Got any photography questions? You'll be helping me out.
I can only answer the ones that I know off the top of my head. As I said to a reader once who had an insistent question, if one of us has to go do research, I don't see why it shouldn't be you.
I'm not the one to ask about technical niceties, because my interest, and hence my knowledge, is limited*. (The older I get, the less I think technique matters in photographs. You need what you need, and as long as you're not a professional doing work on assignment, you won't need much. Henri Cartier-Bresson said it took him three days to master his first Leica, and when Peter Turnley made the switch from film to digital he hired an expert to teach him, and they worked intensively for three days, and that was that—done, back to work.) But I'm pretty good with content, process, method, artmaking issues, motivation, direction, aesthetics, accomplishment, and so forth—mostly from the creator side, not from the perspective of the appraising art critic looking on from outside. I've always been on the side of photographers. I guess if you read here much at all you'll be broadly familiar with my strengths and weaknesses**.
I'm asking because I've got an empty tank this morning when it comes to ideas of photography-related things to write about. If you can think of a question you'll be helping me!
Mike
*And getting more so all the time. When he was in his retirement, I asked Rudolph Kingslake to write about optics and lenses for the photo magazine I edited. He had studied under the great Conrady at Imperial College London and was the former Head of the Optical Design Department at Eastman Kodak, the founder of the Institute of Applied Optics at the University of Rochester, and the author of six books on optics and lenses. His response was, "I don't know anything any more." I couldn't understand that then, but now I'm beginning to get it.
**Speaking of weaknesses, Robert Roaldi's joke: "A retired guy decided to get a part-time job for some extra cash. At the interview with the much younger manager, the interviewer asked the old guy what he considered to be his greatest weakness. The old fella said 'My honesty.' Young manager says, 'That's interesting, I never thought honesty could be a weakness.' Old guy said, 'I don't give a damn what you think.'"
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Featured Comments from:
PaulW: "Would you ever consider writing a book on B&W photograhy? I love B&W photography, monochromatic really, but I've never become good at it. I've always felt like I stumble through the process haphazardly, and any success I have leans toward luck more than knowledge or skill. I'm competent with photographic technologies, lighting, composition, and I can even make a good color photo, but B&W really trips me up. With your years of experience I can't imagine you not having some great pearls of wisdom to pass on to others. You've done this in many of your posts here on TOP, but I'd love to see all that great knowledge put into one place."
Mike replies: Film or digital? Or both?
Actually the photography book I'd like to write would be called "Classic 35mm Photography" (or that could be the subtitle), and there would be two parts: one volume of history, how-to, and the technical underpinnings, and the second volume a selection of 60 or 80 pictures (maybe two or three of them mine) with commentary. Now would be a good moment for it, what with the renaissance of interest in old film cameras.
The trouble with books is that they require intensely front-loaded effort. Imagine promising to work for a new employer for a whole year, or two, at which time he will decided if, and how much, he will pay you. And your chances are maybe one in four that you will achieve minimum wage for the effort expended. You can see the problem. A body's gotta eat. People with more energy or more resources can take the risk; as a recovering chronic depressive (it's much better now than in the past, however), my energy has generally been rather on the low side.
William Giokas: "What would be a good travel camera? I could take my Leica and a 35mm lens to keep things simple. But, I would probably miss a zoom lens."
Mike replies: I once asked Ansel Adams what kind of camera he used, and he replied, "the biggest one I can carry!" Which was his standard answer. So the answer to your question comes down to, what's the biggest one you will carry?
My suggestion therefore has three tiers:
Small: IF (big if, get it?) you are only going to look at the pictures on your phone, tablet, or laptop, or post them on social media, a good late-model smartphone. The limitation of course is quality when zoomed in, and quality and maximum print size when printed.
Medium: Your choice of a good small, light Micro 4/3 body with one of the two Panasonic 12–60mm lenses on it. The smaller one is very good; the Leica-branded one is faster and a little better, but heavier. My feeling is that you don't want to be changing lenses on your carry-around camera when photographing is not your #1 priority, and having that extra reach out to 120mm-equivalent will be a crucial benefit of carrying a zoom.
Big: IF you want to make prints, ever, a Fuji X-T5 and you decide on the lens(es). Our friend Dennis Mook posted his thoughts about that paragon of camera brilliance (still my top pick as the most recommendable camera across all brands and models) at The Wandering Lensman. Alternately, for maximum capability and versatility in the smallest package, the OM System OM-1 with the 12–100mm lens as your only lens (a "nested" 20mm pancake is nice to have to make the camera lighter and smaller when you need that, say, when you're going out to dinner or traveling through airports).
