WPD

 I have to confess that I don't recall previously being aware of World Photography Day.  According to the NPR website:

"Every year on Aug. 19, World Photography Day celebrates the art, science and history behind pictures. The day was first recognized in 1991 to commemorate the invention of the daguerreotype, a photographic process developed in 1837."

and

"...To celebrate this day, NPR asked readers and listeners to share the story behind their favorite photo they have ever taken. "

So, I am late to the game, but willing to play.  I've made a lot of pictures, but I can easily narrow down the possible candidates by focusing on my favorite subject.  I like all twenty-one images I've posted in the Margaret folder in my Flickr account.  Those pictures were made over a period of fifty-six years, and each was a favorite at the time.  Still, I think the first has some especially nice qualities, so I'll call it Number One.

As I noted in a response to a comment on the picture a few years ago,
"...I took the picture in a cheap hotel in the SF Tenderloin soon after we got to San Francisco. I bought the Speed Graphic just before leaving NYC along with the 4x5 polaroid back. I don't recall now what I really intended to do with that outfit at the time, but I'm glad I got this shot with it."

So, that's my story.  What's yours?

A Delightful Read

The Ongoing Moment
by Geoff Dyer

Geoff Dyer writes about the history of photography when making photographs required cameras containing film to record images. While there is no lack of such histories of photography's first 150 years, Dyer presents the information in a novel and entertaining style.  

Like any good historian, Dyer employs scholarly methodology to present the relevant details of photographers' lives and personalities which contributed to the unique qualities of their work.  Additionally, and more importantly, he illuminates the photographic productions of each photographer by identifying and comparing treatments of subjects and themes which were common to all.  

Sometimes influence was obvious as in these shots by Strand and Kertesz.

Strand

Kertesz

More often, photographs simply reflected elements which were common to the reality of reigning customs such as the wearing of hats.  So, with photographers who focused broadly on society, hats were an inevitable element of the their compositions as, during most of the period here discussed, adults very rarely exposed their heads in public places.  

Take a look, for example at the vast catalog of portraits of people riding the New York subway by Walker Evans; you will be hard pressed to find more than one or two -- man or woman -- without a hat.

Evans

Hats, fences, benches, doorways, roadways, stairways, building fronts -- there were a lot of common elements which showed up, but of course each of the famous photographers of the era put their own spin on the subject. Dyer presents all of this with insightful observation and humor.

Kertesz and Strand excelled at making images of groups of pedestrians seen from a high vantage point.  

Dorothea Lange used hats as a central element in portraying social status as in her White Angel Breadline.

Lange

As Dyer points out there was a somewhat surprising interest shown by top-tier photographers in the public life of blind people, who were often pictured trying to scrape out a living on city streets.  Those images came from photographers as diverse as Lewis Hine, Gary Winogrand and Diane Arbus, who chronicled  the life of the blind 60s street musician and poet, Moondog.

Arbus

 The last photographs in Dyer's book are dated 2001.  That is a significant inflection point because it signaled the definitive abandonment of the old print-based media for the emerging internet platforms.

In the older era, outlets for public access to photographic artistry was largely confined to a few magazines, newspapers and books, along with occasional gallery and museum exhibitions.  Those limited outlets offered opportunities for a relatively small number of photographic artists whose careers could be subject to examination by critics and historians.

The exponential expansion of media space in the internet universe made a coherent conceptualization of the photographic arts challenging, if not impossible.  There are authors today attempting to  meaningfully examine contemporary photography, but the possibility that any of them will achieve the kind of definitive synthesis available to Newhall or Szarkowski is remote given the immense scope of the task.

Easing into Film Photography

 The gift of a '90s era Nikon N8008s got me to thinking about how someone might be introduced to film photography who comes from a generation that has known only digital.  I have suggested meeting that challenge by starting off with the simplest of film cameras.  An alternative might be to work backward from the point where film cameras like the N8008s were digital in all but the recording medium.

By the start of the 1990's film camera makers were offering a lot of choices in cameras with fully automated control of focusing, film advance, speed and aperture adjustment, all under the supervision of miniaturized electronic circuits. The camera from that period I am most familiar with is the tiny fixed-lens Olympus Infinity Stylus which slipped in a pocket as easily as the bar of soap it resembled.

For photographers with bigger ambitions and pocketbooks, Nikon and others put interchangeable lenses into the mix. That came with a cost in complexity and weight.  The N8008s, for instance, requires four double-A batteries to power interchangeable lens focus operation along with the continuous digital display of all control settings. In compensation, the user could choose a fully automated point-and-shoot mode, or opt for full control over each aspect of the process, including shutter and aperture-priority, single or multiple exposures with a single button press, and a variety of metering styles. 

