Monthly Archives: December 2006

Zealotry

Dining, Photography

To some extent, we are all guilty.

If you accept the modern definition of a zealot as one who advocates the use of a specific technology regardless of its suitability, then I confess I am guilty.

Until digital came along, I was a Leica zealot. Once disgust with Microsoft came to bear, I became an Apple zealot.

I would argue my motivation was simply that something better had come along.

In the case of Leica, superior point-and-shoots – which is what the M Leica is all about – came to market at a fraction of the cost with far greater capabilities.

With Apple it was far easier. The Mac worked. Windows did not.

And now I am a fan of both digital image making and Apple computers. To the exclusion of all else? Not a bit of it. If something better comes along for my purposes, I will move on.

Some Leica film users stick with their old cameras because it’s in their comfort zone. I have no issues with that. It may be that they are limiting their options but that’s not my business. Whatever works for you and makes good snaps possible, have at it.

But here’s what works for me – that sweet little pocketable Panasonic Lumix LX-1.

So, apropos nothing, here are two snaps taken the other day. One is at a favorite restaurant in San Luis Obispo named Novo on Higuera Street, which has a gorgeous patio setting over the river. I asked for the ‘special’ and this magnificent production, halibut on a bed of spinach with that exotic pink mushroom, subtle in size (a rarity in corpulent America), sublime in taste, was presented:

Then, wandering down to that great sausage shop on Marsh Street in this lovely Victorian town, what did I come across?

This great old car company is run by an Englishman named Peter. An American success. He came here some 25 years ago as an illegal immigrant, employs 10 people, now has legal status and works on the finest English machines you could dream of. And it simply does not get any better than an S1 Bentley. We will forgive the missing hubcap and those frightful whitewall tires.

Always carry a (pocketable digital) camera.

No more Great Photographers?

Photographers

Falling attention spans and video are the cause.

When I was a teenager gazing at photographs some forty years ago, the ‘Great Photographers’ I knew then pretty much remain the ‘Great Photographers’ I know today.

If you want to know their names, just click on Book Reviews and many of those profiled fall in the list. Cartier-Bressson, Sudek, Callahan, Evans, Capa, Ray Jones, Frank, Snowdon, Erwitt, Brandt, Brassai, Kertesz, Penn, Avedon, Porter, Beaton, Blumenfeld. The list is not long. You could add maybe another dozen names and the whole collection would represent 90% of content in photography shows in art galleries and museums.

Journalists do not feature in this list. They never will. Capa comes closest to that description but his pictures transcend journalism and become works of great humanism. Of the other well known photojournalists they are, for the most part, One Shot Wonders. Most remember the picture of the Viet Cong being shot in the head by the Vietnamese, one or two know it was Eddie Adams who took the picture. That’s it for Adams. The American Flag raising on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima? Why Joe Rosenthal took that one – something most learned when his obituary was published the other day. Matthew Brady and all those dead soldiers in the Civil War? Who has any interest in these drab works today?

No, I’m afraid photojournalism is about as much respected as an art as its twin, journalism. Journalists award one another the Pulitzer Prize as no one else will reward them, for theirs is a transient art, good for the moment, forgotten tomorrow.

The list above include five photographers who made their living in the world of fashion (Penn, Avedon, Snowdon, Beaton, Blumenfeld) yet each reached to greater heights with their art and reportage work. Beaton’s searing pictures of London in the Blitz are more than mere photojournalism and his work in the Far East approaches Cartier-Bresson’s best. Penn’s fertile mind rendered art of everything about him. Snowdon’s work, the touchstone of sensitivity, ranks as one of the greatest photo-portraitists. Avedon was incapable of being ordinary in any work he did, be it fashion or social commentary. Blumenfeld simply changed the way we see.

And what of the others? To a man they were great photographers of man and his environment. From the cubism of Cartier-Bresson to the expressionism of Walker Evans, the beauty of Kertesz or the sublime passion of Sudek, they simply saw more clearly, in a fresher vein, than anyone before.

But how about since? Why is it that most of these ‘Greats’ are long gone? Has the world stopped making great photographers?

No, not a bit of it. Surf photographs on the Internet and you will see photography every bit as good as that of these masters. But the problem is, we no longer care. The age of the still photograph as a Great Photograph is over. On the one hand, still photography has never been so ubiquitous, or so easy to do well, if only from a technical perspective. Focus, exposure, sharpness – they are all pretty much guaranteed today. Results? Instant, obviously. So while it is finally true that Anyone Can Take a Photograph, and certainly many good photographers can take a great one, the audience is, in large part, gone.

And while I, for one, find that sad, I know better than to deny history.

Today’s attention spans, in Western civilization at least, are simply too short for the still picture to make sense. Who is going to stop and gaze and think and wonder just what was going on when Cartier-Bresson pushed the button and why he chose that moment to push it? You and I, maybe, as I doubt you would be visiting here otherwise. But the consuming public needs 24 images a second to hold its attention, even if the visual content is execrable, the message beyond banal. Maybe our brains have become so attuned to, nay, drugged by the need for constant change, that we prefer moving pap to still literature?

And that is why, except for a few devotees of the art, there are no new Great Photographers any more in the world of still photography.

One hundred yards – Part IV

Photographs

Some of the best pictures are one hundred yards from your doorstep. Or less..

Given how much time we spend in our homes, it’s surprising that many photographers feel they have to journey to remote, exotic locations in search of picture opportunities. They arrive tired, are in a strange location which they have no time to ‘learn’, and leave frustrated. You must make the return flight and have to make do with whatever weather is around at the time.

By contrast, the circle centered on your home, with a 100 yard radius, provides some of the best photographic opportunities. You know the area, are rested and have no deadlines. There is no return flight. And you can wait for the weather to come to you.

Here are a couple more snaps, taken over the years, all within 100 yards or less of where my bed was the previous night. More to come over the next few weekends.


2 yards. Templeton, California. Mamiya 6, 75mm.


7 yards. Templeton, California. Mamiya 6, 75mm.

For more on this theme, please click here.

Bigger and faster

Canon 5D

A 2 gB CF card joins the Canon 5D.

When I first got my Canon EOS 5D I opted for two of SanDisk’s fastest 1 gB cards, the so called Extreme III, costing $103 each in February, 2006.

As digital tends to result in more pictures being taken, and as I shoot only in RAW on the 5D, given the ease of processing RAW images in Apple’s Aperture, I found myself running out of space on these cards more frequently than I like. Each holds 58 RAW images.

CF card prices continue to come down apace in price so I have added one 2 gB Extreme IV card, $91.95 after rebate to my CF card collection. Twice as much storage for less than a 1 gB card just 9 months earlier!

SanDisk claims the Extreme III can write data at no less than 20mB per second; by comparison, the Extreme IV is rated at ‘up to 40 mB per second’. Now ‘up to’ probably is some sort of ideal scenario and I have no idea if the card is faster as, with the 5D’s huge internal buffer I don’t need to care, but there’s no denying the capacity increase.


With an empty 1 gB card


With an empty 2 gB card

Now 120 photographs in one session is a lot for this photographer, but not having to change cards in ‘mid roll’ is one less thing to worry about. Further, these cards are so reliable in use that I am far less concerned about data loss than when I first got the 5D – the argument being that it’s better to store images over several cards to reduce loss if a card goes bad.

The largest card on the SanDisk web site is a 16 mB Extreme III which would store no fewer than 960 (!) RAW images, albeit at a punitive cost in excess of $1,000. Which, I suppose, means it will be $200 in twelve months’ time. Maybe I will be writing this piece again in a year, extolling the virtues of a thousand image card….