2024-03-10

Critique and Criticism or How I Stopped Worrying and Embraced the Critic

Critique and Criticism: some people say they are the same thing while others don’t. The Hivemind defines Criticism as

“…the analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work.”

and it defines Critique as:

“…a detailed analysis and assessment of something, especially a literary, philosophical, or political theory.”

Not a lot of joy there for my purposes as I find the interchangeability “muddies pools”. To be honest it confuses the heck out of me. The Hivemind has many jumping off points if you want to go down that rabbit hole.

I’ve been puzzling over this for a while and how to apply this to my work. It started when I found a samizdat copies of Terry Barrett’s book “Criticizing Photographs”. This is an excellent book and well worth taking the time to go through (I bought the latest edition; so should you). He uses the term “Photographic Criticism” to refer to a photographer’s body of work or a collection of images while a “Studio Critique” is something that is done in a workshop setting. I’d say that’s reasonable

You have to remember though that not all photographs need to be critiqued. You don’t need to do a deep critique of every picture you take. Sometimes we just shoot for fun and memories; those images don’t need to be dissected like a pithed frog in a biology lab.

However, if you’re serious about your work or you want to be helpful to other people who might ask you for feedback then you do need to understand how to critique an image properly. It is also important to know how to communicate a critique and conversely, how to receive one.

Relying on social media is a no-win scenario. One of downsides of social media is that the only critique you get is an upvote, a like, an emoji or even worse: “Nice capture!.” This doesn’t help you grow as a photographer. It reduces evaluations of images to a popularity contest. Some of us can still remember American Bandstand with Dick Clark. After some series of songs, the alleged teenagers were asked which song they liked. Usually the response was along the lines of “I really liked that first song. It had a beat and you could dance to it.” No mention of the lyrics, no mention of the music, just the beat and danceability. That, alas, is where photography on social media is at as well.

The other pitfall with social media is that you start chasing followers, views, likes, and whatever other metric social media uses to hook you. You start posting photographs that you think others will like and not grow beyond that.

As I said in the beginning of this article there is a difference, to my mind, between an image critique and photographic criticism. Although some elements are (distantly) shared, each has their own methodologies. In this section, I’m going to be drawing on the ideas of photographers and teachers much better and cleverer than myself: Alex Kilbee, Eileen Rafferty, Minor White, Terry Barrett, Judy Hancock, Michael Freeman, and others.

I’m going to start looking at the techniques you can use to critique your own images. Applying these to your own work will provide a starting point for improving your work. Later I’ll look at how to extend those to other photographers’ work. This will help you to deconstruct those images and perhaps improve your own work.

I’m also assuming that you, dear reader, are familiar enough with your craft to understand the technical and non-technical aspects of photography. If you’re not, then I’ve got some links at the end for you to refer to.

Critiquing your own photographs

Being honest about your own work is hard. Incredibly hard. You went out, made images and because of that effort you have become emotionally attached to your creation. I get it. I’m guilty of it and I think every photographer is guilty of it. Self-critique takes an enormous amount of discipline, focus and detachment.

The first step is to cull images. Be honest with yourself. I’ll keep saying that every chance I get.

How you do this is up to you. I’ll go through flagging images in the first pass and continue to refine by setting 1 to 4 stars. Once I get done to the final set, I then start really looking for the final 5-star images.

So now you’ve got some images. Guess what? You’ve done some self-critique! Through this process you’ve identified something in an image that made you reject it or something in an image that made you want to keep it.

Before you start studying your 4-star picks let’s go back and look at the “rejects”. What happens if they’re all rejected? Well, this is when you have to start doing a deep dive. I’ve shot countless rolls of film that have had zero, that’s right, bupkis images that I felt were worth keeping. It’s then that you really have to summon up the courage to go back and really examine these, because this is where the gold is.

What happens if there are no rejections? You’re lying to yourself. Shame on you. No one is that good. No one. Go back and start over and be honest with yourself this time.

Pick some of your rejects and start looking at them. Pick several at random, if possible, from each pass through.

And now, a brief interlude… 

What the heck makes a good image? Well, there’s the technical Gang of Four: Focus, Exposure, Sharpness, and Processing. On the artistic side you have this Rest of the Usual Suspects: Subject, Content, Lighting, Composition and Framing. The Go4 and the RoUS I group together as “Craft” or as “The Alleged Rules.”

Overriding all of these though is The High Priest of Context. Context has two parts: Assignment and Vision.

Finally, encompassing all this is something, for lack of a better word, Quux. I’ll talk about “Quux” in a bit.

Focusing (hah!) on just the Go4 and/or the RoUS gives short shrift to an image when critiquing it. HPoC and Quux need to be considered as well or you’re shortchanging the image and yourself.

The HPoC governs the technical and non-technical choices that you make when creating an image. It even governs equipment choice and location. These last two don’t really matter as far as this discussion goes but it makes for an interesting thought experiment.

We’ve all been around long enough to understand what’s part of the Go4 and the RoUS. What may not be clear is how I’m defining the parts of the HPoC.

Paraphrasing Neal Stephenson: “In the beginning was the Assignment” Everybody, even an amateur, shoots to an assignment. You may not think so, but you do. Ask yourself: “Why did I go out to photograph today?” There ya go, there’s your assignment.

Your vision is how you are thinking about and how you are going to approach the assignment. What sort of images are you going to try to create to fulfill the assignment?

This means that the HPoC will drive how you execute the parts of the Go4 and the RoUS. You may end up making creative decisions that may deviate from what the gang of idiots that judge camera club photo competitions think is correct. Remember, the HPoC provides that bit of extra insight when you are doing a critique.

So, what the heck is “Quux” The Jargon File describes it as a metasyntactic variable (look it up). I’m using it as a place holder for a very nebulous idea that is composed of a variety of things. It’s like the umami of the image: the “essence of deliciousness”. It’s the thing that connects the viewer to the image. It’s more than an emotional response, it’s like the “bong” that Lovejoy (a divvy) gets in his chest when in the presence of a true antique. It is the Quuxness of an image that makes an image a truly great image.

