man & nature # 52 ~ please step away from the car (truck)

This morning's walk to the doctor's office • click to embiggenMany thanks to those who have sent me pictures for the within 30 feet challenge. This weekend, I will get around to prepping them for posting. Thanks again and I hope to see more from some of the rest of you out there.

And speaking of all of you out there, I think it would be interesting if those of you who have your pictures posted somewhere on the net would send me an email with a link. I would like to have a list of links to the photography of Landscapist readers. IMO, this would a great way to share your stuff with everyone who visits.

My intent with both the within 30 feet thing and the links list is to get The Landscapist a little less egocentric, a little less of a (mostly) one-way street. To be honest, I'm getting a little tired of hearing myself talk / think, so to speak.

I am also feeling that, after over 2 years of writing about the medium of photography, I/we have covered so many topics that there is very little left to say. Not that I mean that literally, but I/we have covered a broad range of ideas about the medium.

So, it occurs to me that at this point it's mainly just about pictures and what might be said / written about them on an individual basis.

Although, it does seem that there are very few out there who have anything to say. I attribute this to many causes, not the least of which has to do with the fear that what you might have to say is; a) of no real value, or, 2) might be embarrassing because you're not "educated" enough. That and the fact that most probably many out there just don't know how to express in words how a picture makes you feel.

In any event, I mention this because of this entry on Conscientious from which this is taken:

There appears to be fairly wide-spread consensus in the blogging community that there's a dearth of critical discussions of photography online. You wouldn't really know this from reading blogs, because nobody posts about it. However, the many email exchanges and conversations I've had with people tell me that there are lots of people who would actually like to see photography being discussed in a more critical manner.

I agree. But, of course, "critical discussions of photography online" is exactly what's been going on here on The Landscapist since day one. And, FYI, by the phrase "critical discussion", Jörg Colberg (and I agree) means:

A critical discussion is something you can disagree or agree with, something you can engage with (e.g. "No, Joerg, I think you're wrong. If the prints were smaller they would lose some of their impact, which is actually based on their scale and on their ability to allow the viewer to gain different perspectives by physically approaching the images"). If you have a blog you could write a counter-post and present your point of view. What is more, a critical discussion doesn't diminish either the photographer or her/his work.

Critical discussions, i.e. give and take - that 2-way street I referred to earlier in this post - has always been my desire for The Landscapist. At times, that has happened, although not nearly enough to satisfy me.

That said, please don't take this to be "negative". Think of it more as a "critical discussion" about the topic of critical discussions.

man & nature # 51 ~ let it be what it is

Road marker and the Green Mountains of Vermont • click to embiggenOne of the realities that drives my passion for picturing elements of the natural world is the absolute explosion of life (and decay) that surrounds us.

To my eye and sensibilities, there is beauty everywhere, in even the ugliest of fragments and scenes. There is no need to tart it up with effects and "creative" styles and approaches. What is works wonderfully for me.

Many photographers think they are photographing nature when they are only caricaturing her. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

a bunch of man & nature

An autumn afternoon • click to embiggenWithout a doubt, I live in a target rich environment, photography-wise. It seems that everywhere I look there is a picturing opportunity. Although, that said, I suspect that no matter where I lived that would most likely be true.

Case in point - late yesterday afternoon I went out for a short drive. Within an hour or so, after making a trip of about 8 miles, I was back home with bunch of pictures.

Interestingly enough, of the 9 pictures posted here, 6 of them were made with camera positions that were within approximately 40 feet (or less) of each other. For me, this not an unusual occurrence. More often than not, once I am engaged with a location, I find myself making a fair number of distinctly different pictures - as opposed to "working" the same subject from different POVs.

Whether this is due to the fact that I do live in a target rich environment or the fact that I tend to see picture possibilities "everywhere I turn" is open to question. Most likely it is due to a little bit of both factors.

In any event, I would like to issue an outside lies magic challenge to all of you out there within the sound of my blog - as John Stilgoe suggests:

Go out side and walk, a bit, long enough to forget programming, long enough to take in and record new surroundings.

Now, I really don't care if you walk or drive, what I am most interested in seeing what you take in and record. But, here's the "challenge" - limit yourself to camera positions that are within 30-40 of each other and make as many different pictures as possible.

Then, after you edit and work your post-picturing processing magic, send me (up to 9 images, lo res jpegs - 72dpi with a max dimension of 1000 pixels) the results. I will assemble them into a single file (like you see here today) and post them as an entry - along with any words you may (or may not) choose to include - for all the world to see. Well, not all the world, but for many around the world to see.

Come on, get involved. Let the rest of see what you see.

