Roadside nature • click to embiggenDid anyone watch the PBS program, THE ADIRONDACKS?

On a scale of 1-10, it gets a 7.0-7.5 in my opinion. That opinion is, of course, that of a "local" and was echoed by the wife about half way through the program at which point she stated/asked, "I'm not learning anything new, are you?", my answer to which was, "No."

The program touched on all the "standard" stuff about the Adirondacks, which, admittedly, most non-locals probably don't know about. From that standpoint, I would very interested to hear from any non-local who watched the program - did you learn anything new?

Where the program failed was in representing the real day-to-day life of the "average" Adirondack denizen. Sure, we have our share of poets, authors, artists / artisans, conservationists, environmental activists, etc. In fact, because the area is a magnet for such types, we probably have much more than our fair share. But, of the 100,000+ full-time residents of the Adirondacks, they nevertheless still constitute only a distinct minority of the population. By largely depending upon the "elites" to speak for the place, the producers almost totally missed the "true grit" of the place.

One thing they did get right was their choice of a photographer to highlight. Carl Heilman is a fairly accurate representation of the ubiquitous pretty-picture variety of picture makers who dot the region. I know Carl. I like him. He's a really nice guy. In fact, I featured him on one of my PBS Adirondack Outdoors episodes and, in my role as tourism marketing guy, I have purchased and used some of his work in various Adirondack tourism pieces. He has found a comfortable and somewhat unique - 360 degree panoramics - niche in the pretty-picture genre from which he makes at least part of his living and there's no knocking that. Although, like many locals, he has at least one other "job" - a snowshoe maker and instructor.

In any event and to repeat, I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who viwed the program.

Green • click to embiggenNot that you may have noticed here on the web, but I have a new camera and a new lens.

I purchased the camera for 2 primary reasons:

1) I wanted more pixels, in this case 15mp - almost 1.5x the number I have been using - in order to make big prints, 4×4 feet, of my decay and picture window series. I am running some direct comparison tests at 2×2 feet and there is some difference between 10 mp and 15 mp, but, frankly, not all that much at normal viewing distance. We'll see what happens at 4×4 feet.

2) I wanted to use a prime (non-zoom, single focal length) lens.

Before I got into digital capture, of all the lens I owned (35mm, medium format, large format) I only had 1 zoom lens - a Nikkor 43-86mm. It was common knowledge and wisdom that zoom lenses were always inferior to prime lens in sharpness, contrast, and speed. If you were a "serious" (and non-action/sports) shooter, you made pictures with prime lenses. End of story.

With the advent of digital capture and, to be accurate, far better glass and computer-assisted lens design and manufacture, zooms seemed to emerge as the lens of choice. Now, of all the digital capture lenses I own, only 1 is a prime - and that only since a week ago. And that only by switching brands to a manufacturer which seems to place a high value on prime lenses.

Why, you might wonder, do I want to shoot with a prime lens?

The answer is really quite simple - I like to keep it simple. IMO, and 1n my experience, picturing with a single focal length helps me, the photographer, focus on what I am seeing (and trying to convey) without having to be concerned at all with the mechanics of how I see it. The "mechanics" of my vision are locked in and there is a resultant visual consistency to my body of work.

There is little new about this approach. Very few, if any, bodies of Fine Art photography are made with or exhibit the use of obviously different focal length lenses.

So, here I am, once again, making pictures with just 1 lens, in this case, a 21mm f2.8 (35mm equivalent) and it "feels" good - just like old times.

How about you? Any prime lens picture makers in the audience?

Even more signs of Spring • click to embiggenBack in the late 80s, John Pfahl published a book of photographs, Picture Windows, in which there were 47 landscape photographs. All the pictures were made from inside buildings, mostly homes, looking out through picture windows.

Most of the pictures were of somewhat grand landscapes. Pfahl traveled extensively throughout the US looking for places to picture and, finding them, knocking on doors to ask owner / occupants for permission to photograph the view from their living rooms. My copy of the book seems to have gone missing. It's a book I would like to replace.

But, it's also a book that I would like to replicate, sort of.

Think about it. Unless you live and work outside, the better part of your view of the world is through windows of one sort or another. With an eye towards illustrating that shared human experience, I would like to start collecting pictures made through windows.

I would like to start that effort through The Landscapist.

How about it? Let's do a book together. I would love to see your world through your windows - the windows of your house, your car, the bus, the plane, at work, where you shop ...

I'll design and produce the book and make it available to anyone from an POD printer. Of course there will be a Picture Window Gallery here on The Landscapist. And, who knows, maybe we can get a gallery show.

How about it?

more signs of Spring • click to embiggenA batch of new photo books arrived on Tuesday and amongst them was a delightful surprise.

A book that I included, almost as an afterthought, in the order turned out to be the shining star of the bunch - Beyond The Forest~ About A People Believed To Be The Descendants Of The Children That Were Led Out Of Hamlin, photography by Clare Richardson. I didn't even look at it until 2 days after it arrived but, unlike the other books, "important' works by "important" photographers, this little book - 40 pages with 17 pictures - captured my attention like none of the others that I had ordered.