You may notice that I’ve danced around the idea of “story.” Well, that’s for a reason. I hate to break it to Rod Stewart and Faces, but not every picture tells a story; not every picture needs to. If you’re into Dada, when they were asked what’s it about, they’d answer: “Dada.” If you’re William Eggleston, he has answered: “That’s the most stupid fucking question I’ve ever heard.” It’s true, look it up. If, however, you are a storyteller by inclination, then the story is important.

We now resume our regular programming…

Where were we? Ah, yes. We’re looking at the rejects. While you were culling, did you note why some images were in and some images were out? What was that? Were the rejects just “meh”, lacking in Quux? Did they not communicate what you thought you were trying to say if you were trying to say anything at all? Did they not match what you saw in your mind’s eye?

The clever boots reading this will notice that I’ve only asked questions relating to the HPoC and the Quuxness of the image. Why is that? Because they really don’t matter all that much. Wait what? You heard that right. Of course, you’re going to try to get the Go4 right but if you don’t it doesn’t matter.

Look at Robert Capa’s D-Day image.

D-Day Landings by Robert Capa

Exposed correctly? Nope. In focus? Nope. Sharp? Nope. Yet this image uses those three “fails” to produce one of the most potent images of the D-Day landings. It has great Quuxness given its Context.

Here’s another one that serves as an example of Go4 and RoUS “fails”.

Remember the cover of The Clash’s album “London Calling” shot by Pennie Smith?

The Clash's London Calling Album Cover by Pennie Smith

This image has an interesting backstory and it’s worth looking up on the HiveMind.

So again, sharp? Nope. In focus? Nope. Exposed correctly? Maybe. Framed? In post yes, when shot no. Composition? In post yes, when shot no. Subject? Again, in post yes, when shot hard to say. Remember she was shooting 35mm film and the image had to be cropped to make a square album cover. The image though, is strong with the Quux.

So go back and look at the rejects to see if any of them have “fails” that contribute to the strength of the image.

Bill Brandt said:

"…photography has no rules. It is not a sport. It is the result which counts, no matter how it is achieved."

It’s not vital to answer the HPoC and Quux questions raised above but they are worth thinking about. Honest introspection is key here. Would it have made a difference if I’d stepped to the left 3 paces, or closer, or farther way? Framed it vertically or maybe if I cropped it? What if I changed the exposure parameters, say underexposed it, changed the lighting or the time of day, changed where I focused, or changed the depth of field? Perhaps it’s just a crap image and you move on. It is through this process of self-examination that one moves forward.

Looking at the images that you feel “made the grade” you go through similar analysis. This is even harder than looking at the culls. A very high degree of self-awareness, brutal honesty and a brutally dispassionate eye is required. This is freaking hard work!

When looking at the “keepers” first ask yourself: “Is this a keeper because I am emotionally invested in the image?” You must remove the self when looking at the image and remove all attachments to the image. Emotional investment is hard to shake. You sat there, in the heat, cold, rain, whatever, waiting for that precise moment that everything came together. You pounded the streets, until at that precise moment there was the image waiting for you. You probably remember the sounds and smells, what your gut felt when you tripped the shutter.

I took a portrait of a pilot who was leaving the company I worked for and took an image of him walking away from me going along the flight line. I can still smell Jet-A. I can still hear a PT-6 starting up. That’s an example of emotional attachment, for both the subject and the photographer. Fortunately, it’s a good image and he has it as his avatar online and has it framed on his desk at home.

Is this image a keeper because it satisfies the Go4 and RoUS, yet you have forgotten the HPoC and the Quux? A technically perfect image can be utterly devoid of life even if it includes the HPoC.

Consider the stock images that litter corporate websites. Here’s one:

A typical stock photo

Yup, it satisfies the Go4, it satisfies RoUS, it even satisfies the terms of the assignment: “a bland image of diverse employees working together”. Was the vision met? I suppose so. It certainly satisfies the brief. However, a rock has more life than this image. It is just like flavourless Wonder Bread. It is totally devoid of Quux and yet this image and others like it are all over the internet. Dull and dreary without communicating a thing.

You can dive deeper into your own images if you wish. There are many resources on the web, many of them indifferent. I’ve put some links at end of this article. My recommendation is that you take what helps you and discard the rest. But remember these two things:

“…when you look at one of your images how does it make you feel? If it makes you feel like there’s something there, follow that path, follow that passion, follow that creativity.”

-- Greg Carrick

“…it is not the sharpness of the image that people will respond to. They will not, one day in the distant future speak about your stunning histograms.”

-- Dave duChemin

Critiquing Other Photographer’s Work

Well. We seem to have flogged looking at your own images to death. What do you do when you are asked to critique someone’s image? How do you go about it? How do you present the critique? How do you receive a critique if it’s your image that is being looked at. Again, I’m speaking about a single image, not a body of work.

There are three different ways that you may be asked to critique someone’s work: being asked by the photographer in person, being asked online or being in a workshop and having to review an image by someone in the group. Note that I don’t include judging an image for a competition (something I loathe). Judging is a whole other thing, and I don’t want to even go there. Barrett and Minor White to provide some guidance on that subject.

Barrett goes into some depth breaking down the sorts of critiques one can do. I’ll list them here but look to Barrett’s book for a detailed description of each:

  • Intentionalist
  • Descriptive
  • Interpretive
  • Judgmental
  • Theoretical

I must admit I loathe the word “judgmental.” Growing up in a Calvinist household, the entire concept of judgment leaves me shuddering whenever I hear it. It’s just too final, too negative, no matter how Barrett and others try to sugar coat it. Let’s use the word “feedback” and “evaluative” rather than “judgmental”.

