Uninfluenced

One way, Manila, November 2009

Paul Butzi picked up on the series of posts Gordon McGregor made on artistic influences. Some good insights into someone's process, especially the sub-conscious parts.

Since the first post, I've thought long and hard about this. Do I have influences? Can I identify them?

I came to the conclusion that there is no work that has had that sort of impact on me. I've been taking photographs since before I ever looked at art in any meaningful way and yet there are still subjects from the very first photographs I took that continue in my current work. I also have similar likes in art as in the subjects I photograph.

Influence is more of an on-going process for me. I form new ideas and experiments from further work I see. I get inspiration from many sources, and that list grows as I study more of others work. But I can't really claim that anything has a direct and lasting influence in the way Gordon was approaching the idea. That's probably why my photography is all over the place in terms of subject and style.

Equipment choices

Just a musing on seeing a couple taking photos of each other in the restaurant this evening. Also trying out a new Gorrilapod. Long exposures, timer stuff etc etc. Besides the point.

I often wonder, seeing people snapping away, why did they pick that camera? What causes people to make the choices they do? (I suppose it's not just cameras, either.)

A new photography source

I've linked articles and photographs before but now the UK's Daily Telegraph has formed a new photography section - Telephoto. It is a collection of articles and photo-essays, focusing on art and documentary photography. Already it's looking good and covering some subjects a little less popular in the field. Worth checking out.

Learning methods

Jeepney, Manila, November 2009

Paul Butzi has an interesting post about his fuzzy method of working. This put me back in mind of something I've been observing on people's learning styles.

Part of my day job involves teaching, coaching and advising people in my area of expertise. I am constantly amazed at how many people want "the answer" or "the rules" to a given problem, when there often isn't a single way to approach it, or method is problem-specific. I think the demand for photographic rules of composition or exposure is something along the same lines.

Like Paul, I'm something of a fuzzy learner. I like to have some guiding principles and play around with them, put them together in new ways, discovering what works and what doesn't. Eliminate the useless, and fill the gap with another trial. It's what I like to think of as a "Lego brick" method: a pile of bricks can be put to any use, once the rules for combining are figured out. This is the way I encourage others to work, too. A few guiding principles and lots of scope for personal "figuring it out" and creative thought. I'm not sure if my teaching method goes down well all the time.

And so it seems with photography. People want rules: for exposure, for composition, for subject etc. I think it is why "how to" books sell so well. An approach that is alien to me (I don't own a single "how to" book on photography subjects).

Maybe the human brain has two modes of learning: inclusion - do the things that are known to work, the rest might kill you - and exclusion - do anything as long as it's not proven to kill you. The safe at home mode and the explorer mode. In photography there is much more scope for exploration - it's not an inherently dangerous thing - but it might take effort to trick that caveman brain into believing it.

I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more...

Indeed, far from it.

Home for a month, Manila, November 2009

This is a post of explanation and introduction.

First the explanation - the reason I've not posted in a while is that I'm in the process of moving: job, country, house. I've just taken up a new job in Manila, Philippines - one week in and just getting adjusted. Things will remain slow around here for a while until I get moved into my new house early in the New Year.

Palms and steel, Manila, November 2009

Now some introduction to my initial thoughts on this place. First off, it's proving a little hard to get to grips with the place, largely because I'm a bit restricted in location. Living in a hotel in the middle of a commercial district, next door to the office, does restrict ones view of the World. Strictly speaking this is not Manila, but Muntilupa City in the south of the Metro Manila region but that's a nuance lost on most outside of the country. I won't actually be properly moved in until the New Year, awaiting the shipment of my stuff from the Netherlands.

Weather is interesting - it's nearly the coolest part of the year, yet is 30degC most days. Not seen any of the rain that goes with this time of year, either. Which makes for a strange build up to Christmas - more of that in due course.

Photographically, I'm struggling as to how to respond to the new environs. Normally I get to a new place and can snap away, but then most new places I've visited have had some element of familiarity. This place has none of that. And the weather doesn't encourage the long wlaks I might otherwise take, camera in hand. So for now it's just bits and pieces.