Simply put, the book is an exquisitely wonderful reminder (if you need one) of how powerful and involving - even in this era of the 'staged' photographs - "quiet", straight, and straightforward pictures can be. There appears to be absolutely no hocus-pocus involved in their making. There are a few portrait-type pictures and few involving people wherein the subjects are obviously aware of the camera but they certainly are not models hired to pose for effect.

Part of what really grabbed me about the book was not just the delicious photography but how those pictures where elevated to a higher realm of the imagination by the 3 "introductory" paragraphs (the only text in the book):

He lives in a world of silence. A world of hard work and necessary patience; waiting on the weather and growth. They call him Mr. Pipe, a diabetic, water passes through him. His mother worries he shall never marry. He loved the butcher's daughter once, but her father sold the mountain. Claiming the common ground, he felled the forest and sold the oak. A rich man now, his daughter should marry well, a businessman from the town, perhaps. Spurned, the boy strung up a lifeless scarecrow in his own image, a reminder to the girl of her father's betrayal.

The butcher's wife says the photographer is barren, and has come to buy the children to operate her domestic machines. She welcomes the photographer, preparing a meal with the greatest of care and measure.

The forest taken, the horizon is restored. It offers no shelter now. An emptying landscape. As claims are made, fences erected and the horizon breached. Only Mr, Pipe remains, the others have now gone, they spoke of a life beyond the forest.

FYI, the pictures were made in a small farming village in Transylvania. Literally translated, Transylvania means "beyond the forest". The children that were led out of Hamlin are those that legend has it are the children who followed the Pied Piper.

I purchased the book because of a single picture that accompanied the book description. It just caught me eye. I knew nothing of the book's content. Now I can't seem to put it out of mind as my imagination wanders and wonders. And all of that because of a delightful and intriguing combination of pictures and words.

Words, yes, words. A word that seems to strike terror, fear, and loathing into hearts and minds of most photographers. Even though a picture may be worth 1,000 words, don't ever ask a photographer to write a few about their own pictures. No, not that! Because, as everyone knows, a picture that needs words is a failure. After all, photography is a visual medium.

IMO, the world would be a better place if those who couldn't write a coherent and interesting 1,000 words about their pictures had their cameras wrenched from their hands and smashed into a zillions bits (or a zillion bytes if it's a digital camera). Or, better yet, how about if you couldn't even buy a camera unless you submit 1,000 words about the pictures you intend to make with it. And, oh yeah, one of the rules is that, if you even mention equipment in your 1,000 words, they poke your eyes out.

Of course, even in that perfect world, anyone would be able to buy a 2mp P&S. After all, I am the benevolent one.

After the sun goes down • click to embiggenFYI for those of you linking from adirondackbasecamp.com - you may want to read today's ... what you pay for entry as well.

On my recent entry, living large in the Adirondacks, Sean wrote : "Our last economic development officer kept suggesting that I should "donate" images to her very well funded (using my tax dollars) office ... I told her I would be thrilled to just as soon as my much anticipated "donation" of a 1Ds MkIII arrived from Canon. I'm still waiting for it."

It's hard to criticize too severely (but not without some vigor) someone for trying to get something for nothing while stating so in a forthright manner - that seems to be part of human nature - but when they do it with a slight-of-hand photo-rights grab photo contest they have stepped over the line. At that point they are nothing more or less than scam artists.

Copyright and use-right issues can be an expensive and tricky business when dealing with most professional photographers and with a substantial number of informed amateurs. Corporations and professional organizations, to include tourism organizations, are acutely aware of this. Rights-grab photo contests are their way of avoiding the issue.

What easier way to get pictures for nothing than to prey on and take advantage of the uniformed.

Although, greater legal minds than mine will have to grapple with the legality of this practice. What I do know is that copyright law states that:

§ 204. Execution of transfers of copyright ownership

(a) A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent.

Whether a mouse click check mark on an online Terms & Agreement statement qualifies as "in writing" and "signed by the owner of the rights conveyed", is probably open to question. Maybe it's legal, maybe not. I don't know, but, there's "legal" and then there's "ethical".

Some major corporations - HP and Adobe amongst them - have been caught with their hand in this cookie jar and been roundly castigated for it. For the most part, their response has been to issue a 'humble' mea coupa, then blame the lawyers, and then to promise to never do it again. There is little doubt that they didn't know exactly what they were doing. The only thing they didn't know was the amount of outrage that they would encounter.

That said, the practice is not about to go away any time soon. Sad to say, a tourism organization in the Adirondacks - The Adirondack Regional Tourism Council - has been conducting an ongoing photo contest with exactly the same MO. In order to merely submit a picture to the "contest", a person must agree to terms and conditions that state (in part):

... I agree that all photographs submitted shall become the property of The Adirondack Regional Tourism Council (ARTC). ARTC reserves the non-exclusive right to use any photograph(s) in publications or for promotional purposes...

