Finally back online

So the cable guy called this week and I'm back on the interweb. Woohoo. Interestingly, I've not been missing the TV, found a decent local radio station in the meantime, but I seem completely isolated from the world without an Internet connection at home. My how times change, I remember when etc etc etc.

Expect a bunch more posting, more pics and my photo a day will catch up, too.

All about books

For those of you who are into the whole photobook thing, as I am, or have been contemplating putting one together, there comes this from the excellent Idiotic Hat. If you've been contemplating the notion of what a book is, go read that post.

Other side of the lens

Things have been slow here of late as I'm still not online after moving into my new house, as evidence: this coming to you from my lunch hour. Neither has the camera been out of the bag. At least I'm 90% through unpacking.

Yesterday, however, I had an interesting photo experience being on the subject side of things - for it was giant coporate photo-shoot day. Mug shots of all, cheesy coroporate poses, pubilicity shots, groups shots etc etc. A large team set up shop: couple of photogs, couple of assistants, make-up and others. Must have been a team of about 8. Three studio sets. Piles of gear. So much, so typical, I suppose. (They seem to like their photographers here - the weddings I saw going on at the hotel all seemed to have large teams for the photography.)

The interesting thing for me, hoever, were the skills demonstrated by the photographer doing our team. Kathy, judging from the name on her shirt. A very engaging young lady - chatty, lively but professional. And she had an ability to remember names - first time out and then it was personal address from there on in. Even remembered all the names from the last time (which was a couple of years ago, I gather). A little thing that seemed to make things go so much smoother and a nice touch of personal engagement to keep us unwilling victims in the right frame of mind.

Continues to reinforce how little the skills of photography are about cameras.

Hyporeality: skies

Hyporeality 10, Manila, January 2010

Hyproreality 56, Manila, January 2010

Hyppreality 65, Manila, January 2010

Geometry

Ceiling shapes, Manila, January 2010

Is shape sufficient to be the subject of a photography and it still be interesting?

Hyporeality: buildings

Hyporeality 6, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality 43, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality 59, Manila, January 2010

Tools for the jobs

Reading the TOP camera of the year put me to thinking, as I occasionally do, as to what I'd be looking for in cameras. There will never be just one suitable, as far as I'm concerned, but I'm always on the look out for the ideal device - right tool for the job and all that.

So what am I looking for? Well, I break my camera needs down into 4 areas:

Landscape

All about quality images - tripod mounted, moderate wide (I'm not a real wide angle fan) to moderate telephoto lenses.

I have a dilemma for my landscape photography. I really like the flexibility of movements my large format camera gives me, enabling a type of photography not really available with digital (even putting an MF back on a field camera isn't quite the same and T-S lenses don't have the same control due to the small format). And yet the latest crop of 35mm DLSRs are offering super resolution (I really like the whole Sony offering). I'm sort of torn between ditching the LF and not.

When in doubt, stay put.

Street (out and about in town)

Small, discrete, wide-ish normal lens. Responsive a plus. I'm sorely tempted by the M9 or the Olympus EP-1. My little Lx3 has never really quite cut it. My preferred camera is my Zeiss Ikon but film is a bit of a hassle, especially now I've moved.

Travel

Similar criteria to a street camera, except I like a moderate telephoto lens. But my overriding criterion is battery life. I'm sure I've ranted about this before. I need something that'll go 2-3 weeks on a couple of batteries and only the mid-level DLSRs seem to do that. I'm currently getting 900+ shots from the Canons and none of the smaller alternatives get close to 500 it seems.

I'd really like a micro 4/3 system or travelling but they've a way to go to be suitable for my needs.

Wildlife

Noting but the all-singing, all-dancing SLR system with the long lenses. I'm really happy with Canon gear and will probably stay put, maybe with an extra body later this year (let's see what the new models have to offer). Stronger low light capability would be nice, however.


I was going to wrap up this post talking about how digital cameras aren't addressing the full range of photography application, or maybe not fulfilling their full potential or some such. But then I thought some and that's not it.

With my film cameras I'm happy with simple devices. A mechanical means of trapping measured portions of light onto some film. No fancy features on any of them. And yet I never wanted more. And then along comes digital. Programmed marvels of computing technology trapping those light portions in all manner of fancy ways. That opens up a realm of possibilities in use and function and interface. No longer mechanical but malleable electronic wizardry. Therein lies the problem. All that possibility opened up fosters a desire for just so. Not quite perfection exactly (there's really no such thing) but everything one could want. Once the range of offerings has been tasted, it makes one realise all that could be achieved. Sufficiency is no longer enough.