Inspiration, motivation

Candle mass, Lisbon, October 2009

I'm sure we all face it: the constant grapple to understand what promotes good photo making and why it might go away. I've spent several months in a lean patch: few photographs, few opportunities.

Lisbon was a sudden high-spot. had the clear opportunity and put it to good use. It was possibly my most successful city trip, photographically speaking. And that had me thinking a little more as to why that might be.

Up front, I'll admit that I don't buy into all that pseudo-spiritual stuff about Muse and inner voices. If that's your thing, fine but it's not for me. I'm way too rational for that sort of carry on. I do find, though, that I need three things to be productive: motivation - the desire to take pictures, Opportunity - a location that in which I want to do so, and a camera in my hand that I want to use. I had thought practice was a criterion but the Lisbon trip put paid to that idea, I just hadn't any practice in a while.

therefore those three elements create the inspiration to snap away. And I had 2 particularly good bits of equipment with me to help - I'm finding the 40D really nails a lot of the pictures I wnat to take. Exposure and colour are good and I don't need to bracket everything is sight or tweak settings all the time. And the LX3 with the updated firmware is a pleasure to use, which is a first in a pocket camera for me.

Visiting a new place always creates both motivation and opportunity.

I also find the three elements have positive feedback - a good location generates motivation. the right camera does too. Motivation has me seeing more opportunities. And it can work in reverse.

Coming to this realisation I think will help me in future, especially in explaining (and preventing demotivation from) lean spells.

More from Lisbon

Under 25th April, Lisbon, October 2009

A very interesting bridge.

Lumix LX3 firmware update: in action

Lisbon, October 2009

Crikey! A photo on a photography blog.

Last time I posted a quick view on the Lumix LX3 firmware update (rev 2.1). Last weekend I was putting I to use in the pleasant sunshine of Lisbon. The main way I was using the new lens memory function was to set a fixed focal length of around 40mm-e and zone focus at f/4.

The review is simple: I really like this new mode. With all the zooming and focusing removed, te camera is very responsive. When waking up from off or sleep, the lens returns to the last position as promised. This makes it more fun to use as I'm not constantly battling the camera to do what I want. I took a lot more pictures as a result. And I expect I shall continue to do so.

This is the feature I most wanted when I first bought the camera and here it is. Now I have just the street camera I wanted. Of course, I've also got the zoom should I need it and a focus button when required.

Lumix LX3 firmware update: first impressions

Just installed the new firmware for the Panasonic Lumix LX3 (version 2.1). Main reason for installing is the new "Lens resume" feature, which remembers the zoom and focus position after the camera is powered down 9either in sleep mode or by turning it off). Nice feature, suddenly I've got a snapshot camera that I can set to 40mm-e and zone focus.

As a result, I decided to test the focal lengths available to see if I could find somethng in the 35-40mm-e range. Turns out there are 13 distinct focal lengths available in the range, these are they as reported in EXIF, together with the 35mm equivalent focal lengths in parentheses (all figures in mm):

5.1 (24)
5.4 (25)
5.9 (28)
6.3 (30)
6.8 (32)
7.4 (35)
7.9 (37)
8.8 (41)
9.3 (44)
10.2 (48)
11.1 (52)
12.1 (57)
12.8 (60)

So I've set mine up 6 stops from wide (which is the default starting position) at 7.9mm. I'll probably also mark the lens barrel at this point with a silve pen so I've got a marker.

So far it seems to work OK, although I've just done a few test shots. A trip away next week will be a nice test out on the streets.

Windows computing for photographers: part 3, the boot drive

This will actually be quite a lot less photography and quite a lot more general Windows computing. Non-computer nerds can probably look away now. Real experts should look away now, lest the horror of my mistakes proves too much. You have been warned...

In previous episodes I talked about memory upgrade & RAMDisk (easy) (part 1) and (part 2) a bunch of hardware purchases. This third installment will be about my adventures in boot disk land.

Life should have been so simple - install the new SSD, clone the old boot drive across, change boot sequence & then clone my application spaces. Then technology and user ignorance intervened. I made a lot of mistakes. Learn from my errors & my figuring out what I should have done.