Of all the types of critiques listed, the one that best matches the situation you’ll likely to be in is “Feedback Critique.” The others, while interesting, are not likely to be encountered online or in a photo club setting. Theoretical critiques might happen when, after the meeting, a few too many beers have been consumed!

Before we go any further, we have to remember that photographs have a visual language. Parts are constant across cultures or genres; others are unique to cultures and genres. Like any language, photography has its grammar, its tropes, and its symbols; again these vary because of culture and genre while others are constant.

This all combines to inform a photographer’s vision and voice. This is a whole other area of discussion and is too complex to talk about here, but you do have to be aware of these as you critique others’ images.

You also have to be aware of the skill and experience level of the photographer. You have to adjust your evaluation to reflect this. You can’t evaluate the work of a beginner the same way you evaluate the work of someone who has been making images for decades (although I have seen images by the latter category that sometimes make me wonder if anything has been learned during those decades).

When giving a critique you can’t go all Roman Centurion correcting Brian’s abysmal Latin. It’s just not constructive. Sure, you’ll remember that “Romani ite domum” is correct (usually in a horrifying flashback to your days at school) but I doubt you’ll remember why it is correct.

How do you begin? Start by quick writing. This is a technique where you write about the image for no more than two minutes; even a minute is fine. Don’t worry about grammar, organization, or spelling. Get your reactions down on paper. These are your first reactions to the image and will act as a guide to your feedback and evaluation.

You have to remain objective throughout. You become objective quickly when you realize that the photograph you are looking at is neither good nor bad, but simply, to quote Joe Friday “Just facts”. These facts may add up to be realism, dadaism, expressionism or what ever other “ism” is out there. 

Begin (using your quick writing) by describing what you see. Consider the subject matter, how form relates to the subject. Remember to review you evaluations in light of your own assumptions and preexisting ideas.

Describing the purpose (HpoC) of the photograph is difficult if you’re not sitting next to the photographer or have a statement by the photographer to hand. Even a title or a caption is helpful. Absent these you have no idea and you have to rely on educated guesses. Assign purpose by saying: “This image affects me in [some descriptive way] and I believe it serves [some description] purpose because [reasons].” The order doesn’t matter, but you always have to back up your guesses with a well thought out reason.

Now, you can begin to interpret the image. Again, not easy. You have to steer clear of your own biases. Go back to your quick writing. If it contains questions about the image, expand on those. If you have sketched out an interpretation expand on that. Support your interpretation with factual information. If, for example, you feel that the image echoes the work of SomeArtist by SomeTechnique to show SomeStory then say it and support it with facts. If the image takes that SomeArtist’s concept further to define a new way of addressing SomeStory then say it and support it with facts. If however the image merely apes SomeArtist’s image or style or technique and fails then you’re faced with the conundrum of how to (gently) let the photographer know. Facts come to the rescue here. Show why the image has failed and how it could be improved supported by cogent observations of what is in the image. Preferences are not valid observations, they are merely psychological reports on your own state of mind. Thanks to Barrett for that observation.

You have to have the presence of mind however to be open to the idea that the image you are looking at is a whole new style, or a riff of an existing style that has been turned on its head. This usually won’t happen in a photo club or online forum but you have to be aware of a nascent talent’s work landing in your lap. What ever you do, don’t behave like the art critics when they were first exposed to the Impressionists for example. If an image gets your chuddies in that much of a twist sit down, have a cup of tea, and look inward and ask: “What do I fear from this image so much that I am openly hostile towards it?”

Again, I have to reiterate that the image is at the very least technically competent for some value of competent. No image is perfect. Not even the greats would own to their images being perfect. Each image is a step along the road of the “Ongoing moment” (thanks to Geoff Dyer for choosing that title for one of his books).

In the milieu that and will most probably find ourselves, the chance of us being asked to critique a image by SomeFamousPhotographer is vanishingly small.

We’ve described the image and assigned a purpose. We can now do a technical assessment and perhaps provide suggestions to make the image more powerful. Again, using your quick writing and the Craft (Go4 and RoUS) you phrase your suggestions in such away as to be as constructive as possible.

For example, the framing is a bit off so you could say: “Perhaps if the photographer moved a pace to the right it would place the subject to draw the viewer to the subject and away from the tree.” In general you can say: “Perhaps if the the photographer [adjustments element(s) of craft] it would [result]or: “I wonder is the photographer [adjustments element(s) of craft] what the image would be like.”

Easy Peasy, right? No ruffled feathers, no confrontation and a possibility of opening a dialog about the image.

What happens when the photographer’s vision exceeds their craft? Or their craft exceeds their vision? This can be difficult to deal with and as I have mentioned above, facts come to the rescue and you use these facts to show why the image is lacking and what can be done to improve it. Again, use non-confrontational language. Don’t say: “Nice try, but your exposure sucks and yada-yada-yada.” Just don’t. Instead, say things like “I think I understand your vision, but the [element(s) of Craft] seem a bit off. Maybe you can tell me why you made those choices.” You want to start a dialog so both of you can learn.

The most difficult situation is where there is no Vision and no Craft. The camera has been set on Auto and no thought has been given to communicating anything. In short, a happy snap. You have two choices here.

You can beg off by saying: “I don’t think I’m the right person to critique this image.” This is kicking the can down the road and doesn’t really help anyone – not even yourself as the best way to learn a subject is to try and teach it.

If you are feeling up to it you can possibly try to walk the person through the image pointing out why the image doesn’t work from a HpoC and Quux perspective and how to get around those issues and then elaborate on how Craft (Go4 and RoUS) can support getting to HpoC and Quux. Again, every statement has to be supported by facts and reasons. If you get any push back, just drop it. You may have planted a seed and the photographer may go and do some reading (at best), take a workshop, or jump on the YouChoobies at worst.

