Looking back at our most read post. Prognostications from over 11 years ago. How much of it came true? How much different is the market for cameras and photography now?

Originally posted in October 2013

The graying of traditional photography and why everything is getting re-invented in a form we don't understand.


Gloria. Cropped image from Samsung Galaxy NX camera. 60mm macro lens.


On the last day of the PhotoPlus Expo I finally got why the camera industry has hit the wall and may never come back again in the same way. The folks who love cameras for the sake of cameras, and all the nostalgic feelings they evoke of Life Magazine, National Geographic, 1980's fashion, and 1990's celebrity portraiture, and other iconic showcases that made us sit up and really look at photography, are graying, getting old, and steadily shrinking in numbers.

I can profile the average camera buyer in the U.S. right now without looking at the numbers. The people driving the market are predominately over 50 years old and at least 90% of them are men. We're the ones who are driving the romantic re-entanglement with faux rangefinder styles. We're the ones at whom the retro design of the OMD series camera are aimed. We're the ones who remember when battleship Nikons and Canons were actually needed to get great shots and we're the ones who believe in the primacy of the still image as a wonderful means of communication and even art. But we're a small part of the consumer economy now and we're walking one path while the generations that are coming behind us are walking another path. And it's one we're willfully trying not to understand because we never want to admit that what we thought of as the "golden age of photography" is coming to an end as surely as the kingdom of Middle Earth fades away in the last book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

This is not to say that photography is dying. Or that the generations coming behind us are doomed to failure and despair; far from it. They are living the golden age of photography from their perspective, and their heroes in the field are names we don't even know. This is a generation that values a personal vision that arrives as quickly as a phone call and has a much shorter half life than the one we experienced for our work, but then again, what doesn't move faster these days?


As I photographed in the booth for Samsung I looked out at the waves of people who were exploring the various products on the showroom floor and I became aware that most of them were well over 50 years old and the elders were carrying their big Nikons and Canons as badges of honor and with a smug attitude that their equipment choice was the one that would persevere through the ages.


But the very thing that makes a ruling party or a ruling generation is the same thing that will kill its paradigm. Our version of the market is almost a completely closed loop. At this Expo we worshipped at the altar of the same basic roster of speakers and presenters who've been speaking and presenting for the last ten years. We've closed the loop and the choice offered to younger photographers is to sit and listen to people old enough to be their grandmothers or grandfathers wax on about how we used to do it in the old days or to not come at all.


When I listen to lectures about how the market has changed what I hear from my generation is how to take the tools we programmed ourselves to love and try to apply them to our ideas of what might be popular with end users today. So we buy D4's and 1DSmkIV's to shoot video on giant Red Rock Micro rigs and we rush to buy Zeiss cinema lenses because we want the control and the idea of ultimate quality in our offerings while the stuff that the current generation is thinking about is more concerned with intimacy, immediacy and verisimilitude rather than "production value." To the new generations the idea of veracity and authenticity always trumps metrics of low noise or high resolution. And that need for perfection is our disconnection from the creative process, not theirs.


Our generation's fight with digital, early on, was to tame the high noise, the weird colors, the slow buffers and the old technology which saddled us with wildly inaccurate and tiny viewfinders and batteries that barely lasted through a sneeze. We pride ourselves on the mastery but the market moved on and now those parameters are taken for granted. Like turning on a television and assuming it will work. We are still staring at the technical landscape which rigidly disconnects us from the emotional interface of the craft. If we don't jump that shark then we're relegated to being like the photographer who makes those precious black and white landscapes which utilize every ounce of his PhotoShop skills but which, in the end, become works that are devoid of any emotional context. In fact, they are just endless revisions of work that Ansel Adams did better, and with more soul, fifty years ago. Technique as schtick. Mastery for mastery's sake with no hook to pull in a new generation. Of course we like technically difficult work. It was hard for us to master all the processes a decade ago. Now it's a canned commodity, a pervasive reality, and what the market of smart and wired in kids are looking for is an emotional connection with their images that goes beyond the mechanical construct.

It's no longer enough to get something in focus, well exposed and color correct. It's no longer good enough to fix all the "flaws" in Photoshop. What the important audience wants now is the narrative, the story, the "why" and not the "how." The love, not the schematic.

So, what does this mean for the camera industry? It means that incremental improvements in quality no longer mean shit to a huge and restless younger market. They don't care if the image is 99% perfect if the content is exhilarating and captivating. No one cared if the Hobbit was available at 48 fps as long as the story was strong in 24 fps. No one cares if a landscape is perfect if there's a reason for the image of a landscape to exist. No one cares if a model is perfect if the model is beguiling.

My generation has long been fixated on "getting it right" and that presumes that our point of view is the one that is objectively right. But it's always been true that "your focus determines your reality."

What it really means for the camera industry is that the tools they offer the new generation must be more intuitively integrated and less about "ultimate." In this world a powerful camera that's small enough and light enough to go with you anywhere (phone or small camera) trumps the huge camera that may generate better billboards but the quality of which is irrelevant for web use and social media. The accessible camera trumps the one that needs a sherpa for transport and a banker for acquisition.

