On a more serious note....

Yellow Holga.

I think it can be healthy to take a break from the idea that we somehow have complete control over the images we create. I put a Holga on my Christmas list because I thought it might be somehow fun to roam the city on a sunny day with the camera loaded up with ISO 100 black and white film and take the technical processes out of the mix and go out with the intention of a pure seeing adventure.  Freed up from thinking about focus and exposure (and to a certain extent, even composition) my mind might concentrate solely on finding subjects that it wants me to photograph. It may be that "no control" has attributes that are as valid as "total control", which itself is an illusion...

Besides, a medium format camera for $29? 

A New Camera For The Post Digital Art Age.

I thought I had it all figured out. I discovered that I really liked EVF cameras and I spent last year selling off the "dinosaur" technology cameras and buying up really nifty and break-through-y cameras like the full frame Sony a99, the half frame Sony a77s and 57s, and even a smattering of teensy-tiny cameras like the Nex 6 and Nex 7. I toyed with the littlest Sony RX100 and even played around with the RX1. I thought I had it wired. I'd spend 2013 happy as a pig in poop, playing with the metal-ly knobs and pushing the oh so sleek and demure direct buttons.  I was like a happy child, sitting on the floor grabbing handfuls of beautiful lenses and drawing them into my arms like teddy bears for toddlers. Then my whole gear oriented world fell apart under the two pronged attack of information chaos and gift giving.

You see, I watched David Hobby guest star on the DigitalRevTV with ultra kool Kai. The premise of the show was to hand David Hobby a crappy, toy Buzz LightYear (trademarked by Disney!!!! Please don't sue me for just writing down the words!!!) digital camera. Two megapixels of whopping image creation automation just waiting for a master's touch. David (with Kai along for the ride) used the camera on five different location shoots to prove once and for all that "it's not the course of the arrows it's the horses for Indians.." thing that everyone says. Which I guess I translate as meaning that some photographers are so good that they can point anything at a subject and come away with exciting art. Did David make the grade? That part is totally subjective. You'll have to see for yourself "if the glass is half full of everything looks like a nail..."  But the video sure got me thinking about my bourgeois fixation with using the best tools around with which to do my work. That's for sure.

I looked at the video and then I looked around the studio with the deflation that comes from watching the ease with which a master seems to work. And with the most basic of gear. I spent all Christmas Eve meditating on my photographic existence. My failings and the gear that had become my aesthetic crutches. I spent the rest of the night burning sage, chanting and beseeching the photo gods to show me the way. The path to exceptionalism.  How could I rise up and embrace the bad tool/great artist paradigm. How could I make the transformation from hay to needle so that I could be the veritable "needle in the haystack"? Defeated and exhausted I stumbled back into the house just as the rest of the family was getting up on Christmas Day. Feeling hollow and worthless I went through the polite motions of opening my gifts and nodding a thank you to the family. Leica S? Check. Vintage, restored Piper Cub? Check. Yet another Italian sports car? Check. The hoary and clichéd case of vintage Bollinger? Check. Another smattering of Leica M glass to put on the front of my Sony Nex? Check (but why even bother.....).

And then I came to the haphazardly wrapped gift that would change my career, my attitude----dare I say it? It would change my life. Inside the reindeer encrusted wrapping paper, under the tissue, beyond the sticky embrace of the linear feet of Scotch magic tape was a simple box that contained the instructions from the photo gods for the happy continuation of my career---the bright yellow Holga.  It seemed to say, "If you are truly an artist the tool will never matter. If you can use me well you will have arrived.."

The life changing tool, perched on a five series Gitzo.

For those of you unfamiliar with this powerful learning tool let me provide a brief description. It's a camera made totally out of plastic (not composite resin...) that has a simple, plastic one element lens. It is somewhat zone focus-able and it accepts 120 film. The breed is famous for their random and art enhancing light leaks, and it is a favorite tool of people who've learned too much and subsequently journeyed to a different mental space than the millions of photographers who are glued to the technical side of photography like bugs on flypaper. It is the ultimate "un-think" camera.

The game was now afoot. Me against my brain. Me against my training. And me against my heroin/nicotine/cellphone-like addiction to state of the art cameras. I had been challenged. The gauntlet thrown down with a spiky smack against the floor of my static reality. 

I grabbed the camera and put a Black Rapid Strap on it. But that seem liked cheating. All affectation and no innovation. I took it off and went through the box to find the plastic shoulder strap (not neoprene or some other weighty composite, just real, mortal, thin, tearable, flexible plastic). I loaded up some Tri-X 120 film, taped all the seams on the camera with black electrical tape and headed out into the new wilderness of subject matter that used to be my own boring existence made fresh by the intriguing mystery and unknowableness of this new machine.  I've yet to pull the roll out and develop it because I find that "ART" slows one down and makes one introspective and tentative. But I'm sure every frame will be a new masterpiece. I'm anxious to see if I am an "Not the arrow, it's the Indian" (and I'm not that fond of curry...) or a "Horses for courses" kind of photographer.

But I am committed. So much so that I dumped all the other cameras into the dumpster at the pool just before the backhoe operator dumped in the fragments of rebar and cinder blocks from the new bathhouse renovations on top. Crunch. Crackle. There's no turning back now. If I am really the kind of photographer that I've tried to pass myself off as here on the blog we should be seeing art ooze and jump and gush out of the camera with reckless abandon. 

