just about exactly what I would have given this subject shooting 35mm film.

I have another shot that I haven't yet posted on Flickr that has a man walking through the scene. He's quite far away from the camera, and I couldn't see his expression as I was shooting. I took five variants of that one—and there's only one in which he's not looking at my camera!

The Ideal Portrait Client

Following up from this post, about the recent portrait I did for Kerry Graff, a doctor in Canandaigua, New York, here's the picture she chose from the five proofs I gave her:

It's for professional purposes, for a public-facing website of medical professionals. (My choice, not that that matters, is in the original post. She thought that one was too formal.)

Kerry turned out to be an ideal portrait client. For these reasons:

—> She chose the picture she wanted right away. I mean it took her five minutes. Man, when I think of all the portraits I did when the client took days, weeks, or in some extreme cases even months to make a decision.... What that meant is that I had to remind them multiple times and keep the job open (and wait to be paid) for what seemed would be an indefinite period. I would always think of that Lovin' Spoonful song:

...Did you ever have to make up your mind?
Pick up on one and leave the other one behind
It's not often easy, and not often kind
Did you ever have to make up your mind?

...Did you ever have to finally decide?
Say yes to one and let the other one ride
There's so many changes, and tears you must hide
Did you ever have to finally decide?

Back in the olden days, when I did portraits for pay, I finally ended up charging just $20 in advance under the pretense of "reserving" the sitting. I found that even with that small amount, FOMO would motivate them to carry through, make their selection, and get their portrait; otherwise they forfeited the twenty bucks. (Not for nothing do higher-level photographers, like higher-level lawyers, prefer not to deal directly with the public!)

—>She chose one. Just one. Not two, and not four.... Every portrait photographer knows the problem when the client says "I like them all! They're all good! Can I have this one, and this one, and this one, and this one?" Of course, that's not a problem if they're paying for prints. But when I'm doing the job for expenses or for free, that's not what I agreed to do.

—>She never even mentioned the other shots (I mean apart from the five proofs I presented her with) and never asked to see any. She just trusted my choice of the proofs. This is fairly atypical. The last portrait I did before this one—also done for free—I explained very clearly to the client that I would provide six or eight proofs, and I ended up providing ten or twelve (I don't exactly recall). Well, he hectored me to see "all the shots," saying things like "I know you took a lot more than that. Why aren't you letting me see them?" I thought, what do I need to do, put it in writing and make it a contract? He started acting like I hadn't delivered what I had promised, like I was being negligent. It got a little unpleasant, to be honest. But if I take 150 shots, you don't get to see all 150. I've always been like that, even when I was a teenager.

—>Finally—and this is probably the part I like best—Kerry actually preferred the unretouched version. Look, Ma, no Photoshop. Again, It's more common for clients to nitpick the Photoshopping—"can't you get rid of this wrinkle?" (Or, can't you make me look like I did when I was in my twenties only better-looking?) Photoshop is a great boon, I'll give you that. I started using it in 1994 with Photoshop v.3. I can think of a dozen trouble jobs pre-1994 that I could have solved with it in a jiffy.

OoC on the left, retouched version on the right

Whenever I work on a portrait in Photoshop I think of Edward Weston slaving over the retouching of his portraits for his clients, when he made his living doing portraits, as recounted in The Daybooks*. Of course he was doing it with a graphite pencil on the emulsion side of 4x5 to 8x10 negatives, but "same difference" as we used to say when we were kids.

Shut up
I'm sure all of this makes me sound like a terrible whiner, like I never did anything but bitch and moan about my clients. Far from it. I did have a few troublesome clients, who I tend to remember well, and if I'm honest I had a couple of jobs that I myself was guilty of flubbing, and I'm not too proud to tell those stories as well. In far and away the majority of cases, however, I liked spending time with portrait clients and I miss the work. (Nobody pays for portraits any more, in my experience. My son's girlfriend Kate sent me a portrait of their baby recently that a professional thirty years ago would have worked hard to get and would have been justifiably proud of. She has an artistic eye, a smartphone, a parent's love and regard, and access.) I didn't advertise who my clients were, back in the day—privacy concerns, you know—but they included a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, a U.S. Senator, a prominent black activist I guarantee you've heard of, several television personalities, and a variety of socialites and local luminaries. And of course I treated those people like anybody else. By far the majority of my subjects were fun to work with, and most everyone was pleased with their portraits.

But I'm an idealist, and, in an ideal world, all my clients would have been more like Kerry in those four ways listed above. Smiley emoji!

Mike

*Which every aspiring art photographer in my youth read, and which are now out of print. Ah well, culture moves on.

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Simon Grosset: "These are all the reasons I give hi-res files to wedding couples, so they can make prints themselves (I do recommend an online printer too.) Similarly, I will deliver a proof of a wedding album without asking which pictures they want in it. They’re allowed to make one set of changes before they start getting charged extra for my time."

Albert Smith: "Re 'Nobody pays for portraits any more, in my experience... has...a smartphone, and access...': I think about this a lot. When we were learning about perspective, lens-induced distortion, and creative use of selective focus back in the day, and acquiring some classic focal length in the 85mm to 135mm range to be flattering to the subject, we also learned how not to render a subject, such as a headshot made close-in with a 28mm lens. Today, 10-plus years into the smartphone generation, I'd guess many 20-somethings have never seen a photo of themselves made with basic photo 101 techniques that we all used in the before times. When I see many of the 'selfies' posted by people that think they are terrific, all I can see is the things that we were trying to avoid back when people studied this stuff. It would be fun (and easy) to impress a vain subject with the most simple portrait technique when all they have ever seen of themselves is an arm's-length wide-angle shot with large nose and small ears. Of course, we wouldn't get that chance."

Mike replies: I don't know what the "effective" focal length of the above portrait would be...shot with a 56mm, which is an 85mm-equivalent, and then considerably cropped (to Kerry's instructions—she cropped it on her phone the way she wanted it and then sent it back to me). It's probably equivalent to something in the 120mm to 135mm range.

s.wolters replies to Albert Smith: "A few weeks ago I made a portrait of the seventeen-year-old daughter of a friend with my Panasonic 42,5mm ƒ/1.7 lens. An 85mm-equivalent. She said she didn't like it because she looked so weird! The wide-angle distortion seems already the standard now for the young generation.

"What doesn't help either is that the portrait mode on an iPhone is also a 26mm-equivalent. Portrait here means only means that it gets a blurry background."

Personality Not Perfection

K4kafka asked, in the Comments: "Over the years you’ve tested many cameras, lenses, and shooting genres. Do you now consider yourself a 'landscape photographer'?"

My answer is "it's what's available." I love photographing kids, but there are no kids in my everyday life, and although I got along well with kids in my younger days, I can't claim I do now. My "best thing" is portraits (if you ask me, anyway), but people take their own portraits with their phones now—I literally can't give portraits away for free, sometimes. I've asked three or four people recently if they would pose for a portrait, and they say yes and take my card but then don't get back to me. ("You know what they say: Oh well.")

I did do a portrait this past week, and it was fun to do. I photographed Kerry G., a friend I met on a dating site and went out with a number of times a number of years ago. She needs the picture for a website associated with a new job.

Kerry Graff. This is the one I liked, not the one Kerry liked.
Fuji X-T1, 56mm ƒ/1.2.