I look at the video industry and I see our generation drawn toward the ultimate production cameras. Cameras like the Red Epic or the Alexa. But I see the next generation making more intimate and compelling work with GH3's and Canon 5D2's and 3's. Or even cameras with less pedigrees. The cheaper cameras mean that today's younger film makers can pull the trigger on projects now instead of waiting for all the right stuff to line up. Cheaper good cameras mean more projects get made. More experience gets logged. More storytelling gets done. My generation is busy testing the "aspirational" cameras to see just how perfect perfect can be. And we're loosing ground day by day to a generation that realizes that everyone must "seize the day" in order to do their art while it's fresh.

If I ran the one of the big camera companies I would forget the traditional practitioners and rush headlong toward the youth culture with offerings that allowed them to get to work now with the budgets they have. Ready to do a video project? Can't afford a Red One or even a big Canon? How about a $600 Panasonic G6 and some cheap lenses? Ready to go out and shoot landscapes? Will a Nikon D800 really knock everyone's socks off compared to an Olympus OMD when you look at the images side by side on the web? No? Well, that's the litmus test. It's no longer the 16x20 gallery print because we don't support physical galleries any more.

So, there we were at the trade show and the majority of the attendees were guys wearing their photo jackets with a camera bag over one shoulder and a big "iron" on a strap over the other shoulder. And they had their most impressive lenses attached. And they walked through the crowd with pride because they were packing cool gear. And the pecking order of the old-cognescenti was: film Leica's, then digital Leica M's, followed by Mamiya 6 or 7 rangefinders, followed by Fuji Pro-1's, followed by big, pro Nikons or Canons and so on. While the few young people there zipped through the exhibits and took notes of interesting products with their phones.

The next generations aren't adapting to "hybrid photography" they invented it in a very natural way. We're the ones trying to label the intersection of video and stills and the co-opt it. But we keep overlaying our own preconditions to the genre.

If we understand that our focus determines our reality then we can try to change our focus and better understand where photography is headed, outside the parameters of our own little, private club. And that understanding will help us swim back into the current of current of photographic culture instead of swimming against the tide trying to get back to a place to which we can really never return.

Yes, some people will still use "ultimate" cameras to create "ultimately sharp and detailed" landscapes, cityscapes and artsy assemblages but their audiences will be constrained to other groups of aging practitioners. Art is a moving target. To understand the target requires a constant re-computation of the factors involved.

It's a hoary stereotype but we need to look to the music industry. The delivery systems have changed profoundly and the music along with it. We can cling to Stan Getz and The Girl from Ipanema but we certainly won't connect with the current market. I'm not saying we need to love hip hop or Daft Punk but we need to understand where the market is now. It's wonderful that you enjoy waltz music or polkas but if you want to swim in current culture you probably won't find those genres conducive to gaining general acceptance.

Cameras are and will get smaller and lighter. The lenses will get smaller and lighter and easier to carry around. The gear will get easier and easier to use. And why shouldn't it? The gear will get more and more connected. Maybe the cameras don't need to master the entire internet on their own but it will get easier and easier to move images from camera to phone or camera to tablet. And why shouldn't it get easier? Making the process harder for the sake of artisanal martyrdom doesn't move the art along its way. And why should it?

Where is photography going? Where it always gone. It's going along for the ride with popular culture. It's the traditionalists that feel a sense of loss but the sense of loss is from the constant evolution of tastes and styles. If you look at photo history you'll see generational warfare at every junction. Resistance to smaller camera formats! Resistance to color film! Resistant to SLR cameras! Resistance to automation!

And in the art you see Robert Frank as the foil to the arch perfectionism of Group 64. You see William Klein as the antidote to the preciousness of Elliott Porter. You see Guy Bourdin as the antithetical anti hero to Snowdon and Scuvallo. Each move forward was contentious and cathartic. Just as Josef Koudelka was the revolutionary to Walker Evans.

The camera market is in the doldrums now because it is conflicted. Go with the aging money? Or go with the maturing new markets? Go with a shrinking but loyal market or blaze a new trail based on new cultural parameters? The spoils will go to the companies that get it right.

What do I see as "must haves" for the industry to resonate with the new markets?

Cameras must be smaller, lighter and more accessible.

Cameras need to work with less nit picky intervention on the part of the operators.

Whole systems must be smaller, lighter and more financially accessible.

Cameras should be interconnected with phones and tablets in an almost mindless way.

Cameras must no longer be precious and coveted. They need to be more like phones. A commodity that gets replaced as new stuff comes out with feature sets more conducive to the mission.

Apple has it just right. Make things that are simple to own and simple to use. Make menus easier and not harder. Eliminate the need to make unnecessary decisions. Make design more important and ultimacy less important. Change the focus of consumers in order to own the markets.

Is my advice any good? Naw. I'm as trapped into my generation as anyone else. But I do know that the first step to freedom is to throw off the resistance to change. You'll never change the momentum of the overall market but you can always change your own focus. And then you may open new doors of perception that allow you to do your own work....but in a new way. Like a bridge.

Continue to tell your story. But make sure you are delivering it in a way that people will be able to understand. Change is inevitable and fighting it is the first step to failure.

For a while my markets drove me back into full frame cameras. But those markets have changed so much that it no longer seems to matter. Now I'm just looking for cameras that are fun and easy to embrace. They all take good enough images now. Ultimate quality is now taking a back seat to intimacy and immediacy. A big camera is no longer a prerequisite for a place at the table.