Watch out, David and Kai. I'm nipping at your heels.

(to the humor impaired, a notice: This was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek, or humorous essay. It is not meant to demean or ridicule any individual person. I did not really throw out my existing cameras, or get a Piper Cub airplane or Leica S camera for Christmas. I did get a Holga camera but more as a joke or humorous reference to my almost lifelong career. While the gist of the article was inspired by the video with David Hobby and Kai from DigitalRev it is not meant to be disparaging or critical of those parties. I found the original video to be humorous and fun. The Visual Science Lab cannot be held responsible for fluctuations in interest rates, increases in UV radiation emitted in conjunction with or in spite of any action we have taken in the past or might take in the future. Our use of the super powerful laser to punch holes in the moon has no link to past or present religious affiliations. The payment of all invoices is still due in ten days, net. While we may or may not serve undercooked shell fish at our next Luau you are hereby warned that you consume all VSL provided shellfish at your own risk. While our writing is in English we cannot be held liable for dramatic readings by John Malcovich which are recorded and subsequently played backward and any satanic or even antiseptic meanings one may derive or interpret from the listening of such have no connection with hamsters living or dead. This string of caveats may not be applicable in certain areas of the Maldives or in coastal areas surrounding or adjacent to Oklahoma City. These interviews, though written by Kirk, may not reflect the opinions of Kirk or his assigns or heirs or even of himself. No donations to the VSL foundation are tax deductible and no worthwhile research will be done with such funds if you are impaired enough to send along said, unsolicited. Any mixed drinks you order and consume of the VSL in-house bar may be made partially with turkey gravy and may contain alcohol from various first aid kits liberated in the pursuit of photography by the studio, or not.

Not an actual frame from the yet unloaded Holga but a simulation of what we hope a representative frame may look like.

A Quick Project Done on Green Screen with LED lights.

I got an e-mail from Will Crockett today. Will and I met several years ago here in Austin and I've written a few articles for his Smartshooter.com website. Will was a Canon shooter when I met him and he lit all of his work with Elinchrom electronic flash units. He's a good teacher. But lately this long time pro has gone through a huge change in his gear preferences. He's abandoning all of the traditional DSLRs and flashes and embracing (whole-heartedly) two recent camera and lighting trends that we've been talking about here at the Visual Science Lab for the better part of three years.  He's discovered the transformative power of electronic viewfinder/mirrorless cameras and he's wedding the new camera technology with.......wait for it.......LED lighting systems. Really.  Ground breaking.  Mirrorless cameras (in his case, the new Panasonic GH3) and continuous, LED lighting fixtures. 

I had to smile though as his new site about these trends had an article today about his first foray into lighting portraits with LED's. I chuckled because I've been using LED lighting for portrait work and advertising work for over two years and I have been doing the same work with EVF cameras from Sony (and until recently, Panasonic and Olympus) for at least a year. In fact, the first definitive book about lighting with LEDs for photographers is mine: LED Lighting for Digital Photographers, (Amherst Media) published this past April.

The raw image before dropping out the background.

The timing was also funny. I got his e-mail talking about his first portrait tests with LED lights just as I was settling in to do some post production on this job for a local theater. I shot the images in this blog with my oldest set of LEDs. I used two 500 bulb fixtures on the background and two 1,000 bulb fixtures on the subject. Both of the fixtures used to directly light the subject were color corrected with 1/8th magenta filters and diffused with Rosco Tuff Frost diffusion material. I used a Lastolite Grey/White target disk and set a quick white balance on my camera of choice, a Sony a99 equipped with a Tamron 28-75mm 2.8 SP lens. 

Because of all the misinformation on the web I hasten to add that the background didn't turn green because of the LED lights but because it was dyed green for use as a green screen background, mostly for use in video. The correction set by the camera for WB was not that large.

The color temperature measured in at 5700K and the camera added 7 points of magenta to the mix. The whites are clean, the flesh tones are a good match and the exposures are good. I used the LEDs because we were photographing a shiny book cover as a prop and it's so easy to see when there are reflections on the cover when I use a continuous light source.

My basic exposure was ISO 800 (pretty easy stretch for the sensor in the a99....) 1/125th of a second f4 to f5.6. I shot mostly on a tripod but I did hand hold the close ups.

The session was quick and easy. I was able to pre-chimp every step of the way and the actor was happy not to be flashed in the face over and over again by electronic flash. I think the key to using LEDs for this kind of work (where flesh tones are important) is to be sure and pre-filter the lights to make up for the known dip in the color spectrum (a drop in magenta) and to make a good, initial custom white balance to work with. Especially in cases where you have large areas of rich color in the backgrounds which would surely throw off most auto white balance systems. 

The entire session was watched over by the Visual Science Lab Canine Security and Affection Officer who did a great job warding off weasels and badgers while providing positive encouragement and tail wagging for the studio guests.

I'm still amazed at how short sighted and fearful photographers are when it comes to adapting to new technologies, many of which make our jobs more efficient. I'm happy to see Will recommending the EVFs and LEDs to a mass audience and I'm encouraging any pros who also need to start providing basic video services to their clients to consider and play with LED lights.