When I do a portrait, it's "personality not perfection." I like natural-looking pictures. I don't use a makeup person or a stylist, not that there's anything wrong with that. I don't make all sorts of changes in Photoshop—enhancing skin, enlarging eyes, etc. I work in natural light, and we try different spots, different light, sometimes different clothes (not this time), and I have people re-do their hair several times during the shoot. I want to give people a variety of looks in the proofs. It usually takes about an hour, and sometimes as long as two or three. I especially don't like it when they dislike something about the setup and it's in every shot.

That's the Allison R. rule. Allison was a willowy beauty with a great mass of big blonde hair, and she claimed that she liked her hair to be tousled and unkempt, so she didn't want to brush it, and she didn't use a brush through the whole session. We spent hours shooting nine rolls of 35mm film, an all-time record for me for a portrait...and, you guessed it, she didn't like her hair in any of them, thanks to one unruly strand that stuck out in all 300+ shots. That was before Photoshop, when you were pretty much stuck with what you got on film. Ever since then, I've asked women—men too, actually—to check their hair several times during a session. It doesn't have to be perfect, just different. Just in case.

I was going to give Kerry four proofs, but mostly we shot without her glasses on, and she ordinarily wears glasses. So at the last minute I included what I thought was the best glasses-on exposure. I had already picked my favorite frame by that time (the one above), and it was a glasses-off shot. Well, you guessed it again—she thought the shot with her glasses on was far and away the best one of the five. Good thing I included it!

I don't mind that, of course. She needs a particular look 'n' feel—it's a professional portrait, and she has a good idea of what she needs the picture to convey. She's also familiar with others doctors' portraits. So it's her choice.

Well, except here on TOP! Here, I get my way.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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Jack Mac: "You definitely are a portrait guy. I still use one of your shots of me taken when we were shooting in an abandoned building in Milwaukee. It’s even better with age, since it makes me look ten years younger. Nowadays I prefer to not show people their photos for ten years, so that they can exclaim, 'You captured me perfectly!'"

Mike replies: One of the things Kerry and I discussed when we were talking about the edits of her chosen shot is that she knows she wants to use it for the next ten years.  :-)

Photographs Are Gifts

Mennonite boys on bicycles watching dirt-track racing
from outside the fence, Outlaw Speedway, Dundee.

© 2023 Michael C. Johnston

First of all, this is the kind of picture I'm after when I go out photographing: unposed, unforeseen, "documentary" in style as well as in fact.

I hadn't been out photographing for a while before this week. I can tell you how I know I haven't been taking my camera with me enough: I'll take the camera on some particular drive, see a picture passing by, and the very first thought that flashes across my brain is, "too bad I don't have the camera along!" ...And it's sitting right there in the passenger-side footwell. D'oh. Anyway, I've been keeping the camera with me more often now. I'm not burning gas to get a picture every day, but I'm back at it again.

I put up a few new ones on my Flicker site, but it's frustrating: dark pictures look that look just right on my monitor at night look too dark in the daytime. My standard practice was to lighten every picture 10% before putting it on Flickr, but I forgot that. Now I have to go back in and replace all those new pictures with lighter versions. And I don't even know how to replace pictures on Flickr, so that's another time-sucking task ahead of me.

How pictures happen is weird. I had been wandering around one evening trying to capture the Canadian wildfire smoke somehow. I had been trying things like putting a tree silhouette in the foreground with layers of smog-shrouded hills in the gloom behind it, but I wasn't getting anything exciting. I was just playing my standard tricks. Then dusk turned to darkness and photography was over. But as I was heading back to Dundee from the east, I saw a deer running pretty hard across a field. It occurred to me that the last time I saw a deer running like it was fleeing, it was because of the dirt track races at the track south of town in Dundee. The cars circle slowly, then the signal is given and the engines open up. It makes an infernal roaring noise similar to a commercial jet taking off. I once saw a group of deer standing by the road, all looking alertly in the direction of the distant track, and as I approached they didn't even move—they just stood there staring, ears up.

Anyway, the fleeing deer is what alerted me to the fact that it was a race night.

So when I got to the corner—town and the way home to the right, track to the left—I thought, tiredly, should I go check the track? I'd been there before, several times. Never got a picture. There's not much to see from outside the fence. But for some reason I thought, I'm here, I've got the camera—what the hell, you never know. When I pulled up there were the usual pickup trucks lining the road. But when I saw these two guys on bikes I quickly made a shot from the window. Mennonites don't like people taking their pictures, but as I understand it, the objection is that they consider it vainglorious to put themselves forward. But I've asked many of them about it, and some of them don't mind. This situation offered two advantages—first, the two boys wouldn't know I was taking their picture, and second, they would be silhouettes, or close to it, and not recognizable. So I parked by the side of the road and got out.

An interesting thing happened. With my first shots, you could see the stands, and the lights were too bright. But once the cars got going, they kicked up a lot of dust, which added to the wildfire smoke to create a thick haze. The grandstands disappeared, and the lights diffused into larger blobs of light. I took a bunch of shots, pausing midway to recheck all the settings again.

I like the shot. This isn't the final, but it's close.

It just goes to show: when you're out photographing, you just never know when you're going to get lucky. You never know where the next good picture is coming from. Some days you get something, some days you get nothing. You can get something when you don't think you will, and get nothing when you think you're going to. It's not entirely chance: to catch a fish, you've got to have your line in the water. But the element of chance is always in play. At least in my style of photography.

I'm sure glad I turned left and drove by the track that night. This picture will never happen again. Here's the larger version. Do me a "fav"or and "fave" it!

Every time I photograph a lot, though, I quickly get behind on every other aspect of my life. Back to work now.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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Big Camera, Small Camera

A good reason to prefer a camera of a certain size is how ordinary people respond to it. If you want to be surreptitious and blend in, a small, modest camera that doesn't look like much is best. If you want to look impressive and imposing, like you're official, or allowed to be where you are, like you know what you're doing and don't care who else knows it, a big, expensive, late model camera is best.

The reason I like small cameras is that I'm shy and people don't react well to me when I'm taking candid pictures in public. I assume something of my anxiousness transmits to their spidey-senses and puts them off. I've been with shooters who are the opposite. It's a gift that some photographers don't even know is a gift. I'm on the big side, and male, and I must almost radiate my sense of discomfort when I'm trying to sneak a stranger's picture. Notice that word "sneak"? Bad attitude!

Goes for noise, too. My quiet Leica M6 (1984) was better than my loud Nikon N8008 (1988). The Pentax LX (1980) was a near perfect camera, except for the loud metallic SNAP! of the shutter. That's not so much an issue now, with digital cameras that have electronic shutters. They're either dead silent or very close to it.

When point-and-shoots came along in the 1980s, I photographed with one once and was amazed that people simply ignored me. Same with toy cameras. It was freeing. With big, imposing cameras it's been the opposite—I've had some almost preternaturally weird experiences with big cameras drawing attention, sometimes in situations where they just shouldn't have.

Here are a few of those instances:

—>I was trying out a Fujifilm "Texas Leica" 6x9cm once and I wanted to make a few test shots, so I went to the balcony of my fourth floor loft and pointed it into the cityscape. A hundred feet away and two stories lower down, a construction worker immediately stopped what he was doing and stared right at me. What?