Mike Johnston (of T.O.P. fame) is running an ongoing picture project called Forgotten Camera whereby contributors send in a picture made with an old camera (along with a picture of the camera itself). He posts the pictures here as they come in on an ongoing basis.

I would really like to have an ongoing thing like that here on The Landscapist.

How about it?

man & nature # 50 ~ natural nature

A wider view of icing on the autumnal cake • click to embiggenOn yesterday's entry Martin Doonan asked:

How do you get the clouds to look like that (i.e. perfectly natural)? Doesn't seem to matter what I do (or don't) making photographic skies look natural is an art unto itself.

Martin, I do pay particular attention to the sky in my pictures, especially so in those that picture the natural world. As I have mentioned before, I often take 2 exposures - tripod mounted camera to avoid or at least minimalize later sky / horizon registration issues - 1 for the overall scene, 1 for the sky, and then blend them together in Photoshop. How I do it is relatively simple (although it does require much attention to detail), but that's not the reason why the results tend to look "perfectly natural".

The natural look comes from lessons learned and aesthetics adopted during decades of picturing with color negative film.

Very few would dispute the fact that color negative film has always been the extended dynamic range champ, especially so in the domain of film. Color negative film, also possesses incredibly smooth tonal transition qualities as well as (with the right product) the ability to capture quite natural and subtle color. The resultant type-C prints looked and felt quite "natural".

That look was disdained by the majority of photographers, especially those who pictured the landscape. As an example, natural greens just were not green enough for them and as a result Velvia was launched to meet the lust for exaggeration and effect. Unfortunately, Velvia was also a very contrasty film that yielded up blocked shadows and blown highlights in anything but "soft" light - a characteristic shared to greater or lesser degrees by most other reversal (transparency) films - which resulted in the emergence of the not - so - subtle technique of GND-ing the hell out of skies.

GND filters may have brought the sky into an acceptable exposure range that reversal film could handle but the result was always a sky that had a very contrasty look and feel to it - the result of using inherently contrasty reversal films. The resultant visual look and feel was anything but natural. This un-natural look was further exacerbated by the fact that the sky also looked and felt out of balance with the rest of the picture - as an example, skies that were darker than their reflection on the surface of water or very dark, dramatic and color saturated skies that quite obviously were not in balance with the rest of the scene.

Color negative film, with its greater dynamic range, is able to capture highlight and shadow detail that reversal film can not. Quite frankly, it's amazing how much a sky can be overexposed and still retain detail on color negative film. In the darkroom, careful printing with subtle burning in of the sky can result in prints that look and feel quite natural, especially so with respect to tonal balance with the rest of the scene.

This color negative-style balanced / natural look and feel is what I strive to emulate with my digital captures.

I believe this look results much more from aesthetic choices - learned and adapted from my good 'ole days of color negative film picturing and printing - than it does from those of technique.

man & nature # 49 ~ icing on the autumnal cake

Ice, snow, and a ray of sunshine on Whiteface • click to embiggenLast Friday morning we were greeted with this frosty visage on Whiteface Mountain - albeit that this picture was made late Friday afternoon.

This is not exactly an uncommon time of year for this to appear. In fact, it's rather "normal" but that fact never seems to lessen the impact that summer and a relatively mild autumn are nearing the end. A few days of sunshine and mid 50 - mid 60 degree weather are in the forecast although no one around here is fooled by that treat.

It's already dark by 7PM and the daylight hours are getting shorter and shorter. No doubt about it, that white stuff will be visiting us all soon enough.

Me, I'm looking forward to it.

man & nature # 48 ~ visions of sugar plums dancing in my head

Wet tree trunk • click to embiggenA few days ago I brought up the subject of picturing with long telephoto lenses. Amongst the comments was this from Mary Dennis:

Currently I am really enjoying "light on my feet" photography. I find that I am happiest and most productive when my gear burden is next to nothing. (That means the camera and lens around my neck and whatever else I can fit in one cargo pants pocket--memory cards and extra batteries). There are lots of interesting possibilities working with a long lens for sure but, for the time being at least, the extra poundage isn't it worth it for me.

Even though I am currently lugging around 2 large dslrs (with battery grips) which weight somewhere in the neighborhood of 576 pounds, I am in complete agreement with Mary about the benefits of "light on my feet" photography. One of the reasons, I am currently hauling around boat anchors is because I need some of features that are only found on "pro" dslrs - a sync socket for my studio strobe lights, heavy-duty dirt/dust and water sealing, rugged camera bodies, etc.

That said, one of the reasons I chose Olympus dslrs (I also have a Pentax K20D) is for the very compact size (and fast) characteristics of their telephoto lenses. That said, while they are small as compared to their competitors, they still are not small. The simple fact is that whenever I am out and about with my 50-200mm f2.8/3.5 (100-400mm, 35mm equiv.) Zuiko lens attached to my E-3, I get stares and comments from guys that contain more than a smidgen of penis-envy like inferences about the lens.