It's really one area where the future is NOW. 

You might have to play around a bit to get perfect white balance with the cheapest units like the ones I've used here but I've had a chance to play with a set of Lowell Prime Lights and they have a very high CRI and a very neutral rendering. If you are willing to pay $1800 a panel you'll get a light that lasts a long time and can be used, without filtration, right out of the box.

If you are just getting your feet wet there are some good options on the market for under $200. I really like the Fotodiox 312AS lights which give me a control for intensity and a separate control for color temperature ( from 3200 to 5600K) for around $160. I've bought five of them over the last year and I haven't regretted those purchases for even a second.

On Weds. I'll be doing an assignment for a client that was one of the very first clients I ever did a job for with LED lights. It was almost two years ago and I had just put together my first LED system which consisted of three 500 bulb units and several smaller battery powered units. We shot a series of portraits on their location and several of them ended up as illustrations in my LED book. We did additional portraits for them a year ago and I've been invited back again to do ten or twelve more. I have more lights than I did on the first go around, and a camera that handles lower light output really well. I'm heading to GEAR in the morning to pick up some more correction gel but I'll be using that same, first generation LED technology because it still works well.

I'm happy to use the LEDs. It always leads to discussions like this with clients:  (Me): "...yes, we started to research and test LEDs a couple of years ago when we started getting more and more requests to do short videos for the web. Now we can do one basic set up for both stills and video."

(Client): "Oh, I didn't know you also do video. We've got a video project coming up that I'd like for you to bid on..."

The business is constantly changing. I've found that embracing change is a lot cheaper than fighting it. Remember all those photographers in the early part of this century who claimed that, "Digital Imaging is not ready for prime time yet."? Hmmmmmm. Learning curve.

Happy Hour Shoot at Manuel's Restaurant.

About a year ago we did the photography (and a little video) for restaurant website. My advertising agency client did a nice job filling the restaurant with representative talent and I was left to do my favorite kind of advertising shoot. I asked the restaurant to serve everyone whatever they wanted, I waited for the first round of margaritas to be vanquished and then, by dint of just hanging out with my camera, I became invisible to everyone under 30 and began to shoot from whatever vantage point I wanted. We had a nicely populated restaurant and I shot whatever looked good. Sometimes I would prompt our "actors" or ask them to repeat a movement or expression that looked especially nice but most of the time I just stood back, or down, and snapped away.

All of the images we produced for the website were done in color and delivered in color. But sometimes I like to strip away the color and see what the frames really look like.

This was one of the last jobs I shot with the Canon 5D mk2 and the Canon 1DSmk2 cameras. I worked mostly with the Zeiss 85mm and 50mm lenses. The images above were shot with what was arguably the best of the Zeiss lenses for the Canons, the 35mm f2. I added a bit of grain in post processing because the files looked too "clean."

Where are we going with this photography thing?

introspection.

Looking back over the last four years I seem to have made so many definitive pronouncements about the right way to do photography and the wrong way to do photography. As though there is one shining path that everyone must take to be a real photographer. But all the rules I've learned and all the stuff I wrote is based on a time when photography was a different undertaking. I came of age at a time when the craft was maturing. We were turning away from straight documentation (how photography renewed painting by making it obsolete...) and embracing an exploration of not just the world around us but our interpretation, our slant, on what the world looked like through our own individual lens. And our own local and regional biases.

And, until recently, it was a period in the parabola of the life of photography which required both learned and practiced skills (in everything from camera hold to chemical mixing) and financial sacrifice. The financial sacrifice was as daily as our shooting. This made us selective and it made the generation of images less quick and less available. The time lag between shooting and being able to share was also much, much longer---think days and weeks instead of minutes and seconds.

But images are now the endlessly reproducible, intrinsically value-less, MP3's of art. The cost of creation and replication is measured in fractions of pennies. The distribution is painless and immediate and the choice is endless. The old analogy was "trying to get a drink of water from fire hose." The new analogy is: "trying to fill a dixie cup from a tsunami." How we interact with images has changed completely but have we/I made the evolutionary transition? Can anyone whose experience was birthed in a previous age make the wholesale jump into a new age without the momentum of his old baggage pushing him off the path of unrelenting progress? And would we even recognize the markets if we saw them?

I had to photograph this upside down.

I visit Michael Reichmann's Luminous Landscape website frequently. On that site the feeling I get is of a group of well to do men of a certain age (over 40?, over 50?) who've decided to embrace the new tools but ignore the newer art. The site is a rich resource for learning best practices in landscape photography but the work they show is of a certain period. An aesthetic frozen in the amber of a different time. As is mine and as is the "works" and discussion on every other "respected" site on the web. We are the codification of how things have been done. From my railing about the stinky baby diaper hold to my reverence for the look for old, medium format, black and white images. Even to my selection of human subjects. My prejudices are so worn and predictable. I don't want to make portraits of fat people. I don't think everyone is beautiful on the outside and unfortunately that's all my camera can show. I'm like an engineer doing best practices for the manufacture of vacuum tubes in a microchip era.

As amateurs we make the mistake of looking to established professionals for inspiration, guidance and as sources to emulate but they are the ones who are marking the milestones of history past. To endlessly recycle a variation on an "Avedon" or to "cover" yet another Ansel Adams masterpiece with our own less invested version just adds to the giant, planet wide haystack, which makes finding the little needles of diamond and gold harder and harder.