Edit: go see what Michael Reichmann has to say about all this: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/pdn_photoplus_2013.shtml


Edit: Just read this at the NYTimes and found it .... familiar: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/opinion/sunday/slaves-of-the-internet-unite.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131027&_r=0


(EZ reader translation for people who have forgotten how to read long stuff....


All cameras now good. Technical Mastery not as important as in year's past. Old guys love technical mastery. New guys like making different style images and don't care about image perfection. Aesthetic pendulum swings from perfect to emotive. Some camera makers evolve. Some not. Cameras getting smaller and easier to use. Old styles of shooting fading. New styles emerging. Good time to be a photographer. Change is inevitable. Change is good for young people. Change harder for some old people. Kirk is happy and now goes off swimming. May toss all old gear and just get better phone. short enough?)


In other news: Belinda and I finished working on, The Lisbon Portfolio. The photo/action novel I started back in 2002. I humbly think it is the perfect Summer vacation read. And the perfect, "oh crap, I have to fly across the country" read. It's in a Kindle version right now at Amazon. The Lisbon Portfolio. Action. Adventure. Photography. See how our hero, Henry White, blows up a Range Rover with a Leica rangefinder.....

Remember, you can download the free Kindle Reader app for just about any table or OS out there....


Edit: Added 11/6: Here's another one that will make you gnash your teeth: http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2013/08/has-bubble-burst-is-that-why-camera.html

For a limited time only the VSL blog is accessible in a "Reader Only" mode. If you wanted to save an article now is the time.

 We aren't coming back just temporarily sharing posts the have been repeatedly requested by chagrined former readers. See the previous post for details and the address of a fresh blog. 

Hope you had a great Summer. You can always see more of my pix at Instagram: @Instagram.com/kirktuck

Added on November 16th: I've been getting a lot of mail and calls about re-starting the blog. Apparently photo oriented people like blogs about.....photography. Not table tennis, router hubs, or entry level, minimum wage projects, etc. Mulling over re-starting in January but I may get over-ruled by common sense, my CFO and bandwidth. Thanks for dropping by and reading all the stuff that's still here. Aren't you glad you don't have to leave comments?

"Slacker-tum" Based on a philosophical inquiry of laziness in the pursuit of photography.

A satirical post based on odd things written about photography by 

out of touch "experts." 

This discussion brings back memories of the time when I was so poor I had to use the community blender to make daiquiris for my fellow students at M.I.T.'s wedding photography program. In which I was a star pupil until I challenged our professor, Mayer Von Troppinhagen about his theory that all photographs have some sort of meaning to someone. Even the images accidentally snapped while placing a camera back into a leather case for transport to a more fertile photographic location.

But Troppinhagen had to admit that I was a stellar student. In fact, many of my classmates clamor to stay in touch with me hoping to glean insight into the basic nature of black and white photographs. Was it Winston Churchill or Disraeli who said that all color photography was Satan's work? One momentarily forgets. 

Your French philosopher was on to something though. Something gallery owners around the world were longing to discover. I don't speak much French, although my uncle on the Amos Tuck side of the family translates it roughly as: "The faux philosophy of anchoring art to the market depends on rambling pronouncements in order to fleece the weak of mind." Now, mind you that this is just a "soft" translation. But essentially, after years of studying nonfiction sources of philosophical story telling I believe it to be: "We put labels on lame crap in order to have an easier time selling it to the rubes." 

Photographers, he thought, were easy marks because each of them has, knowingly or unknowingly, embarked on a mission to attach some sort of whimsical and fallacious value to every damn image they drag out of their God forsaken cameras. Otherwise they'd understand the futility of their narcissistic self-expression, sit in a warm bath tub and slit their own wrists. But not before at least meeting the FedEx driver today (one last time?) to see what might have come in order to save their "careers" at the last moment…

So, what is the current practice amongst "art" photographers? First, one must spend time on the analyst's couch in order to ferret out whatever personality defect they would like to bring to the fore and have a hope to monetize. This self-directed epiphany is followed by months, and sometimes years of preparation. Many treatises are read concerning the transmutation of candle sticks into penises, Jello moulds into representations of indecision, skyscrapers into stolid defenses of traditional beauty. A woman's back into a viola. Or was it a cello?

Then comes a period of finding just the right tools to satisfy the indescribable demands of the physical undertaking of making the well-considered photo. The camera must be simple to use and yet provide an enhanced friction when in use; which the artist must overcome to do his/her work. Too many buttons and features imperil the thought process while an insufficiency of controls and parameters hobble even the most sincere pursuits. Equally, the lens selected must have certain qualities. It must have a "magical" glow which can never be explained by physics. It must, at the same time, be highly corrected against any optical imperfections. It must be handmade by a German or an aesthete from the mountains of Japan.

(There is some confusion about the impact of modernism in the form of aspherical elements and rare earth elements being used in the optical construction of the chosen lens. Too much reliance on science robs the out of focus areas of their authenticity while too little correction results in missing the rigid targets exemplified by the idea often postulated as: sharp, even wide open! And please, don't blame the exclamation point on your author as it is generally added to every description of lens performance in western culture).

The search for the tools which most convincingly match the pathos derived from the initial psychological inquiry and the satori of self-discovery can take months or years to divine and generally require much trial and error. Rending of clothing. Draining of financial resources and a profound loss of friendships and close relationships. But one reminds oneself about the nobility of the pursuit and the ingrained idea that making the successful image; one that just guts you like a deer in Texas hunting season, is worth hurdling any obstacle. Be it mental, social, physical or divine. 