That is maybe my problem with assessing digital cameras - I know what I want, see it all offered but spread across many products. And I then want the best bits of each condensed into a single device. Thence the dissatisfaction: reality not meeting promise.

Hyporeality: signs

Hyporeality 13, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality 22, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality 71, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality: trees

Hyporeality 3, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality 11, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality 35, Manila, January 2010

Hyporeality

Hyporeality 1, Manila, January 2010

I've been catching up on my blog reading and came across the Landscapist talking of hyper-reality - the over sharpened world of digital photography.

That gave me an idea for a something of an exercise in the opposite direction. At the weekend I went out to take photos that aren't sharp, in fact decidedly out of focus. I set up the camera to approximate the angle of view and focus point that I have with my glasses off. Something of an experiment in presenting the unassisted view. Just what could I see without the remarkable technology that are spectacles? As a side benefit, it helps me understand exactly how much detail I really do normally see and perhaps take for granted.

I'll be posting a few of the results over the next few days both here and on my photo of the day.

Assigning value

Let us start with the condition of an amateur photographer like me and probably you, too) who's in this for the love, not primarily to make money.

So how does this photographer assign value to his work? It must be worth something, and that may not necessarily be monetary. And if the aim is not primarily to make money, should it matter that anyone would wish to pay for it. And how does it measure up to others in the same position?

If you've asked those same sorts of questions, here are some thoughts I've been having on the subject (and you may also detect a hint of the economics reading I've been doing recently).

Let's start with the money bit. Any pictures I might produce or print have a very limited cost associated with them - the direct costs of reproduction. There is no cost associated with the making of my work. Remember the starting premise - don't do photography for the money, so I'd be doing my work regardless, for the pleasure it gives me. Therefore I cannot assign a value to my time: there is no opportunity cost of doing an activity I'd would do anyway. If I get to feeling that I need to assign monetary value to the time I spend doingg photography, that means that there would be something else I could or would be doing - suddenly I'm not doing it purely for the love.

But there are other qualities of value. the pleasure the product gives me. Memories it invokes for places I've been or emotions I've felt. The pleasure of seeing others enjoy my work - receiving praise thereby.

And I think one of the highest terms of value I might assign (although you may differ) would be that others (photographers especially) might want to own my work, either through a swap or other means. That's not that I want to actively market or make money, which defies the principle of my starting assumption.

Nothing to do with photography

A slightly belated Happy New Year to all. I'm just back after my Christmas break, lucky to have escaped the latest wave of wintery weather sweeping the UK, which might well have seen me snow bound if I'd left any later. Balmy 27degC on landing in Manila. I'm now feeling drunk with jet lag.

I've had a pretty relaxing time overall. Quiet time a home with he family, avoiding external excursions due to the poor weather (not having much in the way of winter clothing - it's still in a shipping container - didn't help) and generally relaxing. I only checked my email once in 2 weeks (the only time I went near a computer) and managed to read 6 books in 12 days.

Therin lies the heart of the post title - I didn't once get out my camera the whole time. Didn't even feel the need to do some of my usual playing around with close-ups of the Christmas decorations. Strange for a photoblog, maybe, but it felt somewhat liberating not to be driven by a desire/need to take photos.

The real landscape

Another post, whatever next. Flight delayed, time to burn in the lounge.

An interesting article on HDR techniques up on Luminous Landscape. And just as interesting the links to the BBC website on the UK Landscape Photographer of the Year.

To start, I agree with Alexandre Buisse on using HDR (and he makes some stunning images, go check out his book). I use it quite a bit for landscape work, always striving for the sort of effects he describes. It's a technique for reducing the contrast of a scene that is beyond the reach of the sensor.

And then there are the comments on the BBC site, decrying most of the posted competition winners as HDR, although that isn't necessarily so. And I have to agree with most of the negative comments. A lot of unreal looking shots, taken of "iconic" (read clichéd) scenes. It's not restricted to this year's entries, either. I have the books from the previous two years of competition and the content is disappointingly similar. Far too many shot processed for a dramatic, high-contrast effect (which goes equally for the digital as the film entries). It seems the way to impress the judges (and often the masses) with British landscape work is to go for dramatic lighting of well known scenes processed with contrast and saturation up tto 11. It's a style of photography that seems rather popular in the making and the viewing.

Where are the real landscape shots? Have the judges of these competitions ever been outdoors? Or maybe they're so swamped with worse excesses that their selections look tame in comparison.