Step 1: the failed clone

Somewhere along the way the cloning software messed up, ruining the Master Boot Record (I think). That put the computer out of action for a while as I figured out how to get things back. I forget exactly what i did but it was relatively easy after a bit of googling.

Step 2: the complete clone and failed reassignment

I tried again. this time I successfully cloned the boot drive to the new drive. Hooray! And then I got clever (ha, ha, ha) and tried to reassign the boot drive letter (C:) to the drive. Suddenly the computer wouldn't boot at all. And I managed to make te old drive "Inactive" (i.e. make it unbootable) so I couldn't even recover to the old situation. And, of course, I'd not cloned all the other logical drives off the old system before I got into this mess.

Step 3: recovering the mess

So there i was, computer a giant paperweight. Every online source effectively stopped at this point (with words along the line of "you're in real trouble if you get here") with no help on getting out of the hole. Fortunately I had my netbook to do some surfing. I also had a pile of disk drives and external enclosures for the final part of the upgrade (wait for part 4). Turns out I also had a disk copy of Norton Ghost that boots from CD. Hooray!

So I cloned all the old stuff using Ghost to one of the new drives and used the external enlosure via USB to the netbook to verify the copy.

Much searching for solutions later, I decided the only way out was to reinstall the OS on the SSD. Fortunately all my data and applications were on separate partitions and now cloned onto a different drive.

Step 4: now we're rocking

Windows install was easy, moving all the old data to the new drive was easy and I've ben rebuilding things over the past couple of weeks.

What I should have done:

Well at least started with the data transfer, then applications and finally boot drive. Instead I went in the reverse order. I should also have verified the boot clone before doing anything fancy. By working that way, I would have made myself independent of the old disks.

In conclusion:

Cloning boot drives can be quite simple, if you get a good step-by-step guide and follow it to the letter. If not, expect some (up to a lot of) fiddling. If all your stuff is on one disk in a single partition, you'll be in a world of trouble. Getting the new one to work, while the old one is in place is trickier. Finding out what to do when it fails is even harder. In the end, it might just be easier to reinstall the operating system - it's what I've done and it's going nicely.

As to the hardware: SSDs rock. Fast, quiet, low energy. Not cheap for the capacity but I'm not looking back now. Everything is faster, even with the previous improvements I'd done. Software installs take seconds, not mintues.

What would I do different?

Well, I think I should have looked to a more extensive upgrade. Maybe 2 SSDs, one small one for boot only and the larger one for the rest. The whole Windows cloning process seems designed for removing or reformating the old drive after the change.

Now I've gone through this all, my whole idea of an ideal computer set-up has changed. I can well imagine running a mirrored pair of boot disks in the future for security and speed.

In part 4, I'll cover changes to my main data storage, general comments on how it's all working and some subjective stuff on how this helps photographers (and ways to save cash while improving performance).

Always a step behind

Right now I always seem a step behind where I want to be - too much to do, too little time, too easily distracted.

At the same time, I've not had any time to pick up the camera. No new photos, which caused a problem for the photo a day. However, I've been rebuilding my computer and the archive catalogue so I thought I'd drag up a few of the older shots - a week's worth of pretty cheesy sunset stuff from Mongolia a few years ago.

Hopefully I get back in the groove. I'm away all next week, maybe that will help.

Life's what happens...

If anyone's been wondering what's been happening with the blog: crazy times over here at HQ. Finally got my computer back in action and learnt some useful things along the way. Expect a couple of posts on that, continuing my Windows computing series.

Still not been out taking photos for a while but I'll be fixing that soon. It's been a struggle to keep the photo a day blog fed, but I've just enough material to keep liming along.

Hopefully I can get a few posts completed that I have in preparation (mainly on technical matters) in the next couple of days. My life is about to get mad busy for a month or two, for reasons that'll be obvious in due course.

Hooray for Panasonic

Panasonic have released new firmware for the LX3. Big deal, you might say, cameras get minor tweaks all the time. But this one is different, with a few proper functional improvements.

The big thing for me, and one of my continuing gripes about the LX3, is the new "Lens Resume" function which allows the zoom and/or manual focus points to be remembered when powering down. This means I can set a preferred zoom and zone focus and have it remember the settings. Very nice. I also like the fact that they supply a downloadable pdf user-manual for the new functions.