Once the perfect – holy? -- gear is acquired and vetted the artist begins the elastic process of making those tools bend to his/her preconceived, previsualized inspiration. Again, a process encumbered by all manner of doubts, sweat, tears and even potentially credit card fraud and an addiction to Diet Coke. 

Finally, the artist fully pre-visualizes his perfect creation and sallies forth to joust with the demons of doubt, and the vagueness of the weather, to make his opus magnum. He has pre-visualized an image of a lawn sprinkler of a certain kind, spinning and bobbing in a vast desert with puffy and oh so dramatic clouds skating through jet black skies while the scene itself is rendered in actinic daylight. Cue harsh shadows and strong backlighting. Now the artist must search for the exact location and angle from which to approach creation. He is driven by his knowledge that the sharing of the resulting photograph will puncture the chaos in most peoples' minds and bring balance to the force which is fine art. 

In the end he/she finds a rotary sprinkler with a weak spray wobbling in the yard of a neighbor. There is no vast swath of brightly described sand; only dead brown grass interspersed with cracked dry soil and a few scattered cigarette butts... and some dog poop. But didn't one of the artist's heroes, Irving Penn, conceive of a universe in the minutia of just a few cigarette butts writ large and immortalized in platinum? 

The artist, driven by the desire to create something with extreme cultural stickiness circles the scene as would a wary predator. Lunging and retreating. Lunging and retreating. Frame after frame. Until, finally spent, and with the last whispers of light abandoning him like a virus leaving a battered host, the artist decides that he has succeeded --- for now --- and he begins his perilous journey of self-discovery through what is now called post production but which we will call final realization. Actuendum.

Potentially, this process can go on for a long, long time. Current photographic philosophy holds that only the physical print has agency. Only the print has the gravitas to encompass the TRUTH that the final image demands. All other permutations are way stations like the descending circles of purgatory. 

In this process there is much handwringing. New papers are auditioned. New printers mulled over. Perhaps a return to the traditional "wet" darkroom --- which requires its own period of inquiry and doubts faced.

Finally, the absolute perfect print is made and prepared to be unleashed upon the world and, on any given Tuesday, Saturday or random Monday the artist hangs the print and waits for the accolades and recognition to pummel him like a tropical down pouring of rain. And the print hangs on the wall in his study. And his last two remaining friends come by and one of them stops in front of the print for several seconds and says, "That sprinkler shot would look a hell of a lot better in color. You know that, right?"

Confidence unshaken, the artist decides that his work needs and deserves a much wider audience and since his uncle, a professor at a prestigious university, helped to invent the internet before going bankrupt, the artist decides that a universal audience awaits his ultimate presentation. On the internet. 

Removing the double weight, selenium toned, archivally washed fiber print from its imposing titanium frame and its luxurious twelve layer over matte he/she carefully places it on a copy stand. After months of research he returns with the perfect copy camera and makes a series of images using the latest multiple shot techniques and proudly creates a 10 Terabyte image of the wobbling lawn sprinkler surrounded by dead grass and dried earth. Which he then struggles to "map" to the web. Only to find that .... it must be....resized. Eventually he/she is able to put the image on Instagram and that program reduces it even more. But the power of the image, the artist is convinced, truly remains as potent as ever. A slam into the guts of the audience from the top rope of the ring. Just like wrestling on TV. 

At the end of the year a handful of people have glanced, in passing, at the image online but in the mind of the artist hope springs eternal because, in the ensuing year he has created a manifesto carefully outlining the actual meaning behind the mundanity of the image. Its a whimsical and searing "jackpot" of allegory.  

He is invited to lecture about his photograph on a Zoom call with a group of like-minded artists who spend most of their time measuring how many Ansels can dance on the aperture ring of an enlarging lens. They fawn over the artist's ability to encapsulate all the pain and terror of modern romance in one dramatic image. But one member dissents (!) and insists that the image needs more contrast to fulfill its role as a stand in for individual, human isolation.

Another argues that less contrast would make the image more accessible and accent the underlying hope that gravity in all of its earthly forms will continue. A third member of the group, still in flannel pajamas insists that it's Edward Steichen all over again, and then hesitates and looks at the collage of faces on his computer screen to make sure they all get his historical reference. A fight about the nature of contrast versus meaning ensues and the Zoom conference fades away. 

Five hundred years later the print made by the artist is resurrected by a group of enlightened psychiatrists who decide that this image and all of its baggage are the perfect representation of sociopathic narcissism which ran rampant in wealthy countries in the 21st century. They place the image next to several by William Eggleston and close out the Wiki page on aberrant thoughts about art from five centuries earlier. This leads one of the psychiatrists to muse: "People of that period sure loved a bogus rationale for self-indulgently wasting their time... didn't they?"

Taking this blog offline on Friday (July 12th). Limiting reader's access to one administrator only. Before you write me offline and ask to be an administrator the answer is NO. I'm the only admin. No exceptions. It will be set up this way so I can access all the old stuff and archive it. Which will take time. After It's archived all the content will be offline.