Receiving a Critique

What happens when your image is being critiqued? How do you receive that critique? I’m going to assume that the critique you are receiving is done in the same spirit as I’ve describe. If it’s confrontational, aggressive or nasty just say: “Thank you” and move on. Haters are going to hate and it’s best to let them swim in their own poison.

Remember that the critique is of the image, not of you. You may be heavily invested in the image and think that it’s the next “Moonrise Over Hernadez” but that’s immaterial.

Be centered and receptive when receiving the critique. Open your ears. Like Yogi Bera said: “You can see a lot just by listening.” Don’t block out the critique by rushing ahead and creating a list of “Yeah but”. The same applies to a written critique. Read, think, pause, rinse, repeat.

  1. Go in with an open mind and view this a learning experience.
  2. Breathe and be mindful.
  3. Wait before responding.
  4. Ask for clarification
  5. Do not accept criticism blindly. Begin a dialog about the image, about your vision, about your craft.
  6. Don’t disregard positive comments.
  7. Remember we’re all here to learn.

Useful Resources

Eileen Rafferty

Ms. Rafferty did several excellent videos at the B&H EventSpace on various subjects that are helpful when critiquing an image:

Art Movements in Photography

Designing an Image

Learn the Language of Photography Through Critique

B&H has many excellent videos on their YouTube channel and most of them aren’t product promotions. It’s worth rummaging around in there.

Judy Hancock Holland

Ms Hancock Holland posted this useful video on critiquing your own and others' photographs. She's even published a handy-dandy checklist. 

Critiquing Photos: Yours and Others'

Checklist for Evaluating Photos (Yours and Others) 

Terry Barrett

Mr. Barrett's book "Criticizing Photographs" is a must read for anyone venturing into the murky world of photographic criticism and critique. You can find it on Amazon and other online booksellers

Aperture

This is one of the grandaddies of photography magazines. The era when Minor White was editor is rich with articles by White, Adams and many others. The article in Volume 2 Number 2 (1953) by Minor White entitled "Criticism" what started all this off for me, way back in the mists of time. I found in the book: "Aperture Magazine Anthology -- The Minor White Years 1952-1976" You can find this book online at the Aperture website and at many other online booksellers.

David duChemin

Mr. duChemin has written many very thoughtful books that actually talk about achieving "Quux". He is insightful, penetrating and a damn fine writer. You see his books on his website and they are available at the usual online booksellers.

Michael Freeman

Mr. Freeman's books on 35mm photography took me from a tyro aping being a photographer to developing the technical chops to do the job. His series of books. The Photographer's Eye, Mind, Vision, Story (4 books) are well worth reading.

Alex Kilbee

Mr. Kilbee, will you please stop reading my mind! Really. I start writing something and sure enough, three days later he posts something on YouTube that mirrors what I've been mulling over. His YouTube channel is well worth subscribing to. All killer, no filler.

2023-12-19

Skaters by the Seine

Notice I didn't say "on the Seine" although it felt cold enough. No, the Seine flowed north to the sea unperturbed by the cold, churned up by loaded gravel barges going down stream hooting at the returning empties.

Strolling along the left bank on a brisk November day, it was fairly quiet. The used booksellers, the ones that were open, huddled in lawn chairs wrapped up to ward off the damp cold. The sun was still shining yet everyone was walking with purpose, hands thrust in overcoat pockets heading to a place where they could warm their bones.

I had made a few desultory images, more just to get into the rhythm than anything else. As I walked further upstream, past the Pont de Sully, by the Quai St. Bernard there were a three young gentleman working on their tricks: the video guy, the coach and the skater. I watched for about 10 minutes and motioned to ask if I could photograph them.

As luck would have it, I only had the Leica which doesn't autofocus. So, reaching back into the recesses of the archive I dusted off the old "f8 and be there" mantra. Several test shots to gauge distance and "Bob's your auntie." I made several good images once I got things dialed in. 

The thing with f8 is that you have quite a large depth of field so you get the subject in focus but also a lot of the back and fore-ground. But, technology to the rescue! The latest version of LR has an experimental Lens Blur function. This stunning piece software that analyzes the image and calculates a pseudo depth of field that you can then adjust. Works a treat and I've used it on several images.

I went with a grainy high contrast black and white style:



After the shoot, in broken schoolboy French (on my part), non-existent English (on their part), and hand signals (on all our parts) I managed to get an email address for one of them so I could send them the images. I did several other treatments for fun but the images above are my favourite.


2023-09-15

The EM-1 Mark I is 10 Years Old — So I Bought One

We all rationalize when we get GAS

But why? Well, my E-P2, while still working well, was starting to frustrate me,  especially the autofocus. The smallest single point was huge and it would often focus on not what I thought it was focusing on but somewhere else: an ear, a nose, the tree next to the face —  you get my drift. At times it was sloooow and focusing my Leica was quicker compared to the E-P2 as it hunted back and forth. Often, under my breath you could hear me mutter:  “Focus, you fsck!”

The E-P2 still a great camera and even at 14 years old makes great images, especially if you run the RAW files through DxO 6 or DxO PureRaw. Lightroom sometimes makes a right hash of m43 raw files, especially skies. Just the other week I used it to shoot some family portraits of a neighbour's family: the 45mm f/1.8 is just dandy for that. I used the Leica with 50mm f/2 Summicron for the group shots.

Anyway, I was in a pawnshop the other day and there, sitting neglected and alone an EM-1 Mark I with a HLD-7 battery holder and kit lens for 329CAD (that's about 250USD). A quick visual inspections showed it lightly used although it had a weird rubbery thing around the default viewfinder. Overall I'd rate it as LN-. Except for one thing (always that one thing): no battery compartment door. That would make it BGN. No problem says I. I should be able to source this online from the usual suspects. So I bought it.