It's nice to see at least one manufacturer fixing/improving software and control issues through firmware revision. I wish the others would follow (are you listening, Canon?).

Noorderlicht 16 pt 2: the whole story?

"Point of no return" Noorderlicht at the AA-kerk, Groningen, September 2009

There were several series presented at Noorderlicht that were documentary on places or events. Three stood out for me for a common reason I'll discuss:
Julian Germain's "Steelworks" looking at the impact on communities in the North of England brought by the closure of traditional heavy industries;
The headline show "Point of no return" curated by former Magnum president Stuart Franklin, a collection of work by Palestinian photo journalists focussing on the recent Israeli incursion into Gaza;
finally "Belgrade belongs to me" - work by three photographers (one Serb, two Dutch) looking at recent life in Belgrade, Serbia.

All three were presented in heavily political terms - respectively: the destruction of communities by Thatcherite policies, the death of innocent civilians by an occupying force (and Franklin's introductory essay had to be withdrawn under threat of legal action by AP, very much a political act in itself) and the poverty and lack of support left behind by NATO attacks in Serbia. So much, so common - especially on these particular themes.

But there is always more to any story. It was the last of these shows that really got me thinking on this at first (although I'd mentioned something along the lines looking at Germain's work), reflecting back more on the others later. When I visited Serbia a couple of years ago, and briefly Belgrade, I noticed something rather different than the grim picture being presented by all three photographers in the show. Indeed there is poverty and many grim neighbourhoods - understandable a few years after war. But I also saw a country and city under development. New buildings, a clean and metropolitan centre, possible hope for a better life in the coming years. And the history of the place - Belgrade's old Citadel showing the scars and reconstruction from centuries of warfare, a country strategically placed between Europe and Asia with the fertile lands provided by the Danube as it runs to the sea. But I don't intend to denigrate the work or view presented but there is rather more to the whole story, I feel. I also felt the photographers were focussed on despair wrought by personal experience but anecdote doesn't make for balanced evidence.

Likewise the work from England. Indeed many communities, dependent for many years on single industries, were devastated by their closure. But then strong unionisation, a lack of development in working practices and eventually uncompetitive behaviour played their part, as they have in other heavily industrialised parts of the Western world. Blaming the outcomes on a single set of policies is a popular and partisan approach to the subject. Not that I want to present either view as right, or indeed that any of that is my point. But stories such as this are more complex and I think it takes a strong care to be able to provide counter-point, especially to one's own views.

Which leads onto the Palestinian work. Shocking images for sure. A grisly display of destruction and dismemberment rarely, if ever, presented by Western news media. Ordinary people caught up in the middle of fighting, children killed, families displaced. But I was given to think: was this just a small slice? There was work presented by 11 photographers and yet several of the images were alternate angles from the same scene & subject. Was the story that narrow that repetition was necessary?

It is a notion that certainly comes up often: what is objectivity. I think a simple (and possibly simplistic) answer is showing all sides. Being able to argue for both cases. Challenging accepted wisom or group-think. It is something I try and practice often - the ability to see all sides of an argument, to play Devil's Advocate where necessary. I think it is necessary to informed debate, helps one more clearly formulate one's own views and hopefully leads to more considered decisions. Unfortunately I don't think I see enough balance in documentary photography to help. Sometimes the photographer needs to show us what he avoided as well as what he targetted.

Why optical viewfinders won't disappear

I was going to title this along the lines of "Why the SLR will continue" but I think it's a bit wider than that. Also, this argument will throw up an anomaly that's worth noting.

In the digital world, it's all about battery life. And battery life is really important if you're away from electricity or needing to travel light. I regularly travel for 2-3 weeks when I might be 500 miles or more from electricity. Even when I'm not, I don't want to carry an array of batteries and chargers if I can help it.

Micro four-thirds is looking promising but has pretty limited battery life (in the order of 350 shots per charge). I regularly get 950 from my DLSRs. The difference on a long trip would be between 2-3 days per charge to 7-10 days. That's significant, the difference between a couple of batteries and a bag full.