I guess what I'm really thinking and trying to say is that there is no right  way. No one way. We all have choices. We can continue to go out and explore our own worlds with the idea that we are only creating for ourselves and, in that case, it matter not a bit if we are derivative, if the images are blurry, if we're copying Terry Richardson or Chase Jarvis.  It doesn't matter if we use a big Nikon or a little Olympus. It doesn't matter if we shoot raw or jpeg as long as we find our own joy in the process. Alternately, we can go through a painful transition that is comprised of abandoning the past and going on an endless quest to find what our most personal vision is. In some cases only to find that it's about comfort and routine and safety and that we were never cut out to walk the lonely paths of our most revered artists, like Josef Koudelka or Joel Peter Witkin. And in the end the failure of our mission to break from the nest and move away from the strong, magnetic pull of the assimilated/collective vision is too overwhelming and yields up no rewards and no real treasures.

I grew up in America at a time when everyone got a trophy and every middle class child of even moderate privilege was consistently told that everyone could grow up to be whatever they wanted, even president or olympian, if they put their minds to it. But the truth of the matter is that it's not true. The olympians are almost entirely physical and psychological outliers. Becoming president is in the hands of mischievous and malicious gods in cahoots with the tendrils of fate. And not everyone is an artist. No matter how hard I try I cannot will myself to be "more creative" more insightful and more talented. 

Each of us can take time to attain clarity about why we photograph. And maybe, when we do, it will clear the air for us and make us happier to do that which we can. With more sense of accomplishment.

Whatever art there is in our photographs it is far beyond equipment and opportunity. To do work that we can like, and that others can find something in, we need to add value to what we see. We do it through style and point of view. The secret is to show people a thing or a person or a subject in a way that's never really been seen before. But here's the sad truth: The world is shrinking by leaps and bounds and so many of us are using the same tools, hunting the same visual prey and consulting the same references that the images are becoming homogenous. Pasteurized like whole milk and robbed of their distinctive taste and pleasure.

We have become almost circular in our reference. And it's destroying the surprise and the wonder of the images that we share. That's another reason to abandon our "heros" and to remain insulated from the world of photography at large.

And that's why we end up talking about the gear. It's fun, it's objective, it's hierarchical and it's usually easily attainable. Everything that art is not. 

Just a thought, you're always asked if the cup is half empty or if it's half full. In reality, when you sip the last fragrant ounce of delicious coffee the cup is still full. It's full of air. Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and trace gases. And it is now full to the brim with.....potential.

I hate having to add this note of explanation below but......

This particular blog is not about depression, bitterness and anger. Just a series of questions that all aspiring artists should ask themselves from time to time.  Coupled with one big question: why do we do this?  Which leads to the biggest existential question: Why are we here? And while I'm here, which camera should I buy.....?

blog note: Hey! Reader. Consider leaving a comment. I like the feedback. Thanks, Kirk

The most valuable resource of a portrait photographer? Hint: It's not the camera or the lights...

It's time. Time and patience. The images that I've taken which I like the most are the ones that came in second or third sessions with the same subject. The best portraits come after we try all the goofy stuff, all the serious stuff and all the trendy stuff. Once we get that out of the system we can work on just building a collaboration and playing around with the images. That's the way it works best for me.

This image is not traditionally lit. The light is coming from a point that's on the same plane as Lou's face, not from above or below. The main light is a smaller reflector softened by a beauty dish on the same axis. A big light right next to a small light. Don't know why-----it just seemed like fun.

Slowing down and enjoying the conversations and time together may be more important than Zeiss glass or ultra-megapixel sensors. I know it's more important than which light you choose.

Hasselblad Camera. 180mm lens. Kodak Verichrome Black and White Film (type 6041). Epson Scan.

A portrait on a cold and dreary day. A beautiful respite.

Lou.

In this frame, serious and intent. In the following frame, laughing at our mock seriousness.

New Year's Day Walk with the Sony a99 and One Lens.

I've been learning things about myself lately that I would never have suspected in the past. One thing I've learned is that I'm not comfortable with expensive cameras. I bought a Sony a99 (which I consider to be expensive) and I've been uncomfortable taking it outside the studio on walks. It's not that I think anything in particular will happen to it, rather, on some subconscious level I think I'm just anxious about using it up.  With less expensive cameras I never worry about things like the number of shutter actuations I'm putting on a camera, or how much the camera gets bounced around. But, when I take an expensive camera out I tend to think the way I do when I put on a nice suit---I don't want to get it dirty or scuffed.  And if I really like the way the suit fits I don't want to---use it up.

I know it's a bit crazy but I have no compunction at all dragging any of the other cameras around with me. Anyway, just to get over my irrational dis-logic I grabbed the a99 and the 85mm Sony f2.8 lens and took it out for a long New Year's Day walk. And what I found out was that this particular camera is.....lovely.

I started my walk at Barton Springs Pool and headed downtown. The roundtrip was about four and a half miles, plus a detour for a cappuccino at Caffe Medici and a quick stop at Whole Foods Market on Sixth and Lamar.

