civilized ku # 607 ~ too hot to handle

Counter debri • click to embiggen
Counter debri processing steps • click to embiggenAs is always the case, it's too hot for me too handle here in South Jersey. That said, the phrase "too hot" in entry title above refers not to the weather but the color red on the twist tie in the accompanying picture.

A few days ago, The Cinemascapist and I were conversing about the fact that he was unable to obtain, neither in RAW conversion nor in PS processing, the orange-ish red of the after-storm clouds he had pictured. The discussion centered around the fact that neither color film nor digital sensors can capture anywhere near the full color spectrum that the human eye can see.

In a best case scenario, one might be able to come close to obtaining it by judicious after-picturing processing, that is, as long as it can be displayed on your color monitor - which, itself, can not display the the full human-eye spectrum.

Now, I mention this because, on my way to South Jersey, I spent 2 days and a night in NYC which included a trip to the candy store, AKA - B&H Photo. I needed to order some printing supplies and begin looking for a new monitor since mine - a 8-9 year old Apple Cinema display - is starting to show on-screen visible signs of giving up the ghost.

Naturally, I inquired about a replacement Apple Cinema display, whereupon I was informed that I had been using a piece-of-shit display for the past 8-9 years. Damn, I wish I had known that because, all the while that I was processing and printing really nice pictures, I never knew that the Apple display was a piece of junk.

This got me to thinking - if my display was a piece of shit, what's my printer - an Epson PRO 7800? After all, it's 1 0r 1.5 generations removed from the newest, best-est, and brightest Espon 7900?

To be absolutely certain, a new Lacie 324 will undoubtedly be able to display more and better color, contrast, and tonality than my current Apple Cinema display - just as the salesman pointed out. However, even given a new Epson 7900, I would not be able to print all of the colors nor the contrast that I can see on a Lacie 324 (most likely my choice for a replacement)- just as the salesman DID NOT point out.

Thanks to my decades of experience, I was able to jam-up the salesman on a number of his points. For example, he was quick to point out that one of the "problems" with the Apple Cinema display was the fact that it is way too saturated a display for critical color work, which, as I pointed out, was why I turned on the PhotoShop desaturate-display-20% preference option. I could have done a major jam-up on the guy on many of his points, but I was in a kindly and generous mood so I let him prattle on, gearhead-style, for as long as I could stand it and then I moved on.

FYI, the 3 pictures above illustrate - from RAW conversion to first-step PS correction to final image - how the sensor in my camera and the proper WB RAW conversion of images made thereupon results in reds (and yellows) that are a bit too red and/or too yellow - depending upon, amongst other things, subject matter and light conditions.

BTW, one of the great things about making a still life picture like the one above is that I can make the picture, run to my computer, process the image, and then go back to the still life scene and check for color variances.

You should try it some time. The results might surprise you.

before and after ~ then and now

Radishes • click to embiggenSince my acquisition of an Olympus E-P1 (late last December) I have gradually evolved to the point that almost all of my personal picture making has been accomplished with just 1 lens - the Lumix (Panasonic) 20mm f/1.7 (35e=40mm).

Truth be told, when I first mounted/used the lens, I was more than a bit apprehensive about its angle of coverage/view - 57˚/diagonal - which tended to be more toward the "normal" range, albeit slightly wide-angle, than the wide-angle range that I was accustom to using - could I adjust to the "tighter" / less inclusive angle-of-view? Would I not be able to get the picture by limiting my use to that lens? What would I "miss"?

In fact, every time I left the house I took my E-3 and its array of lenses, so, in reality, I wasn't actually limiting my picture making, equipment wise. I could turn to my regular lens-of-choice, the Zuiko 11-22mm f.28-3.5 (with µ4/3 adapter), at anytime that I deemed it necessary.

However, and much to my surprise, the need to do so never arose. The transition to "seeing" within the lens' angle-of-view was entirely seamless and intuitive. There was no angst, consternation, thrashing about, or any other form of conscious awareness that something had changed. Life and picture making went as before.

Why this came as surprise to me is somewhat of a mystery or, perhaps more accurately, the result of advancing age mental decrepitude - what I was doing, normal-ish focal length wise, was nothing, more or less, than exactly what I had been doing in my 8×10 view camera salad days.

During that picture making period, a 10inch (254mm) f6.3 Kodak Commercial Ektar lens was the only lens ever mounted on my 8×10 Arca Swiss for personal work (as opposed to commercial work). That focal length lens falls into the normal-ish, albeit slightly wide-angle, range on an 8×10 view camera.

So, double duh .... I didn't feel constrained or limited then so, not surprisingly, I don't feel so now ... triple duh.

In fact, like back then, I feel rather "liberated" in my picture making - it is almost totally about seeing and picturing. The only technical considerations are exposure and focus, which, quite frankly, makes making pictures about as easy as it gets.

civilized ku # 551 ~ memento mori

Garbage that missed the trash can • click to embiggen

All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person's (or thing's) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt. ~ Susan Sontag

civilized ku # 532/food ~ try it, you'll like it

Deep fried pickle • click to embiggenThis past weekend will be forever remembered as the weekend that I was introduced to deep-fried pickles.

civilized ku # 524 ~ see title below ...

