GaleriePangee ~ Montreal, CA • click to embiggenWhile walking the streets of Montreal's Old City, most notably Rue St. Paul est, we came upon a gallery that had never attracted our attention in past strolls through the area. What caught my attention on this occasion was an exhibit of BW pictures which, upon seeing them through the gallery window, just screamed, loud and clear, "Exquisite BW Hasselblad Pictures!"

So, in we went, and sure enough, the gallery walls were hung with a couple dozen Exquisite BW Hasselblad Pictures. The exhibit pictures were from of Valérie Jodoin Keaton's Backstage body of work and the inkjet prints were supremely, exquisitely, and delightfully drop-dead gorgeous.

Now, I'll admit that I was not familiar with any of the pictured musicians - neither my cup o' tea or my "generation" - but the net effect of the exhibit was to instill in me a consummate desire to dump all of my digital stuff, get me a Hassey with 40mm and 50mm lenses, buy me some color negative film, then buy me a high-end (IMACON?) scanner, and then ... start making me some of them-there exquisite Hasselbald pictures.

Hydrant, ice, and shadow ~ Montreal, CA • click to embiggen
Streetscape color, shapes, and texture ~ Montreal, CA • click to embiggenWhen I am out picture making, my current MO is to be especially aware of life in pictures and relationships opportunities. However, I do keep an open eye / mind for any other picture making possibilities that present themselves to my eye.

Consequently, when a walk through Montreal's Old City yielded not a single opportunity for adding to either of my ongoing series, my eye turned to other things. Shapes, color, and texture seemed to be the thing that was grabbing my attention.

FYI, all weekend, I never took the 20mm f1.7 lens off the camera. And, only on a couple of occasions - when the light required it - did I picture with anything but a wide-open aperture.

Pre-game warmup ~ Bell Centre - Montreal, CA• click to embiggenWhile the Pens and Habs go through their pre-game warmups, the wife enjoys a pre-game warmup beer.

Great seats. Lousy game. The Pens played like they hadn't played in 4 days, which, in fact they hadn't. The seats, which are season ticket seats owned by one of the wife's client's father, are great. Front row balcony near the corner where the Pens shoot twice is about as good as it gets for me.

If we were to buy season tickets, these are the ones I would want. While the action is not as in-your-face as it would be closer to the ice, the flow of the game and, as a bonus, the sound of the players yakking and squawking and "expressing" themselves is quite readily discernible.

In any event, despite the Pens rather pathetic performance, attending a hockey game in Montreal is always a treat.

Readings $5 ~ E5th Street, NYC • click to embiggenI don't know about y'all but I don't need no stinking crystal ball to know that the future is a scary place. As my friend Scary Joey always says - he pronounces it, sayzz, "Be scared. Be very a-scared".

NY's Grand Canyon • click to embiggenAn item of note in yesterday's newspaper caught my attention. The headline read - Youth lose interest in blogs. That was immediately followed by - Could it be that blogs have become online fodder for - gasp! - more mature audiences?

The article went on to state that young people - roughly ages 12-29 - are losing interest in long-form blogging and are turning their attention - such as it is - to communication forms that are increasingly brief (and mobile). One 18 year old student, who uses Facebook and Twitter, states that "people these days don't find reading that fun".

The notion that callow and feckless youth, or the nation as a whole for that matter, has been steadily losing interest in reading is not exactly a new idea. However, much like climate change, the pace of that change has been greatly exacerbated / accelerated by man and his inventions.

All of that said, this "brevity" disorder doesn't bode well for the future of picture making / viewing, the notion of reading a photograph:

I feel that photography is becoming like T.V. Many people just want a graphic, easy image. My teacher said that a photo must communicate in less than 5 seconds, the amount of time people look at photos. However, this practice often leaves the "quiet pictures"(according to William Albert Allard) and "the second lookers" (according to Dorothea Lange) out in the cold. To me, "quiet pictures" are like crossword puzzles. But some people do not like crossword puzzles because they it forces them to think. - James Lalropui Keivom

A surprising number of "serious" picture makers - in fact I would posit the majority thereof - are already committed to making, for themselves and preferring in the pictures made by others, pictures that are purely visual in their intent and appeal - photography-lite, so to speak. Pictures that are easily consumed, digested and forgotten.