The three attributes of the a99 that I find I like best are: 1. The very quiet and un-frenetic shutter. There's no mirror slap and the first curtain is set to be electronic so the noise profile of the camera is low and subdued. A secondary benefit, beyond aural discretion, is the elimination of the mirror and shutter vibration that comes with most DSLRs and seems magnified in full frame DSLR cameras.

2. The electronic viewfinder is a very efficient way to compose and technically "set" photographs. I've mentioned the idea of "pre-chimping" on a regular basis since I started working with the nice electronic viewfinder produced by Olympus for the various Pen cameras. The viewfinder on the a99 is big, clear, detailed and nearly transparent, from an operational point of view. I love being able to look into the EVF and see, immediately, if the scene will be properly exposed, or if I have to pay more attention to white balance or contrast. And being able to visualize the effects of custom creative settings before committing to a frame is wonderful. 

I understand that some people feel the (few) issues with an EVF outweigh the value provided by the technology but I regard the EVF as mandatory now for truly professional photographic tools. I also like that the brightness and the color balance of the EVF can be fine-tuned or customized to each user's preferences.

3. Finally, the camera is neither too big nor too heavy to carry around for hours at a time. Nothing like the ponderous Canon 1DS mk2 I was carrying around a couple of years ago. The a99 is smaller than other professionally targeted cameras and it's a real benefit for the people who go everywhere with their cameras. The same can be said for the tiny, 85mm f2.8 lens. It weighs next to nothing.  If I need to feel burdened in order to justify my status as a professional photographer I have several options: I could seek out the assistance of a mental health expert or, I could add a battery grip to the bottom of the a99 bringing up the weight (three batteries, total, in the mix in this configuration) and size by at least 50%. But my perception is that clients don't really care about the cameras anymore and most of the non-professional photographers I hang around with actually like the idea of "smaller, lighter but still high quality."

I was happy with the Sony a77's and I'm very happy with my two Nex cameras so why did I bite the big financial bullet and drag home this expensive tool? I can answer that by telling you a tiny part of my conversation with a good, long time client I met for lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant today. We were talking about doing more marketing work for several restaurant groups in Austin and he wanted to know if I was still moving into video.  All of the websites will probably end up getting video art on the landing pages. He wants to work with me as the supplier for both stills and video and he was checking in to see that I still had the desire to do video and, more importantly, that I was still making forward progress in the field.

He loves kinetic, handheld, fast cut video and we talked for a bit about the capabilities of the a99. He suggested I work on my hand held video snapshot style and we moved on to another conversation. If I do one or two video projects for the restaurants I will have paid for the camera all at once. But more importantly it's easier to shoot fast moving stuff when you can maintain full phase detection autofocus or just as easily switch to manual focus and make use of the very well implemented focus peaking. The client likes slow motion effects and the a99 is one of the first DSLRs to offer native 60 fps at its highest resolution and quality settings. It slows down beautifully, in post production, for slo-mo effects.

So, as I walked around the lake and through downtown I started to warm up to the a99 pretty much for the first time. Amazing to me given that I've had the camera for more than a month now and this is my first real episode of bonding with the device.

But the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. I knew it was a good serviceable camera when I reviewed the high ISO images I'd made a few weeks ago at the Dell World Conference but now I had a new set of images to pry into and analyze. I shot raw yesterday and converted in Lightroom 4.3. The colors are rich and the files have the long tonality that comes from generous dynamic range and well engineered, in camera curves.

It's hard to get emotional about the a99.  There are no real eccentricities of the kind that make you love and hate a tool simultaneously. The best description I can come up with is that it feels incredibly neutral. The ball is in your court. The camera can be configured to render a bunch of different looks but in the hand and in the raw processor the overwhelming feeling is neutrality.

It might be the Goldilocks story of top professional cameras: Not too little, not too big. Not too wacky but not too normal. From the sensor to the handling to the sound, to the feeling you get when you hold it, everything seems just right.

In my experience there are two ways to fall in love. One is the instant reckless infatuation. You fall head over heels when the other person walks through the door. For weeks or months the other person can do no wrong. Every conversation is enchanting but-----a short time later there's the fiery break up, the realization that you have nothing in common and that your friends are staunch conservatives while her's are Molotov cocktail throwing Marxist radicals. In a flash it's all over between you. 

And then there's the person you fall in love with after a long, growing friendship. It's quieter, less dramatic and less---emotional. But it lasts and it causes a lot less wear and tear on you. 

As I warm up to the Sony a99 I think it's a lot more like the second option. Less drama, more value. A few more walks and I think we'll be comfortable together. 

A new year of photography. I only have one resolution...

And that resolution is to spend less time sitting in front of my computer and more time out walking, taking photos, dipping myself into the river of real life. I have lots of micro goals but taking back my time from the tar pits of the internet is the sole resolution.  To that end I've wound down my participation in almost every forum out there. My time on Facebook is limited to about five minutes a day. I've largely given up on Twitter except to automatically post a notice every time I finished publishing a blog.

My take on the whole internet thing is this: The more information I accrue the less I know. Reading about something is not the same as understanding through doing. Reading someone else's description of eating a great meal is never as satisfying as sitting down and experiencing that meal on your own. For the same reason I never waste time watching sports on TV (or in person). Why would you want to do that when you can go out and play the sport yourself?

