Photographs, Photographers and Photography

How about f/0.85 back in 1934?
‘Glamor’ lenses for 35mm cameras, the ones with bragging power, have either entailed large apertures or extreme length.
On the extreme length end, it was rather like the cubic capacity of motorcycles. Once you hit the magic thousand, you had bragging rights. So when Vincent motorcycles (then known as […]

A master of the modern Western US landscape photograph.
If Eliot Porter’s nature photography appeals to the romantic side of one’s personality, Jack Dykinga’s appeals to the other extreme. A more formal, studied approach. Classical, if you like. That sounds boring on paper but the reality is that his work is astonishing. […]

RAW support in Aperture is an exercise in frustration
Apple provides a list of cameras whose RAW formats Aperture recognizes on its web site though it’s not easy to find. What prompts this note is that the latest release of OS X - 10.4.7 - out yesterday, adds support for a miserably short list of […]

A fine QR head system that can only have been designed by a photographer.
A few years ago the very idea of a tripod was anathema to this photographer. Sure, I knew about them and tended to regard them with emotions somewhere between pity and contempt. As a Leica using street photographer there was […]

A standout from the crowd of Manhattan picture books.
Wall Street Christmas by Robert Gambee was published in 1990, some three years after I had taken Horace Greeley’s advice and moved west to Los Angeles. It is a wonderful piece with superb photography and text by Gambee - a monumental task. The book has […]

Sometimes a simple abstraction strikes you, and you press the button.
Simple colors. Simple lines. An air of mystery. What is around that corner?

Lines and colors. Panasonic Lumic LX1, ISO100.
With the small Lumix LX1 and its superb Leica lens, there really is no excuse. Nowadays I always carry a camera, in contrast […]