As far as I can see, the big difference is the lower power required by an optical view-finder system. Without the screen/EVF to keep powered, the camera can use less power overall. The optical finder and separate metering systems of the SLRs are similar to the low power units of the film days.

There is that anomaly I mentioned: the Leica M9. Seems it only gets about 300 shots from a relatively high capacity battery. Erwin Puts even reckons as little as 100 using the 16 bit RAW. Can't understand why, as the DSLRs can achieve much more from essentially the same processing requirement.

It's an area that disappoints me in camera development - not enough focus on battery life. It seems as the capacities get bgger and cicuits more efficient that is ussed to pile in more features and ways to drain power. Would it be possible to create a digital camera with a stripped down processing system getting 2000 shots from a typical sized battery.

Noorderlicht 16 pt 1: the introduction

As Doug Stockdale mentioned on his blog, we took the opportunity of his visit to the Netherlands to meet up in Groningen at the weekend and visit the Noorderlicht photo festival. it's always good to meet IRL with online contacts and we had much in common to discuss. It was especially good for me to be able to visit and discuss photo exhibitions with someone similarly interested.

As Doug mentions, it's really too much to take in effectively in one day - I reckon three days are really needed to fully appreciate the range of material on offer - pretty much the whole town is taken over with various exhibits, housed in all kinds of spaces.

This year's theme: "Human Conditions", which seemed encompass a lot of pocvert, destitution and conflict. That said, there was some strong work and powerful projects on display. I'll be picking up on some of the themes and thoughts I hand in further posts.

My closing point on this short introduction: I was surprised that somewhere as remote as Groningen would carry an international exhibition of this range and quality. It also turns out the town is something of an Arts destination in genral, with all sorts of exhibitions and activities on-going, broad even for a University town. Who'd have thought it would take nearly 10 years living in the country to discover that.

Some blog notes

My main computer is still down - I've resolved that the only way to dig myself out of the hole is to reinstall the operating system and recover from there. Fortunately I've been able to clone all the data and applications so I'm hoping that's a relatively straightforward job (famous last words). Trouble is, it always takes a load of time to do this kn id of thing and rarely can you stop the process half way through. It's really been hampering my photography (or at least the online part of it).

After a pretty thin summer for blogging material, I've got quite a lot of new subjects I'll be wanting to post. I've found a string of interesting ideas out in web-land that has sparked some thinking, so hopefully plenty of that. I've got a few more photos as I've started shooting some.

Now to find the time to get round to it all.

Just a head

London, September 2009

Back to photography

London, September 2009

Last week I finally managed to get in some photography while I was in London and I've also got limited computing back, so now I can post some more photos. Good opportunity this weekend, too. Hooray!

Leica: cameras worth buying?

Until now Leica have not made a camera I'd consider buying. When I bought a rangefinder it was a Zeiss Ikon for both superior function and cheaper price. Leica just weren't offering anything that represented something I wanted. Much as I'd love a digital rangefinder, the M8's problems were too much, especially at those prices.

And now we have three new Leica cameras on the scene.

The X1 - a rather nice looking poket camera. Nice controls & nice focal length lens. The one thing I'm a little less sure about is the large sensor (although I'm sure I've insisted it is critical in the past). The reason being versatility for point and shoot. I really like using my LX3 in f/4 and zone focus for quick shooting - the short focal lengths for small senosrs yielding large DoF. This means I don't have to worry about focus, even in low light. But quick focus would sort that and small print sizes (lower enlargement leads to greater DoF). Otherwise a very nice package for a compact.

The M9 - it seems a digital rangefinder that works. No significant IR and cyan image problems. Better handling and all the control simplicity of an RF. Looks like a very nice package. I have one cocern over aliasing (not just moire but other problems in fine detail) that did show up in some M8 images. I'll be looking with interest over the next few weeks - I might be saving my money for one.

The S2 - looks like a programmable camera. The initial impressions from Michael Reichmann, especially about the user interface, are right along my thinking. Price is definitely not in my budget but maybe the others will take a look and incorporate similar controls. certainly for landscape photography this looks to be a package that is very interesting.

So suddenly Leica have 3 different cameras that I'd like to own.