In any event, just in case you live in a Photokina 2008 vacuum, Olympus & Panasonic have announced the co-development of a Micro 4/3rds format - cameras with a full-size 4/3rds sensor and interchangeable lenses that are not dslrs. By eliminating the mirror and pentaprism, the forthcoming bodies are very small and also allows for the design of very compact lenses at both ends of focal length spectrum.

Just check out these pictures of the soon to be released Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1. It's small. And check out this article that has pictures of a new 45-200mm (90-400mm, 35mm equiv.) lens that really is small - to use Mary's criteria parlance - cargo pants pocket small.

For reference, look at the camera with the 14-45mm lens attached in the hands of a woman and realize that the 45-200mm lens is not all that much bigger than the standard 14-45mm lens.

The other thing to take into account is that Olympus has previewed a prototype Micro 4/3rds camera without the pseudo slr-type pentaprism housing of the DMC-G1 - a camera that resembles the classic Leica rangefinder look. The Olympus body is smaller yet than the DMC-G1. Because the Micro 4/3rds standard is an open standard (just like the "standard" 4/3rds format), those same Panasonic lenses will be able to be used on the Olympus camera (along with whatever lenses Olympus introduces).

As all of you know, I am not an equipment / tech junkie but, that said, I find the prospect of a small, interchangeable lens, full-sized sensor (albeit 4/3rds) camera system to be a quite interesting and very desirable proposition. I won't be chucking my dslr anvils into the river and I can't imagine ever leaving the house without them, but the idea of having a "light on my feet" system is giving me sweaty palms - mostly likely from the combination of anticipation thereof mixed with a heavy dose of the wife's reaction to whole idea.

man & nature # 47 ~ slam bang

Screaming yellow leaves with fence • click to embiggenWhile we're on the notion of the frame and the process of selection, I thought I would take the opportunity to explain my rationale for my use of the black edges and, to a lesser extent, the vignetting on my pictures.

As many of you who come from the good 'ole days of film might know, photographers of all persuasions often printed with negative carriers that allowed the edges of the film to print. Many did so to "prove" that their pictures were un-cropped - a sort of badge of pride that demonstrated that they didn't need no stinkin' cropping (other than the confines of their chosen camera format) to make good pictures. That, whatever the picturing circumstance, they could utilize the medium's inherent process of selection to "perfection".

I must admit that that was one of the reasons I printed the film edges on most of my personal work. Picturing first and then cropping later always seemed like the "easy way" of picturing. Not exactly cheating, but, at the very least kind of "lazy". Kind of like pointing a camera at something that you know has a good picture in it somewhere, but not taking the time or making the effort to figure it out on the spot - because later you can just crop the "good" picture out of the raw material of the full frame.

To be honest, I still feel that way and, to be accurate, this prejudice derives from the very beginnings of the medium - back then there were no enlargers, virtually every picture was a contact print that was the same size as the original negative image. As a consequence, photographers learn to "fill the frame" right out to the edges.

But for me, that black-edge badge of pride, is really quite secondary to the primary reason I like and use the film edges - now, in the digital age, pseudo film edges. That reason is intimately related to the idea of the process of selection and the notion of the frame as 2 of the medium's inherent characteristics.

Obviously, the black edges constitute a very visible frame in and of itself and I use it to draw emphatic attention to the fact that the picture is "cropped" from a visually continuous reality. To emphasis the fact that I have selected a specific segment of that pageant to which I want to direct the viewer's attention and that that segment is defined by and limited by a very deliberate act of framing/selection.

The black edges also erect a strong visual barrier at the edges of my pictures. The eye and the mind tend to slam right up against them as they seek to know what's outside the boundaries of my process of selection, IMO, in manner that is quite different from white bordered pictures.

This is especially so, because I do tend to fill the frame right out to the edges with lots of detail. All of the detail found in my pictures presses right out to the edges of the frame even though I tend use a "centered" type of "composition". The black borders deflect the viewers attention and eye back to the center of the image which is where the nominal referent of my pictures reside.

That deliberate use of visual deflection / redirection is also reinforced by my use of vignetted corners. Although, my use of vignette is primarily aimed at mimicking the manner in which the human eye, when it stares at a fixed object - sees the world. Things in the center of the eye's field of vision are sharp, those things at the edges (peripheral vision) are soft.

So there you have it. I usually only have to explain this to photographers, who, IMO, should know better. At least they should know better if they have a working grasp of the history of the medium and its intrinsic characteristics (as opposed to all the tech crap with which they are normally so enraptured).