So many of my friends are locked into a logic pit or endless learning loop. They spend hours every day reading about someone else's photographic techniques as though reading about it is an osmotic process that will embue them with the knowledge they need to do something with their cameras. In the end they might discover that the only real knowledge is that which they win themselves. Trial and error is a better learning tool than most other methods. Trying and refining is the next tool. Mastery and abandonment is the next step. Learn something remarkably well and then abandon it in order to do the art without conscious reference to operational information and logic. But all the web can offer is a river of information. It doesn't offer the trial, the test, the process of making the art your own. I used to look to the web for indications of where photography was going. All I discovered is that everyone's work is going in all different directions and none of those directions have anything to do with my work.

My goal isn't to master a fad or a popular technique. My goal is to make images that matter to me. In my style. And that's a style I've built over decades; one I don't plan on changing to match the whims of collective. If you are having problems developing a style the first step is to turn off all the external influences that distract you.  And that means less time on the internet and more time doing your work.

The image above was taken last Saturday. I'd gone for a walk in the late afternoon.  I'd passed by this building so many times during daylight hours and never really looked in the windows but when the daylight faded and the lights of the display became dominant the form stood out. I was carrying my Sony Nex-6 and the (permanently attached :-) ) 50mm 1.8 OSS lens. I lifted it to my eye and snapped a few frames. When I got back to the studio I cropped it square and printed a small copy. I can't explain why I like it but I do. And if I'd spent the time "researching" on the web I would have never seen the scene in this particular light. It would not have existed for me.

My one resolution: Create more photographs. Spend less time on the internet.

“Inspiration is for amateurs—the rest of us just show up and get to work,” --Chuck Close

Good light is what you miss if you spend too much time indoors.

Heading home into the sunset. Sony Nex 6 with 50mm 1.8 OSS lens.

The last bit of color and light in the winter sky...

Some days I go out with the idea that I'm on a search for good images. Some days I go out with the idea that I need a walk. On the days on which I'm just walking I always bring along a camera, just in case. I never understood the holistic utility of a good walk until I recently started reading research about the way our addiction to two dimensional screens is changing our brain physiology and hampering our ability to visualize and function optimally in the real, three dimensional world.

Seems that sitting all day looking at a screen disrupts your ability to absorb three dimensional clues and information. It also reduces your physical system's micro-balance. The diminution of one's ability to operate optimally in three dimensional space also limits and bounds one's cognitive processes. Put another way, sitting around looking at screens all day makes you a dumb ass with balance issues. Not the way you really wanted to spend your adult life.

Fortunately the cure is painless and, for photographers, productive. After a spell at the crusty old monitor/internet connection you head outside in a pair of comfortable shoes and look at the world around you as you walk. An hour or two of walking can do much to mitigate the creeping mental lethargy brought on by excessive two dimensional visual activities. But you have to be diligent. There has to be a balance.

Our DNA pushes us to crave action and movement. It conditions us to crave the act of moving through space. When we're stationary and sedentary we're battling our own evolutionary imperatives. 

Thank God we invented photography. It gives us a ready and reliable excuse to push away from our desks, easy chairs, dining room tables and couches in order to head outside and get some creative thinking and seeing done. A photography secret for living longer and happier lives.

Doesn't really matter if you come back with winning images. It really is a case of the journey being more valuable than the immediate results. I no longer rationalize the time I spend walking through the city. It's not about casting a temporal net in which to catch images. Now it's just an exercise I do to increase my ability to play well in three dimensions and to unfetter my mind from the stationary physical barriers that researchers agree hamper advanced problem solving and non-linear creative thought. Try it. 

I played with the Sony RX-1 but I really played hard with the original Sony R1. A much under appreciated camera!!!!

So how is the Sony R1 at 1600 ISO? Not bad if you are willing to shoot raw...

One of my professional photographer friends was doing some last minute holiday shopping and he came upon the new Sony RX-1 at the local camera shop, figured he needed to get himself a nice stocking stuffer, and snapped one up. He likes it pretty well. We met for coffee a few days ago and I spent an hour or so playing with the camera and looking through the menu. I love 90% of the idea of the camera and, if I had about $3500 laying around I'd snap one up. Oh, you thought it was priced at $2800 US$? Well, only if you want a partial product. If you want a usable camera you'll need to spend six hundred dollars more to get the (vital) electronic viewfinder. Can you imagine buying a camera like this and having to use stinky-baby-diaper hold in order to operate it? Absolute madness.

Short review? The images are pretty amazing. Perfect color with lots of depth and sharp, sharp, sharp. The body is very nicely designed and the aperture ring around the lens is like addictive candy. Will I buy one? Not hardly. I'm not a 35mm focal length only fan and I'm not rushing out to buy a multi-thousand dollar camera that I have to use like a cellphone. 

So what are we talking about today instead? Well, it dawned on me that all these mirrorless cameras had their predecessors and as unlikely as it seems I think one of the progenitors of the RX-1, with its fixed lens, was the Sony R1.  A camera I've owned since it came out in late 2004, early 2005 and have loved using it. But even though I've had the camera for nearly eight years now it has become a new camera for me in the last two weeks. And I'm going to explain why.

R1. Juicy Files at ISO 160.