—>Working with a big Mamiya once, not even that close to a big road with not much traffic, the occupants of three cars passing only a few minutes apart honked and yelled at me just to hassle me. Really? Mind yer own business!

—>While driving once, at about 40 MPH or thereabouts, I held the camera at the bottom of the driver's side window and made a few blind snaps of some motorcycles a couple of lanes over. When I looked at the files, one of the riders was staring right at the camera. Dude, you need to keep your eye on the road even more than I do.

—>When the shift changed and they got off work, the bike messengers who worked days in D.C.—lots of them—used to congregate at DuPont Circle to laze around and socialize. I figured I'd do some shooting with whatever big medium-format camera I was writing about at the time. Wrong! As soon as I walked over, a rider, a female, got up from where she was laying on the ground and came striding over to me, spewing invective in a loud voice. She got right in my face, shouting the whole time. I backed down, of course, because I'm me. Apparently it was far from the first time she had done something similar—as I was retreating, one of the other messengers said to me, sympathetically, "We're all aggressive. We have to be. But she's the most aggressive of us all!"  

Big being bad was even true when I had full cooperation from my subjects. When I taught at a girls' high school, I did a few dozen student portraits, and I noticed that a great big lens with a huge outer element intimidated some of the kids and made them feel uncomfortable, whereas a small lens with a modest outer element didn't. One girl said she felt "stared at" when I used the big lens. She looked at it with a subtly different expression.

That brings up the observer effect. "In physics, the observer effect is the disturbance of an observed system by the act of observation. This is often the result of utilizing instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner." The camera being the instrument and the reaction of the subject being the "disturbance of the observed system."

A story about Cartier-Bresson—I forget where this came from, now—was that he had a skillful way of carrying his camera covered with a handkerchief. He would set the controls by feel, and bring the camera to his eye and shoot so swiftly and smoothly that people often didn't notice it, quickly returning it to its hidden resting position. He would not have been served well by a larger, more imposing camera. Daido Moriyama of course famously uses little point-and-shoots. Helen Levitt had a right-angle lens attachment so she could photograph street scenes surreptitiously. In his subway photographs (a series that I admit never seemed like much to me), Walker Evans rigged up a way to hide his camera under his coat and trigger the shutter without moving. The famous Leica photograph of Leon Trotsky was taken by Robert Capa (on his very first assignment) with a tiny Barnack camera he smuggled into the lecture hall, against the rules, under his coat.

Generally it's sort of inherently traumatizing to me to go up to strangers and take their pictures without permission, and I think this is always in the back of my mind when I'm thinking about buying any particular camera. I've historically had a preference for cameras that don't look serious, that blend in, that don't call attention to themselves. Of course, my problem is probably as much my attitude as it is anything about the equipment. Some people radiate friendliness or confidence and can go right up to anyone. Others, more brazen, don't care if they make people uncomfortable. (I don't like those types as well.) But still.

Big is bold
The reason to have a big, expensive camera is when when you want the camera to be part of your bonafides. If you're doing pictures for hire for the public, such as family portraits for instance, it's embarrassing to arrive with a camera that's worse than the one your amateur client owns. A big, imposing camera says things about you—for one, that you're a serious photographer who's worth whatever you're being paid. And if it's more expensive than an ordinary amateur would buy, so much the better. It makes what you're doing—and, by extension, you—seem like you know your stuff and are well equipped for it. It might even impart confidence.

The camera I have now breaks this small/big paradigm. It's the smallest FF camera extant, but not the way I have it configured. Set up the way I have it set up, it has the gestalt of an old medium-format film camera. Although perfectly silent (it only has electronic shutter), it's not small. Oddly, though, I find people don't pay much attention to it. I suspect it's so oddly shaped that they don't quite know what it is. Plus, it's got such a giant viewfinder that I can quickly invite strangers to look at one of my pictures! They're impressed. Another advantage is that I'm older now, and old people are more readily assumed to be harmless.

We're still in a honeymoon period with smartphones, because a lot of people still don't take them seriously as cameras, a legacy from the time not long ago when...well, when they weren't very good cameras. That will probably change, eventually. I read an account once of the era around 1880 or 1890. The photographer had a hand-held camera, and was delighted to discover that people ignored it, because people at that time were conditioned to think of cameras as things that were always used on tripods. Eventually they got used to the fact that cameras are handheld.

After a lot of time passed the opposite might have become true: my mentor Steve Szabo was out photographing with his view camera on a tripod in broad daylight once. When he came out from under the dark cloth, he found a man standing behind him waiting patiently for him to appear. Steve said, "I bet you want to know what I'm doing," and the man said, "I already know. You were surveying, that's what you were doing."

By the way, the Texas Leica story reminds me of another tip: if you want to make yourself invisible in a public place with a lot of people around, just pick a spot and stand there for a while. Hold your camera about chest level. People will check you out at first, but after a few minutes they'll see nothing's happening and they'll start to ignore you. Even passersby seem inclined to ignore you if other people in the area aren't checking you out. Then you can raise the camera and take a picture from time to time and most people won't seem to notice. Try it.

Albert Smith reminded me of all this with something he said two days ago, so, thanks, Albert.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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Lynn: "This resonates with my experience. I found street photography easier with digital point-and-shoots like the Nikon 1 and Panasonic LX-3 (and before that the Fuji F10); and the wonderful Olympus XA, XA4 and Rollei 35S with film, zone focused. The almost-silent and small Barnack Leicas (mine's a IIIc) is almost as good, maybe because it doesn't look like most people's expectation of what a camera looks like.

"Using a Canon 5D and 24–105mm was an entirely difference experience, and very difficult to manage discreetly with that large front element. I found the least intrusive solution was to hold the camera somewhere between waist and chest height and frame by guesswork—not that difficult with a bit of practice. But it still drew attention (and often a wary look), which changes the photograph.

"I've tried street photography with a TLR (Yashica Mat 124G) and classic folders (Bessa II 6x9 and Voiglander Perkeo II 6x6) and found these draw curious looks but none of the wariness that accompanies the 5D. Sometimes people stop to ask about the old cameras, and are surprised to learn you can still buy film. I've had some nice conversations when using these vintage cameras.

"You've mentioned age but don't forget gender: in my observation women of any age taking pictures of people in public places are universally deemed harmless and quickly ignored. I've seen a woman on a crowded beach walking up close to take pictures of other people's children with a DSLR and a large zoom lens and no-one bats an eyelid. Try that if you're male and be prepared for an entirely different reaction.

"Come to think of it I'm surprised there aren't more well known women street photographers. How many more Vivian Maiers are out there waiting to be discovered?"

Derek: "I've noticed that when I have some of my Fuji bodies (X100 especially, X-Pro 2 even with the 56mm ƒ/1.2 mounted on) it feels like people around me tend to express hints they're open to me photographing them."

Bob G.: "I understand the ability to photograph easily with confidence can be difficult. As an art director/designer most of my life, I’ve had to hire and organize photo shoots of various types. These were tightly controlled and scheduled events, as the meter was running for not only the photographer(s), but their assistants, makeup and grip personnel, etc. Everything had to fall into place and wrap with the conceived idea hopefully achieved. I would avoid manually handling anything with the cameras, only directing what I needed.

