Style

Photographs, Street portraits

A charming person.

“Are you taking pictures for a magazine?”

She had spotted me gazing at the murals in one of the many decorated alleys in the Mission District of San Francisco.

“Ha! No, I’m not that good. Just doing them for myself, really.”

“What sort of camera is that?”

The big Nikon attracts far more than it repels, in my experience.

“Just a regular Japanese thing. Nothing special.”

“I’m not good with cameras but I used to paint. Until my mate was killed. I won a competition once and gave the money to a local youth center.”

“Killed?”

“Yes. Seven years ago. A street robbery. I haven’t been able to pick up a brush since.”

“I know it’s easy for me to say, but it’s like falling off a horse. You have to gut it out and get back on.”

“Yes, someone else told me that.”

“I love your outfit – the way your earrings, jacket, scarf and pullover go together. It’s quite lovely what you have done.”

“Thank you.”

“Mind if I take a snap of you?”

“No, please do. Where are you from?”

Her natural grace needed no posing, the head inclined just so, a gaze direct and confident.

“London, but my favorite cities are Paris and San Francisco. Yours?”

“London for me every time.”

Nikon D3x, 35/2 MF pre-Ai Nikkor at f/4.

Hard hat

Photographs, Street portraits

One nice man.

“Say, man, that is one nice camera you have there.”

“It’s a bit of a bear to carry around, I can tell you. Here, try it.”

He weighs it up in his hands.

“Yeah, I see what you mean. But it’s a beauty.”

“Thanks. The weight is the penalty for good results. You are laying down fresh tar?”

“Yeah, it’s just temporary. I’m surprised we didn’t find cobblestones here.”

“Cobblestones?”

“Last dig I was on we shipped out three truckloads. Those guys sold them for $3. Each!”

“$3 each? Those things will last forever. Mind if I take your picture?”

“Of course not.”

Snapped on the D3x, 35mm pre-Ai MF f/2 Nikkor at f/4.

Lameography

Photography

Utter rot.

You know a fad has peaked when it’s the sole focus of a retail store in a costly downtown location, San Francisco in this case.


There’s one born every minute. At 309 Sutter Street, San Francisco.

Here, for under $100, you can buy a POS plastic camera which will take simply atrocious snaps regardless of whether you are Steve McCurry of National Geographic Fame, or Joe Blow. Quite why anyone would want to drop an anvil on their foot before even pressing the button continues to defeat me, and it’s a view which has only strengthened since I wrote about the crap Holga some seven years ago.

Simply stated, you can take a perfectly well resolved and exposed image on a digital point-and-shoot costing under $100, or you can take detritus on film with one of these plastic suppositories for the same price plus the cost of processing and digitizing the images. It’s a cost which recurs every time you unload the film. The digital original can be manipulated to your heart’s content. The one from the suppository will continue doing a passable imitation of excrement regardless of what you do. And you will look like a fool using it.

It’s your choice.

But I’ll bet you one thing. The above store will be out of business a year hence and I’ll publish that here to prove it.

Here’s one of the cheapest digital cameras at Amazon today:

$75. Your choice of output – quality or crap.