First I guess I should bring readers up to speed about the R1. It is an antiquity now. In 2004, when the camera was announced, there were no bridge cameras with APS-C sized sensors. Electronic viewfinders had just hit the market a few years earlier but had never been used on a high end camera. Sony engineers must have been sitting around goofing and doing what if???? over too many rounds of drinks, but they finally came up with a strange idea. What if we take basically the same incredibly detailed sensor we sell to Nikon for the D2X and put it in an "all in one" camera?  Yes, yes, the best low ISO sensor on the market today....sounds good!!! But why stop there? Let's get Carl Zeiss to design the world's best 24-120mm equivalent zoom lens and have them optimize it exactly for that wonderful sensor!  Yes, and let's include an electronic viewfinder and give some lucky photographers a preview of the future of photography.  Just to be totally wild let's price the whole shebang under $1,000. What the heck? IQ performance that rivals the $6000 D2X at one sixth the price....and then we throw in one of the world's best zooms just for free? Let's do it. And then the bars closed and they all went to work and created an incredibly interesting camera---

The Sony R1.

So what did they end up with? It's an all-in-one camera with a 10.2 megapixel APS-C sized sensor, an LCD panel and EVF which both offer full time live view, flash sync to 1/2000th of a second. Almost entirely silent shutter operation, a brilliant (and widely praised) lens, of which the reviewers at DPReview said, "the lens alone is worth the price of the whole camera.."

The downsides? Tiny buffer. Shoot two frames of raw and then wait 9 seconds for the buffer to clear.  Low res screens (typical of 2004). The lens is slower at the long end: 4.8 versus 2.8 wide open. An odd body design. Noise above 400 ISO.  That's about it.

The good stuff: Great battery life, great optics, a very good low ISO sensor. The first decent EVF on the market. All in one design means no choices to make; just grab it and go.

You're probably wondering why I moved on to other cameras for my work and why I'm just reassessing the camera at the end of 2012 but stuff changes all the time and some of the stars that would have made this camera tremendous on its initial release have lined up now.

When I used the R1 back in the "old days" of 2005-2006 storage was more expensive, both for the cameras and in computers. The R1 created uncompressed raw files that clocked in a 25 megabytes apiece.  Not only did the camera write those files slowly but the "big" cards of the day filled up quickly. At the time I was doing nothing but portraits and events and the write time for raws was a killer. The camera was also tough to use with studio flash because the "framing mode" was so noisy. While the raw files out of the camera were really good it was never a perfect jpeg camera and, well, I moved on to more flexible solutions.

But tellingly, I could never bring myself to sell the R1.

What changed between then and now? Let me count the ways:  Raw converters have improved by leaps and bounds. The conversion magic juice for the R1 in the latest rev of Lightroom (4.3) is astoundingly better. There's even a wonderful lens profile that makes the Zeiss lens not only perfectly rectilinear but also eliminates any sort of CA or vignetting. The files are night and day better than what we were getting out of the Sony raw conversion software.  Now you can see just how good the lens and sensor are.

Memory is now dirt cheap. Fast eight gig CF cards run circles around the cards I was using in 2004-2005. Hard drive space seems infinite in comparison. And I've become a more patient shooter.....  All that adds up to a new willingness to shoot the Raw files.  Especially for the wondering around downtown snapping unrelated stuff that I like to do.

The biggest bonus is the way the raw converter in Lightroom now handles noise. When I shot the camera in Jpeg in 2005 the files became too noisy for me at 800 and too noisy for most people at anything over 400 ISO. Now I'm happy to shoot raw at 1600 ISO because the noise is no longer the color speckle sort. It's sharp and demure monochromatic graininess that looks very photographic.

How good is the sensor when shooting in optimal conditions? It's great. Especially with raw processing. And that's not surprising given that I know professional shooters who are still doing great studio and landscape work with Nikon D2X's which share the same sensor basics. (Thank you Sony...).  But if it were just a question of good sensors the camera would be interesting but not particularly relevant today. What makes the camera important (at least to me) is the combination of the sensor with a really good lens.

As I was walking around the new Federal Courthouse the other day I spotted this one million dollar bill on the ground. This is the full frame shot, handheld, of the bill.

When you've worked with lots of different cameras, and when you have a short camera attention span, you sometimes forget about the good stuff you were able to accomplish with older gear. I'm just now remembering shooting a brochure for very high end office park here in Austin. I pulled a printed sample out of the filing cabinet and I'm still impressed by the 24mm (equivalent) focal length and how well it rendered architecture (both interior and exterior). 

Anyway, I snapped the bill on the ground and left it there for someone else to find. When I got back to the studio I pulled up that file and took a peek. It was nice enough. Then I pixel peeped at 100% and I was impressed. That file is right below....

100% crop of million dollar bill.

And the lens is sharp across the range of focal lengths. I'm not sure I've really ever owned a better zoom lens but it's pretty impossible to compare across systems since we can't remove this one from its body. One lens I remember that was in the same ballpark was the Olympus 4:3, 14-35mm f2 but it was hobbled by a much poorer sensor implementation when I was shooting it....

The new Federal Courthouse building. Austin.

Why am I re-hashing all of this when there's not a ready supply of the cameras around and there's so much other great stuff in the marketplace? I guess it's because we (as a photo culture) tend to be so focused on what's next that we never really stop to appreciate what we already have in our hands. Many sites on the web (Thom Hogan & DPReview, for example) have proclaimed the Olympus OMD EM-5 to be the camera of the year but so many people are already anxious for the next upgrade. Waiting for the "professional" version to come out. Kind of crazy considering that they have an incredible tool in their hands already.