 It's been a fun ride. Most people are nice. I've poured a ton of time into the Visual Science Lab blog (6,000 posts and 92,000,000 "reads") and "met" a lot of really bright and interesting people.  I am effectively retiring from blogging. And from moderating comments. 

You can always see more of my pix at Instagram: @Instagram.com/kirktuck

Kinky Friedman. Writer. Musician. Candidate for Texas Governor. R.I.P.

 

Kinky Friedman. ©2010 Kirk Tuck

I just read that Kinky Friedman passed away. He was a legendary Texan. A performer, musician, political candidate and a writer of detective novels. I photographed him years ago for a magazine and we had a wild evening that started with a dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant (he ordered extra serrano peppers for his enchiladas along with a fried egg on top). Then we headed to my studio for the portrait session. I told him smoking wasn't allowed in our building and he replied that I didn't need to smoke if I didn't want to as he calmly lit up a big cigar. But funny? Hilarious! With a keen edge. I'm sadder knowing he's not around. So happy I got to work with him. He'll be missed.

One of those days when walking in nature seems restorative. Less to think about and more to see. Companion camera = Leica Q2.

After a very wet Spring things are warming up. That means it's past time to get acclimated to the Texas heat ahead of what's projected to be a miserably hot Summer. My "to-do" list for Summer prep is growing. Since I bought a new car I now have to have the windows tinted with high grade, ceramic film. I don't care whether or not people can see into the car but I do want to block as much UV and IR as I possibly can. Little known factoid, most skin cancers on people's arms are on the left arm and there is a correlation between left arm skin cancer and non-tinted car windows. In my experience a good tint application can also reduce the interior temperature of a parked car by 10-15 degrees. And blocking UV is a good way to prevent fading and cracked interior surfaces. 

After the car gets its window spa treatment the next thing on the list is to check in with our home air conditioning. Cleaning the coils, making sure the drip trays are functioning properly and that the condensate line is clean and clear. I change the AC filters once a month in the Summer and I've already purchased a case of new filters.

Next up it's time to check in on the current research re: sunscreen. And, a quick search of our hat inventory shows us to be....well covered. A Texas reminder: don't forget to sunscreen your toes if you are going out walking in your Birkenstock sandals....

I just finished packing for Monday's shoot. All the lights and camera gear packed down into one rolling Think Tank case. It includes: One Leica SL2 with 24-90mm lens. One Leica Q2 as a back-up camera. Two Godox V1 flashes with accessories. Two Godox V860iii flashes filled with Eneloop batteries. Extra batteries. A flash meter and extra camera batteries. So many batteries. Anyway, it all fits into one case and the case has wheels. I am thrilled. 

In the stand bag I've got four of the Manfrotto Nano Pro light stands, two 45 inch umbrellas and one 60 inch umbrella. Also, a Sirui N-2004KX tripod with a ball head. That's the total package. I won't even need a cart. 

It's Saturday and we had a great swim workout this morning with one of my favorite coaches. I'm starting to sound like a broken record but we logged a bit over 3,000 yards and swam well. Post swim coffee with my two favorite lane mates and then, a bit later, out to lunch with B. Just now finishing up packing and getting ready to walk through the city with a camera. Most likely the M240 in black, matched up with a 40mm f 1.4 Voigtlander lens.

On Tuesday morning last week I left the house with a Q2 and a desire to get a good, long walk in. I decided not to head downtown but instead to go to the hike-and-bike trail and cruise through the five mile loop. It's always refreshing to walk around a body of water. Combined with my regular walking during the day I logged just short of 20K steps. Enough to keep me young and more than enough, when combined with swim practice, to ensure a solid eight hours of sleep over night. 

Last night I finished reading an interesting book about making art. It's entitled: "The Creative Act: A Way of Being" by Rick Rubin. It was interesting, bordering on good, but a bit obvious. Still, any time you can reinforce your own ideas, or  you are pushed to consider things in a different way, a book is worthwhile. 

I know this will sound silly but since I've been using LEDs as my main light sources for the last few years I felt a bit rusty about going back, full bore, to using small, battery operated flashes controlled from behind the camera. I pulled my first book, Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography, off the shelf and re-read it. Mostly the parts that covered the nuts and bolts of lighting; not so much the rationale or history of.  All of the gear is dated (the book was written in 2008) but the basic information is still useful. I actually enjoyed taking a stroll down memory lane...

So, here's what I photographed on Tuesday. Then I had lunch. Then I bought a car. It was, altogether, a fun day. New cars can be very fun to drive and smell very nice. 

This is where Austin's popular Tex-Mex chain started. The original restaurant is

right on Barton Springs Rd. Still a lot of fun...if you don't mind crowds. 

Lunch is generally more manageable. Not recommended for strict

health food adherents...

Ah. The crown jewel. Barton Springs. A one eighth mile long

swimming pool fed by natural, underground springs. Chilly, cool all

Summer long.

And there's always the spill way just outside the pool for those who just want

to get wet in cool water without paying an admission fee....

Not a great place to swim but fine for sitting in cool, clean water and 

watching the day flow by.

We're having an ultra green Spring. 

I'll revisit this site in August and see if anything has survived...

It's right next to the lake so the vegetation does have 

a fighting chance...

The best maintained hike and bike and running trail in the USA.

The Lady Bird Johnson Hike and Bike Trail.