Some things seen

This is likely to be my last post before Christmas. I'm off home for a couple of weeks' vacation, to some much needed cold weather. In the meantime, here are a few of the recent pictures of stuff I found out and about. Some more festive stuff over on Impressions of Place.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Junction box, Manila, December 2009

Four tyres, Manila, December 2009

Manila, December 2009

Square and round, Manila, December 2009

Yet another new blog

Some time ago, Paul Butzi (who seems to do a lot of my creative thinking) postulated some ideas for photographic projects. One he suggested was a long-term collection of photos: one from every month for ten years. And that got me thinking - I had a move up-coming at the time (now completed) which would form an ideal start point for collecting photos of the places I live. Over ten years I'd expect to live in 3 or 4 different locations, forming some nice sections to a developing project as my life and surrounds develop.

And so I've started such a project: Impressions of Place. I'm putting it to its own blog because then I can write about my impressions as I gather together photographs. That keeps this blog to be more directly about photography and the new project as its own entity. Along the way I'll also post my usual eclectic mix on my photo of the day, and I might well collect impressions from places I travel to in the meantime: vacations and the like - to see how those impressions compare and contrast with those of my home location. I also want to see if my impressions and photography have influences on one another.

The way I'll write it will probably be 3 or 4 posts a month, together with a number of photographs. At some point I'll need to choose the photo of the month for each month. That will be a special post at the end of each month. I've already put together the first few posts.

Urban jungle

Experiments in looking closer at things.

All: Manila, December 2009

Releiving boredom

Or maybe exercising some creativity. I've been looking to inject a bit more self-motivation.

Bedroom abstract 1, Manila, December 2009

Bedroom abstract 2, Manila, December 2009

Bedroom abstract 3, Manila, December 2009

Bedroom abstract 4, Manila, December 2009

Amazing things with photography #4

Think your camera is fast, well check out the fastest strobe work around. Amazing shot of a hummingbird in flight.

Unfamiliarity

Manila, December 2009 (as it came out of the camera)

Use a camera for any length of time, take a bunch of pictures and you get to feeling you know how it works. Conventional wisdom in the photography game. But I also realised that one needs to be familiar with the equipment in a range of situations, too.

Last week our department at work had a social, so I was snapping a bunch of pictures at the restaurant with my LX3. I've taken loads of photos with it, am comfortable with it in a range of situations. Except this was new for me. Normally I'd have a rangefinder and fast film in this sort of environment.

Getting home, I found most of my shots were rubbish, grossly under-exposed for the most part. Something I hadn't realised was that the LX3 metering is strongly protective of highlights in its matrix mode, much more so that my Canon SLRs. And so, with a mixture of bright back-lighting and darkened table lighting, I got a lot of shadows (like the one at the top of the post). No flash - I don't do that. And after a few drinks and with the general aim to be quick, I wasn't chimping and playing around with settings.

At least I've learnt for the next time, I suppose.

Learning cycles

Manila, November 2009

Two related trains of though in one post: a blogger BOGOF.

Like many amateur photographers, digital saw my skills improve dramatically. The short review cycle & low cost per exposure made it easier to experiment and review the results. Although I now have my kit mastered, and all the technical stuff down, digitial was handy to learn by playing with exposure & focus modes & all the extra bits beyond DoF. Having a screen to chimp away kept that cycle really short. Without the short feedback, the learning would be slower: for one, I'd also have to remember all the things I was doing at the time.
Having the sort of brain that likes to experiment and analyse these things also helped.

But I've really got past that. Now on a typical afternoon walk I'll take less exposures and return with more I like and develop. Hit rate has gone way up because I have the equipment nailed.

And that leads to the second train of though. Like Paul Butzi, I like to use the short feedback loop of digital to get to grips with what I've just been doing. Helps me learn about my photography and what it means. I could go out one day, try a bunch of things and use that learning the very next day. For times when I'm shooting consecutive days, that's really handy.

But there is also more to it than that. I find that keeping close to the taking of the picture helps with linking the results with the intention. What did I see, feel & understand by it? Which images reflect that state I was in? Waiting a month will have that lost, and I'd just be back to taking nice shots of stuff. I'm not an "Art is Verb" kind of guy like Paul but I find the means to the end is important in defining that end point. Understanding how I'm getting there helps me understand where I am, and can, go.

Sometimes I do go back to images after some time, or develop ones I previously overlooked. But those new images are different things than the ones of the time. And for the photographs I am taking at the moment, the understanding I get in the "right now" is important to me.