I think we've hit interesting times as image makers. Digital imaging tools are now hitting the point where the potential of the cameras and (to some extent) the lenses far exceed the patience for good technique that most people are willing to spend. At this point any improvements in technology, for most users, are just theoretical. If many of the people who begged for higher megapixel counts just stuck their cameras on a tripod they would (right now) probably see a doubling of "real" resolution. Really.

I like what the Sony R1 does. It's not magic, it was just a well designed and pretty well implemented camera for its time. I think it was my exposure to the Sony RX1 that got me thinking about it again. That, and the RX100. While both of those cameras do interesting things and yield good image quality there are so many compromises that the original R1 stepped right over. All cameras that aim for diligent and detail oriented users should have eye level finders. Yes, you can add one to the RX1 but at a economic and ergonomic cost. The RX100 works well for shooters with perfect close vision but for anyone who needs reading glasses (a lot of my readers) the operation of the camera is fraught with compromise.

The R1 was on the right track. I wonder how well Sony would do if they were able to put the same sensor they use in the a99 and RX1 into an "all-in-one" camera like an R1. A camera with a state of the art zoom lens specifically designed to work optimally with the sensor. No mirror anywhere but a great LCD and an even better EVF. Put the whole shebang on the market for less than $2,000 and you might just end up with the ultimate DLSR market killer.

And you'd never have to make a choice about cameras and lenses as you headed out the door to do art.

Finally, I guess the message I take away from my latest user experiments is that a camera is now only part of the equation. Even older tech is boosted tremendously by the continuous improvement of processing software. Converting files in Lightroom 4.3 is a tremendous step forward for an already good camera. Now maybe I'll look a bit harder at the software side of the equation next time I have the urge to upgrade. I've been testing the latest Capture One software with my Sony a99 lately and it's an instant step up as well. It's a lot more complex these days than just choosing a body and a lens. Our physical gear lust sometimes blinds us to that reality.

Hope you are having a fun New Year's Day. 

Welcome Back. Happy New Year.

Portrait of Belinda. December 30, 2012

I trust everyone had a restful, relaxing and fun time over the holidays. I missed writing the blog but I really needed the time off just to refresh my brain and spend some time shooting just for myself. I'm working on my portraits this year and I thought I'd start a little bit early with this image of Belinda.

I'm always trying to simplify my lighting set ups and this was no different. It's the simplest lighting design I can imagine. I set up a light gray seamless paper in the background and lit it with one small LED panel on a short stand. The main light consisted of a 48 by 60 inch translucent panel (a cheap pop up type) with three of the same type LED panels pouring light through the white material. There's no fill on the opposite side.

I used three panels through the diffuser just to get an even spread with the right amount of power. The LED panels were the Fotodiox 312AS panels I've been buying this year. I centered the white balance dial midway between daylight and tungsten and eyeballed each one to make sure that I was getting the same color. At the center point between tungsten and daylight the light output is at its highest. If I were shooting for color it would be a simple step to make a custom white balance measurement. Since I knew I'd be aiming toward black and white I set my camera to AWB and blazed away.  My basic exposure was f2.8 at 1/30th of a second @ iso 200.

I shot with the Sony a99 and the ultra cheap but really nice 85mm f2.8 Sony lens. The camera was on a tripod with a ball head. The a99 is much quieter and less frantic than any conventional DSLR  with which I've shot. It calls less attention to itself. Couple that with continuous lighting and you've got the recipe for a laid back and non-intimidating portrait session. One of my favorite sitters pronounced it: "Much more comfortable."

The image started life as a raw file, saw some remedial action in Lightroom 4.3 and then was converted to a jpeg which then headed into PhotoShop for some mild retouching before jumping over to SnapSeed for a painless conversion to black and white.

Blog Notes. I'm back in the office and gearing up for an exciting year. After an intense intra-holiday session with senior management at the VSL there was general agreement that I should focus on my core interests and keep pursuing portrait photography in earnest. You'll probably have to wade through more and more blog posts that revolve around portraiture but we'll sneak in a camera or accessory review from time to time. If I find an interesting book or website we'll toss that in too....

Not much will change from last year. I think we've hit a nice groove and I intend to keep honing the messages I think I concentrated on last year: Gear is great but knowing what to do with it is even greater. Tools and technology continually change and you need to keep an open mind to new ways of doing photographs. Art has value beyond money: Art teaches us what it is to be human. Style comes from continuous work. Having a style trumps having a nice bag full of cameras. And...What passes for common knowledge is almost always outdated and now wrong.

Agree, disagree and argue. That's what the comments are for. But keep it civil and on a collegial  level. Ad Hominem attacks will be flushed. Too much attitude (meanness masquerading as humor or presumptive expertise or pithiness) won't be tolerated. We don't censor, per se, but I do have an itchy delete finger. Don't make me use it.

My predictions for 2013. The economy will continue its recovery. More cameras will be introduced. More social media sites will come online. We'll continue to work professionally. Photography will continue to evolve. I will make little movies. I will swim.

Cheers.  Kirk