M.C. Escher meets the pedestrian bridge...

finally comfortable getting back to the site of the brutal machete attack 

back in January. No bad vibes today...

Shorts, hat, camera, breezy shirt. Ready to walk. 

Zoe Tong, the latest Asian restaurant on Barton Springs Rd.

I haven't tried the food yet but I love what they've done with the 

exterior. Nice. 

And, of course, the food trailer corral. 

The post everyone is going to hate. Including me. A.I. Yikes.

 

"Chip" is ready to discuss third quarter results!

Honesty is the best policy? Yep. Let's go with that. We all dislike being dislodged by technology. We worked hard to acquire and hone our skills so when new inventions come along with the (extreme) potential to disrupt our livelihoods the cortisol floods into our collective bloodstream and we start to grind our collective teeth. Usually. 

We are now, officially, into the age of ubiquitous artificial intelligence. It will be a significant disruptor. But I'll use it where I can to make my job better. Here's today's case in point. I call it, "the other side of the zoom call." 

I'm doing a classic "in the offices of..." photo shoot on Monday. I scouted the location about a week ago and today I'm doing basic pre-production. Deciding on which cameras and lenses to use. Putting together a light, agile and backpack-able collection of battery powered flashes. Shoving lightweight light stands in a carrying bag. But one thing came up in the original scouting and that was the question of how to handle the overall production of representing a "Zoom" call in photographs. Specifically, the person at the other end of the line.

We need to show one of the clients on a Zoom call. We need some shots that are "over the shoulder" and show a person on the screen of the client's computer. The person our client is ostensibly talking with.  We can't use other employees for various reasons. We certainly wouldn't ask our client's clients to let us use their actual images because the model release requirements might get sticky...and maybe some politics. So our choices were to hire models for what is basically a very small part of a project, buy stock photos, or come up with a different solution altogether. 

I dove into the beta of PhotoShop 25.10.0 to see what I might be able to conjure up with the "Generate Image" feature in the edit menu of that application. I opened a new file, clicked the generate image command, wrote in a short text description of the kind of image I wanted and pressed return. It took all of a minute to write the description and less than a minute to be presented with three A.I. generated variations based on it. All created by PhotoShop's image generator. No additional post processing required. None. 

I wrote four of five more descriptions and generated ten or fifteen other "candidates" to work with. At the end of the day I'll put all the selected images onto a thumb drive and take them along on the shoot. When we get to the point in the schedule when we need to set up and shoot the Zoom call content I'll load the Jpeg images onto one of the client's workstations and we'll shoot variations of the completely fake caller interfacing with our client. It's not video. Nothing needs to move. There is no action required on the fake model side. 

So, here's the problem. The images mostly look good. I give the collection a 90. I docked them ten percent because in some of the images that I'm not showing, in which I asked for hand gestures, the fingers and thumbs are a giveaway that something is not altogether right. I could have fixed the images, or described them in a different way and tried again. Or I could have uploaded some actual images as guides. Instead, since it's not a major part of the assignment, I assessed that we were close enough and I should stop working on them before creeping perfectionism sacrificed my entire afternoon. But any of these would work. Will work. And the investment for seven images shown here is zero in capital expenditures and about 30 minutes of writing and rumination. 

 None of this may scare you for various reasons. You might have your head so well stuck in the sand that you refuse to admit that everything is going to change in the world of imaging for money. You may be the eternal optimist who says something like, "This will make us all so much more creative because we'll have more time for the really creative stuff and we'll have to spend less time on dreck." Or, you could be a pragmatist and just assume that most human endeavors are subject to entropy and atrophy. That it's inevitable A.I. will take over the parts of photography that used to have the potential to create (modest) wealth. Much as stock photography quickly eroded the entry level photo job market in the 1990s and beyond. Same thing but on steroids.

The biggest reason for you not to worry is that you are not currently dependent on the business of photography for your income and never intend to put yourself in that precarious situation in the future.

The very idea that I could spend a half hour on this and turn out images that will certainly work well on a computer screen in a small part of an overall photograph is sobering. And the actual resulting composite has one targeted use: It will be an image on a website. Hardly the heavy lifting that would require more rigorous control and resolution. But a wonderful solution for a harried photographer and his clients.

You can refute all you want but I'm pretty certain this is happening right now in nearly every creative office in North America. Clients are being offered easier and easier solutions for every day imaging and, believe me, it's all camera neutral. No camera was directly used to make these images. You only have to have an image in mind and the ability to write a description in a small text box. A bonus is that if you don't like the first collection of images created by A.I. you can push a button and generate a different set almost immediately. Wonderful from the client side but you can see where this will take photographers; right? Ragnorak. The end of the world as we know it. 

But as usual, I'm happy to be along for the ride....

"Marjory" can't wait to bring you up to speed on the new regulations!

"Brian" is checking in to see how you are coming along on his project for global destabilization.

"Gloria" Zoomed in to tell you that your services will no longer be required. But in a nice way.

"Charlie" wanted to show you how well he can type now that he's had two additional typing fingers grafted onto his right hand.

count on it.

Since Mike wrote about half frame cameras a few days ago I thought I'd repost something I wrote in 2017. Along with one of my all time favorite portraits..

 

I often hear that one has no real depth of field control with small sensor photographic files. I'm not sure that's right..   