I test drove the N8008s with a roll of Arista 200 over two days in familiar surroundings: Old Town Albuquerque and the Rio Grande where our dog, Roxie, likes to run and splash in the river water.

The AF Nikkor 35-70mm Zoom which came attached to the camera of course was unsurprisingly excellent in image production.  While I have never really warmed to zooms, the very smooth operation of this compact lens and its easy support of frame-filling compositions makes it a real pleasure to use.

I can't justify musing further about the N8008s based on a singe roll experience, so will just suggest exploring the subject further with real Nikon experts like John Smith, aka Fogdog, and James Tocchio at Casualphotophile.

Square Photographs

 I have never been to Indiana, but I have a pretty good idea what it looks like thanks to daily visits to Jim Grey's blog, Down the Road.  Jim posts pictures there about his Home State, as well as those from his frequent road trips around the country.  The photographs are made with a large collection of old film cameras.  Jim has also published a series of books of photos and stories.  I was very pleased recently to receive a copy of the last book; it is entitled Square Photographs.  The pictures, in both color and black and white,  are all made with his Yashica Twin Lens Reflex cameras on medium-format paper-backed roll film.  

If you are mostly used to seeing photographs on the screen of your phone or your computer, looking at the nicely reproduced pictures in Square Photographs will be a somewhat shocking experience.  Even though many of the pictures depict pedestrian subjects they have a level of visual intensity that is hard to explain in words. Part of that impression comes from the large 6x6 cm negatives which can support considerable enlargement, but much of the impact of the photos is attributable to Jim's discerning eye.  I thought he made a particularly nice choice to put a head-on view of an old VW bus on the back cover.

My MAC screen shows a pretty good version of this shot, but it really pales in comparison with the actual cover picture.

Confessions of the Frugal Photographer

 

I stopped in at a local thrift store recently for the purpose of getting change for a twenty.  I plucked a book off the shelf and took it to the counter.

"Just the book?, said the cashier.

"Yes."

"Thirty-five cents."

"!!!"

I probably should have bought the CS2 manual thirteen years ago when I first acquired the program.  Instead I muddled through as I often do, relying on what information I could scrape up from the web.  Of course, I might have had to pay double for book then, but it still would obviously have been quite a bargain.  Also, the CS2 version of Photoshop cost me nothing as the company for about ten days allowed free downloads as a new version had gone on the market.

I probably have about the same number of books about photography as I do old film cameras.  Most have been acquired from used book stores at bargain prices.  Some favorites I have enjoyed going back to recently include Ilse Bing: Photography Through the Looking Glass,  Paul Strand: An American Vision,  and A Shadow Falls by Nick Brandt.

All of which leads to the confession part of this missive.  While it is difficult to quantify,  I think it not unreasonable to posit that about half of my enjoyment of film photography derives from the fun of hunting for bargains in old analogue photography cameras and accessories.  The majority of my collection came from ebay, but I have also picked up quite a few from junk stores and yard sales.  Here is a small sampling from the ninety-nine cents to ten dollar category:

The Nikon EM was found at a neighbor's yard sale and cost $10.  The five-dollar Hikari came from the Savers thrift store in Albuquerque.  Both have mounts that accept some of the finest lenses ever made.  I picked up several of the much-in-demand Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim at junk stores; none cost more than five bucks and the last one I found had a "99 cents" price tag.

Well, you know what is coming: Cheap is good, Free is better.  Dedicated photographers over the years find themselves in possession of fine cameras which have been superseded by other fine cameras.  Asking for money in exchange for a camera that has produced treasured photos seems a bit like selling a friend, so one goes looking for an enthusiast who will treasure the surplus camera and use it as intended.  I like to consider myself in that category as I have always to some extent justified my possession of more than a few cameras with the idea that I have made pictures with (nearly) every one.  And, thus, I have ended up with some very fine cameras thanks mostly to the generosity of friends who I have known only through my connection to the Internet.

Not all the donations have been of the extraordinary quality apparent in the above examples,  and there are times when a perfectly useable camera just does not seem to fit the current work flow.  So, I have passed on quite a few cameras to others.