Men in sheds with tools

You'd think that the quest for said battery door would be easy. Not so. Door latches? Heck you can 3D print those. Other bits and bobs, ditto. The door? Hah! In fact double hah! I spent days trying every possible combination of query words. Mark II doors? Hava yes. EM-5 doors, EM-10 doors? You betcha! Mark 1 doors? Nope. Multiple search engines, drilling down through AliExpress, surfing every message board about m43. No dice. Oh sure, I got hits, but they had the “No Longer Available” tag next to them.

Call out to anyone who may have an EM-1 MK I door assembly or knows where to get one let me know. Or, does any other EM door fit?

Well, I thought, perhaps if I tighten down the HLD-7 the in-camera battery will stay put. Nope, the slightest jar would make it springensproing off the contacts; still contained by the HLD-7 but no path for the angry pixies to flow. Try it without the in-camera battery. Nope, it needs to be there, even if dead. Several cups of tea and Hob-Nobs later I thought I came up with a solution. Cut a piece of say 1/16" plastic to shape and fettle it in and affix with black Gorilla Tape in the tradition of Red Green. Worked around the house, but when the temperature outside began to rise to about 30C the tape would still "stick" but under the pressure of the spring in the battery well would start to deform the plastic and the tape and then, again, the slightest jar would make it springensproing off the contacts as before.

Clearly some fabricobbling was going to be required. I don't have a 3D printer and nor do I wish to become proficient designing stuff for same. More tea. More Hob-Nobs. Ah-ha! I've got it. I need something stiffer and thicker (that's what she said). Sheet brass, cut, stacked and fettled as required should do the trick. That will give the HLD-7 something to press on properly without flex and be temperature stable (I'm not going to walk the sands of Kakrafoon with it).

I chose sheet brass as it doesn't corrode and is easy to work with. Careful measuring with my calipers showed that 1/32" was a good thickness (that's about 0.03", 22 gauge or 0.76mm). Any thicker and I wouldn't be able to build it up as required and any thinner would be too flippy-floppy.

I ended up with a design something like this (not to scale by any stretch of the imagination and yes, it's on the back of a napkin):


The problem now was finding sheet brass. Almost all of the hobby stores in town have closed up shop save two. Luckily one was close by and I found a sheet of 0.03" brass that was just the right size. Thank you Trains and Such. Off to the workshop for cutting with the fret saw, rounding off with the Dremel, making a notch for the battery retaining clip and sticking it together with Krazy Glue and I came up with this:




Not the prettiest and I can just see Nik Blackhurst rolling his eyes but hey-ho, fit for purpose. It looks a bit like the gold bail from the Heart of Gold doesn't it?

It works great and everything stays in place as it should. The only issue is having to lug the HLD-7 around everywhere which makes me about as discreet as lugging my E-3 around. This presented me with the next challenge: How make something that would act like the HLD but without its size.

It came to me while I was reading “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”. The doggos where curled up on my lap and for some reason my mind wandered (as it does, I've got to fix that hole) and for whatever reason Nik Blackhurst popped into my mind.

 “That's IT,” I shouted, startling the dogs and scattering them to various parts of the house, ”a bracket!”  You see, Nik has a bit of a bracket fetish.

I didn't want to build one because I don't have the shop tools to work with a billet of aluminum or steel. I could have used some of the maple planking I have in the shop but that's not dimensionally stable — well it is if I don't leave Calgary but going to anywhere damper would make it started to do odd things.

So back to the usual online suspects and there it was, the perfect camera bracket, 120mm long and about the right width. At 17 Canadian Pesos and delivery tomorrow, clicking "Buy Now" was obvious. It's a camera bracket/plate for use with Arca Swiss tripods but I don't have a tripod and at 17 bucks, you can't beat it. What about having to take it off to change batteries? So what? I do it with the Leica all the time. Not. A. Problem.


In either config the camera is no longer weatherproof, but neither are any of my other cameras except for the E-3. Besides, if it starts to rain when I'm oot and aboot I'll dive into the nearest pub or back into the car —  like Weston, if it's not with in 50 yards of the car I'm not going to break a sweat trying to make an image. My back, my knees and my hips are past doing the mountain goat thing.

Working with FrankenEM-1

Right from the get go it felt like I had a lighter version of my OM-1 in my hands, even with the HLD. The viewfinder is awesome for an EVF, orders of magnitude better than the EVF-2 on the EP-2. Nice and bright, and for a 4/3 camera of any type it feels spacious. Not as spacious as my OM-1, but stil spacious. This camera is wicked configurable and if you can't get it set up to suit the way you shoot, then I don't know what to say. I've re-assigned the Record and F2 buttons to be Focus Peaking and Focus Zoom, AF to a 3x3 centered pattern all though I may change that. I'll have to see how it works on the street.

I've also defaulted to Centre Weighted metering because it's what I'm used to although the pattern is truly centre weighted unlike say, the OMs that while center weighted were biased downward away from the sky.

The images I've tested with are great. OOC jpegs have that Olympus look and running the RAW files through DxO Photolab 6 produce excellent results. All the other measurebating can be found elsewhere on the interwebs so I leave that for you to find.

Conclusion

For 329 bucks for the camera, 5 bucks in brass sheet and a 17 dollar camera plate, I've got a great camera that feels great and one that I'm very comfortable with. My standard load out now for travel is my M-E with a 35 f/2.8 and 50 f/2 lenses, the EM-1 with the 45 f/1.8 and Lumix 14 f/2.5. Why both? Why not one or the other. Dunno. Some situations seem to call for the Leica, others for the EM-1. They're both small enough and light enough for me to carry both. 

As well as having a very good camera, I've a camera that gives me full flexibility. Having been with Olympus since the OM-1, I can mount my OM lenses (my beloved 50 f/1.4 and 100 f/2.8) for some compact reach if I need to. For something longer, I've a 200 f/4. That's more for when I'm "road trip" photographing I don't have to lug all the kit around. I'm of two minds about getting an MMF-2 so I can use my 4/3 lenses. The 12-60 is twice as big as the camera and the 50-200 is would be just so out of balance that I really can't see the point. I still have the E-3, 510 and 300 for those so if the use-case requires that sort of kit, I've got that covered.