CAVEAT: much photography-lite is made with the intent of preserving personal memories / experiences. Those pictures, while they might be easily digested, will not easily be forgotten by those who made them and, in fact, are often destined to become the loci and, in fact, the actual foci of many precious memories.

Now, I am not suggesting that there was ever a golden era of reading a photograph. Far from it. In fact and in deed, reading a photograph, a photograph that is/was worth reading, has always been a rather elite (some might say, "effete") activity. It has been ever thus that...

There is something wrong with a work of art if it can be understood by a policeman*. - Patrick Kavanagh

But, that said, isn't the arc of human development and evolution been such that the "higher" forms of life are the ones that survive and thrive? Shouldn't we be fostering and encouraging the idea of in-depth analysis / consideration of things (you know, things like life, art, politics, etc.) rather than cursory, faint, and "brief" dabbling - mainly for pleasure and a quick fix - as an MO for modern living?

*I don't know why Patrick Kavanagh chose policeman as an example of the shallow / surface understanding of Art. I would have used the nomenclature, "average smuck" (no matter how "educated"), or words to that effect.

E5th Street ~ NYC, NY • click to embiggenWho says New York, New York is not a friendly town?

8×10 Arca Swiss view camera • click to embiggenIn response to yesterday's m4/3rds update, Mary Dennis asked:

How does it feel in your hands Mark, especially with the bigger 4/3rds lenses? It doesn't look like it has much of a grip. Do the larger lenses with the lens mount converter make it front heavy? I remember at one point you said that perhaps the smaller evolts might be a little hard for your bigger sized hands to hold comfortably so I'm wondering about this camera.

my response: Mary, with the 2 Zuiko 4/3rds lenses that I am most apt to use - the 11-22mm f2.8/3.5 and the 14-54mm f2.8/3.5 (I did not purchase the standard kit zoom lens), the camera feels just fine in my hands. I use my "standard" grip - 1 hand (the left) under/on the lens, the other on the camera, stage right. The grip just feels comfortable and natural.

That said, those lenses tend to diminish the camera's visual presence as an "unobtrusive" DMC - it does appear a bit more "in-your-face" than it does with, say, any of the 3 pancake primes. However, when I'm out and about with the intention of picturing a life in pictures or relationships, the pancake primes are on the camera.

All of that said, I'd like to add an addendum / caveat to yesterday's near adorational raves, re: the EP-1 .....

Key to understanding my proclamation that the EP-1 "is the best all-around picture making machine that I have ever used" is my other statement that "I have used just about every camera format known to picture making humankind".

To wit, my experience with a vast number of camera formats has resulted in a firm conviction that there is no such thing as the perfect camera. Every camera that I have ever used has had its strengths and not-so-strengths. In each camera case, some degree of "adjustment" on my part in picture making technique is/was required. Some "adjustments" are/were a pain in the ass, others are/were rather minor but, suffice it to say, I became adept and very comfortable making those "adjustments".

Like the 8×10 Arca Swiss VC pictured above - making a picture required: 1) focusing with a lupe under a darkcloth on a groundglass with the image upside down and the lens wide open, 2) "dialing" in some schiempflug (front standard) and some perspective correction (back standard), 3) then setting the aperture and shutter speed, 4) then cocking both the shutter and the flash sync, 5) then loading a film holder, removing the darkslide, and then 6) tripping the shutter.

So, as you can imagine, waiting a few fractions of a second for the Ep-1 to lock focus (the primary complaint re: the EP-1) is no big picture making adjustment for me to make for 90% of my picture making endeavors.

However, re: the EP-1, I can understand why some who have become comfortable with a particular set of picture making "adjustments", specific camera wise, might not be so glowing in their appraisal of the EP-1. So be it. However, what isn't right on their part are the labeling of some of the Ep-1's picture making adjustment requirements as "fatal flaws" or "design flaws", etc.

IMO, and for the vast majority of picture makers, just do as little Eddy Mikey was told - "Try it ...." and, mostly likely, "... You'll like it."

FYI, "trying it" is about to get a bit easier on your wallet. And, rumor has it that there is an "pro" Olympus m4/3rds in the works.

Bus kiosk ~ Ave. A - East Village, NYC• click to embiggen