"In general, I was also respectfully intimidated when shooting others by myself, but later remedied this by imagining that the scenes with people were photo shoots and all hired to do their part for me. That built confidence, sometimes even enabling me to 'direct' people walking by. The trick is to compliment them. Another technique is to shoot reflections of them in windows. 'Standing with the camera' is also good—anything to lessen the perceived tension that leads to 'fight or flight.' The mindset should not be 'taking their picture,' but you’re 'making your photograph.' This obviously pertains to permissibly legal situations.

"As to camera size, yes, with a smaller camera, one is more of a 'tourist' amateur. But in general, people are more negatively sensitive now, at least with phone cameras, with all the photos being able to be broadcast on the web easily."

Ernest Zarate: "As you brought up a couple good tips for photographing strangers (I have long used both a low-key, unobtrusive approach, and staying in one place long enough to blend into the background), I’ll toss in another one I have found valuable.

"When I was photographing people out and about, when I lowered my camera, I never looked at the people I’d just photographed. Rather, I looked past them, as if I was photographing something beyond them. I would even have a slightly annoyed look on my face, as if they were in the way of what I was photographing. I might even move around slightly, take a step to the right and/or left, looking past the people, as if I was trying to find the 'just right' spot. This would allow me to grab a couple more shots without incurring any wrath. I could, and often did, add some other elements of play acting into it as well.

"I knew I had done a good job of selling my act if the people I’d photographed turned around to look behind them to see what I was looking at. That happened nearly every time. It wasn’t necessary to convince them; I just had to create enough doubt that they were not sure what was going on."

David Raboin: "A few thoughts on people noticing cameras from a shy street photographer.

"When I shoot with my Ricoh GR III, people mostly don't notice me, but if they do, they don't take me seriously, they pity me for shooting with what they think is an ancient point-and-shoot. With my Ricoh, I could shoot a person in the middle of Fifth Avenue and no one would care.

"I also do street photography with my Canon R6 and large zooms. I've found that the general public hasn't figured out mirrorless cameras yet. Most people think you need to look through the viewfinder to take a picture. I use the LCD and back button focus set to face detect. As long as the camera isn't up in my face, people don't realize that I'm snapping pictures.

"One more thought on street photography: some cities are easier for street photos than others. I travel the US endlessly, and I've found that street photography is easiest in Manhattan NYC. The streets there are so busy thay nobody has time to care about a guy with a camera. The same goes for busy tourist areas like Santa Monica Pier or Pike Market. A photographer can hide in a crowd, especially if the crowd is mostly confused tourists. The most difficult places for street photography are quieter medium sized cities. Put me in a place like Kansas City or Fort Worth and I have a hard time taking street photos with a lens shorter than 85mm."

Mike replies: One of my major shooting revelations was when I shot for six or eight months on the streets of DC with an Exakta 66, a medium-format camera with a waist-level finder. As you say about mirrorless, I suspect people mostly assumed that I was "in between" shots and adjusting the camera when I had the camera down low and was looking down into it. It didn't trigger that "I'm being looked at" feeling for them; they ignored it. I've always thought there should be a digital camera with a true waist-level finder, one that could have a proper light-blocking hood. Flip-up screens work pretty well as a substitute, and the image not being reversed is a big bonus.

Mark Sampson: "The early 'street' photographers, Kertesz, Cartier-Bresson, et al., had a great advantage. In their world, their subjects were not used to candid photographs being made 'off the cuff.' Photographs were rare, formal events like weddings and family portraits. Even Brownie snapshots were carefully composed and a bit of an event. So people didn't consider that photographs would, or could,be taken candidly, or in low light, or casually; thus freeing up the photographers to capture the 'decisive moment.' This advantage has been steadily evaporating since more or less World War II, and is now almost completely gone. Thus making the work of 'street' photographers today that much more difficult."

Mike replies: Not only that, but Helen Levitt has a lot to say (where, I can't recall) about the difference a few decades made in life on the street. I wish I knew the reference so I could share it; she talked about how life used to take place on the streets in the '30s and '40s, and there was always lots going on, whereas by the '60s and '70s the streets were comparatively dead and all the people had gone elsewhere. I'm paraphrasing, obviously.

Charlie Dunton: "Lots of stuff I agree with. I too am an introvert, though not shy. I just like to think things through before speaking. I've always used a large camera since going digital, always with a battery grip and usually a 24–105mm L lens. I'm currently shooting that way with a Canon R5.

"As you mentioned, I like large, expensive cameras because they help with the 'I'm a pro and paid to be here' attitude. I'm never pushy, but don't shy away or try to hide what I'm doing. I find honesty helps. I did notice something interesting on a recent trip to Disney World. We usually see at least one parade in Magic Kingdom, and I usually shoot it with my iPhone, typically just pictures for me. This last time I used the big R5. I found that anything bigger than a cell phone was instantly recognized by the people on the floats. So I got a nice smile and a wave from Anna and Elsa, also from Cinderella and Prince Charming, a nice smile from Tiana, but Tinker Belle turned and looked directly at me with a pout that would make a three-year-old proud. You have to be careful photographing anyone holding a wand!

"But the ones to watch out for are those walking behind. I had one woman walk briskly toward me with a big pucker on her lips. She approached so quickly that the action-following autofocus on the R5, as good as it is, couldn't keep up. I ended up with six badly unfocused images. The last one may have actually been inside the minimum focus distance for the lens. On the other hand, I recently spent 15 minutes talking to a beautiful woman at a Blackbeard Pirate Festival. Just as we were finishing our conversation, I asked her if I could take her picture, and she said certainly. I later found out she was a professional model which explains the strikingly gorgeous pose she gave me.

"Be honest, be polite, and show an interest in people, and it will go a long way."

Bill Tyler: "One of my favorite photos made on the street was the result of having a 4x5 Crown Graphic set up on a tripod. A little girl, accompanied by her parents, was fascinated, and asked if I would take their picture. It's posed, not candid, but the people and their happiness radiate from the image. I won't share it because I have no idea who they are, and don't want to invade their privacy even now, decades later. But it was having the big, complicated-looking camera that was the stimulus for the image."

Mike replies: I don't get not showing it, but okay.

John Camp: "This is a comment about your (Mike's) comment about Helen Levitt and the changes over a few decades. The change didn't actually happen in a few decades, it happened in a few years—the arrival of television. I'm old enough to remember it. After World War II, on my street in a veterans neighborhood—my father had been in the Army in Europe—there was always a lot going on. Neighborhood parties, weekly new movie premieres, many, many people belonged to fraternal organizations (Elks, Moose, Masons, Eagles, Lions, VFW, American Legion, Knights of Columbus, Odd Fellows and Rebeccas, etc.) There were all kinds of in-person clubs, too, for model airplanes, stamp collectors, photography, ballroom dancing and so on. Church-going was big. Sometime in the early fifties, TV arrived in mass numbers, and the street life literally disappeared overnight. No more neighborhood parties. No more clubs. I lived through that transition and it was stark. And, in my opinion, a shame. We exchanged a social world for bullshit."

The Sharp Edge

I'm going to be ready for spring. In previous springtimes, I spent most of my time driving around thinking, if I had a camera, and I were photographing, this would be perfect light and a great opportunity. (In fact if I were feeling cynical, which I'm not right now, I might say that's the state in which I have spent my life and in which I have mostly experienced the world.) But this spring, I'm going to be ready. I have my camera and its parameters in place; I've had some practice processing the files; I have an entire protocol worked out, from the kit I carry, to ingestion, to soft display of the results...so bring on the good light. I'm ready this time.