2021-11-25

Recent Work

In between COVID waves I've been able to do a bit of travelling and while very rusty, I've been able to make a few passable images.

Denmark

Bubble
Rådhuspladsen, Copenhangen


Coffee Cup in Early Morning

Receipts

Casters

Getting Ready for the Rave

Yes, she was all in pink. The others where even more outlandish. She consented to pose for me. The others seemed uncomfortable in their costumes.

Stairs (Not to be taken whilst 3 sheets to the wind)

Danes are noted for design, but for the life of me I don't know how this passed safety inspection...

Helsingør

Barber Shop

Copenhagen Harbour


Svanemølle Power Station Svanemølleværket 1

Svanemølle Power Station Svanemølleværket 2

Vancouver Island

Light - Goose Spit BC

Death

Howe Sound

Thanks for looking













New Books


Yes, that's about a quarter of my library. I had promised myself to stop or at least pause buying books but oh well. These are new in the library.

The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War - Louis Menand

Bought this after reading about it in The Atlantic. It's similar to another book I have "Art and Politics in the Weimar Period" it outlines how art, media and thought evolved during the Cold War and how they were influenced by the economic, demographic and technological forces that drove social and cultural change.

Criticizing Photographs 6th Edition - Terry Barret

Got into this book while watching Eileen Rafferty's talk on the B&H Event Space channel on the YouChoobies. Rafferty's talk is more focused on studio critiques while this book gives you the tools to actually understand and write about photographs. It's been an eye opener to be sure! I've filled many pages of notes and bookmarks that make the book look like a hedgehog.

Strange Things Behind (Belgian) Windows - Jean-Luc Feixa

Picked this up at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (LMMA) in Humlebaek DK, despite promising myself that I wouldn't by any photobooks on the trip. Oh well. Quirky, fascinating and really good project. Might have to try that in Calgary.

Pia Arke - Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

Pia Arke was a Greenland photographer and artist. This was the catalog for a retrospective at LMMA. Articles and interviews interspersed with her work. Just cracking the surface of this one.

Magnumb - Arthur Jafa

This show was on at the same time as Pia Arke at LMMA and in someway they reflect each other. This book is the companion to the show and overview of Jafa''s sweeping, dynamic and disquieting video portraits of Black American life. I made some notes at LMMA that I hope to work into a further post.

Tror du vi vågner i morgen (Do you think we'll wake up tomorrow?) - Linda Hansen & Maiken Abildgaard

A fascinating interchange of images and ideas. From the back cover:

[This] is a correspondence between photographer and visual artist Linda Hansen and author Maiken Abildgaard. For a year they have exchanged photographs and phrases. A sentence was answered with a picture and a picture with a sentence. This created 100 small works consisting of text and photography. 40 of these are selected and compiled in this book. 

Google Translate will be working overtime.

Keld Helmer- Petersens Fotografiske Verden (Keld Helmer- Petersen's Photographic World) - Inger Ellekilde Bonde

All in Danish, this will take some time reading. Remember, in Danish the vowels don't count and the consonants don't matter. I guess this is learning Danish the hard way. I should be able to write to my grandson when I'm done with this.

From the back cover:

The first full introduction to the photographer Keld Helmer-Petersen, who in Denmark made the photograph an art...

After the Silence: Women of Art Speak Out - Stats Museum fur Kunst (SMK)

This is the companion book that SMK gave out (for free) for this exhibit. From the SMK website:

Come explore art that’s ready to do battle! In this year’s major autumn exhibition, we give the floor to some of art history’s prominent women artists. Taking the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s as our springboard, we focus on how women have used art as an instrument of battle to create change in the world over the last hundred years.

In my journal I had been writing a lot about context and its importance in photography especially after seeing the baffled looks of the Danes viewing Jafa's exhibition at LMMA. Now, it was my turn. The art was masterful, gripping but as a male I had no context to truly understand the depth and real meaning of the exhibit. More thought required here, to be sure.

Lots of reading, lots of note making, lots to think about.


 

2021-01-16

Stuck Inside of Lightroom with the COVID Blues Again

Oh noes! Not another variation of Zimmerman's song! Not another post about how much this coronabollocks sucks! Not another whinge about how this is impacting someone's creativity. 

Well, it's not.

Another week, another extension of pandemic restrictions. It's been months since I've done any sort of serious work. Even in Paris my shooting was desultory as I was in tourist mode. I really don't feel like I should be out shooting as it's hardly an essential activity in any way. Unless we get this beast under control a lot of things will come crashing down, like the airline industry where my good lady wife works.

This post is about three things: Creativity blocks, keeping busy in quarantine and the results of the latter.

Creativity Blocks and How We Mess With Our Own Mind

Thomas Heaton, a young landscape photographer out of England posted on YouTube about how the coronabollocks has drained his desire to get out of bed and get out and shoot. Truth be told, that sounds more like incipient depression to me but there you go.

Heaton is a very talented photographer and wears his heart on his sleeve. His images are technical tours de force; lacking a bit of emotion sometimes (for me) but à chacun son goût . Overall I really like his oeuvre.

I get it Thomas. You make your living from this and I feel for you. I had times like this crafting software. There would be days when I could barely put hand to keyboard, all the while the PM (usually me) clamouring for code.

Two things are happening here. Isolation due to lurgi and a lack of desire.

Isolation due to Lurgi? Nothing we can do about that. Creatives sometimes need interaction although I work alone and don't really like photographers' get-togethers all that much: photowalks are not my thing but going to galleries are.

For the absolute lack of desire to get up and shake it? It's a case of writers/artist/photographers/creative block and lots of sort-of-helpful lists are out there on how to deal with it. 

