Category Archives: Commentary

Commentary, Ideas, Photographers

Two Photographers: Two Videos

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I came across a couple of interesting videos of photographers on the web today.

The first is a wonderful video of Michael Kenna photographing in the snow in Hokkaido, Japan. The video is partly an interview, partly a visual narrative of Kenna at work, and partly a collection of interesting scenes and images associated with some of his photographs. There is a lot to think about and consider in the video, and it struck several chords for me. Among many was his use of the word “hunt” to describe the act of looking for and finding photographic images, and not perhaps just in the sense of tracking and capturing an image, but also, I think, related to the need to be patient and to understand the “quarry.” I often have thought about the “hunt” aspect of looking for subject. (Link originally seen at George Barr’s Behind the Lens blog.)

The second video is rather different but also features a very talented landscape photographer, Charlie Cramer. Unlike the slow moving and rather poetic video of Kenna with its long silent shots and occasional sparse music, this video interview (on the Marc Silber show)  is pretty “straight ahead” – basically a record of Charlie talking about his ubiquitous framing guide, a sheet of mat board with a 4 x 5 cutout that he uses to help him visual photographs while he is in the field. This is interesting and Charlie makes a compelling case for using this “tool.” (I’ve thought about it, but never “gone there.” Perhaps I will now…) More interesting to me were a few side comments that Charlie makes in the course of the interview. For one, he refers to the frame as a “blood pressure meter,” and suggests that he more or less “just knows” when a scene is going to work because when he views it in the frame he feels his blood pressure rises. (In another context he has spoken of hearing the scene whisper, “Take me!”) The point, I think (and forgive me if I have this wrong, Charlie!) is that all of the rules of composition in the world won’t help you that much in the end – essentially you need to be able to look at the subject and “just know” that it will work and how.

Commentary, History, Ideas

Photographic Musing of the Day

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If we lived in some alternate universe in which the current level of digital photographic technology (digital backs/cameras, digital post-processing, and high end inkjet printing) and the current level of chemical photography technology both appeared in the world simultaneously and photographers were asked to make a choice, would anyone actually chose the wet chemistry darkroom over the digital “darkroom?”

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Commentary, Photographers

Michael’s Frye’s First Post in the ‘Weekly Critique” Series

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I believe I noted earlier that Michael Frye has a new blog and was going to being a weekly photo critique, using a photograph selected from those offered by photographers who follow his blog. He has now posted the first critique in the series, using a wonderful photograph from Tim Parkin. (I was already following and enjoying Tim’s blog.) I won’t spoil the fun by sharing Michael’s critique here, but I’d like to offer a few comments:

Michael knows how to critique. In addition to know his photography – no surprise there – his commentary on Tim’s photograph could serve as a model for anyone who wants to offer effective criticism. (I won’t go into the details, but this is something I happen to know a bit about.) Michael describes what works in the photograph, primarily in the context of what he sees in it. The he shares observations about aspects that Tim might not have known about, offering some ideas about alternatives where appropriate.

In the course of the critique, Michael makes some (obvious to some, not so obvious to many others) points about the nature of landscape photograph. For example, there is a lot to think about in this paragraph:

Of course being in the right place at the right time is a big part of landscape photography. While luck is obviously a factor, luck favors effort, persistence, anticipation, and a willingness to fail. You have to drag your camera out when the chances of success are small. Most of the time you’ll be disappointed, but eventually you’ll get lucky. The ability to anticipate good light and weather conditions comes from experience, local knowledge, and a little intuition. Most photographers have more success making repeated trips to a local park, getting to know the place intimately, then traveling to some exotic, unfamiliar location.

Speaking for myself, it is always fascinating to see what other may see in your own work. I’ll readily admit that I’m incapable of regarding my own photographs in the same way that others do. (Occasionally, perhaps when going back to an image I haven’t looked at for a while,  I think I may get close.) For me the images are wrapped up in all sorts of context that other viewers cannot possibly have – the experience of the time and place in which the photograph was made, knowledge of other attempts to do the same image, perhaps a lot of time “working” the image in post. In this case, I can put myself in Tim’s shoes and imagine what he may have learned to see in his own photograph through this critique.

Good stuff, and I recommend that you follow the link and give it a read.

Commentary, Equipment, Publications

Apple iPad and Photographers

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Unless you have been under a very remote rock today (and, of course, if you are a photographer you might have been… ;-) you heard about Apple’s announcement of the iPad, their new tablet computing device. I’m not going to rehash all of the specs, but I have thought a little bit about how this might (and might not) fit into the lives and work of photographers.

I think that one possibility is that many who now may create content (like some of the articles and/or photographs seen on this blog) may find an avenue for publishing in a more book-like format and perhaps even distributing content via the iTunes (or is it iBook?) store. While the big publishers are getting the initial press for porting their collections to electronic versions, if the iTunes store is any guide there will be some great opportunities for small runs of electronic books. In the same way that some musicians and bands now self-produce creative work and then sell it through iTunes (or eMusic and so forth) this may provide a way for photographers to distribute electronic versions of their photography and their related writing. Advice: if this makes sense to you, start working on it now!

The iPad might also be a wonderful way to carry around and share a large portfolio of work. Imagine that you have been asked to show some work to a potential client. She has some specific work in mind. You bring along a traditional portfolio or other method of presenting some work in this area. The conversation diverges to other areas of mutual interest and you realize that you have some additional work that the client might want to see. Imagine that you have a very large collection of your work organized and ready for immediate search and display on the iPad.

If the iPad will allow connections to cameras – and there is some information suggesting that it may – it could also be a very small and lightweight device for backing up memory cards on location, and it might also serve as a usable display device for these images while in the field. I can also imagine the possibility that it or something like it could serve as an attached “external viewfinder” for cameras with live view and similar features. (This is admittedly speculative – I don’t know whether the connectivity of the iPad will allow this yet.  It is also worth recognizing that with a maximum memory of 64GB that the usefulness for external file backup would seem to be a bit limited.)

Finally, photographers (like lots of other folks who travel) may find that the iPad is all the computer they need in order to stay in touch on the road. While a small laptop is great, an even smaller device with greater battery capacity could be better for many of us… as long as we don’t need to have our copy of Photoshop or Lightroom ready to roll. Those don’t work on the iPad as far as I can tell. Along these lines, I’ve been intrigued by the iPhone and the iPod Touch, but I haven’t quite felt compelled to make the purchase because a) I have wanted a larger screen, and b) the cost for cell phone access with the iPhone seems exorbitant to me. The iPad seems to address both of these issues – it has a screen that is big enough for real online access and it can come with (if I understand correctly) a much less expensive form of data-only access to the ATT cell system.

I wasn’t certain how I’d feel about the tablet concept, but after seeing what was actually announced I’m more intrigued by this device, and I’m sure there are other applications of the device for photographers. Other ideas, anyone?

Updates: Over the first few days after the announcement I’ll add to and modify this post rather than spawning a series of iPad posts at this blog – so don’t be surprised to see some editing here after the original post.

  1. I knew I wouldn’t be the only person thinking about this – Right away there was this post at Photofocus.
  2. Michael Reichmann on The Apple iPad: What it Means for Photographers.
  3. D-Day for Tablet Freaks at A Photo Editor.
  4. Will the iPad Save Photography? by Bastian Ehl at Black Star Rising
  5. I see that Greg A. Lato also has a very interesting post on this subject, too.

(And another update in mid-July: I finally gave in and order an iPad. I should arrive by early August or so, at which point I’ll be able to update this post with – wait for it! – actual use reports!)