It was a typical Sunday morning back in the film days. B. and I headed down to West Sixth St. to have brunch at 

Sweetish Hill Restaurant. We sat on their lovely patio under a translucent awning and waited for our waiter to bring 

over the most addictive coffee I have ever known.

As has been my habit for well over thirty years I had a small camera dangling off my left shoulder, just in case I saw 

something that wanted to be photographed. I was running an advertising agency back then so there were no external 

constraints on which cameras I carried. On that day it was a small, black Olympus Pen FT half frame camera, loaded 

with Ilford FP4 film and sporting a smart little 40mm f1.4 lens. The same one I own and use now.

I liked the way the light came through the awning so I pulled my camera up, adjusted the exposure from experience 

(the meter in the camera had long been non-functional) and shot two or three frames at f2.0.

The dim finder of that camera (ancient even back then) coupled with the greater depth of field of the frame area meant

that focusing was at it's best with the lens wide open, or nearly so.

I have printed this image onto 11x14 inch paper many, many times in an attempt to get it just right. This is a copy image 

of a fiber based print that I made sometime in the 1990's. The FP4 film contributes to the higher contrast of the photograph 

but at the same time it keeps film grain (analog noise?) to a minimum.

The film frame is hardly any bigger than today's micro four/thirds sensors but the lens does a good job carving out 

lots of detail while delivering good contrast.

To my eye the background areas are well out of focus and have a pleasing out of focus characteristic to them.

I couldn't have gotten a "better" image with any other camera. I might have gotten a different image; a sharper image, 

a more detailed image, an image with more dynamic range, etc. but this is the image I ended up with and have come 

to love over the years. As long as my subject matter is highly captivating to me no other metric or feature of 

photography matters.

The Pen F series of film, half-frame cameras of the late 1960's and 1970's were the precursors to a whole niche of 

current cameras. They are no less valid now than the Pen FT was to me back in the 1980's.

I never made a habit of dragging around a Hasselblad or motorized Nikon f4 when we were heading out to have a 

nice meal, just as I would never take a cellphone into a nice (or any) restaurant today. A small and sleek camera is

acceptable, a giant, noisy power tool is out of place. And a ringing phone or a loud and loutish conversation is never 

welcome.

I love small cameras with big capabilities. Thinking about Sony RX100's today.... Nostalgia or practicality?

Original link: https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2017/12/i-often-hear-that-one-has-no-real-depth.html

There are many articles about the half frame Olympus cameras on the blog and there is a search box 

with which to find them....

Here's a favorite about a half frame lens: 

https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2022/05/re-visiting-equally-ancient-olympus-pen.html

OT: Wouldn't it be cool if you went out to lunch and then came home a bit later with a new car? Stuff happens...

I'm always looking for signs that I've changed my relationship with commercial photography. One of the things that's been a constant for years and years in my working life has been the "need" to have an SUV style automobile for the business. We spent many years/decades stuffing big lights, big stands and lots of support gear into the gaping maws of Suburbans, Honda CRVs, Honda Elements, and two Subaru Foresters in a row. The litmus test for a new car purchase was always to take the empty box that once held a long, nine foot roll of seamless background paper along with me for my test drives and general car shopping adventures. Would it fit into the car in such a way as to be able to go all the way to the passenger footwell and still be able to cleanly close the rear hatchback? If "yes" then proceed. If "no" then pass on that vehicle. Function dictated form. 

It was even worse in the "analog" era when lights were bigger and heavier and more assistants were required on location jobs to make everything work. Those were the days when most Texas-based photographers had Chevy Suburbans or Ford Explorers of various ages... And gas was much cheaper. We'd pull up to a job site and unload and unload and unload...

Since Covid, and since my kid launched and no longer needs to occupy the backseat of one of my SUVs,  I've mostly been driving around with a lot of unused space inside my vehicles. Most weeks I feel like the chauffeur just for my swim gear. I bought a new Subaru Forester back in 2021. I got it at a bargain price; all things considered. It was a great vehicle which never failed me and never needed repairs. But it followed all the other smaller SUVs in that the model I selected was built as a pragmatic, economy choice of transportation, and portage. Safe? Sure. Economical? Absolutely!!! A blast to drive? Not likely by nearly anyone's standards. But at least they all had air conditioning...

I've been looking around the last week or so like a car adulterer scoping out new talent. The neighbor across the street has a kiddo going off to college. They originally bought him a used Subaru BRZ sports car which the kid and his knowledgeable dad completed overhauled and machined into a "like new" performance car. But the drive back and forth to college is about eight hours on crowds highways. They decided their precious child would be better protected in a bigger vehicle. I looked over their BRZ and lusted after it but, in direct contrast to another blogger's oft proclaimed lust for cars with manual transmissions, that was the deal killer for me. I know myself very well. Sometimes I drive with coffee. The coffee is in a cup. The cup is generally in my left hand ready for immediate applications. If I had to shift gears constantly (the BRZs are nearly all six speed manuals) I'd have to have my hands off the steering wheel for....well....too much time to safely operate the vehicle. I passed on what was otherwise a good deal on a fun car. 

But the short term experience sunk the hook of car lust and I started thinking less like a photographer constrained to hauling half the inventory of a camera store around town and started thinking more like someone who would really like to enjoy driving a bit more than I have for the past twenty odd years. 