Personally? For photography? I go do something else: build something in the shop, read, walk around without a camera just seeing. The latter frees me from having to schlep gear around and I can just practice seeing things differently, getting ideas and, if I do see something, a modern cellphone camera that can capture DNG (like my iPhone and Camera645Pro -- shameless plug) well Bob's your auntie. For writing? See above but carry a small notebook and write down phrases that come into my head.

In both cases those quick sketches using the mind, a cellphone or a notebook get tossed into a mental stew and later, sometimes months later, as I leaf through them something leaps out and grabs me: a phrase, a bon mot, a partial image. Then, oh and then, the motivation often is such that I can't contain the desire to (figuratively) climb every mountain and ford every stream. The block vanishes and you've got your mojo back.

There are some funny habits that we ape-descendant lifeforms have: categorizing ourselves, overthinking, and looking for the (creative) endorphin rush. These bury our creative juices in a steaming pile of existential muck.

Of the three, categorizing ourselves is probably the biggest block to any creative endeavour. When you're in a creative funk hanging on to "I'm a street tog", "I'm a landscape photographer", "I'm a travel photographer" gets in the way of blowing that funk away. Definitions like that have so much baggage associated with them that they get in the way of any sort of creativity as they bind you into a preset visual language. Yuck. 

The Derbyshire Police handing out tickets for driving out of town to a deserted place to walk and photograph? There's an urban landscape to photograph closer to home. Margaret Bourke-White did an excellent job of photographing the urban landscape. Her images of Cleveland's steel industry show an urban landscape write large and stand up to anything Ansell Adams did.

No one on the streets? Buildings are on the streets. Street photography, unfortunately, seems to mandate a human presence. What then are buildings? Are they not indicative of a human presence? Lee Friedlander's streetscapes are every bit as compelling as those done by any street photographer.

Not to belabour things but consider Picasso. How do YOU categorize him? Guernica? Abstract Portraits? Did you know he designed tiles? Made pottery? For frogs snacks! Don't limit yourselves. Try a different genre at the very least!

I'll only mention the other two in passing. Overthinking is continually analysing something, going around and around and never getting resolution. In hockey I'd see it when a prolific goal scorer went into a slump. Watching him on the ice I'd see him trying to think out the play rather than just reacting. We'd call it "holding the stick too tight". Just go out and put pucks on the net we'd tell him; don't go for the highlight reel play. Same with photography. Travel light, shoot, work quickly, react. Not every shot is going to go in the net, nor will every photograph go into the portfolio but it will end up in your sketch book -- Tom Thompson's oil sketches are worth as much as his paintings. But if you don't make that shot, there's no way it'll happen.

Endorphin Rush? Yeah, I get it. Nothing more exciting or thrilling when that whatever it is goes BONG in your chest and you know that what you're working on is the money shot. We keep wanting to duplicate that feeling and when it doesn't happen you start to jones pushing yourself harder and hard and beating yourself up when you can't get that rush. That's an addictive behaviour. Dunno how you stop that but I always remind myself that a bad day's shooting is always better than sitting in a cubicle.

Lurgi and How to Deal With It

So, what to do when everyone is down with the Lurgi and you can't get out? Well, short of selling brass band instruments to the country, it depends.

Me? I read. Everything from spy novels to history to philosophy to art. I look at other photographers' work and try to learn from them, deconstruct them. There's nothing more satisfying than finally being able to say: "I saw what you did there!"

I've read "The Bloodlands", all of Chandler's Marlowe mysteries, "SevenEves", David Martin's "Road to Seeing", "Margaret Bourke-White" and so on.

I also rummage through my back collection looking at images that I may have discarded or forgotten about or try out some different processing techniques on one that I've worked on before. Heck, given the state of my brain, sometimes all three at once. 

If you're serious about abiding by the "don't go out unless you really need to" dictum to do your part in flattening the curve then that's about all you can do and still keep photographically sane.

Other than write drivel, of course.

Lost Project Found

So I was rummaging through the catalog the other daaay...

And found a number of images that I had started working on but stopped for one reason or another. These things happen. Not sure why these got abandoned but so many things happen around here that images sometimes get put to one side.

Back in the day on 11th St SE there was the Blackfoot Farmers' Market. It was a ramshackle affair and only open during the summer. With two by four and plywood booths the vendors it was kinda a sketchy affair. It had a petting zoo with some goats I seem to recall. My wife and I visited once and wasn't even up to the standard of a roadside fruit stand in the Okanagan; overpriced produce, sketchily wrapped food, you know the drill.

Can't recall how many years ago that it finally packed up but I seem to recall newspaper articles about the stall holders fighting amongst themselves and with the whatever governance was in place. Over time it became overgrown and began to decay. Some homeless moved and were rousted regularly and as usual, the taggers left their mark as well. 

These images show what was left almost 4 years ago. Two years ago they came in with heavy equipment and removed all that was left and now it stores bark mulch in rows between the trees.

I didn't do a lot of post-processing other than cropping and some minor exposure adjustments in Lightroom. The light was magic that March morning and these pretty well match the OOC jpegs. The colours where so vibrant that I didn't even try to do and BW processing. 

Menu


Table

Stand

Tricycle

Stay safe, wear a mask, get vaxed as soon as you can.

2020-09-29

You wore blue; the Germans wore grey

Fractal Chaos
Yes, my wife and I will always have Paris. How we got there and why during these COVID times is a long story involving friends upping stakes to live in Abruzzo, the Cunard line, a therapy dog, baggage allowances, and navigating the goat rodeo that is CDG in Paris. That however is a story for another time and a quantity of libations.

Like everyone who has gone to Paris I had preconceptions of what I would experience. These arose from French classes taken in the distant past when dinosaurs still roamed (or deGaulle at least), Simenon novels (both print and dramatized), movies, paintings of Edouard Cortès and all the other things adheres to you as live. I was very conscious of "Paris Syndrome" that the Japanese even have a name for: pari shokogun. You can look it up in the hive mind. Yet, for some reason it didn't hit me, even with the layers of cultural accretions that had built up over six decades. Paris affected me like no other major city I have traveled to.