The thing is, though, I have to keep shooting now. Now. Because I need to keep in practice. Shooting with a camera is like shooting pool...every day you have to get over the initial rust and get back into the flow. Real pool players, if they haven't been shooting much, work intensively for some number of days—like, ten to fourteen hours at the table—because that's what it takes to get back "in stroke." Pool skills aren't just something you have and carry around with you and can deploy right away, cold, whenever the spirit moves you. It takes constant honing of the knife edge. Same thing with most skills that have a physical component. Most instrumentalists have to practice every day. Even vocalists. Athletes have to stay in shape by regulating their training. They can't just knock off for weeks and expect to stay right where they were.

Same thing with photographing. Most good shooters shoot every day. And even shooting every day, it takes a while to get back into it. And you still have good days and bad days. If you want everything you do to be natural and easy, you've got to keep your edge. I've heard plenty of stories of great photographers going out and shooting nothing for a while just to keep the hand and eye sharp. It's easy and cheap now, but you've still got to do it.

When I was learning zone focusing by feel with the Leica, I made it a habit to get the camera out every night and practice with it for ten minutes. Look at an object somewhere in the room, focus on it by feel, check for accuracy, repeat. It's not a bad idea with any camera. Take it out, pick out something to photograph, prepare to shoot whatever you're looking at...see how long it takes you to get ready to shoot. What are the sticking points that are slowing you down? Work on those things. If you have a spouse, go for a walk and ask your spouse to point to subjects. "That pine tree, vertical. That church over there, horizontal. Those flowers. That doorway, vertical." Whatever they call out, take a picture of it as quickly as you can—just for practice getting the camera around, holding it correctly, setting it, setting the lens, focusing, getting all ready to hit the shutter. Then put it back over your shoulder or back in the bag and do it over again.

Stay in practice! Whether with actual shooting or with exercises and drills. Shooting is a skill. Camera handling is a skill. They're not something that comes in the box. Touch the camera every day.

I'm going to be ready for spring.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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Cliff McMann: "Just a thought but combine the two. Back when I was at NOVA taking photography classes, Sally Mann came and showed us her work organized by project. Some famous and published at the time like pictures of the kids. Some more personal such as her father after his passing, at rest in her home before his remains final disposition. Her regular pictures of her pregnancy as it progressed. The project that captured the struggling photographer in me was a series of still lifes. Objects partially submerged in water. It was beautiful subtle work, she was generous enough to share a lot of near misses, along with a few that she was happy with. I was inspired and spent a lot of time shooting really bad still lifes between my scattered opportunities to shoot natural light posed portraits (my true love in this hobby.) Every one of those still lifes was awful. But in retrospect made me better. A lot of them were shot in our basement, pictures of pool balls on a terrible cheap Sears pool table. I owe a lot of my 30+ year love affair with this craft to an hour or two of Sally’s unflinching willingness to share her process, and to a cheap MDF Sears and Roebucks pool table. I guess I’m thinking: practice on what’s close, especially if it’s something you love. There’s no obligation to share, but even your misses may have value to someone. Her willingness and honesty certainly affected me. Yours has too. Thanks to both of you."

Mike replies: I used to teach at NOVA! And I know Sally, and have experienced a few of her demonstrations of process. She should make YouTube tutorials....

Stan B.: "Robert Frank was supposedly the Steph Curry of camera handlers, could get the shot from whatever angle—and look good doing it!"

Mike replies: When I interviewed Ralph Gibson he told me some great stories about Robert's camera-handling skills. The best one: he told Ralph he was going to show him a trick, took Ralph's Leica, pre-focused it, set the timer, and carefully tossed it up in the air. Ralph swore he had a contact sheet with a focused picture of himself and Robert standing on the ground looking up.

Chris Kern: "Most good shooters shoot every day. And even shooting every day, it takes a while to get back into it....

"If you want everything you do to be natural and easy, you've got to keep your edge. I don’t think you actually need a camera to 'keep your edge' as a photographer. You can practice photography virtually by keeping your eyes open and visualizing images without making them. In fact, there may be some advantage to employing that approach to maintain or improve your photographic skills because thinking about the pictures you might shoot frees you from the mechanical distraction of operating the camera. The value of imagining a picture ('imagination' and 'image' are cognates, after all) shouldn’t be underestimated."

Olybacker: "You are quite correct. I have found after a lapse of some time, especially when doing 'street' or documentary photography, lack of every day practise soon shows up. The eye might be there but everything else that goes with it, timing, getting the feet in the right place, having the right camera settings, even speed of getting the camera to the eye quickly can all be gone. Even shooting landscape photos requires continual practise or the mojo goes away."

Dan Montgomery: "This post might as well be directed to me personally. I've never been a full-time photographer, but there have been stretches during which I had my camera with me all the time, and I used it as you describe. All for the better. Now I go days, sometimes weeks, without using a camera, but when I do, I need stills and video, run-and-gun style, often in bad light in tricky settings. Inevitably, in all the switching of settings and lenses, the hooking up, unhooking and re-hooking up of lavalier mics, of using, then not using, a tripod, and of shooting this part with video lights but this part with room lights, I end up with one or another camera setting all wrong (to be discovered only after it's too late), or I leave with the feeling that I didn't 'work' the assignment enough, or both. I tend to blame, at least in part, the overabundance of buttons, toggles and menu settings, but you are right, the bigger problem is my waxing and waning expertise at using those buttons, toggles and menu settings. (For the record, everything has always turned OK, but I know that everything could have been better.) Right now, the cameras are out, and I am going to practice just for the sake of practice. Thanks for the post."

Bryan Hansel: "Great post! In winter months, I use warm but bulky leather gloves to keep my hands warm. I can turn every dial, push every button, change lenses, add filters, and do almost everything needed with those gloves on. It's only through practice that that's possible. I've had other photographers laugh when I say that if I'm not shooting a lot in winter, I'll watch TV at night with a camera in hand and gloves on just to keep that muscle memory active. And then we go outside in –15°F temps and I watch them struggle with their cameras, take their gloves off often, and get freezing cold hands. The practice is worth it!"

The One That Got Away

The phrase "you should have seen the one that got away" comes from fishing, of course. But it ought to come from photography.

When I recommenced photographing regularly this past Fall, I got fish-slapped by something I knew but had almost forgotten: to photograph is to get pictures, but it's also to miss pictures. Every day I go out, I return with a mental list of the ones I missed. Sometimes there are none, but often there are two or three.

Those misses get burned into my brain. I have a very visual memory. When I think of a person, I used to worry about my memory because of the lengthening amount of time it was taking the name to come to mind. But then I realize that I can recall the face instantly. So there's nothing wrong with my memory: it's just that it's the visuals that come to me first. Being very honest, I can remember missed pictures from decades ago, a few of them anyway, and still see them in my mind's eye.