Update on Friday, October 3, 2008 at 11:40AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Tom Frost wrote: "Much of your work on the web looks like Diana or Holga pictures. Light fall off, blurred relative to the center of the image. Are they, or are you using software to get there from a digital image? Your comment about the 'good ol' days of film' suggests a post-capture intent to achieve a desired look. If the start is digital, you either have to set out with the intent of cropping to square, or mask it off in front of the sensor. Don't mistake this inquiry as a tech-geek comment, I'm asking where you are coming from.

my response - I love the look of Holga/Diana pictures. What I don't like is those camera's lack of focus and exposure controls (which limits picturing possibilities to only certain conditions), not to mention the present day hassles of buying and processing film (I live in the middle of nowhere). So, I start with digital and process in Photoshop to achieve a square and "modified" toy-camera look.

I used to mask the LCD screen to square but no longer do so because I just don't need that "aid" anymore.

So, where I am coming from is this -

I would buy a true square format sensor camera in a nano second (but none exist) because I really like the square format.

I use the post-capture processing for the reasons mentioned above - to add the edges and vignetting to achieve the results mentioned above - and to create naturalistic photography ala Peter Henry Emerson.

I also like to de-digitalize the look of pictures created with digital capture which, to my eye and sensibilities, is a little too "cool" and a little to "clean". To that end, I also add a small amount of monochromatic noise to my pictures.

The "modified" toy-camera look differs from the real toy-camera look in that, except for a small areas at the corners of the image, 90% of the picture area is sharp and "properly" exposed. To my eye and sensibilities, the soft vignetted corners - and if you look closely, the black film edges where they meet the image - add a slight dream-like quality to the pictures, which I use to reinforce / suggest the sense of "memory" of a past event because every photograph is, in fact, a "memory" of a past event.

In a very real sense, I my intent is to mimic the look of prints from the "good 'ole days" of film.

man & nature # 46 ~ outside lies magic redux

Leafy fence • click to embiggenIn his (now, a much venerated classic) book The Photographer's Eye, John Szarkowski wrote that the act picturing concerned itself with 5 intrinsic and crucial characteristics:

1) The thing itself

2) The detail

3) The frame

4) Time

5) Vantage point

IMO, there isn't much to argue about with those 5 characteristics. He might have added something like Intent to cover the personal point of view of the photographer - he does write that a "photographer must find new ways to make his meanings clear" and of the challenge that photographers faced (and still face) in order to address the fact of how "this mechanical and mindless process [can] be made to produce pictures meaningful in human terms".

That challenge arose from the difference between painting and photography - painting were made but photographs were taken. Photography was "a process based not on synthesis but on selection". Without a doubt, a selection made obvious by the picture "taker's" use of the frame.

As I mentioned yesterday, Stilgoe wrote that:

... exploring means sharpening all the senses, especially sight. See intently means scrutinizing, staring, narrowing the eyes ... and he went on to state, ...even putting one's hands across the forehead to shade the eyes ... [T]he hand over the yes shields them from some sideways, incident light, and cupping the hands around the eyes works even better ... cupping the hands around the eyes makes possible more precise scrutinizing of even distant things ...

IMO, cupping the eyes to better scrutinize something (near or far) is basically the same idea as Szarkowski's notion of photography as a process of selection that utilizes the frame.

Regarding the process of selection, Szarkowski wrote:

One might compare the art of photography to the act of pointing," adding, "It must be true that some of us point to more interesting facts, events, circumstances, and configurations than others."

All of that said, today's picture utilizes a particular process of selection that I have been thinking about for a while - the use of "long" telephoto lenses, 200mm and up (35mm equivalent).

My vision runs heavily in favor of detail, in most cases, lots of detail. I like complexity. As I am sure most of you have noticed, I really don't have any trouble selecting and isolating lots of detail with my lens of first choice, a 21mm (35mm equiv.), or there about, wide angle lens. But, long lenses have been on my mind of late because of one particular characteristic they have - narrow DOF (depth of field).

In a very real sense, narrow DOF provides another level of selection within and in addition to the frame itself. This is a characteristic that I want to explore in more depth (pun). Today's picture is from some picturing I did this AM. I came back with 6 pictures that I really like, all "taken" on an "exploration" within a half a block of my house.

I left the house with just my 100-400mm f2.8/3.5 (35mm equiv.) attached to my camera. My intention was to picture at the long end of that range with a nearly wide open aperture in order to achieve maximum narrow DOF. For the most part, that's what I did although some picture were "taken" with as "short" a focal length as 250mm (35mm equiv.).

My question for you - do you ever play with long lenses? Have you ever considered making a body of work with just a long lens?