Peter Komar: "Part question, mostly requesting your opinion on, so-called street photography and mostly film shooters. My view and opinion is that most of what I see on YouTube is that it’s all mostly very amateurish. Yes there are/were some real artists, the Turnley brothers, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Vivian Maier. My gosh I wish the current street photographers would just buy their books or view the body of great images the above three produced (in the case of the Turnley brothers they are still going strong). Well, I guess this turned into a rant but I would like to hear your opinion on our current situation where anybody shooting film has a YouTube channel and label themselves as a street photographer. Yes there are some good ones out there but mostly the rest are just boring."
Mike replies: Street photography is one of the easiest genres to work in and one of the most difficult to do well. So you just need to remember that most people doing it will just not have much actual aptitude for it, or won't have the time or dedication to do enough of it to yield consistently good results (it's very low yield per hour put in and number of shots taken), or won't have the discrimination and taste to know which of their own pictures are really great and which are average, or mediocre, or that just show them "playing the same old games" (we all have our tricks that we play, some of which become notorious as clichés among the self-appointed critics on the Internet). And there's close to zero market for it, so it's sort of like poetry in small literary and prestigious general-interest magazines: highly competitive but for no real reason.
It's an area in which gatekeepers and shared group experience would be very helpful. And those two things are sorely lacking, if not missing altogether, on the wilds of the Internet. So I'd be inclined to seek out websites dedicated to street photography, or cooperatives, or individual artists who post new work on websites or Instagram.
If the old rule is that 95% of everything is crap, then 99.9% of street photography is crap, but the remaining .1% is still a hell of a big heap of work and it's all out there. You just have to work to find it.
robert e: "How do you figure out what to charge for one of your prints? (Or, for that matter, a digital image?) You may have covered this before, in which case a link would be appreciated, assuming that finding the link doesn't fall under 'research.' ;-) "
Mike replies: Wish I knew. I think before you charge for prints you make a commitment to be the kind of photographer who sells prints. Just charging for a random print now and then is bound to be awkward.
When I was at the Corcoran, we were ostensibly being trained to be art photographers, i.e., doing self-directed creative/expressive work, having shows of framed prints occasionally in which prints were for sale, trying to get into juried shows and the like, trying to get gallery representation, getting published. Very distinct from professional photography, photojournalism, or hobby photography. If you want to know what an art photographer does, just go to the website of a successful one and look at his/her c.v., and you'll see the activities they target.
At that time, we were told that $350 (and this was in the mid-'80s) was acceptable for a student print, but once we graduated we should aim for $750 or so, $650 at minimum. But $650 in 1985 when I graduated from the Corcoran is $1,800 now, and I don't think I've ever gotten that much for one of my prints from that day to this. Of course, I never really played the game, so that probably makes sense.
A few things I think I do know: 1.) the less you charge, the more buyers will complain and push back; 2.) if you charge a lot, your print quality and presentation better be impeccable; and 3.) becoming a salable art photographer takes every bit as much marketing skill, savvy, and effort as being a working professional competing for jobs. Just a different kind is all.
Mike Plews: "How do I get a digital inkjet print that is as beautiful as the ones I used to get from Portriga Rapid back in the day? I can get nice prints from my printer but not that nice. Something is just missing."
Mike replies: Forget digital! How do you get a B&W film negative print on fiber-base gelatin silver paper today that's as beautiful as the ones we used to get from the old Portriga Rapid?!
Bob Keefer: "As a fellow chronic depressive, I'd be interested in your strategies for staying engaged with a photographic project—or with photography generally. I'm not looking for ways to deal with depression; over the years I've learned to keep it under control, mostly, with diet and exercise and the seasonal use of a happy light in the morning. I'm interested in what to do when your photography is in demand—you can get your work shown in a gallery or publication—and yet you're struggling for that next idea, wanting to find something that doesn't feel endlessly repetitive and that isn't boring to create. Travel helps, as does the occasional new lens, but you can sink a lot of money in that kind of diversion without getting much in return. Any ideas for curing photographic ennui?"
Mike replies: Just work. And you work by playing. Go out and do. Do something stupid or silly. Follow your id. Let the work come to you. But get out there with the camera in your hands.