I'll give you just a few examples from recent outings:

One*: I'm at the Tractor Supply, and the woman ahead of me, who is also buying dog food, is talking to the clerk. Like a lonely old man, which I imitate sometimes, I butt into the conversation, and she immediately engages, and we trade pleasantries about our dogs. Then I notice husband, standing off a few steps, looking glum, irritated, resentful and bored, and giving me a bit of the stinkeye for chatting up his woman. (Or so I imagine.) Cut to the parking lot: their German Shepherd is sitting in the driver's seat of their dark silver pickup truck, illuminated gorgeously by the setting sun. All I had to do was ask; the worse that could happen would have been a refusal, and that's no big deal. The camera was right on the passenger seat of my car one parking spot away. But because of the husband's attitude I thought, naw. Result: potential picture of perfectly lit German Shepherd in the truck cab looking anxiously back at his masters, in tones perfectly suited to B&W, is burned on my brain, taunting me (still, and it's been a few months now).

Two: On another dog walk, it was too dark to take the camera. Dusk. On the way back I hear voices on the lake, and when I got a view between two houses I see: opposite shore, black; foreground objects, silhouetted; the water of the lake, bright with the reflection of the darkening sky; and, set in a perfect composition, is a bass boat with the motor off, one fisherman standing at the bow with his line in the water, a second one standing by the motor with his line in the water as well, all pretty much silhouetted. All of it a perfectly composed picture just staring at me. It would have taken some effort to get the shot; I would have had to find something to loop the leash to, would have had to trespass on an absent neighbor's lake frontage, which I'm not above doing occasionally when the houses are empty; and I would have had to ask the fishermens' permission, because they were close enough to the shore to talk to. I don't know if I could have brought it all together. But maybe. A potential catch that got away.

Three: Just two days ago. It's been one of those dreadful winter days, dark, wet, all grays and browns and blanketed with oppressive overcast like the world itself is depressed. I'm just driving to town for Chinese food. Why take the camera? It's a decidedly unpromising situation to encounter any photographs. But. The local Mennonites and Amish don't like being photographed, so I don't photograph them. But I'm not above getting a picture of a horse and buggy when the opportunity arises, as long as the people inside aren't featured. I've got a lot of desultory tries littering various folders, but no standout picture yet. So what do I see that night? An empty Mennonite buggy with a gaunt horse standing motionless in a parking lot by the lake. I just glanced at it on the way by, but as the car passes all the elements snap magically into visual arrangement and bam, there's the picture, just waiting. Eminently gettable. All I would have had to do was pull over. There was no one around. I would have offended no one.

Four: When I had just had the loaner Sigma for a few weeks, I was going out to walk to dog on a beautiful evening, and I almost took the camera with me. I argued with myself: it's hard enough to handle the leash; Butters tugs at me when I'm trying to hold the camera still; I've seen the route a million times, and know all the pictures. It's always the same, more or less. So then, not a hundred yards down the road, what do I see but one of the two or three most spectacular skies I've ever seen in the Finger Lakes, which is really saying something. A great dramatic heap of distinctly defined clouds above the opposite shore, lit up all around the rim by the setting sun behind it, with one giant crepuscular ray coming out of one side. It was so stunning I just stood there staring. To add insult, I was passing right by virtually the only spot on my walk where I have blanket permission to walk down to the lake's edge whenever I want to. All I needed was the camera with me and I would have had a picture I would have been proud of for the rest of my life. One of top two or three missed pictures of all time.

The photographer's burden
Damn. You just never know where they are going to come from, and you never know when. There's no guarantee that you would have actually gotten the picture that was there; all you know for sure is that there was a good opportunity there waiting for you, sometimes staring you right in the face. Served me right. Carrying a camera is the photographer's burden. But you gotta do it. Take the camera.

Why don't these picture opportunities appear when I'm not actively engaged in photographing on a near-daily basis? I don't know, but that's the way it is for me. Once I start actively photographing again, they start to appear here and there. And—I'll just speak for myself—I know the best of the ones that got away are going to live on in my visual memory, sometimes for a long time.

Mike
Flickr page / New Yorker author page

*The TypePad compositor is very irritating when it comes to numbering things. If I type "1.", it immediately thinks I want to go into list mode, and supplies a "2." at the beginning of the next paragraph as soon as I hit return. There's actually a whole column in this: many, many modern interfaces add intrusive "helper" features just because they can, forgetting that control is actually more satisfying than being "helped" when you haven't @#$%! asked for help. Spellcheck gone awry is only the most common example of this. I say: stop helping, and give me control.

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Len Salem (partial comment): "The counterpart of 'the one that got away' is the one that serendipitously happens. Many years ago I was on holiday in Los Angeles, exploring with my then film camera. I saw a warehouse in a commercial district painted pink and standing out against a blue sky. In the UK no one ever painted warehouses pink. So I started taking a few photographs of it from different angles when I saw, out of the corner of my eye and about to come into frame, a jogger wearing a T-shirt in the exact same shade of pink as the warehouse. I waited a second or two and got that image. I would share it here but it is still in storage after a recent move and being pre-digital it is not on my computer. But I feel that photo was gifted to me somehow by a benign photo god."

John Krumm: "This is indeed a good sign that you are getting thoroughly back into photography. I have to tell myself to leave the camera home sometimes, because I'm doing something with my wife, and I want to be mentally present, but the occasional lost image flicks by. And think about all the lost images you never see, all the walks you skipped, early morning treks you passed on, country drives you canceled, and unexplored roads you drove by, eager to get home. As much as having the camera with you, you also have to be out there in the first place."

Mike Peters: "Wear your camera every day, every time you leave the house. In the winter or if it's raining, it's always under my coat. In the summer it's just there. I haven't left the house without a camera since the '80s. Most times I never use it, but when I see something, it's always there."

xf mj (partial comment): "The tension between dog walks vs. photo walks: I hear ya, Mike. I have tried so many elaborate leashing arrangements, while I attempt to hold the camera still for a shot, to somehow keep my tugging dog tethered and out of trouble. None of them really work, because sir Rocco always interrupts my composing somehow, or at least threatens to, and that distracts me from getting the shot and even just hunting the shot. Instead I'll hastily take pictures just to prove that 'Ha ha ha, Rocco, you didn't foil that one!' even when in reality the picture is just a tosser because of my haste. Of course I gotta be grateful to him because he is what gets me out of the house most times, especially in the dead of winter."

David Zalaznik: "Hi Mike, enjoyed the post. Your comment about asking permission of the fishermen struck me as something that I have rarely done beforehand. My goal has always been serendipitous moments and stopping to ask permission all too often would change the situation from what brought me to that moment. I start taking the pictures and, if they become aware of me working, I will stop for a moment, smile or wave and hold up the camera and go back to shooting.And I always take the time to talk afterward. I can think of only a handful of times in a 35-year career in photojournalism that the subject had an issue. Now, the clarification to that is I would take the photo only if I am on public property. And that goes for the Amish as well. They have a constitutional right to practice their religion and I have a constitutional right to practice my craft."

hugh crawford: "The mind is basically a camera, so they don’t really quite get away. My favorite film scene on that topic."

Dan Khong: "It is OK to miss a shot. For as long as there is still breath in our bodies, there will always be other opportunities."

Raymond Lee: "My father came to Hong Kong empty handed at the age of 12. His first job was an assistant store keeper for a rich family which had a son who spent money on photography. It's 1950. He ended up learning photography and darkroom techniques.