Basil and blood • click to embiggenIf I were given over to accompanying my pictures with dotty camera-club titles - you know the type, Spring Dance, Emerald Flow, Layers of Time, Electric Rocks, Aspen Affection, The Eternal Battle, et al - I would have to title this picture something like Basil Leaf Tragedy # 1.

Please, if the mood strikes, feel free to contribute any other titles that seem to be apt.

civilized ku # 515 ~ say "cheese", pt. II

Cheese and knife - outdoors at dusk ~ Merchantville, NJ • click to embiggenAs luck would have it, re: civilized ku # 514, over this past weekend, I was confronted with cheese in NJ.

civilized ku # 502 ~ hitting the snooze button

Fruit, onion, and cork • click to embiggenI've had this nagging feeling over the last few months that the picture making world has hit a wall of sorts.

It seems that most of the air has gone out of the NYC photo gallery balloon. Photo blogs seem to have gone to sleep or are, at best, struggling to find something of real interest to present / write about. Camera makers have seemingly come to the conclusion (finally) that they have stretched the "new & improved" idea to the breaking point and, consequently, have decided that what still picture makers really want /need is video making goodies stuffed inside their camera bodies.

All of which is starting to put my brain to sleep, picture-making world wise.

civilized ku # 496 ~ Holga/Diana?

Onion on plate • click to embiggenEvery once in a while you just have to genuflect and give thanks to the photography gods for delivering a juicy morsel to your doorstep at precisely the time that you need it.

Take yesterday as an example - no sooner had I posted the civilized ku # 495 ~ eye see it entry regarding arbiters with opinions, informed or not, when, bada bing, bada boom, there appeared a comment on the entry that was a genuine gold-plated example of a truly uninformed arbiter offering up a truly uniformed opinion. Soooo, in addition to offering my thanks to the photography gods, I would also like to express my appreciation to tom frost for this piece of totally incorrect and way-off-the-the-mark drivel ...

.... why not just go ahead and be truthful and use and accept the limitations of a Holga/Diana, rather than use post-processing to control and emulate their effects?

The first and most obvious totally incorrect assumption - at least so to anyone who is not half blind or completely ignorant - that mr. frost has made is to state that I am trying to emulate the visual effects that are the byproduct of using a Holga/Diana/Lomo/cheap plastic camera. If I had been trying to do so, I have failed miserably - in my pictures there is no evidence whatsoever of the across-the-complete-frame lack of sharpness or definition that is the hallmark of the cheap plastic camera genre. Nor is there any evidence of the distorted color rendition or the often truncated or extreme tonal range typical of such cameras and their uncorrected plastic lenses.

Cheap plastic-camera-like, my pictures are not - not by a long shot.

However, if mr. frost needs to insist that I am trying to emulate the visuals effects created by the use of a particular piece of picture making hardware, he might do so by displaying a greater awareness / knowledge of the medium and it apparatus than he did with his way-off-the-mark cheap plastic camera remark - if my pictures resemble the look created by the use of a particular type of picture making hardware, it would have to be described as that created by the use of relatively inexpensive TLR cameras (Rolleiflex clones) such as the Yashicamat 124.

The visual characteristics of pictures made with those type of cameras is relatively close to the visual characteristics of my pictures - a large(ish) central field of sharp, in-focus, highly detailed imagery that fades to a soft vignette at the extreme corners of the image. TLR cmaeras, unlike the Holga genre, allowed for focusing, aperture, and shutter speed control and the lenses were color / optically corrected and tended to make very nice quality film images that printed to relatively high quality standards.

However, all of that said and even if mr. frost got that right, he would still be operating under the erroneous assumption that my corner vignette technique is in anyway an attempt to emulate the visual look and feel of pictures made by the use of any particular type of camera. Simply stated, that is not nor has it ever been my intention.

My intent was and continues to be to "emulate", explore, and employ for creative / expressive reasons the visual characteristics of the human eye and human vision, which, by nature of its physical construction, is sharpest at the center of the field of vision and much less so at the edges.

An astute and informed arbiter who is familiar with the history of the medium would most likely know that my vignette technique is also a tip of the historic hat to P.H. Emerson, a British picture maker who published (in 1889) the book, Naturalistic Photography for Students of Art. In his book, Emerson advocated for his belief that ...

... the photograph should be a true representation of that which the eye saw. Following contemporary optical theories, he produced photographs with one area of sharp focus while the remainder was unsharp. This argument about the nature of seeing and its representation in photography he pursued vehemently and to the discomfort of the photographic establishment. ~ From Wikipedia

It is rather apparent that my pictures and picture making endeavors, which, in part, are about the nature of seeing and its representation in photography, have created a bit of discomfort in tom frost. I have no problem with that whatsoever - everyone is entitled to an opinion. Unfortunately, so many opinions are not worth the time and energy it takes to form and/or read them.

So, note to Don and John H - while they are many wannabe arbiters out there, you must understand that many are called but few are chosen. Or, in other words, many are uniformed and few are informed. You will know the informed by the depth and relevance of their knowledge and presentation to the topic at hand.