Mark L. Power told me once that when his students complained, he used to sympathize, help them analyze, hold their hands, commiserate, soothe, etc. But finally he realized that they only complained when they weren't working. Go out and look, and look some more. Get the camera in your hands and start messing with it. If nothing works today, just shrug and try something else tomorrow. Shoot till you get one that turns you on and see if you can figure out a way to string another one to that one. Or set some silly goal that takes you places—nineteen pictures of feet in 19 days; ten good pictures that include clock faces; walk up and ask a stranger if you can make a portrait of them until you get 50 rejections. Find the highest point you can get to in five towns and keep going back till something happens. Anything can work. Work is what it takes. Just go work.
Aakin: "What are your thoughts on shooting in JPEG?"
Mike replies: Well, Bruce Fraser's Camera Raw was one of the turning points of photography in digital for me, and I've shot in raw ever since, but the times are very different now. In-camera conversions are excellent now, cameras no longer have problems with white balance, and high-resolution sensors have much better dynamic range. JPEGs from good cameras today are much more correctable in post, too. Raw can be better for some styles of photography, and can offer more flexibility, especially if you've mastered a sophisticated editor like Photoshop or Capture One. But JPEGs look great now, can be simpler to work with, and can streamline your workflow. I'd say go for it, and if it works for you, don't give it another thought.
The thing that will tell you if you need to do something differently are the pictures themselves. If you're getting what you want, then don't change. If you're coming away dissatisfied too often, then do something differently. There are no rote rules.
Kirk: "If you had ample funds, ample time and access to any gear you wanted where in the United States would you like to go explore? What kind of project would you make of it? How would you produce it? Where and how would you show it to an audience? Do you see the possibility for a resurgence of bricks and mortar photogrpahic galleries? If you had to choose between being out photographing your passion or spending the time in the office printing the results of past passions which would you choose? How would you choose? Given we only have so much time in front of us would you consider the idea of legacy (printing, arranging, showing) or rather, embrace the fun of the process of shooting? Which is more important to an artist, having a good and ample social media presence or chasing after publication in a book which might reach several thousand people? Is the black and white print still the gold standard in an age in which people can reach thousands and thousands of viewers using good social media platforms and the skills needed to attract audiences? Do we do ourselves a disservice as artists in constantly mining the past as opposed to embracing the future of our photographic craft? Another travel and value question: What are the 10 best places in the USA to see great photography in gallery environments? Can you speak to their individual attributes? What do you think the impact of images made solely through 'text to image' Artificial Intelligence will have on the market for collectible photography and/or commercial photography? How can we of a certain generation keep up with progress/changes in the art of photography (styles, content, craft) without defaulting to just mining the legends from a time when barriers to entry made defining 'stars' easier? What do you think of the current styles of street photography? It seems so many younger practitioners are copying each other by using film Leica M cameras and 28mm lenses. Snapping semi-candid opportunities and displaying online in the same styles. Is this the death knell of street photography? What would you like to see more of in this genre? Less of? Do photographers retire? Do artists retire? Why is there a resurgence of film based photography right now? Are there cultural trends that would explain this? Why are Americans so 'home centric' in their photographic interests? Should we be more open to international trends and styles instead of endlessly worshipping American documentary and landscape photography from the far past? How often do you get to New York City, Boston, Miami, San Francisco or Santa Fe to visit galleries? Of those galleries you visit which are your favorites? Recommendations for new shows of new photographic works? Given that publishers are disinterested in funding new books by artists, preferring to have artist help with both funding and marketing of books amid the skyrocketing prices for production do you see a time when photo books by any other than proven money makers like Annie Leibovitz just die out and photo books cease to become a venue for up and coming photographers? How will that affect future photo artists? Why do you disregard Leicas with such prejudice? So many of the cameras are so good and can still be had used for affordable prices. I'm curious to know what puts you off besides the 'idea' of price. Have you visited the Humanities Research Center at UT Austin? The Gernsheim Collection of Photograph, the recent acquisition of Elliott Erwitt's work and the Magnum Collection on loan from Michael Dell would seem to make it a top destination for critics, collectors and pundits on the subject. Do you have plans for a visit? Do you need a place to stay? :-) "
Mike replies: Wow. I can't top that, Kirk. My general answer, quoting David Vestal's mentor Ralph Steiner, is: "In Spite of Everything, Yes!" (It was the title of one of his books of photographs.)
(P.S. I am not prejudiced against Leicas. I've owned or shot extensively with a number of them over the years. More than I've owned Canons, Minoltas, Hasselblads, or several other brands.)