"Fast forward many years and I was 10, maybe 12, and I learned from him the basics. It's the early '70s.

"I didn't end up a photographer. (Nor did my father.) But I have been taking pictures since then. I like looking back at them. They remind me of occasions that I might have forgotten, or not, but they let me savour those moments.

"But I remember at one stage, probably towards the end of when film was mainstream, maybe around the mid-'90s, I made a comment to a friend while she was showing me around in Shanghai (where I visited for work): she asked, do you want to take a picture of this (some historical building)? And I said, I'd rather spend time looking at it and capture it in my brain. I did. I still remember that exact moment, and that exact scene, although the rapid changes in the city must have made it unrecognizable by now.

"So, my point is, if I can capture a moment with a camera, I'll do so. But at the same time, I always slow down to try very hard to impress the image in my brain. That way, if I missed a shot, there's a backup somewhere in my head—although theses days, in my 60s, memory is less reliable than early days floppy discs."

A Moon Never Hurts

On clear morning, when the dome of the sky is cloudless from horizon to horizon, I can see the line of sunlight from the Earth's shadow start at the top of the bluff on the shore opposite my house and creep down the bluff until it lights up the houses and reaches the lake. I've always thought it might be a good idea to get up before dawn and photograph it. This morning, opening the shade and looking out, I saw the day was brilliantly clear, and the shadow was halfway down the bluff, and I thought—a thought I often think—"Too bad. I should have been out there with the camera. Oh well."

Then I saw it—the Beaver moon, as this full moon is named, was setting above the bluff. I don't live right on the lake—what I like to say is that if my house were on the lake, it wouldn't be my house—and I thought, well, how fast can I get dressed and get down there? I shifted gears into hurry-up mode (like shifting the car from second straight to fifth), threw on some clothes, grabbed the camera, and jogged down to the lake—in my slippers! That's more exercise than I normally get all day, by the way. I'm generally better at naps.

Et voilà: Moonset.

(View large image)

[UPDATE Wednesday evening: This image and the one at "View large image" are variations of the first one I posted Wednesday morning.]

The rising sun has just reached the houses on the shore. That little slash of cloud wasn't there when I was looking from the window; it simply appeared; but that's all right, I like it. I think I can process this better eventually, once I understand it better—hey, even Ansel had to work on his "Moonrise" for years before he got it right. But that takes time. This was just taken a couple of hours ago.

Photographers are always looking for accents, something to save a scene from being just a scene. An oncoming car, a lone seagull—and the moon often serves this function. Every picture needs its punctum. The great 20th century curator John Szarkowski began a lecture about his own photographs by showing several slides while he talked about the fact that he didn't know, because no one can know, what really makes a good picture. Then he reached the punchline: coming to a slide that showed a ladder reaching into an apple tree, he said, "One thing I do know is"—on comes the slide—"a ladder never hurts!"—and suddenly the audience realizes that every picture they'd seen so far had a ladder in it*. The line gets a laugh.

Well, ditto for the moon, sez me. "Moonset" is no "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico," and I'm no Ansel Adams, and I like it all the same. After all, pictures can refer to and echo other pictures, right?

Mike

P.S. This picture is cropped to enlarge the main subject a bit. This is the first time that I've wished I had this lens, or this one...the first time I've had any GAS at all since I started photographing with the Sigma fp(m)'s in late August of this year. GAS always gits ya, no matter how happy you are with what you have.

*Compare John Szarkowski's comments (he never liked me to call him just "John" when he was alive—too familiar) with this comment by Keith Cooper of Northlight Images: "This is perhaps the difference between color and black-and-white. And I've found it takes people quite a while to get used to it. Once you do get used to it, you don't even notice you're doing it. And that is to think of shadows, particularly deep shadows, as objects in your composition. Now, this is very similar to the idea of negative space in composition, where what isn't there, and the shape of what isn't there, is as important as what is there; but, in black-and-white, it's much easier just to say, think of shadows as real things. As objects. Because that's how they can look." (Source)

Featured Comments from:

aaron c greenman: " The moon illusion is fascinating, and still unexplained as to why the human brain makes the adjustment. This past August in Crete, the moon rising above the horizon seemed so large (and so red) as to be almost impossible. Because everyone was so mesmerized (and reaching for their cameras), all the businesses on the harbor side turned off their lights to give a better view. But as impressive as the moon was to the eyes, it remained as small as normal in all our photos—which proves that it is a mental phenomenon, not an optical one. Anyway, thank you for the beautiful B&W shot of the lakeside in the evening...reminds me of my several years in Ithaca on Cayuga Lake."

robert e: "An unexpected bonus of waking up ridiculously early to help open the polls this (US) election day was seeing the lunar eclipse. The sky was crystal clear, too. What a picture: red Mars and red-shouldered Orion overhead and the red 'blood moon' low in the sky. I don't know what kind of equipment and skills could have captured that whole scene, but I didn't have either with me."

HDR Merge in ACR

Contrail Above Farm

Calm Hazy Day, Seneca Lake

A couple more new shots. I hope my new camera is not overstaying its welcome. If you look at the second one on Flickr, you can see some nice detail in the boat.

This last one is just a test shot. It was blazingly bright, with the sun glaring off the walk and the shadows all but black to the eye. I took three quick frames, one at metered exposure, one greatly overexposed, and the last greatly underexposed, and did an HDR merge in Adobe Camera Raw. It's very easy to do—you just open all three pictures at once, right click on any one of them and select "HDR Merge." The interesting thing about this is that I made all three pictures handheld rather than on the tripod. The dialogue box has a box to tick that tells the program to automatically align the images. I did get a few artifacts in this, and, also, when I took the metered exposure and simply processed that, it came pretty close to this result. So the jury's still out on whether that's a technique I'll use occasionally (when called for) or just ignore it and make do with one exposure in high-contrast situations. We'll see. It's at least another option as a backup for a picture I really want.

Mike

Featured Comments:

Michael Matthews: "Is it a lens effect—or has the pool shed developed a list to the right?"

Mike replies: 'Tis a little wopplejawed, yes. (Wopplejawed: Hoosier variant of whomperjawed, hillbilly/Southern for "askew.")

John McMillan: "My very Southern Ma loved the word, but pronounced it 'whoppyjawed.'"

Jim: "For years I shot landscapes only with 8x10" or 4x5" view cameras. Often I would encounter a scene where the range of brightness was too great to reveal texture in both the highlight and shadow areas. Then I would make a pre-exposure through a piece of frosted plexiglass, followed by a regular exposure. Here is one example, taken in bright morning light with deep shadows."

Mike replies: As you know, Jim, but others might not, that's a technique called pre-exposure, meant to counteract the fact that B&W film has an exposure threshold—that is, it has to receive a small amount of image-forming light before it starts forming a latent image. Pre-exposure is meant to get the sheet of film into the reciprocity range so that shadows begin building immediately, allowing you, in theory, to give less exposure, and thus restrain the highlights, for contrast control. (And dappled sunlight in the woods is indeed surprisingly contrasty.) Pre-exposure is described by Ansel Adams in his photography series. I once built a pre-exposure box out of plexi—a black cube, open at opposing ends, with a sheet of translucent white in the middle. You put this over the lens and gave the film a predetermined small shot of non-image-forming light prior to taking the picture.