Over the last two years the jobs I've accepted are more in line with the Minimal Lighting/Minimal Gear philosophy I wrote about in my first book = Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography. To wit; lighten the load and enjoy the work more. I started to carefully examine the kinds of work I've ended up doing in the interim. Nearly all of it requires one camera bag with several cameras and lenses in it and one rolling case with lights of one kind or another. Topped off by a stand bag with stands, umbrellas and a compact (but extensible) tripod. I have big stands but I just replaced a slew of them with Manfrotto Nano light stands. I've gotten rid of all my AC powered flashes and replaced them with various battery powered flashes. I choose the right flashes based on the specific job needs and the duration of the jobs. Less always being better. Now I can go to a location, with or without an assistant, and carry in everything I need for most projects with two hands. 

Do I really need to hold on to the idea that I need a vehicle with tons of space versus getting something that's more fun to drive? Maybe this is new math for we people on a gradual glide path toward retirement. Or just a changing perspective about the balance of fun-to-practicality. 

I headed to lunch at Maudie's Mexican Food on Lake Austin Blvd. yesterday to meet up with my favorite creative director. We just wanted to check in with each other, compare notes, trade "war" stories and hear about each other's families. It's a relationship that goes back well over 30 years. And our history is amply sprinkled with hundreds of similar lunches, occasionally punctuated by actual "working" lunches to really discuss contemporary projects. 

I mentioned cars to my friend since the idea of cars was bouncing around near the top of my mind and he laughed. He said, "You've always driven cheap, practical cars, why not step out of that habit and buy something just because it's fun?" 

We had a long chat about A.I. and how it's affecting the advertising industry. Some good, some bad. Depends where one is on the hierarchy. It took my mind off the anticipation of acquisition; at least for a little while...

During the last week or so, after thinking about the BRZ, I started researching different Subaru models. I know there are good and bad cars in every maker's lineup but I'm currently pretty positive about Subaru's products based on recent experience. The last three cars B. and I have purchased have been from that company and all have been problem free. So, I wanted something more sedan-like and less "off-roady." 

I've had a four wheel drive something or other with "amazing ground clearance" since 2019 and I have yet to leave a paved road in an SUV in search of adventure. I'm hardly a rugged outdoorsman and most of my car use is in going someplace urban or coming back from someplace urban. I thought I might be able to do better with a more traditional roadster. Also hoped to find a car that's quieter on the highway...

I read about Subaru's Legacy line of cars. I went online to my favorite dealer's website to see what's out there and I found one that caught my interest. A dealer demo Legacy model with 2500 miles on the odometer. A 2024 on the lot just as Subaru is announcing the introduction of 2025s. White. My favorite car color for Texas. 

After a traditional lunch of cheese enchiladas covered with chopped onions, refried beans, rice and jalapeños --- and a big ice tea, I thought I'd head north and poke around at the dealer. I had the plan of seeking out the Legacy I'd seen on their website and, if it was already sold, heading back home with no alternative plan in mind. I did have the foresight to put the car title in the glove box of the Forester before I left for lunch...

Well, the car was still there and I took it for a short test drive. OMG. It's was so different from the ride of a utilitarian SUV. The car in question is a Legacy Sport model. That basically means it has the 260 hp, endless torque, a turbo-charged engine, the sport suspension, the really groovy (and huge; to me) alloy wheels, and every safety feature you could put in a car. Along with a bunch of stuff I don't really think I'll ever use. Like seat heaters and a heated steering wheel. It will be my first car ever with keyless entry as a "feature." Not sure how I feel yet about the 500+ watt Harmon Kardon sound system complete with subwoofer...

I had a price in mind that I wanted to pay for the new car and an amount I wanted to get for my 2021 Forester. The dealer, after a short and sweet amount of cross negotiation, took the deal. But I thought there would be a catch. I didn't bring a checkbook along with me. I asked if they'd take a credit card for the balance. No dice. ( Sad, would have loved the points). But, on the other hand the dealer didn't seem to care much about it. They took my old car, detailed my new car, we did the paper work (simpler by far if one is paying cash...eventually) and they  handed me the keys. I let them know I needed to transfer some cash and I wouldn't be able to drop a check by until Friday and they didn't blink. 

I motored away into rush hour traffic. I drove the new car to swim practice this morning. It was lovely. I came home and test-loaded a bunch of gear into the trunk. Everything fits except a 9 foot roll of seamless. About which I no longer care. Job needs long seamless? Can't have it delivered? Don't accept the job!

The last sedan I owned was back in the mid-1990s. It was an Olympic Edition BMW 540. Also a nice car but back then it quickly became apparent that I really did need to worry about hauling cargo and long rolls of seamless paper. Now? Not so much. 

The final test will be how the CFO reacts. She was out of town and I hadn't really planned to buy a car this week. Didn't actually mention it as a possibility. But you know how CFOs are, right? I'm sure she'll just smile and be satisfied that I'm happy. At least that's what I'm hoping for. Always optimistic...

Is this the absolutely best work car? Probably not. Is it fun to drive? Absolutely yes! Does the purchase really affect me one way or another? Not much, other than adding to my fun quotient. But not much more of a buzz than buying a really nice Leica camera...

There may be a road trip coming up to San Angelo or some other medium distance destination in the coming weeks. Gotta see what it's like to drive longer distances in comfort... And, bonus, winding, uncrowded roads....