The prices on old cameras have gotten a bit weird lately.  I often see examples that are neither uncommon nor unique in their capacities selling for hundreds of dollars.  Still, there are bargains to be found even if it takes some dedicated searching.  Somewhat surprising is the fact that I still find myself on a daily basis doing just that, even though the likelihood of buying yet another camera is presently miniscule.  It takes about ten minutes to troll through the auction listings on ebay in four-hour chunks, skipping past the details of grossly over-priced cameras, while examining the particulars of those which come closer to my traditional target upper limit of thirty-five bucks.  It reminds me of my youth in downtown Seattle, window shopping with my grandfather in front of First Avenue pawnshops and sporting goods stores.

Don McCullin just keeps on.

There is an extraordinary article featured today at Artnet about the landscape photography of Don McCullin, mostly known to the world as a war photographer.  He has never stopped making images on film, and for the current show of his work "McCullin selected the 70-odd works on view from some 60,000 negatives, and he personally printed all of them in his dark room at home."

The article includes a very good eight-minute interview on video.  Halfway through there is a quick shot of the medium format camera he uses for his landscape work.

(still from video)

McCullin's explanation of how he perceives landscape is inspiring.

What makes a good photograph?

Our local film photography group is preparing to mount an exhibit at one of Albuquerque's branch libraries.  Participation in the event is quite a departure for me as I haven't made more than a few prints in the past fifteen years.  It turns out to be a useful exercise because it prompted me to look at my work and develop some ideas about how I wanted it to be represented publicly.

My criteria for selecting images for the exhibit are not fundamentally different from those I use to choose what I put on my blog.  A basic tenant of my photo philosophy has always been to show that virtually any camera - no matter how simple - is capable of making fine photos.  I like that first shot of the winter trees partly because it was made with my little Ansco Panda box camera.  In other instances I have been pleased when an image reflects the quality which derives from excellence of lens and camera design as in the case of the balloon captured by the Mamiya C330.  Beyond the instrumentation, of course, there are issues of composition, tonal range, emotional content, timing and many other aesthetic considerations.

I will probably select a couple images from that first group of six for the exhibit.  The second group of five images below was shared with group members to encourage them to include some pictures of people among their submissions.  That met with some success as two people promptly submitted a half dozen shots each, only of people.

Moving beyond the immediate goals of the New Mexico Film Photographers show to the broader question of what makes a good photograph, the answer is fundamentally simple.  The quality and value of photographic images can and should be evaluated as are any other art works in any other medium.  So, if confronted by the question of what makes a photograph good, the easy answer is probably to respond with a question:  What makes a good painting, drawing, sculpture, etc?  That is not to say that photography does not have unique qualities compared to other visual art forms, or that there is not room for individual taste or stylistic preferences.

Where is that picture?

I have shot a lot of film in the last twenty years.  When I first got back to film I was not developing my own color, so I accumulated quite a pile of one-hour negative envelopes and slide boxes.  Some times I would add a label to the envelopes and boxes with information about the contents, but not always.  That quickly became unsatisfactory when I wanted to find specific negatives or slides.
    These days I develop both black and white and negative color, and the product of each roll of 35mm film gets cut into five-frame strips and, after scanning, they are stored in PrintFile Archival Preserver sheets which go into 3-ring binders.  I also purchase the same brand for my medium format negatives.  I get the PrintFile sheets in packs of 25 at the UNM bookstore for about a quarter of what they cost at normal retail outlets.

On the top of each PrintFile sheet I record the exposure date for the roll, the main subject, the camera, the film, and the developer used for the film roll.

On my computer I create a folder for each year.  Within the year folders are sub-folders for each month of the year, and within those a folder for each of the dates of the scanned rolls.  The specific roll folder titles, in addition to the date, has the same subject information as the PrintFile sheet and the camera name.

The information recorded in the file titles allow computer searches which usually lets me find the scanned images I am looking for and is also helpful in locating the actual stored negatives.  All of this, of course, takes up quite a lot of space on book shelves and on hard drives. I save the initial scan as a tiff file, do an photoshop image in the same format, and then produce a final jpg image for on line display.
     These days, you can find high-capacity drives which will likely hold a life-time of scanned images, but when I started out drive capacity was smaller and rather expensive, so I have three accessory hard drives full of images, and I just moved all my 2017 images to one of my laptop drives to make room on my main desktop machine.
    In actuality, most of my image searches start out using the search feature on my blog.  This is facilitated by the fact that each blog post is tagged with the same information that is recorded on the PrintFile sheets including dates, subjects and cameras.  I have had the blog on line for twelve years, so that covers a good portion of my work.  Some of my earlier photos are on line at several web sites such as PhotoNet, photobucket (ugh!) and Flickr, so those places get searched as well.  All of this does not make for a perfect archiving system, but most of the times it works well enough as a supplement to my increasingly leaky wetware.