Personally, when comparing pre-exposed negatives with the same scene that was not pre-exposed, I couldn't reliably tell the difference, so I just dispensed with using the method. I imagined that maybe the film in Ansel's day behaved differently, and the corrective effect was more pronounced. Although it's possible my technique was simply not rigorous enough to achieve the intended effects, or I screwed up somewhere in the implementation, who knows. 

Rob Campbell: "Something that I think I notice: in the last picture, there seems as if something is missing in the tonality of the buildings’ walls. I can’t put my finger on what it is, exactly, more a vague sense of missing contrast than just due to the quality of light on the planks? I have sometimes found this very same thing on some of my own pictures, too. I don’t remember it from my film days. Any ideas?"

Mike replies: Probably just that we're looking at an 800-pixel-wide JPEG in which a whole lot of information has to be thrown away—including, perhaps, the texture cues for the walls. It's also possible that certain tones get compressed too much in the process of adjusting the sliders, with some "micro ranges" of tones becoming a bit too flat or too harsh. Another way of saying this is that the curve becomes discontinuous, with jagged peaks and dropouts. But I don't know for sure. Where I see it most is in the fact that digital just doesn't have enough information in the highlights. It's one of the main reasons (IMO) for using a high-resolution, high-megapixel camera—the highlights can have more information in them, and thus can look more natural.

Eric Brody: "Whether the merge to HDR works well seems to depend a lot on the scene. I often shoot five-shot HDR's at 1–2 stop intervals and combine them. When I look later at the original images, often one of them is quite adequate, so I toss the others along with the HDR. With the dynamic range of today's cameras—mine is pretty good—HDR is often not needed. When it's noticeable, it's UGLY!"

Hit Rate Zero

I had an experience shooting yesterday (finally got back to it after ten days of COVID) that sometimes happens. I'll go out, get into it slowly, but eventually "harvest" a few situations or stops along the way. I get into it, and various things seem to work. Then I'll get back home with high hopes and a catalogue of possibilities in mind and discover that...I was "cold" and didn't really get anything.

I only posted one fp-M sample picture from yesterday, "Vultures Eating the Remains of a Deer." Everything else, I felt, just fell a little short.

Vultures Eating the Remains of a Deer, Loree Road West of Angus

Ultimately there's a level of commitment to a picture that has to be there in order for it to have enough energy. With some of my shooting, I feel I'm just "playing tricks," returning to old strategies that I know work. Reflections, rocks, whatever. Bah. Many times they'll be things that I've seen a million times that other people do a lot, certain patterns and objects and "things I know that people will like." Odd things for sale at the side of the road. A car under a tarp. The old falling-down ruin of a house or barn. Or something a famous photographer made a picture of years ago that my picture looks kinda sorta like. None of it is really enough to give me a decent level of commitment to the picture. Or I'll take a hackneyed subject and "work it," trying to "make it mine," and then, reviewing the pictures, give too much credit to that effort, only coming slowly to the realization that it failed anyway. Sometimes when you struggle too hard to be clever is when you're at your least clever.

When I come home "empty" like that, though, something strange happens...I find that instead of working less over the lot, I'll struggle and work and worry over the files in that folder more. I try processing one thing after another, as if hoping something will offer itself. The feeling being, "there must be a decent picture here somewhere." Or, "something I tried must have worked." It's hard letting go of your failures. But you might as well. I've always felt that in photography there's not really any such thing as an "almost" picture. Either the picture works entirely or it doesn't work at all. Everything's a no that isn't a yes. And yet, we spend most of our time and most of our effort fretting and fussing over all the almosts.

Get out
Yesterday wasn't a total loss. [UPDATE: "Vultures" made Flickr's Explore feature on the 16th.] But I will just note that it took me a very long time—years—for me to learn that sometimes you can go out and not get anything at all. I always felt like if you shot a certain amount, some percentage must be "good." Even if it's a very small percentage. That's not necessarily true. Sometimes you can go out and get a hit rate of zero. It's possible. You just have to be ready for that, is all, and accept it. Sometimes, in fact, you can shoot for days, even weeks if you're stubborn, without accepting that your idea, the direction you're going, just has no energy, and that you need to redirect and reboot.

Being out with a camera is enough, though, actually. Because the magic can't happen unless you're out there with the camera in your hand. You're not going to find a picture sitting at home watching TV. If you're out and about, maybe you didn't find a picture. But you might have.

Mike

Book o' the Week

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

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

B&H Photo

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

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

Sean: "I save myself from a lot of unnecessary suffering by expecting and excepting bad days. I've adopted a why-not-me attitude to disappointing outcomes, all in the service of the long view. It's the variability of the reward that makes me get back out there; it's the not knowing."

Stan B.: "Just getting...the one (as above), is what it's all about—any more is added (and much welcomed) gravy. On (very) rare occasions, more refined editing can provide the percentage point that will turn that almost into a keeper; usually, almosts are opportunities to learn and practice much needed discretion and discipline."

Tom Stermitz: "'A good day fishing should not bee confused with actually catching any fish.'"

Ernest Zarate: "Again, we find a lot to agree upon. I could wax on about the shooting experience, the editing and winnowing drudge, and so on. But I’m going to turn that over to the late Henry Wessel, in this KQED video made in 2007. The whole video is a worthwhile 8:12 in length, but the pertinent section starts at 3:37."

Mike replies: It's been a while since I've seen that, and it was good to look at it again. I've always thought of Henry Wessel as the model of the kind of photographer I would have been if I had been a photographer. Seeing some of his work always makes me want to go look at more.

Ernest: "Hank was my professor at SFAI, and also my mentor and my friend. I visited him at his home in Point Richmond on many occasions, and he at my home in Elk Grove, California. We went on photo shoots together in Santa Cruz, California, and talked at length, over the decades, about photography.

"When I was considering not doing photography any more, he wrote a lengthy letter to me, and then met with me, encouraging me to stay the course, which I did. His approach to photography is ingrained in my approach to the medium. I don’t do 'street photography' any more, but his philosophy transcends any one style or genre, as did he. As an adjunct photography professor at the local community college district, my guiding question was always, 'What would Hank do?' for his acceptance of student experimentation, and validation of their efforts was paramount in his teaching style.

"I feel, like many of his protegés, fortunate indeed to have had him as a professor. Many other photographers added terrific and valuable insights into photography for me, but none did it with the cheerfulness, the openness, and the complete acceptance Hank did. I miss him to this day."

Nick: "Ugh, that thing where you get stuck on an 'almost'! Most of the photos I've taken that I like best required almost no fiddling beyond the basic (straighten and crop just a bit, mess with the exposure and conversion to get the tones or colors distributed right, sharpen, publish), while the ones I spend forever fussing with usually never even end up on Flickr. I've gotten a bit better at 'Nope!'-ing out of a near miss over time, but I still occasionally find myself wasting 20 minutes moving sliders around trying to fix an annoying tonal merger or something."

David Dyer-Bennet: "This is maybe the biggest difference between 'kinds' of photographers. For photojournalists, event photographers, anybody working on documenting things happening, failure is not an option. (And...this is true even if you're just doing it for yourself, as opposed to having a boss/client who will notice your failure.) Which doesn't mean we don't fail. Some days there are no picture that I rate three stars or higher—nothing with a spark of life to them. One must proceed with what one has."