I'm not sure why. Perhaps it was the complete dearth of tourists due to travel restrictions — there was no line up at the Louvre for heaven's sakes! Or perhaps it was due to our location, a top notch AirBnB that had a view of the Eiffel Tower. Perhaps it was because I was aware of pari shokogun and determined to avoid it. Most likely though it was because I was there with my wife on our first vacation without obligations since before children.

Looking through my handy-dandy notebook (of course you scribble in a notebook whilst in the cafe having cafe au lait and pain chocolate!) I noted several times how I felt one should approach Paris. One entry reads:

"To embrace Paris is to be embraced by the city itself. There is a degree of fractal chaos present, not only in its layout but in the rhythm of the city [and you have to accept that]. Sure the RER C is not operational [from Notre Dame to Pont Alma, meaning we have to drag our luggage from Notre Dame to our flat] [and it] doesn't show that on the RATP app. [To cope] a Gallic shrug and one moves on. [although at first it really knackered us and we had to stop for fortification]..."

Rosé and Beer

"...Absent the horses the Paris of Cortès is still there but like a French woman of a certain age and breeding it is now discreetly masked only to be revealed to someone who will listen to her stories, flirt with her and pay her the respect she is due..."
Cafe Society
Yes, she is enigmatic and even eccentric but during the course of seven days I have become fond of her. She has a panache that dour Copenhagen will never have. She has a human scale that is absent from New York. She [still] has a passion for life that has all but disappeared (if it ever truly existed) from London. Coming from the pimple on the prairie the old WWI song: "How are You Going to Keep Them Down on the Farm after They've Seen Gay Paree" kept rumbling through my mind.

We did no real touristy things, other than wander about the base of the Eiffel Tower (but did not go up) wandered through Jardin des Tuileries, looked at the Louvre but didn't go in. Instead we wandered. We bought a Navigo card and with three buses (the 42, 69 and 82) stopping across from our apartment we could motor about quickly. If a place looked interesting we'd jump off and explore. No side street was out of bounds. Best of all those three buses gave a good tour of Paris away from the places a Hop-on-hop-off bus tends to frequent. If that didn't work, the Metro at École Militaire was just a few blocks away
A street we found

If it rained, we ducked into a cafe and had a little something. We were never disappointed.

Paris in the rain


Rain will not interfere with our café

There's always a show in Paris. In a way it's less contrived than the show in New York. In New York it feels like people are climbing over each other to stand out; in Paris, not so much.

We had wandered and ended up on Avenue Victor Hugo and then surfaced at the round about that strikes terror into every tourist driver's heart: the traffic circle at Place Charles deGaulle and L'Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile. My wife and I decided to sit and watch the traffic swirl. Oddly enough, there was no mayhem, there was no blaring of horns as mopeds, bicycles, large trucks, buses and cars of all sizes wove around each other. As we were sitting there, a Rolls-Royce drop-head coupe pulled up. The chauffeur stepped out and took the top down to reveal newlyweds. The groom grinning from ear to ear, the bride more interested in her phone.

Grinning for now...

Elsewhere we saw Yorkies in SmartCars, models doing portfolio shoots and people reading. And read they do in Paris. Bookstores without the tat that you find at Chapters, people "discussing" books in bookstores and cafes. Even the act of having a cigarette becomes an act of style. I'm not sure that anyone actually smokes — the cigarette seems to be more of a fashion accessory.

Quick! He's getting away!

Work with me! Yeah Baby!

A quiet afternoon read

It's a fashion accessory! Really it is!

Discarded things had their own stories; not always obvious but there if you had an inventive streak:

Mattress

Sofa

The children of Paris had stories all their own. In Jardin du Palais Royal, in the forecourt, some boys playing soccer with all the joy and vitality that children can bring to a game. I have to be honest though, sometimes it resembled "Calvinball". And, unlike in Canada, no aged commisionaire hobbling out to say: "Hey, you can do that 'ere, eh! Now get oot!"

Calvinball à la Parisienne

In a city of 2+ million, the children are free range, unlike here in the pimple on the prairie. Children are either helicopter with parents continually braying at their charges not to do what children naturally do or, worse, not even letting them oot and boot at all — even with parents near to hand. Perhaps it was the arrondissements we were in but children weren't tear-aways, knew how to dine out and would explore the street, park or whatever always returning, always keeping the parent in sight without being nattered at.

We know where we are Mom

Climbing Boy

Whilst wandering through Jardin des Tuileries and stopping at the Bassin Octogonal Dawn befriended two boys and asked them if they wanted to join her and sail some boats that a vendor had. They ran over to their father who shrugged: "Why not?" Much fun, much laughter and much running around the fountain.

Two Boys


Prepare to cast off

We did do one touristy thing. We went to Épernay and toured the champagne caves of Moët & Chandon. After lunch in the vineyard of the Mercier house we toddled down Avenue de Champagne sampling the wares as we went. The smaller houses Champagne de Venoge still pick the grapes from their own vineyards and make champagne very traditionally in oaken casks while the big houses are so industrialized that it seems they live on brand recognition than any sort of artisanal skill. I preferred de Venoge to Moët or Pol Roger as there was an honesty and a connection to the land as opposed to big marketing efforts.

Pre-Champagne


Champagne-in-Waiting

Yes, Paris made an impact on me. Even if this COVID stuff ends and I have to fight hordes of tourists my wife and I have agreed that we will try to go as often in a year as we can. Paris is seductive. She can charm and also annoy yet you can't help but love her.

I'll leave you with two videos: Gershwin's "An American in Paris" and Joni Mitchell's "A Free Man in Paris"


"...I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
There was nobody calling me up for favors
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on..."
Joni Mitchell
Full galleries are here and here.