In the pre-rights grab past, no such blanket conditions existed just to enter a photo contest. Winners were often required to grant use rights to the contest sponsor for promotional use relative to the contest but rarely, if ever, to the sponsor for use in their business advertising. It should also be noted that, even in the era of the rights-grab, there are still many photo contest sponsors who do not practice such scam-artist grabs. More power to them.

As an example, from the T&C of a photo contest sponsored by Nikon:

The organizer reserves the permanent nonexclusive right to publish, reproduce, display, distribute, and show on screen any winning photograph on Web sites, photo exhibitions, tradeshows, or any other media which is under the management of the organizer for the purpose of promoting the contest .... A separate agreement will need to be reached should the organizer, its subsidiaries or affiliates wish to publish a submitted photograph for purposes other than the promotion of the contest (my emphasis).

As for the people at the ARTC and those who convinced them to engage in rights-grab activities under the guise of a photo contest, I hope they all lose their jobs and have to beg on street corners. And, as long as I'm hoping for the best, I hope they all lose their jobs and have to beg on street corners for rest of their lives. Seriously. Hell, while I'm at it, I hope they're all young so that the rest of their lives is a really, really long time.

Any questions about where I stand on this issue?

24 hours • click to embiggenFYI, I have decided to drop the 'urban' from my Adirondack landscapes with signs of man. After scanning many of my earlier 8×10 negatives, many of which are truly urban landscapes, it made me realize how totally un-appropriate the word is for pictures of things here in the mountains. Not that I'm thrilled with the phrase "man & nature" but, in any event, there it is anyways.

As you know, I rarely talk about anything technical, photography-wise, especially about gear. Nevertheless, I have been thinking about a relatively generic gear issue related to digital cameras vs. film cameras. And, in fact, the issue is really only part of the bigger picture about techno babble. By "babble', I don't mean "yakking", rather, I am referring to the tower of babble of competing proprietary technologies.

You know the kind of babble I mean. As an example, consider web browsers. Each of the various browsers sees content differently and, not uncommonly, to the point where some content is either mangled or completely missing or unavailable. There is no commonly shared standard. It's as if, when you are reading the morning paper, you need a different set of eyewear to see the type properly, depending on what kind of press it was printed on. Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid.

That said, let's get on to cameras. Back in the good ole days of film cameras, the standard for photographs print result-wise, was film. For instance, no matter which camera you loaded your Kodachrome into, you got a 'Kodachrome' picture. The difference in lens quality aside, it did not matter whether you loaded your Kodachrome into a disposable camera or a flagship Nikon SLR, you always ended up with a Kodachrome picture.

In the digital camera world, that is simply not the case. The is no standard. Every camera manufacturer has a different standard regarding how their products 'see' color, tone, contrast, sharpness, etc. And, just to make matters even more babble-ish, there are none too subtle differences in how different camera models within the same manufacturer's line up 'see'. Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid.

I can understand (up to a point) differences, from manufacturer to manufacturer, in the way cameras 'see' relative to color, tone, and contrast, but not relative to sharpness. Isn't that suppose to be the domain of optics? Apparently not. Not when, in the case of the 4/3rds domain as an example, I can put a Leica lens on a variety of different manufacturer's cameras - Olympus, Panasonic, Leica - and get different results sharpness-wise. Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid.

I also understand the relentless 'advances' in sensor technology. Although, the cynic in me suspects a certain amount of incremental release of such advances in order to keep us buying. That not withstanding, I don't understand why manufacturers, let's consider Olympus DSLRs, can not, once they have introduced a new and improved sensor together with its companion color engine, put that sensor in all of their current production models. Why? So that all Olympus DSLRs have identical Olympus color, contrast, tone, and sharpness.

If I were to buy the Olympus flagship E-3, the only Olympus I could have a a legitimate backup is another E-3. If I were to use any other Olympus DSLR as a backup, I would have to sacrifice all the sensor / color engine advances of the E-3. This is true of every other camera manufacturer. Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid.

In the good ole days, I had my flagship Nikon and I could choose any Nikon SLR as a backup because, no matter what backup I chose, the image quality would be exactly the same from camera to camera. And, it didn't matter if my Nikon flagship was not the latest and greatest flagship because image quality-wise, they produced exactly the same results. For that matter, I could use any manufacturer's camera as a backup and, guess what, the results would still be exactly the same - a Kodachrome picture would still be a Kodachrome picture.

If film and, more importantly, the means to get it processed weren't disappearing into the sunset, I'd chuck the whole digital camera thing, the whole kit and kaboodle, into the trash. That said, you'd have to pry my mouse out of my cold dead hands when it comes to getting me out of the digital darkroom.

PS - it should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway - all of my Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid statements are plain and simple, just flat out stupid for the consumer. Because, on the other hand, camera manufacturers are, plain and simple, just flat out laughing all the way to the bank.