Category Archives: Photographers

Stone Canyons of the Colorado Plateau

Book reviews

By a master of the landscape.

Jack Dykinga has been featured here a decade ago and his work in the American west continues to define the standard for landscape photography.


Click the image for Amazon.

Dykinga works with film in 4″ x 5″ field cameras using the finest Schneider lenses, and it shows. While film in small sizes is largely the province of cranks and those who place little value on their time – not to mention the quality of the results – the use of large format sheet film is thoroughly justified in this case. High pixel count digital sensors may be the thing for landscape snappers today, but it’s hard to beat the sheer plasticity of Dykinga’s results. Add an expert’s eye and you have a book to wonder at. There is absolutely nothing dated about the images on display here.

Long discontinued, it’s abundantly available from Amazon and resellers like Abe Books.

Traveling in style

Book reviews, Photographs

On the great liners.

In an age where (mostly white) trash pervades the news cycle, and one in which such human detritus is headed for the Oval Office regardless of one’s vote, it’s a pleasure to contemplate an earlier age of paparazzi which saw the rich and famous photographed crossing the Atlantic in the luxury liners of the inter-war years.


Fred and Adele Astaire on the S.S. Majestic, 1927.

The New York Times reminds us of that age in a splendid piece with many period images, which you can see by clicking the picture above.

For those interested in the great liners I recommend ‘The Only Way to Cross’ by John Maxtone-Graham, available used through Abe Books. The book looks exhaustively at these floating palaces, from the Mauretania and Titanic through the QE2, in both aesthetic and technical detail and is highly recommended. It includes many period photographs.

If you are seeking to get a sense of just how special these great ships were, you can stay on the Queen Mary in Long Beach which is now a floating hotel.

Steve Jobs – the movie

Movies

Oscar night.

Steve Jobs, the movie, is recommended viewing. While Michael Fassbender in the starring rôle may resemble Jobs solely in his emaciated build, you can disregard all the carping directed at this beautifully scripted Aaron Sorkin piece of cinema. Fassbender does an excellent job of showing the dysfunctional nature of the man, best illustrated toward the end when his ever complaining daughter Lisa asks why he is the way he is, to which he replies “I am not well made”. As regards parenting skills that may have been true but when it came to bringing a singular focus to making outstanding products Steve Jobs was very well made indeed.

After a second plea from Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen in a perfect characterization as the bearded engineer) to recognize the Apple ][ team during his iMac rollout Jobs replies that he will not do so, for that team of has-beens are B players. Just like the people running Apple today, who prefer to waste executive time on legal wrangling with the government in some sort of amoral marketing thrust, rather than crafting innovative products.

Fassbender is unlikely to get the Best Actor Oscar. He should.